Author Marketing Website
John Walsh is a successful funeral director with a loving family but he has a weakness for other women. The modern world thinks cheating is a victimless crime, but is it?
As authors, we all know how hard it is to get readers to take a few minutes of their time to leave reviews. I believe one part of the problem is that the Kindle app doesn't make leaving a review from the app from a tablet or phone easy.
Aside from that, I think people are just busy. But there is a way to add a link to the end of your eBooks that can take the reader to the exact review page.
However, it is just a bit tricky because you need to have the ASIN number when you don't get until the book is actually published.
3 QUICK STEPS TO ADD REVIEW LINK:
That's it! It's that easy.
Below I have an example page where you can put the link and what verbiage you can use for it. If you already have a thank you page for your readers, you can also add it there.
NOTE TO READER (Page Name)
Dear Reader:
This is my first short story/novelette. I have not received any feedback from readers yet – except friends, who always tell me the books are great! But I would love real reader feedback. So if any of you would be good enough to fill out a short questionnaire, I can send you my next novelette (Working Title: Writer’s Block) that will be released sometime in August for your trouble. Here is a link to the questionnaire that is on my website.
This short story has only been out for a few weeks, so if you would be good enough to leave me an honest review at Amazon.com, I would be so grateful. Here is a direct link to do that.
I love to hear any feedback about the book and enjoy interacting with my readers, so if you would prefer to just send an email, that will work too!
My email is mailto:rshannon@readfirstchapter.com?subject=Feedback about Uninvited Remains.
Thanks again!
All my books have a thread of Catholicism running through them.
Ryan Mallardi Private Investigations
Jack Nolan Detective Series
Newport Vampire Stories Series
When new writers think about a book cover, they tend to want to tell the whole story on the cover. I still have this problem myself! This often turns out to be a block to great design. The main mission of a great cover is to tell the reader WHO the book is about, WHERE the story will take place, and WHAT the story is about. Here are some examples:
The purpose of the cover is to lure in readers who already read in your genre or find something about your cover that triggers their interest and they decide to give your book a try.
(Video of best seller lists showing which books catch the eye)
When a person holds your book in their hand, they will be able to see every detail on the cover. If they look at the cover after reading your book, they may see many things that foreshadowed the story. However, if there is too much going on on the book cover, when the size of the cover is reduced into the size millions of readers see the cover — during a scroll at Amazon.com — then all of that same foreshadowing and complex design is being seen at a size where not much besides the color scheme and the title — if you’re lucky — can be seen.
Show the different sizes that people will see your books in. Point out how simple design is often more effective.
The sci-fi and fantasy realm is an area where the covers can quite elaborate, very fancy, so to speak. Elaborate embossed titles, with dark backgrounds, smoke of glowing light, a sole figure who is reduced in order to get all the fancy background in, etc. In my humble opinion, there is such a thing as being too fancy.
It is possible to keep things simple even in the sci-fi and fantasy genres. Famous authors sell books to an already-established readership, so they can have book covers that are barely readable. They won’t sell one less book. However, if you are new and self-published, you will be relying more heavily on appealing to the tastes of book scrollers. eBook shoppers are not browsers who will see your book up close in a bookstore. They are Amazon scrollers which is a completely different experience.
This is a genre that sometimes less is more. Before you settle on a design, create the cover into the size that will be seen in the different scrolls on Amazon that I’ll demonstrate below. Make sure you can read the cover title, author title, and that the genre is clear. Those are the basics.
If you have no creative talent in the area of graphic design, here is a tip that will help you. First and foremost, find the subgenre you will be choosing. Below are examples of sub-genres and how far they are from the top genre selection. This sub-genre is your reader pond. This is where you initial readers will be swimming and scrolling.
Pull up the Best Seller pages in that subgenre and record the amazon link address to that very page. Then go to fiverr.com and find the brand new cover designers, the ones who are really looking to establish themselves and they are willing to make a cover for $5 or $10. Hire three of them and give them the link to the best seller list with a brief synopsis of what your book is about. That’s all the information you should give them.
When they all deliver an eBook, this should give you at least a direction to go in. This is usually enough to give even a non-creative person an area to go in. Then once you are ready to have a real cover done, you can hire a book cover designer with more experience, either from a recommendation from a self-publishing group or by looking at all the portfolios at Fiverr.com.
Don’t use white as a background for your book. It creates problems with Amazon. First of all, Amazon wants you to put a border of a light gray onto your book cover which most beginners don’t think about until after their purchase. But it gets washed out against the white background at Amazon.
If you need a whitish cover for some unknown reason, choose a different white color so at least there is a difference between Amazon and your cover.
All my books have a thread of Catholicism running through them.
Ryan Mallardi Private Investigations
Jack Nolan Detective Series
Newport Vampire Stories Series
All my books have a thread of Catholicism running through them.
Ryan Mallardi Private Investigations
Jack Nolan Detective Series
Newport Vampire Stories Series
Click here or above and you can download a PDF of the pretty cat and bird bookmarks. Passing a simple bookmark is a way to let someone special know you are thinking of them. Use them as giveaways at craft shows. Insert them into your giveaway books. Let one hang from the bow on a birthday gift. They are the perfect Tiny Gift for All Occasions.
Click here to download a high resolution digital copy with everything backwards so you can iron on the design to a T-shirt or other fabric item. Downloads are kept on Google Drive. This is the perfect gift from a young child.
The first marketing strategy is to use your short story as a giveaway. In order to get the free eBook, the reader will need to sign up for your newsletter. This is the most common strategy that is used by self-published authors as well as seasoned authors who are promoted by the publishing houses.
It's common knowledge in the book industry that in today's world, every writer, new or seasoned, needs to continually build their reader list. Readers who sign up to your newsletter have tried your books and know they like them. They are your first line of marketing. They are the most likely customers for any new books you release. That being said, the best way to keep contact with your readership is to send a weekly or monthly newsletter.
Everyone loves freebies and adding a free short story or novelette into your newsletter will keep your readers coming back and new readers wanting to sign up. It will also keep your readership from pressing the unsubscribe button!
Writing short stories in your genre is also a good way to always have a few freebies to giveaway. Many authors write short stories or novelettes around the holidays specifically for this reason: Mystery romance around Christmas time, or a beach romance or mystery for summertime. There are many seasonal strategies to bring extra traffic to your Amazon Author page or your author website.
A second strategy for marketing with short stories is to write a prequel to your present book series as a giveaway. You can use this book to swap with other authors on platforms such as Bookfunnel and Story Origin. Plenty of authors with lots of newsletter readers will want to swap with new authors as they already know they need to continually work on building their readership. The more books you have to swap, the quicker you will build your own readership.
A third strategy for short stories is to offer them for free on your author website. Like I said above, everyone loves a freebie. This is a good way to get readers to try you as an author without investing in you financially. If they like your style and writing voice, the chances are good that you will become someone they keep an eye out for.
You can post social media posts about the book, using several different graphics and link them to your website that has a download link to your short story eBook. By giving away a Novelette, which is only a little longer than a short story, you can get traffic to your new author website. Amazon even has categories for short reads now. This means there is a market, a sizeable one, who have readers who have limited time but want to read a good story. Be sure to cash in on this!
If you, like me, started writing novels right off the bat and don't know how to write a short story or novelette, I am offering a free short story template that will make it fairly easy for you. The template contains the means to keep the story shorter than a novel.
A short story usually revolves around one incident or one particular happenstance, so it is much easier than writing an entire novel. Although, keeping within the confines of a short story can also be tricky. That's why I created this template for myself and I'm offering it to you for free. Click below to download it.
All my books have a thread of Catholicism running through them.
Ryan Mallardi Private Investigations
Jack Nolan Detective Series
Newport Vampire Stories Series
