The only thing consistent is change. Even if you’ve been a published author for even a few months, you’ve probably learned that the best ways to reach readers continues to change and evolve, moving with the shifts in algorithms, developments in marketing platforms, and as new tools are made available to authors. I’ve taken a long hiatus from blogging about marketing, mostly because my writing schedule and family have kept me too busy for anything else. I’ve also been growing a small publishing company (Wild Heart Books, specializing in Christian historical romance, the genre I write, love, an ..read more

Your Launch Team can be a fantastic way to help jumpstart your new book with quality reviews and strong word-of-mouth exposure. In fact, it’s one of my three favorite tools in a book release! I’ve shared my experiences with my team during a recent book launch in this post. (My team rocks, by the way!) But keeping your Launch Team strong as you continue to release new books can take a bit of care and nurture. To help, here are some practical steps you can take to keep your team motivated! Thank each team member individually. Knowing you appreciate each of their efforts makes them wa ..read more

Just wanted to give you a head’s up that I’m putting together another small group for my Group Coaching Course! I have 5 spots open, so let me know quickly if you’re interested! Since you’re part of the blog family, you get a 10% discount. Below a little about the course, but you can see all the details HERE.  Take your book marketing to the next level by learning the top 5 tools of book marketing and how to apply them to you and your books. Topics include: Grow Your Email List into a powerful tool Build an effective Launch Team How to get more Amazon Reviews How to find and work with ..read more

I’ve blogged in the past about the power of Amazon reviews, including nine solid ways to help garner reviews for your books. As new resources come on the scene every day, let’s take a peek at three great ways to get your book in front of people happy to post an honest review on Amazon.  (By the way, I don’t receive affiliate compensation from any of these resources. I’ve just found them helpful, and I want to make sure you know about them!) CelebrateLit.com – Sandra and Denise do a fantastic job with their blog tours, and they’ve now added a Review Blast Promo to their offerings. I ..read more

Ever wanted to see the big picture? All the options laid out so you can make an informed decision? As I was coaching an author the other day, I realized that I haven’t written a blog post that covers my full email list building strategy. So today, we’re going to remedy that! In any marketing efforts, you want to make sure you’re doing things to reach both your Existing Readers and New Readers. The good news is that if you’re growing your email list effectively, it will be a powerful tool to reach your existing readers, as well as introducing new readers to you and converting them to fans eage ..read more

For authors today, we have so many fantastic tools to connect with readers – tools not available even a half-century ago. Things like websites, email lists, social media, giveaways, and more! I thought it might be fun to take a moment to look at some of these helpful tools, and I’ll share what I use and why.  Website: I use Weebly for my reader website, mostly because I’m a do-it-yourself kind of gal. While I have a basic skill level with html, I much prefer the drag-n-drop ease of Weebly’s website-builder. And their templates don’t require a tech degree to customize. Works for me ..read more

One of the less-glamorous aspects of growing your reader email list is Regular List Clean-up. Glamorous it may not be, but oh, baby, it’s more important than you might think! Allow me to share a cautionary tale from my own recent experience. I’d been doing small clean-up in some of my email groups, but putting off going through my entire list. What do I mean by email list clean-up? Basically, sending an email to those who hadn’t opened my emails in the last 6 months, asking them if they still wanted to be on my reader email list. Those who click the “Keep me on” link get to stay, but everyone ..read more

You’ve heard me talk about launch teams several times, but I thought it would be helpful to share my experiences with my latest release. (This Treacherous Journey, released Feb. 6th, 2018.) Before I began to prepare for this release, I had about 20 wonderful people on my launch team. I knew I wanted to grow the team for this new book, so about three months before the release date, I sent an invitation to my email list, explaining what the launch team was and offering the chance to join (through a screening process). I was thrilled with the response, and grew the team to 189 members. I sent th ..read more

If you’ve read many of my blog posts about growing your email list, you’ve probably heard me mention the website MyBookCave.com. As I talk to authors, it seems there’s a bit of “Angst-of-the-Unknown” syndrome associated with the site. Since some of my favorite group giveaways have been run through the My Book Cave, and almost all of their services are FREE, they’re definitely a site for authors to check out. They’ve recently rebranded as “Book Cave” (drop the “My”), so I’ll refer to them by that name moving forward. The site has a ton of resources for authors, but it can be a bit confusing at ..read more

One of my goals this year is to be more intentional with each book launch. A nice part of being an indie author is that you can do a “soft launch,” which means you hit the Publish button on Amazon, then send a note to your email list about the new book and move on to write the next one.  It’s nice to have that flexibility, but honestly, it’s effective only in maintaining a ho-hum writing career. When I did my annual review of book sales for 2017, I noticed a very interesting trend. The books where I did a full launch for the release have sold a significantly higher number of co ..read more