Thanks for visiting this page to learn my tips for authors.
Following my tips might help you increase book sales.
General Book Writing Tips
• Before you get started writing a new book, outline or
write down notes on what you want to do on a flash card
or something else handy, especially if you have a lot of
material and ideas to organize and you don’t want to omit
anything important.
• Another nifty thing you can do is write
notes in bold type below the regular content for your book,
and delete those notes once you write about something
pertaining to those notes in your book or story.
• Finally, it helps a lot to plan ahead how you will begin
your next fiction novel or short story. On your first day
writing this feature, prepare to devote at least ten
minutes to the opening, as it can take lots of time to
figure out exactly what you want to write to make a
strong beginning.
• Write your books in Microsoft Word, pay attention to
prompts from the spell check feature and thoroughly
proofread your manuscript and make the necessary
edits before publishing your book if you don’t want to
hire an editor. I recently passed up buying a book
because it had too many errors in the first chapter,
notably words in which the first letter of a word was
separated from the other letters.
• For easier reading, use a 12-inch font, double-space
your paragraphs and keep the paragraphs short. Using a
tiny font plus writing too many long paragraphs and
making them single-spaced can cost you sales and in
some cases where you make a sale, it can lead to a
negative review.
• I don’t buy books which have too many long,
single-spaced paragraphs and 10-inch font, and thus
provide an unpleasant reader experience; the fact I find
most books like this is the main reason I have only
bought roughly five books online the last two years,
approximately. Remember that readers can preview your
book before buying it in most cases, especially on Amazon.
• Make sure your readers won’t get confused. For
example, you shouldn’t create a scene where there’s a
confrontation and someone is attacked then jump to a
scene where the assailed person is hanging out with a
friend or partner unless you make it clear both of these
people are being held hostage by the person who made
the attack in the previous scene. Any confusion in your
book may lead to a missed sale, or in the event of a sale,
a negative review. If you opt to write a fiction book in
first person, let readers know who the main character
is at the beginning of the first chapter.
• Let some of your dreams guide your book creation
decision making. After waking up from a scary or
inspirational dream, consider whether you want to write
a novel or short story on it; if the answer is yes, mentally
go over everything you remember about the dream
immediately then do this again about five minutes later to
permanently lock in what you remember. By following
this step, you’ll always have ideas for your next fiction
books and prevent writer’s block.
• Once you begin writing a book, maintain whatever
pace you’re comfortable with over the next several weeks
or so.
• Save your work during and after each writing session. I
save my work onto a file in my flash drive then email a
copy of what I have completed to date to my email.
Action, art, blurb, research
• When you write a fiction novel or mini-novel, it’s
critical to provide action in your first chapter – the closer
to the beginning of that chapter, the better.
• Surely you’re familiar with the phrase “Don’t judge a
book by its cover”. Many readers do in fact do this; if any
book you self-publish doesn’t sell well and you think your
cover may have something to do with this, change your
book cover. If you don’t want or can’t afford to pay
someone to design your cover, you can find artwork you
can download for commercial and personal use free of
charge through Pixabay. Make sure the actions of the
characters or objects you choose for your cover match the
title and the story line of your book, particularly if it’s
fiction.
• Having a great cover can help get more readers to
notice your book online but they may not be persuaded to
look inside your book, let alone buy it, unless you “sell”
the book to them. Solid book summary copy is just as
important as the cover. Your blurb, or book description,
is the place to encourage people to purchase your book.
Finally, the font for your title should be attractive and
easy to read all the way through.
Make this summary exciting and highlight the
strongest points of your book without giving away too
much information. Paying attention to the back covers
of traditionally published books you read or browse can
help you hone this crucial book copy writing skill; it’s
more critical to have such a powerful blurb for fiction
books than it is for nonfiction, self-help books.
• Constantly conduct research to find out how to have
more author success.
Promotion
• If you don’t do anything to promote your books you
likely won’t get anywhere past a few steps at the most
and will therefore have wasted your time writing the
books. A powerful way to promote your books is through
your own author website. I recommend creating your
site through WordPress.org and paying about $2.59 a
month to host your site through Dream Host. Make sure
to start an email list through your author website and
make sure to offer a free content magnet such as a
helpful self-help book you have written to persuade
visitors to give you their email address and sign up for
your newsletter. If you opt to set aside a page to list
your books, I recommend splitting this page up into
multiple sections, putting each individual book under
the category it belongs to so that your visitors/prospects
have a better idea of what each book you have written is
about and don’t neglect to make a purchase from
you so easily because they’re confused; this can
also help attract more visitors through Google
classifying your works in its search engine rankings
based on the heading/category you post your writings
under.
• Other book promotion avenues include using book
promotion websites, promoting your works to friends on
social media and participating in Facebook writers
groups.
Where to publish your works
• If you wish to self-publish your work, submit each
book you complete to Bookrix or the Amazon DTP
program.
• If you wish to traditionally publish your work, please
read “Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book publishers, Editors &
Literary Agents” first.
• If you want to have your work turned into a movie,
acquire movie script writing software and buy a copyright
for your completed manuscript through the Library of
Congress before submitting it to film producers.
Selling your books in multiple formats
• The more avenues you provide readers to buy your
books, the better – this includes e-book, paperback,
hardback and audio book formats.
• I sell my books as e-books through Bookrix and as
paperbacks through Amazon DTP – this program
now enables authors to publish hardbacks
containing 75 to 550 pages.
Patience
• Anytime you self-publish a book, please make sure
there is a book preview or book sampling option
available to readers before linking to your book and
marketing it.
• It isn’t smart to risk losing a sale to someone who
can’t preview your book.
Avoiding unforgivable errors
• Some readers such as myself can’t let certain
errors slide.
• For example, you don’t want to get “their” and
“there” mixed up and use them in the wrong
context.
• An instance of this I found while reading a book was
“tears streamed down there faces”. “Their” should
have been used instead.
• Use “no more” in the proper way. For example, you
shouldn’t write “I don’t have no more to give you” because
that’s using a double negative, and it’s a pet peeve of mine;
instead, write “I don’t have anything more to give you”.
Avoiding profanity in your books
• If you use a cuss word, especially the F word, just
once in your books, that may cause some readers to
drop your book.
• You may be thinking, “What do I care if a reader stops
reading my book altogether? I got his/her money and
that’s all that counts.” Well, that reader will likely buy
no more of your books and may even write a negative
review.
• If I find too many instances of profanity in a book I
buy online, I’ll write a review containing fewer than five
stars.
• These are the steps you can take for more author
success. To view my post on making more time for
yourself as an author, click here