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.
• 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.
• 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.
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 to persuade visitors to give
you their email address and sign up for your newsletter.
• 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.
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.
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.