Thanks for visiting this page on 17 tips
for authors to master so you can write and market
your books more successfully and uncover possible
reasons why many people may not be buying your
books. Following this instruction might help you
increase your sales. Here are 17 tips for authors to
master:
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 four 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, enhanced creativity
• 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 Shopify. 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.
• 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.
• If you’re a fiction author who loves to watch
exciting movies, let them enhance your
creativity. After Reflecting on how the latest
great movie you saw began and ended and how
it flowed between the beginning and the end
then going over the scenes which were the
most compelling, try to incorporate this into
one of your fiction works without fully copying
it.
Promotion
• If you don’t do anything to promote your books
you likely won’t get anywhere past a few sales 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 or US
Copyright Office 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.
This wraps up your lesson on 17 tips for authors to
master. Following these steps can help you have
more success as a writer. To view my most
relevant post on making more time for yourself as
an author, click here.
I learn a lot as a fiction writer by reading articles
from Now Novel. You can find their blog here:
To visit my home page, click here.
https://www.toddhicks.me/create-more-time-for-yourself-as-an-author/