How libraries can help authors sell more books
We’ve been hypnotized by the power of social media to get the word out about our books. It is, indeed, a powerful tool. But if your dream is to make a living with your books then local library branches are invaluable.
Twitter tip for authors and writers: A little friendly competition lifts all boats!
A vast majority of authors will enjoy any kind of friendly interaction on Twitter because it’s just so hard to come by! So here’s a Twitter tip for authors and writers.
Twitter for authors: The fundamentals (UPDATED)
One of our guiding principles is to offer authors a solid ground to stand on. Social media can be confusing. But finding the right network can give authors a strong platform to work with.
How to use keywords to make your eBook as visible as possible
What are keywords? They’re the words you use to describe your book. Sometimes you’ll hear them called keyword phrases, but that just means keywords that are more than one word long. For example, “hero” is a keyword and “android hero” is a keyword phrase. Amazon asks...
Prep your book for its KDP Select free promo days
A step-by-step guide, with best practices! Once you sign up for KDP Select and figure out what you can do with your exclusive Amazon ebook, you may find a small bump in the road. Actually it may look more like a big, honking wall. The wall is spray painted with large...
First adopters of Amazon Ads for authors have a big advantage (if they look at history)
Amazon is a big search engine. Now that they offer ads, how can we leverage it to sell books?
Serial Box promises readers an HBO for books. Interested?
Serial Box promises an HBO for eBooks. Is this marketing or a really good idea?
The Author’s Toolbelt: Send to Kindle
Have a thousand book marketing posts ready to read? Make it easy on the eyes with Send to Kindle!
You Should Be Writing! Episode 19 | Tripwire pages! Yes, you need one.
Tripwire pages are an excellent way to make some extra dough. Get John's breakdown of how they work and why you should have it in your author marketing...
You Should Be Writing! Episode 23 | Litsy social network & Launch Team management
Litsy, Launch Team management and holy/holey Harry Potter.
How authors can use Amazon Giveaways to get more Twitter followers
Did you know Amazon Giveaways allows you to create a contest for your eBook?
You Should Be Writing! Episode 3 | Bookbub, keywords and Adwords, oh my!
John and Ben cover a lot in 30 mins! Try to keep up!
You Should Be Writing! Episode 22 | How to Get Likes from Facebook Ads
Wait, aren’t the days of getting Likes from Facebook ads waaay over? Yup! But not if you do this…
Author tip: How to use Hashtagify
Here’s a quick run-through of Hashtagify. What is it? How can it help authors tweet better? I answer these questions and more! Or less!
You Should Be Writing! Episode 2 | Amazon Blurb Tool & Twitter Video!
John and Ben discuss the Amazon Blurb Tool and the Twitter Video product!
![You Should Be Writing! Episode 1 | Here we are! Ta-daaaah! [crickets]](https://theauthorhelper.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/TAH-2-Design-400x250.jpg)
You Should Be Writing! Episode 1 | Here we are! Ta-daaaah! [crickets]
The first episode of You Should Be Writing! proves that, well, you should really be writing…
You Should Be Writing! Episode #21 | Author, Orlando Sanchez
We talk writing, marketing and coping with author Orlando A. Sanchez on the You Should Be Writing! podcast
Twitter Cards for Authors
Here’s a step-by-step video tutorial on how to use Twitter Cards to market your books.
You Should Be Writing! Episode #20 | Get your book into Barnes & Noble!
We discuss a new way to get your books into Barnes & Noble (hint: It’s about time, B&N!)
Where to promote your free ebooks
Promote your free ebook on one of these sites.
Using Scrivener to improve your Words-Per-Hour
If you’re looking to improve your typing speed, you can utilize Scrivener’s Session Target tool and a timer/alarm to build up your chops!
Interviewing your characters
Want to breathe life into your characters? Looking for more than just the flat, one-dimensional voice that seems to keep coming out? There’s a solution to this that’s both fun and enlightening!
The fundamentals of Facebook for authors
You know what we love around here? We love things that work. If it helps us sell books, our hearts flicker aflutter. But you know what we love more than things that work? Simple things that work.
Twitter is an excellent tool to find your target audience
You hear the one about the two authors who walk into a bar? One has a mailing list. The other one has zip. Nada.
Use Google Sheets to track your book’s issues
I don’t know about you, but when I hand my pre-releases out to my Launch Team, I end up getting a bunch of emails with fixes. This is great, but I’m often juggling all the reports and wishing there was a way to streamline things a bit. Turns out that there is!
Building reader surveys using Google Forms
Reader surveys are a great way to get feedback from that mailing list you’ve got running. But how exactly do you go about doing a survey? There are many options out there, but if you’re looking for some quick, easy, and FREE… check out Goolge Forms.
The Author’s Creed
Some things never change. As authors, it's a good thing to know which of those things apply to us. Look at it this way. It's a noisy world, with busy people and seven seconds of attention span to spread out among them all. There are new tools, tactics, networks,...
PC Scrivener – Importing Word documents the easy way
Instead of painfully copying your Word documents chapter by chapter into Scrivener for PC, you can make some pretty simple changes to your Word doc and then import it into Scrivener in one hop!
Check out our podcast, ‘You Should Be Writing!’
Sci-Fi and Fantasy Humor author John Logsdon and I (Ben Zackheim) are having a blast with our new author podcast! It’s called You Should Be Writing! (With the exclamation point! Just because!) We’re up to episode 2 and each one has been more fun to do than the last....
The Top 15 tips from Bookbub on how to market your book
We take a look at Bookbub’s advice on how to market your book and we JUDGE them. It is our way…
Amazon Blurb Preview Tool
This tutorial will show you how to use the ablurb tool so that you can preview what your Amazon descriptions will look like *before* you post them.
Mac Scrivener: Pocketbook for CreateSpace – Part 3
This is part 3 of 3 for my method of setting up a CreateSpace template for the pocketbook sized book. This is the 4.25×6.87 paperback size.
Mac Scrivener: Pocketbook for CreateSpace – Part 2
This is part 2 of 3 for my method of setting up a CreateSpace template for the pocketbook sized book. This is the 4.25×6.87 paperback size.
Mac Scrivener: Pocketbook for CreateSpace – Part 1
This is part 1 of 3 for my method of setting up a CreateSpace template for the pocketbook sized book. This is the 4.25×6.87 paperback size.
Custom Table of Contents
If you have the Mac version of Scrivener, this tutorial will show you how to set up a manual table of contents for your book bundles.
