How to Use a Landing Page to Collect E-Mails While Using the Instafreebie FREE Account.

I'm ramping up to grow my mailing list. However, money is tight these days, so I have to get creative with what's free and pay for easier methods later when I can afford it.

If your budget is tight and buying InstaFreebie’s premium account is a little steep for you right now, here’s something I set up for myself to take advantage of their free account. These are the steps…and then below I explain the hows and whys of each step.

1. Set up a landing page
2. Create a separate mailing list for the landing page campaign
3. Create an InstaFreebie giveaway
4. Create an autoresponder which includes the InstaFreebie link
5. Extras – take advantage of referrals with additional giveaways.

Arial's Author Toolbox

I've been doing a LOT of reading lately, but not fiction. This year (2015), I've been spending a lot of time honing my craft and doing my best to be a more efficient writer. In addition to that, I've been focusing on how to best market myself as an author.

Self-published authors - and actually most authors these days regardless of who publishes their books - have to devote a portion of their time to marketing. More and more publishers DON'T do marketing for their authors or the marketing is very broad (e.g., specials on a genre versus pushing a certain author).

So how does an author find the time to write AND market? THAT'S the big conundrum I've been putting nose-to-the-grindstone effort to find out. And guess what...you all will get to benefit from my efforts! UPDATED 2/9/16: I've just updated this post. See changes noted below. Also, though I've changed some pricing and removed other, please check pricing before you buy. They change all the time.

Summary of My Findings

There are two things an author should focus on:

1. Writing: You can't sell a product that isn't there. Never, never, never stop writing. Period. Don't be the author who puts out one book and says, "I'll see how the sales go on this one, and if it pays off, I'll write more." Stop writing right now if that's your philosophy because you will never make the sales to justify your writing. Readers won't invest in someone who's only written one book. They want to know you'll be around. AND if you write well, they'll want more and you need to be ready for that.
2. Mailing List: Bottom line - THE most important marketing effort you as an author can do is build your mailing list. Hands down, this should be the primary concern of anyone who owns a business...and we, as authors, own a business.

Honestly, that's pretty much it. It's that simple. And I, personally, think you should spend at least 75% of your time writing and 25% doing the things you need to do to build your mailing list. Be sure to check out my article series on this blog on this very topic. UPDATE: I will be publishing an article soon about some recent projects I've been doing that will help build your list faster than you thought possible.

Also, social media is not the best use of your time to generate sales. Use social media, and even ads, to direct people to your mailing list! THAT'S the best use of your money and time.

Arial's Author Toolbox

Sounds easier said than done? Not really! Not with the list of books I'm going to provide here. I HIGHLY recommend you get these books ASAP and read them all completely. Most of them are very quick reads while also being entertaining and they're VERY effective. Disclaimer: All the links below are affiliates, but if you don't want to use the links, just go to your favorite online book retailer and type in the titles yourself to search and buy them. The Scrivener link, though affiliate, will take you to the Literature & Latte site, the original distributors of the software, but you can get it at Amazon. (UPDATE 2/9/16 - Scrivener links removed. See update below.)

Without further adieu, here's Arial's Author Toolbox:

Indie Authors - Should You Publish Your Books to Audio??

I'm just gonna answer this question right off the bat: YES!

Now I'm gonna tell you...

• Why you SHOULD produce your books to audio.
• HOW to do it AND how to do it for FREE (or at least no money up front)
• When you should do it for free and when you should pay outright for the work.
• And why you shouldn't do it yourself (or how to determine if you should)

3 Dangerous Book Marketing Ideas which Drain Your Bank Account

Bookmarks...jewelry...spa items...promo items in general...

You can put your book cover or author name on anything nowadays and though these items do get a lot of attention (Who doesn't like free stuff, huh?) are they a worthy investment? Are you wasting your money on these items and not seeing a large return on sales?

Here are 3 Dangerous Book Marketing Ideas which Drain Your Bank Account...followed up by suggestions on how to better invest your money, get more attention for your books and still get the write-offs.

Ideas for Promoting a Series

As the author of the Bonded By Blood Vampire Chronicles, I've run into a few challenges with promoting the other books in my series after Book 1. The biggest challenge has been trying to get people to review the 2nd, 3rd or [insert #] book in my series when the reviewer hasn't read the previous books. Though the books in my series can be read as stand-alones, there is the over-arching storyline the reader might miss out on if they read the books out of order.

So how do you catch a reader up to the main storylines of the previous books without them having to read the books? The Synopsis!!

I know...I can hear you groaning now, but the full synopsis can be a great marketing tool! AND if you convert it to an eBook, you can send it to the reviewer with a nice cover image, your publishing and copyright information and buy links.

The Synopsis

Remember the synopsis is not the back of the book blurb. This will have the beginning, middle and end of your story. And when I mean end...I mean it needs to tell the reader how the book ends. This is most definitely the spoiler...but if you write it in a way that is intriguing, they'll want to read the wonderful details of the actual novel, which might encourage some sales. If not, they'll at least get the gist of the other books and won't be missing out when they read a book in the middle of the series.

If you're an author who has pitched the first books in your series, you may already have a synopsis, because that's probably what you submitted to the publisher. Dust that puppy off and get ready to work on a few rewrites!

However, if you're a self-published author, you probably do NOT have a synopsis for your books. As an ex-content editor for two publishers, I learned a few things about how to improve the synopsis and make it POP! As such, here are some tips and suggestions on writing or revising your summary:

Bay Area Book Festival Writers BEWARE!!!

If you're an author and you are NOT following David Gaughran's Blog, I HIGHLY recommend you go over there now and subscribe (free, of course) so you can get updates on when he posts. Do it now...I'll wait.

Welcome back!

WHY should you follow David Gaughran? Here are several reasons why...

1. David is a very successful self-published author, so you can't go wrong by listening to his advice. He's walking the walk and talking the talk. And the proof is in the pudding: He is a NY Times bestselling author ON HIS OWN....not through a group, boxed-set project. Yes...with his self-published books.
2. He's written GREAT books about self-publishing, sharing all of his methods that led to him being such a success. Let's Get Digital and Let's Get Visible. Go out and get them NOW! You won't regret it.
3. He is ON TOP OF the news about what's happening in the self-publishing industry. If you don't know where to look about such news or have problems finding it yourself, David's blog is a great place to start!
4. He is diligent about informing authors about Author Solutions and their SCAMS. This is a Penguin-Random House company that supposedly specializes in self-publishing services. Worse than a vanity press, which charges a LOT of money for self-publishing services, Author Solutions totally rapes authors for services that are not only overpriced but are nothing but fluff and useless. They even lure authors into thinking that if they self-publish their book through Author Solutions, there's a chance their books could land a contract with the Big 5 publisher. You have the same chance of landing a contract with them if you submitted your manuscript to them for free. *shakes head*

David's latest post on the Bay Area Book Festival highlights that not only is Author Solutions sponsoring the event, the organizers behind the festival don't care that AS is a scam operation and that they have a class action lawsuit against them for deceptive practices.

Check out David's post HERE.

And for your convenience, here are the books I mentioned above:

     

Good luck with self-publishing and if you follow David's advice, you won't regret it!!

That's my two pence...

Arial

Lessons Learned from Boxed Sets

I’m no expert on the subject, but I did have some “lessons learned” from two boxed sets to which I recently contributed. I had certain expectations going in…

• I’m going to make a lot of money!
• I’ll get lots of new readers!
• This will be easy to do!
• I’ll get on a list! 

Some of those expectations were satisfied...and some were not. And if you’re not familiar with a boxed set or what’s involved--like I wasn’t--the following information are things I wish I’d known going into such a project.

How Does a Boxed Set Work?

I participated in two boxed sets in 2014. Excessica (Selena Kit’s company) did the publishing of the set for Highland Shifters (HS) and 7th House (Victoria Danann’s publishing company) did the Passionate Bites (PB) boxed set. These two authors also contributed their own stories. So in this situation, we had participating authors' own companies handle the publications.

But there are also many people who have started their own companies to specialize in producing boxed sets - coordinating the compilation of the books and handling the formatting, the cover design, the publishing and finally, all the accounting to pay out the royalties. Sometimes, even the advertising.

Whoever publishes the set usually takes 10% off the top after the money starts coming in and it's usually paid out per quarter...which means you might not see your money for several months. What company publishes the set is only part of it.

The authors who participate in the boxed set are the biggest element and will make or break a project.