Create If Writing - Authentic Platform Building For Writers & Bloggers

  SHOULD YOU PROMOTE YOUR FIRST NONFICTION BOOK?  The answer here is a little bit (maybe a LOT) different. I feel like there is a vast difference in how promotion looks for fiction and nonfiction. I've found WAY more free options for promoting nonfiction books.  Why?  Well, nonfiction books (other than creative nonfiction, like memoirs) often contain information that can be parsed out and packaged into other content. For example: I have a book on email lists. I have written a TON of content on this blog on email. (Find that here.) Many of the posts allow me to link to the paid book. I can also write guest posts where I gain authority and promote the book on email. I've heard tons of people go on podcasts to talk about the topic they wrote about in their nonfiction book.  Nonfiction books also may have a different purpose. Rather than just sales and money for the book, many authors write nonfiction books to gain authority. Want to start a speaking career? Write a book on something you know. Want to sell coachi

For the summer, I'm doing short episode answering community questions! This week's question:  Should you pay to promote your first book?  In short: yes. But also: it depends.  Listen to find out more! This week is fiction. The next episode will be nonfiction.  Join the community to ask questions: http://createifwriting.com/community

Social media is an ever-changing beast. We are over the hype of social media and maybe a little burned out. But it's still important. So how should you  handle social media in 2019?  I want to put a big caveat into this post. I'm writing it from a place of social media privilege. I have a solid following on several platforms. When I'm not locked out of my account, I have just shy of 10k followers on Twitter. I have something like that also on Pinterest, last I looked. (Note: I haven't looked in months.)  I don't remember how many Facebook page likes I have on my two pages. It's something in the thousands on one and a few hundred on another. My Facebook group is around 2500. Instagram (which I never use) is something over 1000.  To some of you, those numbers will look small. To others, big.  I bring it up because you need to know where I'm coming from. These numbers matter because they could make you discount my attitude about social media, which is: chill out and stop freaking out about your numbers. Sure, yo

This is a topic that comes up every week day in Facebook groups: What do you do when you get a one-star review? (Especially on Goodreads...) So, what's the answer? I'm not going to give you ONE, but a few options when you're dealing with low reviews on your books.   FIRST UP: EVERYONE GETS BAD REVIEWS We've all been there. And if you haven't yet, you WILL. Even great classics have one-star reviews. I promise. Just for funsies, here are some screenshots of actual reviews of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: Oookay, then. Feel better? That's a classic. (If you ever need a boost, just go read the one-star reviews on great classics. It's therapeutic.) Point made: we all get one-star reviews. The end.  But knowing that doesn't always take away the sting. You know you're in good company, but what should you DO about those pesky low reviews? WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU GET ONE-STAR REVIEWS There are basically two main options when it comes to reviews: Read them or don't read them. When authors talk about their bad reviews

When you start creating content, whether that's writing a book, blog, podcast, or something else, you may not think about your reasons beforehand. But you should. Most importantly, you need to think about whether you are creating content for love or for money. Let's explore why that matters! I don't have one single reason why I do the things I do. My reasons why are many and sometimes my reasons switch in the middle. That's probably true for you as well. But it's hugely important to stop and think about whether you are creating content for love or for money. If not BEFORE you start, definitely DURING the process. It's also a question that you should return to over time, as your reasons may shift. Why does this matter so much? Knowing whether you are creating content for love or for money will help you make a ton of decisions along the way and likely keep you from suffering from decision fatigue and overwhelm. CREATING CONTENT FOR LOVE FOR FOR MONEY Creating Content for Love When you are creating content for

The question I get asked most is something along the lines of: How do you write with five kids? Sometimes I ask myself this question too! The specific ways that work for me may not work for you, but I'll share some tips to help you learn how to find time to write.   HOW TO FIND TIME TO WRITE Whether you have small children, a job, or any number of other things going on, finding time to write is HARD. Writing is an art, but it's also a practice. A skill. It takes brain power, energy, and time. In my experience, it's also very life-giving. Evaluate your circumstances What do you have going on in this particular season of life? Not just in terms of things that take up your time, but emotional things. Maybe you're caring for a baby and are exhausted or have someone in your family with chronic illness. You might be depressed. Take into account all the things that are present in your life. Make a plan Once you've considered what's going on in your life, come up with a plan. Realize that  your first plan may not wor

I've shared a lot about my publishing experiences over the last year, and just in case I've made it sound like a walk in the park, today I'm sharing book launch disasters. Though I'm sharing things I've experienced, I think many of these are common, so hope that they will help you when you face book launch disasters of your own! This post contains affiliate links! At no extra cost to you, I may make a commission on purchases made after clicking links.    Book Launch Disaster: Amazon Glitches The biggest part of this post deals with Amazon. MOST of these have happened to me. USUALLY the answer is going to be: contact Amazon. And the result of that will be: SOMETIMES they might do something. (But as I say in the podcast episode, "Most of the time, they're too busy making money to care.") Here are some things that might go wrong on Amazon--or another publishing channel. Not publishing the book at the right time -  I did have a delay with one book of over three days when my book got flagged by Amazon (more on tha

This post deals with something super important: how to get book reviews for your book. I don't have a magic formula or some ninja trick for this. It's a long game, over time. Are you ready? Let's dive in.   Getting book reviews sometimes seems like a ninja trick. It's a struggle in the beginning and feels like a chicken and egg problem. Reviews help you sell books (and secure some of the paid promos), but you can't get reviews without selling books. If you're frustrated, you aren't alone! But you CAN do this. HOW TO GET BOOK REVIEWS Write a good book. No duh, right? Here's the thing: we all think that we've written a good book. But what you really need to know is if your book is well-written and suits the reader expectations for the genre. If you are not writing in a specific genre according to that genre's conventions and you're just choosing to write what you want, getting reviews will be harder. Unless you write a unicorn book. (Not an actual book about unicorns, but a book that just HAPPENS to find succe

In the last post/podcast episode, I talked about beta and ARC readers, but didn't touch on the launch team. There are slight differences in the ARC team and the launch team, so I wanted to fully address what a launch team is and why authors might (or might not) want one.   REWIND: WHAT ARE BETA AND ARC READERS?  To refresh, I want to go over terms. When I talk about beta readers, these are a handful of readers who see the book in its finished, but not yet proofread form. They help catch errors, but also let me know if anything about the pacing or story needs work. ARC or advance readers get the book after the betas and my proofreader have been through the book. They get a fully-edited and formatted copy of the book and are encouraged (but not required, per Amazon terms of service) to leave a review.  WHAT IS A LAUNCH OR SCREAM TEAM?  A launch team is a little different. The fact that authors have started calling these Scream Teams gives you an idea what they do. They don't just review books, but go out and te

I'm continuing on a fluid series on book launching and publishing with this post on how to find bet and ARC readers for your book. To read more of the series, click HERE.  One of the important parts of a book launch is sending out your book to beta and ARC readers. Not sure what those terms mean? You aren't alone! Let's break that down. Note: Different people may use these terms interchangeably and in different ways. The definitions I'm sharing are the ones that I use and what I think are most commonly used by authors.  To see the post on my main blog, click HERE.  To join my free Facebook community, click HERE.  WHAT ARE BETA READERS?  Who are they? My beta readers are superfans who love the genre I write in and get a chance to look at my manuscript before it's even been to the proofreader. I send it to them as soon as I'm done editing.  How many do you have?  I have less than ten beta readers. What you send them? I send them a Word doc or, by request, another type of file. They will either email a list of

All writers struggle with insecurities. A few this week who are at various stages of their writing and publishing and even blogging careers feeling like a failure or feeling scared or just struggling with doubts.  We have all been there! I hope this post can be an encouragement to you if and when you're feeling insecure about your writing or creative work. HOW TO DEAL WITH YOUR DOUBTS Identify the trigger Can you find out what is causing those feelings of doubt? I've struggled with and still struggle with depression. When I'm having a low day, I put it on the calendar. It helps me identify if something happened to trigger it. There isn't always something, but for you maybe it's reviews or a particular Facebook group that makes you feel unhealthy. Try to find the cause.  Remove or adjust If you are able to avoid or remove that thing from your life, even temporarily, do it! If not, see if you can find a way to adjust. I've left groups that made me doubt myself, disconnected from Facebook friends who weren't po

One big piece of launching that I don't see a lot of people talking about is how to judge the success of your book promotions, specifically your paid promotions. This is part of a series on how I moved from making under $100/month self-publishing on Amazon to consistently over four-figures a month within a year.  One of the investments I made as I launched my pen name last year was paid book promotions. I dabbled in Facebook ads and AMS ads, but the main bulk of my spending was in email promotions. These sites have built up email lists full of readers and send emails out to those readers with your book in them. Email sells books and I've seen a good return from this! However, it's not that simple. I'm going to share tips on how to tell if your book promotions are actually successful.  Before I get there, it's important to note that many of the sites have requirements. You may need a certain number of reviews and your book may need to be discounted to a certain degree.  For more details on paid promotions, yo

This post follows my post about publishing successfully on Amazon. Newsletter swaps have been hugely important in my success and this post will walk you through how to promote your book with newsletter swaps.  Find the full shownotes: http://createifwriting.com/153 Join the community: http://createifwriting.com/community  Get my weekly email: http://createifwriting.com/quickfix   WHAT IS A NEWSLETTER SWAP AND WHY SHOULD YOU USE ONE? Newsletter swaps are an effective promotional tool where authors send their audience an email promoting another author's book, in exchange for that author promoting them in return. The trade doesn't always (or even usually) take place on the same exact day, but the authors set up the swap for when they have new releases, sales, or just a book they want to promote.  This is an effective marketing tool and a great way to network and build rapport within your niche and community. I'll continue to stand by email as a selling tool and when you can leverage the power of another person's

For the official show notes: http://createifwriting.com/152 To sign up for my weekly email: http://createifwriting.com/quickfix  This post will be a deep dive into the strategies I utilized in 2018 to go from under $100 a month to making solid four figures every month self publishing on Amazon. My goal is to be as transparent as possible and give you the strategies and tips you'll need to find success!  Caveat: There is no ONE way. These are things that worked for me. If you don't have a well-written book, chances are you will not succeed self publishing on Amazon or anywhere else. If you are interested in self publishing on Amazon, it's a great time to be writing! There are so many more resources and tools out there to help you. But that can also mean a lot of time wasted researching, testing, and trying things. I spent the last year testing, trying, and self publishing. I'm happy to say that within that year, I've made huge strides and learned a lot that I wanted to share. This post will be an overview of t

I've talked before about launch failures, but I have a very real-time example of how you can pivot mid-launch. You'll learn why I changed my book title and cover ten days into my launch and why you need to be willing to let your darlings die.  Here are the four things you need to do in order to gauge your launch's success and pivot if it's not working:  Evaluate your launch Identify what's not working Ask others for feedback  Pivot as quickly as you can EVALUATE YOUR LAUNCH My launch hasn't been working. I would have been happy about the numbers a year ago, but I shared in my post on Niching Down how I made $9k last month with my launch. I tracked my sales and promos and ran the same kinds of sales and promos this time, but found I'm making about a third of the income. There's a problem.  IDENTIFY WHAT'S NOT WORKING When I looked, my first thought was that the title was off. I debated on the title, which was The Rock Star's Scheming Bride. The book was the first in a multi-author series, so I had to fit the

When you niche down in your writing, you can increase your productivity AND your profits!  For a full slideshow and more on this, check out the full shownotes at http://createifwriting.com/150

In this post and podcast episode, I'm sharing two equal and opposite errors: over-investing (and in the wrong places) AND not investing any money but thinking that you can make money.  *mostly specific to writing and being an indie author, but this will also apply and I'll share some examples from blogging and platform-building as well I hear and see both of these mistakes a LOT in various Facebook groups where people share that they have spent sometimes thousands of dollars and have not made any money. Or maybe they JUST made that money back, but no profit. I also see people who are frustrated that they aren't making strides, but will say that they have NO money to invest to help make those strides.  We need to invest. Period. (Well, assuming that you're doing more than a hobby!) If you are trying to bring in income or if you are building a business and being professional, you will have to make some investments. That does NOT mean you have to go crazy! We have to find the right places to invest and then inve

Confession: I'm going to talk about how to cut your wasted time in this post. As in, how you can STOP WASTING SO MUCH STINKING TIME. But I'm not great with some parts of this. I'll share exactly which ones, but I hope I'll give you some other perspectives on wasted time as well.  Last year (2018) I declared that it was the Year of the Emma Empire. I wanted to use the things I've learned over the years about marketing, email lists, and everything else to launch a fiction pen name and do amazing things. Happily, I reached my goal of having a $5k month of book sales by December 2018. (It was actually $6k in November!!) January isn't over yet, but I'm on track to blow my goal of $10k in a month of book sales out of the water already. Yes, I plan to talk more about this whole journey with you! (And yes, I'm grinning like an idiot and doing all the happy dances and completely disbelieving that I'm doing this.)  But for now, I want to focus in on how thinking about time helped me accomplish these goals. And it's pro

This post on how to cut down on your business expenses is a great one at the start of the year, but really ANY TIME. We'll walk through how to identify the things you need to stop paying for, pronto! Do you realize how many things you pay for when it comes to your creative business? I think I know. Until I do an audit and realize that I am paying for SO MANY things I forgot about or don't use. Here is a simple method that I use to cut back on those expenses to stop the bleeding and stop wasting my own money!  STEP ONE - IDENTIFY YOUR COSTS The first thing you have to do is figure out what you're paying for. I'm mostly going to focus on recurring costs here. If you want to look at what different things you're paying for each month, that's a really different kind of evaluation. The recurring costs are a good and easy place to start!  How to Find Out What You're Paying for: Check Paypal recurring payments (my recurring payments don't show up, but you can try this) Check your bank automated withdrawals Check you

In this post I want to talk about something super fundamental that's sometimes overlooked. And it's simple! Let's dive into how to keep your audience happy. If you want to build an audience of raving fans, it can seem daunting at times. Do this! Do that! Post here! Write this kind of thing!  But when it comes down to the foundation, it's REALLY simple: set up expectations with your readers and then keep them. This means building trust and keeping trust. It's like you are creating a contract with your audience, even in things like your email sign-up forms when you tell people you will send every week.   HOW TO KEEP YOUR AUDIENCE HAPPY This boils down to setting up and keeping expectations, but there are multiple ways you may be doing this or NEED to do this.  What you SAY - The most common way to set expectations is when you explicitly tell people what you're going to do. Ex: when people sign up for an email list, book descriptions, your blog tagline What you DO - Your actions set the expectations. Ex: how of