Make a good impression in 2013

Start the new year with an aggressive approach to earning new freelance assignments

Besides finding markets, crafting a clever pitch, what's the best thing you can do to get noticed?

The answer is "Wow 'em with yur clips."  Until now, this was an ugly project for most writers. Either send them a link to your site or links to the original articles on magazine sites. Of course, you hope those links remain fresh, but we know that's not always the case. Besides bad links, you can send PDFs or JPGs that may not make the best impression.

So the solution is:  Pressfolios where you can manage an online portfolio of your work. You add a link, whether clips are stored on your site or elsewhere, organize them, and use the one simple link to let editors view your work. You can choose the photo to accompany each article's link, refer editors to the permanent link, and be proud of your queries with smart clips.

Spend an hour this holiday weekend to get started, and you'll put your best clips forward for greater success in 2013.

A Time for Gratitude as 2012 rolls over to 2013

It's been a difficult year for many, if not most of us, in this country. Emotions are raw but we soldier on, because that's what we do. If you've had a tough year, it may be beneficial to start or return to your gratitude journal. There's much research showing the benefits of this technique. Here are five tips to encourage you to give it a try.

• Don’t just go through the motions. Research by psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky and others suggests that journaling is more effective if you first make the conscious decision to become happier and more grateful. “Motivation to become happier plays a role in the efficacy of journaling,” says Emmons.
• Go for depth over breadth. Elaborating in detail about a particular thing for which you’re grateful carries more benefits than a superficial list of many things.
• Get personal. Focusing on people to whom you are grateful has more of an impact than focusing on things for which you are grateful.
• Try subtraction, not just addition. One effective way of stimulating gratitude is to reflect on what your life would be like without certain blessings, rather than just tallying up all those good things.
• Savor surprises. Try to record events that were unexpected or surprising, as these tend to elicit stronger levels of gratitude.
• Don’t overdo it.

These tips are excerpted from  Greater Good at UC Berkeley --Read more here..

Best regards for 2013.

Helen Gallagher

If you have a book on Amazon, make sure you use your free Author Page

Amazon Author Pages   (courtesy of Amazon)

Amazon Author Pages are a great way to keep your readers up to date about you and your work. You can create your Author Pages on Amazon.com and many of its European websites though Amazon Author Central. You must create a separate Author Page on each of the websites you want to appear. You can sign up for your Amazon Author Pages at each of the following sites:

• Amazon.com
• Amazon.co.uk
• Amazon.de
• Amazon.fr

On your Author Pages, provide a concise and meaningful author biography to help your readers get to know you. You can also upload a photograph and videos, add your Twitter handle, and even highlight events you may be attending. Author Pages also bring together all of your work as an author in one place, which helps customers discover more of your books. Use Amazon Author Pages to make a direct connection with your audience.

My author page is nothing special, but you can view it here if you want a sample:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002BMFK78

Helen Gallagher

A quick holiday tip from Amazon to get your books noticed for fast holiday sales...

Here's a quick holiday tip from Amazon on getting your books noticed for fast holiday sales...

From Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing Newsletter

Tip of the Month:
Prepare your Book(s) for the Holidays

The holidays are fast approaching, and that means millions of Kindles will be delivered over the next several weeks. There are some simple steps you can take to be sure your book(s) are ready for all these new readers that will be looking for books to read. First, publish your book! Be sure that it is well edited, proofread, and properly formatted. Upload a compelling cover and write a great book description. Once your book is published, join Author Central and set up your profile to introduce yourself to your readers, then start promoting your book online through social networks, a website for your book, message boards, and other communities. Remember that your books can be read in color on Kindle Fire, Kindle Cloud Reader, and on Kindle apps. For additional KDP help resources, click here.

Retiring by Post-It?

From 11-18, 2012 New York Times, Page One:

On the computer in Philip Roth’s Upper West Side apartment these days is a Post-it note that reads, “The struggle with writing is over.” It’s a reminder to himself that Mr. Roth, who will be 80 in March and who has enjoyed one of the longest and most celebrated careers in American letters, has retired from writing fiction — 31 books since he started in 1959. “I look at that note every morning,” he said the other day, “and it gives me such strength.” Full story here.

News from Amazon about your book's sales rank

At a recent library workshop, I reminded the audience that they can always check their book's sales rank on Amazon, both in direct sales and by tracking how it compares to similar titles.  Now, Amazon has announced, Amazon Author Rank, They call it "the definitive list of best-selling authors on Amazon.com." They use BookScan sales data to display your ranking. While the list of top 100 authors and top 100 books in specific genres is intended to help readers find best-selling books, it is also a useful tool for you as an author.

Your Amazon Author Rank: 151785 in Literature & Fiction

You can see your Amazon Author Rank trending over time in Author Central. You can find your Amazon Author Rank in Author Central under the Rank tab.  Historical rank data is new, since the service just started on September 28, 2012, but it should be fun to track your book's success over time. Here's a snapshot...

Getting more out of Google

I participated in an great panel discussion and presentation at Barrington Area Library last night. A big crowd who stayed with us for over two hours with these authors.Presenters who joined me were Ted Grippo, Chris Lindberg, and Eleanor Anne Sweet. We had a terrific audience.

Following the panel, I gave an overview of the self-publishing world today.

Eleanor made specific mention of something we don't usually cover in basic level workshops -- the use of Google keywords. I've invited Eleanor to give us a guest post here, to explain in full detail. It includes finding the search keywords used by books similar to your own, and making use of those words in order to show up better in search results.

Here are a few other critical benefits of increasing up your Google skills.

1. Work your blog. Blogs are more visible in search engines because there is more text, fresh text, and they are updated more often than stale web sites.

2. Use YouTube to promote your events, do author readings, and share your book video on YouTube. Link to it from your site and your blog. Remember, Google owns YouTube, so use keywords in the 'tags' on your video and it will also increase your visibility in searches.

Write on,

Helen

Just for fun

This from the Chicago Tribune:



They're just joking about The Weather Channel's (TWC) bold idea to begin naming storms, like the National Weather Channel does.  Now, if I can only get them to change it to ...

Winter storm Helen, author of Release Your Writing !!

Great writing prompt from Poets & Writers

Creative Nonfiction Prompt

Compose a table of contents for your life. Include titles, subtitles, sections, and chapters that outline a period--or the entirety--of your life. Once you've finished the table, write a brief summary for each section.  I challenge five of my  blog readers to do this exercise, and then post a comment here to let others know about it:  Was it fun?  Too hard?  Extremely motivating? Let us know if you at least started this, by September 30, 2012, and, as a Friend of Poets & Writers, I'll let them know how we did it too. I'm starting mine today, Helen

New York Times article on self-publishing

There's an informative update on self-publishing and digital books here: The Joys and Hazards of Self-Publishing on the Web:

In particular, note:
The single toughest part of self-publishing is getting attention for your book. Nearly 350,000 new print titles were published in 2011, and 150,000 to 200,000 of them were produced by self-publishing companies, said Kelly Gallagher, vice president of Bowker Market Research, which conducts an annual survey of new books.

Same stuff I've been telling people for five years now.

Housework can wait

This note from someone I just met last week really made my day. If you question why and whether you should keep blogging, let this be your motivation:

"I enjoyed reading your blog and I bookmarked it.It motivated me to make time to work on my writing today and put off the housework until tomorrow."  

Ebooks: Who buys them?

Every time I write an article about publishing or conduct a workshop, I have to give people the bad news. Having an ebook is not an end in itself. It is not automatically going to turn a profit by tomorrow.

The truth of ebook succcess is the truth of all bookselling success, and in fact all selling success. You have to know where your customer is, and know how to reach them. Here is an insightful graphic from Smashwords, a reputable, successful ebook production and sales avenue. Smashwords and Bookbaby are probably the two best places to look when you want to achieve ebook sales success. (click image to enlarge).

Four Smashwords authors make NYTimes bestseller list!

I've been a fan of Mark Coker and his firm, Smashwords, since 2007 when I uploaded Release Your Writing  to their service to publish an ebook and inadvertently crashed their server. It takes a great guy to talk to me on the phone and take over the project.

Look how far Smashwords has come as a superstar for uploading and distributing your books.
Here is an excerpt from their blog today:

Take a look at the August 5 edition of The New York Times Fiction Ebook bestseller list, out yesterday.  Lightning struck multiple times this week.

Congrats to Colleen Hoover (Slammed at #8, Point of Retreat at #18), R.L. Mathewson (Playing for Keeps at #16), Lyla Sinclair (Training Tessa at #17) and Bella Andre (If You Were Mine at #22, Can't Help Falling in Love at #23, and I Only Have Eyes for You at #24).

All the credit for these results go to the authors who wrote the books, the readers who purchased them and the retailers who connected these books with readers.

I'd like to thank each of the authors above for allowing Smashwords to play some role in their distribution strategy.  Some of them use Smashwords to reach most of the major retailers, and some use us to reach only a few.  You can find each of their books at Smashwords by clicking the title above, or find them at your favorite ebook retailer.  Show them your support because they're opening doors for every indie author.

It's a big deal to see a single Smashwords author on the New York Times Bestseller list, let alone four in one week.  A year ago, it was unheard of.  A year from now, it'll be more commonplace.  Tomorrow's global bestsellers are at Smashwords.  Maybe the next bestseller will be the title uploaded to Smashwords two minutes from now, soon to be visible at the top of the Smashwords home page.  Or maybe it'll be one or more of the nearly 9,000 new titles uploaded to Smashwords in the last 30 days.  Or uploaded three years ago.

Care to try the EL James strategy?

The New York Review of Books has an interesting article by Emily Eakin on how the author of 50 Shades of Grey grew into such a success without a publicity campaign, formal reviews or a huge endorsement. How did EL James do it? And can you do it too?

Read the full NYRB piece here -- in essence plan to take a crash course in the magic of word of mouth. 
The author's work originated as "fan fiction, a genre that operates outside the bounds of literary commerce, in online networks of enthusiasts of popular books and movies, brought together by a desire to write and read stories inspired by those works.* (EL James real name) "Leonard’s excursion in the genre provided her with a captive audience of thousands of positively disposed readers, creating a market for her books before they ever carried price tags. But fan fiction is inherently collaborative and by convention resolutely anti-commercial, attributes which make its role in the evolution of her work both highly unusual and ethically fraught."

The NYRB is a long, thoughtful piece - worthy of your time if this genre is relevant for you.

Books sure keep life interesting...