An Open Letter to an Indie Author

A copy of a letter I wrote an author in my VA writing group who was looking for marketing ideas.

Pleasure meeting you in group yesterday and so let’s talk about marketing.

First, I’m still getting to that point where I can do this full time. There is no magic formula. What works for one person, might not work for another.  I feel like I spend more time trying to market myself than actually writing. But there’s a few things that help.

If you’ve already done this sorry.

1: Turn yourself into a business. In my case, I went through the trouble and expense ($50.00 and five minutes to fill out the form online) to form 5^th & Cherry Books LLC. That’s what I run all my books under. That simple thing makes a subtle shift and is the difference between this being a hobby and a business.

The biggest thing this did was a mental shift. I’m not longer an Indie Author. I’m a businessman. My success or failure is in my hands.

ID what is a business deduction and not. Some of the things I track for costs are:

• Computers, printers, external hard drives.
• Subscription services like annual Office 365 costs, and various software’s.
• Website costs – I use WordPress and have a paid site. I also have an email address with my domain which I pay for. And I use Google docs as a backup space. Present yourself as a pro.
• Magazine subscriptions
• Cost of paper and toner
• Any weird thing like entries into contests, advertising, printer costs and so on.
• Some other things that can be used. A percentage of internet usage. Pictures you buy. Anything you pay someone to do.
• It’s as simple as this. You want to make money; you must be a business. If you don’t treat yourself as a business, our good friends at the IRS won’t either.

2: Get you an author’s site:

• Probably one of the most useful investments you can make. I use WordPress mostly because it allows me to blog. It also allows you to connect your blog to sites like Facebook and etc..  My site: William R. Ablan, Police Mysteries – Author of amazing Police Adventures and Mysteries – Some of it might even be true! Along with this, I have my own paid for domain and email address. If you want to be a pro, present yourself as one.
• Do the same with Bookbub and AllAuthors. Takes extra work to keep them up.

3: Advertise:

• Word of mouth is still your best bet. I invested in bookmarks, and I always have a pocketful of them that I use as business cards. I go to church, I hand a few out. I go to McDonalds; I hand the girl at the counter one. I leave them at coffee shops libraries and bookstores. Everyone I encounter gets one. I have mine printed at gotprint. Word of warning, when sending something to them, what you sent them is what you get back. Proof the heck out of your stuff.
• The internet has made word of mouth a little easier. Leverage it.
• Learn to do a press release. You release a book, let the world know. Don’t expect it to call back though.
• Reach out to radio stations and online bloggers. Never has the term networking been more real than it is in the world of indie writing.
• Give away books. Sounds odd, but a friend of mine did just that. She asked for reviews and while she didn’t get rich, some good stuff came out of it. Reviews work this way on Amazon. You’re competing against tens of thousands of book (most of which should never have been published to begin with). The idea is to get above the noise. The more reviews, the higher above it you get. Also, giveaways at fund raisers and etc are always good.
• Your blog site. Some authors talk only about one thing. Nothing wrong with that. I talk about everything. I talk old west history. I talk writing. I talk recipes. I talk war. I talk theology. I’m curious about everything. This allows me to make connections.
• Book signings – Sadly, this is pretty much a waste today. But if you can, why not. Partner with libraries, bookstores, moms and pops. See what you can do. Don’t take it personally if it doesn’t work out. An established writer tells the story of his first book signing. He set up the space, had books, and sat there for hours. One person stopped. That author – Stephen King.
• Do give aways. Free chapters are always good. Free kindle reads is also a good one. Or do an online reading. Even free books aren’t a bad idea. An example was a book that ended up on President Reagan’s bedside. He didn’t buy it, the staff just placed it there. Ronny was a huge reader. Reporters knew that if they didn’t have anything else to ask him, a good question always was, “Mr. President. Have you read any good books lately.” When they asked him, he smiled and said, “As a matter of fact . . .” Then he gave the book a glowing review. Doesn’t hurt you one bit to have the President give you good review (even if you don’t like him). The book he reviewed. The Hunt for Red October by a nobody author named Tom Clancy. Bet you never heard of him!

I’m not saying send the President a book. It probably won’t get through, but then you never know.

• And even paid authors need to do this crap. A traditionally published author friend of mine still finds himself in the weird position of having to advertise his books. If he expects royalties, that’s the way it works for him.
• One book is a start. The more the better. Be in this for the long haul.
• Never, ever, not in a million years pass up the chance to market yourself. And that’s exactly what you’re selling. You’re not selling books. You’re selling you.

4: Education:

• This is a little like being a computer engineer. We have to learn to work the system to our advantage. The good news is it’s easy to learn new things. The bad, so’s everyone else.
• Take classes in marketing. Udemy.com is a great place to take them.
• Learn your craft more and more everyday. I’ve got a sign posted on my desk (nice frame, nice paper, I made it myself). It’s something my 8^th grade English teacher warned me off. I wrote awesome stories even then. But they were trash. His warning, “One day, you’ll need to know what an adjective is.” Now that I’m doing this professionally, I’ve taken it to heart. I read books on, of all things, the English language. When to use a comma. When to do this or use that word. Conclusion? He was right. Maybe I should have paid attention back then.
• Read constantly. When I read the Old Man and the Sea, I was astonished at how short it was. It’s less a novel and more a novella. But Hemingway stayed focused on the story. He didn’t get all that flowery. He didn’t use words he didn’t need to. He told the story.

5: Take risks:

• Be honest with yourself. What’s spilling out of our pen or keyboards is not the word of God. We labor over every word and paragraph. But is it helping the story? I’ve always felt that a good book is made in the editing process. Am I using three words where one will do. Do we really need this paragraph.  I also made the same discovery Hemingway did. That’s anything ending with “Ly” can almost always be dumped. Ly words almost never help the story and won’t change what a sentence says.
• Invest in tools. One of the best investments I made recently is ProWritingAid. It’s a tool that plays well with Word. Things it does. Spellchecking. Suggestions (why are you using this word when this one might work better)? How many times have you used that word? It also has a manuscript checker built in which will provide you with suggestions on how to improve the book. It looks for strengths and weaknesses. It’s up to you what you want to do with it.
• Develop a thick skin. People will disagree with you. People won’t like your book. Some will wonder what color crayon you used to write it with. Write it anyway. Get you some beta readers. Ask them to be brutal. If they think something doesn’t belong, listen to them.
• Respect your readers. On your blog site, stay respectful. Explain your point of view but stick up for yourself. Gather facts and publish them to back you up. An example was an Uncle of mine who lost a leg in WW II. Everyone says he was drafted. His profession pretty much excluded him from the draft. He was welder and he was needed here to make tanks and ships. But because his brothers were all going in, he went down and enlisted. The paperwork is there. I directed them to it and didn’t even get so much as a “Sorry” out of it. I stayed respectful and they’re the one’s who ended up looking like an ass.
• Spend money, time, and resources. No other way around it. If you got money, you can buy advertising (might work). If you don’t, it takes time, your time (again it might work). And resources. At the end of the day, this may all end up nothing more than a tax deduction. But as we said way back in the day when seeing a pretty girl at a dance: “If you want to dance, you got to take the chance.” She might say “no.” But unless you ask, you’ll never give her the chance to say “yes.”
• Enter competitions. I did my first one last year when I entered the VA National Creative Writing competition. I never even expected to place much less take 2^nd nationally. That’s one way to get your name out there.
• Don’t be afraid of you. A writer dips their pen into the inkwell of our soul (go ahead and steal it. I did). What it brings up is what we write. And if we start down a path and suddenly stop, we need to ask why we stopped. A personal example was when I was writing my third novel, Broken People. During a police raid, a female deputy is wounded. I glossed it all over with “She’s in therapy.” And when I read it, I called myself a coward. Why? I know what being wounded does to a person. I know the mind games and traps out there (some of which I fell into myself). I ended up writing a book I didn’t expect that involved PTSD, Alcohol abuse, and suicide. I didn’t ignore the monsters and wrote a better book.

One of my favorite authors is Issac Asimov. In his preface to Opus 100 he made a statement I’ll never forget. He wrote, “Let’s get one thing perfectly clear. I’ve written all my books for the enjoyment of one person. Me. That you liked and bought them is a blessing. Thank you.”

In short, Don’t let this become work. Always enjoy it. Even when you’re outside your comfort zone.

Hope it helps.

Rich