Change brings opportunity every time —that’s my summation of 2020 and 2021, so far. Suddenly I’m a writer of fiction. It’s been a fun ride. Nine novels since the first of January 2020. But that doesn’t even begin to mention the change in my spiritual walk. With Pat’s death, I turned to Jesus. He has responded with love and power. It’s been amazing. I was always told, draw near to Him and He’ll draw near to you. … Continue reading →
I received a solid article on presentation design this morning. Building powerful presentations with type requires good typographic knowledge and a clear understanding of readability. I don’t think Illene went far enough on some points, but basically, keep it simple and clean with legible fonts. Simple, right? Certainly not! You’re fighting habitual reader/listener issues—boredom, attention deficit, ignorance, and a host of other issues. Your presentation needs to be one of your most powerful tools. You need superior tools—and … Continue reading →
It seems like book marketing sanely gets attention the old-fashioned way with well-written content. Sarah, in her blog Marketing Christian Books, has an interesting post this morning called How to get more attention for your books. The idea of intense, seemingly unnatural, social campaigns may be slowly passing away. Don’t get too excited though. The idea that search engines are pulling back in front of social media is no real surprise. However, it remains true that this applies more to … Continue reading →
Susan, at Marketing Christian Books, makes an excellent point this morning—even for non-believers. You have to believe your book will change lives to market it effectively. This is contrary to the publisher’s position which is to believe your book will make them money. That may drive your publisher, but it will not drive your readers. Here’s a quote from Susan: Do I believe that my book has the power to help someone change their life for eternity? … Continue reading →
The 2018 publishing realities are no surprise to any of us who have been working and keeping track of sales, books, and so on. Traditional publishers believe they’ve whipped the self-publishing problem. But though there is some stability, they are ignoring many key facts. Mike Shatzkin gives us some insight Here’s a quote from today’s post. He sees tradpub missing the elephant in the dining room—Amazon One “tell” is that Amazon doesn’t believe ebook sales are reducing, they … Continue reading →
Sarah, from Marketing Christian Books, has shared some new year self-publishing trends for 2018. There are five things to mull over and I think she’s right. Independent publishing will continue to grow. But this is a mixed blessing. The number of books is growing like crazy, but the number of readers hasn’t changed much since 2012. Amazon will continue to streamline operations for book publishing. There’s good reason to believe that Createspace will disappear and print books will … Continue reading →
The ebook future grows complex — more confusing as far as I can tell. Right now in my work, ebook design is being largely constrained by the limits of Kindle. I’ve mentioned this several times. Increasingly Apple ebooks are becoming a problem as the Apple marketers constantly change their marketing lingo. At least monthly, Apple bounces one of my ebooks because I am using what they told me to use, i.e. the iBookstore, and now they don’t … Continue reading →
I’m working on new video coursework about using InDesign for publishing. The first course is concerned about book production getting started understanding typography. My concern is reaching my target audience which is you. I’m writing for an elusive niche—people like yourselves who understand the value of the typographic power of a tool like InDesign. As a font designer, I am very much aware of the fact that no software can build typographic communication as well as InDesign with … Continue reading →
Here’s an excellent article about the domains needed for your author platform. Get domains set up well as early as possible. It’s one of your major decisions and needs to be done as early in the process as you can manage. Get domains set up well! Your entire marketing effort is built on your domains. That’s the source of your Facebook posts, your tweets, your pins, and so on. They are all ephemeral. Your website/blog is relatively stable … Continue reading →
I read an excellent article this morning on the importance of designed books. Actually, the article does not mention books, but the concepts apply. Here’s a quote from the interviewee, Dave Snyder Design in the most classic sense is a potent business strategy. That’s not to say it’s only about business efficiency. Everything needs a high level of craft, but even that can’t put lipstick on a pig and make people believe the pig is not a pig. … Continue reading →