Even after running a successful promotional campaign to get media attention for your book, it may not have been enough to generate the book sales you desire or to create interest in your private business that your volume promotes. If that’s the case, you may need to consider advertising. There are a lot of different ways to advertise your book, however, and not all of them involve spending money!

Some common advertising strategies include:
• Online storefronts – You can promote or offer up for sale your book at readers’ websites, self-publishing house websites, and even on eBay.
• Widgets – These are small boxes that appear on websites to advertise your book. Some may link back to your book’s website or blog.
• Publications by specific audiences – Consider getting plugs or taking out ads in newsletters or special publications related to your book. For example, if your book is religious in nature, a church bulletin is one place to promote it.
• Your Amazon.com page – Thanks to Amazon.com’s huge presence on the web, many readers will come to you simply by discovering your book’s page at this bookseller. Spend some time putting lots of useful information about your book on this page.
• Goodreads author’s page – Many serious readers have pages at and trade recommendations on the Goodreads website. You can increase awareness of your book by having a page there, too.
• Reviews of book – Surveys show that many readers learn about a book or decide between two titles by reading reviews. So you’ll want to find people who can write reviews for your Amazon.com and Goodreads pages or other sites and publications.
• Business cards – When you run across someone in public and tell them you’re author, they’ll likely forget your name and book’s title by the time they actually go online or into a bookstore to look at your volume. Giving them a business card can help jog their memory.

We’ll discuss each of these advertising and promotional strategies in more depth during upcoming blog entries.

______________________

My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional book editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of 80 books including the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my book marketing guidebooks:

When you set down a road, you’re not limited to that one highway. There will be intersecting roads – some gravel, some narrow streets, others wide boulevards and multi-lane freeways – that in turn lead to many, many other roads. A few of these roads will be similar to the one you started out on, but most will offer new vistas, taking you either through woods or across suburban sprawl, either past farm fields or into cities of gleaming skyscrapers.

In much the same way, each sentence you write gives you the opportunity to take your book in an entirely new direction. No sentence should leave you wondering, “What will I write now?” but “Which sentence should I write next?”

Once you write a sentence, think of all the different ways it might be followed. Consider the opening lines to this story: As Jane examined the dead man, there was a giggle.

The next line might describe the giggle. What did it sound like? Was it nervous and brief? Did it grow louder into a full-blown laugh?

Or maybe it describes Jane’s reaction to the giggle. Is she surprised by another person? Is she disgusted because she finds her friend’s reaction inappropriate?

Perhaps Jane herself is the one who giggled. Why did she giggle? Was she anxious? Maybe she feels delight that the man is dead and got what was due to him.

Possibly the dead man is the one that giggled. What does Jane do then? Is she frightened? Is she pleased that her experiment to revive the dead man worked? Maybe the man really isn’t a corpse at all but a fellow med student pretending to be dead during a class exercise.

Each of these potential paths in turn leads to hundreds of more possibilities for that third sentence and then the fourth. By the time you’ve written the fifth sentence, you’ve generated dozens of potential starts for your story…and even stories themselves.

You must begin, though, by writing one sentence. After all, you can’t explore the world about you unless you pull out of your driveway and set off down that first street.

______________________

My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my writing guidebooks:

Self-publishing always sounds appealing: It’s a quick way to get your book in print, you don’t have to deal with literary agents, editors and publishers who want to rewrite your book so it fits their idea of marketability, and you almost certainly will reap a higher percentage of profits from your book sale.

The downside, though, is that you’ll need to do a lot of the work that your book publisher would handle for you. That means you’ll be putting in a lot of extra time – and may not even have the skills to complete some of the tasks.

Here’s a quick rundown of the potential costs of self-publishing:
• Editing and proofreading – You’ll always want someone else to read your work for you (full disclosure: I offer such a service). A second eye will spot typos and content problems that you missed because as a writer you’re too close to the book. Self-publishing houses do offer editing and proofreading services, but you’ll be able to find less expensive and typically more personal service through an independent, freelance editor.
• Typesetting/formatting the book – Books can by formatted in Microsoft Word, but most will find it a time-consuming and frustrating process. For a more professional appearance, you’ll want to format the book in a software program like InDesign or Quark Express. If you don’t have such programs, you’ll need to find a designer. Many self-publishing houses do offer such services, but again, an independent freelance contractor almost certainly is less expensive.
• Book cover – Self-publishing houses do offer book cover designs that you do right online at no cost. Such covers, however, tend to look bland and like dozens of other self-published books. Again, seek an independent freelance contractor if you do not have the skills or the software to create your own cover.
• Publishing house – To get attention from the mainstream press, you’ll want to create your own publishing house. Newspapers and magazines that write book reviews or stories about them generally eschew any title from a self-publisher (which is who your publisher will be unless you create your own publishing house). Creating your own publishing house is fairly simple at first – just purchase your own ISBN. If you don’t go that route, your self-publisher handles the ISBN for you (and hence becomes the publisher). Later, as you begin to make a profit from your book and print additional titles, you’ll need to file the appropriate documents with your state and possibly city to affirm that you are an established business.
• Printing – You will pay some kind of fee to be a “member” at your chosen self-publisher or to receive initial copies of your printed book that you must review and then okay before the book will be available for sale. The more work you do upfront so that you don’t have to make editing changes once your initial print run occurs, the lower this expense will be.
• Marketing – Self-publishing houses tout that they will market your book, but that usually just means that they give you some online channels to post your book. That’s useful (especially if your book gets a page on Amazon.com), but you still need to write and send press releases, arrange your own book readings/signings, and create your own website/blog. You can do all of that on your own for the just cost of time, but you may want a freelance writer with public relations or marketing experience to write the text for your press release and website, and possibly even a website designer.

How much will all of this cost you? For my first self-published book, I spent less than $400, primarily for a website, to buy my own ISBN (I created my own publishing house), and to pay for that initial run. Everything else I did myself – which as a long-time journalist who wrote for, designed and edited newspapers and magazines was a cinch. Contract all of this labor out, however, and your costs could run from a few hundred to a couple of thousand dollars. Your best bet is to shop around for services, do as much of it as you can on your own, and cut corners – for example, you probably can initially get away with just a blog rather than building a website.

______________________

My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my self-publishing guidebooks:

Most stories unfold in the same way: The main character encounters a problem, he attempts in various ways to overcome the problem, and ultimately he succeeds.

For example, in the “Star Trek: The Original Series” episode “Devil in the Dark”, Captain Kirk faces the problem of stopping what appears to be a monster that is killing miners on the planet Janus VI. He attempts to solve the problem by hunting down the creature. He ultimately succeeds in stopping the murders by making contact with the creature and coming to an understanding of and agreement with it.

Of course, the plot of a story is more complicated than this. But the way action unfolds in most stories can be divided into distinct parts. Being aware of these parts can help you better develop a story.

There are five general parts of a plot:
• Inciting incident – During the first paragraphs of a story, the main character, the problem he faces and the setting is introduced. This part sometimes is referred to as the “introduction” or the “opening.” In “Devil in the Dark,” we also learn that some of the miners doubt Kirk’s ability to solve the problem, which will complicate his efforts later in the episode.
• Rising action – The bulk of the story consists of the rising action, in which the main character attempts to solve his problem. He repeatedly fails, however, causing the situation becomes even more dire for him. This part also is known as the “complication”. During the hunt, Kirk loses a man, finds the station’s nuclear reactor pump has been stolen, almost dies during a cave-in and then is cornered by the creature.
• Climax – Ultimately, the main character solves the problem through some great, dramatic effort. Discovering the creature is intelligent, Kirk orders Spock to mind meld with the creature and Dr. McCoy to heal its wound; this allows Kirk and the creature (which calls itself a Horta) to come to an agreement: the miners will stop killing its young and it will stop killing the miners.
• Falling action – This extremely short section of the plot occurs immediately after the climax. It deals with the effects of the climax on the main character. Kirk now champions the Horta’s cause and stops the miners from attacking it.
• Denouement – The “conclusion” occurs in the last few sentences of the story. The loose ends of the story are tied up at this point. Back aboard their starship, Kirk, Spock and McCoy discuss (er, joke) about the philosophical implications of the Horta’s intelligence; we also learn that the miners and Horta are getting along fine.

______________________

My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my guidebooks for plotting your story:

“If it has horses and swords in it, it’s a fantasy, unless it also has a rocketship in it, in which case it becomes science fiction. The only thing that’ll turn a story with a rocketship in it back into fantasy is the Holy Grail.” – Debra Doyle

“To write good SF today…you must push further and harder, reach deeper into your own mind until you break through into the strange and terrible country wherein live your own dreams.” – Gardner Dozois

“Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything. We can’t talk about science, because our knowledge of it is limited and unofficial, and usually our fiction is dreadful.” – Philip K. Dick

“In science there is a dictum: don’t add an experiment to an experiment. Don’t make things unnecessarily complicated. In writing fiction, the more fantastic the tale, the plainer the prose should be. Don’t ask your readers to admire your words when you want them to believe your story.” – Ben Bova

“I don’t think the scientific method and the science fictional method are really analogous. The thing about them is that neither is really practiced very much, at least not consciously. But the fact that they are methodical does relate them.” – Frederik Pohl

______________

My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my writing guidebooks:

Among the best ways to ramp up dramatic tension in your story is through a reversal. This occurs when something in the narrative suddenly shifts the reader’s perspective or the story’s direction in an entirely unexpected yet plausible way.

For characters, this usually involves turning on its ear the reader’s understanding of why a character behaves a certain way. Suppose that a teenage protagonist initially considers her father cold and overbearing; through her narration he is presented that way to readers. Near the story’s end, the teenager learns that her father actually is doing what he thinks is right to protect her, as his beloved but free-spirited teen sister died many years in a car accident; he fears something bad also will happen to his maverick daughter. The truth is he loves her so much and feels so much pain at his sister’s loss that he makes bad decisions to prevent history from repeating itself.

Before this revelation, however, there must be clues about the father’s true nature. Maybe she partially overhears him boasting to a neighbor about her. Of course, the teenager never knew she had an aunt; she stumbles across clues about some mystery (She thinks maybe her father is hiding an illicit affair that led to her mother leaving them years ago.) that she investigates to discredit him. This search, however, leads her to discovering the truth about her father – changing her perspective and the readers.

For plots, a reversal means that the protagonist recognizes the conflict he is attempting to solve is the wrong one, and that he must begin addressing the right one. In the above story about our teenage girl and her father, perhaps she spends the bulk of the story trying to win a power struggle with him. Upon learning that he had lost his sister many years before, she realizes that the focus of her struggle must shift – rather than prove to him that controlling her is pointless, she must show him that it is unnecessary. Rather than fight with her father, she attempts to draw him closer to her.

Most stories involving three-dimensional protagonists include reversals. They’re a mark of character development. Even in tales with flat main characters, often a revelation via a reversal is necessary for the story’s central problem to be resolved.

______________________

My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my guidebooks for plotting your story:

Making a personal connection with your readers marks a great way to sell your books – and one solid way to do that is to use audio on your website.

When website visitors hear your voice, they’re more likely to pay attention than if they simply read text that they know is polished. Further, speech allows you to vocally emphasize points that readers might miss when they just scan your website.

The first step to getting audio on your website is to download and install software or an app that can record your voice. A number of such programs are available online. A popular one is Web Audio Plus.

You probably have a microphone on your computer, but it may need to be readjusted so that works best for you. If using Windows, you can adjust the microphone by going to your Control Panel’s Hardware and Sound section. Should your PC mic not be up to the job, you can purchase better quality mics that plug into your computer for under $50.

The next step is to write a script for your audio presentation. It can be as long as you like, but depending on its purpose, various lengths are better than others. A welcome to you website probably shouldn’t be more than a couple of minutes. A recording of an interview with you or a presentation you gave ought to be the exact length as the original so that visitors don’t feel cheated of information.

Topics of an audio presentation could be a welcome to your website, snippets in which you explain cool stuff about your books (like who your favorite character is, how you came up with the idea for the story, an alternative ending you didn’t go with), and an interview of you.

Once you write the script, rehearse it a couple of times then record. Always play it back before posting to ensure you’re satisfied with it. If you aren’t, then re-record.

Once you’ve got the recording you like, you can post it to your website. Usually this involves pasting the audio file into your web page’s html.

______________________

My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional book editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of 80 books including the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my book marketing guidebooks:

Once you’ve got your book with the front and back matter completed, the next step is to place all of that text into a form that can be uploaded and printing. Essentially, you’re creating on file on the computer that looks exactly like how the book will appear when printed. This is called formatting.

You can hire someone else to do your formatting, whether it be a freelancer or the self-publishing company itself. This will get expensive, however, and may not always yield the results you want, delaying the publication process. You can do it yourself as well, though you may need software programs, such as InDesign, for this effort. Unless purchased used, InDesign will be more expensive than hiring a freelancer or going with the self-publishing company. There’s also the added problem of learning how to use such software, and you want to be a writer, not a designer. Still, if you plan to write a series of books that will involve pictures, tables, charts, illustrations and so forth in them, then purchasing a software program and taking some time to learn the program (There are plenty of books and online tutorials about how to do this.) in the long run is well worth the trouble.

If use just plain text (such as a novel) or a book with only a few photos, or are purely writing an ebook, your formatting can be done in Microsoft Word. Be forewarned, however – and this comes from someone who knows how to use design software – formatting a printed book in Word will be an extremely difficult and frustrating project. In addition, if not done correctly, the tracking (or spacing between letters and words on a single line of type) can look unprofessional.

The first rule of formatting is keep the entire book is one document. So if you’ve got the table of contents, preface, main body text and index all in different files, it’s time to cut and paste them into one file. Create a backup of this file so that you have an original to refer to and just in case the file you’re formatting gets all messed up.

Then establish the answers to a number of important decisions that will be necessary to formatting the book:
• What will the book’s size be (its width and height)?
• How many pages will the book be?
• What will be the style (typeface and point size) for the text, headers, subheads and section heads, sidebars and breakout boxes (hopefully you’ve already established this)?
• What will be the style for the page numbers/book title/author’s name that typically appears on each page?

We’ll discuss each of these topics in upcoming entries.

If you need a professional designer, be sure to address each of these issues with her. You can find designers and have them bid on your project simply be typing “freelance book designer” into a search engine. Specific sites where you can post your project and have designers try to solicit the job include Guru.com, Elance.com and ifreelance.com.

______________________

My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my self-publishing guidebooks:

After you’ve brainstormed some ideas and made an outline of how you might organize those thoughts into a story or nonfiction piece, the next step is get busy “drafting.”

A draft is the placement of your thoughts into complete sentences and paragraphs. This might be done in longhand on paper or typed using a word processing program.

When drafting, your goal is to shape the story or article into the perfect piece that you envision it to be. Don’t worry too much if the first time you try to do this that the piece rambles or is in some way deficient.

That’s because you always will complete a “first draft” of anything you write. With each new draft you write, you’ll cross out sections that don’t work, rewrite sentences or whole paragraphs, perhaps add entirely new ones, select better words to use, put in missing commas, fix typos, rearrange sections, and probably more. But we’ll go into that in a future blog entry that examines revising.

In addition, don’t presume that you can simply proofread or edit your first draft and be done! You might get away with that if you’re an exceptionally gifted writer (or are writing a simple and formulaic piece, such as a news brief, on deadline). While you probably are at least an above average writer, almost all of us need to go through several drafts before arriving at a final product.

_______________________

My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my writing guidebooks: