We've talked much in our blog about the importance of social media and building an author platform through an online presence. As the leaves change color, consider changing your approach as well. It can be a challenge to make time to keep up online presences but as the leaves go on falling, the world of social media goes on spinning. We get feedback from partners all the time on how important it is that an author have a strong presence online when searched for. An author's social media platforms are used in marketing programs, book awards programs, blog tours and reviews, and even purchasers can find you if you put yourself out there where you can be found.

This fall, we encourage all authors to take a fresh look at their platforms by following three simple steps. 

Even if you are not a pro at this, what matters is that you stay active. It really is about connecting to other people which may include other authors, readers and fans, or groups that you are interested in.

A few pro tips

• Set aside a half hour each week to search for authors and books you enjoy. Follow them. 
• Scroll through your Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook feed and "like" or "heart" content in your feed from those you've followed.
• Review books on Goodreads and follow other members' and authors' reviews. 
• Follow your favorite authors on Goodreads and check your Goodreads feed once a week. 
• Join a Goodreads group that interests you. 
• ​Make sure your author photo is up to date across all sites.

Lastly, if you don't have the desire, interest, or time in doing all of this, search for and hire a virtual marketing assistant to help you do all these things . . . and it won't break the bank! You can specify marketing assistants or social media assistants and hire someone to help build your brand, keep your sites fresh, and work with you on connecting to followers. Search on LinkedIn or Google for people in your area (if you want someone local) or work with people around the globe offering their services. You can also find students at local colleges that may be interested in the job or just through people you know and already work with. Ask around! 

Sometimes our greatest strengths can come from what we view as our greatest weaknesses. Robert Elno says this idea was a huge inspiration for him when he was writing the Clown William series, which is about a young man, William, who suffers from a physical ailment we now know as Tourette's Syndrome. After being kicked out of his house by his father in the first book of the series, a self-defense situation teaches him that he has astounding accuracy with a six-gun.

​The book series follows this unexpected hero through Colorado and New Mexico as he defends himself and those around him with this unexpected talent. And now, Robert Elno has the third installment in the series ready for readers.
 
Picking up where book two left off, Clown William and the Wind of Vengeance finds William still in New Mexico. In the book, he is obsessed with tracking down and finishing his war with the man he blames for his life turning out the way it has – Jesse Evans. 

​As always, William is a target for many. He battles an inner conflict, as well, deciding to wait until Jesse is out of a compromising position before making his attempt on Jesse’s life. William is in a race against his own inner tornado . . . Will he beat it before it takes him out?

Robert Elno brings his experience as a retired army colonel and semiretired psychiatrist to this book series. He says he was also inspired by neurologist Oliver Sacks’s work about the unusual speed and accuracy often displayed by people with Tourette’s syndrome. The third installment in this series, Clown William and the Wind of Vengeance, is now available for pre-sale at both Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com. And, until then, here’s a little sneak peek . . .

As any author knows, your job is not finished when you finish writing your book. Marketing is key for sales of your book, and, as social media continues to evolve, there are continually more possibilities for how to do this.

Enter the Influencer.
​In recent years, influencers have become quite popular, especially in the world of social media. An influencer is someone who has built a following of people that trust and respect their opinions in an area of expertise. Some influencers specialize in fashion, others in food, others in family life, and still others in blogging – just to name a few areas.
 
Influencers exist, as you may have guessed by now, in the book world, too. And these influencers can be huge assets to you in marketing your book! But, understandably, it can be a daunting task when considering how to go about reaching out to them.
 
First and foremost, it’s important to look at this like you would any relationship. It should never be entirely one sided. Yes, you want them to do you a favor and promote your book. But don’t forget that, as with anything, these things work best with a symbiotic relationship.

When it comes to Goodreads, the possibilities as an author are endless. We've talked much in the past about Goodreads as an essential tool for your author platform. (Read a couple of our past blog posts on Goodreads and other social media strategies here).

Goodreads is owned by Amazon and it's a true community of readers and librarians that take their reviews seriously! They are avid readers and writers and make it very easy to connect with others. As an author they offer amazing tools such as a Goodreads Author Profile where you can connect or create a blog, create a giveaway, and participate in a plethora of community groups tailored to various genres and interests. 

One major way to use Goodreads well? Book giveaways.

But wait! First things first. It's critical that you spend some time creating a compelling Goodreads presence first. Goodreads makes it very easy to give and get reviews, update your author profile, create or link to an author blog, and connect with other readers and writers. 

The more positive reviews you have, the more likely someone is to buy your book if they click on your ad. Spend the time necessary to establish this presence before spending the money necessary on advertising your book and you will be more likely see favorable results.

Let's talk about Giveaways!
​
Goodreads giveaways have been shown to dramatically increase book sales, and they’re so simple! They come in two options – standard or premium. Read all the detail here and get the quick notes below!

A standard giveaway will cost you $119, no matter how many books you give away within it. Everyone who enters will add your book to their Want-to-Read list, all of your followers and anyone who already has your book on their Want-to-Read list receive a notification of a new giveaway, Goodreads emails the winner of your giveaway reminding them to rate and review your book, and your giveaway is featured in the Giveaways section of the website.

A premium giveaway will cost you $599. You get everything from the standard giveaway, as well as premium placement on the Giveaways page. Additionally, Goodreads will send a message (that you create) to the entrants who don’t win, which could increase your book sales and build relationships with readers. 

For the giveaway, you select the span the giveaway runs and how many copies you want to give away. As the author, it’s your responsibility to get your book to the winner in a timely manner and to cover the cost of shipping. While it will cost you less to give away one book, you will get more reviews from readers if you give away more. 

You’ll want to make your giveaway description as attention grabbing as possible. Is it an autographed copy? Have you won any awards for it? Why should readers want to sign up to receive a free copy of this? Remember that they can simply check your book listing on the Goodreads site to read the synopsis of your book, so don’t make the only description!

Pro tip: If you schedule the giveaways for a few days in the future, you won’t lose any run time to Goodreads’s approval process. Also, if you select a short span for the giveaway (think 2-3 days), your giveaway will appear on both the newly listed and the ending soon pages, meaning you will get double the exposure at the same time!
​

A note about self-serve ads on Goodreads


​Unfortunately, Goodreads is retiring their self-serve ad feature as of next month. They will focus on giveaways and other advertising opportunities. If you already have a self-serve ad funded and created you can still edit and run it through next February. These ads run (used to anyway) on a cost-per-click model. You set the budget, and your account gets charged for each click until the budget runs out.

Many authors who have used this service say not to plan on immediate results from your ads. However, after time, the momentum usually builds, and the more exposure the book gets, the more interest there is in it.

Check out your author dashboard for whatever new advertising opportunities Goodreads will roll out next or to manage anything current you have going on until February of next year. 

​This series will focus on Amazon and Goodreads ads and how they are used in helping promote books and helping readers find the next unique find for your library or beach bag!

As an indie publisher and author, Amazon and Goodreads ads can be a great opportunity to promote titles and get visibility for books.

​Amazon is currently the largest platform for purchasing  eBooks and Goodreads currently garners 300 million pageviews and 45 million unique visitors a month.
 
​Amazon Ads: Sponsored Product Ads vs. Lockscreen Ads
Now for a quick history lesson! It’s important to know that what is now known as Amazon Advertising used to be called Amazon Marketing Services, or AMS. AMS was rebranded to Amazon Advertising back in September 2018. With the rebranding, things have changed!
 
Before AMS was rebranded as Amazon Advertising, it offered two main types of ads – sponsored product ads and product display ads. Now that it’s been rebranded, it’s out with the old and in with the new… kind of. Instead of product display ads, Amazon Advertising offers lockscreen ads alongside its sponsored product ads.
 
So what’s the difference between a sponsored product ad and a lockscreen ad, then? In Amazon’s terms, product display ads “promote products to shoppers actively searching with related keywords or viewing similar products on Amazon,” and lockscreen ads are “based on shoppers’ interests and are shown when they ‘unlock’ their Kindle E-readers or Fire Tablets to begin reading or shopping for books.”
 
In other words, sponsored product ads will help when readers are actively searching for a new book to purchase and your book fits in with the keywords they are searching for (think “mystery”, “fantasy”, “romance”, “quirky,” etc.). Using keywords, sponsored product ads can be very useful! Lockscreen ads, meanwhile, are based on the readers’ interests and habits and not so much on what they are actively searching for in the moment. Both can be valuable, if used correctly!
 
These types of ads are both great because they cater to a very specific audience, and, when it comes to ads and the sales of a book – the more specific the audience, the better! It’s also important to note, however, that lockscreen ads are only for Kindles and Fire Tablets; therefore, your exposure and target audience will be much smaller and more limited with this option than it would be with a sponsored product ad.
 
Maybe you have noticed when you search for something on Amazon and your first several results have the “sponsored” label at the very top? Those are sponsored product ads! If you’re a Kindle or Fire Tablet user, chances are you’ve probably come across some lockscreen ads catered to your own interests and habits, too.
 
Would you be more likely to buy what comes up as a sponsored product or a lockscreen ad?

A reluctant 1870's gunslinger with Tourette's and
a quick draw . . .
​While the battle for Lincoln, New Mexico, rages on, William is consumed by his own war against Jesse Evans, the man he blames for the loss of his friends and the start of his life as a gunfighter.

But when William finds Jesse at his most vulnerable—jailed with a gunshot wound—he can’t justify pulling the trigger. A gunfight must be fair.
​
William braves hostile military territory to orchestrate his archenemy’s release—only to discover he has become the prime target for an army of bounty-motivated gunslingers.
​
Can William defeat his internal tornado before he becomes one of its victims?

​Clown William, the first book in the series, is the winner of the Arizona Authors’ Association Literary Award and a Silver Winner in the Independent Publisher Book (IPPY) Awards. Clown William and the Lincoln County War is Winner of the National Indie Excellence Awards and books one and two are Bronze IPPY Winners for Best Series. Clown William and the Wind of Vengeance is the third book in the series.

IngramElliott Publishing is proud to announce that three of our titles have been named as Finalists in the 2019 NextGen Indie Book Awards! The Next Generation Indie Book Awards is the largest international book awards program for indie authors and independent publishers. In its thirteenth year of operation, the Next Generation Indie Book Awards was established to recognize and honor the most exceptional independently published books in over 70 different categories.

We congratulate our winning authors!

Award-winning author Vince Bailey recently participated in a unique event hosted by Arizona radio station KJZZ. The Arizona StoryFest and Authors Showcase is designed to help patrons relax, learn, shop, and play. The event features some of Arizona's top talent at the Authors Showcase & Reading Stage, where experienced storytellers entertain audiences on the main stage. The event also featured an Author's Workshop hosted by the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at ASU. 

Thanks to our friends at Green Pieces Press, for highlighting Vince's book to their Literary International Network in conjunction with the event! 

Vince Bailey, recent First Place Winner of the Paranormal Fiction category at the Chanticleer International Book Awards, hosted fans and passers by at his booth. 

Path of the Half Moon is a truly unique and edgy novel. It's the first in a series following the story's hero, young Curtis Jefferson. This paranormal historical fiction tale is set in a remote detention facility for wayward boys in the early sixties. Curtis is an African American youth whose character and physical endurance are tested by a murderous inmate and a century-old Apache curse.

The novel presents an edgy and thrilling escape from the ordinary, and is being recognized for it's strong thematic elements, including the blurry edges between reality and the supernatural. 

​Vince is currently working on the second novel in the Curtis Jefferson series, Courses of the Cursed. Learn more and follow the author at www.vincebaileyauthor.com and on Twitter @vincebailey20.

IngramElliott Publishing is proud to announce that four of our titles have been named as Finalists or Winners in the 13th Annual National Indie Excellence Awards! The National Indie Excellence® Awards (NIEA) celebrates indie publishing and is proud to be a champion of independent presses "going the extra mile" to produce books of excellence in every aspect.



​IngramElliott Publishing truly appreciates the NIEA recognition for these amazing titles and we congratulate our winning authors!

Earlier this month, the Clown William series won the Bronze Medal for Best Fiction Series in the 2019 IPPY Awards and book one in the series, Clown William, was the 2018 IPPY Silver Award winner for Best First Book/Fiction. Set in the late 1800s, this fresh twist on the Western features an unlikely gunslinger with Tourette Syndrome.

Creating an author blog can be an effective extra 'step' in creating your author platform and reaching your audience. Since blogs can be on any topic you like - including those related to or in support of your book - you may pick up additional readers or reviewers interested in taking a look at your book. 

If readers haven't used the particular keywords in their search for you (read more about keywords and meta in our blog post here), they may not immediately see your book pop up in results. Using meta data in your blog post, including keywords and categories, will help search engines find your blog, and in turn, find you as an author. Also include social media share buttons on your blog post (most platforms do this automatically), so that followers can easily post your content to their networks. 

Blog posts can be topics of interest for your readers or related to your area of expertise or knowledge. For fiction writers, a little less straightforward than non-fiction writers, which typically have a specific area of expertise, it may mean relying on your personal experience and tying it into your fiction work.

Building an audience takes time. 
Building an audience takes time. 
Building an audience takes time.

The above is not a typo . . . but it's worth repeating. Whether it's an author blog, author social media sites, author events, and other ways to build your brand, it takes commitment, time, and consistency. 

Blogs aren't for everyone and that's okay. You can get the straight-talk from one of our favorite bloggers of business advice for writers, Jane Friedman, in her post Blogging for Writers. She says, "The most successful blogs have a very focused angle and appeal to a very specific audience."

Creating a blog takes time, but may be worth it if you have an author website to which you can add the content (read our blog post on building an author website). It's best to use the platform you are already using for your author website - this keeps everything in one place and helps keep your marketing (social media links, blog links, author bio and info, events, book info) all in one place. There are many good and easy to use author website platforms. You can also work with a virtual marketing assistant to help set one up.

Another easy-to-use blog opportunity is your Goodreads Author Page. Once your author profile is setup on Goodreads, they make it pretty easy. From your Author Dashboard, scroll down until you see Your Blog. From here you'll have options to write a new post or sync with a pre-existing blog. Goodreads Authors are the only members who can have a blog on the site, so take advantage!

So give your potential readers useful and interesting information, and hopefully those beginnings will bloom into followers and purchasers.