Words of inspiration from Cheryl via The Happiness Recipe

Listen to Cheryl's latest interview at The Happiness Recipe:

Then check out the recipe she talks about--Strawberry Dumplings--at http://www.happinessrecipe.net/happiness-recipe-whats-great-encouragement/

How my marketing book on KDP Select helped one author

Ever since I published my marketing book, HOW I MADE OVER $42,000 IN 1 MONTH SELLING MY KINDLE eBOOKS, which was designed specifically for Amazon's KDP Select program, I have received emails, tweets and FB messages from authors who have used my strategies. My marketing book has been reviewed 212 times as of today.

Some people have questioned my integrity and intention regarding this book, but the email I received yesterday is the best way for me to explain WHY I would reveal my "secrets" or strategies. The simple reason: because I like helping other authors; I always have, always will.

One author contacted me yesterday to let me know how excited she was at the success of her first free promotion. She gave me permission to use her email in this blog post. (Thank you, Renee-Ann.)

Dear Cheryl,

I'm sure you get this kind of messages all the time but I really wanted to share what your book, "How I Made Over $42,000 in 1 Month Selling My Kindle eBooks", has done for me. First let me say that your name and book has become a topic of conversation among the writers in our group.

I wrote Stella's Plea as part of the NaNoWriMo challenge in 2010. It’s my first novel, a Christian Suspense about the abduction of a deaf little girl, and her mother's struggle to find her. I published it in November 2012.

Last week, Sarah Butland, a writer-friend, highly recommended your book, and to make sure I take notes as I read. Thank God for technology, I read it on my Kindle and took notes in my Windows Phone.

It hasn’t been a week since I finished your book but I'm aiming for the moon and feel like one of the stars. My novel wasn't selling because I lacked the market savvy you're so good at. I had no idea how to promote my novel, let alone sell it. Even an interview with the local newspaper didn't move my rank. But then, Sarah recommended your book. It was awesome. I jotted the tips down -- and then some -- recommended the book to others on our writers groups, and put the strategies to the test. WoW! You weren't kidding.

I removed my novel from Smashwords, deleted the excerpts, and advertised a FREE promo from Thursday, Sept 5 to Saturday Sept 7. I was shocked when, Thursday evening, Sarah told me to check my ranking/stats. The book had gone from #800K+ on Wednesday to #569 in less than 24 hours. The book was now #6 on the Christian Suspense genre, and I had 492 downloads. Need I say I barely slept that night? Friday morning, I had 652 downloads and had moved to #5 in Christian Suspense, and #386 in Free Kindle.

Now, Saturday afternoon, I have well over 1265 downloads and my promo isn't over yet. I lost count of the invites to Share and Tweet, and Pin. As you suggest, I aimed at 500/day and reached that goal the first two. I'm still hoping to get 500 today, though I'm aiming at total of 2K. :)

It's not just the downloads though. I'm overwhelmed at people's response to help me get my book to number one. And just the fact that it reached #5 in the Christian Suspense, even though it's free, I'm ecstatic about that.

I haven’t had a chance to do everything yet, as it's been less than a week since I finished your book. Plus I work fulltime outside the home so my time is limited to when I'm off work. But Cheryl, I am truly having a blast with this promotion, and I thank you for sharing your story in this marketing book.

I apologize this is so long but I really wanted to share the whole story with you. I will continue to share the book, review it once my promo is finished, then I'll have another promo in 6-8 weeks, depending how fast the numbers plunge again. In an ideal world, they'd stay where they are! :)

Lastly, will you please download a copy of my book, and also tell your friends about it? http://amzn.to/18jprie

Blessings to you. Renee-Ann  (aka R.A. Giggie)

I believe that my methods still work, even though Amazon has messed up the algorithms so that we don't see the huge numbers we saw last year. There is still value in using the Select program, especially for niche authors and new authors, or those with only 1-2 titles.

I've also tested my strategies on 99 cent sales--and guess what? They work. I've done 99 cent sales without my methods and seen only a slight increase. But when I do everything in my book, my sales skyrocket.

If you're serious about promoting your book, and if you aren't one of those people who only "reads" a book on marketing and you're not afraid of working hard or experimenting, I encourage you to pick up a copy of HOW I MADE OVER $42,000 IN 1 MONTH SELLING MY KINDLE eBOOKS. It's only $2.99.

• Updated: Sept 4, 2013 - Contains OVER 130 LINKS TO WEBSITES THAT WILL PROMOTE YOUR FREE BOOK
• The #1 Marketing book specifically designed for Amazon's KDP Select program
• International Bestseller
• Contains detailed Select experiments & analysis

NEWS: I've now earned over $210,000 with KDP Select! I signed with an agent at Trident Media Group; I was contacted by the senior editor at a "big 6" publishing company because of my success on Amazon; Amazon hand-picked two of my titles for special promotions; and I have signed a 2-book audiobook deal with Audible--ALL because of my KDP Select success.

http://www.amazon.com/Month-Selling-Kindle-eBooks-ebook/dp/B0080USSYW

New Release: How I Made Over $42,000 Selling My Kindle eBooks

In March 2012 one Canadian author boldly went where few have gone before—into the land of making real money with Amazon's KDP Select program.

This is her story…

My name is Cheryl Kaye Tardif and I am an international bestselling suspense author who earned over $42,000 dollars in March 2012 selling ebooks via Amazon's KDP Select program, captured the interest of a major literary agency, and went on to sign with a foreign rights agent. And I'm about to tell you HOW I did all that.

I don't normally tell people how much money I make, but I believe writers need to know it IS possible to earn a real income from your books. Seriously, if I can do it, anyone can—if you have the right combination of criteria and techniques.

In this book, I'll share with you what I believe are four key elements you must have in place to see high sales. And I'll reveal the strategic techniques I used during my KDP Select promotions that resulted in earning over $42,000—with $32,000 of that from ONE title alone.

Not only did I earn over $42,000 in ebook sales, I was contacted by one of the leading literary agencies in New York. The chairman noticed my success when my one title made #4 in the Top 100 Bestselling Kindle ebooks, right under The Hunger Games trilogy. Since then, I've signed with another agent for foreign rights.

So, if you're ready to earn some real money with Select, let's begin…

Available at Amazon (Kindle)

Guest blogger: Author Stacey Cochran stops by during his CLAWS 2 Blog Tour to talk about publishing and more

Today's special guest blogger is author Stacey Cochran, author of CLAWS, CLAWS 2 and more. Welcome, Stacey!

Thanks so much for hosting me today during my CLAWS 2 Blog Tour. Today I’d like to talk about the process and decision to self-publish and will break this down into the following categories: 1) Proof-reading and editing, 2) Cover Design, 3) Pricing, and 4) Selling to a traditional publisher

To Self-Publish or Not to Self-Publish
The decision to self-publish my books was not an easy one. I self-published my first novel in 2004 after querying traditional publishers and literary agents. Subsequently I have self-published five more books over the past five years, and during that time I have sent out roughly 3,000 query letters (via postal and e-mail). In the past half decade, I have signed on with two different literary agents who both worked extremely hard to sell my novels to traditional publishers. As yet, no publisher has made an offer.

I only self-publish a book after it has been pitched for many months to traditional publishers and everyone says “Not interested.” For most first-time authors, I recommend the same. Try to get a literary agent first. If that doesn’t work, pitch as many editors as you can on your own. If the net result after a year or two is that no one is interested, then you should self-publish your book.

Proof-Reading and Editing
For both CLAWS and CLAWS 2, I worked with a writing group to critique the manuscripts. My standard writing process is to revise as I go along. That is, I don’t usually move to Chapter 2 until I have edited Chapter 1 for quite a while.

Once I have the whole first draft of a manuscript done, I normally do a full-scale edit on my own that can take from one to six months. It is that revised version that typically goes in front of my writing group. The group reads the manuscript closely and makes both surface and content edits.

I then apply their feedback, a process that takes about a month. Then, I give the manuscript to my wife. She reads and critiques, and I apply her feedback. Another month or two.

With CLAWS and CLAWS 2, I had two different literary agents over five years, and both agents gave me thorough editorial feedback that went into yet another two rounds of revision. Additionally, nearly every major thriller editor in the business gave us feedback on the novels, and I applied all of their comments into the novels as well.

Finally, the novels went through two years of editing in the booking and formatting phase, once the decision was reached to self-publish the books.

Editing a novel this much is painstaking work, but it is essential if you’re going to put your work out to a paying public.

Cover Design
Cover design differs from book to book. I worked with a graphic designer friend on the first CLAWS cover, but I did CLAWS 2 on my own. For CLAWS 2, I first searched istock.com for the perfect photo. I knew I wanted to have snow in the image, but I wasn’t sure about how much to suggest. I first tried doing a trickle of blood in a snowy field, etc., but none of that worked well and I wanted to go for a “cleaner” noirish feel, since CLAWS 2 is more of a story about the character Angie Rippard.

I was totally inspired by the original Into the Wild cover for the runaway bestseller by Jon Krakauer. His book cover gave me the confidence to go black-and-white, and from there I did everything in PhotoShop.

Unless you have experience working in PhotoShop, I suggest working with a graphic designer. A fair price for a great cover should come in under $300, but depending on your network of friends, you may be able to find someone who will do it for less. Shop around. Ask questions. Get estimates.

Pricing
How to price a book is one of the most hotly debated topics in the eBook world today. For the indie author, pricing a book the right way is paramount to success.

The best indie author I’ve seen who knew how to move prices around to drum up business was Sam Landstrom. Using the now-defunct “Mobipocket Method” Sam would drop his price to free, blast up into the rankings, and then raise the price and sell like mad for several weeks. He did this effectively enough over the course of nine months to earn tons of positive reviews, visibility, and word of mouth, and he now has a contract with AmazonEncore.

Because I have four books available on Kindle, I can experiment with pricing. The new thriller CLAWS 2 was first set at $2.99 to take advantage of the new 70% royalty rate. My other titles were all listed at 99 cents. After six weeks, I changed the price of CLAWS 2 to 99 cents and raised the price of the first book to $2.99 because my hunch was that the good reviews could move it at the higher price point.

There is no iron rule that will work for everybody. That said, if you price your book reasonably you’re much more likely to increase sales.

At some point in your marketing process, you’ll need to assess whether your goal is to build a readership or to make money. It may be that you have to do the former before you can do the latter.

Mainstream Publisher Interest
So, if a mainstream publisher approached me and wanted to publish my novel(s), how would I respond?

I would be happy. One part of my own personal equation in building a writing career is establishing credibility. Credibility factors into success. That is, if readers trust you, they are much more likely to buy your book, and if you can get a mainstream publisher to publish your work, it is a sign to many potential readers that you’re a pretty good writer.

There are a number of mid-list authors on the web who are now weighing whether to accept offers from traditional publishers or to self-publish. They’re in a good position to be able to make that decision because they’ve already been established by the mainstream houses, and thus have the credibility that contributes to high reader trust.

For writers without that credibility, I would recommend going with a traditional publisher, even if you have to settle on a lower royalty rate. Consider a hardcover or paperback deal as a stamp of credibility that will be on your resume forever, particularly if it’s with a well-known and well-respected publisher.

*******

Stacey Cochran was born in the Carolinas, where his family traces its roots to the mid 1800s. In 1998 he was selected as a finalist in the Dell Magazines undergraduate fiction competition, and he made his first professional short story sale to CutBank in 2001. In 2004, he was selected as a finalist in the St. Martin’s Press/PWA Best First Private Eye Novel Contest. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with his wife Dr. Susan K. Miller-Cochran and their son Sam, and he teaches writing at North Carolina State University. His books include CLAWS, CLAWS 2, The Colorado Sequence, Amber Page, and The Kiribati Test.

Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/CLAWS-2-ebook/dp/B003TU20HE

Understanding the myths regarding self-publishing versus traditionally publishing

There are a lot of myths and misconceptions out there regarding the pros and cons of either self-publishing or traditional publishing. I recently came across a blog that was advising writers on 5 Reasons to Self-Publish Your Next Book, and I found all but one of the 5 points to be very misleading. Of course, this is my opinion, based on the fact that I know a lot of authors who have done either or both, and I have done both.

Without printing the author's explanations, here are the 5 reasons the author offered, and my opinion on them.

Reason #1: Self-Publishing is Not Nearly as Difficult As You Think
Reason #2: Publishing Companies Don’t Actually Do Anything.
Reason #3: You Will Make More Money.
Reason #4: You Will Spend Less Money.
Reason #5: A Publisher Will Never Care As Much As You Do.

Visit The Write Type ~ Multi-Author Musings to read more and to find out why 4 of these reasons are myths.

Self-Publishing success stories

Big Houses Benefit from Savvy Self-Publishers by Rachel Deahl -- Publishers Weekly

Every so often a self-publishing Cinderella story makes headlines. In 2003 it was a home-schooled 20-year-old, Christopher Paolini, who sold his first novel about a dragon to Knopf, and in 2006 Kathleen McGowan got a seven-figure deal from S&S for her Da Vinci Code–esque Mary Magdalene series. And in the coming months, look for more self-publishing success stories, as the big houses get behind several writers who took the DIY route. So, are publishers becoming more open to self-published authors, or are self-published authors becoming savvier publishers?

This month, two originally self-published titles are making headlines. The Shack—William P. Young's feel-good Christian novel that sold more than a million copies before Hachette signed on to copublish it—debuted in its trade edition at No. 1 on the New York Times list on June 8. And, at the end of the month, Morrow will look for similar numbers for The Lace Reader; the imprint paid author Brunonia Barry more than $2 million in a two-book deal and printed 200,000 copies of her debut.

Ben Sevier, a senior editor at Dutton, has noticed that more self-published books are gaining traction. Sevier, who said he's “always looked skeptically on [self-published] submissions,” is singing a different tune these days. Right before BEA, he preempted a self-published techno-thriller called Daemon by a software consultant using the pen name Leinad Zeraus. Sevier signed Zeraus, aka Daniel Suarez, to a two-book deal for what's rumored to be a hefty sum. Sevier, who was immediately taken with the manuscript—he said it “took me two chapters to think I was reading the best high-tech thriller writer since Michael Crichton”—said the experience has been eye-opening: “It proves that great books are slipping through the cracks.”

Great manuscripts aside, Suarez and Barry had more going for them than strong prose. Both had managed to sell more than 1,000 copies on their own; Suarez also got press in Wired and blurbs from Sillicon Alley heavies like Craig Newmark (founder of Craigslist) and Stewart Brand (creator of The Whole Earth Catalog).

Clare Ferraro at Viking signed neuroscientist and stroke survivor Jill Bolte Taylor, who became an Internet sensation after a snippet of a talk she gave at the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference went viral. Taylor had sold nearly 8,000 copies of her clinical survival memoir, which she self-published through Lulu. My Stroke of Insight—which Viking crashed for a May release to coincide with Taylor's Oprah spot—was, Ferraro said, driven by the author's platform more than anything else. “If Jill hadn't had a book, I would have been no less interested in her.”

Agent David Fugate, of LaunchBooks in San Diego, inked a deal for retired professor Dennis Fried largely on the author's impressive self-publishing record. Although Fugate said he found Fried's Memoirs of a Papillon immediately touching and amusing—the book is purportedly the memoir of the author's pooch, Genevieve—he thinks it was the fact that the book had sold 20,000 copies that spurred Simon Spotlight Entertainment to acquire it. The book, due out in hardcover in 2009 as When I Want Your Opinion I'll Bark, benefited from what Fugate calls the “more democratic process” of publishing that exists today. Fugate explained that, with promotion being easier because of the Internet and printing more manageable because of online vanity presses and POD houses, an author can now “prove [his] worth.”

Nonetheless, Fugate warns it isn't easy. He estimates that most editors don't want to hear about a self-published title unless its sales are significant. “Three thousand to 4,000 seems to be the point at which they start to think, okay, this is something valuable.”

Reprinted with permission from Jerry D. Simmons' newsletter TIPS for WRITERS. See: www.WritersReaders.com.

~Cheryl Kaye Tardif, author of Whale Song

http://www.cherylktardif.com/

8th Annual Express Yourself...Authors' Conference

Tonight I am 'penning a Pennsylvania post' from the Sheraton Park Ridge Hotel in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. And yes, two days ago I was in Edmonton, Alberta. So how did I get here? Well, by plane, of course. :)

I am attending the 8th Annual Express Yourself...Authors' Conference, sponsored by Infinity Publishing. I was very honored when the Special Projects Director John Harnish asked me if I would take part on a panel, and since one of my goals is to give back to writers--particularly to new authors--I was thrilled. Plus, I've never been to PA before.

I left Edmonton yesterday morning very early. The flight was uneventful, with a stop in Minneapolis. Haven't been there either, although I didn't see much from the airport windows. :) When I arrived in Philly, I couldn't get over the heat. 90 degrees F. It was about 40 in Edmonton when I left.

Today's conference event was a writing workshop that covered self-editing, overcoming writer's block and much more. The day ended with a terrific buffet and our guest speaker Dave Lieber, an author and award-winning columnist for the Fort Worth Star Telegram. Dave encouraged us to "break the rules", something which I seem to not have a problem doing. :)

Tomorrow will be a full day and I'm looking forward to it. Conferences always give me ideas for writing and marketing, and anyone who knows me knows that I am always looking for creative and fun ways to market my books.

On Saturday I will be presenting at the conference--on 2 different panels. The funny thing is that I knew about one of them but had no idea about the other. I found out today that when I told Infinity Publishing that they could "use" me in any way that would benefit them and the attendees that they did just that. :) Good thing I love to talk about writing and marketing. I am really looking forward to being able to share some of the things that I have learned along my journey. So for any of you who are writers, I will put together some of my notes next week and post them on my site.

Also, as the Canadian Author Liaison for Infinity Publishing, my goal is to connect writers (especially Canadian writers) with one option for getting published--self-publishing. This has become a viable and acceptable method of publishing, especially since most traditional publishers accept less than 2% of manuscripts. Although my personal goal is to have all of my novels traditionally published (and I would be quite happy with one or more of the big New York houses), I recognize that there are different goals for every author. So if you're a writer looking to get published and you want to consider self-publishing, I invite you to check out Infinity Publishing, a company that really does have its authors' interests at heart. http://www.infinitypublishing.com/

For my dear readers, please know that I am always striving to learn more about my craft. There are always new things to learn. I write for 'me' in the beginning, because I have a story that needs to be told. But then I write for you--for every fan who has supported my work in the past and for every new one who discovers me. My goal as a suspense author is to challenge myself with writing a story that is sophisticated yet entertaining, suspenseful yet emotional, and always my best work with enough twists and turns to keep you on your toes. I hope you'll let me know when I succeed.

By the way, if you are in the Valley Forge area tomorrow and Saturday, please stop by the Sheraton Park Ridge Hotel and have the hotel come find me at Infinity's conference. Providing I am not in the middle of my panel, I would be happy to autograph a copy of Whale Song, The River or Divine Intervention. I have limited copies available.

http://www.cherylktardif.com/