Checklists, cheatsheets, worksheets, and a free ebook with my reviews of publishing services you can trust.
You’ve been asked to provide your author photo in a particular file size and dimensions. Or you want to shrink an image, or a set of images, to use for the web. There’s no need to hire it out or use photo editing apps. These online tools will do it for you, for free in […]
The business of writing and authorship can be so tedious. So how do you cope? Today I had to look up my EIN (for an affiliate program), and it took so long I created a TAX INFO folder in my documents folder so I could find it again if needed (and I know I will). And […]
PublishDrive is an ebook distribution company that competes with other services like Smashwords, Draft2Digital, StreetLib, and IngramSpark. They’re differentiating themselves with deep reach into the Chinese English-speaking market via their partnership with Dangdang (the Amazon of China), ebook marketing options, and an Amazon Advertising tool you can access within your PublishDrive account. Carla King and Kinga […]
How do you launch your book to five-star reviews? The answer is easy but the implementation can be a bit time-consuming. So don’t jump the gun by publishing too early. Get these six foundational items checked off, first. You’ll be glad you did!Know where your book belongs on the virtual shelvesBuild a marketing street team […]
It can be tough to choose how to distribute your print books and, to make it even more complicated, you can use combinations of services to maximize your marketing and profits. Lots of authors sell their print book directly to readers who shop in the Amazon store using Amazon KDP Print. They distribute everywhere else […]
Have you got a great snapshot that would make a great author photo, “if only…?” Here’s how to get rid of distracting backgrounds, whether it’s a tree branch growing out of your head, telephone cables crisscrossing the sky, or the shoulder of you know who. If you hire a professional photographer you can ask them […]
Among the items that make your book scream self-published is a free or vanity imprint, logo, and free ISBN. It’s not that difficult or even expensive to invest in your own ISBNs and create your own publisher imprint logo. Here’s what you need: Purchase your own ISBNs (see my post here) Register a publisher imprint […]
Don’t know how to use professional image creation tools to make infographics, reports, and graphics for your books, website, and social media? Not a professional designer? No problem! I tried Infogram, Piktochart, Visme, Venngage, PicMonkey, and Ease.ly to create infographics, social media images, and reports, to see what kinds of tools were out there for non-pros. These are […]
You want your eBook size to be as small as possible because Amazon charges you a 15 cents per megabyte download fee. You want your web images to be as small as possible so your website loads faster. In this post, you’ll learn how to optimally resize image files to strike a balance between file […]
Writing a book is hard! Editing a book is hard! And formatting a book is an angst-inducing challenge for many authors on the self-publishing path. There are so many new tools for authors that, until recently, I forgot about this very old and very easy way to write, edit, and format your book. It’s called […]