Tag Archives: amazon

She was a pushy dame with an appetite for the limelight…

SpillaneAs a freelancer, I wear two hats: one as a writer, the other as a publication layout artist. The season for my publication layout work runs from August through February, which leaves about five months of unscheduled time to pursue my own projects. Some years I get assigned to write a book, others I go scrounging for piece-work. Last year, I had neither to fill the gap, so I set several of my own ideas in motion: a series of Kindle cookbooks, a line of spice blends, an apron design, a collection of short stories, and a self-published children’s book that had been shelved and forgotten for nearly twenty years.

In the spring and summer of 2012, I managed to lay the foundations, to begin production on all of these projects, and to design a website for each one. But that’s as far as I was able to progress before it was time for the publication layout season to begin again. And now that I’m finished with this year’s edition, I’m once again presented with another five months of unscheduled time to pick up where I left off last August.

The first thing I realized is that I now have to find the most effective way to market what I’ve created. And I know I’m not alone when I say that marketing has never been my forte. I’m sure there are lots of ‘creatives’ out there who would much rather spend their time writing a novel, creating a work of art, composing a song, or in my case…developing a new recipe and photographing the finished dish!

But market I must.

On my very first day of freelancing freedom, while pondering the possibilities for introducing my creations to the world, as if manna from heaven, I happened upon a quote from steamy, noir detective novelist Mickey Spillane, who said: “Wherever I go everybody knows me, but here’s why … I’m a merchandiser, I’m not just a writer. I stay in every avenue you can think of.”

His career spanned more than sixty years, from his early stories in DC Comics and the publication of his first novel, I, the Jury, in 1947, to his death in 2006. He appeared in every medium, from comic books, magazines, and pulp fiction, to movies and television. Several of his novels have been published posthumously, and he now has a presence on the Internet that yields more than 700,000 search results.

Mickey Spillane’s words lit a fuse that sparked fireworks in my imagination, and over the course of a single week, I have explored the promotion of my products via Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, Vimeo, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Amazon, eBay, Goodreads, Twitter, Google, and Groupon, not to mention the thousands of bloggers who write about the very things that I’ve created. Suddenly there aren’t enough hours in a day, a week, or even five months to pursue them all…but I’m gonna give it my best shot.

 

CelesteHeiterFZBioCeleste Heiter is the author of Turn Your PC into a Lean Mean Freelancing Machine, the creator of the LoveBites Cookbook Series for Kindle Fire, and the author of Potty Pals , a potty-training book for children. She has also written ten books published by ThingsAsian Press; and spent eight years posting her recipes, food photographs, and film reviews on ChopstickCinema .

Visit her website, and her Amazon Author Page.

 

The Book Wars

book-tour-advice

Strange things are going on in the e-book industry. Amazon had been selling Kindle versions of best-selling titles for what I call freelance e-book prices–9.99 per download–which could be seen as a great equalizer for the whole industry, or a potential game changer in the wrong direction for anybody interested in marketing their own e-books.

After all, if you can get a Stephen King downloadable book for a tenner, why should Joe Blow Unknown be able to charge the same amount for HIS book about writing and get away with it? Or so the logic goes. I don’t subscribe to that concept myself, I think it’s more about effective marketing and having a good product.

But that’s not the point.

Amazon got into a little shouting match with publishers MacMillan and now Rupert Murdoch’s HarperCollins, who both demand Amazon stop selling their Kindle titles for 9.99. Continue reading The Book Wars

Jennifer Layton: Publishing Your Book, Part II

Here is the second half of Jennifer Layton’s guest post about publishing her book……….enjoy! If you haven’t read part one yet, just scroll down to the next post to see where we left off…….

CREATESPACE

I don’t remember exactly when CreateSpace came into the picture.  I had been looking at some really good companies such as iUniverse.  But I didn’t have much money to put up front, and I didn’t want to handle the inventory.  My apartment is small enough without boxes of books everywhere that I have to sell myself. 

 

Then I was buying a birthday present for someone on Amazon, and I found a link that said, “Self-Publish With Us.”  I clicked on it and was amazed to discover that Amazon has two companies to help indie musicians, filmmakers, and writers like me:  CreateSpace and BookSurge.  After some research, I chose CreateSpace.

Continue reading Jennifer Layton: Publishing Your Book, Part II

Jennifer Layton: Publishing Your Book, Part I

Well readers….as promised….part one of Jennifer Layton’s guest blog on publishing her book….enjoy! Tune in tomorrow for part two and more juicy details….

How to Deliver Your Own Baby

(In other words, how to self-publish your own book)

by Jennifer Layton

  

Before we get started, let me share a blog entry.  This is what I posted on the evening of October 17, 2008:

 

I did not expect to have a baby tonight. But at 5:30pm, I stopped by the post office after work, and Trap Door Confessional was in my arms. She is perfect. And this is where the baby analogy ends because I’m about to talk about putting it up for sale on the internet, and that’s kinda creepy.

 

Trap Door Confessional is my collection of humor essays about being single, turning 40, and just exactly how weird I am.  It really is my baby.  Since I’ve decided I don’t want to have actual children, this is my offering to the world – the spirit that I’m going to leave behind as my legacy. 

 

And just like having an actual baby, it was a decision I made with my heart instead of my head. I figured it would be expensive.  I didn’t really know how to go about it, and there are no books or classes that can prepare you for every single thing that can go wrong.  But I knew it was right.  And even though it wasn’t going to be Pulitzer material, I was meant to share my story with the world.  (Even if the world was a little put off by my insistence on referring to Pope Benedict as “Pope Benny and the Jets.”  I blame my Catholic upbringing for the strangest stuff in my book.)

 

Now that my book is published and for sale at Amazon (Order now! Makes a great stocking stuffer!), it’s time to sit back, sort through the aftermath, and figure out just how I managed to do this in the first place.  Continue reading Jennifer Layton: Publishing Your Book, Part I