Jordan Dane
@JordanDane

Sorry for the late post today. My bad. Today I have guest posters – Wizards in Publishing – a service I’ve used to self-publish my books with people I enjoy working with. The have services for critiquing, plot refinement, publisher submission refinement, proofreading, cover art services, formatting and uploading to booksellers. Kate Richards and Valerie Mann are the Wizards behind the services. Welcome, Wizards!

What’s Going on With the Publishing World?

Authors today can tell you the publishing world changes rules and course on a regular basis—what works today may not (okay, most likely) won’t be as effective tomorrow. Digital publishing has increased the rate at which these changes occur. Every time an author thinks he/she has a handle on marketing, promotion, genre trends, etc, the market changes and so does the way the game is played. Who’s writing these rules anyway?
Readers!

But the good news? Digital or e-book publishing has created opportunities for authors to have their precious stories seen by millions of readers—authors who arguably are just as good as the big-name writers making tons of money and selling tons of books with the traditional publishers—but may never have had that opportunity when publishing was strictly paper. You remember paper, right?—or what some digital houses call “dead-tree books”, but seriously, that has such a negative ring to it. There is no “bad” way to publish a book. Period.

Even better than just creating new opportunities for more books to been seen is the wide variety of ways for authors to market and promote their works. They can go strictly paper, or digital, or both. The marketing opportunities are endless. The only drawback we see at Wizards in Publishing is with the endless opportunities comes endless research by diligent authors because the market does change all the time. What works to sell your book today may be a seemingly fruitless effort tomorrow. Staying on top of what works and what doesn’t is a full-time job. Knowing the best bang for your buck can be daunting.

Bottom line—unless you’re a super-famous author making your publishing house a lot of money, the marketing and promotion falls on you, including setting a financial budget for your marketing plan.

Our tips:
1. Write what you know. If you don’t know the genre but your characters won’t stop talking to you, it’s your job to learn everything you can about the time period, fashion, language, politics, etc. of the people and place you’re writing about. Readers are way too savvy these days and they aren’t afraid to call authors out when details aren’t precise.

2. Do your research. What is trending and selling right now? The best-written book in the whole wide world is going to be a much harder sell which translates into a whole lot more work for the author to make readers want to buy it. That’s not to say you shouldn’t write that amazing story. Just be prepared to work really hard to sell it.

3. Decide how you want to publish. Do you want to submit to a publisher? Or do you want to self-publish? Right now, indie publishing (self-publishing) is huge, putting even more books into the hands of readers. Some authors like the idea of a publisher handling the editing, cover art and formatting, in return for splitting royalties.

Some authors (including the Wizard in Publishing owners) straddle both fences, having published books independently and with publishing houses. It’s okay to do both! The market is wide open to doing either or both!

Be warned: no matter which way you decide to go, the majority of marketing and promotion is still going to fall on you, the author. Publishers (even the big ones) are taking a more passive, backseat role in this regard. Authors may or may not agree with this, but it’s just one more thing to know—YOU, dear Author, will have to commit to promotion, no matter what.

4. Decide when you want to publish. Is there a better time of year than another for releasing the book? In other words, a story set in December in Montana probably won’t be as desirable a beach-read as you might think.

5. Keep up with the marketing trends. Have an active blog/website, use social media. Find what social media works for your genre. Social media is your best friend and it’s almost always free. Promote yourself as well as your books. Find a personal branding that readers see often and relate to you. It can be a picture of your dog that you include in your blog/Facebook/Twitter posts, etc.

There are lots of small businesses that specialize in helping authors promote and many of them are fairly inexpensive. Talk to other authors in your genre and see what is working for them. But remember: you have to do your homework and legwork, even if you hire a company to find those opportunities for you.

6. Editing. Get your book edited. Don’t think it doesn’t need it because honestly, it does. The best authors in the world (with amazing writing skills) will tell you their editors are their best friends. This goes back to the savvy-reader thing—readers are educated and they know when a book has been edited or not. Online reviews are rampant with negative comments about this. Paying an editor is money well-spent, and we’d say this even if we weren’t editors!

7. Write. Remember that author who never finished his book? We don’t either.

TKZers – Any questions for self-publishing, formatting, trends? Feel free to ask the Wizards.

Wizardsinpublishing.com – Email addy is thewiz@wizardsinpublishing.com