Author Your Dream

We have all heard the statistics about people making and breaking their new year’s resolutions. It’s nothing new, and if you are like me, you’re probably one of those numbers. These resolutions don’t work because, more often than not, they are too generalized. I want to lose weight. I want to be more outgoing. I want to finish my book. If you don’t have a plan on how you are going to lose weight, be more outgoing than your resolutions are as good as the wishes you made when blowing out your birthday candles.

In this episode, Kenny shares how to create an Author Growth Plan or AGP for short. An author growth plan is a road map to help you move forward in your author journey.

How do you answer the question, ”What do you want for Christmas?” In this episode, Kenny shares 12 gift ideas for writers.

Physical Gifts:

1. Noise Cancelling Headphones

2. Blue Light Glasses

3. Laptop Stand

4. Travel mug, coffee cup, or sticker with an encouraging saying or a phrase stating what you want to be ex. Future Best-Selling Author

5. A Gift Card to your local bookstore

Books:

6. Save the Cat Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody

7. The Ten Commandments of Author Branding by Shayla Raque

8. The Secrets of Character by Matt Bird

9. The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi

10. Author Your Dream by Kenny MacKay

Program/Subscriptions:

11. Grammarly

12. Milanote

In this episode, I’m going to walk you through planning your author website whether you want to make your own or hire someone to do it for you, there are some foundational items you need to have in place to help the process go quicker and smoother. You may have heard in past episodes that I create websites. I earned a diploma from an online college back in 2010. It was a skill I thought I would learn because it would give me the freedom to pick up extra work on the side as I lived and worked for the church here in the UK. Since then, I have created several websites for non-profits, daycares, auto shops, and authors. Since starting this podcast, I decided to narrow my focus to authors.

Highlights

Do You need a website?

Where to build it yourself

Domain Name

Asking yourself questions

Site Structure and Key Pages

Top Mistakes

Author Action Point

Visit https://authoryourdream.com/episode/planning-your-author-website/

Have you thought about your book launch strategies?  In this episode, I talk with author and podcast host Christopher Tallon about why this is important to do if you are writing a book.

We also talk about a few strategies that Chris has done. We talk about blogging and podcasting and how what we have learned over the last few years. These tips will help you as an author to start your own show, or help you pitch yourself to podcasts as a way of getting publicity for your book.

Christopher Tallon is a veteran, former middle school teacher, the author of the sci-fi/horror novel Switchers, host of Creative Ops (a podcast for creative people), and makes being bald look awesome.

Highlights

02:22 Chris’ Story

04:00 Defining strategizing

06:00 Strategy 1: Blogging

13:31 Strategy 2: Podcasting

16:59 Mistakes to avoid

25:21 How has all this helped with selling books

28:46 Picking topics for blogs and podcast episodes

40:54 Author Action Point

Author Action Point

Start as soon as you can. If you have an idea that you will be selling a book, start as soon as you can. Start reaching out to people and trying to get on podcasts. Get on social media but don’t just constantly be posting about your book. Think of the future, plan for the future and don’t wait for a week before the release

Connect with Christopher

www.christophertallon.com

Facebook

Instagram

Twitter

Resources Mentioned

Creative Ops Podcast

Threads Podcast Life Unfiltered

Amazon ads are a great tool for an author who is wanting to increase their sales. But where should you start? What should you have in place before doing an ad? What type of campaign are you able to do? These are just some of the questions that my guest Matt Holmes will answer during this episode.

Matt is the author of The 7 Day Authors Guide To Amazon Ads, written under the pen name, Matthew J Holmes. He started his journey by helping his wife, Lori Holmes, promote her book series, The Ancestors Saga, and now helps authors take their first steps into Amazon Advertising.

Highlights

01:48 Matt’s Journey

08:41 Why run Amazon ads

11:40 What to have in place before you start

16:39 Figuring out your targetting

19:29 Types of campaigns

23:37 What does it cost?

28:13 Biggest struggle authors have

31:30 How long does it take to manage ads

35:30 Resources

39:49 Mistakes to Avoid

Amazon Ads Action Point

If you are ready to get started with amazon ads, you just have to make that leap and get going. If you can only budget $5 a day then start with that. You can set up an automatic targeting campaign for one book in your series, or your one best-selling standalone book. You don’t have to advertise every single book, just choose the best-performing ones and promote those.

Key Take Aways

Sponsored Products: The ones you see on the search results page and the product pages of other books. These are your workhorse, and you will get the best results.

Sponsored Brands: Appears at the top of the search results and can advertise three books. Amazon creates a landing page for this ad. These ads have a high conversion because of their prominence.

Lock Screen Ads: Appear on the lock screens of Kindle devices. These ads are hit-and-miss, and a lot of authors don’t use them. Only available in the US.

Resources Mentioned

Publisher Rocket

The Seven Day Authors Guide to Amazon by Matthew J. Holmes

Connect with Matt

Twitter

www.matthewjholmes.com

With National Novel Writing Month a few weeks away I wanted to release this episode with Kelly Blanchard. Kelly has successfully completed NaNoWriMo several times and this episode has some great information for anyone wanting to take on the challenge.

In today’s episode, Monique Mensah shares about building a ready-to-buy audience. She talks about the mindset shift that authors need to make and how they need to go from author to publisher if they want to make money with their books.

Highlights

1:20 Monique’s Story

8:41 Authors write books; businesses sell them

12:02 Why you need to build a ready-to-buy audience

30:24 Brand awareness

36:10 Sharing the ups and the downs

38:56 The Role of Social Media

42:35 Author Action Point

Visit https://authoryourdream.com/episode/ready-to-buy-audience/ for more.

In this episode, Kenny talks with Becca Syme about Facebook ads for intuitive authors. Becca shares her own experience as an author running ads and provides a unique perspective on this subject. She will share about the different components of an advertisement, how long you should run an ad, and give you tips on where you can create images.

Highlights

02:12 Becca’s Author Journey

04:16 Intuitive Authors Defined

07:29 Are ads worth it

09:18 The Intuitive process

12:50 Shifting your mindset

24:10 Components of a Facebook Ad

27:19 The two types Becca uses

37:15 Talking about cost

40:52 How long to run the ad

43:53 What data should you look at

49:32 Author Action Point

52:55 Creating ad images

Visit https://authoryourdream.com/episode/facebook-ads/

Have you ever felt like marketing is difficult? Callan breaks it down in a way that makes it feel less daunting. He also shares his tips and advice for new authors just starting their marketing journey. You’ll find out what he thinks about book trailers and how you can market if you write in multip genres.

Highlights

02:29 Callan’s Journey

04:07 About Astreus

07:48 Is marketing really difficult

08:39 Where to start

19:51 More tips

23:27 Book trailers

29:16 How new writers can start marketing

39:28 Reciprocal marketing

41:18 What to avoid

46:39 Author Action Point

49:06 Marketing for multiple genres

Visit https://authoryourdream.com/episode/start-book-marketing/

Everyone has roadblocks that they have to overcome on the road to publishing. Some are internal and revolve around an author’s own limiting beliefs. While others are external, we have a choice to either give up or find a way to overcome these obstacles. That is what today’s guest Aisha Yusuf did when she encountered resistance. In doing so, she not only published her book but also created a publishing house and birthed a vision to change the literary world and bring diverse voices to the forefront.

Highlights

02:16 Aisha’s Autor Journey

15:58 Aisha’s Book

29:20 Roadblocks

35:44 Thoughts of giving up

38:27 Advice for others facing similar obstacles

42:23 Starting a publishing house

Visit https://authoryourdream.com/episode/roadblocks/