Just Books

Sell Books As An Author

Learning how to sell books as an author is one of the most difficult things you'll ever do. It is far more difficult that actually writing a book. However, if you follow these tips, you'll be on your way to success!

Authoring a book is a great way to share your knowledge and experience with others. It's also a good way to earn extra money while doing something you love, but actually selling a self-published book can be frustrating and disappointing. Selling books is not like selling other items like, say, coffee pots. Books are cheap items, often costing less than a cup of coffee, although it takes fifteen to twenty minutes to drink a coffee, yet about a week to read a book! Nevertheless, readers demand excellence, and satisfaction on a higher level than they do from the coffee vendor!

Not only that, but readers think that they are taking a big risk with their $5 if they spend it on an unknown writer, so this is where you as an unknown indie-author have to come from.

Create A Good Cover Page.

You need to make sure that your cover page has a professional appearance. This means that the font should be large enough so that people can read it easily. Also, the background colour should match the theme of your book. If you're writing a children's book, then use bright colours. If you're writing about politics, then choose a dark background. So, perhaps, if you are new to this, you could employ a skilled agency. The one that produced the cover above charged $38 for the design in four formats, which is a fantastic deal. (See below).

Write A Great Title.

Make sure that your title is catchy and interesting. It should also be short and concise for a novel, longer perhaps for non-fiction. Don't write something like "How to sell books as an author." Instead, try something like "The Ultimate Guide to Selling Your Book as an Author" or "Selling Your Book as an Author - Step by Step". Novels will require a similar, but slightly different, approach. Look at other titles in your genre on a best selling list.

Find The Right Platform To Sell Books As An Author.

There are so many different platforms out there that it's hard to choose just one. If you're looking to make money online, Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) might be right for you. KDP allows authors to upload ebooks directly to Amazon's website. Once uploaded, readers can purchase books through Amazon's site. Some authors prefer to go for the scattergun approach and publish on all platforms. There is at least one publisher that will spread your book around all the famous companies and hundreds of unknown ones. (See below).

Build Relationships With Other Authors.

You should also consider building relationships with other authors who write similar books. This will help you find common ground and build trust between you and your potential customers. It's also a good idea to join groups where people share ideas and experiences related to writing and publishing. Such groups are available on private websites, writers' organisations, writers' influence groups, and The British Library etc. Facebook, Reddit and Tik-Tok also host authors' discussion pages.

Promote Yourself And Your Work.

If you're looking to sell books as an author, you need to promote yourself and your work. Start by creating an author website that includes a biography, links to your books, your social media accounts, and contact information. Then, start sharing your story online through not only traditional social media like blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest, but also Tik-Tok, Inkitt and Wattpad.

How to rewrite PLR content in German

In order to rank higher on Google, you must optimize your content. In this article, you will learn how to rewrite PLR content to create unique engaging articles.

First things first, what is PLR? PLR stands for Private Label Rights. It is content that another person has written, which you have the right to reuse. You may have been gifted the right, as in the case of free PLR, or you may have bought it. It is not permissible to copy an article just because you like it. This is intellectual property theft at worst and plagiarism at best and search engines will penalise your website or blog for using it. They will also penalise you for just pasting PLR onto your site whether you have the right to or not.This is multiple use content and is deemed to add little to no value to the user's experience, because it is available elsewhere. So where do you go from here?

Choosing The Right Content

Obviously, one, if not the only, solution is to rewrite the PLR content in your own words. Rewriting PLR articles is an easy way to improve your rankings in search engines. It will also give you more flexibility when creating new content for your site. You would be forgiven for wondering what the point of acquiring PLR is, if you have to rewrite it yourself anyway.It is important to realise that free PLR on a popular subject has probably been rewritten, at least to some extent, hundreds, or perhaps, thousands of times. How many variations is it possible to derive from one 500-word article? OK, an almost infinite number is probably the correct answer, but a powerful analyst like Google would see through your content. So, my advice is never to use free PLR unless it is on an obscure topic. Always buy from a reputable source, because then you know that the writer has researched the topic, and not sold too many copies.I also recommend that you buy a bundle of targeted or niche articles on one topic. It offers more choice, more ideas and more opportunity.

Find Out Which Keywords You Should Be Targeting.

If you’re looking to write original content for your website, then you need to find out what keywords youshould be targeting. This means finding out what people are searching for online and writing content based on those searches.You can use tools such as SEMrush to help you with this process. It will show you what keywords people are using when they search for certain topics. Once you know what words people are typing into Google, you can start creating unique content that stands out from the crowd.Find your ideal content by using your chosen keywords or key phrases. So, enter something like "PLR on yellow teeth" into a search engine, if that is your chosen topic. Purchase your bundle, and select an article to rewrite.

Write Unique Articles That Stand Out From The Crowd.

Read, re-read, and re-read that article until you understand it thoroughly, then I would start by bracketing off the existing headline and writing your own. You can change the title at the end, if you like. Something might come to you. Putting the title, and all subtitles, in brackets will remind you that they are not yours. You will need to create headlines that grab attention. If you write headlines that grabattention, then you’ll naturally attract more readers. This means that you’re going to get more views, shares, likes, comments, and subscribers.

Rewriting Tips

Many re-writers (and translators) create a blank paragraph above the one they are working on. The trend these days, is to keep the paragraphs and sentences short. Other tips include not using the same words in the same place as in the original and definitely replacing word pairs or phrases.

An ACX Bot?Photo by Alex Knight on Pexels.com

Silly, slightly off-topic answers are a strong hint that you are writing to an ACX bot!

In case you haven't read the previous article on my recent experience with ACX, I'll give you a brief resume before talking about how to spot an ACX bot.

ACX accused me of fraudulent audiobook sales in June last year. They don't discuss it with you, or even give you an opportunity to ask questions, explain, or even apologise. You are guilty and you are scum.

End of story.

Fraudulent Claims of Fraudulent Sales?

Well, I hoped that it was, anyway. Then a few days ago, almost exactly a year later, I received an email from Audible saying that 12 of my audiobooks had shown traits of further fraudulent sales. They actually showed me the list, which really surprised me. However, I have never promoted eight of those twelve ever, because they were volumes 16-23 in a series and authors always promote the first three or five even. I want readers to start my series on volume one, not volume 18! It makes obvious sense, right?

However, the same person had narrated all twelve of the books.

So, having been told that my account was to be closed, I wrote to the 124 narrators of my 174 audiobooks using the ACX message board.

ACX Bot

The next day, I received a very shirty letter from a DEBRA from ACX. It was very long-winded, and slightly off-topic, but basically it told me in dodgy legalese about the consequences that I could face, if I continued to threaten 'my narrators'.

I asked ACX/Audible to show me the threats, but am still awaiting a reply after two months. That is typical ACX/Audible high-handedness. All I did was inform the narrators that the books that they had worked so hard on would disappear in a puff of wind when my account was eventually closed.

Many contacted me.

So did Debra.

However, not with a reply to my previous question, but with even more ludicrous threats. I called her out again , but the cycle repeated... four times in all!

Then the penny dropped. Debra could not read or react in a human manner because 'she' is an ACX bot.

On the fifth stupid email, I wrote only that discussing such matters with ACX bots no longer interested me. That was two months ago and I have not heard from Debra since.

I can imagine a group of spotty, spineless, youths in Silicone Valley having a great laugh at my expense for trying to discuss any serious topic with an ACX bot. However, emails containing stodgy, slightly off-topic, seemingly automated text littered with dodgy legalese that do not answer concerns that you have previously brought up are examples of how I think that you can work out how to spot an ACX bot.

My Problems with ACX

When the bottom drops out of your business...

I have been with ACX, the arm of Amazon that publishes audiobooks for Audible to sell, for about eight years. However, I have been active for only since 2018, about four years at the time of writing. During that time, I created 174 audiobooks with about 144 narrators.

My average monthly income until August 2020 was about $250. Then, in September of that year, I had a brainwave. I don't mind if you think that it was late coming, but ACX gives authors and narrators (or rights holders and publishers, as they call us) a number of free codes to give to those that we believe will leave an honest review.

We also used to get paid for giving away those free codes on books published before 26-3-20In September 2020, I had about 7,000 codes, and the narrators must have had about half as many again.

So, I was ticking along at about $250 p/m and discovered Facebook Groups. I began to target my books to specific groups, and my revenue quadrupled within a couple of months.

My Problems with ACX

In March 2021, two Bangladeshi students offered to help with my promotion. I hesitated, and dawdled for a month, but eventually took them on.

Within six weeks, my income had rocketed to $3,000 pm, and within another three months, Audible had de-listed my top 20 novels for 'fraud'.

Don't ask me why, because Audible is so high and mighty that they offered no explanations or right of appeal to my problems with ACX.

So, I continued under those conditions for nine months until June 2022, when I was accused of fraud again and my account was closed.

No appeal, no explanation...

However, an ACX bot let slip the fraudulent titles. There were twelve, but I know that I have never ever promoted eight of them.

The same person narrated all twelve. So, am I being blamed for someone else's misdemeanours?

Who knows? However, what is worse is that Audible doesn't care!

ACX

Be aware, that Audible has closed my writer's account, even though I had 174 audiobooks in that account, and 144 people had narrated those books.

Therefore, without any proper explanation, I, and 144 narrators have lost an income.

If your business relies on Audible/ACX as mine did, you need to take action now, because you could be next!

This happens more often than you think!

Email me to find my solution to my problems with ACX.

Book translations

Spreading the word...

I have spent most of this month doing what I should have been doing last year - adding references to book translations to my website.

I have admitted my error in not looking after this blog before, so I won't go into it again now.

However, translators have every right to expect an entry on our blog Megan Publishing Services, and that is what I am doing now.

Book translations

It has surprised me how many languages Owen Jones's books have been translated into. The current count is thirty-five (plus English), although not every book has been translated into each of those languages.

The book that holds the record is THE MISCONCEPTION, the first volume of the Psychic Megan Series. It's the lovely tale of Megan, a psychic teenager, who is looking for answers to questions about her nascent psychic powers. It is available in 35 languages at the time of writing. We are only missing Sinhala to get all of them).

Foreign Translations

The second one is A NIGHT IN ANNWN with 14 translations. It is also about a man's supernatural experience during an NDE (Near-death Experience).

There is a stunning number of applications to translate our books at the moment. We often receive up to ten a week from all over the world. It is not at all unusual to publish three of more books in a single day, and for a run like that to last a week. This is why Owen Jones has over 1,000 books registered to him. In fact, there are more than eight hundred in the British Library records, and we are adding more every month.

However, do you think that it is coincidental that the two fore-runner book translations are about Spiritual matters?

I don't think so.

How about you?

Best wishes,

Chalita.

PS: I am now buying new book covers at the rate of two-three per month, so look out for lots of changes :-)

PPS: I have changed the covers for both of the novels mentioned above. Check them out on this site!

Update March 2023: Publishing continues to expand. I now have 25% more than when Chalita write this article barely nine months ago. I am finding that audiobooks continue to outpace ebooks, and some months we sell three times as many paperbacks as ebooks. Ebooks are looking like third choice now for sure.

Owen Jones

Tiger Lily of Bangkok Series - When The Seeds of Wrath Blossom!

Daddy's Hobby - The Story of Lek, A Bar Girl

Sister blog: The Amiable Dragon

My New Book Covers

Showing off your books...

I feel that I have already written too much of late about my new book covers, but it is a very important strategy in my plans for the future

I have quite a few books, but most of them were written years ago and the covers are stale. So, they need replacing. There is no argument about that. However, at what pace?

Obviously, cost is a constraint. People say that the benefits that the new covers will bring in... increased revenue... will pay for future investment. However, it doesn't always work like that. Returns can be slower than hoped for.

Unexpected Results of Cover Changes

This can be because old customers don't recognise the new covers or series formats. The benefits of change can be slow to accrue. Slower than hoped for, or expected anyway.

One thing that keeps me hopeful though is that I receive compliments on my new book covers several times a week, and mostly from people I don't know.

That is encouraging, because even using the best cover design company in the world, it is a big step to rebrand... expensive too.

The company that I use allows an infinite number of remakes, but, which is perfect for the novice, even if a little embarrassing. It is far better to have thought about what information you want your new book cover to display beforehand. My tip is get a book off your shelf that is ‘similar’ to yours, ie if yours is in a series use one from a series as an example to copy.

My New Book Covers Checklist

So, my checklist for book cover design is: you will need the book title and your name for a start. Other options include: a subtitle, a series name, the number of the book in the series, and collaborators. Then on the back cover: a description or blurb, an author bio (and photo?), the title(s) (again?), and the cover designer. All the while remembering that you will need to leave enough room for the barcode.

Check out where I buy my new book covers on this link:

My New Book Covers

Book Cover Obsession

A dog with a bone...

I'm sorry if I'm boring you, my regular readers, but I currently have a Book Cover Obsession.

As you probably know, I wasn't like this even a couple of months ago, but that is a sign of how rapidly these things can get a hold of you. Or, me at any rate.

In my defence, book covers are extremely important to a writer, but I just hadn't realised how much before.

My Book Covers

As people, we are admonished not to judge a book by its cover, but the plain fact is that we all do that several times a day. So, I am getting to grips with this now, and am commissioning 2-3 covers a month. Today, I was trying to decide which the next two should be, and I noticed that my two worst selling books have black covers! Well, have black as the predominant colour (or shade, for the pedants).

Obsession

I hadn't realised that before, but why hadn't I? Probably, because I made them, and think that they fit the story perfectly. However, when you analyse it, I know the story, but a potential reader does not! It could be off-putting, I suppose. It was amateurish, but now I a using professional book cover designers.

Someone said that black on the cover is acceptable, if there is a death in the story. Well, there is, but the book browser doesn’t know that. I think that people can get too bogged down in symbolism. Another person Tweeted that two bullet holes on the cover of a murder mystery might signify that it is the second volume... Really? My guess would have been that the shooter was a poor shot.

Interpretation

Not only that, but not everyone takes the same thing home from reading the same book. I have talked to many readers over the last ten years who loved a book of mine, but had a totally different take on what it was about... and their interpretation was just as valid as mine.

There is one fantastic reviewer who actually taught me what two of y books were really about! How about that?

It's why I love reviews. I often learn things about my books that I didn't know, and I mean that quite literally. However, when will this book cover obsession pass? I don't know... when all my novels have better cloths, I suppose.

Tiger Lily of Bangkok Series - When The Seeds of Wrath Blossom!

Daddy's Hobby - The Story of Lek, A Bar Girl

Sister blog: The Amiable Dragon

How is your book cover judgement?

I have always thought that my book cover sense was pretty good. Why would I think that? Well, I have been reading all sorts of books for all sorts of reasons for about sixty-five years, and I have published more than eight hundred books over the last twelve years.

It amounts to a lot of experience, I think you'll agree.

However, book sales have been dropping off this year, and most pro's will advise an author to look to his or her book covers in such a situation, since people do judge a book by its cover despite the sages' clear advice.

I checked my top sellers and found nothing wanting. Still, it is difficult to be objective about one's own work, so I took them to websites where people will evaluate them.

Book Cover Evaluation Sites

There is a Facebook Group called: ‘Does My Book Cover Suck’.

Nobody liked any of my top three covers! It was like a punch in the face :-( My pride and joy was being rubbished, and what was almost as bad, I could see what my critics were talking about, once the problems had been pointed out to me.

Now, I have eight hundred book covers, as I said above, so I realised that I had a very big, and potentially, very expensive problem.

Book Cover Sense

After a few beers of commiseration with my book cover sense, or during them, actually, I set to work on a fix. Eight hundred times any figure is a lot of money, so I first went to Fiverr and the like. However, you won't find anything book-related there for $5 any more. Book covers were averaging $35-$60, so I gave that up.

QR link to book cover designers

To cut a long story short, I found a firm that surpassed my expectations and came in at a very reasonable price. Furthermore, people, even total strangers, have started complimenting my covers again.

The book cover above is one that came from there.

Here is my link to their site (the QR code leads there too).

Go check your book cover sense, and take a look at some of their off-the-peg designs! Prices start at $10! Or have one totally unique, tailor-made for your book

https://bit.ly/ukr-book-covers

Blog stats

The ins and outs...

My blog stats for last month were quite unusual, but then so, perhaps, was my own personal activity on it I will explain.

For the first time ever, that is in more than twenty years, my blog received more visitors from the UK than from the USA! For the first three weeks, up to three times more. By the fourth week, that had evened out to about 50k from each country and by the month's end, America was just in front.

Years ago, China was always in the top five, but nowadays, it rarely ranks in the top ten. Third and fourth are Germany and The Czech Republic, which is normal, although the Czech Republic is so small compared with the other top three that it is surprising really.

Fifth and sixth are the rivals Ukraine and Russia, but again, the difference in populations is enormous. Far behind come France, Canada, Spain and Australia.

My blog is hosted in the USA, and where it is hosted has a big effect on the number of visitors and where they come from. Britain is about a fifth the size of the USA, so how could it get more visitors in three weeks? In fact, the total number of visitors was up by 10%. My content is universal, not aimed at any country.

Odd Blog Stats

Another strange fact is that AwStats reports my blog having received 135k pageviews, but Google says that there were only about 500.

Can anyone answer that one for me, please?

So, what have I been doing that could have influenced the blog statistics so much?

Well, I spent most of the month updating book pages with new covers and more relevant meta descriptions. That's all. I suppose I changed about thirty pages, but I can't for the life of me see why changing 30/1700 pages would have that affect on my blog stats. Can you?

Photo by Tirachard Kumtanom on Pexels.com

What we mean by that.

I have noticed recently that this blog, Megan Publishing Services (MPS) is beginning to receive lots of visits from people searching for foreign translations. So, I would like to clarify what kind of foreign translations they an expect to find when they click through to us.

Foreign Translations

There are three main variations of what I think this phrase can mean. So, let’s take a look at them.

Languages Translation Service

Basically, MPS does not provide a foreign languages translation service as such. However, there are many companies that allow you to type in a few words, some up to several thousand, and receive an automated translation in the language of any country instantly. Most of these are pretty good if you keep what you want translated short and simple. They work best if you want a fairly accurate translation within a language group. By this I mean, German, Dutch and English is a group with a similar culture; so is Italian, French and Spanish. They work far less reliably if you are translating from say English into Yoruba, Thai or even Russian. In fact, you should never reply on these apps for more than a rough idea about the target language, because they make ludicrous mistakes very often. They translate words, not ideas.

Translate to Different Languages

This is pretty much the same as above, but I take it to mean not online, and not instantaneous. For example, you could submit a document to a human translator, who will give it the personal attention it deserves for a fee. We don’t provide this service either, although we, who are associated with this blog, speak eight different languages between us. Again, there are several companies that specialise in linking a professional to a private ‘gig’ for a small fee.

Foreign Language Services

Having said all that, there are two foreign language services that we can provide.

Authors

1] You will notice that Owen Jones has had many of his books translated in foreign languages. As I am writing this, the total is forty different foreign tongues. We use two companies to perform these tasks. Both will try to facilitate the finding of a translator in the language of your choice. However, it is not guaranteed, and things can and do go wrong. If you want your book translated, we can supervise the task. Or just help you find a translator, who will work for a set fee, or a percentage of the sales proceeds (60-75%). It can take from days to months to find someone suitable, although we can arrange that for you.2] If you produce an online publication, or want to, you can choose from about 125 niche ebooks of about fifteen 500-word articles to use in it. This is useful if you want quick targeted content, say to start a blog, or to use while sick or on holiday. Some of these ebooks have been translated into several important international languages.

Readers

There are more than 800 publications in forty languages on this site. If you liked one of our books in say, English, and you want your Spanish friend to read it, this is very often possible. Just look up the title in the relevant section on the title bar.I hope that this article has clarified what we at MPS mean by ‘Foreign Translations’, and, as always, if you think that we can help, just drop me an email or use the contact form above.

Chalita