The very first thing you need to do as an author is create a website. 
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Social media is thrown around a lot as a powerful marketing tool. And it absolutely is. It is not however, all there is to marketing your work. Tim Grahl defines Marketing as building long term relationships with people and then being relentlessly helpful.". That’s all it is. If you walk up to someone and shout, “Buy my book!” chances are, they’re going to walk (if not run) away from you. So why do so many authors do this on Twitter and Facebook? Because they don't know how to market their work on social media. If you're not sure where to begin or are guilty of shouting at people, there's no reason to be ashamed. You're here and that shows initiative.
When you told someone you were going to publish a book or even just writing it, they likely asked if you were on social media and you rushed out to create your profile. But what kind of content should you share? I can’t answer that specifically. It will be different for each author based on their fans wants and needs. For example, if you write a book about healthy living, then recipes and exercise routines would compliment your book nicely.
Fiction writers tend to struggle with this because they feel like they don’t have a way to be helpful. But you do. Most fiction readers consume multiple books a month. When was the last time you published multiple books a month for more than one month at a time (there is a marketing tactic where you publish a whole trilogy at once but unless you can do that 12 months a year, it doesn't count)? Never? Me either. So I share my new releases and when I have sales in my books as well as other authors in my genere. While you’re at it be sure to tag the author. Most will return the favor.
The whole point of having your author profile on social media is to connect with fans right? So don’t be afraid to reply to comments and interact with people. Most fans want that. And if you come across a troll, block and move on.
When you sit down to find content to share think about what you like. Chances are you enjoy the genre you write whether its non-fiction or fiction, so use yourself as a guide and see what people respond to. You can also look at what you're favorite authors are sharing. As far as creating content, I'll talk about that in a future post.  
Now that we’ve covered how to be helpful and talk to fans let’s talk about consistency and links real quick. There really isn’t much point in being active and helpful on social media if you don’t have it connected to your website, to where people can buy your books, and sign up for your email list. Social media is useless if you don’t connect it to the rest of your platform. Also Make sure you use the same name as the rest of your platform (Sounds obvious I know). And there is no bigger waste of time than social media. So connect it all. Make it easy to find you, reply to all the comments, and for goodness sake put links in the description of your book covers and if you have an image of all your books in a banner, link it to where people can read more and buy! One of the main objectives of marketing is overcoming objections. If people can find a reason not to spend money on your book, they won’t. Even something as simple as there’s not link.

**Something got a bit Lost in this post. Social media is a way to connect with people and build your email list. You can increase your sales but the effort for the amount of return isn't worth it. What social media can be used for though, is getting people onto your email list. Email list subscribers are much more likely to buy your book then social media followers.**

Giveaways, raffles, and contests are a great way to gain exposure and find new readers. BUT, as with everything in the publishing world you'll want to make sure to it the right way. It's tempting to add five bucks to a pot towards an Amazon gift card with fifty other authors and collect those email addresses but at the end of the day, this is a really bad idea. I know how tempting it can be when you're new and desperate to build your list but it's not worth the cost. Trust me, I know. 
I'm in an author group on Facebook and despite a bad feeling in my gut, I signed up for just such an event. Several other authors (who were experiencing a lot more success at the time than I was) had done it and they loved it. So it couldn't be that bad right? Wrong. After the contest I had about 1k new subscribers and since the authors participating were in all genres I figured I'd send out an email introducing myself and my work and reminding them how I got their email and if they weren't interested to simply unsubscribe. At this point I have made no less than three mistakes. I signed up for a promo that I had a really bad feeling about, I told the people to unsubscribe instead of offering a subscribe link, and the giveaway was not reader or genre specific. The result? I grew my email list by about 600 people who don't interact with me at all or buy my books and I got my account suspended because of the high unsubscribe rate. Ouch. This post hurts to write. And that was about a year ago. So, here are my tips for a successful giveaway and lessons learned from my biggest mistake as an author. 

1. Make sure the prize is reader specific: The prize for the give away I was just talking about was for an almost $300 Amazon gift card. Yeah authors were sharing the sign up and it said you're email would end up on all participating author's lists but that didn't stop people from reporting me as spam. And when I went to the authors who held the giveaway, they told me I emailed them too soon. No. If the people involved want to be on an author's email list because they're readers, you'll have a better experience. (Some people are jerks no matter what, but this will limit the number of jerks you have to deal with) A good prize is an eReader (Kindle Paperwhite etc.) some hardcover books in your genre or something else book related so you attract the right crowd. We might as well have been giving away cash, which attracts everyone, not just readers. 
2. If you do it with a group, limit the number and make sure the authors are in your genre: Again this is to make sure you attract the right readers. As tons of people unsubscribed my list, most said 'Not my kind of book'. Which is fine, but if you make sure the people signing up like your genre, you'll have fewer issues later in the process. A good way to go about this is to offer everyone who enters your reader magnet. This also helps people feel like they got something out of the deal even if they don't win the main prize. You introduce a new reader to your work, possibly finding one of those coveted true fans and you add to your email list for your next release. They get a free book and a chance to win an awesome prize. It's a win win. And who doesn't like those? Lastly, limit your co-hosting to one or two authors in your genre. I'd max out at four so readers aren't over whelmed with new emails but in the end its your decision. 
3. Create a separate list for the new comers: Instead of adding them right into your list of proven fans, keep them in quarantine for a bit. Send them an email reminding them how they got on your list  along with a note about what kinds of emails you send and how often they'll be hearing from you and a link to subscribe again. Make it clear that if they don't subscribe again, they will not be added to your list. This will prevent unsubscribes that get your account suspended and make people feel good about the way you do business. You can select people who never opened the initial email and send another so you don't miss anyone but after two or three emails just let 'em go. The ones who open and subscribe again are the ones you're looking for anyway.

The bottom line, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. I hope you can learn from my mistake and continue to grow your business in a fun and healthy way for you and your readers!

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​Marissa Frosch is the head of marketing at Amphibian Press and all writes under the pseudonym Cameron J Quinn. She is the author of The Starsboro Chronicles. She can be found on Facebook, Twitter, blog and her website. ​​

Possibly the coolest thing about being an author is that you have no real competition. Sure your book needs to stand out among other titles but other authors in your genre are not the enemy. They’re your best friends and business contacts.
Unlike other businesses, many of our customers read multiple books per month, some read multiple books a week. There is no way we can write enough books to keep up with that. So what do you do? You help readers find more books by networking with other authors. The best part? Every time you share their books, they can share yours as well. And since we’re all working to grow our email lists we can swap newsletters with different authors yearly.
It’s good to read at least a sample of the book before sharing it with your readers. Even though an author may be a nice person or have the best intentions, you need to look out for your readers or they’ll unsubscribe from your list. You also need to pay attention to why they’re on your list. If you write in multiple genres you should keep seperate lists and only send out recommendations for books that are similar to yours in themes and genre.   
If you’re anything like me, you’re starting to panic just thinking about trying to interact with people. The best advice I have ever received about how to network and connect with people in general was from Tim Grahl’s book Your First 1000 Copies. Fairly early on in the book, he says “Be relentlessly helpful”. How do you go about it? By embracing the fact that there is no way I can keep up with the average readers book consumption, I started asking other authors for links to their books. Not just any authors but authors with books similar to mine. Ones my readers are likely to enjoy. I get to give them a boost, my readers get new books, and hopefully the other authors remember me and return the favor. Obviously, not all of them will but honestly, it’s more about my readers than anything else. ​

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​Marissa Frosch is the head of marketing at Amphibian Press and all writes under the pseudonym Cameron J Quinn. She is the author of The Starsboro Chronicles. She can be found on Facebook, Twitter, blog and her website. ​​

Ethics is one of those topics you need to be thinking about as you market your books. The American Marketing Association  has a statement of ethics that is definitely worth a read as you move forward. A lot of Marketing ethics are common sense. Like don't lie about what your product can do. But some of them you might not have thought about before. Like ensuring you're presenting your product, your book, in a fair and truthful way. You might think saying your paranormal romance is thrilling is an exciting way to find readers but when they read it and find it less than thrilling you'll end up with bad reviews from readers who feel cheated. Not spamming your customers with constant emails about your books and respecting their privacy by not selling their information are other things that some authors seem to think are OK that really aren't. If you get a lot of spam complaints your email list site will likely disable your account.  
These things are so important as you move your business forward. If you mistreat your email list and customers, not only could you ruin future sales, but you could find yourself in serious trouble. Anti-spamming laws are no joke. 

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​Marissa Frosch is the head of marketing at Amphibian Press and all writes under the pseudonym Cameron J Quinn. She is the author of The Starsboro Chronicles. She can be found on Facebook, Twitter, blog and her website. ​​

You've written your book, you've carefully chosen your categories and keywords, a few friends and family bought the book but for some reason, you just aren't seeing the sales you expected. I mean, your book is amazing! Why aren't readers finding it? 
There are a lot of pieces to this puzzle but here are a few places to start. As with all things, you need to be advertising and actively marketing your book. You should be planning and executing a marketing campaign once every ninety days or so. This can be Facebook ads and paid promotions like a Bookbub promo, but if you haven't set up your book properly, those things won't maintain their momentum. So, here are four things to make sure you've got right, BEFORE spending a butt load of money on paid advertising. 

1. Keywords and Categories: This is possibly the easiest and also most frustrating place to make changes. It's easy because all you have to do is type in new keywords on your book details page. It's frustrating because you have to go through a bit of an information hunt to find the keywords and categories that will actually help you sell books. I did this and went from one or two downloads a week, to two to five downloads daily. 
   1. First, make sure your book is in the right genre. Your paranormal romance should not be in the self help section. Sometimes this happens by accident and you need to contact Amazon to correct it and sometimes we think our space opera would really speak to Judy Blume fans. (hint it probably won't).
   2. Next, type your keywords into the kindle store search bar and see how many books you're up against. You want to find a category with enough books that people will be searching for it (look at the number of reviews of books in the category for clues) but not so many that your book will never be found. 
   3. And finally, use all your keywords. You get seven on Amazon automatically but I've heard you can get more if you send them an email asking for more. I've been focusing on story and I'd like to fix a few errors before I really focus on exposure. (the great thing about being an indie, you can fix your mistakes! Don't be afraid just do it!) 
2. Your Cover: I know you’ve heard about why you need a professional cover so I won’t go into that too much. But if your book isn’t selling well and you have carefully chosen your categories and keywords (Post on this coming soon) you need to have a look at your cover. One of the options for indie distribution is Pronoun. The more I delve into Pronoun, the more I like it. Not only does it give you stats for choosing your categories and keywords, it also shows you other covers in the categories you choose so you can see how your cover compares. PARAGRAPH: If you are using Smashwords, Draft2Digital or uploading directly to the retailers, you need to go to the categories your book will be listed in and have a look at the covers. Standing out will not get you the attention you want. I tried it and had to pay for all new covers. It wasn’t all bad but I did really like the originals, they were just attracting the wrong readers.  
3. Your Blurb: If your cover is up to par for your genre and categories, the next thing you need to look at is your back cover copy or your blurb. This is arguably one of the hardest things to do as an author. Taking the 50k plus words you just slaved away over and turning it into a few measly paragraphs that are somehow supposed to convey the awesomeness inside. I still struggle with it. I HIGHLY recommend sending it to a few trusted writing buddies. I have two ladies who help me with all my copy. Sometimes you need outside eyes to help you send the right message. Preferably someone who has read your book or pieces or at the very least knows the story. Facebook Groups can be a place to find people if you haven’t already. Ask for other authors in your genre and see if any of them are interested in private messaging if you don’t want to post for everyone. A lot of Facebook groups are filled with romance authors because it’s a popular genre so if you write something other than romance, the private message idea is your best bet for getting the feedback you need. 
4. Your Editing or Lack Thereof: Many, many, many, readers download samples before they buy, if your sample is full of grammatical errors and typos, they aren’t going to purchase the book. And if they do purchase the book and find that the whole thing is riddled with these distractions, they will return it. I have very few dollars for books so I am an example of these readers. I’ve returned books and I always download the sample first. In our current economy, not many people have a ton of money for entertainment so make sure if they choose to spend it on your book, it’s worth it. Or you could end up with a scathing review that drives away future readers. 
5. Price in Relation to Reviews and Audience: This sounds complicated but it's not. I promise. Basically, free books will always move more copies than paid books. It's just the way it is. The read-through on free books, however, is lower than paid books. So, when you're looking for quality readers (Ones who leave reviews and buy the rest of the books) and you don’t have a team to write your first reviews, setting your book as free until you get around 20 reviews. Next, set it to whatever price you desire. (First in series being free or inexpensive is a great way to consistently find new readers.) Readers are looking for a deal, yes, but they also know that quality books cost money. The more reviews you have, the more social proof you have about your quality. See?  To view the study by Written Words Media click here.

There you have it. Four things that are important to a book being able to hold its own in today's market. The competition is fierce and you need to make sure your book is up for the challenge. ​

So, last week I set out to write this post but ended up writing more about platform and forgot to change the title. So sorry. I retitled that one and am now here to actually talk about branding. (I blame lack of sleep and a four month old baby).

OK, so what is branding? According to businessdictionary.com it can be defined as follows:

• The process involved in creating a unique name and image for a product in the consumers' mind, mainly through advertising campaigns with a consistent theme. Branding aims to establish a significant and differentiated presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal customers.
  
  Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/branding.htm​

But what does that mean for you as an author? Basically, you need to think about your books, written or in the process and find what about them stands out among the genre. As you start thinking about your brand, one of the first things you want to do is think about your genre. For example if you write sweet romance, you might want to keep things light and happy looking, while if you write horror, darker scarier tones might be better. The image above is my branding. I'm the author of Urban Fantasy with a Twist. V's branding, pictured below, is Diverse, Lyrical Science Fiction and Fantasy.

​If you go to my website, you will see the black background and general feel of my banner (Above) continued. 
At V's website, you'll see her banner themes continued. Tans and browns for her fantasy and blues and purples for her sci-fi. 
When I created this site, I chose white and black because it's standard non-fiction. The branding came in with the frog on the welcome screen and the photos I chose to essentially, set the mood of the site.
I'm getting ready to start a new pen name. Generally, this is a bad idea. The fewer names you publish under the better right? Well, these new books do not fit in my current brand. They're contemporary romance, aimed at an older audience and are not in anyway paranormal. My brand and there for what my readers expect is something a bit darker. So, I chose to use another pen name. Samples for what I'm thinking for my brand below.  

I'm aiming for summer releases for these shorter, romantic comedy books. One even takes place on a sailboat in the Caribbean. This is clearly still in the works and I will be adding the book covers to the left side of the image once they are complete. But you get the idea and hopefully this demonstrates the different kinds of branding. And how it can help you appeal to your target audience. 

If you have any questions please write them in the comments. I'm worried I'm not being clear enough. Mommy brain is a very real thing!

I already wrote a bit about email marketing and why it’s important but that is only one piece of your branding and marketing platform. Arguably the most important part. If you choose to ignore everything else I talk about please please set up your list and start connecting directly with fans. 
Anyway, here are the other key things you should be doing by the time you hit publish on your first novel or short story collection. Of course, if you’ve already published pieces and haven’t done these you can start now. 
I’m going to mention more than a few social media sites, you don’t have to do all of them if you don’t want. Some would even argue its best to choose one or two to focus on. Remember your goal with social media should be to communicate with fans and influencers not to sell books.

Amazon Author Page: If you publish on Amazon, you need an Author Page. It’s the page that shows up when you click on an author’s name on the book page. The reason this is key is you can link your blog to it, it has all your available books in one place, and your bio. All of those things help you sell books. You’re selling non-fiction for instance and it says in your bio you have a degree or experience in the field you wrote your book in, sale. Someone loved your perma-free or 99c first in series and now has instant access to your entire collection, SALES! They are on the fence about trying out a new author but read a blog post and enjoy your writing, sale! 

OK, now you know why let’s mention the how, authorcentral.com. They will walk you through the process and you can claim your books so they show up. You can also track your author rank and see all your reviews in one place under the author central dashboard. I’m sure there are even more nifty tidbits you can find on there but I haven’t even begun to delve into it. I’ll update this post if I find anything especially awesome. 

Website: This should be a no brainer. If you’re concerned about cost there are a few ways around that. Most hosts offer a free website option. The URL would look something like this www.YOURNAME.wordpress.com. I chose wordpress because a lot of authors, and I mean a lot, use wordpress to build their sites. Other options include Weebly and Wix. wix is pretty pricey once you decide to go for the paid option so make sure you check out the pricing tiers before you make your free site. (PS: Weebly is a bit tricky. They promise one price and then add things on as you go. Other than that, I’ve had a great time with them. This is a weebly site) 
The reason for a website? Your website should be your main online hub. When a potential reader googles your name, a crisp, clear website should pop up. On it you should have a page with your series and/or books listed and where they can be purchased (or a buy direct link, the only thing better then a 70% royalty is 100%, amiright?). It should also be linked to your blog via and RSS feed and have a bio and place for them to sign up to your list. Cause email is where it’s at, don’t forget. 
When you start self hosting, I recommend SitGround. I use them for my cameronquinnbooks.com site and I've enjoyed it. If you want to help support us, use this affiliate link. We will receive a small amount of money for the referral. (This is one of the ways we're helping pay for this site and other free resources we provide, like the podcast and YouTube Channel). Another good source for hosting is BlueHost (Not an affiliate link). With the number of sites I have and my current budget, I just couldn't make it work but I've only heard good things from them and they are recommended by Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn and Tim Grahl of BookLaunch.com.

GoodReads Author Page: This comes in handy for a few reasons. One, you can keep an eye on how your book is doing and garner more review, and two, you can run ads and giveaways through GoodReads. I haven’t done a whole lot with GoodReads ads but their Listopia, is a great resource and give aways are generally successful. 

Facebook Page: Facebook seems to be an author’s best friend or their worst nightmare. Regardless of if you love it or hate it, you can’t run Facebook ads without a page. Why would you want to run Facebook ads? Two reasons, grow your email list, and boost sales. The fact of the matter is, when it comes to ads, nobody can target an audience like Facebook. If you’re looking to grow your list and find your die hard fans, Facebook ads are the way to go about it. 

Twitter: Twitter is a great way to communicate with fans. I’m not a huge twitter user but here’s a post about how to go about it from V.S. Holmes. She’s the Twitter guru in these parts. **Update** I recently delved into the world of Twitter because fo changes to Facebook which SEVERELY impacted this blogs views. Here's what I've found, posting multiple times a day (the whole 24hr period) helps build your audience in other parts of the world as well as at home. When someone follows you, if you decide to follow them back, retweet their pinned tweet. They'll usually retweet your pinned tweet. You should have a pinned tweet. I followed other authors lead and created a tweet thread, the first telling what I write and then each new tweet in the thread was about a specific book. I put them in order of publication so it's easy to add new releases. 

Instagram: Not gonna lie, I love Instagram. I’m not as obsessed with making sure the photos are perfect as some people are but it’s still a lot of fun. Also, you can distribute your Facebook ads to Instagram users, making it an extension of your existing platform. 

Blog/Vlogs: Blogs are huge for non-fiction writers. Yes, fiction writers can ave blogs too. I have one but I have a hard time finding things to write about. I mean, I’m a mom who spends her time feeding kids, tallying up all the chores I need to do but never seem to have enough time for, Homework (cause college is a thing), and working. Working on books, working for Amphibian Press LLC and learning how to be more successful as a marketer. So blogging isn’t huge for me. Accept on here. Where my focus is non-fiction. Yeah we’re gonna write a book and are working on courses! Yay! So, non-fiction authors, blogs are amazing at helping you build your lists and showing people you know what you’re talking about. Fiction authors, please share your blogs if you have one, I’d love to see it. Or if you follow a fiction author’s blog that you think is amazing or made you buy their fiction book. Seriously, I want to see it!

Alright, so those are the things you should be doing! Do you do something that isn’t on the list? Let me know in the comments! 

As with most things Indie, you need to make sure that these things help you. If you’re spending too much time on social media and not enough writing, what’s the point? These are meant to help you not overwhelm you. The most important thing is your website. After that, the rest is preference.