This is our list of sites and resources that we use frequently in our author marketing. Please note that very few of these titles are non-fiction specific as the fiction world is hogging all the good ideas right now! Additionally, they are neither all self publishing or traditional publishing related but rather a mix of all the best bits we use to make our books and our marketing better!
We will be updating this page as we go along…if you have a suggestion of something we missed or just want to be notified when we have more great content…
The Best Non Fiction Marketing Resource on the planet!
The Non Fiction Marketing Blog – presented by the Marketing and Media Monsters, Tara Jacobsen and Rebekah Welch, the Non Fiction Marketing blog is chock full of great information about how to present and market your non fiction title. (disclosure..this is our site! if you are going to be in the marketing game, you better get used to feeling okay about promoting your great products!)
Podcasts
The Self Publishing Podcast – Johnny, Sean and Dave are the most brilliant, talented and f-ed up humans on the planet. Their publishing schedule and productivity is through the roof and they are happy to share all their highs and lows with their listeners. If you are just starting out, start at #1 and work forward to hear the progression Johnny makes from timid author to full blown media mogul. They cuss and fight and are our all time favorites.
Rocking Self Publishing – If you don’t like cussing, enjoy a straight format and like how British people talk, definitely check out Simon’s podcast. He is very British, polite and can give a hell of an interview that stays perfectly on track and focused.
The Creative Penn – Joanna Penn is also from somewhere across the pond and is really fun to listen to. She has been self publishing for years and is a really good interviewer. She has segued from straight non-fiction to fiction. We lost another one! Not a cusser as far as I can tell (she is good anyways).
Author Tools
Scrivener – Oh how Tara loves the Scrivener software. She spent HOURS trying to figure out how to make a table of contents in Word for the Mac and never succeeded. Now that we are using Scrivener for the formatting and writing, the technical bits are MUCH better. We have a template we use which has all our title, about the authors and promotional bits already loaded. Then we can export it to rich text for edits, send it to a PDF as a review copy and also shoot out for Amazon totally formatted and ready to go (you could export an epub also if you are using Smashwords or any of the other big sites). (aff link)
Author Marketing Club – There are some great training videos here for free, but if you are serious about being a writer, you have to join (for God’s sake it is $105 bucks a year!) We use the snazzy book generator that is in our sidebars, the description formatter for EVERY book we write AND love the monthly webinars that discuss book publishing. (aff link)
Author Resources
Author Marketing Club Free Description Writing Ebook – Want to know how to write a good Amazon description? This was an invaluable resource to turn our first god-aweful descriptions into the glorious masterpieces they are today! (aff link)
Author Earnings – Ever wonder how your earnings are stacking up against everyone else? This site reviews what authors are making on the different platforms and overall. A very cool resource!
Helpful Books
Let’s Get Visible: How To Get Noticed And Sell More Books (Let’s Get Publishing) – This one is a little techy but knowing the rules is how you win the game!
Write, Publish, Repeat – AWESOME book by the Self Publishing Podcast guys. A super-good overview of the strategies behind self publishing. Although it is written by fiction writers, there is lots of goodness in there for us non-fictioners too!
Formatting of Kindle Books: a Brief Tutorial – Not brief and some of it is not relevant if you are using Scrivener, BUT if you are going to publish on Kindle you need to read this cover to cover so that you know how and why you need to do things.
Sales and Marketing Success: Targeting Your Perfect Customer Who Will Buy & Buy – Out of all 52 of the books that we will be writing this year, this is the one that we want EVERYONE selling ANYTHING to read. Knowing your Perfect Customer Profile is the easiest way to make your life easier. By printing the included worksheet and going through the process you can find out exactly who you are selling to and the words to use that will make them buy and buy! our book
Neat Non Fiction Writing Blogs or Articles
- Blog site – The Non Fiction Zone
- Forbes article – Considering Self-Publishing? Don’t Bother, Unless You Follow Guy Kawasaki’s Advice
- 131 Words That Increase Web Traffic – Substitute books sales for traffic…some great tips here about writing content that sells
Interesting Tools:
Google Books – Ngram Viewer – amazing way to track topics and content that have trended in books over the years
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