Author: K.S. Brooks

K.S. Brooks is an award-winning novelist, photographer, and photo-journalist, author of over 30 titles, and executive director and administrator of Indies Unlimited. Brooks is currently a photo-journalist and chief copy editor for two NE Washington newspapers.  She teaches self-publishing and writing topics for the Community Colleges of Spokane, and served on the Indie Author Day advisory board. For more about K.S. Brooks, visit her website and her Amazon author page.

Creating a Book’s Sell Sheet

Many, many years ago, back when we were still using stone tablets and chisels to write, my first novel was published. The year was 2001. That was also when I created my first “sell sheet.”

A book sell sheet (or book one-sheet, as some people call it) is designed to provide the necessary information to people who would buy your book. This is not for consumers, however, it targets buyers at book stores, libraries, other retailers, and wholesalers. These people want quick facts about your book, without schmaltz. Save that dazzling salesy stuff for consumers.

The main things these buyers want to know are: Continue reading “Creating a Book’s Sell Sheet”

Tutorial: Smashwords Series Manager

Your series name will automatically be displayed with each book!

Just this past weekend, Smashwords notified its authors of a handy new tool: Smashwords Series Manager. They claim it will “improve series discovery” and they could be right. They explain about the new tool at this link.

At first I was skeptical. Then, I thought about it. There have been many times I wanted to send people to JUST my Mr. Pish educational books on Amazon.com. But I can’t. I can always do a search under “Mr. Pish,” but that doesn’t bring up only his books. So, if this gave me the capability to do that, it would, in fact, be good. Turns out, it’s very good, and I have to say, this is another advantage Smashwords has over Amazon (the other being free and discount coupons for books).

Here’s a step-by-step tutorial to show you how easy it is to link your series books together with the Smashwords Series Manager.

Continue reading “Tutorial: Smashwords Series Manager”

The Secret to Collaboration

A couple of weeks ago, the Evil Mastermind wrote a post about collaboration. He said some very nice things about the process and working together. Boy, do I have him fooled, or what?

Yes, it’s true, I did ask him to join the crew of Bad Book. And that has been a great success, if you measure success by tens of dollars.

Bad Book was a spur of the moment concept I hatched during a chat session with Mader and Antrobus in November 2011. As Hise mentioned, we took turns writing scenes and chapters, sometimes leaving a perfect jumping-off point for the next author – or sometimes leaving a challenge. Mader, Hise, and I sped along on it and the end result was published in April 2012. Pretty quick turnaround.

I got the idea for Triple Dog Dare a few years ago. At the time, I had only a few of the key elements pegged; and, I knew I wanted it to be something akin to Mr. Pish meets It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. I also knew I didn’t have the chops to write that kind of madcap comedy – and my process of percolating plots can take years. So I put it on the back burner. Continue reading “The Secret to Collaboration”

Author Tips: Post Book Release Checklist

Chick-lit, romantic comedy by K.S. Brooks and Stephen HiseLast week, I shared with you a list of things you might want to consider doing leading up to your next book release. You can find that article here.  Now I’m going to talk about what needs to be done after the big day – when you’re still suffering from your book release hangover.

As I mentioned in last week’s article, this was my nineteenth release, yet things are always inevitably forgotten. Maybe even some of those things are forgotten on purpose… *cough* press release *cough*. In any case, here is a list of things I felt needed to be done once the mayhem of release day quieted down.

Continue reading “Author Tips: Post Book Release Checklist”