Authors have a lot of blind spots when it comes to their own books. Writing the book turns out to be the easiest part of all the other stuff you have to do. A lot of authors have trouble selecting a passage to feature as a book excerpt. I believe there are two major reasons for this. The first (and probably the biggest contributing factor) is that the author knows the context of every scene in the book and is therefore unable to understand why someone reading the passage without context might not get it. The second reason is an almost paranoid impulse to prevent “spoilers.” A number of sites showcase book excerpts as either a stand-alone feature, or in combination with author interviews. A lot of authors also provide book excerpts on their own websites. It’s a good opportunity to get a sample of your writing out there in front of some readers (hopefully future fans) who may not yet be acquainted with your work. Of course if the sample falls flat the reverse effect is achieved. It’s worth putting a little thought into choosing the right excerpt. Here are a couple of considerations that may help you: Continue reading “Choosing a Book Excerpt”
Tag: Marketing
Microcerpt Exploits Power of the Excerpt
A website has emerged with the goal of introducing readers to books through the power of excerpt.
Microcerpt, which is free to authors and readers, allows authors to post short excerpts (Microcerpts) from their books onto the site. Readers can browse the excerpts, and if they’re tantalized by one, buy the book. Continue reading “Microcerpt Exploits Power of the Excerpt”
Candy from Strangers
Guest post
by John Kenny
At the end of May, I found myself in an extraordinarily long security line at the Ottawa airport. I don’t have a lot of patience for that. As an emergency responder and HazMat tech I know that airport security is towards the bottom of the list of risks we all face every day, most of which we take for granted – like driving. As many people die on North American highways every month, as died in 9-ll. Every propane truck rolling through our towns and cities is a bomb on wheels and all you need is shoulder mounted rocket launcher. And no one gives that a second thought, but I digress… Continue reading “Candy from Strangers”
Featured Service: BookTweeters.com
Just publishing your book isn’t enough… you need to promote it. Whether you are running a promotion for your book, making it free or lowering the price, or your book is at its normal price, BookTweeters.com is here to help you promote your book.
For the past several months, we have worked hard, connecting with authors and readers on Twitter across 5 different accounts, to grow our network of followers. We have over 235,000 followers in our network, and it is growing quickly every day! These are people who want to learn about free books, bargain books, and other books that they may be interested in reading.
BookTweeters.com is run by eBooksHabit.com, who have been bringing free and bargain ebooks to their blog readers and email list for the past couple of years. They have worked with thousands of authors and know that authors just need more people to know about their book.
Twitter is a great medium for reaching out to readers, but the problem is, Tweets can be missed if you are following a lot of people. That is why, each day you purchase a promo for, we tweet it 60 times! Each of the 5 accounts tweets it 12 times throughout the day, when a majority of US readers are awake. If we only tweeted once, someone may miss it in their Twitter stream, so we have it set to tweet your book tweets all day long.
But does it produce sales? We have had repeat orders from customers who loved the results of their first order! We obviously can’t work magic, but if your book is appealing, using our tweet packages to broadcast your book to 235,000+ people many times a day is a great way to boost sales or complement a free or discounted price promotion.
We have many packages to suit your needs, ranging from 1 to 5 days of tweets. The more days you buy, the more you save.
Add us to your list of places to get in touch with for your next promo, or try out our packages today to get more exposure for your book!
Indies Unlimited does not endorse or support any specific providers of products or services.