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How can you increase the chances of making a sale?Offering a free bookmark or sample chapter is one way to improve your chances of getting someone to buy your book. This works for a simple reason, the law of reciprocity, which is well-known to marketers - the gift of the bookmark (if they take one)... Continue Reading →
Networking is an important skill for an author to utilise and (for the purposes of this post) distinct from social media networking. Networking is hard simply because it's purpose is to achieve more than just "getting your name out there." It's about building relationships and that takes a lot more effort than social media posts.... Continue Reading →
The following is a list of things I've seen authors achieve through their own interpersonal network. (nb: excludes social media which is why i'm not using the phrase social network). Get 5 offers from publishers to read a book that was still being drafted. Get an invitation to speak to a school group. Get a... Continue Reading →
One of my favourite cartoons about writing is of a man being x-rayed to reveal a book in his chest. Part of the caption reads “You’ve got a book in you.” I like this idea - that we all have a book in us, and to an extent it's true, everyone has a tale to... Continue Reading →
When I pitched some books to movie producers at the recent Melbourne International Film Festival, it was really clear they were interested in books with strong female protagonists. If your book only had women as damsels in distress, minor characters or weak characters they weren't interested. I found this fascinating and it made me think... Continue Reading →
Marketing for indie/small press authors is an interesting process. Unlike with traditional publishers nearly the entire onus is on the author. For me, I’ve recently run my first giveaway for Incite Insight. This was always going to be loss-making since I wasn’t charging for my book. I spent about A$90 on a few mailing lists... Continue Reading →
Colours of Death: Sergeant Thomas Casebook will be out next year (provisionally, around Easter). This collection of detective stories features several characters from Incite Insight. While the stories are set after the events of Incite Insight (ie Brad Thomas is now close to a Sherlock level sleuth), they are independent of that novel. Each story... Continue Reading →
Next month I’m hoping to release an *air quotes* “new book.” Due to its relatively short length (only 46 pages), Mug Punter is more akin to a promotional item than a book. The e-book is likely to retail for between 99c and $1.49 (TBD) and the paperback $5.99. The stories in Mug Punter were going... Continue Reading →
I'm giving away e-book copies of Incite Insight until the 3rd October. They're available worldwide through Amazon until then. Movemind is also on sale for 99c/99p in the UK and USA, until the 5th October. https://www.amazon.com/Incite-Insight-Robert-New-ebook/dp/B019K076DE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1507431435&sr=8-1&keywords=incite+insight
August has mostly been kind to me by providing me with several ‘little wins.’ For perspective, there have also been some little losses such as a negative review and negligible progress on my non-fiction book. However, I’m choosing to focus on the positives to keep me motivated. The first occurred on the 2nd of the... Continue Reading →
Robert New 