Laurel A. Rockefeller Books

Earlier this week I received this wonderful article called “3 Tips to Help You Spend Your Book Marketing Money Better” in my email from Book Marketing Tools.  Great advice, especially for indie authors just starting to get into the business.  To these three tips I want to add one more of my own:  invest in multiple language editions of your books crafted by quality translators. Here is “3 Tips to Help You Spend Your Book Marketing Money Better” in full as presented in the new

The German edition of Boudicca was beautifully translated by Christina Loew. Thanks to frequent communication and Ms. Loew’s professionalism, the translation process was smooth and easy — exactly what most authors are looking for when joining Babelcube. If you subscribe to this blog you know that in 2016 I took my books deeper into the global market.  After an exasperating fore into the Chinese market via Fiberead, I had high hopes for Babelcube, a platform for translation th

One of the best pieces of advice I ever received as an author was to publish as many books in as many places as possible and to sell on as many websites as possible.  The writing profession is a numbers game.  To win it (meaning making a living as a writer) you need to be where the customers are and sell what they want to read.  You cannot achieve it with a single kindle book sold exclusively on Amazon.  It won’t happen — or perhaps it could but your chances of winning the lo

The following just arrived in my email from Book Marketing Tools.  I think it contains excellent analysis and information. ————– Many self-published authors tend to price themselves out of sales. This happens because: 1) You know how much time you spent to write the book, time or money spent on editing, time or money spent on the cover, time spent on learning to self-publish, plus the priceless view you have of your own work (rightfully so), all which combine to make you put

Self-publishing and the digital age has changed that for both self-published and traditional publishers.  Just as cigarette machines have gone by the wayside and Sherlock Holmes uses nicotine patches instead of smoking his pipe in response to smoking regulations in London, the days of in-house marketing and advertising for books by publishers are gone.  Today authors must do most of the work themselves. There are no shortage of marketing firms to delegate to, of course, but a

Indeed, critical reviews help authors by offering substance, feedback, and credibility.  No author with more than five or six reviews has a perfect five star average; someone will always find something imperfect about your work.  This is how it should be.  Your work should receive a mix of reviews. With one exception:  the one star review. If you like a book before you buy it, odds are good you will still like something about the book after you read it.  Yes, there are plenty

———————————– You’ve sent out hundreds of emails to reviewers. You wait. You wait some more. Months pass. Impatience grows. You’re tempted to re-contact to ensure they received your request. Don’t. Seriously. DON’T DO IT. Once you’ve sent out that initial request, you’re done. Most reviewers only respond if they’re interested – months later. It goes back to the flood of daily requests and a day’s limitation of twenty-four hours. Cross it off your list and move on. As a fellow

Here are the top four mistakes I see independent authors making that are absolutely certain to drive away potential readers. #1 Mentioning you checked spelling and grammar in your book description or on social media. I am genuinely shocked at the number of times “authors” tout this as a reason to buy their book.  It takes MINUTES to run spell check in a word processing program.  You do not get a gold star or a pat on the head for doing this.  Adults are expected to do this.  

Here is another gem from Book Marketing Tools.  I do not agree with everything in this blog post, especially this idea that you can and should try to do all/most of this EVERYDAY.  I find focus is very important to my writing and my productivity; do things ONE at a time or you will burn out trying to be everything at once. Here is that post in full: 5 New Years Resolutions for Authors Happy New Year! A new year causes us to look back at the previous year and see all that we h

Earlier this week I received this blog post about not selling to unhappy customers.  It is poignant and very sound advice. Read it at  http://blog.thesocialms.com/sales-lesson-vodafone-apple-unhappy-customers-dont-buy/ by Jonathan Gebauer Last week my smartphone was stolen. It was brand new – only in my possession for 2 days. It was a shiny new BlackBerry Passport – and I loved that phone. For me phones are there for freeing up time because I can get work done on them – not f

Okay, you have your new year’s resolution all set!  Now you are ready to go make a splash professionally.  Before you look at site statistics and let yourself feel overwhelmed, please take a look at what Kristen Lamb has to say about the odds of your success and how much control you really have over it. I do not agree with everything in this article, but it is certainly worth thinking about. What Are the REAL Odds of Being a Successful Author? didn’t even consider becoming a

Another very useful blog post from Stage 32.  Today’s is called Why Networking Is a Dirty Word. ——————————————— Today’s blog marks the return of one of my favorite people on the planet, Julie Gray. The author of Just Effing Entertain Me: A Screenwriter’s Atlas, Julie Gray is a script consultant and writer living in Tel Aviv, Israel. A Huffington Post and Script Magazine contributor, Julie is a favorite speaker at the London Screenwriter’s Festival and has taught story at Warn

This post on the CreateSpace Community is very helpful for independent authors looking for a smarter way to promote. ———————————— My friend Cathy Livingstone wrote a clever (and useful) book called Bubbe, Mimi & Gigi: The Best Grandmother Name Book Ever. The guide recently received a glowing review ingrandparents section of About.com, which described it as “a perfect gift for a grandmother-to-be and an especially cool way to let a mom know that she’s about to become a grandmo

This blog post from 15 September by Molly Greene of BookDaily.com explores the complicated issue of e-book pricing. ——————— Whether you’re a self-published author with titles on Amazon or selling a non-fiction book on your website, product pricing is a major component of your marketing plan and income projections. I’m guessing you’ve spent a lot of time considering price point tactics. But let’s face it, the cost of ebooks – both theory and advice – is all over the board. Wha

This post from Tara Sparling offers useful information and analysis for marketing independent books. Tara Sparling writes In this post, I discussed the findings of a scientifically incontrovertible study (of myself) on the factors which influenced me when buying a self-published book. The findings surprised me (which surprised me, because I was surveying myself). I found that I knew what made me buy a self-published book when it was in front of me, but not what put that book

The advertisements are everywhere:  for a fee (generally at least $20) you can dramatically increase the number of followers to your twitter feed, likes to your facebook page, and hits to your youtube video. Marketing experts advise against this as a rule.  But it is hard to listen to that advice when the same experts are telling you that the NUMBER of twitter followers, facebook likes, and youtube hits are CRITICAL to getting sales. In June of this year, I fell for the hype,