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

Effective the 12th of April 2015 all regular Peers of Beinan series books are now name your own price on Smashwords.  The two books that are staying regular price are the two you expect:  the Legacy of Princess Anlei Trilogy edition and The Complete Series volume because these contain multiple books at already low prices. Name your own price is only available on Smashwords; on all other retailers such as Amazon, Barnes/Noble, and iBookstore the books are all at their regular

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

Today’s reblog is a post by J. Boyce Gleason entitled “Should Authors Stop Their Characters at First Base.” Here is Mr. Gleason’s post in full.  What do you think?  Let’s talk about sex in books! ————————————- Why Not “Fade to Black?” Authors make lots of choices. How much of the plot do we reveal? How soon do we reveal it? Should we follow one narrative point of view or many? And then there is sex. How far do we let the characters go? Do we stop them at first base and fade t

One of the best strategies for marketing books is to get as many people OTHER THAN YOU THE AUTHOR to write about and review your books for you.  In this, bloggers are key.  Today’s reblog comes from BookDaily.com offering some very helpful advice. How to Get Bloggers to Review your Book How do you get bloggers to review your novel? That is the magic question. Allow me to discuss the strategies that worked for me and that I believe can work for you. Querying Bloggers Speaking

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

I received this fantastic piece of advice from Marla Madison on BookDaily.com and just had to share it with you: What Authors Can Learn From American Idol, Dancing With The Stars, And The Voice Does the best singer win American Idol or the Voice? Is the most accomplished dancer the winner of the Mirror Ball Trophy on Dancing With the stars? Anyone who is a regular viewer of talent reality shows knows this uncontestable fact: the most talented doesn’t always win. In fact, the

The following appeared in the 3rd September 2014 Book Daily newsletter by “Michelle.” This is such good advice, I simply have to share it with you as well.  It ties in nicely with my earlier article on advertising with facebook. ———————– need to vent! I just can’t anymore. I want to be all happy when I jump on Facebook and post something about an authors new book or share something that is on my blog, even just share a giveaway from someone else but nope you can’t because if

In Star Wars episode I, Anakin Skywalker said, “The problem with this universe is that no one helps anyone.” He was right. Instead of treating everyone else as “surplus population” we need to understand that there is abundance all around us. We only need to come together, to care about each other, to help one another instead of judging people to find it. When I was a child, we did a little play called “stone soup” about a traveler who tricks a community full of people only co

Yesterday I found this article about “Espresso” Book Machines on Publisher’s Weekly. For those unfamiliar with the term, espresso book machines are essentially print-on-demand kiosks located in traditional book-and-mortar bookstores.  That Barnes and Noble is testing these machines at their Union Square store in Manhattan doesn’t surprise me at all.  It is a very long time coming and a market trend I saw as the future of paperback publishing many months ago.  As a former Broo