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From Karen Saunders

Your Branding, Marketing & Self-Publishing Coach



Archive for the ‘Self Publishing’ Category

May 28th, 2013 | By: Karen Saunders

How to Use Radio Talk Shows to Publicize your Self-Published Book

Radio talk show producers are always looking for quality guests, and this is the perfect way to publicize your book at no cost. There are 900 radio talk shows that need guests every day. You can do the interviews right from your home phone. Here are the guidelines to securing an interview and maximizing the experience to promote book sales. Contact the Producers Radio talk show producers – not talk show hosts – are responsible for arranging guest interviews. You should send an email to the producer first to schedule a time for your phone “audition” to pitch your topic….

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May 23rd, 2013 | By: Karen Saunders

5 Self-Publishers win CIPA EVVY Book Awards

Five of our clients won won book awards at the 2013 Colorado Independent Publishers Association EVVY Book Awards banquet held on May 18th. Here are the 5 award-winning books we designed. Noted below are the team members who have participated in the production of each book. John Hall is all smiles with a copy of his book and his award certificate. John’s book Do What You Can! won 3rd place in the “Self-Help” category. Several team members participated in the production of his book: Barbara McNichol edited the book, I came up with the cover concept, Kerrie Lian designed the cover and interior, Helena Mariposa proofread…

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April 25th, 2013 | By: Karen Saunders

Creating Julia Spencer’s New Brand, Website & Speaker One Sheet

Spotlight on a Client Project: Building a New Brand Last year our team designed Julia Spencer’s award-winning book, Looking Through a Key Hole. The memoir is about her challenges with severe and progressive vision loss. She relies on her Seeing Eye guide dog, Irene, for independence. Since self-publishing her book, Julia’s speaking business has grown so she needed to clarify her brand and update her marketing materials. Julia asked for our help with creating a tag line and updating her website and speaker one sheet. Team lead, Patrice Rhoades-Baum – who is our branding expert – helped Julia nail her brand and created…

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February 26th, 2013 | By: Karen Saunders

Build a Powerful Author Platform to Sell More Books

Publishing industry leaders say successful authors and publishers build their book sales by having a strong author platform. What is an Author Platform? It is a combination of how you share your core message, what exactly is marketing message and who is listening to you. The larger the number and the depth of your personal relationships with your followers, the stronger your platform. This is what’s called “relationship marketing.” It is optimal to have a powerful platform before you launch your book, but it is never too late to begin building your platform. An author’s goal is to develop a funnel of…

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January 30th, 2013 | By: Karen Saunders

Should Self-Publishers Enroll in Amazon’s KDP Select Program?

Kindle Direct Publishing Select (KDP Select) is a special program that Amazon offers independent publishers, authors and self-publishers to be a part of the digital Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. You can earn a share of a $6 million fund based on how often your ebook is borrowed through the program. In addition, you can use Amazon’s special marketing tools, which include offering your ebook for free to readers for up to 5 days in each 90-day period. You can also earn up to 70% royalties on sales in Brazil, Japan and India. Ebooks not in the KDP Select program only…

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November 26th, 2012 | By: Karen Saunders

It Takes a Community to Make Your Book an Amazon Bestseller

At a recent Colorado Independent Publishers Association (CIPA) meeting we had a panel speak on the topic of how to make your book an “Amazon Bestseller.” One of the panelists was Marcia Reece whose book, Secrets of a Marriage Mouse became the #1 bestseller in three Amazon book categories: Marriage, Personal Relationships, and Health. She shared with us a few of the many very specific techniques she used to sell 3700 books in 3 days on Amazon.com. Marcia occasionally offers one-day workshops where she explains ALL the important steps in this process. Shown below are some of the highlights of her…

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October 28th, 2012 | By: Karen Saunders

Guidelines for a Properly Formatted Manuscript

Sometimes our team will receive a partial manuscript or a manuscript that has not been edited or proofread. If a self-publisher provides us with a properly formatted manuscript, we can save them time and money on editing and proofreading services. Once the manuscript has been edited and proofread we can move on to the design and layout stage. Your manuscript should be formatted in a typical 8.5″ x 11″ MS Word document so it is easy for you and our editor to review, markup and make text changes. While your manuscript is in the editing stage it will NOT resemble a book page layout. Our graphic designer will do that later during…

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September 26th, 2012 | By: Karen Saunders

Does Your Book Cover Design Capture the Essence of Its Contents?

Have you ever wondered if a book cover design portrays the message of the contents? More importantly, does YOUR book cover capture the essence of your manuscript? Does your cover design speak to the target market you’re trying to reach? Is it attractive, eye-catching or compelling enough for a prospective buyer to take a closer look? Do you know what to look for when critiquing a cover design? Kerrie Lian, the senior designer on my team recently created the cover of the first book in a series for a new client, Tom Matt. Tom asked Kerrie if she liked what she created….

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July 26th, 2012 | By: Karen Saunders

Five Ways to Use Pinterest to Market Books

I’ve asked team member Mary Walewski to contribute an article this month and she introduced me to Pinterest. This relatively new social media site intrigued me because it’s all about images. I posed the question to her, “How can self-publishers use Pinterest to market books?” I discovered this is a perfect way to quickly post portfolio samples from recent projects completed by my team. I’ve already created a set of Pinterest boards dedicated to samples of book covers, logos, business cards, speaker one sheets and branding projects. There are many reasons why you should join interest, and Mary has listed 5…

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March 23rd, 2012 | By: Karen Saunders

Self-Published Book Printing Options

So you’ve finished writing your manuscript. You’ve hired an editor to edit your book and a designer to create the cover and lay out your interior. Great. Now you’re ready to print your book, so you want to compare self-published book printing options. There are two ways to have your book printed. Your choices are to have it printed conventionally or print on demand (POD). I’ll explain the differences and provide a price chart for two hypothetical books. But, before you can make your printing choice, you need to decide if you want someone to handle the printing process for you,…

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