Authors can come up with some pretty creative reasons to convince themselves of why they're book isn't selling. When you know as many authors as I do (more than 800) and you see the variety of successful and not-so-successful marketing techniques used today, there really are only two excuses for poor book sales...bad marketing or just a plain old bad book. …
Last week, I received a credit card order from a bookstore...by mail. I was curious why they'd sent it by mail instead of ordering online or by fax. But, they did. When I read the scribbles on the side of the order form, I was stunned by the insulting nature of the correspence. Without even asking for a quote on shipping, he said our price for shipping was "ridiculous" and that he "wouldn't pay more than $10" to ship UPS Ground (for 40 copies). …
Is customer service devouring your writing and marketing time? At Booklocker.com, we are frequently approached by authors who are weary of all the problems they've encountered while trying to sell their books themselves. While they started out wanting to write for a living, they now find they're spending most of their time on website repairs and upgrades, customer service, troubleshooting, fulfillment, and even dealing with credit card fraud and bounced checks. …
I received a disturbing email this week from a writer who was published, but not yet paid. You see, the publication was located in another country. They refused to pay her by check or money order and also refused to pay her via Paypal. How did they want to pay her? They requested her bank information so they could transfer the funds to her account... …
With the affordability of print-on-demand (POD) publishing, there is something you can do to encourage creativity and communication with your child, while teaching your child about the publishing process and giving their self-esteem a boast as well! …
In response to last week's article on Dirty Marketing, I'm posting readers' responses... …
When someone boasts their book is a bestseller on Amazon.com, can you trust them? When someone brags that they've sold 10,000 copies in a month, are they being honest? When you type in a website URL and a competitors' pop-up ad appears on your computer screen, do you assume they're in business together? When someone says you're winner, are they trying to fool you into spending money? …
I am adamantly against donating your time and writing to companies that seek to profit from your efforts while not sharing cash with you. However, if you are managing the distribution of your free work and it's for a good cause (and nobody's greedily profiting from your free work), then that's an entirely different scenario. …
Ordering something with no intention of paying for it is fraud, plain and simple. Unfortunately, there is a growing problem with this online that I want to make you aware of. The typical scenario is the customer orders a book, claims it's lousy, demands a refund, and threatens to report the author to the authorities if they don't comply. I recently received a letter from an ebook author who was the victim of one of these jerks. This week, I'm sharing her letter here along with my experience dealing with these types of criminals. …
A year or so ago, I was contacted by an attorney representing a firm that is listed in the Whispers and Warnings section of WritersWeekly.com. He said he would sue us if we didn't remove the complaints about his firm from our website. His emails were quite menacing...so menacing in fact that we became suspicious. Aren't attorneys schooled in the art of subtle manipulation and vague threats? Aren't they trained to keep their cool at all times in order to prevail as the more intelligent animal in any debate? …
This week, I want to bring your attention to a stellar publisher who, despite his popularity and fame, always makes times for his readers and for other publishers and editors as well. …
I think it's pathetic that some of the major freelance writing sites are too lazy to keep their boards clean and keep the information on their sites accurate... …
Despite a backache and my failed attempt to rid the bathroom of that endless pile of dirty laundry, I was actually in a pretty good mood this morning. I've been pretty cranky lately, which is the end result of dealing with too many jerks (rude people online), deadbeats (those publishers appearing in our Whispers and Warnings forum), and freaks (One guy keeps threatening to show up on our doorstep if we don't remove his warning. We had to get our attorney involved because we think he's a psychopath.). One of my New Year's Resolutions is to not let people get me down. I figure if I meditate enough and practice my new form of exercise, yoga, at least once a week or so (I have a phobia about exercising in front of other people), I will be able to be a calmer, more peaceful person. However, a fax I received this morning blew my New Year's Resolution right out of the water... MORE >> …
Every day at WritersWeekly.com, we receive emails from writers requesting advice on how to write query letters and how to improve their existing query letters. While we…
