Tag: blogging

5 Ways to Use Social Media as Part of Your Book Marketing Plan

Social media is not a marketing plan but can be part of a larger strategy because it is a connection tool. It helps you to find, connect with, and nurture your audience.

It is through these connections that you build the like and trust factor. People believe in you and trust you.

When people believe in you, they buy from you.

Here are Some Ways to Use Social Media as Part of Your Larger Strategy:

Share your journey and inspiration.

Why are you writing this book? Who are some of your favorite authors and their books? What inspired you to write in the first place? What’s the story behind your title? What’s your story?

Follow accounts related to your topic.

Who follows you on social media is less important than who YOU follow. These accounts influence you personally and train the algorithm to show you more of the same.

Engaging with accounts that are relatable to your topic, beliefs, morals, values, and passions will do two things.

First, it will make you aware of trending topics in the news related to your area of expertise, which will help you create relatable content.

Discussing current events related to your book’s genre can be a great way to generate interest and attention while using social media to share your thoughts and insights. This helps build your author platform, authority, and attract more readers to your work.

Secondly, following like-minded accounts and engaging with them will introduce you to more people who might enjoy reading your kind of book.

Center Content Around the Topics/Themes of Your Book

Focus your messaging on connections and themes related to your book. Consider how the post might be educational, inspirational/motivational, informative, or entertaining. Even when I post something silly to TikTok, I make sure it aligns with what I am known for.

My rule of thumb is that the post must have something to do with black history/history in general, poetry, or books in some way. As a result of only focusing on these things, I’ve grown my TikTok account from 3K to 26.1K followers, highest view at 1.5 million, and increased subscriptions to my email list.

Leverage Relationships

Collaborate with other writers, authors, and business people who write books similar to yours or offer a service you can benefit from. Can they get you on their podcast? Review your book? Promote it on their pages? Can they repost/share your book cover? Do they know of anyone who can offer a service related to what you do? As the old saying goes, “closed mouths don’t get fed.” A lot of opportunities to gain exposure comes from simply asking.

Social Proof

We live in a world where most people only believe what they see. Share screenshots of book reviews, excerpts, quotes, and recommendations from others to provide social proof that can help boost interest in your book. This proof can also showcase your writing through blog posts, articles, videos, graphics, and more. Give people a taste of what they can expect from the whole meal. People self-publish books every day so show what sets you apart.

I hope this helps get your 2024 book marketing efforts off to a good start!

Check out more Indie Author Basics articles here.

Preorder Your Copy of Black History Facts You Didn’t Learn in School Here!

http://www.blkhistorybook.com | 2.24.24

Legacy

Have you ever sat back to consider that the lives your parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles lived is a form of history?

The world they grew up in is a different world than the one we are living in today. Even as recent as the 70s and 80s. That world no longer exists. I am fascinated by this. How did the world operate before I came to be? What were things like before I existed?

How often do we sit down to talk to our elders to glean wisdom from their lives?

Sitting at their feet and listening is the most accessible research we can do on our own personal history.

We learn more about the storyteller and ourselves as our lives are wrapped up in theirs.

Photo by By Toni Weschler

Coursing through your DNA is the experiences and the trauma of your ancestors. Wouldn’t it make sense to learn more about their story and, as a result, learn more about yourself?

I was not a fan of history in school. It didn’t intrigue me at all, and I found it boring. Passing was easy. All you had to do was read material that was never explained and memorize dates with no meaning.

blkhistorybook.com

I was in the second grade when I first learned about Emmett Till. His story stuck with me because it was the only form of Black history I had learned in school until High School, and even then, it all started with the Civil Rights Movement and Dr. King. It was as if our people didn’t exist before sit-ins.

It felt like we were still being enslaved, in a way, dehumanized through omission. A people forgotten, our legacies erased.

I only became curious when I learned more about my people. Black history intrigued me. The things we’ve invented, the struggles we’ve overcome, the way we just keep bouncing back.

When people can see themselves, something amazing happens. I didn’t care about history until I could see myself. My forefathers’ life piqued my interest, and out of that curiosity, I read.

The rest is, well, history.

You can still stream my interview episode on iDefineTV on Roku! Also, don’t forget to preorder your copy of Black History Facts You Didn’t Learn in School before January 24th to be part of the first shipment!

To Be Human

Photo by TUBARONES PHOTOGRAPHY

I have learned not to neglect the physical

because I live on the physical.

How can I ignore the earth when I was born from it?

Not the first womb.

Not the first place my human self called home.

And I have learned not to neglect the spiritual

because it is higher than the physical.

It will help me to transcend the works of my flesh.

Both important.

Both necessary.

Neither forsaken.

Oh nothing, just getting back to my poetry.

Winners: Yecheilyah’s 6th Annual Poetry Contest 2023

Congratulations to the winners of this year’s poetry contest. We crown you, poetic scholars, for your commitment and dedication to poetic excellence on this 28th day of December 2023.

#1: Chandra T. Mountain

“I’m Living”

@musings.from.my.younger.self

#2: S.R. Graham

“What I Lack”

@thesensualgenius

#3: Samuel Olopade

“Grace”

@ _olops_

#4: Adariyah Ysrayl

“Grace”

@adariyahysrayl

Congratulations!!

And congratulations to everyone who participated! There would be no contest without your support. Keep an eye out for the individual spotlight interviews of each poet and details on Yecheilyah’s Annual Poetry Contest, 2024!

The Top 2023 Self-Publishing Platforms for Writers (Aggregators and Retailers)

According to Kindleprenuer, a vetted and well-respected platform for self-publishers headed by Dave Chesson (who has listed me among its Ultimate List of Best Book Review Blogs under Yecheilyah’s Book Reviews), these are some of the best platforms for writers who self-published in 2023. (I put them in my own order, though, lol.)

  1. Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (Retailer)
  2. IngramSpark (Aggregator)
  3. Barnes and Noble Press (Retailer)
  4. Draft2Digital (Aggregator)
  5. PublishDrive (Aggregator)
  6. Apple Books (Retailer…direct access to Mac users)
  7. Bookbaby (Aggregator)
  8. KOBO (Retailer)

But what’s the difference between a retailer and an aggregator?

Book retailers are platforms where you can upload your book directly to their site and sell on their market. These are your Amazons, B&Ns, Kobo’s and more.

Book aggregators are third-party platforms where you may submit your book, and it will be distributed to book merchants all over the world. It is one of the simplest ways to get your book on practically every online retailer’s website without much effort. Draft2Digital and PublishDrive are two of the most prominent book aggregators.

What I Use

Amazon has an 85% market share over all these platforms, so I will start with Kindle Direct Publishing to get my books on Amazon.

While other platforms, such as Bookbaby and IngramSpark, can send your book to Amazon, I have found it best to use Amazon for Amazon to decrease the chances of my book not showing up or being out of stock.

However, I opt-out of expanded distribution while on Amazon, which will put my book into Ingram’s database under Amazon. I want it under my own company.

After I upload my files to KDP, I head over to Ingram.

Under my own Ingram account, I publish my book to IngramSpark. I have not done this with every book, but I have done it with my last two and in the future. I do this for easier distribution to bookstores and libraries but under my own company name (Literary Korner Publishing), not Amazon.

This is where having bulk ISBNs comes in handy, as you will need one for Ingram different from what you used on Amazon. Ya’ll know I don’t do free ISBNs except for with ebooks.

Then, I log into my account on Draft2Digital and upload my files there to get my ebook on all major online retailers—however, I opt-out of Amazon since I have already uploaded my book there separately.

I also have yet to use their print book version, now available for authors who want to use the feature. I only use them for the digital version of my book so if you’ve tried their paperbacks let me know how it turned out! How’s the quality compared to KDP?

When it’s said and done, I’ll have my book available on Amazon, B&N, iBooks, Kobo, and everywhere books are sold online with the option to get it into bookstores, libraries, and schools.

Save this post if you plan to self-publish in 2024 and let me know what has worked or not worked for you!

The Self-Publishing Debate: Should You Spend Money to Publish Your Book

I didn’t plan on posting today, but there is a debate going on about whether new authors should spend money on self-publishing their books.

In brief, publishing a book you want others to spend their money on will cost some financial investment if you care about your reader’s experience.

There’s a reason authors who sign with conventional publishing houses don’t pay money for editing and cover art. It is because the publisher has a team of experts to take care of that. In exchange, the author sells the rights to their book and receives royalty payments for sales.

As a self-publisher, you are the publisher, which means you are responsible for outsourcing everything you need to ensure a profitable product.

It doesn’t have to be an arm and a leg, but you want to, at minimum, cover editing, a decent cover design, print and digital formatting, and own your ISBN from Bowker so that you are the publisher of record.

Paying someone to publish your book is also not self-publishing.

If you paid someone to publish your book, including editing it and everything else, you have not self-published it. You have paid a vanity press to publish it for you.

I’ve heard too many horror stories from authors who say they will never self-publish again, only to discover they never actually self-published. They signed with a vanity press who uploaded the book to Ingram, and did little more than the author could have done themselves.

But this isn’t about vanity presses. This is about how too many people self-publish because they think it’s easier than all other routes: vanity, hybrid, and traditional. They have not considered if they have the time and resources to self-publish or if it’s even something they are really interested in.

The truth is that not everyone is equipped to be their own publisher, which is fine! First-time authors are not required to self-publish, but if they do, they must recognize the financial risks involved in providing a quality product worth people’s money.

You cannot throw a book together that you claim you didn’t do to make money and then sell this mediocrity to other people.

Cause technically, you can self-publish for $0, but it will look like it.

I blame the existence of this debate on the whole “art” conversation. Authors don’t think they have to invest financially because too many of us consider publishing a book a passion project instead of a business decision.

This is the first mistake.

Check out more Indie Author Basics articles here.

Preorder Your Copy of Black History Facts You Didn’t Learn in School Here!

http://www.blkhistorybook.com | 2.24.24

Covering My Head: On Grief

Photo by Karolina Grabowska

2020 was very challenging for me for reasons unrelated to the pandemic. As I reflect, it was difficult not only because of the tragedies themselves but also because of their proximity to one another.

I remember when I got jumped on as a teen by a group of girls in Chicago. Another quickly followed each blow until I could do nothing but allow myself to fall to the slippery floor of Nicky’s Restaurant and cover my head. They were too fast. The least I could do if I didn’t have the time to throw a punch was protect my face.

I walked away from that fight, blood trickling from my scalp. When I arrived at the hospital, it was so crowded that the blood had dried by the time I saw the doctor. I sat on the edge of a bed in the hallway while the doctor pierced me with the surgical stapler. I was not under anesthesia, but it didn’t hurt. It simply felt like pressure.

The staples dissolved and I healed nicely. I finished school and went on with my life like nothing happened. The scars from that night are invisible.

That’s how it feels to grieve the events of 2020 when I lost my mother and suffered multiple miscarriages in the span of a few months, each blow coming too fast for me to recover fully.

And I wonder if I am just balled up on the floor, covering my head to protect my face.