April 4, 2013

You plan to self-publish a book? Awesome… Now it’s business time. Your book is a business (and it’s also a product). If you’re an author who wants to make a profit, you have to stay focused on “business” and this means you’ll have to wear many hats. You’ll wear the marketing and advertising hats most often. Don’t forget about the IT hat and the accounting hat. You need  technology and you need to keep track of the numbers, after all… Oh, and then there’s the publicity hat. You know, the one where you contact bloggers, journalists, etc. and follow-up with them as well (and send them review copies, etc.). Folks, self-publishing is not for the faint-hearted. It takes work, just like any start-up business. Don’t be afraid of the hard work. Roll up those sleeves and give it your best shot…

Of course, there are some things you can — and probably should — outsource to professionals. Not only will outsourcing save you time, but it’ll also leave you with (perhaps) a more successful book I mean business. Here are some aspects of your business that authors tend to outsource:

• Graphic design: Unless you are a professional graphic designer, PLEASE DO NOT design your own book cover and interior. An amateurish book design will be the kiss of death, as I’ve said before. I suggest hiring a professional book designer. We have them here at MindStir Media, FYI.
• Editing: Even if you happen to be a pro editor, your eyes should never be the only eyes taking a careful look at the manuscript you’ve written. Hire a professional editor.
• Printing: You’ll need a book printer. Yes, you should still offer a printed version of your book despite the popularity of ebooks. Ebooks are hot but we still live in a print world and plenty of people still love printed books (and prefer them)… Sure, you can outsource your printing to China, but I like the idea of keeping it all-American. Here at MindStir Media our printing is done in the USA and we offer a quality guarantee…
• Distribution:  You probably don’t want to go door-to-door with your book, so some sort of book distribution network is a must! You should absolutely have your book available at Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com, at the very least. By the way, MindStir Media handles book distribution for our authors.

OK, so back to that first paragraph… You could also hire a marketing/advertising agency; you could have Best Buy’s Geek Squad pay you a visit; you could hire a CPA (this is actually a good idea if you’re making decent money); and you could even hire a publicist. You may encounter a money issue, though, because outsourcing everything would cost you $10,000 – $30,000 (and maybe more) depending on the companies you choose. So, outsource some things and not all things and then go from there. And above all else, remember that your book is a business and you should treat it that way!

J.J. Hebert is the bestselling author of Unconventional and Weepy the Dragon. He’s also the founder and president of MindStir Media, a full-service self-publishing and book marketing company.

October 30, 2012

We recently added live chat to our website in order to improve customer service. Live chat is available on PC, Mac, iPhone and iPad (and other mobile devices). Look for the green “LIVE CHAT, We Have the Answers” graphic on any page of this website. Live chat is ideal for folks who don’t want to call or email and would simply like answers right now…instead of later.

We’re hoping these quotes will help remind you that you’re not alone as a writer and maybe teach you a few things, too. Some of the quotes are inspirational, others humorous. A few are even profound. Enjoy!

1. “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typwriter and bleed.” –Ernest Hemingway
2. “A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.” –Maya Angelou
3. “You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” –Madeleine L’Engle
4. “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” –Stephen King
5. “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” –Stephen King
6. “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” –Toni Morrison
7. “Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It’s a way of understanding it.” –Lloyd Alexander
8. “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.” –Robert Frost
9. “If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.” –Isaac Asimov
10. “Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it’s always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins.” –Neil Gaiman
11. “Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.” –John Steinbeck
12. “Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.” –F. Scott Fitzgerald
13. “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” –Jack London
14. “All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.” –E.B. White
15. “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.” –Thomas Jefferson
16. “Perhaps I write for no one. Perhaps for the same person children are writing for when they scrawl their names in the snow.” –Margaret Atwood
17. “Grand. There’s a word I really hate. It’s a phony. I could puke every time I hear it.” –J.D. Salinger
18. “You can fix anything but a blank page.” –Nora Roberts
19. “When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.” –Kurt Vonnegut
20. “I never exactly made a book. It’s rather like taking dictation. I was given things to say. ” –C.S. Lewis

May 9, 2012

MindStir’s second finalist of the day! Indemnity: Book Two: Covenant of Trust series by Paula Wiseman has been named a Finalist in the Religious Fiction category of the 2012 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Congratulations, Paula!

About the Next Generation Indie Book Awards: The Next Generation Indie Book Awards is the largest Not-for-Profit book awards program for indie authors and independent publishers. In its fifth year of operation, the Next Generation Indie Book Awards was established to recognize and honor the most exceptional independently published books in 60 different categories, for the year, and is presented by Independent Book Publishing Professionals Group (www.IBPPG.com) in cooperation with Marilyn Allen of Allen O’Shea Literary Agency.

The Finalists/Winners will be officially announced at indiebookawards.com at the end of this month.

To purchase Indemnity, and for more information, please click here. Other books in the series include Contingency: Book One and Precedent: Book Three.

Haven’t read book one in the series? Good news: Contingency is FREE for Kindle through May 12, 2012!