Free Marketing Resources

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They say that everyone has a price and mine is free this month over on Patreon because everything I have released in March is available for all!

From my newly updated list of Book Promotion Websites to a free Twitter Audio Coaching Session all about my ten years spent on the platform – there are some cool and hopefully useful marketing resources for anyone looking to grow online as a creative. For the authors in the room I have also just released a new basic guide about selling books online.

These free marketing resources are just a taste of what is available to Rock Star and Royal Rock Star Patrons if you sign up and I have a stack of content coming. From more Twitter Coaching Sessions to my experience with getting book reviews and much more. Sign up now to get all my best stuff first.

You shall find those free resources below…

A List of Book Promotion Sites – my newest list of places I have successfully advertised with in the past year. Click on the graphic above or alternatively click here.

This beginner’s guide to selling books online goes back to basics and lays out how I sell books regularly so you can too! Click here or on the graphic above.

For the 23rd Twitter Coaching Session I talk about my 10 years spent on the platform. This series consists of literally hours of me laying out how to find success on the platform. If you sign up, you can access the whole series and find something that will help you grow also! Here’s the link.

For my 24th Coaching Session I have opened the floor for any questions anyone might have about Twitter or the wider subject of social media marketing. Drop me a line and I’ll happily answer your question in-depth for the next coaching session!

Of course for anyone who does sign up to my Patreon will receive rewards such as regular Twitter shout-outs and even a free digital copy of my guide book Consistent Creative Content. Thanks for dropping by!

Weekly Ramble #167

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Sometimes an extended rest is all the mind needs. Although I love being busy, it can be nice to take ten days away and spend it with my significant other. Escape equals recharge sometimes and now I am back with batteries that are full.

My intentions this year are fewfold – from querying my forever dream book to outside writing day job aspirations to even directing another show. I’ve got my work cut out and I’m so ready. 2022 was a long and labouring year which took a lot from me. A huge priority has been to get my mental health back up to scratch and now after some time away and reflection my anxiety has seemingly drained and now I must strive to keep myself in better shape both physically and mentally. These ramble posts serve as a diary and a also to-do list. Hopefully by 2023’s final one, I will be reflecting on some successes.

As I pick up where I left of just some weeks ago, I cannot help but look back on my short break away with fond memories. A huge shout-out the wonderful Island of Saint Lucia. What a fantastic place!

Awesome Recommended Reads

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Okay, I haven’t posted one of these in a while but I’ve been busy… You can expect more book reviews soon but here’s what I have read and reviewed this year so far….

‘The Memory Wood’ by Sam Lloyd

Immersive, descriptive, addictive and full of mysterious intrigue…

Full Review

‘Clear and Convincing Evidence’ by H.C. Helfand

A beautifully written continuation of a fantastic story about life and opportunity…

Full Review

‘Fire at Her Fingertips’ by Rebecca Crunden

‘You know it’s better to lie. To keep the fire for yourself.’

Full Review

‘One of Us: Two families, two traditions… one the hunted’ By Thomas Simpson

A chilling fusion of brutality and horror with descriptive ominous vibes…

Full Review

And so that wraps up a long awaited review of my recent reads. You can expect more soon!

‘One of Us: Two families, two traditions… one the hunted’ By Thomas Simpson – Review

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A chilling fusion of brutality and horror with descriptive ominous vibes…

From the very start there’s a kind of ominous vibe that slowly builds as Thomas Simpson introduces the players in this chilling and eventually brutal tale.

We meet the two sides after a brief taste of what is to come and snippets of their plans are fed to readers as mystery and expectation come into play making for that ominous build. While the journey feels slow at times the description in parts kept me drawn into a story along with that build which suddenly flips and then accelerates towards the destination of a satisfying slasher.

For those who are fans of the genre, there’s a few fun references along with atmosphere oozing from the shadowy forest setting that plays host for two very different groups who eventually collide. With characters ranging from the young and naïve to the unhinged and even calculated; their actions and choices make for some fun but chilling reading.

Favourite Quotes:

‘The illusion if nightfall descended. The black clouds smothered the sun as the trees finished off any remaining light that dared to break through…’

‘There was something different about this one, he exuded a dark magnetism behind those silent eyes…’

4 Stars

Weekly Ramble #166

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The mind of a creative can be an amazing thing. Mine generally functions better when I am busy but every so often when I have the time I’ll take a step back from creativity. It is during these breaks that I grow the most. Experience and time served focusing on a craft has its obvious rewards but rest as a basic human necessity is vital to anyone looking to grow.

This year started busily with difficulty from external and internal issues for me. But like always, I found a way to overcome my obstacles and come out of a time that tested me to the limit. Reflection is fostered by time and to heal requires both. Coming back stronger than ever is my goal for this year when it comes to those external happenings. I’m going to do everything in my power to set right anything that wasn’t from last year. January and February are normally tricky for a lot of people and that includes me – I’ve got goals on my mind but I don’t want to burn out early.

Surviving is great but thriving is better and that is something I am aspiring to do this year. As always I’ll keep going, keep working and keep figuring myself out.

Recent Reviews

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Book Reviews mean everything to authors, they help us grow and provide some all-important feedback that may even possibly shape our future works.

While being published may be a hobby for me, I still take it seriously and have aspirations of one day making it more. I appreciate every review I receive from my wonderful readers who have paved this author path for me.

Here is some recent praise for 3 of my works!

You can find out more about all of my books here.

Weekly Ramble #165

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Pursuing dreams matters to me. Pursuing things that make me happy also matters. Writing and telling stories has been something I’ve dreamt of doing longer than pretty much anything else so when I do write, it makes me happy. Above everything, doing things in life that make you happy matters the most.

As I am just about to finish drafting my latest writing project, I cannot help but feel pride for enduring and finding everything I can to nearly complete the journey. To me, every project is different but everything required to finish it always feels the same – there are struggles in some capacity every time and it is up to the story teller to overcome them. My inspirations come from many different corners of life and I do my best to express them in the words I lay out. Of course the editing process takes us away from the original intentions sometimes but that process is nearly always necessary to create a polished finished product.

This project in particular is a stage play that will be performed within a year – a very special outlet I am lucky to have. Guess I better get to finishing it…

‘The Whale’ – Review

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Brendan Fraser delivers a deeply emotional and moving performance that doesn’t hold back from the brutality of a man suffering.

From the very start of Darren Aronofsky’s ‘The Whale’ we are exposed to a vivid and graphic view of ‘Charlie’ who is a morbidly obese English teacher on the verge of losing his life. Fraser carries a certain charm he has always been known for while also going to new territory for his wide ranging convincing acting ability – very early on we see him wink as he would in an action adventure yarn from the late 90’s but then much later in the film we see him desperate to know that his life has been worthwhile. This existential sense is just one of the many elements and themes of a layered story that touches on loss, love, health, money, religion, purpose and even classic literature.

With a small but brilliant cast, the players all pull together and orbit the main character in their own ways to bring a story that will stay with me for some time. This film could easily become an on-stage adaptation and of course it is more than obvious to see why the award nominations came pouring in. For Brendan Fraser, hopefully this is a redemption story although even without the awards it is a decorated return. At times ‘The Whale’ wasn’t easy viewing which is credit to those in this gripping performance.

‘I need to know that I have done one right thing with my life!‘

5 Stars

Crossing $1000 in Book Royalties 2022

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Money.

A subject that can be kind of divisive for anyone who has published or released something creative in this world and for pretty much everyone else. With that discussion firmly to one side, this is my account of how I crossed $1000 in book royalties for the year 2022. Making any type of income from my books and creativity online crept up on me over the years and while I did spend my time churning out content and publishing with my head down doing the work, eventually my income began to grow.

Before I do dive in, I’ve always believed that creatives deserve to be paid for their work. And its perfectly valid for an artist or any creator to value their work. It is also normal and okay for a creator to aspire towards making a career out of their endeavours – something I one day aspire to do. But that word value is where we shall begin…

Value

Over the years of being published I’ve discovered that having a perceived value for your works is the first step to making money from them. From taking pride in a job done well to the hours you’ve put in to create something from scratch to even your public perception of that work. All of this stuff and the general success of it along with you, revolves around that value. There is a lot more I could say about value, but as long as you are aware of how you conduct yourself online and have pride towards your work, you’ll be fine.

Now, linked rather closely to value is pricing…

Pricing

That perception and belief of value should drive what you think is a fair price for your work. Pricing for books can be a sometimes tricky thing to master. I’ve tried numerous pricing strategies over the years but my major selling price was in fact my perceived regular price.

Having tried the lowest possible price for my e books via kindle ($0.99) for an extended time didn’t result in many consistent sales but after raising that price (around $2.99) things started moving more frequently. This is part value and psychological towards the potential reader. Low prices can be good for a temporary book promotional boost, but a decent competitive price over an extended time will do good for your sales eventually. Paperbacks are another factor here also and seeing as I used to sell predominantly digital, paperback sales began to rise for me in recent times. This is probably due to fair pricing and value while also because of my rising profile on social media. Having 40,000 Twitter followers does help sometimes but it took a while for me to get there.

With regular sales at regular price, royalties will trickle in consistently and we’re not talking several sales a day here. Just a consistent one or two sales every three or four days will work wonders for that royalty balance trust me. And trust, is a huge factor in this…

Trust

Just how does a creative earn trust online? Well it isn’t easy and it takes time, a lot of time. But if you take responsibility in everything you do in the public facing domain of social media, eventually you’ll earn that trust of others. I sell most of my work through social media because I am present and generally pleasant. Decent behaviour sticks out big-time in this day and age. Running parallel to that time I have spent earning trust is consistent creative content…

The Three C’s

Those who know me will also know my guide book is titled Consistent Creative Content and I wholeheartedly believe they are three things any creator needs to succeed. It took me six or so years to release eight books and using my time rather well it has propelled me towards higher royalties. This writer journey is a marathon not a sprint and you may be one or two books in or more, but over time it gets better if you keep going. Readers like choice and if they make a good enough connection with one of your books, they will return for another, so having that option will increase your chances of sales. Backlist really is King and alongside that is another huge factor, promotion…

Promotion

Book Promotion is a huge umbrella of variety and to the first-time author a rather daunting concept. You can only do what you know how to do at the time of a book release and that’s okay. I’ll admit my book promo methods were limited during the release of my first book and over some years I learned a lot. All of the things I did learn I then applied back to that first release and it is now one of my most successful.

With book promotion and discovering the many methods it involves, this will take time. Generally, I pay for advertising via book promotion websites while also plugging my work online occasionally. My method for regular sales is to focus more on convincing potential readers to be interested in me and then hope they move on to my books – this concept works for me mostly…

I am regularly present on social media. For those who aren’t, advertising takes many forms and if you want serious results then sometimes you have to pay serious money.

BookBub is a promo site that brings fantastic returns and during 2022 a perfect BookBub storm unexpectedly erupted for me. It was during the run-up to the final release in my Order of the Following Series that I managed to grab a coveted featured deal -BookBub’s ‘Holy Grail’ of advertising packages, for the first book in the series. Of course I pounced and put into action everything I’ve learned to ensure maximum sales and KU page reads.

That featured deal happened back in September of 2022 and now in February of 2023 I am still getting page reads, reviews and sales from it.

An effective book promotion, will serve a book for plenty of time after.

Most of my fictional works are enrolled in Kindle Unlimited and that gives maximum opportunity for extended royalties from digital downloads. Quantity is key here and if you can sell books in quantity, the money will eventually roll in.

Quick Fire Factors

And so I’ve hopefully laid out the details to reaching a huge royalty milestone. Here are some quick fire factors that helped shape that journey.

Writing in Series – long term but this helps, when my series was complete it became way more lucrative, keep going series writers!

Writing Stand Alone – peppered between those releases in series are stand alone books in a variety of genre and length. This helped me big-time. Remember backlist is King.

Supporting the industry – I regularly review books by fellow authors from my social media connections. This has helped me regularly release reviews that serve as blogging content and is an opportunity to gain trust and friendships from fellow authors.

Social Media Presence – there are a lot of potential readers out there online, spending time with them will drive sales, eventually.

Time is your friend – it takes time to get to anywhere good on a creative journey.

Paid Advertising – to make money you sometimes have to spend money.

Kindle Unlimited – most of my fictional works including my series is enrolled in KU. Those page reads add up if you can reach readers.

Taking this journey seriously – serious results comes from a serious attitude. I am always doing something to help market myself or my stuff online. From blog posts, to reviews, to social media presence to the odd book price promo or advertising.

Concluding Thoughts

I’ve tried to be as neutral as possible when highlighting my experiences of making over $1000 is book royalties because like I said at the start, money can be divisive subject. For this account I have homed in on certain subjects that all work in unison to create the perfect recipe for book royalties. You shall find more specific guidance below.

Thank you for reading!

This account was inspired by a recent Patreon Audio Presentation where I talk in detail about my journey. You can find that here.

Further Reading:

Building Trust on Twitter

My Most Recent Guide on Securing a BookBub Featured Deal

A guide to Selling Books on Social Media

Twitter Coaching Sessions

A concise list of Book Promotion Websites

‘Fire at Her Fingertips’ by Rebecca Crunden – Review

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‘You know it’s better to lie. To keep the fire for yourself.’

Rebecca Crunden delivers a powerful tale with deep meaning that immerses readers from the start.

For a shorter read it doesn’t hold back with a writing style that uses every word to create the sense of an enduring journey to finding belonging and home. There is a lot of symbolism and metaphor here paired with poetic writing that displays Crunden’s strengths as an immersive story teller while also carrying an important message. Fire is a force that carries a mystique and power which is embraced here. Its also okay to be different because eventually you’ll find others to accept you for who you are.

Shorter reads like this deserve praise because they may only whisk the reader away for a short time but that important message within will stick around for much longer.

5 Stars