All posts by Jordan Smith

How to Choose the Right Price for Your Book, Part 1

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How to Choose the Right Price for Your Book part 1

Today I’m starting a new series on one of the biggest challenges we indie authors face. That challenge is pretty much the entire process of setting a price for a book. I know plenty of authors, including myself, who have spent days or weeks agonizing over which price to choose. And then once the price has been set, these same authors still wonder if they made the right decision.

Well, I believe that while choosing the right price is a difficult part of self-publishing, it’s not something we have to do blindly. And so over the course of the next several posts, I’m going to explore a number of strategies for pricing your book, plus I’ll give you some ideas that will help you choose a good price for your book without quite so much second-guessing.

Before we dive into all the nitty-gritty of pricing, I think I need to spend some time talking about typical author attitudes and self-worth.

The Two Typical Attitudes of Self-published Authors

When I talk to authors about their book’s pricing, I typically see a couple of attitudes. Let’s look at each one. Continue reading How to Choose the Right Price for Your Book, Part 1 →

Smaller Ponds: How to Use Categories to Sell More Books

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Smaller Ponds

It’s a problem most of us face as indie authors: We feel like we ought to be selling more books, but we’re not sure how. When the KDP Select Free the Countdown deal days are up for your book, how do you continue to get exposure while you wait for more? Or, how do you maximize the effectiveness of the jump up Amazon’s charts that comes from your KDP promotion?

Perhaps the answer to both of these questions lies in your book’s categories. You probably remember when you first added your book to KDP and went through the process of deciding which categories were the best fit for your book. But did you think about the marketing benefits?

Yes, I said marketing benefits of your KDP categories. See, some categories contain more books than others, and that’s where the strategy comes in. Continue reading Smaller Ponds: How to Use Categories to Sell More Books →

How to Evaluate a Kindle Deal Site Before You Buy a Promotion

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How to Evaluate Deal Sites

Okay, so you’ve decided to take the plunge and pay for a spot on a Kindle deal site. Yay! But now you have to decide which one to choose. And then you notice that they all have different prices, they all claim to be the best, your friends say this one is better, bloggers say you won’t get good results with that one, and on and on it goes.

If your head is spinning, fear not. We’re going to take a look at some ways you can evaluate a deal site before you buy the promotion. Continue reading How to Evaluate a Kindle Deal Site Before You Buy a Promotion →

How to Format Your Amazon Description to Stand Out

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Amazon-Descriptions

Are you tired of your plain-text Amazon description? You know, the one that can’t have any italics, bold text, lists, or headers? It probably looks a little like this:

Description Unformatted

You’ve probably seen other books on Amazon with all sorts of text styles in the descriptions, like this one:

You may have jealously wondered, “How can I get my description to look like that?” The answer isn’t obvious, but it’s also not hard! Let’s look at it together. Continue reading How to Format Your Amazon Description to Stand Out →

Eight Ways to Engage Your Current Audience

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Engage Current Audience

It’s not uncommon to find authors talking about how they plan to reach new readers. However, the readers you already have are just as important, if not more so. Your fans have already enjoyed your book, and they are capable of spreading the news about it and your future titles far and wide if you give them a reason to be excited about it. And that can lead to new readers.

The problem is that you need to keep your current audience interested while you write that new book. People have short attention spans (squirrel!), so it’s important to remind your audience that you exist every now and then. How do you do that? Here are eight ways you can engage with your fans and keep their attention. Continue reading Eight Ways to Engage Your Current Audience →

More Loglines from the 2014 Edition of The Black List

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Eight Loglines from The Black List

Last time, I walked you through the process of refining and critiquing seven loglines from The Black List 2014. Today, I have eight more instructive loglines to show you, along with my thoughts on how they could be improved.

Once again, remember that most of the time when I recommend changes to a logline, I am guessing at story details the author has left out. Because I’m not working with the writer on these loglines, I often can’t create a final version. However, I can make the first round of suggestions that would then go back to the writer for further rewrites. Continue reading More Loglines from the 2014 Edition of The Black List →

Loglines from the 2014 Edition of The Black List

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Seven Loglines from The Black List

Each year, The Black List is made of Hollywood executives’ favorite unproduced screenplays, complete with title and logline information. Back in 2013, I discovered these lists and also found out that some of the loglines could be instructive cases of how to improve a pitch. I ended up writing three blog posts with details on how I would improve 15 of the loglines from the 2012 edition of The Black List.

Well, it’s back again for 2015. Here are some instructive loglines from the 2014 edition of The Black List, with my notes on how each could be improved.

It’s important to note that most of the time when I recommend changes to a logline, I am guessing at story details the author has left out. Because I’m not working with the writer on these loglines, I often can’t create a final version. However, I can make the first round of suggestions that would then go back to the writer for further rewrites.

With that out of the way, let’s jump right in. Continue reading Loglines from the 2014 Edition of The Black List →

The Independent Author Professionalism Manifesto

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Regardless of how often you write every day or how many books you’ve written, if you’ve published a book or are planning to publish a book, you are a professional author. You’ve probably heard that you will only be as professional as you act. So how can you act professional?

Is it wearing a suit and tie while you type your next manuscript?

No.

Is it writing exclusively on a typewriter?

Nope.

How about selling a bazillion books?

No.

Professionalism is much more intangible. It’s an attitude that says you take your work seriously. You are putting forth your best effort to be excellent in your craft as a writer, and you act in a way that lets others know you’re serious.

Because professionalism is an attitude, it’s difficult to put into concrete “do this” and “don’t do this” action steps. But I’ve come up with six things that are traits or actions of a professional author. This list is The Independent Author’s Professionalism Manifesto. Continue reading The Independent Author Professionalism Manifesto →

How Paying for a Big Promotion Made Me Act More Professional

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This post is a little different from the usual fare here at Fix My Story. Today I’d like to share the story of how I restarted my blog—and how the reboot made me act like a professional.

The opportunity was just too good to pass up. It was expensive enough to hurt, but the potential payoff was enormous. Taking a deep breath, I sent the e-mail and launched myself into something much bigger than I thought it would be… Continue reading How Paying for a Big Promotion Made Me Act More Professional →