(e)Publishing & Consultancy
Getting started with independent publishing can be quite the learning curve. Firstly, there are all the retailers to think of. Will you sell only on Amazon, or try them all? How do you upload your books on there and how do you get paid? American companies will withhold 30% tax from any non-US writers unless they have a tax ID and double taxation form in place. All this can seem like a big headache and too much effort to even get into.
We cater to both authors who prefer to outsource the entire process, and those of a more enterprising nature who just need some help getting started with their own publishing accounts. Our experience allows us to advise you about some of the ways of getting your work out there, what pitfalls to avoid and how to go about starting to market yourself. Our background in web design allows us to advise you on matters such as branding, social media strategy, down to “what does that error on Smashwords mean and how do I fix it?”
The term author platform gets thrown around a lot nowadays, but what is it really?
As you might gather, it is a base from where the author presents his/her work. It is a way of communicating with readers, to inform them and hopefully sell more books to them. When someone tells you, you need an author platform, generally what they mean is you need to have a website and set yourself up on at least some social media.
Typically this involves: Website / blog (some people treat it that way, but this part is NOT optional!), Facebook / Twitter / Whatever other platform you like. We would advise that you at least join either Facebook or Twitter, because they’re huge and your readers may find it convenient to follow you on there.
At WriteHit, we understand that you’d much rather write than bother with complicated website building tools. We sympathise with you when you say you don’t have time to write books AND blog every day. The good news is, you don’t have to. We can offer webdesign services to help you get started with a professional author website, and consult with you to find the best use of what little time you do have to build your platform. But the days that a writer can just produce books and otherwise do nothing in terms of marketing are definitely over. Readers expect some form of interaction, even if it’s just an update on Facebook to say when your new release is coming out. Ideally readers want to feel like if they send you fan mail via email, you actually read it and appreciate it.
Think about how you buy books yourself:
Either you buy a new release by a writer you already know and like, or you happen across something interesting on Amazon or in a local bookstore. As a new writer, you want to encourage the first type of behaviour because the second is totally out of your hands. You want someone who has read one of your books to be able to type your name into Google and find more information about you. You want to serve them ways of purchasing all your other books on a silver platter, so they don’t have to hunt around needlessly.
If your reader downloads a book of yours from Barnes & Noble, you want them to click on a link in the back straight to your website and find out all they need to know. If a reader can’t do that, he/she will get frustrated, possibly forget about you and move on to the next book in their to-read queue.
