Category Archives: Links

Self-publishing syllabus: JA Huss

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Today’s self-publishing research shout out goes to JA Huss’s free marketing vlog course, THE PERFECT YEAR.

I don’t have any experience with self publishing, so I can’t yet vouch for the efficacy of her methods. But these videos were clear, organized, and user friendly. She takes a ton of information that might otherwise overwhelm a newb like myself, and breaks it down into easily digestible parts. Definitely a good place to start, especially when trying to get a hold of all the different avenues of promotion.

Also, she curses like a sailor and has plenty of attitude. Which? By the time I got to the video where she started calling people c*nty b*tches all over the place, I wanted to take her out for margaritas and become BFFs.

This course is free, informative, and she doles out real information, instead of those irritating-as-hell videos where the person is always about to tell you the key thing, and 50 seconds worth of information is buried in 45 minutes of bullshit.

A toast: Whoop-whoop, J.A!

When you need someone to look at a contract, but you don’t have an agent

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Today’s shout-out goes to Authors Guild!!!

Recently, someone offered to buy some of the rights for DARKWEB. In all the excitement, the most burning point of freak out was that I didn’t know where to find someone with the expertise to help.

A small snippet of my anxiety spiral: Hire a lawyer? If so, how did I find one that specialized in this area? What if the lawyer cost more than the advance I was offered? Agents know contracts! Should I contact a handful of agents to see if they’d negotiate on my behalf? What if they they take me because ‘free money’ but were otherwise not a great fit? What if they won’t even take me because it’s not enough money to be worth their time?

Fortunately, I have sane friends. They recommended Authors Guild.

For the price of membership, you can access Authors Guild’s lawyers, who will look at contracts and tell you what they think.

I signed up, and a lawyer emailed me within 5 business days. They were tremendously helpful. I felt like I had someone on my side, who understood what was going on.

When the lawyer had answered all my many questions, I had a clearer grasp of the pros and cons, and felt confident in the decision to pass on signing. AHAHAHA, EMPOWERMENT. Anyway, AG. Definitely worth the price of membership, even if I never use any of their other services.

Turning youtube audio into a podcast, so you can multitask like a badass

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I’m an Ivory Tower kinda girl, meaning I love to research the shit outa stuff I’m interested in. For self-publishing, this often means watching/listening to tons of youtube videos and lectures.

As I’m sure you might guess, this can get boring AF, and I’ve already spent many hours ‘educating myself’ while playing Tetris on another browser until my fingers cramped into a monkey’s paw type situation. Pretty much a throwback to my entire education. Holla, grad school!

My husband recommended playing videos at 1.25 speed, which you can do under the flower shaped button in the bottom right of most videos.

But I gotta tell you, you’re then trapped, playing Tetris, with someone who sounds totally coked out of their mind AND SUPER PSYCHED ABOUT THE MINUTIA OF SELF PUBLISHING.

Another option I’ve recently discovered are programs such as this one,
which convert youtube audio to a podcast format you can play on mp3 player.

I’ve converted exactly one youtube lecture with this link, and it worked. Although, when I came back to my browser, there was a full page ad from Ashley Madison. So be sure to give your spouse the heads up before you get yourself in some marital hot water.

Anyway, you are probably a bad-assed multi-tasker like myself, and enjoy plotting your eventual brand take-over while you go out jogging, or as you heroically mop the floor. If so, this might help you out.

Kboards & an example of smooth self promo

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One of my first stops for learning about self publishing was the k-boards (https://www.kboards.com/). They say the big draw of self publishing is being able to control all the aspects of publication — cover, formatting, hiring editors, promotion, etc.

HAHAHA, I am not a control freak, and this did not appeal. If memory serves, I think I slowly backed away, closed the browser, and didn’t go back until I had a strong drink in hand.

Likewise, Kboards is a smorgasbord of everyone talking about all these various aspects, and it can get pretty overwhelming to newbs like myself pretty quick.

*Never the less, she persisted* as the saying goes, and so will you. It’s worth it. There are some pretty big names who frequent the place. For example, here’s a HM Ward thread that’s cool and useful.

Also, if you are looking for me over there, I’m finally getting enough of a hold of things to start asking questions. Behold, my one thread to date.

Also, if you are reading this looking to self-publish yourself (and good God, Lemon, why would you bother reading if you weren’t?) Check this out: I was so excited by the HM Ward thread that I shouted out a Thank You on twitter.

Even though she’s a bestseller, she tweeted back less than 48 hours later AND had a perfect tie-in response promoting something she was working on. I was a little amazeballs to see her in action, hand selling stuff in tweet form, even to a dinky account like mine. Definitely putting her strategy in my back pocket when it comes time for me to (ugh!) self promote.

An interesting link about manipulating FB reach

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Here’s a link in which Jenny Lawson, AKA The Bloggess, talks about facebook reach, and how links within a post may decrease reach.

I’ve heard other people talking about FB reach as well, and general consensus seems to be it isn’t the powerhouse advertiser it used to be — at least not for free promotion.

Guess it makes sense if FB wants to squeeze a buck from you for advertising your thing (whatever your thing is) they don’t want you to be able to get as great a reach for free. Anyway, just another consideration as I gear up.

xo, T