Category: Sales

Taking a closer look at Ken Oder: What works in indie fiction?

Congratulations to author Ken Oder on the release of his second novel, Old Wounds to the Heart. Not only is it his second novel, but it is the second in his series of Whippoorwill Hollow books. When you take a closer look, it’s clear that Ken’s doing a lot of things right as an indie novelist. Things we […]

Top Five Tips for Authors to Build Opt-in Email List Subscription

Authors, you know you crave them: subscriptions to your opt-in email list. The people who willingly sign up to hear from you, who follow you and your books, who aren’t subject to the vagaries of Amazon, the fortunes of Barnes & Noble, or the flakiness of Google Play. The ones you can send exactly the […]

The Down Low on My Hollywood Pitch Trip: My 5 Rs of Book-to-Screen Pitching

A year ago, I was invited to attend “Adapting to Hollywood,” a conference thrown by Sisters in Crime (primarily the fabulous LA Chapter) and for which I didn’t have to spend one red cent. I still don’t know how I got invited, but I’ll take it. What was obvious from the get-go was that indies like […]

Where Have You Been All My Life: Giving Your Ebooks Away Using BookFunnel

I recently discovered a new-to-me service that allows me to give my ebooks away easily, both to me and the recipient. Gone are the old days of individually emailing files and patiently explaining and re-explaining the different file types and how to transfer them to devices, apps, and elsewhere, only to have the emails bounce […]

10 Surefire Ways to Get Reviews for Your Books

Online reviews are EVERYTHING for the sale of indie books. I focused almost exclusively on reviews as a marketing strategy when my first novel, Saving Grace, was published. Three and a half years later, it has more reviews (2300+ with 4.3-stars) on Amazon than Janet Evanovich’s One for the Money (the book it’s most often […]

Less is More

I recently spent a month in Russia. I saw a lot of interesting things. In Russia, the rolls of toilet paper don’t have that cardboard tube in the center on which the paper is rolled. It is all paper, and the holder is just a skinny metal shaft that pierces the center and wallah, it […]

Career Strategy: When to take and when to tank well-meaning advice.

Here’s a blast from the past from Pamela Fagan Hutchins, who has since published ten novels and a novella and one more nonfiction book, quit her day job, and is writing novel number twelve and novella two as we speak. Catch her brand new show, Wine Women & Writing Radio, debuting Friday May 4 at […]