Nick Stephenson's Blog

It’s all kicking off here in the UK as it turns out we don’t have enough delivery drivers to keep our petrol stations stocked up. 

So I’ve dumped the car on the driveway with 3 miles left in the tank and decided on a much healthier alternative. 

Namely, staying in the house and drinking whisky. That’ll sort it. 

^^ The aptly named Phil McCann reporting…

On the business side of things, I’ve had a lot of questions come through about how Apple’...

We all know by now (hopefully) that selling more books pretty much comes down to 2 things:

That is, getting people to see your book in the first place, then making your book enticing enough that people want to buy it.

Figure both those parts out, and you can scale up (profitably) to where you want to be.

Of course, in reality, nothing’s that simple.

“Getting traffic”, for example, could mean:

By Eric D. Goodman

During a recent interview related to the publication of my new adventure thriller, The Color of Jadeite, I was asked what motivated me to write this novel. The question made me pause, in part, because most of my past work falls into the “literary fiction” category, making my latest a departure (or arrival) of sorts, from literary to genre fiction.

Normally, my response t...

By Simone Leigh

If there’s one thing to take away from this article, it’s “get your covers right”. And do it before you pay for advertising.

Oh, and write in series. If you can (you’ll see why in a moment).

Oh, and remember – we all get some of this marketing game wrong – at least at first…

Let’s jump in.

Firstly, a proviso. Nay, a confession:

I wish I’d done this four years ago when I first started writing for m...

Almost all the work takes place weeks, or even months, before the book is even released. Case in point – I’m in the middle of a book launch right now, and I’ve spent most of the week gardening.

(And no, I’m not much of a gardener. And by “gardening” I mean “I put some potted plants in some soil”, which is about the limit of my skills).

And the reason I can take it easy this week, is that 99% of the hard work is already done.

The launch emails have been written ...

by Paris Hansch

A young woman hurries through the streets, looking over her shoulder every so often.  Her heart pounds in her chest, unsure of whether to be terrified or heartbroken.

In her arms, she holds her newborn baby girl.

“You can’t keep her.”

“She’s a waste of rice.”

“Get rid of it, or don’t bother coming home.”

The young woman clutches her daughter tighter in her arms as she stands on a bridge, barely holding back her t...

The answer is almost certainly yes. But a more pressing question is – should I invest in paid advertising for my books RIGHT NOW?

A little context…

Selling books online – selling anything, actually – means building processes and systems that generate:

And, of course, doing all that profitably. Everything else is largely supplementary – and will ideally h...

By James Daily

Writing and publishing your own book is such an exciting experience, filled with incredible ups. However, many writers, amidst the excitement, fail to realize that they’re responsible for promoting their own book – leaving it to the last minute. Promoting your book isn’t as difficult as you may believe, but it does require determination, motivation and a little head start.

Don’t let the thought of promoting your book deter fr...

Well, the internet has been blowing up recently concerning some changes Mailchimp have made to their business model and the impact this is having on authors using their service. Of course, the internet being the internet, there are lots of (very vocal) opinions, many of which are kinda missing the point…

Namely, when you are building your email list, you’re free to do what you want with it.

Meaning, you’re not stuck with Mailchimp if their new changes don’t suit you. End result = if you don’t li...

By Lucas Lee-Tyson – founder of Growth Cave

You’ve spent hundreds of hours crafting your book. You’ve wrestled and struggled and battled to craft the right words and sentences and paragraphs. Finally, after laboring for week and months, you finish your book.

With great excitement, you publish it on all the appropriate platforms. Then you sit back and wait for the sales to start pouring in.

Except that they don’t.

Of course, your mom buys a copy ...