5 Tips To Get You Tweeting Like A Pro

Nicholas Rossis teaches us how to tweet like a pro. Thanks a lot, Nicholas!

Nicholas C. Rossis

Author Steve Boseley, who has posted on my blog a guest post on the best time to tweet, recently published a post filled with tips on how to compose the perfect Tweet. I’m copying here his main tips, but I urge you to check out his complete post if you’re using Twitter to promote your books, as he also has some great tips on Twitter etiquete.

Tip #1: People Are Looking For Bargains

Here is what people are looking for on Twitter:

Image via Steve Boseley

Notice a pattern? Yes, the two most popular items are discounts and promos, and free stuff!

Tip #2: Ask A Question

Phrasing your tweet is obviously paramount to its success. One remarkably successful way to increase interaction with a tweet is to phrase it as a question:

• Why it is important to always…
• Why you should never…
• What is…

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Don’t Advertise With Amazon Until You’ve Read This

Nicholas C. Rossis has provided us with a fantastic blog post about advertising with Amazon. Read this article before you decide to do so. Thank you very much Nicholas!

Nicholas C. Rossis

Yes, this is the long-promised post where I share my experience advertising with Amazon and the things I’ve learned — things that could make or break your campaign.

What I’ve Learned Advertising With Amazon

You may remember my past experiences with Amazon Marketing Services (AMS) and the recent plan I’d set for myself. I started promoting in April with 3 kinds of ads:

Ad #1: Sponsored Products, Manual Keywords

This was the bulk of my promos. I chose up to 1,000 keywords for each book and used them to target potential readers.

How does one come up with so many keywords, you ask? Well, there are two easy ways:

1. Choose The Best-Selling Books In Your Genre

The first strategy requires that you find the genres in which your books sells. Amazon does some automatic choosing for you, and you can sometimes see these listed under your book details…

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A Fantasy Tip From History: Doo-Dooing The King

Nicholas Rossis provides us with a fascinating fantasy tip from history. Thank you very much, Nicholas!

Nicholas C. Rossis

Hand Of The King pin (image: Dark Comics)

In Game Of Thrones, it is the King’s Hand who exerts some real power of the Seven Kingdoms. His symbol, appropriately enough, was a pin depicting a hand.

But in yet another example of reality being stranger than fiction, it was the Groom of the Stool—named for the close stool, the king’s 16th-century toilet—who filled a highly coveted position in the royal house. How powerful were they? Well, historians believe that both James I and his successor King Charles I were so swayed by their grooms’ counsel that political discussions of the king’s privy helped fuel the 17th-century English Civil War.

As Natalie Zarrelli of Atlas Obscura observes, every day, as the king sat on his padded, velvet-covered close stool, he revealed secrets. He asked for counsel, and could even hear of the personal and political woes of his personal…

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How To Set Up Twitter Ads For Your Books: A Complete Guide By Alfageek

Nicholas Rossis has published a blog post with a fantastic step-by-step guide on how to set up twitter ads for your books – a guide that has been created and built by alfageek, aka Joshua Smith. Thank you Joshua and Nicholas for providing us with this useful information.

Nicholas C. Rossis

I’ve mentioned Joshua Smith’s (aka Alfageek’s) excellent blog in the past (in Alfageek Shares His Bookbub Ads Experience and The Benefits Of KDP Select: One Author’s Experience).

Well, the man has done it again and produced the best guide in setting up Twitter ads I’ve ever seen. He has detailed everything in six (!) consecutive posts aptly titled Step By Step Instructions for Promotion of your Book with Twitter Ads. I will be repeating here the gist of it in a single, easy-to-bookmark post with my experience added to Joshua’s, but be sure to check out the complete posts on his blog if you decide to go down the Twitter ads route.

How To Set Up Twitter Ads For Your Books

Photo by thesocialskinny.com

Using Twitter Ads, Joshua has been able to sell an average of almost 3 copies of his first novel a day, day in…

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3 Tips On Describing Eyes In A Story

Author Nicholas Rossis provides us with 3 tips on describing eyes in a story. Thank you, Nicholas. This is very helpful!

Nicholas C. Rossis

NowNovel recently posted a great post on how to describe eyes in a story. As they point out, many beginning authors over-rely on eye color to create an impression of their characters, but this is merely a first step. Instead, you can follow these tips to create a memorable description:

1. Make a characters’ eyes a source of contrast

Drawing of an eye by Marigona Toma. Source: pinterest.com/pin/390124386447098306/

As any trip to the local coffee shop will tell you, people’s appearances are often full of contrasts. The man with the big, ruddy face might have small, delicate hands. The woman with the angelic face may have a trucker’s hoarse voice. And so on. One way to describe characters’ eyes effectively is to use them to create contrast.

This can be particularly effective if the contrast is used to highlight a character’s “third dimension” – ie what makes them non-stereotypical…

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How to Use the Holidays to Sell More Books

Great advice from Nicholas Rossis! Use it to sell more books, authors. Thank you very much, Nicholas.

Nicholas C. Rossis

Written word media recently published a great post with ideas on how to take advantage of holiday marketing trends to sell your books. With Christmas fast approaching, I figured this is a great time to have a look at the main points:

1. Between mid-November and early January, everyone loves to shop

From early November through early January, everyone is in a buying mood, so this is the perfect time to sell more books. Here are a few noteworthy dates within this range that are significant online shopping days, with ideas on what tactics and messages will resonate with customers:

Info by Written World Media

Image: dailyfinance.com

2. Focus on Amazon

Focus on Amazon – over half the shoppers will use it for their holiday shopping. Emphasize links to your books on Amazon. Your prospective customers will already be shopping on Amazon, so make it easy for them to…

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Free Authors Tools: Blurb Preview & Yasiv

Author Nicholas Rossis provides us with an excellent post about Free Author’s Tools, Blurb Preview and Yasiv. Thank you for this helpful information, Nicholas. We appreciate your efforts!

Nicholas C. Rossis

I have two useful (and free) author tools to share with you today, courtesy of authors John Logsdon and MM Jaye respectively.

Amazon blurb preview

Author Central’s formatting toolbar

I’ve often shared on this blog my support of Amazon. Despite its occasional missteps, the company has leveled the playing field for Indie authors and is busy changing the publishing industry on a daily basis. It is consistently client-centric in its approach and has invested heavily in making the shopping experience as pleasant and flawless as possible.

Which is why I can’t fathom why it’s so hard for it to build a proper, user-friendly blurb builder.

In effect, there are two separate ways of posting your blurb: the first is to do it through your book details on KDP. This has the benefit of allowing you to use some basic html tags; namely: <b><br><em><font><h1><h2><h3><h4><h5><h6><hr><i><li><ol><p><pre><s><strike><strong><sub><sup><u> and <ul>. However, it lacks any…

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