Dear Writing Community, What do you think about Reading Apps?

Reading apps? These are starting to proliferate. I see a lot of ads on Facebook and Instagram about them. I lost count. The companies mostly come from Singapore. 

I've gone to download a few of them and I also tried writing for some of them. 

Pros and Cons. 

What I noticed first and foremost is how they all almost have the same stories in them, but the names of the characters are different... and of course, the ad content is different as well. They attach photos, add a few lines of text... 

Most of them are "bad" in a way that stories are clearly unedited. With many errors in every chapter or episode. Mostly word usage, grammar and spelling. They can turn off readers. I've been turned off many times. 

Most of them don't have a Facebook page you can visit. The ads direct you to the app store where you can download it. Most also don't have websites. So... it doesn't have that "legit" feel on them. It's simply the app. You don't get any idea how they operate. Where do they get their stories? Are they plagiarized? Are they authorized? 

Granted, some of the legit ones do have a few sub-apps. You will find that a few of them belong to the same company or group. 

Anyway...

There are some that do have pages, social media accounts, websites, contact details and are actively recruiting writers for them. I've tried a few and they do have editors as well who will check your story. Some offer payments for you to write for them. 

I've been to Dreame, Sofanovel, Booknet, Goodnovel... 

Wattpad's there, but most of it are free to read and the quality is left to the writers. 

So, what do I have to say about each of these that I've tried?

GOODNOVEL

Let me take Goodnovel out of the way first. I haven't actually signed anything with them yet. The story I posted there was an old WIP and it's been getting sidelined as I worked on other stories. My first comment there is that... I think they don't do anything for your story. You have to market and share the story on your own for you to get reads. Maybe they do once you get signed or something. I don't know yet. 

You can only see the count for "views" or "reads". No idea on how many readers you have. 

Upside? Once you get a story exclusively signed, their program is tiered. You can earn depending on your word count. Minimum is 200 USD for 40000 words? It gets prorated, especially on your first month. Highest is 400 USD for 80000 words, if I'm not mistaken. Check them out. It's very enticing but I think they're also more strict compared to others. There are conditions for how often you have to update as well to be eligible for the income. Then, there's sharing of the profit from readers' payment, if your story starts generating.

Technicalities. To apply for a contract with them, your story must have 15000 words already. I don't think they provided the minimum for a completed story but I believe they're going for at least 50k-word stories. The longer, the better.

I'ma get back to them next year. I'm booked until February 2021.

BOOKNET

I only have one story on Booknet. It's a completed story which I worked on for almost two months. 

The good thing about Booknet is that... I think they do include your work in their carousel of ads. I made no advertising or marketing on my story but people have been adding it on their "library". You can see how many people added your story to their library, the number of reads and the number of comments. 

By the time I completed writing it, I have 100 people who saved it on their library. After I changed the status to completed, I had more readers. As of now, I have almost 241 readers and 8440 reads (the story has 43 chapters). There's a good increase in stats within ten days after I completed writing it. 

Technicalities. You have to have a free story that is 240000 characters long. And then, for your subsequent stories... you can sell them once you've had 100 followers, 80 consistent readers, and have filled out your information. You decide on your own pricing. 

They don't pay you anything for the stories you post, except for your share in the sale of your stories, if you are selling them to your readers.

For the contests that they have, though, they do pay their finalists. 

DREAME

Most people think that the pay for these reading apps is low. Goodnovel has the highest from what I've seen so far. 

But if you compare it to royalties from the sale of my self-published books, it's definitely higher. Which is why I decided to write for a few of them. 

Dreame, their signing bonus is fixed at 50 USD (for 2020; it might change next year, who knows?). There are conditions like minimum word counts before you can get it. 

And then, they have daily update bonus. Depending on your word count as well. 

And lastly is the completion bonus, depending on the word count again. 

Depending on how you do, the minimum you can get is 100 USD per story. Signing and completion bonus. If you do the daily update, you can get more. If your completed word count is longer than 100k, you can get more as well. 

From your writer's dashboard, you can see the number of reads and how many people have put your story into their library.

They have this tab for income, so you can monitor how much you're earning if your story has been put on the pay-to-read program. You get a share of it every month when readers' pay "coins" to read the latter episodes of your story. 

There are conditions on their pay-to-read program. Your story must have at least 500 likes (readers who saved your story to their libraries). More than 5 episodes. You get to choose from which chapter/episode you will start asking for "coins".

What I liked about it is that on the first working day of the next month, you get to see how much in total you've earned the previous month. 

Having more readers? It's up to you, but when you get the story signed, they would run promotions for it, to help you get that 500 readers for you to get on the pay-to-read program. 

They have different apps for different genres. Most of the romance stories are on Dreame. They have Ringdom for adventure stories. So far, those two are what I know. 

SOFANOVEL

Mostly romance stories. 

If you have a story, you need at least 3000 words or four chapters before you can apply for a contract. An editor will assess your story and offer an amount which you can either accept or reject. Or maybe negotiate? I'm not much of a negotiator, you see. 

Their model is subscription. Pay a monthly fee and read all you want. More like KindleUnlimited. 

Downside? You don't get to see how many have read the story's exclusive chapters. 

You do get to see the number of reads, though. No idea how many readers you actually have. 

You don't know how much you earn until you get the payment or you ask your editor. 

They offer daily update bonus as well. 

-------------

Well, there you go. Those are what I've tried so far. I might have missed a few things. You can check out the respective links to their websites and do your own digging and exploration. 

What might I talk about next? I'm planning to explore Reddit and see how helpful they are. 

Thanks. Enjoy reading. Enjoy writing. 💙

Dear Writing Community, How do you Market your Written Works?

These be the things that are easier said than done. A lot of it depends on your own judgement, sometimes or most of the time, gut feeling… depending on your experience. It’s all subjective. Depends on a ton of factors.

I say written works, not books, because as writers… books are not the only output we have. 

Someone said it’s easier to earn money through writing articles than writing a book and selling it. They’re not entirely wrong. Which is why… your written works should be diverse as well. Don’t simply write books, there be blogs, reading apps, articles, journals, essays, reviews… the list goes on.

The principle is pretty much the same in business. You don’t invest all your money in one project. You put a portion in a number of projects. Was it Warren Buffet who said it? Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. 

If the basket falls, the eggs break. It all goes to waste.

You don’t simply self-publish your book on Amazon, do nothing, and expect it to sell well. Writing versus marketing, marketing is the mastermind behind sales. You can write crap and still sell well depending on your marketing. It’s not good for long-term because the market would realize how shitty the output really is. On the other hand, you can write the greatest story of all time and not sell a single copy because… you suck at marketing.

I do. Unfortunately. But then again, I haven’t gotten serious yet. I’m learning a few things one at a time. My current focus is in writing. 

So, what the heck am I going to discuss here? These be the pitfalls you don’t want to do, as experienced by yours truly.

Facebook Ads. Only if you understand targeted marketing and you know exactly the key words you’d be using to make sure the ads would appear in front of your desired audience.

Amazon Ads. There are a lot of factors to consider on Amazon ads. Some says it works well if your books have at least 20 reviews already. So, better work on that first before diving into this. Also, metadata on your books. Rethink your title, subtitle, book description and your keywords. Optimize everything. 

Reader Magnets. Freebies. I’ve tried this one, but not as effective as I thought. You have your list, but most of them (readers) have a ton of sources where they explore different authors. You’re one fish in the sea, not the fisher.

Book promotions. I’d say most of these would work well if you’re an established author and people have heard of you before. For newbie authors, it wouldn’t be an effective option. And it’s costly. 

Book tour/Blog tours. One way of book promotion, and will work effectively if you have a reader base, even if it’s only fifty readers, that’s good enough. You don’t want to do a book promo/tour without an audience. That would be the equivalent of a movie flop. 

Author Page/Website. If you’re publishing on Amazon, be sure to have an Author page and include all the links where your potential readers can find you. Build that website. Put out content. It’s not just your books, or background stories. Give out snippets. 

As of now, I’m starting to realize that building a readership through popular free-to-read-stories websites, like Wattpad or Inkitt among others would be a better option as starting point. 

Why is that? You would want to venture into self-publishing with at least a small reader base. These be the people who enjoyed your writing and stories and would want to support you. They may not buy your books, but they could be your hype-team, ARC-team, beta-readers…

I’m an introvert. You can say I’m a true introvert. I find marketing difficult because I don’t have the energy to “interact” or “socialize” with other people. Even if it’s just Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter… I don’t do much. I simply scroll, press like or retweet, reply to few, post my own… Most days, I just want to be left alone and do my own thing. I’m stubborn that way as well.

For people like me, I think the best bet is to start with reading apps. I’ll talk more about it later on.

What’s next? Let’s review reading apps. These are starting to proliferate. I see a lot of ads on Facebook and Instagram about them. The companies mostly come from Singapore. 

Thanks. Enjoy reading. Enjoy writing. 💙

Dear Writing Community, What’s Amazon KDP?

Don’t be impatient, the instructional part is on the latter section of this post. You’ll learn how to format your book for easy upload to KDP, and the things you need to prepare before you do so and hit “Publish”.

Amazon KDP. It’s a platform where you can self-publish your written work. It holds 70% of the market, so most indie authors prefer to publish on this platform. The downside would be the saturation. A lot of authors publish in this platform, so the competition is kinda wild as well. Still, they have more customers than any other platfrom so you might as well try and do your best.  

KDP Select. An option. This is not a requirement. You can choose to enroll your book in KDP Select if you desire. No if you don’t want to. This is another way you can earn from your written works. Not guaranteed, though. It allows customers in the platform who have subscribed to Kindle Unlimited to read your book without actually purchasing it. So yeah, it doesn’t show as a sale, but you get a portion of the KU fund, depending on the number of pages that have been read on your books. Some authors found this helpful and a source of extra income. Others, not so much. 

My take? It’s a good place to start. If you don’t have the time yet to extensively do marketing, you might want to leave your books on KDP Select. One enrollment only lasts 90 days, which means that particular work (digital format) must only be exclusively available at Amazon for the duration of the enrollment. Once that period expires, you can choose to re-enroll or not. If you decide that you want to provide it somewhere else, you must make sure it’s out of KDP Select. 

My personal experience? It didn’t do much for me. Though I did earn a few dollars from it. KU has a huge selection, so… you know, competition. I’m still figuring out what marketing strategy would be good for me. That might take time, considering I’m busy writing these days. As such, I don’t have that much time for marketing yet. My personal plan is to write as much as I can while my brain is still feeling creative, then market as much as I can when writer’s block hit me. Whenever that is.

Kindle Unlimited. It’s the point of view of the readers. A reader subscribed to KU can read any book enrolled in KDP Select. It’s currently at 9.99 USD per month, if I’m not mistaken. I’ve enrolled for two months before cancelling. Only because I didn’t have much time to read as I hoped. I kept on writing instead. 

Kindle Create. Most people who wanted to self-publish for the first-time face issues with regards to formatting and uploading their manuscript to KDP without any hassle. Kindle Create is a software by KDP itself which makes it highly compatible with their system. You can check the format of your manuscript on Kindle Create so you can see how it would look like to readers.

Here’s what you need to setup to make that process a breeze. It’s fairly easy, unless you want something more fancy, in which case I can’t help you. I’m a simple person.

I write my manuscript in MS Word. First things first. Formatting. Choose your font style and font size. Whatever you’re comfortable with. It doesn’t matter because KDP have a set of fonts they let readers to select, for their best reading experience. I only choose a certain font that makes my writing comfortable. To each his own. After the font is settled, check the spacing. Make it double-spaced. 

Also, select “Add Space After Paragraph” and “Remove Space Before Paragraph”. There is no need to “indent” a new paragraph, by tapping “Tab”. When you want to start a new paragraph, you can simply hit “Enter” after a paragraph. 

Why? The automatic formatting in MS Word can mess the formatting. You don’t want MS Word to auto format anything. That’s because the auto format sometimes doesn’t translate to anything when transferred to Kindle Create. It becomes gone. 

Also, make sure to use page breaks. After you write your title and author name, page break! After copyright page, page break! DO NOT USE a lot of “Enter” spaces. Page break is what you should use. Please. I beg you. After each chapter, page break! After a certain section, page break!

To be honest, I only learned about page break when I did my first upload to Kindle Create. You’re not alone. 

This is the simplest formatting. For text only. Font. Line spacing. Paragraph spacing. Page breaks.

You can italicize, underline, or bolden words. Alignments. Bullets. The normal ones. 

If you wish to add photos, you could format the size and alignment in MS Word. But… but… sometimes the photo would not look good in Kindle Create. No worries. While on Kindle Create, you can simply delete the photo that was converted into it, and upload the photo file directly into it. 

I feel like doing a video on this for better illustration. I will try to do so.

If you’re manuscript is done on MS Word, complete with everything. Title page. Copyright page. Intro. Body. Outro. Back matter. Then, you can now open your Kindle Create and import the MS Word document. Once imported, check again for the spacing. Sometimes it does change because of certain presets on Kindle Create. If it thinks your manuscript is a novel, there’s a preset. If it thinks you’ve written poems, the spacing is different. You can safely change that. Highlight the body of your manuscript (or any section, really), select spacing, choose how much spacing you want in your manuscript. Normally, I choose 1.25 or 1.50. 

Check everything. When it’s to your liking, hit “Save”. Maybe preview your manuscript on a tablet, phone or kindle device. There is a Preview tab. You can select which device you want to view it. If you’re satisfied, you can hit “Publish”. 

Yes, I’ll add a video. Maybe later, though.

When you go to your KDP account to start uploading a book, on the part “Upload your manuscript”, you will choose the file generated when you published it on Kindle Create. The file extension is kpf. 

How to self-publish your work through Amazon KDP?

Here are the things you need to prepare:

Title

Subtitle, if you want (use it well)

Author name

Book description (I’ve read somewhere that a hundred words is needed for better results. Apparently, there are bots crawling for descriptions and they could put your book on results much better when it has enough keywords on the description. Think SEO.)

Keywords (up to seven, could be phrases that readers search for to find your book)

Publishing date (do you want to publish it now or sometime in the future?)

KDP enrollment (do you want to or not?)

DRM management (yes or no?)

Upload the manuscript

Create or upload a cover

Preview (seems like a required thing to do before you move forward)

Pricing

Lending

Then, you are ready to hit publish. 

Let’s backtrack a bit. Book cover.

Most of us can’t hire a designer. So, if you must do it on your own, here be my tips…

Make sure you use photos that are free to use. Best if you have your own. Unsplash.com be where you want to get free stock photos. You don’t need to pay anything. You can edit the photos. You may or may not acknowledge the owner (I still suggest you acknowledge them). I’m not one to talk, ‘coz I tend to forget copying links to their profiles. Sorry. But for photos that appear inside my manuscript, I do make sure to acknowledge them.

As for photos you can get elsewhere, be sure to check for copyright usage. Just because you can copy and save it, doesn’t mean you are free to use it. This be the lesson I learned when I started blogging on niume. Sad that the platform didn’t last long, but I learned a few things. First was photo usage. Copyrights. 

If you’re inexperienced, simple is best. I don’t know how to use photoshop.

What can you use to edit the photos? I only use two things. Canva and Kindle Cover Creator. I’m a simple person. With the photo as background, I only add the book title and the author name. I use Canva for that. Save the photo file. At KDP, I use Kindle Cover Creator. I upload the one I created at Canva. Then add the info and photo for the back cover (for paperback). 

For e-book format, I simply upload the one I created from Canva. For paperback, I had to go through Cover Creator to add the details for the back cover. You need some info about the author, and the book description or blurb. If you feel like it, a photo of the author. There are templates available and I use the first one. Black be my game. 

Next up: How do you sell your works? Let’s discuss that next week. 

Thanks. Enjoy reading. Enjoy writing. 💙

Hiraya Cross' Written Works

Remember (Romance, Series)

Book 1, Lee and Oliver

Book 2, Lee and Oliver

Book 3, Lee and Oliver

Book 4, Allen and Clara

Book 5, Axel and Rhea

Book 6, Alex and Alex

Book 7, Charles and Aya

Book 8, Gabe and Carin

Book 9, Mike and Cara

 

Willingly (Romance, Set)

Willingly: Her Version

Willingly: His Version

 

A Curious Life (Collections of Poems)

Questions About Life

Questions About Love

Questions About Faith

Questions About Hope

 

Unveiled Secrets (Dreame, YA fiction)

The Prophecy of the Twins

The Promise of the Fae

The Progeny of the Enchantress

 

Ordinary Series (Sofanovel, Romance)

Worth the Wait

The Unexpected Best Friends

 

Distinct Series (Sofanovel, Romance)

Taming the Alpha Billionaire

The Billionaires’Choices

 

Not Even Close (memoirs x self-help)

Confessions of a Reader

Confessions of a Business Professional

Confessions of One Living this Life

Confessions of a Writer

 

Others

Prove Yourself Worthy (Billionaire Romance)

Moments in Life (Haiku Collection)

Inside the Inquiring Mind (Quotes Collection)

What Great Things?

Destined for Great Things

What You and I Fail to See

A Love-Hate Relationship

 

SCORE BOARD

Finished                 :        21

Currently writing     :         5

Will be writing         :        7

Total                      :        33

Dear Writing Community, How to Use an Email Automation Service

So, you have your list already? You have people to send your newsletter to?

That’s great! In this post, I’ll guide you on how to use an email automation service. As well as the dos and don’ts you should remember while using one. Add in some tips on how to engage with your readers list.

Ready? Let’s go.

As a newbie author, indie author, self-publishing author who may or may not have financial constraints which limits your budget… so, we’ll explore services that could be used for free.

For email service, I’m used to MailChimp. Their free plan allows you to add up to 2,000 email addresses. Their sending limit? I think it’s once a day to a list. I can’t be sure since I only send my newsletter once every two weeks. While I’m editing a new email, I got that notif that I can’t send it on the same day I just sent one. There.

Your list. The email addresses you add to your audience or recipients should have explicitly gave you permission to send them your newsletter. Don’t add them to your list if you got their email from somewhere and have no idea who you are. You might get reported. That would be a stain on your record and if there are many reports against you, you might be banned from using the service. This is true for all email automation services.

That unsubscribe link at the end of the email? Then, there are choices, one of which says “I never signed up to receive these email messages.”? That could get you banned if there are many clicks on there. So, be sure to only add people who gave you permission. Then, there’s GDPR in effect in EU, which requires a two-step sign-up. They give you their email, then they have to confirm the email. In other cases, normally, outside EU, the confirmation email is not required. Which is problematic because I can input some random person’s email address if I’m a crook. There’s a hustle, but it’s a nice protection measure in place.

Normal unsubscribes are… well, normal. If they clicked on the choice that says “I no longer want to receive these emails.”, then you’re alright. The person at least acknowledges that he once wanted to receive your email messages.

As a newbie, there’s really no point in having a large list if you have no ability to retain them. You start with a thousand, then at the end of the month, you’re left with a hundred. Technically, it’s not bad. But it’s still immensely better if you can keep them in your list, right? I’ll leave a section below on the dos and don’ts on how frequent you should send a newsletter, what the content should be, and how often you can solicit responses, if you need it.

Back to the email service, you can only use it to ease sending an email to a mass of recipients. On free plan, you can’t use other features such as scheduling it on a future date and time. You have to send it real time.

The 2k limit. If you’ve reached that limit, and you remove people from the list to make some space for new ones, you can’t if you’ve already sent an email to those people in a particular month. They get counted against that 2k. So, if you want to clean your list, do it at the start of a month or before you send your first newsletter in a particular month.

Don’t be disheartened by the number of unsubscribes. As early as now, I’m telling you that it’s something you should already expect. Don’t be hurt. You can’t keep everyone. A lot of people do subscribe to get free stuff, then unsubscribe as soon as they got it. It’s not always you, sometimes it’s them.

And really. Don’t sweat the unimportant stuff. Your craft is still writing. Writing alone should make you happy. Others are only bonuses. (Yes, my personal opinion.)

What information do you need? Well, one, email addresses. That’s the only thing the email service requires, but if you have names available, add that as well. Country? Yes, please. I feel that these three are what’s most important. Of course, the service could capture their IP address when they open the email and click on something, but not guaranteed. This feels important because of GDPR, that’s it.

First name, if you add it to the recipient information, there’s a lesser chance your newsletter will end up in the spam folder. With the first name, you could go into the promotions tab or the primary tab. At least for Gmail. Still not guaranteed, but you have better chances.

Do I track my numbers? Not really. I don’t want my emotions to be affected so I’d rather not look at it. I will when I start implementing a detailed marketing plan, though.

CSV file. It’s a simpler format of an excel file. For you to be able to upload your list to the email service, it has to be saved as a CSV file. Open your excel file, go to File tab > Save As > Browse folder > File type under File name: CSV (Comma delimited).

You can also use Copy + Paste function, but Import contacts is much easier.

Tags. Sometimes you get multiple lists. People who signed up in July. Others in August. I use tags for it. Whatever you’re comfortable with. First list. Second list. Or July list. August list.

Campaigns. I try to make it simple. First list (Email No. 1). First list (Email No. 2). Second list (Email No. 1). You don’t want to send a welcome email to your first list a second time. Careful there. I’ve experienced sending [First list (Email No. 2)] and [Second list (Email No. 1)] on the same day.

Design? Make it simple, but reminiscent of your personality or brand. I do use my Author logo as header in mine. Then, the content. That’s it. Do what works for you.

Proofread before sending. Do I need to emphasize this? You don’t want to send a correction email. That would suck. Sometimes, I find myself previewing the campaign at least five times before I hit Send.

NEWSLETTER. How often? I’d say maximum is once a week. You’re not the only one a person may be subscribed to. Personally, I’ve subscribed to 20+ newsletters. When I see a frequent sender, I unsubscribe. You’re eating up my time! That’s how it is.

Yes, you want to give them content, but respect their time. They’re busy, too.

Yes, you want interaction and get close to them by exchanging emails. But let’s face it, who has the time? Very few people do. I get excited when someone replies, but then… sometimes I myself forget to reply. Bad example, don’t imitate me. Reply kindly when you can.

What content? Give them something helpful. Give them something for free. It doesn’t necessarily have to be something you spent your blood, sweat, and tears on. If you’ve joined book promos offering free books, share it with your readers. They might find something they like. If you’re writing something and it’s available to be read for free on the net, share them the links. If you’ve written some good articles, share them.

Also, share tidbits about yourself. But really, don’t give them your life story in one email. Nooooooo! Share a little bit of yourself in every email. What are you working on? What inspired you to write? What have you written? What are your genres? How’s your journey so far?

Is it okay to share your troubles? Well, that depends. Is it heavy? Is it light-hearted? As long as you don’t spread negativity, it’s fine. Much better if you conclude it with a happy ending on how you overcame the trials and challenges. But be sure not to make it too long… if you’ve written a whole blog of it, you can invite them to check it out. Don’t put it all on the newsletter itself. You want to be inspirational? Go ahead. Do it well, though. Nothing over the top.

Length. A one-page email is ideal. Meaning they don’t need to scroll down. But if that’s a real feat, maybe one scroll or two. Nothing more.

Take into account the reason they are in your list in the first place. Are they purely readers? Are they writers? What do they need? What can you give them?

Once in a while, maybe once a month, you can do surveys as part of a newsletter you’re sending out. Say something like, you’re curating content for writers, if they could let you know if they’re interested with that. Plain readers would most likely not respond, but the aspiring writers will. Probably.

You have to keep in mind that there’s a ton of places for that already, writing communities. You have the whole of writing community, then there are smaller groups. I’m sure you understand the practicality of belonging to a smaller group and being able to interact closely with others, exchanging inputs, having beta readers, critique partners, mentors, writing buddy…

You want to build one, too? Maybe a small group of less than ten people? You can do that. Be sure you will have the time to participate.

Me? As an INFJ, my interactions are very limited. I couldn’t even bring myself to reply something witty, I simply “like” or “heart” a response to a post I sent to the void. Oh, well… My replies sound awkward at most.

That’s it for this topic. What should I write next?

Let’s explore Amazon KDP next week.

Thanks. Enjoy reading. Enjoy writing. 💙

Dear Writing Community, Let’s build a readership

 I had this idea… In every one of us, there is at least a little selfishness.

There is that want to succeed and get ahead. There is that fear that if you help others, they might overtake you in the success ladder.

Is that really important? Should everyone be treated as a competitor? That shouldn't be the case, right?

So, this post is to let you know what I understand about building a readership. How do we do that?

To aspiring writers, and new authors like me, these are things that we need to learn.

First off, you’re not gonna make money with only one book, one story. You’re new. Who knows you? Why would I risk buying your book, not knowing if it will be good or bad? Give me a sample. That’s how business works. That’s how a lot of businesses start. By giving away a sample, a freebie… Here, try this out! See if you like it! If you do, buy some!

Kind of hard to do when you only have one book. Once you’ve given it away, what’s there to buy? So, yeah… you gotta write more than one book. And the more you write, the more choices your readers will have.

Personally, I write under different genres. I love reading from multiple genres so I felt like writing under them as well. Diversity! Some authors choose to write under different pen names for different genres, to create a brand for a particular name, so to speak. But my brand is writing multiple genres, so…

Anyway, back to the main point of this post: building a readership. And as mentioned, you need reader magnets. If you write 200-page romance novels, you can write a magnet that is about 50-page. If you write a short story collection of ten stories, you can write a magnet that contains three stories. Depends on you, really. There’s no concrete rule. Only that you should let the reader get an understanding of your writing style. Throw in an invitation to visit your author page and check out your other works if they like the magnet.

Now, to build your readers list, normally you give out the reader magnet in exchange for their email address, so you can have a means to contact them in the future if you have written something new or whatnot.

They can always unsubscribe if what you’re giving out is no longer up to their cup of tea. It may or may not be your fault. Maybe you send out too many newsletters, or they feel what you send is irrelevant to them, unhelpful, or simply not something they like to receive.

Now, how to build that list? You can use a number of services.

Number one on my list is BookFunnel. Then, there’s BookSweeps, LibraryThing, StoryOrigin, BookSprout, Voracious Readers Only, ProlificWorks, AuthorsXP…

Some of these can be used for free (BookSprout, LibraryThing, StoryOrigin).

Kinda limited. BookSprout, the free features is up to 20 ARCs per book. LibraryThing is up to 50 ARCs per book. StoryOrigin requires three types of files, EPUB, MOBI and PDF. I don’t think I’ve tried it yet because of this requirement.

Others are paid services.

BookFunnel currently has a plan for 10 USD per month, which I use. In my two months with BookFunnel, I was able to get over 700+ of subscribers through my reader magnet. I plan to pause my use of BookFunnel. One, I need a new magnet that would suit certain promo conditions. What I learned from here is that your magnet should incorporate a number of tropes so you can freely join multiple promos. Like in romance, you have small town, billionaire, second chance, paranormal, sweet or steamy, etc. You got to combine some of these to be able to join more promos. If you’ve written small town romance, you can’t join the book promo for city romance. If you’ve written sweet romance, your magnet won’t quality for steamy reads. Some promos require certain tropes, second chances, paranormal, billionaire… that kind of thing. New adult, young adult, coming of age… there are a lot of combinations. Which is why I realized I should write another magnet.

BookSweeps is at least 50 USD per promo. This one is genre specific. Steamy romance? Sweet and clean romance? Paranormal romance? They target a particular audience with each promo, and the promo is like lottery. They offer an ereader plus 50+ books from all the authors who joined. A promo is normally participated by at least 50 authors, up to sixty, I think. That’s their limit or range. I tried one promo and got over 700 subscribers.

If I do my Math, the budget is good for five months in BookFunnel. Your friend here at BookSweeps is time. The promo runs for nine days, I think, and you get your list of subscribers a week after the promo ended.

Downside in both BookFunnel and BookSweeps is that when you send out your regular newsletter, some peeps are bound to unsubscribe. Especially the ones who joined through BookSweeps. They only subscribed for a chance to win that ereader. They didn’t actually get anything for subscribing, which is why it’s important to give them something the first time you send out your newsletter to them. That’s what I did, and even so, I still saw 60+ people unsubscribing from my list. That’s normal. That’s something you should expect.

ProlificWorks. There’s a free service. There’s a paid one. The free service doesn’t allow you to collect email addresses, which is why I didn’t bother using it any further. I saw people claiming my magnet but I don’t know who they are, no way to contact them for further freebies or something. The paid plan, I think is higher than BookFunnel. I can only afford one at a time.

StoryOrigin. I don’t have much to say because I haven’t tried it yet. Three file types! I tried, actually, but I’m not sure if it was the internet connection or something else, because it didn’t work. I wasn’t able to save my book. Try it. It’s free. That’s what I know. It’s free.

BookSprout. Mainly for romance. My first try, only one claimed. The second, which is poetry, none. The third, only one as well. I got one review from the first one. None on the third. The free service allows you to give out as many as 20 Advance Reader Copies. Meaning you can get at least twenty people, but them leaving reviews is not guaranteed. Still, I got my first review from there, so… thanks. Not part of your list, you can invite them.

Voracious Readers Only. They have free. They have paid. The free is like a trial. If you liked it, you can try their paid one. I got 30+ readers from there. But… but… but! I used my BookFunnel link here. I think it’s not required, you can send them a copy of your magnet and they will provide it to those who wanted to claim a copy and they will send you a list of those who claimed. I’m not sure. I didn’t completely read the terms because I have BookFunnel, that’s what I used.

LibraryThing. It’s previously not free, but now it is! Good news, right? The service allows you to give away up to 50 copies of your book and users will request a copy. If more than 50 requests it, they do a lottery of some sort and only 50 is selected, then you get the email addresses of those people. They are not your subscribers, but you can invite them to join your list. They only signed up for that particular giveaway you do on this platform.

I may have mixed newsletter builders and places to get reviews. The thing is, for places where you seek reviews, they technically did not sign-up to your newsletter, so be careful not to include them in your newsletter recipients. You can invite them when you send out the ARCs, but that’s it. You don’t want to get reported for sending newsletters to people who didn’t sign-up for it. That would be bad, and might lead you to be banned from using an email service, like MailChimp or ConvertKit or something else. Whatever you’re using. If you aren’t using one yet, because you’re still building up your list, and haven’t sent out a newsletter email yet… cool, my next post would be about it, then. Mainly, MailChimp, because that’s what I use.

So, there you go. Check these services out. Nope, this post isn’t sponsored. I’ve checked these myself and used them. These are my personal opinion from my experience.

Thanks. Enjoy reading. Enjoy writing. 💙

Dear Aspiring Writers (from a reader, another writer, and author)

 So, before everything else… what I want to emphasize from the beginning of this blog post is the foundation of writing. Grammar. Sentence structure. Vocabulary. Proper use of words. Paragraphs. Punctuations. Flow from one thought to another. Organization. Presentation of facts or scenarios.

If you want to be a writer, you’re writing, you’re aspiring to publish a book one day, I believe it’s a must to nail down the basics. The foundation. We can all agree (should all agree) that it makes reading enjoyable if we follow those basic rules. Have you ever read a story or a literary piece and you were distracted by the incoherent sentence structure? The misuse of words? The illogical transition?

To be fair, there are varying levels. I can tolerate a few mistakes or errors, I can overlook them and not point them out… but if it’s on every page and is very frequent… it’s one reason for DNFs. You don’t want that. We don’t that.

And so, my dear writers…. Let us learn the basics. Learn them well. Practice writing to improve ourselves. Continue writing to hone our craft. Welcome to the writing community!

Nope. I’m not going to discuss those things here today, but I’m planning that for next month’s series. The basics of writing.

What else to I want writers to know? If you call yourself a writer, you must be writing. Right? Get off social media. Get offline. Start writing. Or start plotting. Or start reading. Maybe read a book or two. Study the writing and learn from there. Better yet, get a book or materials on writing. That is, if you need it for you to start writing. But if you already have an idea of what you want to write, you have the scenes lined up in your head or outlined in our notes, go ahead and write.

It’s acceptable to go on social media, be online, just… don’t dwell on it too much. Live your writer’s life.

Let’s stop arguing on how writing should be done. You want to sit down and write from the top of your head? Go ahead. You want to create an outline first, get the scenes in sequence? Go ahead. You want to write the latter scenes before the intro? Go ahead. Do what works for you and stop telling others to do the same thing as you. We’re all different. Each style has its own pros and cons. Not one should be considered superior over the others. That sounds terribly like racism. If you haven’t noticed it yet.

If English isn’t your native language, but you want to write in English because… you know, more readers. For us to effectively write in a language we learned on top of our native one, we should also have a good command of it. Proficient. What’s your level of proficiency? In a way, the proficiency level would also gauge how much of the basics you’ve nailed down. Do you understand the grammar rules? How wide is your vocabulary? Sentence. Paragraphs. Composition. Those are measured through proficiency. There are English proficiency tests out there. Some are free. I took a free one. If you want to check yours. https://www.efset.org/

Knowing your level of proficiency would allow you to assess yourself. Do you still need to learn more about this language? Or if you already have a good command of it, be confident in your writing.

I’ve seen people criticize non-native speakers. In a way, they have reasons… when I check the posts, the construction is messed up. But that’s why we have learning. Let’s learn. Let’s study. Let’s improve. I guess I would have preferred if the criticism could be done gentler. Just point things out. “I had a hard time reading your post. I understand English isn’t your first language. You can study it some more and improve. At your current level, it will take a while, but continue learning. You’ll get there.” Yeah?

Don’t say things that are bound to discourage them. Stop writing? Really? You can’t write? Just stick to your own language? Dude, stop.

There will be barriers. There will be challenges. If writing is your passion, continue writing. No matter what others say. No matter what happens. Do listen to feedback, though. The ones that are helpful and would most likely improve your writing style. Surround yourself with positivity. Positive individuals. Distance yourself from the toxic ones. Mute them online. Mute them offline. Block them altogether if you can.

A few things to consider before you move forward.

What’s your purpose in writing?

If you will make a career out of it, is your expectations on income realistic?

If you want to be an author, do read up on various authors’ experiences.

It won’t take one story or one book.

Do you want to be known? Or do you want your works to be known?

Do you want to reach more readers? Or do you want to make more sales?

 

Having a clear understanding of what you want helps in pushing you in a certain direction and in case you feel lost, you have those commitments to go back to.

You’ll be like… why am I even doing this? This won’t in any way help me achieve my purpose, my goals. Move on. Next project. Focus on your purpose and goals. Sometimes, we do get sidetracked. We get burned out. We lose direction. So, it’s important we set up our starting point. A place to go back to. Chill. Relax. Start over.

What else do I want to say? Self-awareness is a really good trait, no matter your profession, career, or position. Whatever you do, having self-awareness would prove useful. So, make sure you have a true understanding of yourself. You’re not in any way too proud. You’re not defensive of your flaws and faults. You own them. You take responsibility. You don’t deny the mistakes you’ve made. You correct them. You don’t hide the errors. You highlight them and learn from it.

Something else we should say to fellow writers? Do comment them below.

Thank you for reading. Enjoy writing. 💙