Wouldn’t we all love an $800 day? It’s not too late to claim one for yourself. Tomorrow marks the end of Outskirts Press’ Amazon Extreme marketing package — a promotion that comes with hundreds of dollars in valuable marketing services for FREE.
Jump-start your publishing marketing efforts with the Amazon Extreme Package before the end of day tomorrow and once your book is published, you will receive …
• An Amazon Kindle eBook edition of your book
• Amazon Search Inside the Book set-up
• An enhanced cover graphic on Amazon
• A free copy of “Sell Your Book on Amazon”
All this absolutely FREE when you start publishing your book with the popular Diamond package or the full-color Pearl publishing package by April 30, 2013 Just complete your shopping cart order by entering the promotion code FreeAEApr13.
In addition to receiving the free Amazon Extreme Package, you’ll also get the following savings with your Diamond package:
Standard Press Release. $99 value included free when you order your Diamond publishing service today.
Audio Excerpt. $99 value included free with your Diamond order today and a great way to share your voice with your readers, literally!
E-Book Edition (pdf). $99 value included free with your Diamond publishing service.
Cover Image. $99 value included free and a great way to enhance your cover.
Spring Arbor additional distribution. $99 value to complement the Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Ingram availability already included with your Diamond publishing service.
All in all, you’re looking at $800 of free stuff in April!
Today marks the 43rd annual Earth Day celebration, a day when we all stop to appreciate our natural resources and gain awareness about preserving them for future generations.
In 1970 when the first Earth Day was celebrated, most Americans were tooling around in leaded-gas-chugging cars past industrial plants that spewed waste from smokestacks and pipes. Disposable packaging was all the rage, yet recycling was on almost no one’s radar.
My, how things have changed! Today, many manufacturers are committed to using packaging that’s biodegradable or recyclable, and using production processes that produce less waste. Leaded gas is a thing of the past, and vehicles are more fuel-efficient overall. Communities and citizens are more aware than ever of the value of recycling, and many are equipped with special household receptacles for this purpose.
As a member of the literary community, you can play an even larger part in the environmental preservation movement by taking advantage of publishing avenues that lessen your book’s impact on the environment: namely, eBooks and print-on-demand publishing.
First, the print-on-demand option allows self-published authors to sell copies of their book without having a giant stack of hardcopies lingering in the basement. Print-on-demand means that copies of your book are “made to order” so to speak; they’re printed at the time of order. This keeps unsold copies from going to waste, thus saving paper.
The second option, eBooks, provide obvious ecological advantages. Since they exist solely in virtual — or electronic — form, no tree is harmed in the making of your book, regardless of how many copies you sell. By taking advantage of eBook publishing through Outskirts Press, you can sell via virtual means with Amazon Kindle, Apple iPad/iPhone and Barnes & Noble NOOK editions and enjoy wide distribution of your book without clearing a forest to do so.
Want to be a part of the “green” book movement? Contact Outskirts Press to find out how.
In honor of the 2013 Bologna Book Fair, we’d like to remind you that Outskirts Press makes publishing Children’s books easy with One-Click Publishing for Children’s Books!
Recognized as the oldest and most reputable children’s book fairs in the world, the Bologna Book Fair hosts authors, publishers, distributors, printers, literary agents, printers, and even film and television producers from nearly 70 different countries. This year’s fair ends tomorrow, but with help from Outskirts Press you could be in very good shape to make a showing at the 2014 event. Our One-Click Publishing package includes everything the children’s book author needs to get a manuscript to print quickly and easily:
Specialized service from a team of book publishing experts
High-quality hard copy and paperback formatting
Custom children’s book illustrations
Professional copy editing
On-demand printing
Free author copies
Book Video Trailer
Standard and Custom Press Releases
PR Publicist Campaign
Wholesale distribution
Participation in the Bologna Children’s Book Fair!
You’ve slaved over your book, your labor of love, so it’s time to take it easy. Let Outskirts Press take over the heavy lifting.
Ready to get that children’s book going? Just a few more clicks now, and we’ll take it from here …
On this St. Patrick’s Day, celebrate the Irish with a self-published book that explores the culture and history of the Emerald Isle. Outskirts Press authors have you covered with scads of self-published gems from Irish history and fiction novels to books with large doses of fairy tales and folklore.
In alphabetical order, the Top 10 Irish-themed self-published books for St. Patrick’s Day are:
All of these books (and other Outskirts Press titles) are available from all major online retailers like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powells, Books A Million, and others, plus conveniently from the Outskirts Press Direct bookstore at http://outskirtspress.com/bookstore for discounts ranging from 10% – 55%.
Are you ready to make your dream of self-publishing a reality?
Introduce yourself and your self-published book to bookworms around the world through a Virtual Book Tour. When it’s not possible or practical to load up the minivan and drive state-to-state, a virtual tour allows you to “appear” on a blog, a website or an Internet radio talk show without leaving the house and using precious vacation time!
A virtual book tour is similar to an actual book tour, but instead of physically traveling from bookstore to bookstore, or radio show to radio show, you and/or your book are making “appearances” in the blogosphere and on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Not only is a far more cost-effective way to tour, unlike a physical tour, which is over the minute you leave, a virtual book tour stays archived and available for Internet Searches FOREVER!
The Virtual Book Tour option from Outskirts Press makes it easy for you to “book” your blog tour through the blogosphere and social networking community! Reach new audiences and cultivate new readers with relatively little effort.
With the Virtual Book Tour, you receive the following:
Outskirts Press announces your Virtual Book Tour to the blogosphere.
You receive every inquiry in response to the announcement about your book.
Virtual Book Tour Packet, which includes all of the materials you need to follow up with the bloggers quickly and easily in order to schedule your “appearance” on their blog, website or social network.
In most cases your appearance may include a book review and/or an author interview.
Spotlight Appearance on the Self-Publishing Advice blog, which receives its own announcements on Twitter and Facebook.
Your own Tour Video, which will be blasted on our popular YouTube channel.
Much, much more!
Now through March 31, you can receive 10% off the Virtual Book Tour when you enter the promo code at checkout. Don’t delay, this offer isn’t around long!
Outskirts Press was founded and grown upon the principle of helping creators realize their greatest writing ambitions.Self-publishing a book is a major undertaking, and we’re proud of the work our authors do to create amazing literature and see it through to publication. So, it’s with pride that we take a moment each week to recognize one of the many authors of whom we’re so very proud in our Self-Publishing Book Spotlight.
This week we shine our spotlight on self-published author Keith Elkins and his book, The Pony Principles: Lessons in Optimism Because of Adversity.
In The Pony Principles: Lessons in Optimism Because of Adversity, Outskirts Press author Keith Elkins takes the metaphor of the pony from the positive, childlike perspective of anticipating the gift of a pony for one’s birthday and expands that idea into four simple, innovative principles by which one can make things happen in one’s life despite the influence of negative people or negative circumstances.
No matter what is occurring around a person, author Elkins writes, there is always a path to one’s goals if one is committed and on purpose. What one focuses on, expands. His four pony principles help one achieve the focused optimism necessary to carry through to one’s goals. One has to see the pony, feed the pony, train the pony and, finally, one has to ride the pony.
“Seeing” the proverbial pony is the start of one’s journey and involves concentrating on one’s goals, clarifying one’s vision and purpose and thereby strengthening one’s belief. In this first step one must also overcome any limiting notions one might have about one’s talent or one’s potential.
Elkins’ second principle, feeding the pony, concentrates not simply on the nurturing of one’s mind, body and spirit, but on the robust nourishing of them with a new way of processing one’s life experiences through “lifetime learning” and through exposure to people, places and ideas that help a person grow.
“Training” the pony, step three, is the work, the discipline, the practice necessary to actually make a lifelong change. If one’s life is worth living, it is worth training for, the author says, and training is, simply put, work.
Finally, in step four, one “rides” the pony. One mounts the animal and gives it a little kick. Rather than merely sitting around, looking at and daydreaming about what one wants, one actually gets on the pony and follows through to one’s goals with action. One moves forward with commitment and passion.
One then succeeds.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Keith Elkins is an entrepreneur, a martial arts educator and a motivational speaker. He is the president of Keith Elkins Enterprises, Inc., a human potential consulting company that offers presentations on leadership, team building, embracing change and developing programs for at-risk youth. Keith and his family live near Washington, DC.
Outskirts Press offers high-quality, full-service self-publishing and book marketing services for writers and professionals who are seeking a cost-effective, fast, and flexible way to publish and distribute their books worldwide while retaining 100% of their rights, 100% of their profits, and 100% of the creative control.http://www.outskirtspress.com.
Are you self publishing a book and looking to receive marketing support and services like this?
We’re excited to announce the Memoir Writing Kit, a new tool for people who want to share their life experiences and pass their story on to future generations.
Outskirts Press, the fastest growing self-publishing and book marketing company, announced today a new Memoir Writing Kit. The Memoir Writing Kit is a tool for anyone wanting to capture their life story and share it with the people they love.
One of the most valuable pieces of writing material can be a person’s own story — recollections and personal history they can pass down to future generations. Outskirts Press now offers an easy way for anyone to capture those life experiences in writing.
The Memoir Writing Kit from Outskirts Press offers 140 pages of memory-provoking questions to help inspire the writer. The writer can simply answer the questions in complete sentences, remove the questions themselves, and the memoir practically writes itself!
Everyone’s life experience is unique. The beauty of the Memoir Writing Kit is that it is flexible and comprehensive enough to help any writer start and complete their memoirs, no matter what sort of life they have led. The writer can simply delete sections that don’t apply to them, or add details and stories that do. The structure of the Memoir Writing Kit is roughly chronological, beginning with “The Dawn of Life” and ending with “The Sunset.” The years between are organized by similarly themed chapters, ranging from “Childhood Holidays and Celebrations” to “Serving My Country” to “A Taste for Life.”
“There are many people who want to share their life experiences with their grandchildren and future generations, but they’re not sure where to start,” said Outskirts Press Executive Vice President Kelly Schuknecht. “Outskirts Press makes it easy for folks to remember the details, organize those memories and leave their legacy for the people they love.”
Visit Outskirts Press to learn more about this exciting new writing kit and to begin writing your memoirs today!
There is no sure-fire formula to writing romance, and certainly no formula for making that self-published romance novel successful. However, there are a number of “rules” for romance writing that will improve your odds of creating a high quality, readable bodice-ripper.
1. Know thy audience. With something as intimate as romance, you must know who you wish to reach out to with your novel. Is your reader a young, twentysomething college student or a middle-age woman with kids in college? These two people are completely different and have much different experiences with love, and much different needs as readers. In order to know what story to tell them — and how to tell it — you have to know a little about them. If you’re already a middle-age woman with kids in college, you may be halfway there. If you’re nothing like your target reader, you have some homework to do.
2. Make it real. Characters, that is. No one’s perfect, nor should your characters be. Your protagonist should be likable, but likable doesn’t mean flawless. People — characters — are far more interesting when they’re vulnerable to the same human foibles that we all are. We can relate to people who are like us, who have made the same painful mistakes we have and who, perhaps, find unique solutions to these issues.
3. Bare it all. Romance is an exceedingly intimate genre. You’re writing about moments that are typically kept behind closed doors (and chained up, gagged and spanked in some cases). This is not a time to be shy, and certainly no time to be disingenuous. If you’re set on writing romance, you must be prepared to write in great detail about things that may be deeply personal to you, or at least deeply personal to those you rely upon for your research into the topic. If the idea that your 90-year-old grandma could read your book scares the bejeebers out of you, you’re either in the wrong business or totally on the right track!
4. Less talk, more action. The steamiest love scenes are the most descriptive. We “see” what the characters see, hear what they hear, smell what they smell, taste what they taste, and feel what they feel. Why muddy the waters with a lot of chatter? In love scenes, keep the yapping to a minimum, just as in real life sexual encounters. Save the dialogue for scenes in which you’re developing your characters.
5. Nail the dialogue. When your characters do speak, it is vital to the credibility of your story that their dialogue is believable. A teen romance that’s peppered with flowery, poetic prose won’t gain much traction with your target audience, and teens will certainly never connect with the characters. Unless you’re writing a period novel set in the Victorian Age, keep your dialogue modern. And if if you really do envision a character saying something cheesy, think of how you’d respond to it and let your characters react accordingly: an eye roll, a spontaneous laugh or a slamming door.
Remember, romance is deeply personal. It’s not unusual for first-time romance writers to experience some level of discomfort with the material. But you’ve got to put it all out there, so to speak. The best romance writers adapt their attitudes to the honesty of the material rather than adjust the material to their own comfort level.
Got a great idea for a romance novel? Talk to Outskirts Press about how to get started self-publishing your own steamy romance!
When you’re deeply immersed in the writing process, it can be difficult to think ahead to the moment your self-published book ends up in a reader’s hands. If you think book marketing is the right time to start thinking about how to reach your target audience, you’d be wrong! In fact, that reader should be your primary focus from the moment you start typing.
While it’s never too late to learn about your potential reader and tailor your marketing solutions to that audience, There are things you need to to from the get-go to home in on your target audience and ensure that your efforts are sharp and focused throughout the writing and marketing journey:
Get in the right mindset. If you know before you pen your novel that you want to reach a certain demographic, that target audience should be at the front of your mind at all times. Picture a single person who embodies the average reader to you: It may be a teenage girl from the ‘burbs, or it could be a middle-age man who works in a big city. The language you use, the characters you bring to life and the story you tell should all be interesting to that person you view as your typical reader.
Immerse yourself in the culture. If are a middle-age man working in a big city who’s trying to write a story that appeals to a teenage girl from the ‘burbs, you’ve got some homework to do. Odds are, unless you have a teenager under your roof and are really tuned in to her “culture,” you’ll need to know what’s important to her, what makes her happy, what her big concerns are, and what life for her is like every day. Get to know this girl! She’s your reader.
Dress the part. That is, dress your book for the part. Once you’ve immersed yourself in your reader’s world, get to know how that target reader expresses herself. Write in her language. It’s not enough to understand her if you don’t understand how she expresses herself. Choose a cover design that your reader will find appealing. For the teenager, this may be anything from brightly colored graphics to the supernatural beings that are so popular. By contrast, a senior reader may be more drawn in by period art that hearkens a nostalgic time.
Reach out through social media. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other social media platforms give authors a great deal of freedom to reach out to scores of potential book buyers. Readers young and old are latching onto social media, but finding them can be tricky. The “cultural immersion” phase of your self-publishing journey may have unearthed some clubs and social media pages you can link to for contact with your target reader; however, help from a trained social media professional can provide priceless here. Your advisor can not only set up platforms specifically for your book or author pages on several social media sites, but can help put you in contact with entities that will be useful in getting the word out about your book. And, he can do it for you in a fraction of the time you’d be able to do it yourself.
Don’t fret if your writing is wrapped up and you’re just thinking about your target audience. There are still many things you can do to sharpen your focus retroactively. A good editor can tighten your writing with your target in mind or suggest a better target, and will offer guidance on substantive changes that will strengthen your story. A Personal Marketing Assistant can provide additional assistance in steering you toward the marketing and promotional services you may need to reach out to your reader in the most effective way.
Outskirts Press is giving you an extra hand in fulfilling your dreams to publish a book with the return of the popular “Mad Money” promotion. Authors who purchase the Diamond or full-color Pearl book publishing packages in February are rewarded with a credit of $300 applied to their Outskirts Press shopping cart accounts.
The $300 “mad money” credit can be applied toward any production or marketing option offered by Outskirts Press, including custom cover design, professional copy editing, cover scribing, the Amazon Kindle edition or many others.
“Having an additional $300 to spend on self-publishing services is priceless in terms of what that ‘mad money’ can help an author do,” said Manager of Author Services, Jodee Thayer. “When planned wisely, these extra production or marketing efforts result in a higher-quality, more marketable, more visible book. That investment can pay for itself many times over in increased book sales.”
For more information about Mad Money Month, including the necessary promotion code to receive $300 in publishing money, visit: http://outskirtspress.com/promotion.html.
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