What are the two most important elements to a high-quality, successful self-published book? Many readers would say professional copyediting and a professional custom cover. Both services help in securing stronger book sales and better book reviews. These are integral to every self-published author trying to get their book “out there.”
Your book cover’s importance cannot be stated enough. A custom cover allows a designer to create a completely unique cover that captures the essence of your book. Undoubtedly, this makes your book more appealing to readers (which equals more book sales). Your designer will create two covers for you, so you can choose and modify the one you like best.
Copyediting is a necessity, as any book with obvious spelling errors will be overlooked and your book sales may suffer as a result. With a full copyedit, your professional editor will conduct a thorough basic edit over your entire manuscript’s punctuation, spelling, and grammar.
When you start publishing today with the promotion code, we will edit the first 15,000 words of your manuscript for free to help you determine if a full edit of your manuscript is a worthwhile investment. And since people DO judge books by their covers, you will also receive a free professional custom cover design (a $499 value). By starting right now, we will also publish and distribute an Amazon Kindle eBook Edition of your book for free (a $299 value). That’s over $1000 of additional value to make your book the best it can be! Just enter promo code coverkdedi in your shopping cart during checkout.
For more information and help choosing the best self-publishing service, contact your Outskirts Press Publishing Consultant today. There are three easy ways to connect:
“Outskirts made the publishing process super easy for me and my Author Representative knew what she was doing and was very helpful!” — Katie Patterson, author of Ride.
Have you ever found yourself on the far side of a deadline with no idea how you got there, and what you may have missed in the meantime? This isn’t an unusual feeling, especially in a world where the burden of keeping track of these deadlines falls on the very people–self-publishing authors–who are inevitably too busy to keep track or who don’t have access to the necessary information in order to keep themselves organized. It’s easy to lose track of deadlines when literally every day of every week of the year is packed full of opportunities!
This is where our 2017 Author Marketing Calendar comes in. At Outskirts Press, we know that successful book promotion requires organization, dedication, and access to resources. You supply the dedication–in spades!–and we supply the necessary organization and resources to keep you on track!
The Outskirts Press Author Marketing Calendar is a compilation of the most up-to-date, effective and actionable tactics available to help you market your book. It contains literally hundreds of promotional tips, advertising opportunities, important deadlines, social media recommendations, and information about marketing options and services available through Outskirts Press. It even includes photo opportunities for you to post to increase engagement on your social media sites and ideas on how to market your book when you’re on vacation! All of this information is organized in an easy to follow, month by month format including monthly marketing objectives and recommendations to help focus and direct your initiatives.
The Author Marketing Calendar is just one of many options that we offer to help our authors market their books! If you’ve published a book with Outskirts Press, you can purchase the new and improved 2017 Author Marketing Calendar for just $25 and it will become available for review and download immediately upon placing your order.
If you have any questions about the 2017 Author Calendar or any of our marketing options, please visit us online at www.OutskirtsPress.com, where you can view a complete list of our Marketing Services and engage in a live chat with our expert staff.
Book marketing is one of the most important pieces of being a successful self-publishing author. Outskirts Press is an industry leader in providing post-publication support, products, and services to its growing family of published authors.
Your book is written. Your book is published. Now what? Our list of Top 10 Book Marketing Tactics can help you prioritize your book marketing efforts by providing you with excellent marketing and promotional tactics you should consider pursuing.
These are the marketing products and tactics determined to be most popular by our authors for the month of June 2016, listed below in random order:
Custom Press Release: Have our professional press release writer compose an original, unique press release for your book, submitted to you for your review/approval, and then distributed to our newswire service on your behalf.
Amazon Kindle Submission Service:Make your book available on Amazon’s Kindle ebook reading device. More formats on Amazon means more exposure on Amazon, and the Kindle is heavily promoted by Amazon.
Audio Excerpt:Recording a 3-minute audio excerpt is as easy as speaking into the phone. Read a passage or explain more about the book.
Barnes & Noble NOOK Submission Service: Millions of books are available on Barnes & Noble’s NOOK. If your book isn’t one of them, you are missing out on tapping a very important, and growing, market of readers.
First Chapter Preview Library Distribution:Introduce your book to libraries, bookstores, media, reviewers, bloggers and readers by running a quarter page full-color ad along with a free preview of your first chapter in this catalog for three consecutive months.
Marketing Telephone Consultation (30 minutes):One of our Personal Marketing Assistants will contact you to schedule a one-on-one consultation. After your consultation, you will receive a marketing plan with actionable items that can be used right away to get started selling more books.
Amazon Author Sweepstakes:This exciting marketing option combines “Amazon” with “Free” so you can offer your very own Amazon sweepstakes to attract more readers! Your free book giveway will be widely promoted and we handle everything for you.
Personal Marketing Assistant:Do you need help developing a book marketing plan? Arranging book signings? Establishing/developing your author platform? Hire your own Personal Marketing Assistant today!
Outskirts Press Published authors who are interested in any of these (or many of our other available services) can find further details and ordering information from the Marketing Options page of your author’s center.
Not yet published with Outskirts Press? Today is the perfect day to start and take advantage of our current publishing promotion.
Book marketing is one of the most important pieces of being a successful self-publishing author. Outskirts Press is an industry leader in providing post-publication support, products, and services to its growing family of published authors.
Your book is written. Your book is published. Now what? Our list of Top 10 Book Marketing Tactics can help you prioritize your book marketing efforts by providing you with excellent marketing and promotional tactics you should consider pursuing.
These are the marketing products and tactics determined to be most popular by our authors for the month of May 2016, listed below in alphabetical order:
Custom Press Release: Have our professional press release writer compose an original, unique press release for your book, submitted to you for your review/approval, and then distributed to our newswire service on your behalf.
Amazon Kindle Submission Service:Make your book available on Amazon’s Kindle ebook reading device. More formats on Amazon means more exposure on Amazon, and the Kindle is heavily promoted by Amazon.
Audio Excerpt:Recording a 3-minute audio excerpt is as easy as speaking into the phone. Read a passage or explain more about the book.
Barnes & Noble NOOK Submission Service: Millions of books are available on Barnes & Noble’s NOOK. If your book isn’t one of them, you are missing out on tapping a very important, and growing, market of readers.
Apple iPad/iPhone Standard Edition:Millions of iPads have been sold and iPhone revenues account for over HALF of all smart phone revenue in the United States. Is your book a part of this growing market? It can be, simply and conveniently, with iTunes distribution of an iPad/iPhone electronic edition of your book through Apple’s iBooks bookstore.
Marketing Telephone Consultation (30 minutes):One of our Personal Marketing Assistants will contact you to schedule a one-on-one consultation. After your consultation, you will receive a marketing plan with actionable items that can be used right away to get started selling more books.
Amazon-Branded Featured Book-of-the-Week:Get your book and cover, along with an easy way to order your book directly from Amazon into the inbox of a wide audience of literary enthusiasts.
Publisher’s Weekly Co-Op Advertising:Reach over 80,000 booksellers, publishers, public and academic librarians, wholesalers, distributors, agents and writers in addition to more than 360,000 unique monthly website visitors.
Virtual book tour in the Blogosphere and on social networks:A Virtual Book Tour is very similar to a physical book tour. However, instead of loading up copies of your book and driving from bookstore to bookstore and radio station to radio station to promote, you and/or your book can make “appearances” on blogs and social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube – while you stay put in the comfort of your own home.
Outskirts Press Published authors who are interested in any of these (or many of our other available services) can find further details and ordering information from the Marketing Options page of your author’s center.
Not yet published with Outskirts Press? Today is the perfect day to start and take advantage of our current publishing promotion.
Every published author knows the inexpressible sense of joy and accomplishment that holding a physical copy of their book in their hands can bring about. It is a tangible version of what was once a dream, an ambition, a deep-seated desire to bring your story to life. That all being said, there is a large growing audience of e-readers, i.e. potential fans, that may never have access to your book if you’ve only published it in print form!
This month, the Amazon Extreme package allows published authors to get their book into a Kindle edition, while simultaneously promoting their hardcopy edition via the “cover enhancement feature.” With the Amazon Cover Enhancement service, Outskirts Press submits an image of the front and back of your cover for your Amazon.com book listing, which makes your book much more attractive to potential customers.
Further, the Amazon Extreme package provides the Search Inside the Book program, which allow readers to get a glimpse of your book’s contents. Books that are part of this program are significantly more successful, on average, than books that are not.
There is really no substitute for walking into a bookstore, scanning the shelves, turning a book over in your hands, and eventually bringing it home to place on your bookshelf alongside the other authors who’ve made it into your home and your heart. However, we live in a digital age and an age of high-speed travel. Sometimes choosing just one book to bring for a plane-ride is a daunting task, and a library is far too heavy to lug around (unfortunately). Having a digital library is something that many bibliophiles are finding to be a practical option for convenience of reading on the go. Don’t have your book miss this very important customer base!
Our eclectic Top 10 list not only illustrates the broad interests of the e-book-buying public; it also demonstrates the breadth of diversity of modern independent authors, particularly those publishing with Outskirts Press.
Below we have a list of the top 10 Kindle Books published by Outskirts Press:
Want to give your book more exposure and a boost on Amazon? Get started with the Amazon Extreme package today!
The Amazon Extreme marketing package from Outskirts Press gives self-publishing authors a triple advantage when it comes to promoting and selling their books!
Amazon, the largest U.S. online retailer, offers proven promotional functions like the popular Kindle edition, Search Inside the Book feature, and Cover Enhancement features. The Outskirts Amazon Extreme marketing package includes all three of these popular options — making it the perfect, economical way to launch your book sales.
An Amazon Kindle edition makes your book available to the growing audience of Kindle e-book readers. Because Amazon.com customers still love reading actual books, Kindle is an inexpensive way for them to sample a book before buying the paperback or hardback edition.
When you’re a part of the Search Inside the Book program, you allow readers to get a glimpse of your book’s contents. Books that are part of this program are significantly more successful, on average, than books that are not.
With the Amazon Cover Enhancement service, Outskirts Press submits an image of the front and back of your cover for your Amazon.com book listing. Books that have this enhancement are much more attractive to buyers.
Combine this three-pronged marketing package with the valuable tips and strategies outlined in the brand-new book, The Book Marketing COACH, written by President and Chief Marketing Officer of Outskirts Press, Brent Sampson. This book compiles the best of the marketing advice given to Outskirts Press authors into one easy resource.
The Amazon Extreme marketing package is not available with any other publisher, so get a jump on the competition now. And don’t forget to check out The Book Marketing COACH to give your book every advantage and the ultimate marketing boost!
To get started with the Amazon Extreme package, click below:
Navigating the world of book marketing can be a hazardous task, with many unmarked dangers–and shortcuts to safe passage–awaiting the self-publishing author. Over the last four weeks, we have introduced some fantastic marketing options that Outskirts Press offers. The good news is that they’ve bundled these options into their Book Blast package. The Book Blast package includes the features that guarantee you walk away with:
There’s one more important contribution to your publishing experience that the Book Blast package ensure you will benefit from, however, and it’s not one to miss out on! By investing in the Book Blast, you can emerge from your marketing campaign confident that you pursued every opportunity and option available to you in a methodical way. That confidence isn’t normally something a person can buy, but when you choose Outskirts Press, you choose to employ the full resources of a company known for its reliability, its advocacy, and its commitment to putting authors first.
Many authors forget or underestimate the value of a methodical marketing campaign, and as a result never reach their book’s full potential or their personal sales goals. But you don’t have to let this happen to you! You and your book know better–and deserve more–than settling for a lackluster attempt to reach new readers. Now that you have been introduced to several of the key offerings made possible by Outskirts Press’ Book Blast package, we’d like to make it easier and more affordable than ever to add the full complement of tools to your marketing toolbox.
Writing your book takes up about 20 percent of the time and energy you’ll dedicate to the publishing process. Where do you spend the other 80 percent? On marketing … if you let it. The 20/80 ratio applies to the average self-publishing author, but it doesn’t have to apply to you. You have the option of putting a solid book marketing plan into place–and we know just the plan for you!
The Book Blast package combines all of the tactics we’ve described over the last few weeks–book reviews, press release and PR Publicist, book video trailer, and five hours with a Personal Marketing Assistant–into a single bundle that makes crafting a complete book marketing campaign as simple as 1-2-3!
First, you will write, distribute, and promote your press release with the guidance of an expert PR Publicist. Second, you will create and distribute a book video trailer guaranteed to grab the attention of new readers. Third, you will submit your book to reputable book reviewers who will drive traffic and sales. At all points throughout this process, you will have access to the industry expertise and insight of your Personal Marketing Assistant, who will help guide you through the fine points of transforming your marketing campaign from good to absolutely fantastic.
Of course, one of the best features of the Book Blast package is its price! By combining its most popular marketing services, Outskirts Press is able to reduce the total cost by 25 percent to a single payment of only $999.
For more information about the Book Blast package, follow the link below.
What makes book reviews so important for the self-publishing author? Simply put, readers turn to the book reviews on websites like Amazon and Goodreads for assistance in choosing between the many possible books they might purchase. Looking at the hundreds of newly published books in the Biography or Romance genre each month, it’s easy to understand why a review of five stars on your Amazon book page might sway readers to purchase it over different book with only two or three stars. But how to get those reviews?
One possibility is to ask for them directly. There are a lot of benefits to making use of your existing social connections–on or offline–and contacting potential reviewers on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms. Some websites offer free reviews in return for copies of your book, as well, but how effective are they at reaching new readers? The answer, in most cases, is “not very.”
Many readers, however, are looking for something more reputable and more thorough than an anonymous two-sentence review on a website geared entirely towards sales. These readers are looking for reputability, reliability, and the kind of in-depth insight that only certain reviewers can offer. As a self-publishing author, nothing quite equals an impartial book review from a credible source.
That’s where the Outskirts Press Book Blast package can save the day–and save you untold time, effort, and potential disappointment in pursuing the right kind of reviews to boost your book’s visibility and drive your sales. The Book Blast package is designed to both put your book into the hands of ten credible, highly-rated reviewers who have a guaranteed interest in reviewing self-published titles–and to build your confidence as an author that your book will indeed find its audience.
Gaining reviews is just one benefit of purchasing the Book Blast package, but it’s a powerful one to have at your disposal as a self-publishing author. At Outskirts Press, the ultimate goal is to keep moving you along the path to publishing success–and a large part of that success can be defined as lifting the burdens that keep you from doing what you love most to do: writing!
For more information about the Book Blast package, click below:
Are you ready to make your publishing goals come true? There’s no better time than now! If you’ve been dreaming of seeing your book in print (or e-Book!), take advantage of a great incentive from Outskirts Press and make your goal a reality. There’s $300 of Mad Money at stake!
During the month of February, when you purchase the Diamond or Pearl publishing package and enter the promotion code MADMONEYFEB16 upon checkout, you will automatically receive a $300 reward — Mad Money credit to use toward anything you choose. And there are a lot of options to choose from!
Here are three ways YOU can use Mad Money to make your book stand out among the rest:
Copyediting. Whether you’re a bestselling author or publishing your very first book, having an objective professional carefully go over each line of your book is a crucial step. Unedited books are often labeled as amateur, and the readers you’re hoping to attract will be more willing to hit that BUY button if they’re not distracted by typos and grammatical errors. Why not use your Mad Money toward the cost of an editor? Outskirts Press has some of the best! (Click HERE for more details.)
Go digital! For under $300 you can offer your readers an Amazon Kindle edition or a Barnes and Noble NOOK edition of your book. Having a digital version is a great way to level the marketing playing field. If you want to reach as many readers as possible, releasing a digital version of your book is the way to go!
Your own Personal Marketing Assistant. You’ve written your book, published it, and now it’s time to get people to buy it. For most authors, the biggest hurdle to marketing is time. For others, inexperience in book marketing is a serious stumbling block; and others simply want to get back to what they do best — writing. Here’s where a Personal Marketing Assistant from Outskirts Press comes in. Your PMA will help you map out a plan to market your book at all the right times and in all the right marketplaces, not to mention targeting all the right book-buyers. Use your Mad Money toward five hours of expert help and sell more copies of your book!
With the Mad Money promotion and the $400 of free upgrades already included with the Diamond package (standard press release distribution, Spring Arbor Christian distribution, streaming audio excerpt on author webpage, and cover photo selection from an image library), we’re talking about $700 worth of inclusions!
The $300 Mad Money reward can also be used toward custom cover design, cover scribing, custom interior formatting, book trailers, celebrity endorsements, writing consultations, and so much more — all designed to give your book an edge in a competitive marketplace.
But this popular promotion ends soon, so take advantage of February’s Mad Money today and realize your dream! It’s the perfect time to begin the publishing process with Outskirts Press.
START PUBLISHING NOW AND COLLECT A $300 REWARD IN YOUR SHOPPING CART!
The most valuable self-publishing promotion of the year gives back $300 to authors that begin publishing a book with either the Diamond or Pearl book publishing services in February.
During this promotion, authors are rewarded with a $300 credit to use any way they wish. Just enter the promo code of MadMoneyFeb16 during checkout-it’s that easy!
For the full details on our Mad Money promotion, click here.
Don’t miss a chance to receive $300 that you can use to make your book stand out above the rest! Click the button below to order securely online or call 1-888-672-6657 ext. 706 to order over the phone. Publishing consultants will be available by phone through 8 p.m. MST to assist you.
“I would like to express my sincere thanks to all individuals associated with the publishing of my book. It has been a great experience. I appreciate all that was done from the beginning to the publishing stage. May God continue to bless each and every one of you at Outskirts Publishing.”
Debra Davis is married and has 1 son, 2 daughters and 1 granddaughter. Debra is a Substitute Teacher for grades K-12th, in Pittsylvania County Virginia, organizer of a community-based non-profit organization, a community activist and a former Qualified Mental Health Professional Counselor. She is also very active member at her church. Debra spends countless hours volunteering, serving others in need. Debra has obtained an Associate Degree in Business Administration and a certificate in Education.
In fear of being rejected, many youth tend to hide who they are deep inside fearing the pressures of life if the inner person would appear. Teachers feel as though they are overworked, underpaid, babysitters, counselors, and parents to some. Some parents feel as though they are the victims of life, while others soar above life’s challenges. What do you do, when life causes you to substitute the unexpected and you begin to endure the problems that need adjusting? As I share my experiences, personal insight and biblical principles, I pray that you will begin to view life “Through the Eyes of the Substitute.”
– Debra Davis, author of Through the Eyes of the Substitute
It is vital that self-publishing authors take advantage for the ever-growing social media market as it has become one of the most important aspects of marketing a book. Through social media, authors can reach a broader audience of potential readers all while increasing their overall internet presence and exposure.
As of July 2015, Facebook had 1.49 billion users, Twitter reached 315 million active users and LinkedIn had 400 million registered monthly users. These numbers continue to grow monthly so it is important for an author to get his or her book integrated with the Internet world and in front of these users.
With minimal information from you, Outskirts Press can create a social media and online presence through the Author Platform Set-Up package using the following techniques:
Set up social media profiles on each platform (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, WordPress and YouTube)
Identify and establish relevant connections with users on each social media platform
Assist you in building their unique online presence
Are you ready to take your marketing to the next step with Internet marketing? Start today with the promotion code FreeSocial2016 when you choose to publish with our industry-leading Diamond publishing service or our full-color Pearl publishing service to receive the FREE Author Platform Set-up Through Social Media option. Don’t delay!
“I would like to express my sincere thanks to all individuals associated with the publishing of my book. It has been a great experience. I appreciate all that was done from the beginning to the publishing stage. May God continue to bless each and every one of you at Outskirts Publishing.”
