C h a z z W r i t e s . c o m

See all my books at AllThatChazz.com.

10/28/2012 • 10:27 AM 2

#Promotip: Use Rafflecopter to Manage Promotional Giveaways

Click here to grab Jo’s book on Amazon

My guest blogger today is author Jo Michaels. She knows all about using Rafflecopter, a free and powerful promotional tool you need to know about, too. Here’s her experience:

I love Rafflecopter. It’s one of the easiest tools I’ve found to gain followers and provide quality contests for my fans. Besides, the icon is adorable. Rafflecopter keeps track of entries and creates a list you can export right to excel and even randomly chooses your winners for you amongst the entrants.

It’s a great tool for building an e-mail list (if that’s your goal) or getting followers on a multitude of platforms. As an added bonus, Rafflecopter allows you to choose other activities people can do like: tweet about the contest, post a comment or have a free entry just because you happen to be feeling all-powerful during creation.

When you log in, you’re guided down a golden path that’s as easy to follow as putting one foot in front of the other. It holds your hand and lets you take baby steps when setting up your contest. It’s an easy copy/paste to share the links with the featured/participating authors as well. Rafflecopter even embeds the contest to a FaceBook page from their website rafflecopter.com with a click of your mouse.

When I used Rafflecopter for a giveaway I did recently, I garnered over 100 entries. I gained twenty FaceBook page likes and ten new Twitter followers. It was a giveaway of an ARC of Lily (releases 10/30) and two copies of Bronya (free on Amazon from 10/27-10/31), the first two books in my Mystic series, and it ran for five days. The first winner was a new follower and the second was an established fan.

I’d have to say Rafflecopter has helped me gain new fans and provide rewards to current ones. I highly recommend using it to manage your giveaway.

Author bio: Jo Michaels writes full-time in her garage while imbibing copious amounts of coffee. Her inspiration comes from relationships, life, friends, passion and her incredible imagination. Jo uses her artistic talents and training to create stunning covers. The fight for achieving her dream drags her out of bed every morning to do what she does best: spin tales laced with high-octane emotion for readers worldwide. Jo has written six books, all self-published. Check out her website, blog and find her on Facebook at facebook.com/writejomichaels and Twitter, @WriteJoMichaels.

Triberr OVERLOAD! #promotip (chazzwrites.com)

Filed under: publishing, book promotion, book sales, free book promotion, giveaways, promotion tools, rafflecopter, Social Networking

10/26/2012 • 8:27 AM 1

Triberr OVERLOAD! #promotip

Author Rachelle Ayala has a great post on the new trouble with Triberr and how she’s dealing with it. Learn smarter promotion strategies here. ~ Chazz

P.S. So busy I had to drop out of blogging much personally this week and no podcast, either. In other news, last polish is about done and formatting begins. Three new books coming very soon. ~ Sleepless Chazz

Filed under: publishing

10/25/2012 • 7:13 PM 1

Is Humble Bundle the new way to buy books?

See on Scoop.it – Writing and reading fiction

Stephen Woodfin | BLOG…

Hm. Finally, a new twist on book buying for your consideration from Stephen Woodfin’s blog. Learn at the link! ~ Chazz

See on venturegalleries.com

Filed under: publishing

10/25/2012 • 5:11 PM 1

Why I’m Choosing Indie Publishing

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While on vacation a couple weeks ago, I made the decision to go with indie publishing. I’ve sent out somewhere from 20-30 agents in the last 3 months, most with the generic “No, thanks&…

After 20 – 30 agents, she’s not jumping the gun. Best of luck Liz Long! Another writer joins the self-publishing ranks! ~ Chazz

See on lizclong.wordpress.com

Filed under: publishing

10/23/2012 • 3:35 PM 1

“Amazon Is Playing Indie Authors Like Pawns,” says Smashwords founder, Mark Coker | Advice on Self-Publishing & Selling Your Books. From The Alliance of Independent Authors

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Amazon’s KDP exclusivity clause is completely unnecessary, says Smashwords founder Mark Coker, and causes harm to authors and Amazon’s competitors.

See on selfpublishingadvice.org

Filed under: publishing

10/23/2012 • 10:26 AM 0

Popularity, Visibility & KDP Select

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For most writers, anonymity is the biggest hurdle they face. The open nature of digital distribution can be a double-edged sword; there are 1.1 million titles in the Kindle Store after all. While t…

A great post about maximizing our sales on Amazon. Once again I must indulge my man-crush on author David Gaughran. He breaks down an aspect of Amazon ranking most people don’t know much about. Learn at the link! ~ Chazz

See on davidgaughran.wordpress.com

Filed under: publishing

10/22/2012 • 8:00 AM 1

Average Price of E-Book Best-Sellers Rises as Cheap Books Are Squeezed Out | Digital Book World

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More expensive titles continue to sell more e-books than their cheaper counterparts.

Christmas is coming. Will you change the price on your books? The bestseller lists by price point at the bottom of this link’s post are also interesting. ~ Chazz

See on www.digitalbookworld.com

Filed under: publishing

10/20/2012 • 12:02 PM 4

Please don’t bet on one book

Your stock of books are doors to your literary house. The more doors you have, the more points of entry you give to potential readers. More is better. More

An electric ceiling fan. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

multiplies opportunities for readers to discover you. Please don’t ask us all to squeeze in one door. Some authors bet they are Harper Lee and one book will take them on a To Kill a Mockingbird rocket ride to the top. It doesn’t work.

For example, I know a nice guy. You probably know one, too. The nice guy I’m thinking of published a novel more than a decade ago. He pushed that one book hard to little success. Recently, I noticed that he’s still pushing it. It’s not that you should give up on a novel’s eventual success in the market. With ebooks, the market is forever, or at least until the sun explodes or the zombies rise. But this good dude has nothing else to sell so he’s presenting a tiny target. That’s good on the battlefield and tragic in the marketplace.

And suppose a bunch of people did like that one book? Then what? They say, “I bought your book! Loved it. What else have you written that I could buy and read and love and spread the word about?”

Silence. Lost opportunity. Lost income. Despair. A rope knotted in a noose tied to a ceiling fan. A tipped chair in a dark room.

This author is a smart and talented guy, so he must have more to say. Somehow, he hasn’t managed to write another book and he’s still hoping readers will line up for that one special book. Unfortunately, the book’s not that special. He’s special. I’m not giving up on him, but he has to write and publish more books.

Being nice and smart and talented isn’t enough.

Write. Publish. Ship. Deliver. Deliver braingasms.

Filed under: publishing, books, harper lee, publishing, To Kill a Mockingbird, writer, writing, writing advice

10/18/2012 • 11:24 AM 5

Links-a-plenty: Giveaway, coffee for weight loss, video & becoming more like Joe Rogan

Read my interview and enter to win free ebooks on Jo Michael’s blog today. I get to talk about ninja monkeys, social media and

First it was kale shakes. Buttered bulletproof coffee is next!

what’s next for me, my hit man and all the people we’re going to kill together.

On AllThatChazz.com, I’ve got:

1. An article for you on drinking coffee to lose weight and growing your brain.

2. A podcast of one of my favorite chapters from Bigger Than Jesus. It’s dark and creepy and action-packed and, if you haven’t slipped into the warm pool of sexual chocolate that is my first crime novel, you can listen to this stand alone chapter to get the flavor of my Cuban hit man’s scary childhood. You even find out Jesus’s full name.

3. Check the video to get your first sneak peek of the sexy cover for Higher Than Jesus (launching next week!).

4. I got some unexpected, teary inspiration from Here Comes the Boom! Flick your switch and be more Rogan.

5. While you’re perusing the many podcast and book offerings at AllThatChazz.com, please do sign up for my newsletter. I won’t pester you, but when you sign up (on the left by my stylish photo), you’re up for giveaways and news about what’s exciting at Ex Parte Press. I’m releasing five books this fall, so lots of fun is on the way.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention, if you sign up for my newsletter, your website gets a free mention on the All That Chazz podcast. Also, for a couple more days, I’m still taking “Praise for ChazzWrites.com” for two upcoming books about writing and publishing, inspired by and boiled down from this blog. One happy blog review gets you in the books along with a plug for your book! Jump on it!

Excelsior!

Scoop.it

Space Vegans vs. Stephen Hawking (allthatchazz.com)

Filed under: publishing, allthatchazz.com, Bigger than Jesus, coffee diet, crime fiction, entertainment, fiction, giveaway, giveaways, Here Comes the Boom!, higher than jesus, interview, jo michaels, Joe Rogan, links, Podcast, rafflecopter, suspense, thriller, Weight loss

10/17/2012 • 8:44 PM 4

The Book Designer’s ebook Cover Design Awards

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e-Book Cover Design Awards, September 2012 including covers by Damonza, Kit Foster, Matt Hinrichs, Jeroen ten Berge, Damon Freeman…

This site, thebokdesigner.com, is always instructive for what works and what doesn’t for a book cover. Note that my graphic designer, Kit Foster of KitFosterDesign.com won the e-book Cover Design Award for September in the Non-fiction category. The book is The Tao of Dating and I think the colors, typography and the yin/yang heart make this one a great cover!

Congrats, Kit!

~ Chazz

See on www.thebookdesigner.com