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

See all my books at AllThatChazz.com.

07/28/2013 • 1:38 PM 3

Another Easy Tech Tool Authors and Publishers Need Part 3

I’ve become quite a fan of the Author Marketing Club.

Another tool in their arsenal is the Amazon Enhanced Description Maker. It’s simple, but effective: Make your Amazon book descriptions easier to read with headlines and lists. Best of all, the html coding is taken care of for you. I’m into anything that simplifies my life while attracting readers.

Yes, Amazon allows this. In fact, here’s a sample of the end product.

Note what makes it different:

The header (Armand Rosamilia’s blurb); the attention-grabbing subhead; the bullet list; and the call of the “Special Offer”. You can make that a numbered list if you want.

Highly recommended. See AMC’s demo tutorial here.

Part 2: The next tech tool authors and publishers need

The Author Marketing Club has a new tool you’re going to want. Actually, they have a bunch of tools you’ll want, but today I’ll tell you about the latest one:

The Book Widget Creator Tool

On your author site, you have your books displayed in the sidebar. You’ve used image widgets and text widgets and tried to make your list look attractive for readers. The Author Marketing Club just came up with a tool for premium members that makes it easy and uniform. Here’s a sample of what it looks like on my author site. (Scroll down the right sidebar. You can’t miss it.)

Before you reject premium membership, I hasten to add that the Author Marketing Club offers a lot of cool tools to make your writing life easier and your image professional.

The tool pulls from Amazon, so it updates star ratings automatically. It’s a set it and forget it situation. At some point, you’ll be able to link to other sites besides Amazon. Within the tool, there’s an option to input your Amazon affiliate code so you’ll get credit for those clicks.

To use it, all you have to do is choose a widget width and plug in AISN numbers from your books on Amazon. Premium membership costs $105. Over the next few posts, I’ll tell you why I joined and why that fee is entirely justified.

Stand by for more AMC advantages.

Easy tech tools for authors and publishers Part 1 (chazzwrites.com)
Kindle select: is it worth it? (leonhughesblog.wordpress.com)
5 Cool Tools for Archiving Social Media Posts (maximizesocialbusiness.com)
In the digital age, what will become of author signings? (teleread.com)
5 Cool Tools for Archiving Social Media Posts (living-business.co)
How My Team Uses Pinterest and The Pinterest Tool (digitalhighrise.com)

Filed under: book marketing, Publicity & Promotion, publishing, Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Author, author marketing club, book marketing, book promotion, book widget creator tool, Cool Tools, ebooks, publishing, Tools, widget

07/25/2013 • 8:00 AM 2

Easy tech tools for authors and publishers Part 1

Time to tell you about BannerSnack. With this app, you can easily construct banners and ads for your author site. You’re going to love it.

This is a free tech tool I picked up at the Chrome Store. I just started playing with it, but I’m already very impressed. Not being comfortable with HTML often holds us back from doing more with our websites. There are several ways to work around that problem without learning programming language. BannerSnack makes it easy (even if you just go for the free options with watermarks). If you’re going to use it a lot, premium options aren’t unreasonably priced.

Here’s an ad I created for a book promotion on my author site, AllThatChazz.com:

You can start from scratch or choose to start from a wide variety of templates and sizes to get your unique message out.

If you want to make your website more spiffy, I suggest you play with BannerSnack. The interface is intuitive so you’ll have a banner, ad or button up and running quickly.

In Part II, I’ll show you an even cooler and easier tool to make presentation of your books,

and your author site, beautiful and inviting.

Why your interviews don’t work and how to fix the problem (chazzwrites.com)
How to Increase your site’s Adsense Income (itmashable.com)

Filed under: publishing, advertising, Author, author websites, BannerSnack, books, creating websites, ebooks, HTML, making buttons, Programming language, publishers, publishing, selling books, Web banner, website

07/24/2013 • 4:49 PM 2

What should I get upset about today?

I was somewhat amused to find that Goodreads has just about doubled its membership to 20,000,000 members in the last year. They reportedly added 4,000,000 in the last four months!

This post is not about the success of Goodreads. It about perspective and resistance to change.

When Amazon bought Goodreads, remember the wailing that GR had sold out to the Devil? Some threatened to cancel their GR memberships. A few actually did so. I wonder how many have quietly returned?

In a related story that doesn’t look like one, the guys behind Triberr invented a new button for the site a while back. You hold your cursor over the button for a flicker of a second and the post you’re about to share is approved. Soon after, someone complained about the improvement. What did these guys think they were doing? Why can’t we just click? If we don’t go back to the way things were, dogs and cats will live together!

Today? What was different and strange and scary is not so scary. New normals can be dangerous, but not all new normals are equal. Buttons and Goodreads? Not a big deal compared to all the serious problems. For instance, we live in a surveillance state yet most people shrug and ask, “Well, what can we do? Pass the mashed potatoes garnished with cynicism, helplessness and ennui.” Puts a bad book review in the right light, does it not?

I’m not saying we can’t complain. I’m saying that some problems require louder complaints, and action. The Gatling Gun of Despair is firing constantly. Choose your targets wisely.

Related articles

Anthony Ha: Amazon-Acquired Goodreads Says It Has 20M Members, Doubling In Less Than A Year (techcrunch.com)
The Bookworms Are Replicating: Goodreads’ Membership Has Doubled to 20M (betabeat.com)
Social Reading: Goodreads Grows to 20 Million Users, Doubles Membership in Less Than One Year (infodocket.com)
Goodreads Added 4 Million Members in 4 Months (the-digital-reader.com)
Amazon book lovers social network Goodreads doubles membership to 20M in 1 year (geekwire.com)

Filed under: Amazon, publishing, Triberr, Amazon, amazon book, Amazon Kindle, Amazon.com, books, Goodreads, new normal, perspective, Triberr

07/18/2013 • 4:29 PM 7

Today’s ordeal: Insults aren’t a marketing strategy

I talked to a bad sad person today who tried to push me around and deceive.

After a little more research, I figured out he was trying to sell me more of his own services but he wasn’t up front about it. Devious! I responded with reluctance because I hate hard sells and I’m suspicious of verbal sleight of hand. Then he switched from persuasion to an attempt at bullying. Why does any marketer think mean works? I guess he knew he wasn’t getting a sale so he had to get the venom out of his system. (Note: He’s not alone in thinking bullying works in sales. I suppose there are some gym memberships that prove bullying does work, but I don’t recommend it.)

He tried to spin a few dollars into “consulting”, amping a cheap offer ($15) into (I’m guessing) one or two thousand dollars. That’s quite a stretch to the next sales level, isn’t it? If he was as savvy at marketing as he says he is, he’d recognize he’s fishing in the wrong pool. And he’s angry at the fish.

When he wasn’t clear on his offer, I tried to determine if he was willing to work within a budget (any budget!) He went from wheedling to puffery to obfuscation to contempt in four sentences. I figured out what he was up to. What it amounted to was, “That thing I tried to sell you for $15 that I said would be awesome? Tricked you! What I said would be awesome is worthless and sucks, but if you don’t buy the platinum package (which I won’t define) you’re an idiot…” Blah-de-blah. Nonsense and hurt feelings ensue.

So that was eight minutes and ten seconds from hell. Skype tells you exactly how long you’ve been in hell. Convenient. He told me I’d wasted 15 minute of his time. Odd, he wasn’t worried about wasting my time with deception and insults, but we’re all the centre of our own universes, aren’t we?

Here’s my Twitter stream (read from the bottom up) from today’s encounter with the outside world. This is why I hide in my writing cave and avoid human contact. It was a delightful reminder of what not to do. Okay, not so delightful, but instructive. Basically, desperate and mean doesn’t work.

Does this seem mean? I don’t think so. If I were mean, I’d tell you his name. Instead, I’ll say, caveat emptor and hang up faster than I did.

Start here and read up for the details of how not to market.

On the other hand, it was fun getting a phone call through to SPP!

Click here to see how I’m recruiting allies in the struggle to get visible (without dealing with Mr. Nasty Meany Big Time).

~ For the record, I didn’t hang up on him because my mama raised someone who’s hopelessly polite. I also believe it’s important to give nasty people enough rope to hang themselves so I can spin the ordeal into a post on my blog. At least I get something out of it that way. Click either of the images above and you’ll see my latest marketing attempt for This Plague of Days. It’s the opposite of what was tried on me today. My approach is to go for win-win instead of deceive-insult. If my approach doesn’t work, I guess I could move to New York and give berating potential customers a try. Okay, now I’m officially letting this go. Have a peaceful day.

Filed under: book marketing, advertising, bad people, Business, customer relations, dealing with humans, Marketing, Podcast, self-publishing, self-publishing podcast, Social Networking, Twitter

07/16/2013 • 11:09 AM 0

Authors Showcase features horror by Robert Chazz Chute and romance by Dimitri Sarantis

See on Scoop.it – Writing and reading fiction

The Book: This Plague of Days: Season One The Author: Robert Chazz Chute The Story: Jaimie Spencer is an autistic boy who rarely speaks. He’s obsessed with words and Latin dictionaries and his world barely intersects with our own.

Robert Chazz Chute‘s insight:

Ooh! This Plague of Days on the Authors Showcase at Venture Galleries! Yay!

But wait, there’s more!

You guys know that This Plague of Days is my serialization experiment. What you don’t know, until now, is that authors Caleb Pirtle and Stephen Woodfin have invited me to serialize another book at Venture Galleries! Holy crap! So happy to be on a site with so many awesome authors serializing such interesting fiction. And they get a ton of well-deserved traffic.

More on the Venture Galleries serial soon.

In the meantime, think on this: What new opportunities can you create to connect with readers? What can you do in a cooperative with other writers to reach new audiences? We need to work together to get over the wall.

Big things are on the way.

~ Chazz

See on venturegalleries.com

Filed under: publishing

07/15/2013 • 4:12 PM 2

Video, Audio and Pixels: Hugh Howey hits and This Plague of Days launches Episode 5

And here, folks, are the announcements as promised. It’s a cornucopia of fun stuff to feed your hungry, hungry hippocampus:

See the rest of the interview on my YouTube channel here, or subscribe at CoolPeoplePodcast.com.

Also available on iTunes (or on Stitcher through the show link to the All That Chazz podcast.)

This Plague of Days: The first zombie thriller on the autism spectrum.

Episode 5 is now available! Get each ep for just 99 cents or get the discount deal and get all of Season One for just $3.99.

In Episode 5 of This Plague of Days, it’s all action as the Spencer family faces great loss in the Midwest and Dr. Sinjin-Smythe runs for his life in London. Dump your expectations of what a zombie apocalypse can deliver. The survivors of the plagues can be just as dangerous as any horde of rampaging zombies.

From the latest review on Amazon…

“The final episode of Season One did exactly what it was supposed to do. It twisted your stomach in knots, let go slightly, then snatched your stomach away until the second season is available.

All the immediate conflicts were resolved in a satisfying way, not rushed, not unrealistic. There’s plenty of ground to cover next season, and the last few lines will leave you guessing. Well done, Chute. You’ve crafted a high-brow zombie thriller that stands out from the rest.” ~ Ava Easterby

Coming late to the Apocalypse? No problem!

This Plague of Days scares me to death! I just can’t put it down; I have to see what happens next.

~ A review from Victor Morin

The mind virus is created. Spread the infection. If you already have read it, please review it.Thanks! ~ Chazz

This Plague of Days: The Pitch (thisplagueofdays.com)
Podcast: In the Line of Fire (allthatchazz.com)
Podcast: A Kiss Before Dying (allthatchazz.com)
This Plague of Days: A Secret Revealed (allthatchazz.com)
Podcast: Get Shorty (allthatchazz.com)
How Weird Al, Kevin Smith, Hugh Howey and Scott Sigler Succeed (chazzwrites.com)
This Plague of Days, Episode 2: An emissary arrives (allthatchazz.com)
The book I lost a job for…and why zombies? (thisplagueofdays.com)

Filed under: book trailer, Books, Horror, podcasts, This Plague of Days, Amazon, Autism spectrum, book, books, Cool People Podcast, dystopian, fiction, horror, Hugh Howey, imterview, iTunes, Kindle, Podcast, Robert Chazz Chute, serial, Stitcher, suspense, This Plague of Days, video, YouTube, Zombie, zombie apocalypse, zombies

07/15/2013 • 11:55 AM 0

Writers: Fantasy, Reality and the Awful Lessons

(Editor’s Note: FYI, release of the Hugh Howey podcast and Episode 5 of This Plague of Days has been a little delayed. But not by much. Explanations to follow. Some will be somewhat hilarious, especially if you’re a sadist.)

Here’s the writerly fantasy:

You know that dream you have of being a writer? We all have it with minor variations. Sometimes I picture a tiny writing cabin like Mark Twain had, perhaps by the water so I can watch the paddle steamers push up the river. Clacking away at an old typewriter with black and white ivory keys with a butler to bring scones would be awesome. At tea time, I could retire to an English country garden with a labyrinth and mull the next plot twist. Mm…okay, a Mac with black and white, fake ivory keys and coffee, not tea.

On me mudder’s side all the way back, I’m Irish. Maybe I should be scribbling in a moleskin notebook at the back of a gray pub hiding behind a tall Guinness and romantic, brooding despair. I’d run my hands through my hair a lot.

Analyze that fantasy and you’ll see it’s really about the power to be left alone and fear of people. We want to be at play in the fields of the mind. We don’t want to get retail jobs and interact with humans. We desire the protective distance a cyber interface allows. We crave the fantasy existence so we can do two things: Create Art and Not Deal. (Um, I’m not alone in my agoraphobic misanthropy, right? Right?)

Here’s the reality of writing:

We have to deal.

1. My cell phone just died and I stubbed a toe on my treadmill desk when I got up to charge the battery.

Lesson: Never move.

2. I’m behind schedule writing Season Two of This Plague of Days and I don’t have enough reviews on Season One yet.

Lesson: Kill self.

3. Someone got sick so the cover art for Episode 5 was delayed. (They’ll be okay, though.)

Lesson: Shit happens. Expect delays so you can schedule them.

4. I had technical issues with the Hugh Howey interview so I’m publishing the Cool People Podcast tonight or tomorrow morning.

Lesson: I have to deny my nature and be patient.

5. The cover art arrived but then my computer was attacked by the spinning beach ball of death.

Lesson: Have fewer than dozens of tabs open in the browser at one time. Apparently my mind doesn’t work the same way computer guts function.

6. Then, just as I tried to publish to Kindle this morning, my security software decided that was the perfect time to download a major update.

Lesson: Stab someone in the face with a #2 pencil. I’m not too picky about whom just now.

7. The update slowed everything down so much I knew I was a few minutes away from a heart attack.

Imagine your car is on fire and you’re trapped behind crumpled doors. Now imagine the seatbelt is jammed and cinched tight across your chest. You’re trying to get out but you’re pinned and the car’s filling up with choking, toxic, black smoke and your broken hands scrabble uselessly at the jammed buckle. Somehow, the radio is jammed on and it’s playing Kenny G.

It felt something like that.

Lesson: Get some cardio today. Listen to Stacy’s Mom by Fountains of Wayne. Cheer the #$!! up.

8. While dealing with the computer trying to kill me, I was making my son late for his piano lesson.

Lesson: Make son play video games to the exclusion of everything else all summer so I won’t be alone in my agoraphobic misanthropy.

9. I have no minions to bring me venti skinny vanilla lattes. Taking the boy to his lesson allowed me to go get that indulgence because, by then, I surely deserved it.

Lesson: If things are going badly, I deserve an overpriced sugar fat coffee with healthy pretensions. If things are going well? Same.

10. I’m working on a few hours of sleep and, as I survey my tiny writing bunker…hey! There’s a startling lack of scone butlers, minions, interns and fans begging to slip money through the mail slot!

The mind virus is created. Spread the infection. Each of five episodes is only 99 cents each. Get the whole Season for the discount at $3.99. (And if you already have read it, please review it.) Thanks! ~ Chazz

Lesson: Write more, and faster, until I blur into another dimension where paddle steamers and garden labyrinths are the norm. In this new dimension, I’ll be loved and Guinness will come from the kitchen tap. We’ll never get old and we’ll never die. And no one will ever look like Wilfred Brimley.

So, the awesome Hugh Howey interview is on it’s way (I’ll let you know with the very next post here.)

Episode 5 of This Plague of Days will be up today, as promised.

However, it takes up to twelve hours for books to publish to Amazon so it will arrive later today.

I’m going to go kill someone in Season Two of This Plague of Days now. With a #2 pencil.

~ To learn more about This Plague of Days, go to ThisPlagueOfDays.com. Subscribe to the Cool People Podcast in iTunes or check it out at CoolPeoplePodcast.com. Follow me on Twitter @rchazzchute so I try to remember what love feels like. Check out all the books and podcasts at AllThatChazz.com or break down and go on a bargain book shopping spree here. Thank you and have a wonderful day.

Related articles

You must read Hugh Howey’s novel, Wool (writeontheworld.wordpress.com)
Writer Quirks (and Advice!) from Hugh Howey (janetboyer.typepad.com)
conversation over at Hugh Howey: people stealing your ideas (morlockpublishing.com)
Navigating The Labyrinth: The Road to Publishing (droppedpebbles.wordpress.com)
How Weird Al, Kevin Smith, Hugh Howey and Scott Sigler Succeed (chazzwrites.com)
Hugh Howey on why he favors self-publishing (boingboing.net)
Wool by Hugh Howey (ofmusingsandwonderings.wordpress.com)
Podcast: Get Shorty (allthatchazz.com)

Filed under: publishing, self-publishing, Writers, Amazon, Amazon Kindle, books, Cool People Podcast, ebooks, epublishing, frustrations, Hugh Howey, iTunes, Kindle, Podcast, Robert Chazz Chute, This Plague of Days, writing

07/14/2013 • 4:22 PM 0

LynneQuisition: Passive Guy

See on Scoop.it – Writing and reading fiction

Everybody’s got their own go-to list of blogs, but one that seems to turn up on just about every indie author’s list is The Passive Voice. Passive Guy (the

Robert Chazz Chute‘s insight:

So that’s who the Passive Guy really is! If you don’t folllow The Passive Voice already, you definitely should. Read his interview at the link below.

If you needed another reason to subscribe to his blog, I just found out minutes ago from The Passive Voice that JK Rowling is secretly the author of a detective novel. It was received well when they didn’t know it was her. Now I suppose the snark and knives will come out.

I read the article to She Who Must Be Obeyed and quoted Rowling (with a few edits.) So this quote from Rowling: "I had hoped to keep this secret a little longer because being Robert Galbraith has been such a liberating experience,"

became this quote when I read it:

"I had hoped to keep this secret a little longer because being Robert Galbraith has been such a liberating experience from the nits and pricks who unfairly criticize any of my books that aren’t about a wizard. They can piss right off."

Of course, Ms. Rowling is a classy lady, so that’s all me projecting. However, some of the reviews of A Casual Vacancy suggested to me that they’d have preferred to intimidate Rowling into silence after harry Potter ended. Some critics are wait in the weeds to attack when any author challenges convention or tries something different or writes anything else after a huge success. You’ll recall Harper Lee never wrote anything after To Kill A Mockingbird. Tragic. I think the literary media can take a bit of the blame for that.

Stephen King expressed similiar disappointment when his secret identity writng as Bachman was exposed. Look, I know these folks are nigh-impossibly rich so we aren’t supposed to feel bad for them for anything. However, I do feel bad for any author when nasty reviews are unleashed for bad reasons. (Note: Rowling and King are two of the most generous rich people on the planet. Not all of our betters are equal.)

It’s like when reviewers talk about a $200 million dollar movie and debate about whether it’s worth that big budget. What I want to know is whether it’s worth the price of admission and a medium unbuttered popcorn. I suppose Ms. Rowling will have to brace herself. Yes, the detective novel’s gargantuan increase in sales will be a quantum of solace, but critics who go after the author instead of the book still suck.

I have spoken.

~ Chazz

(Tomorrow on the blog, Hugh Howey! Also, Episode 5 of This Plague of Days by yours truly is released. In the meantime, go read Lynne Cantwell’s interview with the Passive Guy at the link.)

See on www.indiesunlimited.com