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

See all my books at AllThatChazz.com.

11/09/2012 • 12:45 PM 1

#NaNoWriMo: Tools to get you back on track & stay inspired

Right about now, if you’re doing National Novel Writing Month, you’re feeling a little tired and you have two complaints: Where do I take my story from here and how can I better manage my time to meet my writing goals?

I can help. First, here’s a link to my guest post on Masquerade Crew today. This excerpt from my book, Crack the Indie Author Code, is an easy, fun and genuinely intuitive exercise that will turbocharge your NaNoWriMo efforts and make your manuscript fresh. I call the strategy my Trio approach to story creation. You’ll love it and your readers will, too.

And now your free time management tool: The SlimTimer. I found it through The Nerdist Way by Chris Hardwick. (With all those Star Wars jokes and references in my books, you must have guessed my nerd secret, huh?) This tool will help you track your activities and find time. Only what is measured can be improved. Measure your day with this timer. Then make time you didn’t know you had, get back on track and stay on track.

Crack the Indie Author Code is Book One. Write Your Book: Aspire to Inspire is Book Two in my series on writing and publishing. For fresh inspiration, I offer this uber cool image to motivate you to persist with writing your book so you, too, can have a cool ad like this!

Click the image to get Higher Than Jesus

Often when we think of graphic designers, we only think about book covers. Kit Foster from KitFosterDesign.com sent me this ad this morning. I’m using the white variation above in the Orangeberry book tour. Pretty cool, huh? Kit is not only an author and the sponsor of the All That Chazz podcast, he’s also an amazing designer. He does book covers, web banners, Quote Art and much more. If you have a podcast, you need art. If you need an ad, check out Kit’s portfolio and go get help. Great images grab eyeballs.

Graphic designers can do more than just book covers. Kit is a great consultant. For instance, it was he who suggested that I add a tag line to my covers using the ten commandments to reflect some aspect of the plots through the series. In Bigger Than Jesus, it was “Thou shalt not steal.” In Higher Than Jesus, it’s “Thou shalt not kill.” In the next book, Hollywood Jesus, it’s “Thou shalt not covet.” That tweak added a lot to the look and tone I wanted to achieve. Tweak your covers. Don’t let them lie there, weak and ugly.

I’m so excited about how my books are turning out (which explains how linktastic I am today), I want you to be excited about your books, too. Go write one.

#NaNoWriMo Tip: How to blast out of the gate (chazzwrites.com)
#NaNoWriMo: The key tip to write a much better book (chazzwrites.com)
NaNoWriMo: My crucial mistake (chazzwrites.com)
Bigger Than Jesus: Descent (allthatchazz.com)
The Gambler (allthatchazz.com)
The Ultimate Liar (allthatchazz.com)
Ta-da! Motivation, Inspiration & Information for Writers (chazzwrites.com)
Branding: The change I made (chazzwrites.com)
Tools of the Trade: Things go awry (allthatchazz.com)

Filed under: publishing, All That Chazz, Aspire to inspire, Bigger than Jesus, book covers, book promotion, Chris Hardwick, Crack the Indie Author Code, ebook, Graphic design, guest post, higher than jesus, Kit Foster, Kit Foster Design, Literature, Masquerade Crew, NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, novel in a month, Podcast, publishing, Robert Chazz Chute, self-publsihing, SlimTimer, time management tool, writer, Writers Resources, writing, writing advice, writing tips, writing tools

11/04/2012 • 7:34 PM 2

#NaNoWriMo Tip: How to blast out of the gate

Find tons more tips and inspiration here.

As you write your manuscript, grab your readers by the eyeballs right away. Here’s how:

Crack the Indie Author Code and Write Your Book: Aspire to Inspire both have bonus offers of free ebooks. Buy two books and you get four!

1. Start late and bait the hook. When writing guides say, “Come in late,” they mean to bring the reader into the action quickly without throat clearing. Stick your media in the res.

2. “Throat clearing” means focussing the back story and distractions more than the action. (Usually weak first draft paragraphs tarry too long over the weather, flora and fauna.)

3. Instead of taking too long to set the scene, let character be revealed through action and dialogue.

4. Look for the unusual and strong verbs in to give your hook strong bait.

5. Preserve mystery to pull readers in. Don’t give it all away at once. For instance, if your protagonist is chasing someone through a dark warehouse in your opening paragraph, don’t tell me she is FBI right away. Focus on the pursuit and the danger around the next corner. Let the details leak through. It’s much more intriguing to have a woman chasing a bad guy when you don’t know right away that she’s on the righteous side of justice, has a ton of training and resources and her back up is on the way.

Free to download Nov 5 to Nov 9, 2012.

Here’s my opening to Bigger Than Jesus (which, ahem, happens to be free to download here from Monday, November 5 to Friday Nov. 9.)

Water drips from the soot-black gargoyle’s tongue like thin saliva, as if the grotesque statue is mocking you and eager for blood. Panama Bob Lima clings to the gargoyle, using it as a shield. You are on a thin ledge on the side of a very high building and for once you wish you wore your Nikes instead of twelve-hundred dollar Tanino Crisci shoes. So far, this job is not going at all as planned.

Rationale: A mood is set in an unusual situation. Weather (the water through the gargoyle) is mentioned because it’s relevant to the danger the protagonist faces and we get a taste of the crazy to come. The second-person, present tense brings the reader into the middle of the action and provides immediacy. The second-person present tense and reference to the ominous gargoyle is purposely disorienting in the first sentence, just as the threat of the long fall is dizzying. It’s an opening that poses questions: What is the job and why the pricey shoes? The protagonist is probably not there to help since Panama Bob uses the gargoyle as a “shield”. The opening tells the reader they can expect a fast pace and the ironic last line is a clue that the story won’t be told straight. Dry humor is ahead.

6. Open every chapter with a baited hook and action. Give readers action that propels and compels and you’re on your way to a better book.

Higher Than Jesus, the follow-up to Bigger Than Jesus, is available here.

~ Robert Chazz Chute is the author of five books of suspense and two writing guides that, if you’re reading this far into this blog, you obviously need. They are Crack the Indie Author Code and Write Your Book: Aspire to Inspire. Check out all of Chazz’s books here.

NaNoWriMo: My crucial mistake (chazzwrites.com)
My crucial brain hack to win #NaNoWriMo (chazzwrites.com)
#NaNoWriMo: The key tip to write a much better book (chazzwrites.com)
#NanoWriMo Tip: How to finish with a flourish (chazzwrites.com)
Ta-da! Motivation, Inspiration & Information for Writers (chazzwrites.com)

Filed under: publishing, Amazon, Aspire to inspire, Bigger than Jesus, book promotion, Book Writing, books, Come in late, Crack the Indie Author Code, Creative writing, crime novel, ebooks, fiction, free ebooks, free promo days, freebies, hardboiled, higher than jesus, media res, NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, Robert Chazz Chute, suspense, thriller, Writer Resources, writers, writing, writing advice, writing tips

10/31/2012 • 5:23 PM 9

Ta-da! Motivation, Inspiration & Information for Writers

Whether you’re about to throw yourself into the teeth of National Novel Writing Month or every month feels like a NaNoWriMo frenzy, I have two new books (in pixels and paper) to keep your writing and publishing flow: Crack the Indie Author Code and Write Your Book: Aspire to Inspire. Boiled down from over 1,000 posts on this blog, I’ve edited again, added bonus writing and publishing tips plus new content that’s never been seen on ChazzWrites.

Need more? How about free ebooks? When you sign up for my newsletter at AllThatChazz.com, you automatically get a shout out on the All That Chazz podcast and a plug for your website. However, there’s a new and different cross-promotion you can’t get anywhere else. Sign up for the newsletter, answer a qualifying question in the back of the books, and you get a coupon to receive a free ebook of suspense. Complete the easy giveaway instructions and you get the podcast plug, and/or Sex, Death & Mind Control and/or Self-help for Stoners! If writing and publishing books aren’t for you, there’s a similar offer in the back of Higher Than Jesus, the next instalment of The Hit man Series. (#1 was Bigger than Jesus.)

Jump in for the hardboiled fun. Higher Than Jesus promises a little less swearing, snappy dialogue and jokes, more sex, more twists and more clever violence. My Cuban hit man is embroiled in a conspiracy around an arms deal in Chicago that has dire ramifications for the entire United States. It’s a classic tale of Bad versus Evil.

LATEST PODCAST: The Halloween edition of the All That Chazz Podcast is up with a reading of “The Way Out is Through”, a chapter of Bigger Than Jesus. Hear the podcast at the AllThatChazz author site.

~ Robert Chazz Chute is the author of Bigger Than Jesus, Higher Than Jesus, The Dangerous Kind & Other Stories, Self-help for Stoners, Crack the Indie Author Code, Write Your Book: Aspire to Inspire, and Sex, Death & Mind Control (for fun and profit).

The Way Out is Through (and a bonus!) (allthatchazz.com)

Filed under: publishing, allthatchazz.com, Aspire to inspire, Bigger than Jesus, book promotion, books, Crack the Indie Author Code, E-book, free ebooks, freebies, hardboiled, higher than jesus, mystery, National Novel Writing Month, Podcast, publishing, self-help for stoners, suspense, thriller, Write Your Book

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

10/13/2012 • 5:51 PM 2

Reminder: To plug your book…

…in two of my upcoming books, all you have to do is give me one happy line about ChazzWrites.com. (See the post below this one.)

In other news, a little post about Joe Rogan, inspiration, change and Here Comes the Boom from AllThatChazz.com.

Strap in! Here come the books!

Filed under: publishing, allthatchazz.com, book promotion, books, change, culture, Here Comes the Boom!, hope, inspiration, Joe Rogan, plug your book, upcoming books, writing

10/10/2012 • 5:45 AM 3

One happy line can get you in my books

Aspiring writers and published authors interested in self-publishing read ChazzWrites.com. If you are a regular reader of this blog and find it helpful, I’m going to ask a favour. I need a happy quote from you about this blog, please. Those quotes I use will be in two books about writing I’ll release this fall. One happy line and your name is all I need. If you’re already an author, then please add the title of your latest book to your recommendation.

I’m boiling down the blog to the best of my posts from over 1,000 articles on ChazzWrites, revising and adding new material. It was originally going to be one book, but that changed at 5 a.m. today (and that story is a different blog post.) Happy and snappy quotes from regular blog readers will go into the front matter. Something along the lines of “ChazzWrites.com helped me with…” or “I read ChazzWrites because…” or “I like…” Something like that. Drooling in ecstasy is optional but appreciated.

Whether you’re just published (trad or indie), aspiring to write a book one day or have published dozens of books, I’d love to hear from you.

Please email your reviews to expartepress@gmail.com

(within the next seven days).

Help me out with this and not only will you be in the front of the books, I’ll also mention you (and your book) on the AllThatChazz podcast.

Thanks very much for your help.

Space Vegans vs. Stephen Hawking (allthatchazz.com)
Branding: The change I made (chazzwrites.com)
Innovative ways graphic design can help sell books (and not just with hot book covers) (chazzwrites.com)
The Future (allthatchazz.com)
We’re Indie. We don’t lie down. (chazzwrites.com)
Author reading: The Bugman of Surfside Beach (allthatchazz.com)
Eight Facts About Writing That Surprise Prospective Novelists (chazzwrites.com)

Filed under: publishing, aspiring writers, authors, blog reviews, book, book promotion, chazzwrites.com, E-book, Marketing, novelists, One happy line can get you in my books, Podcast, publishing, quotes, Robert Chazz Chute, writers, Writers Resources, writing

10/09/2012 • 4:32 PM 3

Branding: The change I made

“You will laugh your ass off!” ~ Author of Cybrgrrl, Maxwell Cynn

Milestones aren’t just for celebration. They are also reminders to reevaluate. Since last November, I’ve been podcasting comedy, author readings and a wee bit of ranting at the world. In that time, more people have gone from “What’s podcasting?” to “Ooh, computer radio! How do I do that, too?” Listenership is growing and I just broadcast my 50th show (a conversation with writer and friend Mark Young.)

When I began the podcast, I was very focussed on selling my first book, Self-help for Stoners, a fun book for creatives who love suspense. Those readers make great podcast listeners. They are interested in the creative process, want a little encouragement in the creation of their art and wonder what’s it all about (among all the jokes, murders and whimsy.) I didn’t put enough thought into my long-term branding then. Instead, eager to get both products up on their feet and out the door, I named the podcast after my first book. Since I’ll soon have eight books available, I needed to start thinking long-term. The podcast is now called All That Chazz. Since my author site is AllThatChazz.com, it fits. (Oh, my Thor! Such blinding narcissism!)

Across all my sites, the same image appears to help set up one image in the minds of potential readers. I’m not giving up on Self-help for Stoners. I’m just expanding the line of books with which I’m identified. I should have thought of that at first, but I was too anxious to finally get the podcast up and running to worry about changes a year down the road. It’s now almost a year down the road and change is in the ether, zeroing in fast.

Dance fast in the short-term. Plan long-term. Adapt. Innovate. Overcome. Rock harder.

Space Vegans vs. Stephen Hawking (allthatchazz.com)
A Double Shot of Suspense (allthatchazz.com)
Author reading: The Bugman of Surfside Beach (allthatchazz.com)
Eight Facts About Writing That Surprise Prospective Novelists (chazzwrites.com)
Tools of the Trade: Things go awry (allthatchazz.com)

Filed under: publishing, allthatchazz.com, book, book promotion, branding, Business, ebook, identity, iTunes, Mark Young, Marketing, planning, Podcast, promotion, Robert Chazz Chute, self-help for stoners, Stoners

09/26/2012 • 8:46 AM 2

Book sales on Twitter: One click doesn’t work

I’ve changed the way I use Twitter. I’m not about making rules for how people use social media. Twitter Narcs are

English: A pie chart created in Excel 2007 showing the content of tweets on Twitter, based on the data gathered by Pear Analytics in 2009. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

annoying. However, by the end of this post, I hope you’ll vary the way you try to sell your books. We’re drowning in the sameness of “Buy my books!” We have to sex up our tweeting.

Most book sales tweets have a crippling weakness that’s hurting sales. Twitter is so awesome everyone is using it to sell books in the same way. That makes it anti-awesome for your book sales. Using a one-click approach, sending me straight to Amazon without providing enough information or value, is not working.

What doesn’t work well:

Title of book. Go buy it. Here’s the link.

What’s only microscopically better:

Title of book. Review: “Scintillating!” Here’s the link.

The problem:

Too many tweets are trying to make sales by just telling us to buy.

We’re so flooded with ugly tweets, it’s too easy to ignore them all.

What I’m suggesting:

Be more clever and change up the ask. Sure, promote however you want, but give me more to go on than generic messages like: “Great book!” “New post!” “Another new post!”

We need more showing, not telling, in those 140 characters. Give me a clue or hashtag the genre. I want to like you, but dress up a little and show me you care about me. It’s not about you. It’s about us.

Best:

Please pull me back to your blog and seduce me.

I’ll buy, but I need more to go on to make that first click toward falling in love with you.

On World Literary Cafe Tweet Teams this week, I didn’t try to send people straight to Amazon. I provided links to my blog posts, a cool graphic, and my podcast (where I’m giving Bigger Than Jesus away for free one chapter at a time). There’s added value to my audience that way.

Examples:

RT RChazzChute Hear the #thriller Bigger Than Jesus as a #podcast. http://bit.ly/TkBSGs #WLCAuthor (Or buy the book http://amzn.to/Nm6xj4)

RT @rchazzchute It’s a meme, baby! Self-help for Stoners #excerpt & #inspiration http://bit.ly/NNhBDI #suspense #fiction #WLCAuthor

RT @rchazzchute Hear all the suspenseful #fiction & #comedy #podcasts http://bit.ly/OBRMeT #WLCAuthor #whatwaitsinlocker408

RT @rchazzchute #Thought for the Day: #Creation. http://bit.ly/TUTtVX and The Value of #Writing & #Reading http://bit.ly/Pd1JfN #WLCAuthor

RT @rchazzchute Just working on the next instalment in The Hit Man Series. (Excerpt of the hook to Chap.6) http://bit.ly/SPU7on #WLCAuthor

RT @rchazzchute Did Han shoot first? Catch 2 chapters of Bigger Than Jesus for the explanation. http://bit.ly/S8JgDm #suspense #WLCAuthor

RT @RChazzChute WIP Sneak peek! 1st there was Bigger Than Jesus. Next comes Higher Than Jesus. http://bit.ly/S5dHGT #crime #novel #WLCAuthor

RT @rchazzchute Quote Trailers http://bit.ly/OF1YPp & Quote Art http://bit.ly/NlwJM1 promote your books. #WLCAuthor

More content and seduction is why Triberr works:

On Triberr, everyone on your tribe retweets your blog post summary (assuming they’ve read your post and have no objections.) Information spreads. Something in the summary captures the tweetosphere’s interest so they come to your blog. They find you helpful, funny, sexy or useful. Do that enough and maybe they’ll get smitten, click on a book link to the “Buy with one click” button.

True, if you don’t send me straight to Amazon, it’s more than one click to buy. However, too many tweets that look the same get ignored because it’s an overload of data without enough information or value. Will there be exceptions? Sure. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with announcements of book launches. I’m what you call, “pro-reading.”

But, please, join me in the campaign against Bland. Bland is so Beige and, as we all know, Beige is the Mitt Romney of the colour spectrum. It seems to be everywhere, but no one’s excited about it.

Triberr… Want to give it a try? (iamareadernotawriter.blogspot.com)
How Bloggers Can Grow Each Others Readership (stevefarnsworth.wordpress.com)
Blogger, Twitter, Triberr (soulati.com)

Filed under: publishing, Amazon, Bigger than Jesus, Blog, blogging, book promotion, book sales, fiction, Hit Man Series, Podcast, sell your book better, Social Networking, Triberr, tweets, Twitter, writer, writing

09/09/2012 • 12:18 PM 8

Quote Art: A new way to promote your books

**This is not a book cover. It’s Quote Art for my suspense novel, Bigger Than Jesus. The quote is pulled from the book. The art is by Kit Foster of KitFosterDesign.com.**

Jesus Diaz is my luckless Cuban hit man in the first of the Hit Man Series: Bigger Than Jesus. (It’s pronounced “Hay-soose”.) Follow his exploits as he tries to escape New York’s Spanish mob with a fortune in stolen mafia money and the lovely Lily Vasquez.

Great book covers sell books. Now picture a quote pulled from your book with another compelling, related image. See it on Facebook, as a Twitpic, on your author site or as a poster at your next book signing. Quote Art is a different way to promote your books to new audiences. It’s a clue about your characters and another chance to intrigue potential readers. Why try to grab them with just one image when you can hold their attention with more using a new, integrated and savvy marketing tool?

Click it to grab the paperback or the ebook. Thanks!

Kit is my graphic designer. If you’re a regular reader, you know I’ve already sung his praises. Now I’m complimenting him for his innovation in doing something a little different to help me spread the word about my books. Thanks again, Kit!

To find out more about his book cover designs and to see samples of his art,

go to KitFosterDesign.com.

**Want another marketing tool to build buzz?**

I need a couple more volunteers for my Next Big Thing Blog Hop post. If you have a work in progress you want to build some buzz about, I have two more spots available for this event. All you have to do is answer ten quick questions about your WIP and post them on your blog a week from Wednesday. You link back to me and I link to you and the word spreads farther. Volunteer at expartepress@gmail.com and I’ll send you an email with the blog hop specs.

I’m doing another blog hop in the near future, so watch this space.

Book cover troubles and solutions (chazzwrites.com)
The Tire (allthatchazz.com)
How to talk with your graphic designer about your book cover

Filed under: publishing, book, Book cover, book marketing, book promotion, book signings, Business, Design, Facebook, Graphic design, graphic designer, illustration, Kit Foster, kitfosterdesign.com, publicity, Quote Art, Shopping, Twitpic

08/29/2012 • 5:59 PM 10

Amazon: My last stab

GET BIGGER THAN JESUS, FREE ON AMAZON TODAY, TOMORROW AND FRIDAY

Free promotions sure aren’t what they used to be. Last December, with Amazon’s old algorithm, friends of mine made big money. Success on the free list actually translated to success on the paid list. Then everything changed and many of us have been slow to react, me included. I notice that, among my writer friends, many (most?) are selling their books on KDP Select exclusively, five free days and all, for the first three months and then they aren’t renewing with KDP. They’ll continue to sell on Amazon, but there are plenty of other places to sell besides Amazon. After that first three months of trying to take advantage of the Amazon advantage, they put their work up everywhere else, too. That’s what I’m doing with the foundation book of my crime novel series, Bigger Than Jesus.

BY THE WAY:

Bigger Than Jesus is available for free in ebook form

until Friday, and then that’s it.

As The Hit Man Series continues, I don’t know if I’ll go exclusive at all, even for those first three months. The math just doesn’t seem to add up to a marketing strategy that’s advantageous. In truth, it hasn’t been helpful to many indie authors for some time. I stuck with it because of the timing as my previous books launched. I have three books to release before Christmas and the eggs won’t be going into one basket anymore.

Someone asked me recently, “What’s the latest success strategy for indie authors?” I encountered some resistance when I replied, “There isn’t one.” We’ve had the publicists, advertising, press releases, blogging, podcasting, Twitter (and various derivative Twitter strategies), Facebook, Pinterest (maybe?), the 99 cent strategy, blog tours, free, Goodreads, book bloggers, etc,…. Some combination of these elements may work for someone. Though they’ve all been effective for someone individually in the past, no one strategy seems to deliver a knock-out punch. When I say there isn’t one, I don’t rule out the possibility of their effectiveness in the plural, if you have the time to do all that. (You don’t. Go write instead.)

Which brings up the question: Will Amazon change its algorithm again so it makes sense for us to stay exclusive with KDP Select? Who knows? Amazon’s algorithms and their rationale may be deduced, but are never made explicit. That information is solely on a need-to-know basis. (Apparently, we don’t need to know.)

Amazon is good at what they do — or has been — but it’s unreasonable to expect they’ll be right all the time, even with their vast resources. More to the point, Amazon’s looking out for Amazon, not me. My evidence is they aren’t making the exclusivity clause worth it for a lot of authors (even the true believers who, in the past, made a lot of dough.) I’m losing sales on other devices because I’m not selling enough with KDP. The Amazon sales don’t make up for lost sales elsewhere. Listening to my writer buddies, it’s clear I’m not alone in that assessment.

This is a business decision and has nothing to do with damning Amazon. I’m not one of the haters whining about monopolies and painting Amazon as a bully. The market is a competition and Amazon is on top because they made a lot of great decisions early on. However, I’m not looking for a new mom to take care of me, either. Being indie doesn’t mean supplanting one boss with a new boss just because it’s easy to go on inertia and formatting anew is a pain in the ass. Next month, as soon as my three months are up, Bigger Than Jesus will be available more widely (Hello Kobo, Nook, Sony, your smart phone, your iPhone, your iPad…maybe even your toaster.)

As for book marketing’s next knock out punch? People will tell you they know what the next big thing is. Some will even try to sell you books based on giving away one ultimate secret of indie author success. I think those people are often well-intentioned and they give out a lot of good information. I’ve read a bunch about marketing ebooks lately and, frankly, I’m also skeptical about some of those easy, plug-and-play answers.

Only one strategy I know of seems like anything close to a sure thing and (WARNING!) it’s a slow, steady grind. It’s not a popular idea because it’s not easy and quick.

Write more books.

(Do a great job!)

Put them up.

(Do what promotion you can that doesn’t interfere with your writing schedule.)

Write more books.

(Make sure they are wonderful.)

I aspire to inspire, but as for marketing? Hm. Sorry.

“Write more books” is honestly all I’ve got in stock at the moment.

I’ve said it before and it’s still all I have to say on that subject.