Tag: publisher

  • A Publishing Panacea Receives Favorable Mention from CSPA

    I want to take a moment to thank Sarah Bolme, the director of the Christian Small Publishers Association (CSPA) and the author of Your Guide to Marketing Books in the Christian Marketplace (now in its 3rd edition) for endorsing and featuring my latest book, A Publishing Panacea: How to Be Your Own Publisher in the Digital Age, in her blog Marketing Christian Books. Since the focus of her recent blog post which mentioned my book was about getting endorsements for your books, let me also take this opportunity to thank my fellow authors and independent publishers, John Kremer and Brian Jud, for taking time out of their very busy schedules to write an endorsement for my book. I heartily recommend all three of these renowned authors, independent publishers, and marketers for anything they’ve done professionally. All three offer tremendous support and profound insights into the mysterious world of writing, publishing, and marketing books — all at the same time!

    After you’ve spent a few hours reviewing what they have to offer, may I ever-so-humbly invite you to check out my latest book which these three have endorsed? Again, it’s called A Publishing Panacea: How to Be Your Own Publisher in the Digital Age, and it offers step-by-step assistance to all aspiring authors on how to become your own publisher. It’s also available in eBook for both Kindle and Nook. Now, here’s to your writing and publishing success!

    By the way, if you haven’t subscribed to the Parson Place News and Views blog yet, please take a moment to do so now so that you won’t miss another important post. Also, why not invite your other contacts to do the same? The subscription box is at the upper right corner of this screen. I hope to have you sign-up soon!

    Before you leave, will you also take a moment to write a brief comment here? I’d really appreciate your feedback!

  • Be Your Own Publisher

    Are you tired of trying to get the attention of a publisher or literary agent? Have you ever wanted to be in control of both the writing and publishing processes? Well, in this wonderfully wild digital age, you can do just that! Want to know how? Well, let me tell you!

    I’m nearing completion of my latest writing project, and it’s a “how to” book about the ins and outs and the dos and don’ts of independent publishing in both print and eBook formats. I’m really excited at the possibilities of this project, and I’m strongly considering turning it into a full-length course for writers as well. What do you think of that idea? I welcome your comments. Meanwhile, stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks about this fantabulous plan! It’s gonna be grand!

     

  • New Book Release: Lifelines by Michael L. White

    Cover of Book Titled LifelinesTo all my loyal readers, family, and friends, I’ve just released my latest book, Lifelines (a collection of my poetry), which I announced some months ago would be forthcoming! You can order it from any number of retailers from my author’s Website at http://books.parsonplace.com/, although because it’s “hot off the press” at the time of this writing (23 February 2013), it is not yet in stock by most of them. If you don’t want to wait, however, you can definitely order it from the publisher’s Web store right away. As an added bonus, enter promo code “SH25” to save 25% on the cost of your shipping/handling for each order you place through the Parson Place Press Bookstore until 15 March 2013. So, what are you waitin’ for?

    In any case, please help me spread the word. I look forward to being in contact with you again soon!

     

  • Five Important Ways to Boost Your Visibility As An Author

    There are, no doubt, lots more than five ways for authors to gain or improve visibility in the marketplace, but this is what I consider to be a “top five” list of sorts. Any one of them alone may not guarantee success, but putting them all together makes for a pretty effective formula. I’ve tried to rank them in some semblance of an order of priority, but admittedly, they can be rearranged to suit your own goals. Now, here are my recommendations:

    1. Create your own Author Website. You need your own site with your own unique domain name hosted on a Web hosting service of your choice. This is a no-brainer, but it’s surprising how many authors have not yet taken this step. Whatever you do, do NOT choose a free hosting site that gives you either a subdomain (such as yourdomain.anydomain.com) or a subfolder for your site (such as anydomain.com/yoursite). Not only does this appear very unprofessional and cheap (in the worst sense of the term), but you will not benefit from any of the search engine rankings that result from the link-backs of the traffic you receive.
    2. Get a professional-looking email address. Again, do NOT use one of the free Web-based email providers, such as Live Mail, Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, etc. Once you set up your domain and Web hosting account as discussed in point #1, you can also set up your own unique email account using your unique domain name. There are a variety of ways to write your email user name, such as doe@yourdomain.com, jdoe@yourdomain.com, jane_doe@yourdomain.com, or just jane@yourdomain.com. Save your clever and funny user names, such as plainjane@yourdomain.com or maryjane@yourdomain.com, for your non-professional accounts. Using an official-looking email address is much more professional than using one of those free email account providers or a tongue-in-cheek user name. On the other hand, if you’re a comedic writer, a comic user name might be more suitable for you. Just use common sense or ask someone you trust who has common sense.
    3. Use Social Media. As a minimum, you should create an account on LinkedIn.com, Twitter.com, and Facebook.com, although Pinterest.com is ever-growing in popularity. Once you have an account with each of these, set them up to accept updates from each other. I think the best way is to set up LinkedIn so that it will post your update to Twitter, and set up Twitter so that it will update to Facebook. Then when you post an update on LinkedIn, it will post to Twitter and Facebook shortly thereafter. Remember to limit your updates to no more than 140 characters, even on LinkedIn, or else Twitter (which limits all tweets to 140 characters, including spaces) will truncate it. [UPDATE: Twitter has since increased the limit to 280.] It will be very bad indeed if your tweet is cut short just before or in the middle of the most important part, such as the hyperlink that sends readers to your author site or some other site! Also, once you set up your LinkedIn account, you can join various groups that cater to your professional interests, which provides even more visibility for you.
    4. Start a blog. The top two most popular blogs are Blogger.com and WordPress.com, though you should set up your blog on your own domain hosted account, rather than on the blog provider’s site for the same reason mentioned in point #1 above: search engine rankings. You can check with your Web hosting service to see if they offer an automated way to do this for you. Many probably do. The Web host I’ve used for years (PowWeb Hosting Service) offers this feature. In fact, as one of their long-time satisfied customers who has an affiliate relationship with them, I can highly recommend them to you.
    5. Start an opt-in subscriber email list. After setting up your domain with your Web host and creating your email account, you should create a special email account just for communicating with your email list subscribers. There are a number of services that will help you manage your subscriptions and unsubscriptions for a fee, such as ConstantContact.com or AWeber.com, but if their prices are too steep for you, you can always manage your list personally using a mass mailing software such as Group-Mail.com. That’s what I’ve used for years, and another of with which I have an affiliate relationship. Although the paid version is quite expensive, depending on the edition you choose, you can use the free version indefinitely with great results. You just have to be creative with working around the limitation on the maximum number of subscribers to a group if you opt for the free version. Having an email subscriber list will enable you to communicate and market to your subscribers on as frequent a basis as you desire or as often as your subscribers will tolerate. Just be certain to require each sign-up to confirm his or her subscription, in case someone tries to subscribe someone’s email address without permission. Also, be sure to put your email list sign-up form in a prominent place on each page of your Author Website “above the fold” (meaning on the top of the page before the user has to scroll or press the Page Down key). You can put it in either the left or right column of your site, if you use tables or CSS (a cascading style sheet) for your page layout, which I recommend.

    As I said, there are many more ways to boost your visibility, but these five are practically essential to your success. I welcome your feedback comments below.

    NOTE: I am currently writing on a manual for indie writers who wish to become their own publisher. I’m not sure when I’ll finish it, but I’ll make an announcement here and on my published books Web site, books.parsonplace.com, as soon as it’s available. I’ve also just registered a new #hashtag for Twitter (#indiepub) to help you follow some of my tweets when I send them to Twitter. Feel free to use it yourself, too!

    An Update on 5-4-2020

    I made a few minor revisions to improve the readability of the content here, and I wanted to note that I finally published my book on independent publishing in 2014. It’s entitled A Publishing Panacea: How to Be Your Own Publisher in the Digital Age. Although it is no longer in world-wide print distribution, you may still get it in paperback from my publisher Website, Parson Place Press, or in eBook format from the store here on my blog or from either Amazon or Barnes and Noble. You may also consider getting my BYOP Digital Package, which includes lots of extras.

    An Update on 4-14-2018

    The following comparison page for cloud-based email services is offered for your review. I am not necessarily recommending this approach, but you can consider it nonetheless.

    https://www.cloudwards.net/best-cloud-based-email-services/

    The Best Email Service Provider of 2024: Top 10 Email Services & Clients

  • Writing Projects

    I’m presently working on three separate writing projects which I hope to have completed soon and ready for publication sometime in 2013. They are as follows:

    1. I’ve just finished retyping a collection of my poetry which I’ve been wanting to compile and publish for years. I still have some manuscript formatting to do and I have to get my designer to create an attractive cover for me, but I expect to be able to publish it very soon. In fact, I’m even toying with the idea of rushing it to press in order to give it as gifts to my closest family and friends for Christmas 2012. However, I’m not quite sure I can pull that off at this point. You can check back here and at my personal Web site at http://books.parsonplace.com for current updates.
    2. I’m working on a crash course for authors who want to be their own publisher. It will contain information and instructions on everything an author will need to do in order to be his or her own publisher. I’m keeping the details under wraps for now, at least, until I’m ready to unveil and offer it to the public. Again, check back here and on my personal Web site for current updates.
    3. I’m approximately one-third finished with writing on my next book, which will address the topic of salvation, what it is, how to obtain it, and how to be certain you have truly obtained it. I’m really excited about this one, as I feel that God gave me the idea and the chapter topics for writing this book. I can’t say when I will finish this one, but I expect it to be sometime in 2013.

    If you’re interested in obtaining either one of these materials, be sure to check back for current updates. I welcome you to leave a comment below as well.