PNW Book Blogger

Book Timeline

• Outline, character development, manuscript, drafts, and more drafts, enough work to cry and shed tears over usually. Writing a book and getting the ideas together is really hard.
• Beta Readers: get a few readers to give you back initial impressions. This is meant to help you critique your work and get better, so try to not take anything they say to heart. It can be hard handing your creative work to someone and getting any amount of negativity back, but criticism is the best way to improve, so long as the criticism is constructive and well-done at least.
• Sensitivity Readers: have someone read over your book to make sure there’s nothing outstanding, especially if you are dealing with heavy topics or unfamiliar settings, etc.
• Editor: this is usually the most expensive part for an author, besides the cover art part.
• Cover reveal: Once everything is tidied and ready, surprise! https://sleepyfoxstudio.net/ is great for covers!
• ARC Readers: Get initial reviews in! Remember that even 2 and 3 star ratings can help you. Someone may give a reason for not liking a book that could cause someone to pick the book up. Reading is subjective in nature. Asking readers to wait to leave reviews until a certain date unfortunately breaks FTC guidelines. You also cannot state that the book is “in exchange for”, rather, you are giving a free copy and are hoping they voluntarily leave a review with their honest feedback (I have gotten reviews flagged for this which is why I include this info, I did not know which terminology would get me in trouble). You should never pay an ARC reader – not only is that illegal, but you are being taken advantage of. Beta readers, editors, designers, are a different story. When there is love and labor added to the book, you obviously want to pay those people for their time and efforts. ARC readers should not receive payment.
• Sharing reviews, marketing the book, getting blurbs: Tropes are very popular right now and are an expected part of marketing a book on Instagram. To do it successfully, you do need to first study the way in which tropes are shown and presented, and figure out where your book falls, or else it can create confusion. If your book does not fall under the romance category, tropes may not be an expected part of marketing. Most readers truly just want a quick blurb, a quote to pull them in, a reason to support the author, a pretty cover, or a cool backstory. Readers connect heavily with Reels that are genuine and authentic from authors, and fun graphics. Stay away from AI, as it will reduce the amount of respect your art gains. When you use AI in your work, readers question how much AI was used in the book creation and begin to form trust issues. It’s simply not worth it. Net Galley, Book Sirens, and BookSprout.co are the most popular ARC distribution websites. Many authors will simply try to gain ARC readers through social media as well. Depending on if you have an audience or not, those three sites can be great resources. Please know you do not ever get guarantee reviews. Good to know: on Threads, the culture is to not share your book unless asked or prompted for. View it as selling a service. Unless someone asks for a book recommendation that fits what you have, it can come off as insincere and a sales pitch, rather than you sharing your work with the world. Remember that every time you post, people may not interact, but you can still see your view count if you turn your analytics on. Simply interacting with the community can help build relationships, and people already know to click the link in your bio. Making it as easy as possible for people to find your books and read them will set you up for success. Many times, I find myself both confused and incredibly frustrated trying to find out what books an author has written from their social media profile, or what the book is about. If it is really hard for someone to look up, you are doing yourself a disservice. Make everything reallllllly easy.
• Getting your book into book sellers: The old fashioned way of emailing, calling, walking inside and explaining your book, its appeal, and showing proof of interest via reviews usually tends to do the trick, just know you will get rejections first most likely, you need to have an iron gut. Basically, expect rejection (due to immense competition and their limited ability to stock “risky” books, remember anything that isn’t from an established best selling author, from a celebrity, or a fun gift that will fly off the shelves will likely not have a guaranteed number of sales expected behind it, so they have to calculate that risk, just like buyers for TJ Maxx), get excited when you hear a yes, and don’t celebrate until it’s actually happened. Try to cater your pitches as closely as possible. I use Publisher’s Marketplace. I think many authors simply go to the publisher they are interested in working with and submit their work. This is the part I am least familiar with, as I have only worked at the Barnes and Noble selling side of books, so I know how the store itself works, but I was not in charge of inventory or making purchase decisions. I just received commissions for book sales and it was incredibly fun.

Softwares and Programs To Use:

• https://www.atticus.io/ – book formatting (extremely important to do and make sure your book looks ok on ereaders, or else people literally won’t be able to read it properly)
• Canva pro for graphics on social media (avoid using anything labeled “magic” or “AI”, it should be clear when you are creating and editing versus relying on AI to create) here is a wonderful cover designer on Instagram you can hire!
• KDP is what most authors use for Kindle Unlimited and publishing through Amazon. I heavily recommend putting your book on Kindle Unlimited as I believe authors are paid per page read. This makes a lot more sense for a reader that has a Kindle, as it is in their subscription already (but please don’t tell the reader “it’s practically free!” as a way of getting them to read it, because the reader IS paying the subscription and for the ereader), and trying to sell a book for over a few dollars can be very challenging. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t price your book as you please and find reasonable, this is just me being blunt and honest from a marketing standpoint as a reader trying to help you as an author.
• Most authors use WordPress or Wix for their website. I recommend WordPress with Hostinger (WordPress is just a content management system that is open source, so you need a host. I do not recommend Go Daddy, as they have very unethical, weird practices. Hostinger and Siteground are the ones I use and love) for the most affordable, easiest way about it. I recommend WebFlow or Wix if visuals are really important to you. WebFlow and Wix are both a bit more expensive. Not spending the money on a professional website tends to stick out like a sore thumb if it’s not simply a blog. Most people have an understanding of how to set a website up, so they know how much effort/time/money is put into a site. People have gotten really tech savvy and very impatient. Try to fit this into your budget as a priority and view it as a store front and first impression, rather than a route in which hopefully readers can find you and you can build a platform on. When you set a website up, all the default options typically lead to a bad user experience or a very generic one. Taking the time to customize things to your branding as much as you can will make a massive difference in the long run.