You know how authors these days feel like they have to pump out new books every single month just to keep the lights on? It's kind of crazy when you think about it, right? I mean, the whole concept of royalties is to create passive income from past work. This should be creating a steady income for authors from the previous publications so they can kick back a bit and enjoy life, or at least know when they retire they will have a stream of income still. But instead, we've got authors stuck in this daily grind, barely able to catch their breath between one book release and the next. It's time to make royalties the way it was intended. Authors should be able to rely on their backlist to bring in some cash while they focus on what they do best – writing! Instead of treating royalties like some kind of monthly paycheck, let's get back to the original idea of passive income. Imagine if authors could invest their resources into their older books and do so at a positive, scalable ROI…95% on autopilot and the rest more on maintenance mode. If they did that, they could turn those forgotten titles into a goldmine of passive income. Instead of chasing after the next big (temporary) thing, authors can invest in long-term strategies and value sustainability over quick wins, which is how my clients are thriving long term, having $50k months while on vacation, making 7 figures even when they take a year off for their health, and paying off their kid’s college education and expenses. Why SHOULDNT that be the case? It’s because authors have been lied to. They’re so busy being afraid they are going to “fall” for something that won’t work…so they aren’t trying what WILL. But you know what they do fall for? The idea that success isn’t possible. Now talk about falling for something that won’t work. There’s a bit of irony there. The bottom line is, the current system of monthly book releases is wearing authors thin and missing the whole point of royalties. It's time to give authors the chance to kick back, relax, and let their backlist do some of the heavy lifting. If you want to bring some balance back to the world of fiction publishing, drop me a line. I can help anyone who is on board with hiring cover designers, editors, and investing in marketing/advertising. PS: we can do it all without any social media, too. Because surely by now you can see that people just do that because it’s free, not because it works. They’d be better off getting a job in fast food or being a neighborhood dog walker and taking those funds to invest in their author career to turn it into a business so they can quit the job they might not like. Instead. They take on another job they don’t like (begging on social media for readers to try their books) except that job they hate doesn’t even pay! Makes no sense! Let’s stop the insanity and work smarter, not harder. Learn how to run your author career like a business so you can make passive, scalable income. Looking forward to chatting to anyone who is serious about making 6-7 figures soon 🥰 Just Message me on Facebook to get started! And don't forget to Join Our Free Facebook Group for live events and inspiring case studies! Wanna see the results you can get when you do things the right way? Rebecca Hamilton Case Studies Rebecca Hamilton Testimonials Six Figure Author Coach/Seven Figure Author Career Reviews

So you've poured your heart and soul into writing your fiction book, only to find your marketing efforts are falling flat. Don't worry, you're not alone! Many authors make common mistakes when it comes to promoting their work. In this blog post, we'll explore the top mistakes authors make when marketing their books and provide practical tips on how to avoid them. Stay tuned to learn how to effectively promote your book and reach a wider audience! Introduction to Book Marketing Many sites will tell you that, as an author, writing a book is just the first step in the publishing journey, and then you need to start marketing your book. They're wrong. Marketing actually happens at every step leaving up to publication... ...and then Promotion and (sometimes) Advertising will take over. If you want to reach and engage potential readers, you need to know who those readers will be before you every put your fingertips to your keyboard. Do that, and book marketing won't seem like a daunting task. In fact, when you do things in this order, the promotion and sales will happen nearly automatically. Authors using our methods often tell us they feel like they should be doing MORE, yet they are making better money by doing LESS. Successfully promoting and selling books to your ideal readers is not the behemoth task authors think it is. It's actually something that happens automatically if you do the marketing work before you writing and launching your book. The only reason authors struggle with this now is because they are doing things in the wrong order. It's a bit like trying to put socks on AFTER you put your shoes on. Why do this to yourself? What you DON'T need is social media promotion, influencer support, or book signings. You know, the things every other book marketing blog has been telling you to do. Spoiler Alert: YOU are not the problem. Their terrible time-wasting "busy work" advice is! Conversely, a solid marketing plan that can significantly impact the success of your book by increasing its visibility and sales happens on AUTO PILOR when you're done all the prep work correctly. While the best time to do this is before launch, if you missed out on doing this PRIOR to launch, it's not too late to fix it. In this section, we will discuss some common mistakes that authors make when marketing their books and how you can avoid them. Mistake ONE: N ot defining a target audience. One of the biggest mistakes authors make is not identifying their target readership before writing their book. Without a clear understanding of who would be interested in your book, it becomes challenging to make sure you're delivering the elements they are looking for. That is going to make it even harder to create effective promotional campaigns that resonate with potential readers down the line. Think of it this way: Which cake is easier to sell to someone for a birthday party. The cake you made after hearing about the birthday guy or gal's favorite flavors...or some random cake you made with whatever you could find in your pantry at the time? The latter requires some luck to sell, but the former strategically sets up the sale. Now, with this I want to caution that your target audience is not THE WHOLE WORLD. The goal here isn't to "write what sells" - you don't have to write a genre you don't like, you don't have to chase down the latest trending fads or tropes, and you don't have to sacrifice your personal beliefs. You CAN write what you want. This is just about making sure it also aligns with the readers you plan to sell it to later. So to avoid this mistake, all you have to do is take some time to research and understand who would be interested in your brand! Who is already reading books like what you want to write? What do both love about this genre or topic? How can you make sure to highlight those features in the development of your story and, later, in your promotional and advertising efforts? M i stake TWO: Focusing on the WRONG things. A survey by Written Word Media in 2023 showed that authors spend, on average 31 hours a month "marketing" their books. (Quote, Unquote.) Unfortunately, they aren't actually marketing their book in most cases. They only think they are. What they're really doing is shouting into the social media void for dozens of hours a day, successful authors are writing their next bestseller. And those successful authors? Outside of writing more books, only ONE hour a week is going into making those books sell. Yet they are making $10,000-$100,000 PER MONTH. Versus authors who are promoting for nearly 7-8 hours a week yet on average are only making $100-$1000 per month. That means some of these authors are making less than $3.50 an hour while other authors with the same amount of books are making as much as $25,000 an hour. That's a HUGE discrepancy, and while other "marketing professionals" want to claim those authors just got lucky, the truth is... Their marketing methods don't work WITHOUT luck. Because their marketing methods don't work. All you have to do is take what people are "luckily" doing...and do it on PURPOSE. Just. Like. Any. Other. Successful. Business. On. The. Planet. The truth is, you don't need social media. You don't need a website. And unless you're selling non-fiction, you don't need a blog, either. You just need to tap into the trillions of dollars worth of technology that will connect YOUR book with the RIGHT reader...and that sale will happen IF you did the marketing work you needed to do BEFORE writing and while loading your book for sale and launching it. Mistake THREE: Poorly Craft Marketing Materials. And no, I'm not talking about social media images or teasers! Again, you don't need those. Hundreds of thousands of authors are doing things that way (at the behest of other book marketing articles) and they are NOT getting results from that. So save your time and money on "promo images" and focus on the one Marketing Image that matters: Your book cover. Using unprofessional or poorly designed book covers can actually hurt your brand. Your book cover (or other graphics) is often the first thing a reader sees. The reason "judge a book by it's cover" exists is because SO many people do exactly that. And they clearly aren't taking the advice not to. You can make it your life mission to try to change their minds where so many before you have failed... ...or you can accept that most people judge a book by it's cover and go with the flow. Get a great cover. Make it so you have one less barrier to pass and one less obstacle to overcome. Your cover is the first impression a reader gets of your brand. This tells them at a glance how important your product is to you. Do you care about what you're about to sell them? Do YOU think your book is worth spending money on? Because if YOU won't spend money on your book, why should they? When you buy things, don't you want whoever is selling it to you to care about experience and the quality of what you're about to buy? Would you buy something that looks like little effort went into it? Would you want to spend money on an item that you can tell just by looking at it was created by cutting corners and creating the least "passable" product possible? If the person selling that product told you, "But this and I'll use that money to make a better product for you to buy next time?" how would you react? Does that make you want to give them your hard earned money? Maybe. But for most people, it's a turn off. They aren't lining up out the door to buy something someone hobbled together. Readers don't care that you want to make money; they care if you will sell them something entertaining - something worth their hard earned cash. And here's the thing: there are authors out there who are delivering them Ferrari level quality for Wish-level prices... The competition is steep! They don't want a Wish.com Fiction Book! Remember also, readers don't just invest their money with you, but their TIME. The most valuable resource of all <3 So make your book cover promises them that by having one professionally designed that is visually appealing and eye-catching. Then make sure the book is professionally edited so you can deliver on that promise. To wrap this up... Book marketing is an essential part of the publishing process that cannot be overlooked, but it begins a lot sooner than you think, and it's not something you can skimp on. By avoiding these common mistakes and implementing effective strategies, you can successfully promote and sell your book to reach a wider audience. If you're already utilizing top of the line cover designers and professional editors and you're still not seeing 6-7 figure a year returns, fill out an application with Seven Figure Author Career , and if you're a good fit, they'll chat with you for free about how to turn that around. Or message the Six Figure Author Coach the word FRAMEWORK to discover the 12-Step Process hundreds of authors are using to market their books effectively in the modern day. And don't forget to Join Our Free Facebook Group for live events and inspiring case studies! Wanna see the results you can get when you do things the right way? Rebecca Hamilton Case Studies Rebecca Hamilton Testimonials Six Figure Author Coach/Seven Figure Author Career Reviews

I’m sure you’re aware that the more books you write, the more money you'll make. Not just because you have more books to sell, but also because frequent book releases are favored by Amazon's algorithms , which improve the visibility of your books and therefore your brand. With this knowledge in mind, every time a new year rolls around, I vow to myself that I’m going to make this year even more productive than the last. Published five books last year? Screw it, I’m going for ten this year. It’s easy to make those lofty goals in the exciting, early days of the new year, when everything seems shiny and new. But how do you keep them if you’re on limited writing time each week? How can you increase your production without sacrificing quality? In this week’s post, we’re going to visit some solid productivity tips to help you rock your new year’s goals.

Before we dive into punctuation specifically, I want to go over "Said Bookisms." These are words that are used in Books to avoid the use of the word "said" - and you should NOT be using them. Example: "I can't wait!" she exclaimed . Example 2: "Can you believe that?" he questioned . Example 3: "I'm not sure I want to know," he extrapolated . Don't. Do. This. In most other areas of writing, variety of language is advised, but with dialogue tags, you don't want that. To strengthen your craft, stick to basic forms (said/asked). These two tags are considered "invisible" to readers. As a person reads, they pass right over them, which keeps them fully immersed in the experience. Extravagant dialogue tags like the examples above draw the reader's attention, and in today's reading market, stand out like a sore thumb. Tagging your dialogue this way is like putting a flashing sign over your head that declares you're an inexperienced writer. Like "Look at me! I have no idea what I'm doing and haven't put even 3 seconds into researching my craft." It's probably the #1 worst thing you can do with your dialogue, and easily on the top 10 list of worst things you can do in your writing overall. Maybe even top 5. It's BAD. Here are some articles on the topic: 1. http://www.dbjackson-author.com/2012/01/25/writing-tips-said-bookisms-the-obscure-sin-that-can-doom-a-manuscript/ 2. http://www.fmwriters.com/Visionback/Issue%205/tags.htm 3. https://litreactor.com/columns/on-dialogue-tags-why-anything-besides-said-and-asked-is-lazy-writing

Every indie author comes into their career fresh-faced and optimistic with a lot of preconceived notions about writing and publishing books. But we'll tell you a BIG secret - everything you THINK you know isn't the bigger picture. There's a lot more to making it in this industry than you think, and these three mistakes could be costing you success.

It sounds fancier than it is. Basically, your funnel is a product you give away for free to new subscribers to “hook” them into your audience. But, Heather, why should I want to give something away free? I’m trying to make money! Yeah, we all are. But I’m sure you’ve heard this common adage before: You have to spend money to make money. In the case of a newsletter funnel, you aren't SPENDING so much as you're allowing for the product to be a loss. That's why newsletter funnels are also known as "loss leaders." You’re taking a conscious loss on the product as a marketing tactic to get readers to step into your world - readers who may not have otherwise found you. From there, the funnel should hook readers to purchase the rest of your work.

I have co-written with 16 authors. Of that, 13 of my experiences were stellar. 1 partnership failed for creative differences, and 2 partnerships were, well, something I wouldn’t wish on anyone, costing me thousands of dollars I can never get back. In one case, I’ve had my words stolen from me and royalties never paid to me despite doing ALL the work - so I understand why people are afraid to co-write. However, I also know how rewarding a coauthorship can be. I know the benefit of each author contributing their strengths. I know how two heads can be better than one. A musician for example may be a wonderful solo artist, but they may still also benefit to play with a band every now and then. Knowing what I know now—not just from my experiences but experiences other authors have shared with me—I want to give some ideas, advice, and pointers on the subject.

Authors are creative creatures. We want to write books, not get a business degree or run our own publishing company. Unfortunately, unless you're lucky enough to land a six-figure deal with a big six publisher, you're going to be responsible for your own marketing and business building. As a result of that creative drive, many authors can be out of touch when it comes to the business side of things. If you don't have the knowledge or training, you won't know inherently what good performance looks like. So today, let's talk about cost per lead and how that relates to your growing business.

There are a lot of factors that go into what makes a successful paid advertising run. While there likely are some unknown "services" out there that don't work, you'd be surprised how few of these duds there are. Most scam artists aren't going to be out there actually marketing their services because the first person to be scammed is going to cry wolf . So if you've heard of a service from your friends or network, it's likely that service is legit. But why didn't your $25 feature make you hundreds of dollars? Let's discuss!