Sonia Marsh - Gutsy Living

Life's too short to play it safe

Marketing Secrets from a Best-selling Indie Author Sheri Fink

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Sheri Fink Author of Children's Books
Sheri Fink Author of Children’s Books

 

It’s not everyday that you meet a  gutsy woman like Sheri Fink. She grew up poor, and ended up a #1 best-selling, award-winning children’s author and creator of “The Whimsical World of Sheri Fink” children’s brand.

Sheri Fink and Sonia Marsh at SCWA 6/21/14
Sheri Fink and Sonia Marsh at SCWA 6/21/14

I heard Sheri speak at the Southern California Writers Association,  and what I love about her, is that she is down-to-earth, stays true to herself–even when she wears her multi-colored wig–and is eager to listen and share her marketing strategies with other indie authors.

Along her journey to success Sheri says she has learned:
  • To say “NO” to the good, and “YES” to the great.
  • If it’s not a “Hell Yes,” it’s a “Hell No” (A way to prioritize the things you should accept, and those you should reject when opportunities open up to you.)
  • To build in rewards for your progress (not just for achieving the BIG GOAL.)
  • To research and consider all costs when determining the price of your book
  • That it’s not all about book sales.

Sheri is fearless, something that has enabled her to get out of her comfort zone and she says it’s important to:

Sheri Fink on magazine cover
Sheri Fink on magazine cover

 

  • Ask for what you want without being entitled (she did this after an interview and was on the cover of a magazine, because she said, “What would it take to be on the cover of your magazine?”)
  • Think of yourself as a CEO.
  • Treat everyone the way you want to be treated.
  • Stay authentic.

Sheri offered “controversial” advice tips to indie authors and I must admit I was surprised to hear her say:

  • Don’t blog, (this does not mean Sheri is anti-blogging; she does guest blog.)
  • Guest blog on those blogs that have your target audience.

In one way I understand Sheri’s point about not blogging as it does take away time from writing your next book, however, I wonder if this may be different for a children’s author than for a memoir writer.

I advise writers to start a blog related to the theme of their book which will help them build their brand. Blogs have offered many writers opportunities to form relationships with other bloggers who support them and help promote their work. I also know that blogging has offered me opportunities with the media thanks to SEO and online visibility.

Sheri said she:

  • She uses her Facebook Fan page to interact with her fans rather than blogging
  • Doesn’t do giveaways (a business choice she made.)
  • Releases different formats of her books separately with campaigns planned around each print, Kindle, Nook etc., for maximum effect.

I like her idea of releasing your book in print, Kindle, Nook etc., with several weeks apart for maximum use of press releases and planned campaigns.

I am curious what you think about “not blogging” and just “guest blogging” and using your own FB fan page to reach your readers?

Check out her books here
Check out her books here

 

I shall be offering a Webinar on “How to Create your BRAND” with Sheri Fink in August. The date will be announced shortly. 

 

Sheri writes books that inspire and delight children while planting seeds of self-esteem. Her first children’s book, The Little Rose, was a #1 best-seller on Amazon for over 60 weeks, became the #1 top-rated e-book on Amazon, and received a gold medal in the 2012 Readers Favorite International Book Awards. Her subsequent books (The Little Gnome, The Little Firefly, and Exploring the Garden with the Little Rose) have all been #1 best-sellers. Her children’s book series received the Gold Mom’s Choice Award for excellence in family friendly entertainment. In 2013, Sheri was selected by CBS Los Angeles as one of the top three authors in her local area, a distinction she shares with Dean Koontz.

 

 

 

I offer “Gutsy” Book Coaching. If you need help with blogging, book marketing and promotion

CLICK HERE

 

Accepting story submissions now for our Award-winning “My Gutsy Story®” Anthology

READ MORE HERE

MGS FINAL COVER Small

Marketing For Gutsy Writers With #1 Bestselling Resource Author Angela Ackerman

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Emotion Cover
Click on cover to purchase on Amazon

 

Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi are co-authors of the #1 Bestselling resource for Writers, The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression.

I love interviewing Gutsy People, and during  my 30-minute interview with Angela, you’ll learn how she, and Becca, came up with the idea of helping writers. It all started with a critique group and their initial blog “The Bookshelf Muse,” which transitioned into their new site: Writers Helping Writers.

 

 

Angela developed a BRAND through BLOGGING and during our interview, we discuss the following topics:

1). How did you come up with the concept?
2). What were your original goals?
3). When did you realize you’d come up with something BIG?
4). How did you adapt to the changes?
5). What were your biggest challenges?
6). Have you always made marketing plans from the start?
7). What made you change your blog name to “Writers Helping Writers”? Branding?
8). What advice do you have for writers about blogging?
9). What are your future goals?
10). How many books do you have now? How are sales?
11). How do you promote your books?
12). Any suggestions to help authors sell more books?

 

Here are some of the key points during my interview with Angela. 

1). What was your Biggest Challenge?

“Our self-confidence.”

We realized our book would compete with Writers Digest.

2). How did you get over this challenge?

“Getting out of our way and just doing it.”

3). Did you have a marketing plan?

“We didn’t jump into this with a marketing plan. At first it was just intuitive, and it wasn’t until our 2nd and 3rd books that we developed a specific marketing plan.”

4). Suggestions and comments from Angela for writers that you can apply to your own blogs and books

  • Really understand who your audience is and what their needs are.
  • We married our book to our brand. Our brand is all about helping writers.
  • It’s not about blasting people with , “Buy our Book.”
  • It’s the focus on how can we bring value to other writers, and how can we help them.
  • We want to cement that brand, with “Writers Helping Writers”
  • Understanding who you are and why you write the books you write.
  • How is the piece of you going into your books?

I hope you find our interview motivating and that you can apply some of the advice to your own writing, blogging and book marketing.

If you need help with blogging, book marketing and promotion, please contact me and visit my CLICK HERE for Gutsy Book Coaching.

 

Accepting story submissions now for our Award-winning “My Gutsy Story®” Anthology

READ MORE HERE

MGS FINAL COVER Small

Do Authors Make Money? Here’s The Truth

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I’m in the mood to write something controversial that may get me in trouble, but as you know, my theme is being “Gutsy” so I’ve decided to be honest and say what’s on my mind.

Before I do, let me tell you that I’ve been re-evaluating my goals; where I’m heading with “Gutsy Living” and my coaching business.

As many of you have told me, I’m all over the place trying to promote not only my stuff, but also other people’s books, posts, videos, articles. It takes time, and for me, it’s a 7-day-a-week job. If I were doing this for a successful company, I should be making a six-figure income, easily,  BUT NO!

As an indie author, I choose to spend money on book covers, formatting, hiring a business coach, subscriptions to magazines and organizations, applying for book Awards, attending conferences, flights, hotels (when I cannot stay for free at a friend’s house) printing, business cards, posters, once in a while on a local PR person (for the “My Gutsy Story®” Anthology, book launch)

Now perhaps I’m taking the wrong approach. I cannot sacrifice the quality of my product (books) for a cheaper version of DIY. So far, I have hired professional editors (4 of them) book designers (1106 Design), a film company to film the book launch (perhaps a BIG mistake),  rented a movie theater with a keynote speaker and a panel to of indie authors to entertain our audience.

It’s time for a reality check 


My recent presentation at the #SBWC2014 Santa Barbara Writers Conference

As I’ve heard over and over at conferences:

  • Don’t quit your day job

We can’t all be like Elizabeth Gilbert who sold 9 million copies of her book, Eat, Pray, Love,  worldwide, generating an estimated $135 million in sales, nor like John Grisham who sold 645,000 copies of one of his books.

Amy Collins, with New Shelves distribution, mentioned during her presentation at PWSD (Publishers Writers San Diego) that published authors selling 25,000 copies, need to keep their day job.

I don’t know of any indie author friends of mine who have sold 25,000 copies in one year. If you have, please e-mail me at: sonia@soniamarsh.

In fact, many indie authors claim they don’t receive Amazon royalty checks each month.

According to BISG.org  (The Book Industry Study Group)

  • 78% of all books are sold online
  • 98% of all books sold online are through Amazon  
  • Less than 4% of Americans visited a bookstore in the last year.
  • (These are my notes from the lecture, so as far as I know they are accurate.)

When I make presentations to writers’ groups and at writers’ conferences, I explain how:

  • This is the best time to be an author, but it is also the worst time. WHY?

It’s the best time because authors have so many options today to market themselves online. If we have a great idea for Oprah’s audience, heck, we can even Tweet @Oprah, and maybe, just maybe, one of her producers will read our Tweet, you never know. Oprah has 5 great summer reads which her Oprah magazine book editor, Leigh Haber, recommends. Why not our books? There are all genres.

It’s also the worst time as there is so much competition today. In 2013, Bowker announced that 391,000 books were self-published in 2012. A 59% increase from 2011.

I started my own publishing company in 2012, called, “Gutsy Publications.” I did this after studying the pros and cons of using CreateSpace as my POD printer, vs. being a publisher and the benefits of using LSI (Lightning Source Ingram) as a printer and Ingram as a wholesaler. If you want to get a local book signing at Costco, or B&N, then starting your own publishing company is the way to go. My author friend, Linda Austin, explains the pros and cons of CreateSpace and LSI, which is now called Ingram Spark, on her site.

Hopefully we all know by now the importance of seeing ourselves as a brand, and our books as a product, but truthfully, why do you think most indie authors need to start a coaching business or a speaking career, in order to hopefully make a living?

Because most authors cannot make a living from book sales alone. That’s the honest truth my dear friends. You have 7 choices:

  • You keep your day job
  • You’re independently wealthy and have enough funds to support your hobby (Oops! Did I use the H word?)
  • You keep writing more books and hope that by the 6th one you can make a full-time living
  • You start a successful coaching-editing-writing coach or other related business to your writing
  • You get paid $100,000,000 as a public speaker like Anthony Robbins
  • You get your book turned into a movie and Hollywood makes you famous
  • You’re happy being an underpaid author who has a book out in the world

 

So as I wrap up my post where I tell you the truth, I am forced to charge $79/writer who wants to get published in our 3rd Award-winning Anthology.

Please see what you get for this fee, and I hope you agree that you’re getting a wonderful opportunity for publication and promotion by agreeing to join our Gutsy Indie Tribe .

Please note that it’s free to submit to my website and get promoted. To get published in our print version will now have a $79 fee.

Accepting story submissions now.  READ MORE HERE

So please let me know if you’re making a full-time living with your book sales. I’d like to share some successful ““My Gutsy Story®” book stories.

 

 

Upcoming “Gutsy” Interviews and Webinars

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Interview in Progress Sign

As an author who likes to help other writers/authors/future authors, I’m interviewing some awesome experts through Google Hangouts and Webinars to help you understand the business.

UPCOMING GUTSY HANGOUTS AND WEBINARS 

I am speaking on Wednesday, June 11th about “The Author Entrepreneur” How to Market and Sell Your Books. Authors need to become entrepreneurs if they want to sell books. I shall explain how I got my book into Costco, how to create a brand, niche marketing and much more. Please join Marla Miller and me for a great session.

 

Watch VIDEO and listen to our Interview on June 19th, 9 a.m., PST

Angela Ackerman started blogging and helping writers describe emotions in unique visual ways. This soon became so POPULAR, she and co-author Becca Puglisi wrote “The Emotional Thesaurus.”
She developed a BRAND through BLOGGING and we shall discuss:
1). How did you come up with the concept?
2). What were your original goals?
3). When did you realize you’d come up with something BIG?
4). How did you adapt to the changes?
5). What were your biggest challenges?
6). Have you always made marketing plans from the start?
7). What made you change your blog name to “Writers Helping Writers”? Branding?
8). What advice do you have for writers about blogging?
9). What are your future goals?
10). How many books do you have now? How are sales?
11). How do you promote your books?
12). Any suggestions to help authors sell more books?

Angela Ackerman is a writing coach and co-author of the #1 bestselling resource, The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression as well as the bestselling pair, The Positive Trait Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Attributes and The Negative Trait Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Flaws.  You can find her at Writers Helping Writers, a hub for all things description.

 

 

We shall discuss: What Indie authors/publishers need to know about:

1). The benefits of joining IBPA, 
2). Publishing University 
3). Learning center for authors, indie publisher
4) #ibpa  Book Awards (Benjamin Franklin Digital Awards)

My Gutsy Story® Anthology: True Stories of Love, Courage and Adventure From Around the World, has been named a 2013 Benjamin Franklin Award Silver Honoree Winner.

Benjamin Franklin Awards

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO ANGELA OUR HANGOUT

All Webinars are recorded LIVE and available on my site for download after the Webinar.

Metadata Made Easy: 

Find the Best Keywords for Books, Blog Posts and Social Media.

July 11th, 9 a.m. PST, 12 p.m. EST

FIND OUT WHAT IT’S ABOUT IN VIDEO 

CLICK HERE TO RESERVE YOUR SEAT TODAY

Here’s what we shall cover:

You will learn:

1). What is Metadata?
2). How to select the right keywords for your book titles, description, categories, tags and even the text of your book 3). How to use both Amazon and Google’s Keyword Planner for search information
4). How to enhance blog posts and social media mentions like for Twitter and Google+ using the same process
Guest E-book and Metadata Expert Jason Matthews is a novelist, blogger, speaker and self-publishing coach working with writers around the world. His specialties include building author platform, selling at major retailers, social media, blogging and SEO. He founded a Facebook group with over 2,000 writers and hosts an Indie Authors series on Google Plus discussing current topics and interviewing top indies. He can be contacted through his websites: http://ebooksuccess4free.wordpress.com/ and http://your-own-free-website.com/
He teaches a great video course for writers who want to publish – https://www.udemy.com/how-to-make-market-and-sell-ebooks-all-for-free/

 

Publishing contract

Get Published in Our Award-Winning “My Gutsy Story®” Anthology

Submission guidelines here

VOTE BE GUTSY BADGE

VOTE for your favorite MAY 2014 “My Gutsy Story®” submissions. You have from now until  June 11th to vote on the sidebar, (only one vote per person) and the winner will be announced on June 12th, and will select a prize from our generous sponsors.

Authors Need to Become Entrepreneurs and Focus on Their Brand

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Authors Need to Become Entrepreneurs and Focus on Their Brand:
6 Steps to Becoming a Successful Authorpreneur

A Detailed Look at Step One: Pre-Publication

 

I believe we are fortunate to be writing and publishing books in this day and age. With so many options available to us, we can make ourselves visible to readers, both online and offline. We can promote our brands without spending a dime. Notice how I used the term “promote our brand” rather than “promote our book.” How come? Well, indie (independent) or self-published authors have to become entrepreneurs if they wish to sell their books in book stores, Costco and other large retail stores.

At the February 2014 IBPA (Independent Book Publishers Association) “Publishing University” conference in San Francisco, publishers, agents and book marketing experts repeated the following:

  • The Author is the Brand
  • The Book is the Product
  • Author’s build fans with their Brand, not their Book

Most authors would prefer to stay home and write rather than market and promote their books. Some authors believe that the way to get readers to buy their books is to say, “Buy my book.” Unfortunately neither method is successful in building an audience of fans, potential readers or “customers.”

With the dramatic increase in indie-published books, it is crucial for all indie-authors to step-up to the competition, and to view themselves as entrepreneurs, rather than just writers.

If we look at statistics, Bowker reveals that the number of self-published titles in 2012 jumped to more than 391,000, up 59 percent over 2011. Add to that the number of traditionally published books, and we are now competing against 600,000 to 1,000,000 new books published each year.

According to Beat Barblan, Bowker Director of Identifier Services:

“The most successful self-publishers don’t view themselves as writers only, but as business owners. They invest in their businesses, hiring experts to fill skill gaps.”

As an indie author, publisher and now a “gutsy” book publishing and marketing coach, I’d like to share what’s worked for me, and what I encourage writers to think about when they start their journey towards becoming a published author.

Since most of us are not celebrities with tons of fans, press opportunities and a full-time publicist to book us on national TV shows, our biggest problem is:

  • Discoverablility (Another popular term mentioned at the (IBPA) conference. As the experts mentioned:
  • It’s easy to write a book
  • The hard part is selling the book.

So the question we need to ask ourselves is:

How can we publish and market our books professionally, on a small budget?

I’m happy to inform you that there is a solution:

  • You do everything you can to become your own professional marketing department and your own public relations agency while keeping those high standards of professionalism.

 

Step 1-Pre-Publication

Start marketing the minute you write the first word of your manuscript. I realize this may sound a little crazy, but this is the way to build your platform before your book is published. Marketing guru, Seth Godin, recommends starting your blog at least three years before you publish.

In the following weeks/months, I shall cover:

  • Step 2-Writing/Editing
  • Step 3-Publishing
  • Step 4-Marketing
  • Step 5-Promotion
  • Step 6-What Next?

I shall fly out to Philadelphia to speak about this topic. Please join me and register below.

May 8th, Workshop on “The Author Entrepreneur: How to Build a Platform and Sell Books.”

May 8th, 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Fairfield Inn, Exton, PA 19341 (MAP)

Sponsored by, “Women’s Writing Circle.”

Click here to Register

Sonia Marsh is the award-winning author of the travel memoir Freeways to Flip-Flops: A Family’s Year of Gutsy Living on a Tropical Island and founder of the “My Gutsy Story®” series. The first anthology in that series, My Gutsy Story® Anthology: True Stories of Love, Courage and Adventure From Around the World, was a silver honoree in the 2013 Benjamin Franklin Digital Awards.

Sonia offers “gutsy” book coaching to authors, as well as Webinars and Workshops. Contact her at: sonia@soniamarsh.com or visit her website: https://soniamarsh.com. Subscribe to her free “Gutsy” newsletter and receive two bonus prizes.

 

 

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