Authors: Beware of This Scam

September 4, 2014 by Sonia Marsh 14 Comments

BEWARE OF THIS SCAM.
BE CAREFUL MY AUTHOR FRIENDS.

A few weeks ago, I received a request from a man in Fiji who wanted to order 40 copies of my memoir: Freeways to Flip-Flops: A Family’s Year of gutsy Living on a Tropical Island.

I was so excited, but part of me thought, “Is this a scam?”

At first I told him that shipping to Fiji would be very expensive, and he said, not to worry as he had a logistics guy to pick it up from my work address.

I sent him an invoice, and even offered him a discount, and was waiting for payment before I had the books available for pick-up.

Here is the first e-mail he sent me:

Dear Sales,I write to inform you that we are interested in your books, and we
would like to inquire about the following:Do you ship to Fiji Island?
Do you do Mail Order?
Do you accept credit card as for Payment (My US Master and Visa card
to be precise)? NOT PAYPAL

Thanks,

Wesley

My response to him:

Hi Wesley,

Thanks for your interest in ordering.

I can ship to Fiji, however I need to check on shipping rates.

How many books and which ones?

I’ve included the book link to my page, and you can let me know if it’s:

Freeways to Flip-Flops: A Family’s Year of gutsy Living on a Tropical Island

My Gutsy Story® Anthology: True Stories of Love, Courage and Adventure From Around the World

Thanks

His response to me:

Hi Sonia,

Apologies for my delays in getting back to you.

Below are the title needed:

Freeways to Flip-Flops

Qty – 40

Meanwhile, I want you to calculate the total cost of my order only and don’t worry about the shipping because I just got a response from my personal logistic agent that they will come for the pick up of the goods at your address and it will only take 1-2 days express shipping to my shipping address and I have inform them about these but they told me the best way to come for the pick up at your store is for you to email me with your store address and the time the order will be ready for pick up with your convenience time and date.

Please kindly get back to me if these title are in stock.

Shipping Address:

5 Nadi Back Road,

Main Town, Nadi.

P.O. Box: 1070, Nadi, Fiji.

Waiting to read from you soon.

Warmly Regards

Wesley

My response to him:

Hi Wesley,

Thanks for your order of 40 copies of Freeways to Flip-Flops: A Family’s Year of gutsy Living on a Tropical Island.

It just won the GOLD medal for Memoir at the Readers’ Favorite Awards.

I am curious if this is for a library or a book club?

I visited Fiji in 2007, and love your beautiful country and culture. I have asked to join the Peace Corps and would love to be stationed in Fiji.

I have attached an invoice with a 15% discount and as soon as I receive payment with a credit card, I shall let you know when the boxes will be available for pick-up.

Thank you for your order, and please keep in touch.

Sonia

His response to me:

Hi Sonia,

Thank you for making these order possible for me and I really appreciate the discount.

The total cost of my order is quite correct and OK by me but I just got a response from my logistic agent that he cannot receive payment via credit or debit card from me at the moment. So I want you to help me charge another $998 to my logistic agent who is going to pick up my order from you.

The $998 that will be sent to my logistic agent is for the shipping of my order in your store plus some other goods I have ordered from other stores around your locality which will be deduct from my credit card. Also, I’m compensating you with the sum of $100 for the transfer fee and for your efforts. Please note that I should have given the shipping agency my credit card for him to deduct the shipping fees but he told me that he doesn’t have the facilities to charge or debit credit card at the moment, so that’s why I bring my vote of confidence in you. So I want you to transfer the shipping fees to my logistics agent after you have make the charges on my credit card and the money is in your account. You can transfer the funds to my logistic agent via bank transfer or western union. So the charges you will make on my credit card will be:

Order fee: ($508.30)

Agent fee with shipping fare: ($998)

Transfer fee plus your compensation: ($100)

Total: ($1,606.30)

Note that my credit card will be charged for the amounts above. Please do get back to me if you are in the office right now so that I can forward my credit card details to you, then you can charge full amount and transfer the agent funds to them via bank transfer or western union but make sure you email me after charging my card details so that I can give you my agent details to send the money to.

Waiting to read from you soon.

Regards

Wesley

You have from now until September 10th to vote on the sidebar, (only one vote per person) and the winner will be announced on September 11th, and will select a prize from our generous sponsors.

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Choosing a Book Cover That Sells

August 7, 2014 by Sonia Marsh 8 Comments

Some of you know that I take great pride in my book covers, and don’t like to skimp on quality.

My Gutsy Story® Anthology # 2: Inspirational Short Stories About Taking Chances and Changing Your Life

I love the professional work done by Michele DeFilippo and Ronda Rawlins at 1106 Design. This year, I almost decided to SAVE MONEY and go with a cheaper design for our 2nd Anthology in the series, but I just couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to skimp on quality.

Why?

Because I believe book design experts know more about book covers,and what sells a book than I do. Here’s a post I wrote on how to choose a book cover that sells based on the first Anthology in the series:

My Gutsy Story® Anthology: True Stories of Love, Courage and Adventure From Around the World

has won 4 Awards, including the prestigious:

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.

Is the cover important?

I just found a blog post on this topic by Cathi Stevenson on “What Sells a Book.”

She mentions an interesting case of where a book cover was redesigned, and it actually became a big hit after that. (see the quote from her post below.)

“In the March 2006 meeting of the Association of American Publishers, Marcella Smith, director of small press relations for Barnes and Noble, discussed the remake of the cover for The Little Book That Beats the Market (Wiley, 2005).

In the March 24, issue of Publisher’s Weekly Daily, Smith is quoted as saying the original book jacket was pale blue and featured a dollar sign. After discussing the cover with buyers, the publisher decided to change the book jacket to a more classic dark blue with white lettering, which they felt better suited a traditional business audience. It became a hit and the jacket was credited with the book’s increased popularity.”

Stevenson explains that most indie authors aren’t in brick and mortar bookstores, but sell online. So she then goes on to ask the question:

“So, do online covers matter? I’d have to say yes. First of all, it’s quite easy to weed out books that are self-published when the cover is obviously amateurish. One can only assume if there was no effort put into professional design, then there probably wasn’t much effort invested in editing, or layout or even research and story development. The cover is a necessary bit of polish, like a well-pressed suit.

Since covers are often only displayed at one or two inches online, a book cover is pretty much at the mercy of good advertising techniques to get the click-through on a page filled with similar books. An easily-read title and strong use of color are going to play a role.”–Cathi Stevenson

Stevenson stresses how a good blog and a professional product is going to help the indie author sell his 2nd book.

Look at our 1st Anthology cover (top cover) and decide which of the 2nd covers (below the butterfly cover) we should go with for our 2nd Anthology to be published this Fall.

Book Cover #2 — Would you buy this one? # 1

Book cover #3 — Would you buy this one? #2

PLEASE HELP ME BY VOTING FOR THE COVER THAT WOULD MAKE YOU BUY THE BOOK.

(PLEASE WRITE YOUR ANSWER IN THE COMMENTS SECTION BELOW AND SHARE WITH FRIENDS)

ANSWER # 1 RED COVER

ANSWER # 2 PALM TREE COVER

VOTE for your favorite JULY 2014 “My Gutsy Story®” ON THE RIGHT SIDEBAR.

You have from now until August 13th to vote on the sidebar, (only one vote per person) and the winner will be announced on August 14th, and will select a prize from our generous sponsors.

READ ALL STORIES HERE

How Do You Define Success?

July 24, 2014 by Sonia Marsh 2 Comments

As some of you may know, I wrote a controversial article “Do Authors Make Money? Here’s the Truth.”

In this post I mentioned looking for a job to supplement my indie-publishing endeavors. Some people seemed shocked as they believed I was hitting it big.

Well, since then, I’ve spoken to many entrepreneurs and concluded that most of us are struggling to make ends meet.

Why do we think others are more financially successful than we are?

Is that because we pretend to be more successful than we are? Do we hide the truth?

I’ve had several conversations with doctors, financial planners, lawyers and authors and it doesn’t matter which profession you’re in, entrepreneurs are always looking for the miracle that will help them succeed financially.

If professionals are struggling to keep their businesses thriving, isn’t that just part of life?

There is no miracle to become successful in life

Perhaps the secret lies in:

You need to redefine success in your terms and forget what others think.

Perhaps success should be re-defined as:

Loving what you do even if it doesn’t make you rich

I was asked to answer some questions about being successful as an author entrepreneur by Eric Gati. Here are some of my answers to his questions and you can also read my entire interview on “The Daily Interview.”

What do you consider to be your greatest success (or successes) so far in your career as a writer (and business owner)?

I enjoy building online communities and making people feel they belong. I started “Gutsy Indie Publishers” a FaceBook group, with 600+ authors, most of them indie. This group is for writers, publishers and anyone in the business who wants to help others.

Another accomplishment is the writing contest I started in 2011 called “My Gutsy Story®.” I have received many e-mails from writers thanking me for allowing them to open up and share their own stories.

I never realized I would be speaking at conferences about how to become a successful “Author Entrepreneur.” I love speaking to writers about blogging, how to sell more books, and unique ways to promote, that they may not have considered. Here are some links to the Santa Barbara Writers’ Conference where I spoke about this topic on June 11th, 2014.

Introduction Video 1: http://youtu.be/l6gKv1-odS4
Video 2 on Blogging for Writers: http://youtu.be/o6nQHD_juwA

What has been your greatest challenge that you’ve overcome in getting to where you’re at today?

How do you become visible? Whether online or in person, it takes time, perseverance and effort to have people know who you are, and to get loyal followers.
Another challenge is to move away from offering everything for free, and to charge for your expertise. I hired a business coach to help me become a marketing coach for authors. I still find this challenging as I enjoy helping others, but also need to make a living.

Many people have the skills and drive to write a book, but failure to market and sell the book the right way is probably what keep a lot of people from finding success. I know you can probably write volumes on this topic, but can you give us maybe 2-3 strategies that have been effective for you in promoting your books (online, specifically)?

Forming relationships online before your book comes out is essential. People who are familiar with your blog and like what you do are more likely to spread the word about your book and review it. Don’t expect people to simply buy your book by stating: “Buy my book.”
YouTube videos are effective in promoting your books. I have done several interviews where I talk about my books, or read excerpts from my book, and one of them, “Expat Life in Belize” has received over 58,000 hits.
Submitting your books for Awards, and winning some, is a great way to promote your books online. Both books have received Awards.

E-Lit Awards 2013 Freeways to Flip-Flops: A Family’s Year of Gutsy Living on a Tropical Island, received 1st Place, and a Gold Medal in the “Autobiography/Memoir” category of the 2012 E-lit Awards. It also received a Silver Medal, in the “Travel Essay” category of the E-lit 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, is a FINALIST at the 2014 International Book Awards, and WINNER at the 2014 Paris Book Festival.

I know you’ve spoken about getting people “out of their comfort zone,” and while this can have applications to many areas of life, I’m particularly interested in how it relates to entrepreneurship. What do you think it takes for someone to muster the “guts” to actually make the leap and execute their business idea? (In other words, what advice do you have for someone who is afraid to do this because they don’t want to leave their “comfort zone”?)

In general, writers prefer to sit at home and write. They often tend to be shy, and hope that their books will simply sell themselves. WRONG! As Joanna Penn stated, (and I saw your recent interview with her on your site Eric,) in her Google+ Hangout Interview with my friend Jason Matthews, you have to get out there and speak and promote your books. If you’re shy, “Get over it.” I agree with her, as no one knows your book better than you do and how is anyone going to hear about your work if you don’t promote it.

Even if you have the budget to hire a professional PR company, they still expect you to talk about your book on radio and TV interviews.

At the 2014 IBPA conference (Independent Book Publishers Association) presenters stated, Writers have no choice to opt out of social media. If you want to sell books, then you have to use social media. I am interviewing Angela Bole, Executive Director of IBPA on June 26th at 9 a.m. PST (California time.) It will be about indie publishing and learning what to do etc. You can listen LIVE here, or later on my YouTube Channel.

Finally, if you are truly shy, then social media can offer you ways to connect from your home.

Offer contests on your website,
Guest post and do written interviews on other sites
Form those important relationships with other writers online
Help promote others
Share helpful articles with your readers
Practice speaking in front of your camera and gradually become more confident
Offer podcasts on your own site so fans can hear your voice
Practice an interview with a close friend and get used to speaking
Take a class on public speaking
Attend writers’ conferences and network
Attend a writers’ group and gradually get out of your comfort zone

Looking generally at becoming an entrepreneur: If you had to take your best advice or inspirational thought and put it into one sentence or phrase, what would that be?

Authors need to think of themselves as a brand, and their book as a product. [Click here to tweet this]

You can read the entire interview on Eric Gati’s the Daily Interview on June 24th.

So how do you define your own success as an author, or as an entrepreneur?

Watch my LIVE INTERVIEW with author Fee Johnson, on August 1st at 9 a.m. PST. It will be recorded as well. Do you have questions for her? Please send them to me at: Sonia@soniamarsh.com before August 1st. You can read her “My Gutsy Story” here.

2 Nominees Fee Johnson and me (Sonia Marsh)

We shall be discussing: While mental health issues are more freely discussed these days, it’s still difficult to approach someone who might have a problem. But ignoring it is not an option. With courage and great hope, Felicia Johnson deftly portrays the struggles of a girl with borderline personality disorder in Her (8th Street Publishing).
JOIN ME as I interview Felicia Johnson, author of the novel “Her”, about her work in mental health advocacy, journaling, writing and mentoring youth.

July 28th, “My Gutsy Story®” by RITA GARDNER

VOTING FOR YOUR FAVORITE JULY “My Gutsy Story®” STARTS ON JULY 31st AND ENDS ON AUGUST 13th.

THE WINNER WILL BE ANNOUNCED ON AUGUST 14th.

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

We just won our 4th Award for the Anthology.

CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT ABOUT OUR AWARDS.

How to Create Outside-the-Box Book Events

June 30, 2014 by Sonia Marsh 1 Comment

Sonia Marsh with Susan McBeth at PWSD meeting

“Start planning your book’s destiny-NOW”

This is a phrase I got from Susan McBeth, founder of “Adventures by the Book.”

Susan creates events for authors, and says she has a “connector personality.”

Like Susan, I also like to connect people and one of the first questions Susan brought up during her presentation at Publishers and Writers of San Diego (PWSD), is to ask yourself:

“What am I good at?”

There is no one-size fits all, as far as book events, and Susan believes that we need to take our time and do it right.

Not everyone likes, or wants to speak in front of large crowds, so why not organize a smaller event where you have a glass of wine and chat one-on-one with each person.

I know how terrifying it can be to stand in front of even 100 people and speak, and since I was made fun of as a teenager, when I made a speech in front of my peers, I’ve decided to get over it, and prove that I’m no longer going to let that bother me.

“What do you consider a successful event?”

Everyone is different, and as Susan states, there are many ways to measure a successful event. Here are some of the ways:

Book sales
Attendance
Exposure (get your message out)
Engagement (one-on-one)
Personal Satisfaction
Other

From my own experience, I have different objectives for my book events, and book sales is never the main reason. I believe if you focus on sales, you may be disappointed, and you won’t focus on your audience and creating relationships with them.

“Word-of-mouth” is still the best way to sell books, and to ask for Amazon reviews–Sonia Marsh

Most indie authors hope to sell hundreds of books, and the most I ever sold was 37 books at my book launch. I remember saying that I should bring 100 books to Laguna Beach Bookstore when I did my first launch, and someone told me that even Bestsellers don’t sell 100. That was a wake-up call for me.

I launched my memoir: Freeways to Flip-Flops: A Family’s Year of gutsy Living on a Tropical Island, at Laguna Beach Books, and offered a themed party, rather than a traditional book launch. Since my memoir takes place in Belize, I organized a Caribbean party and had sponsors. We offered a traditional rum punch, and food.

Themed events offer a myriad of possibilities and increase press opportunities–Susan McBeth

There are many ways you can have a non-traditional book event. Susan McBeth listed the following, which she organizers for both traditionally published authors and self-published authors.

Book Clubs
Fundraisers
Panels
Themed Events
Cultural Events

When I created the launch for the 1st: My Gutsy Story® Anthology: True Stories of Love, Courage and Adventure From Around the World, I decided to make it like an Academy Awards event and held it in a movie theater in Southern California.

I did everything right, except I should have charged an entrance fee and offered a copy of the Anthology, free wine and food

Thanks to my connections, asking my author friends to participate in a panel, and inviting Marybeth Bond, (the Gutsy Traveler) to be my keynote speaker, and giving back to a non-profit, Womansage, I know that you can also create a unique book event based on a theme.

I would like to share some articles I’ve written on various book events I’ve done, and hope that you’ll get some ideas for your own events.

Susan McBeth is offering a workshop on August, 9th, 2014 from 12-4 pm., on Video Presentations for Authors. For more information, visit: www.adventuresbythebook.com.

If you need help with blogging, building your platform, publishing, marketing or planning a book launch, please visit my “GUTSY BOOK COACHING” page.

Next Webinar with expert Jason Matthews on July 11th at 9 a.m., PST. “Metadata Made Easy: Find the Best Keywords for Books, Blog Posts and Social Media.”

Send your questions to me at :Sonia@SoniaMarsh.com.

SIGN UP HERE AS LIMITED SPACE.

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

Marketing Secrets from a Best-selling Indie Author Sheri Fink

June 23, 2014 by Sonia Marsh 8 Comments

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

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:

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?

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.

BEWARE OF THIS SCAM. BE CAREFUL MY AUTHOR FRIENDS.

NOW ACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS

Get Published in our 3rd

“My Gutsy Story®”Anthology in 2015

We just won our 4th Award for the Anthology.

My Gutsy Story® Anthology # 2: Inspirational Short Stories About Taking Chances and Changing Your Life

My Gutsy Story® Anthology: True Stories of Love, Courage and Adventure From Around the World

PLEASE HELP ME BY VOTING FOR THE COVER THAT WOULD MAKE YOU BUY THE BOOK.

VOTE for your favorite JULY 2014 “My Gutsy Story®” ON THE RIGHT SIDEBAR.

Why do we think others are more financially successful than we are?

There is no miracle to become successful in life

You need to redefine success in your terms and forget what others think.

Loving what you do even if it doesn’t make you rich

So how do you define your own success as an author, or as an entrepreneur?

VOTING FOR YOUR FAVORITE JULY “My Gutsy Story®” STARTS ON JULY 31st AND ENDS ON AUGUST 13th.

THE WINNER WILL BE ANNOUNCED ON AUGUST 14th.

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

We just won our 4th Award for the Anthology.

“Start planning your book’s destiny-NOW”

“What am I good at?”

“What do you consider a successful event?”

“Word-of-mouth” is still the best way to sell books, and to ask for Amazon reviews–Sonia Marsh

Themed events offer a myriad of possibilities and increase press opportunities–Susan McBeth

I did everything right, except I should have charged an entrance fee and offered a copy of the Anthology, free wine and food

If you need help with blogging, book marketing and promotion, please contact me and visit my

CLICK HERE for Gutsy Book Coaching.

Along her journey to success Sheri says she has learned:

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

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

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BEWARE OF THIS SCAM.
BE CAREFUL MY AUTHOR FRIENDS.