Ciao, amici! Today, I’m going to throw some industry buzzwords at you and talk about churn rate and transmedia storytelling (which I’m sure you figured out already because of the title) and how we can lower the first by increasing the second.

Definitions:

Churn rate is the speed at which someone moves on to the next thing. In our industry, it’s how fast a reader gets tired of our work and moves on to another book or author.

Transmedia storytelling is the technique of telling a single story across multiple platforms and formats using current digital technologies.

Analysis:

In today’s market, churn rate is high, which is bad for creators. There are roughly 2,000,000 books published each year, which equates to nearly 5,500 a day. Can you read that many books a day? And those are new titles. All the existing books you haven’t read aren’t going away. These 5,500…

Hi gang, Craig with you again. Today, I’m fighting with myself over some things I hold true in writing. I look at writing as a personal journey of improvement, and I can see that improvement from book to book. Here are the two mantras that seem to have found a way to be in conflict with each other. Then I’ll explain the conflict.

1.) A story should be as long as it needs to be.

2.) Never give them a reason to say, no.

Here’s the situation as it relates to word counts. I just finished a draft the morning of this writing that comes to 111,500 words. This is a fantasy book, and part of a series (Lanternfish), so the word count isn’t completely unacceptable. It might be a train wreck as a cozy mystery or something.

I have another series that’s dark humor with a target of around…

Hi, Everybody! Marcia here, popping in from the Sunshine State. Hope you are all well and managing to cope with these difficult and confusing times, yet still finding the focus and drive to write. 

Since I’d much rather be cheering for things I like than ranting and raving about those I don’t, you might already have guessed how I feel about Author’s Notes. Yep. I’m all in favor of them. Why? Because they present a huge opportunity for writers to communicate with their readers.

Author’s Notes can be useful, informative, and fun, and while (as always) some readers won’t check them out, many others will.  That means you have the floor to talk about any number of things, all of which can inform, explain, entertain, educate, and even amuse your readers above and beyond what they’ve just read in your book. Entertained and amused readers are happy, and to my…

Image courtesy of bigstock.com

Hello SErs. Harmony here.  As promised, here is  part ten in the post series dedicated to taking a step-by-step look at how to get your finished manuscript from your computer and on sale on Amazon in both ebook and paperback.

If you’d like to take a look back at the previous posts in this series, please click on the links at the end of this post.

So, here’s Part Ten: How to Upload Your eBook File.

Access your KDP dashboard. You will see something that resembles the image below >>>

At the top of your list of books (if you have any here yet), you will see two options:

1. + Kindle eBook
2. + Paperback

Select the first option: +Kindle eBook.

The following ‘edit eBook’ page will open >>>

This page is where you input such things as the language of the book, the book title, a…

A few years ago, I had posted about Dave Chesson, aka Kindlepreneur, and KDP Rocket — a tool that generates the best keywords for your Amazon books.

To understand the importance of keywords, check out Dave’s post on Kindle Keywords, or this one on Fiction Keyword Strategies.

While KDP Rocket is not free, Dave has also developed a host of other handful tools and tutorials, including a free AMS tutorial — the best I’ve watched so far on the subject: clear, all-encompassing, with a friendly tone and plenty of notes at the end.

Amazon Book Description Generator

Dave has also long offered a lovely freebie called Amazon Book Description Generator. This is a free tool that allows you to format your Amazon blurb in a way that makes it pop out without needing any fancy code. As Dave explains on his website,

Ever wonder why some…

A lot of writers have been posting about how the pandemic and the quarantine have disrupted their writing. Despite spending so much time at home, they are having a tough time focusing. Heck, a lot of people have trouble sleeping. COVID dreams, anyone?

Now with the turmoil of the past couple weeks added on top of all that, settling down to write seems to be a losing battle. All of the things going on right now foster anxiety, fear, anger, and frustration. Then there’s the whole being cooped up 24-7 with people you love but honestly need a break from sometimes–erm, on a regular basis. 😀

All these things disrupt the flow of creativity, at least for me. Considering it’s been what, three months since the pandemic kicked off the quarantine, there’s been time to try different things to settle that creative energy enough to…