Author Marketing Tip: QR Codes

This QR code, which when scanned takes you to our library of published books, was created in roughly 30 seconds at http://goqr.me/.

Easy and cheap, QR codes can be an author’s marketing dream. If you already have a blog or a Web site, QR codes are a great way to drive potential new fans (and buyers) of your books to them.

A quick course on what QR codes are: QR codes are essentially barcodes that look like a pattern of black squares against a white background. Any smartphone user who has downloaded the necessary app can scan the code and will automatically be taken to wherever you want them to go on the Web. The number of people with smartphones who scan QR codes is increasing: for the three-month period ending in October 2011, a monthly average of 20.1 million U.S. mobile phone owners scanned a QR code using their device, according to comScore. Of that 20.1 million, 60.5 percent were male and 53.4 percent were aged 18 to 34.

QR codes can be created for free with tools like http://goqr.me/ and used in any number of ways. WizardofEbooks.com cautions that QR codes should not only be used to drive customers to your home page or to buy your book. Rather, the person who scans the code should be rewarded with something extra, like a video or extra content relating to your book. You can create multiple QR codes that take people to different places on your Web site or blog. Some suggestions:

• On your business cards – Putting a QR code on your business card can give people quick access to your Web site or blog. I’d suggest linking to your “about me” page on your Web site.
• In your book – A QR code can be incorporated into the design of your book to take the reader to more content, like a YouTube video of you discussing your book, a readers’ discussion guide, more information about the series, a photo gallery, or other extras.
• On a bookmark – Give out bookmarks with a QR code taking people to where they can buy your book.

I’ve heard many stories of creative usage of QR codes. One author printed cards that had a QR code linking to a free copy of an e-book version of the first book in their series. The author had friends hand out the card at airports—the perfect place to catch smartphone users with free time on their hands while waiting for their flight. Once they’d read the free e-book, they were ready to buy the next one in the series. Creativity pays off in marketing.

E-book FAQs

With so many options for conversion and distribution of e-books, figuring out what everyone is talking about can be difficult. Here are answers to some frequently asked questions about e-books.

How can I make my e-book available to the widest readership?

To make sure the widest number of people on the widest number of devices can read your e-book, we convert your book to ePub and .mobi file formats. The .mobi format is used by the Amazon Kindle; ePub is used by almost everyone else, including the Barnes and Noble NOOK, the iPad, and the Sony eReader.

How much does it cost to publish an e-book?

Costs vary based upon the length and complexity (whether you have pictures, tables, endnotes, etc.) of your book. The Write Place will provide an individual quote for each e-book project.

How does the price for my e-book get set?

That’s one of the great things about self-publishing—the author sets the price. You want to make the price high enough so that you still make money after the retailer discounts, but low enough to not be cost-prohibitive to customers. We can help you find this balance.

Will my e-book look like the printed book?

The design options for e-books are more limited, so in most cases an e-book will look much different. In general, the e-book will have a much simpler and more streamlined design.

Where can readers buy my e-book?
The e-book version of your book will be distributed and available through Amazon (Kindle), Barnes & Noble (NOOK), Apple’s iBookstore (iPad, iPod, and iPhone), and many other smaller retailers. It will also be available on The Write Place’s Web site.

How do I get started?

All we need is your manuscript in a simple format like Word. From there, we can work through editing if you desire, cover design, and the conversion process. Call 641-628-8398 or email hannah@thewriteplace.biz to ask questions or schedule a free initial consultation.

Write Place Announces Winner of Book Contest

The Write Place, located in Pella, Iowa, has named Michael Van Natta of Knoxville as the winner of its 2012 Book Contest. “We had so many great entries that it was difficult to make a decision,” said Hannah Crawford, book division coordinator. “But Mike’s novel stood out—I was hooked from start to finish. We’re excited to work with him to publish it.”

The novel, Leo’s Birds, tells the story of Maria, a small-town family doctor wrongly accused of murdering two of her patients, and Leo, a construction worker trying to overcome the ghosts of his past. After Maria makes a daring escape from jail, her path crosses with Leo’s in unexpected ways.

The novel is an insightful exploration of the intertwining worlds of law and medicine, and investigates the terrible consequences of greed and betrayal. It’s only when Maria gets caught, and only when Leo gets a grip on his life, that justice, relief and rebirth become possible.

Van Natta is a physician in Knoxville and the facilitator of the Marion County Writers Workshop. He has written six novels, but this will be the first one he has published.

“I’m ecstatic!” said Mike. “Leo’s Birds has been like a child to me—a novel I have fed and clothed, worried over and watched grow. I’m very grateful to The Write Place for helping it spread its wings.”

The Write Place anticipates that the novel will be published as a paperback and e-book in the summer of 2012.

The book division of The Write Place is dedicated to helping authors self-publish their books. The Write Place also has a business division, which provides professional writing, graphic design and project coordination services to authors and small- and medium-sized businesses, as well as internal communications assistance to corporations. Learn more about their business and book services at www.thewriteplace.biz or give them a call at 641-628-8398.

E-books: Where Are We Going?

We have less than a month to go before our January 10, 2012, book contest deadline (learn more here!). In anticipation of the winning book being published both as a print and e-book, I found this interesting:

We know that e-book uptake, as measured in sales or the percentage of publishers’ revenues, has doubled, or more than doubled, every year since 2007…

We know that it is mathematically impossible for the rate of growth to continue for even three more years (because it would put e-books at 160 percent of publishers’ revenues if it did!)…

We don’t know if we’re going to find a barrier of resistance, or perhaps we should call it the barrier of ‘paper insistence,’ at some sales level over the next two years (at the end of which e-books would be 80 percent of publishers’ revenues at the growth rates we’ve seen over the past four years). (Mike Shatzkin, “What We Do and Don’t Know About the E-book Revolution,” Independent, December 2011.)

So it should be an exciting two years! We’ll see how much of the pie the e-book market will consume, and how much will remain paper. Either way, these figures point to an impressive opportunity for self-published authors. E-books give authors the chance to reach many times more readers than they might have through traditional channels, especially if those authors are willing to go the extra marketing mile—with blogging, Facebook, Twitter, and more traditional methods, such as book signings, speaking engagements, and word of mouth.

For a true e-book self-publishing success story, read author Darcie Chan’s story. Then submit your manuscript to our book contest, and give it the chance to reach readers as an e-book!

Ode to Style (and Grammar)

Tips for strengthening your writing, part III: Use the active voice.

So you’re reading through a particularly important passage of your manuscript, and it seems a little bland. Try the active-voice remedy—it can make your writing come alive.

Another famous advocate of the active voice was Winston Churchill: “What if I had said, instead of ‘We shall fight on the beaches,’ ‘Hostilities will be engaged with our adversaries on the coastal perimeter’?”

First, a SUPER-QUICK GRAMMAR DEFINITION: You can determine an active vs. a passive sentence by looking at the verbs. A verb is in the active voice when its subject is the doer of the act. It is in the passive voice when the subject is acted upon.

Example

• Active: The author [subject] burned [verb] the manuscript [object].
• Passive: The manuscript [subject] was burned [verb] by the author.

In this example, both sentences are grammatically correct. But the passive sentence is, as Strunk and White say in their Elements of Style, “less direct, less bold, and less concise.”

Warning: the active-voice remedy is not a cure for every sentence. Some sentences work better in the passive voice. Even Strunk and White admit that the passive voice “is frequently convenient and sometimes necessary.” Here are two cases when you might want to use the passive:

• When you want to emphasize the receiver of the action (by making it the subject). 

Passive: I was seriously injured as a result of your negligence. (I is emphasized.)
Active: Your negligence seriously injured me.

Here’s another example: This proposal is based on a careful analysis of all available research studies. (The basis for the proposal is emphasized and the name of the person who drafted it is not important.)

• When the doer of the action is not important or is deliberately not mentioned.

The decision was made without consulting any of the board members. (Emphasizes how the decision was made and omits the name of the person responsible.)

Mistakes were made. (A good example of a non-apology apology. No one has to take the blame!)

Thanks to The Gregg Reference Manual, 11^th edition, for some of the examples and the useful information on active and passive voice.

Tips for Conquering Writer’s Block

Writer’s block: at some point, it plagues every writer. Says Kathie Evenhouse, Write Place writer and graphic designer, “Sometimes if I get stuck I just turn off my screen. That way, I’m not distracted by how my writing looks and what it sounds like. I don’t try to edit. I just type!”

Here are some other ideas to get those creative juices flowing:

Write a Six-Word Story

Ernest Hemingway, one of the greatest authors of all time, was once challenged to write a complete story in just six words. Never one to shy from a challenge, he wrote: “For sale: baby shoes, never used.” What would your complete six-word story be?

Start Writing, Don’t Stop Until You’ve Hit 1000 Words

What should you write? Anything. What is your inspiration? Whatever you want. In “Finding Forrester” the character played by Sean Connery asks his young student to take an existing piece of work as a starting point. The student transforms it into something unique. Start with a famous passage from a book, or the opening of a movie. But take it somewhere entirely different. When you hit 1000 words, stop and read it. You may have just surprised yourself.

…………………………….

How do you conquer writer’s block? Leave a comment and let us know!

 

Our thanks to About.com for the six-word story and 1000 words ideas!

Ode to Style (and Grammar)

Tips for strengthening your writing, part II: Make the paragraph the unit of composition

I won’t waste your time telling you what a paragraph is—hopefully you already know that! I’ll restrict myself to sharing some helpful hints to strengthen your paragraphs and also share what Strunk and White say on the subject in The Elements of Style.

Sometimes the trickiest question is when to start a new paragraph. Strunk and White suggest that when writing, each topic within your larger framework (see last week’s post for outlining advice) should start a new paragraph. They note, “The object of treating each topic in a paragraph by itself is, of course, to aid the reader. The beginning of each paragraph is a signal to him that a new step in the development of the subject has been reached.”

I appreciate the implications of this statement: dividing text into paragraphs isn’t some arcane style rule we hold to because we don’t know any better, it’s a practical way to help readers follow a writer’s thought process. Authors who use very long paragraphs (see the last chapter of Joyce’s Ulysses or basically any Faulkner) have their reasons for doing so; but no one claims their work is easy.

Accordingly, Strunk and White offer another piece of advice on using paragraphs to aid the reader:

In general, remember that paragraphing calls for a good eye as well as a logical mind. Enormous blocks of print look formidable to a reader. He has a certain reluctance to tackle them; he can lose his way in them. Therefore, breaking long paragraphs into two, even if it is not necessary to do so for sense, meaning, or logical development, is often a visual help.

So, using your logical mind and discerning eye, you should be able to decide when to start a new paragraph—but how to do so well? Elements of Style offers several options (examples are taken from The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle):

• A straightforward topic sentence. Transition words can be effective here. See the bottom of the post for a helpful list.
• “Thus encouraged, our scientific friend drew his papers from his pocket and presented the whole case as he had done upon the morning before.”

• A summary sentence of what is going to follow. This works best in narration or description.
• “The appearance of our visitor was a surprise to me, since I had expected a typical country practitioner.” The narrator, Watson, then goes on to describe the appearance of the visitor.

• A sentence with a clear subject that “indicates … the direction the paragraph is going to take.”
• “With long bounds the huge black creature was leaping down the track, following hard upon the footsteps of our friend.” We suspect from the subject that something is going to happen between the creature and the man.

There is also the option of no topic sentence at all—“In animated narrative, the paragraphs are likely to be short and without any semblance of a topic sentence, the writer rushing headlong, event following event in rapid succession.” And these are just a few ways to start paragraphs. Keep in mind that continuously starting your paragraphs in the same way can seem repetitive, so be creative and try to mix it up.

A brief list of transition words:

Causality: Accordingly, consequently, therefore, thus

Emphasis: Above all, certainly, in fact, of course

Amplification: Again, finally, first, second, etc., in addition, moreover

Intention For this purpose, to this end, with this in mind

Closure: In conclusion, on the whole, to summarize

Detail: Especially, in particular, namely, specifically

Location: Beyond, nearby, opposite, to the right (left)

Similarity: Likewise, similarly

Comparison/Contrast: Nevertheless, however, before, on the other hand, still

Time: Afterward, at the same time, next, soon

Concession: At any rate, earlier, at least, in the meantime, later

Example: For example, for instance, to illustrate

Interpretation: Fortunately, interestingly, significantly, surprisingly