Home
>
Writing
>
Tips for First Time Authors : 2 Easy Steps to Make Your First Book a Success

Tips for First Time Authors : 2 Easy Steps to Make Your First Book a Success

Congratulations on writing your first book. That is quite an accomplishment. Many people dream of writing a book, but you actually did it. Way to go.

At this point you are probably wondering where to get started, who to contact, how to even take the first step. Don't worry, that is very common. And now you've found a great resource to help you.

Step #1

Create a map for yourself.

If you want to get somewhere you need to know where you are and where you want to be. Then you figure out how you are going to get there. Yet many first time authors jump in with the how to get there specifics ? getting reviews, making it onto bookstore shelves, creating a website.

Instead, start by figuring out your goals. What do you want to happen with your book? Be very specific. Try writing down at least 10 goals for your book. If that was easy, write down 25.

Next, figure out what you have to bring to the project. How much money are you able to invest? How much time can you spend doing marketing? Be realistic. You can make your marketing work with whatever budget you have and time you can allocate.

Then you can start finding specific marketing actions that match your goals and resources. By knowing your goals and resources you can find the exact marketing tools to make your goals a reality within your time and money budget.

Step # 2

Avoid the common mistakes.

Hundreds of thousands of people write books every year. Tens of thousands of these authors are doing it for the first time. It is only natural that some of the same mistakes are made over and over. Once you know what they are you can avoid making them and get ahead with your book faster.

The single most common mistake we see is authors who fail to clearly define their target market. They believe that "everyone" will buy their book.

They waste their valuable resources trying to market to an audience that is too broad. Let me give you an example from the TV show The Apprentice.

Two teams are in New York trying to sell wedding dresses. One team goes to Grand Central Station where there are tons of people and hands out flyers to everyone walking by. The other team stays in the office, goes online and buys an email list from a popular wedding site (theknot.com) of couples getting married who live in the New York area.

The first team trying to sell to "everyone" is reaching tons of people who simply do not care about what they are selling for one very simple reason - they are not getting married.

Will any amount of marketing on the team's part convince them that they need a wedding dress? NO.

Does it even matter how great the wedding dresses are made? NO.

The other team however, has found the perfect target market ? people who live in New York who are getting married.

Do you see the difference? Marketing to people who ALREADY CARE about your book's subject and forgetting the rest of the people who don't care is the ONLY smart way to do marketing.

Kim Dushinski is a partner at MarketAbility, a book publicity firm located in Colorado that specializes in cost-effective, results-driven PR Campaigns. You can find more tips, strategies and techniques specifically designed for first time authors in our First Time Author Toolkit at http://www.marketability.com/first-time-author-info14.html

deep house cleaning Lake Forest ...

In The News:

Uber teen accounts now feature live video streaming from the driver's camera, but encrypted recordings stay on Uber's servers for up to 14 days.

Router firewalls and software firewalls serve different roles in protecting your home Wi-Fi from unwanted traffic and suspicious connections.

A Chrome extension with 70,000 users and a 4.7-star rating began injecting fake update warnings after a threat actor acquired and weaponized it.

Amazon's Alexa+ rolls out free to Fire TV devices across the U.S., but hands-free microphones and stored voice data raise key privacy questions.

Meta's new teen accounts settlement sets a default two-hour daily limit on Instagram and Facebook, plus night mode and school mode restrictions.

The CareCloud data breach exposed Social Security numbers, banking information and medical records belonging to more than 3.75 million people.

Waymo reveals its custom 5-nanometer chip and dual computing systems designed to take over instantly if the robotaxi's primary computer fails.

Identity theft now includes account takeover, phone hijacking and payment card exposure. Here's what to look for in identity theft protection services.

Stay up to date on the latest AI technology advancements and learn about the challenges and opportunities AI presents now and for the future.

The FBI and Justice Department seized domains tied to QScan and QTRouter, tools allegedly used by China-linked hackers to breach NASA and other agencies.

Uber Eats drone delivery launches later this year through a Zipline partnership, starting in Dallas and Houston with a goal of one million daily flights.

Medicare Open Enrollment scams start with data broker targeting months before October. Learn why August is the time to remove your personal info.

The World Humanoid Robot Games' crashes show how far the technology still needs to go to be useful, "Survivor" reality TV star and robotics scientist Christian Hubicki says.

X-Humanoid's TianGong Ultra ran 100 meters in 9.32 seconds at Beijing's World Humanoid Robot Games, beating last year's winner by more than half.

A tap-to-pay charity scam is turning small $15 or $20 donations into charges of nearly $5,000, with victims losing thousands before they notice.

Kurt Knutsson shares seven emergency preparedness lessons from surviving Hurricane Katrina inside a New Orleans hotel as conditions turned desperate.

A contractor stored credentials in a Google Doc set to "Anyone with the link," and Google Search autocomplete eventually surfaced the password string.

New Orleans 911 uses Carbyne AI to triage repeat auto crash calls, but strict limits keep human call-takers in control of all other emergencies.

A single card skimmer can generate $1 million in stolen funds, and Secret Service video shows criminals installing them in under two seconds.

ChatGPT, Meta AI and Google now use memory, connected apps and past chats to personalize ads and responses in ways most users overlook today.

MagicalAuth by Glide.id uses cryptographic SIM credentials to verify bank logins without sending SMS OTP codes that scammers can intercept or phish.

A humanoid robot named Lightning Bolt ran 100 meters in 9.39 seconds at the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, edging Usain Bolt's record.

An AI agent using Claude AI canceled another person's gym booking after finding a security flaw in the reservation system's authorization checks.

Trump signed a memorandum allowing vetted private U.S. companies to conduct cyber operations against foreign criminal organizations under oversight.

Your Social Security number appeared in a breach, but exposure and identity theft are not the same. Here's how identity restoration actually works.

Tips for First Time Authors : 2 Easy Steps to Make Your First Book a Success

Writing