New Year’s Writing Resolution

Besides my regular New Year’s resolutions to be fitter, have fun and stop my habit of supreme procrastination, I also decided to have writing resolutions for 2014. Especially because they are more likely to be achieved than the ones mentioned above – except „having fun“ that one usually happens on its own and just underlines how „low effort“ I can be.

So without further ado, here are my goals for 2014:

1. Publish my first novel „Celtic Forest“ (more info on that coming soon J )
2. Write the last few chapters of Book 2 of the „Celtic Forest Cycle“
3. Finish editing my children’s book – Fred, the frog, will be at large later in 2014
4. Nagging my sister into finishing her first novel: in my biased opinion she is the better writer
5. Continue blogging on book marketing tipps: happy to hear what you would like me to write on next…
6. Meet and exchange thoughts with other authors and writers
7. Refine some of the other rough drafts lurking around on my desk

Let’s see how many of these I can tick off at the end oft he year. So far I am confident though that 2014 will be a great writing year.

What are your plans for 2014? Any Writing Resolutions in the new year?

Book Cover Design: 4 Corner Stones for Positioning with Book Covers

Your book cover is the first impression you make on a potential reader. One cover, one chance. 

Book covers are an essential marketing tool which should position your book in your reader's mind at a single glance. We can also usually tell which genre a book belongs to simply by its cover. Seems like a tall order for a single image design?

Maybe, but that also means that if you get it right you can set your book apart.

Here are four corner stones you should keep in mind when starting out on your cover design:

     1. Let potential readers know that they are purchasing quality literary content

A sleezy or poorly designed cover will hardly inspire confidence in a reader that the content is any more professional.

     2. Design with your reader in mind

Your design has to appeal to your segment of readers and not only to you. Look at how covers in your chosen genre are normally designed and try to replicate the basic concept. By replicate I mean for example looking at the general balance of headline font size in comparison with the rest of the text you wish to see on your cover. Other elements you should study are the image choice - does it hint at the story unfolding in the page? -, imagery type and the position of the author name. To make your life even easier concentrate on the bestselling titles within your target genre. 

     3. Stand out among other covers in your target market segment while not completely departing from the general genre look and feel

While you might have success by absolutely departing from the general genre look and feel in your design, there are smaller tweaks you can add to give your design a unique touch.

Here are several ideas on how you can make your book stand out:

1. Add a catchy line from your blurb on your cover. Two lines at most.

2. Add a compelling endorsement. The shorter and snappier, the better.

3. Add a circle badge which emphasises a unique selling point (USP), like:

    - a book comparison reference; e.g.:"For Twillight Lovers"

    - a reference to a bonus inside; e.g.: "Sneak Peek of Dan Brown's Angels and Demons"

    - a bestseller stamp (once you landed on a bestseller list)

4. Make your cover design interactive

Why not give your readers the opportunity to choose the final cover design. Narrow your creative choices down to three versions you like, introduce them on one of your channels (e.g.: blog, facebook, twitter...) and give people the option to vote on their favourite. You can even offer a free give away in return for submitting a vote. This also has the additional benefit of actively reaching out to your reader base before you actually launch. 

Bonus Tip for eBook Covers: Keep your ebook thumbnail images clean

If your eBook thumbnail is too busy it will be drowned out in the search as potential readers browse categories. In an online search, setting readers are most attracted by colours, a clean structure and clear font which translates well into the tiny space of a thumbnail. Too much text will make the small thumbnails too busy and keep your book cover from popping on the page.          

For further tips, here are a few great websites and articles that will help you figure out which cover direction will best fit your book positioning and how you can get to a great cover design:

How To Create a Great Book Cover by Scott Berkun

A behind the scenes look on the cover creation process

The Book Cover Archive and Goodreads

Great websites to get inspired by current bestselling covers in different genres

Book Cover Design by The Creative Penn

A blog post with recommended cover designers

5 Steps for Designing an Ebook Cover by Matthew Weber

Good tips on what to focus on for ebook covers in particular

Price Positioning: Doing Prices the Right Way

Insights on how to research prices for your target segment and genre

Once you have figured out your target reader segment and your genre, you should dive into which price segment you want to compete in. Beyond that you should start having an eye out for when other authors and retailers in general discount products and to what purpose.  This will be relevant for your long-term pricing strategy. Today, however, we will concentrate on defining a base price for your ebook.

Searching for your base price

Your base price will be your regular book price in your home market, e.g.: the US. Doing price research will give you a valuable insight into the market you are launching your book into. There are four simple steps you can take to figure out your base price.

1) Find a price range for your genre

This doesn't have to be too sophisticated and can be as simple as looking at the first ten books shown in your target genre category by two online ebook retailers. I picked Smashwords and Amazon, simply because I do most of my book shopping there.

At Smashwords for example the first 10 books shown to me in the fantasy category are prices between 0.99$ and 4.95$ with the first 3 having a price of 0.99$. At Amazon the ten first titles range between 3.58$ and 12.86$ and all of them are currently discounted. 

2) Compare book prices across retailers

For Step 2, take 2-4 titles from the list of 10 titles you got at one of the retailers in Step 1 and compare what the same title costs at the other retailer. 

In my case The Door by Erin Bartels was the first title on Smashwords at 0.99$. At Amazon I found it priced at 1.16$.

Digging into the detail pages for the particular book on both retailer websites showed me that The Door is actually a short story of only approx. 5.800 words and 0.99$ is a pre-release discount price on Smashwords. 

Important note: Amazon, Apple and Barnes & Nobles require authors to sell their ebooks at the same price across platforms. Which doesn't mean you can leverage different platforms through smart discounting later on.

3) Get prices for comparable titles

 

As a third step it is a good idea to have a look at titles similar to your own for a final gauge on your base price. If you are still in search of those titles I would recommend having a look at the bestseller list for your chosen genre. Ignore industry bestsellers for this exercise and instead have a look at titles who within the genre will cluster the closest around your own title post-launch.

E.g.: if you are planning on launching a post-apocalyptic novel in the Sci-fi and fantasy genre, try and find titles occupying that space within the category instead of looking for elvin fantasy epics.

4) Define your base price

Once you have your ranges from the three previous steps eliminate discount prices and consider that the lower range of your choice spectrum should still allow for you to discount reasonably in the future. 

The range I hit on in my example of a hypothetical post-apocalyptic title was 2.99$ - 5.38$ for same length titles in a similar genre niche. To land on a final price, I decided to further segment by cover and blurb quality. I dismissed unprofessional covers and looked for concise blurbs. This gave me an optimal base price of 4.29$ for my hypothetical novel.

Which final criteria decide your base price is a personal choice. You might even decide to go with your gut on your first book. One thing is for certain: like with anything else, you will learn a lot about pricing as you go.

Base Price vs. Launch Price

For your book launch you might have to make your first price decision, if you don't plan to go out the door with your base price. Technically, you could go both ways: either offer your book at a discount for the first days, weeks, months, maybe even for free for a time. Or you could go out the gate at a higher price and later lower your price to the base you landed on. This is a personal decision and should definitely be a consideration in your launch planing.

Figured out your base price?

Now that you have your base price, what is your launch price going to be? Share your ideas, opinions and comments below.

Best of luck in your pricing journey!

Recommended Articles:

• Don't Price Your EBook at 1.99$ by Laura Hazard Owen at gigaom.com
• How To Price Your EBook by Mill City Press at millcitypress.net
• The Shocking Secret About EBook Prices That Will Help You Price Your Ebook by Gary Smailes at bubblecow.net
• How to Price Your EBook by Agota Bialobzeskyte at freelanceswitch.com