SACHA BLACK

book marketing

10 Steps To Hero – How To Craft A Kickass Protagonist is coming to a bookstore near you

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Silly ol’ me, in the chaos of finishing the book edits and excitement of launch prep, I completely forgot to reveal my next cover. If you’re on my mailing list, however, you’ll have seen an advance peek at the cover. Props to you.

For those of you who aren’t on my mailing list, then I have a treat for you today. I’m super excited to announce 10 Steps To Hero – How To Craft A Kickass Protagonist. My second non-fiction baby is coming into the world in a matter of weeks. Literally. Launch date below. 

I’ve talked about second book syndrome before and it seems that this time, writing my second non-fiction book was just as hard as writing my second fiction book. I’m not sure why, if any of you out there have been through it, I’d love to hear your thoughts. But forget that… I made it through people.

*Grabs megaphone*

*Clears throat*

I MADE IT THROUGH PEOPLE.

And boy am I exited about this book. [Read more…] about 10 Steps To Hero – How To Craft A Kickass Protagonist is coming to a bookstore near you

Street Teams – The Smart Author’s Tactic for Book Launches

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If I continue my night owl tactics and don’t… you know, die of exhaustion first, then next year I will be launching not one, but six books. That’s the aim anyway. Much as it’s traumatised me not to publish sooner, I’ve been sitting on these books for a reason.

It terrifies me to say it, but 2017 will see me publish actual, word filled, hold in your hands books, and hopefully, a few of them.

But any author worth their salt, knows they can’t and shouldn’t be launching alone. Visibility is the one thing that connects indies to new traditionally published authors. I say it all the time, but Amazon, is a rainforest of books. Getting seen in any part of it is difficult.

We might day dream about coffee shops and alone time to ink our hyperbolae in peace, but getting a book from chapter one to finished product isn’t a one man job. While the writing might be, there are beta readers, cover designers, formatters, editors and reviewers that help with the rest. If writing a book isn’t a one man job, why should launching one be?

Mastering a book launch isn’t really about the big day, it, like anything you anticipate for a while, is  a bit of an anticlimax. Besides, if you want sustained sales, then don’t focus on the launch. Focus on the lifetime of a book. It’s not about its first day, or week, or even its first year. It’s about optimising that book as an asset, it’s a product you can earn from again and again and again, so why worry about getting sales in it’s first week. You want to be worrying about getting them for the next ten thousand weeks.

Launches are about driving yourself crazy and into a six foot deep grave through stress sustained activities over long periods, garnering stacks of reviews, running competitions, paying it forward for other authors, teaming up or compelling your own boxsets and unfortunately, paying for advertising.

I’ve been doing a chuff load of research on marketing and book launches, so today, we’re talking street teams, and for anyone willing, there’s a personal request from me, to you, to join my street team.

[Read more…] about Street Teams – The Smart Author’s Tactic for Book Launches

9 Ways to Help You Find Your Readers Part I

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find your audienceAs writers we play the infinitely difficult Where’s Wally of reader spotting. But locating those pesky readers is more tortuous than tweezing your granddads nasal hair, and yet, it is THE most important thing we do.

As I draw nearer to handing my book to beta readers, the prospect of completing it, having to press publish and my labour of love subsequently disappearing into the utterly saturated Amazon rainforest of books, never to be seen again, is becoming frighteningly real.

In an attempt to prevent the only people buying my book being mumsy and wifeypoos, I read 3 marketing books last month:

Joanna Penn’s How to Market a Book

Nick Stephenson’s Supercharge Your Kindle Sales

And Tim Grahl’s Your First 1000 Copies 

The whole point of my blog is to share what I learn on this sanity testing journey to authordom and what did I learn? Well, I’m resolute on the fact finding your readers will always be the holy grail of authorlyness and because it’s the holy grail, not all of us will find it. BUT, I also learnt a whole heap of other neat tricks to help us along the way, as well as finding an answer to the 64 bergillion dollar question, should an author blog…?

I learnt a shit ton of stuff, so I’ve split this post into two.

So here are 9 ways to help you find your audience, this week I bring you way one to five. [Read more…] about 9 Ways to Help You Find Your Readers Part I

8 Ways to Maximise Your Book Series

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8 maximiseThere’s this trend… I’ll try not to be skeptical, actually who am I kidding I’m always skeptical. This trend involves finishing your novel series, whether its a trilogy or ten book epic and then promptly…unfinishing them… to make money because there’s more story to tell.

Take Veronica Roth and the Divergent series. She finished her books and then did a whole spin off series based on the character Four. She wrote shorts, novels and all kinds of other crazy empire expanding nonsense and of course the fans all loved it.

I hadn’t even considered writing more than my planned number of books for my Fallon series as an option. But then I read James Howell’s latest book, Guinea Pigsand realised I’m half way there anyway and I haven’t even published the first book.

So here’s some tricks on maximising your book series empire inspired by Howell’s latest book. [Read more…] about 8 Ways to Maximise Your Book Series

7 Laws of Writing Reader Grabbing Headlines

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I hate this post. I do. My eyes were achy from rolling so hard by the time I even sat down to write it. But I HAD to because, as much as I feel like I just Peter Panned my shadow,  (ok my soul), and handed it to Captain Devil-Hook, there is no question that these tactics work.

Here’s the thing: My mum, loves me to the ends of the Earth, which means she reads these posts. All of them.

*waves, shouts ‘love you mum’* 

As much as I adore the fact mumsy reads them and tells me they’re wonderful. I’d rather like some unbiased feedback. I mean, mum thinks most things I do are good… amazing even.

Although now I think about it, she doesn’t know about the time I… 100% not finishing that sentence.

We all write for a variety of reasons: some blogs are therapeutic, some are started to meet the amazing community and others to build platforms. Whatever the reason, even if you start not caring whether anyone reads your stuff, something happens the moment you get, likes, comments that aren’t your mum, or your first spike in stats.

Realisation.

That’s what happens. The realisation that someone you don’t know, just read the words you wrote. For writers, that ignites the flame of desire. AND WE WANT MORE. More readers, more followers, more stats. [Read more…] about 7 Laws of Writing Reader Grabbing Headlines