The Creative Penn Blog: Helping you write, publish and market your book

Audiobooks For Authors With Will Dages From Findaway Voices

February 18, 2019 by Joanna Penn 3 Comments

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:21:52 — 66.4MB)

Audiobooks are the fastest growing segment in publishing, and in a world where voice-first technologies are continuing to grow, it's a great time to take more control over your audiobook rights as discussed in today's interview with Will Dages from Findaway Voices.

In the intro, I mention Amazon buying adaption rights to its own books, a first step to keeping all intellectual property in-house [The Verge]; plus, the OpenAI text generator that is so good, it can't be released for fear of it being used for malicious purposes [Open AI blog; Wired], and why you need time for cashflow and asset creation activities if you want a long-term sustainable author business.

Today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital, where you can get free ebook formatting, free distribution to multiple stores, and a host of other benefits. Get your free Author Marketing Guide at www.draft2digital.com/penn

Will Dages is Head of Product for Findaway Voices and an avid audiobook listener. He's been immersed in the audiobook industry for seven years and working on everything from technology to marketing, to product development.

You can listen above or on iTunes or your favorite podcast app or watch the video here, read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and full transcript below.

Show Notes

A big picture overview of the players in the audiobook market in the US and the world

New developments in the library market for audiobooks

On the ways voice technology can increase the ease of audiobook purchase for readers

Pricing and promotion control for your audiobooks with Findaway Voices

Selling audiobooks directly. Click here for my AuthorsDirect audiobook store.

What it costs for an author to produce an audiobook

On the new Voices Share program which supports authors to get into the audiobook market

Tips for marketing and selling audiobooks

You can find Will Dages at FindawayVoices.com and on Twitter @willdages

5 Tips To Spice Up Your Amazon Author Profile

February 15, 2019 by Creative Guest 5 Comments

Every element of your web presence is part of marketing your books. When readers are becoming fans of your books, they'll begin to want to know more about you.

One of the first places they'll learn about you is on your Amazon author profile. Chris Fey offers several tips on how to make that page as inviting and informative as possible.

In June, The Creative Penn hosted me for a post: 5 Ways to Spice Up Your Amazon Book Pages, and now I have the opportunity, thanks to Joanna Penn, to offer another post inspired by that one and share 5 tips to spice up your Amazon author profile.

Every author gets a profile when they sign up for an account through Amazon’s Author Central to claim their book pages.

Author Central Information:

Currently, to update your author profile for select countries, you have to join that country’s Author Central, which is easy to do if you are already signed up with the US Author Central.

All it takes is logging in with your US account info (which they call “registering”), accepting their terms, and confirming your email. The only site this didn’t work for me was with the Japan site. In that case, you have to create a new account through them.

Countries with Author Central Sites:

United States: https://authorcentral.amazon.com/
United Kingdom: https://authorcentral.amazon.co.uk/gp/home
France: https://authorcentral.amazon.fr/
Germany: https://authorcentral.amazon.de/gp/home
Japan: https://authorcentral.amazon.co.jp/gp/home

TIP: To translate pages, right-click on the page and click “Translate to English.”

There are rumors that Amazon is beta testing a new Author Central experience called Amazon Author, which will let users easily update their author pages around the world, saving authors the time of having to visit each site.

You’ll be able to log in once and update your Amazon Author Page in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, India, and Japan.

At this time, however, there has been no further word on this. To read more, visit this page from The Digital Reader.

TIP: I suggest adding your biography to your author profile on each site and then sticking with at least one or two of the most important sites (to you) for any other updates I highlight below.

Surprisingly, there’s a lot more you can do on your profile than just feature your bio and author photo. Curious? Keep reading!

1. Update Your Bio

What’s so special about this tip, you ask? I did just say there’s more you can do on your profile, but do you have enough info there for curious readers?

Maybe not.

Let’s see:

Before your bio, include a shortened link for your mailing list with a call to action like, Sign up for his/her newsletter…or simply: Newsletter Sign-Up.
If you have an author tagline, start or follow your bio with it. A tagline is a single sentence that summarizes you as an author and what you write.

How to Come Up with an Author Tagline

Consider the common themes in your writing. Example: romance, mystery

Consider what tones and moods you use the most. Example: dark, funny, heart-warming

Do you frequently use the same settings? Example: small towns, Great Britain, the South

Do you tend to write about the same kinds of characters? Example: cowboys, tough heroines

After answering these questions, brainstorm several tagline ideas using a few of the answers. What vibe do you want to give potential readers?

For example, my author tagline is: Thrilling and Romantic with Heroines of Steel.

Why? Because suspense and romance are always present in my stories, and my heroines aren’t push-overs.

After your bio and author tagline, and I suggest a shorter version of your bio (about 100 words), list the books in your current or most-popular series. That way if someone reads the list in your bio, he or she can check out your books at the top of your profile for those very titles.

At the very end, add a thank you message of some sort for the readers who actually read all of the information there. Show your thanks for their visit, their reviews, and even encourage them to follow your profile.

Here is My Thank You Message: Thank you for visiting my page! Please Follow my profile for important updates. And thank you for your reviews!

2. Upload Other Photos

Joanna Penn cycling down the Western Ghats from Ooty into the tea plantations, India. On a digital fast 🙂

And not just your author photo. When you edit your profile, there is a section to upload up to 8 photos that readers may find interesting, such as photos of your desk. You can also share an illustration that demonstrates a scene in your picture book.

On my mom’s author profile, she uploaded a picture of a teddy bear that is the physical manifestation of one of her characters.

Post photos of things that inspired your story or images of you or your table at book events. Any photo related to your books or your life as an author would be good here.

These photos will be at the top of the page, mixed in with the stream for your videos and your blog posts (US-only), which brings me to…

3. Link to Your Blog

NOTE: Only the US site has this feature.

Especially if you blog about your books or topics related to what you write about. While editing your author profile, go to the “Blog” section and click “add blog.” It will ask to “specify an RSS feed for your blog.”

Old posts will not show up when you add the feed URL for the first time, but it will be updated with new posts.

To Find Your Blogger RSS Feed:

Sign in to Blogger and view your blog.
Find the “Subscribe to” widget and click “Atom.”
The current feed for your blog will appear as a new page.
The feed URL will be the URL for that page, copy and use it anywhere that asks for your blog’s feed URL.
If you’ve burned your feed with Feedburner, which I suggest, you’ll feed URL will look like this: http://feeds.feedburner.com/WritewithFey
For additional blogging tips and tips on using Feedburner see: Blogging 101

4. Upload Videos

If you have a YouTube channel and create videos about your books, don’t pass up the chance to upload them to your author profile, too. You never know who will see them on your profile, enjoy them, and may want to check out one of your books.

Actually, you do know who will…current readers and/or potential readers.

For YouTube video ideas check out: 10 Things You Can Do on Your Author YouTube Channel

5. Add Events

Joanna Penn speaking in Ubud, Bali.

A small section at the bottom of many author profiles gets neglected because of its location, but the events section is a great spot to highlight any upcoming events you plan to attend for readers who may want to get a signed book from you. So, when you add upcoming events to your website, put it here, too.

TIP: If you only do events located in the US, just update the events section on your US author profile, but if you travel internationally for book events, update the other sites accordingly.

The great thing is, you don’t have to worry about taking down the info as you do with your site; the event will be automatically removed once it passes. One less thing to have to remember.

Finally, when you’re done editing your author profile, in the upper right-hand corner, you can find the link to your profile. Snag this URL and add it to your links on your website, blog, in your newsletter, everywhere.

Also, below your profile’s URL, you have the option to share the URL to Facebook or Twitter, do that and encourage your followers to check it out and follow you.

Now that your Amazon book pages and author profile are at their best, and you know how to update them when you need to, you’re all set to wow readers.

Good luck!

Have you optimized your Author profile on Amazon? Please leave your thoughts below and join the conversation.

Chrys Fey is the author of Write with Fey: 10 Sparks to Guide You from Idea to Publication. Catch the sparks you need to write, edit, publish, and market your book! From writing your novel to prepping for publication and beyond, you’ll find sparks on every page, including 100 bonus marketing tips.

Fey is an editor for Dancing Lemur Press and runs the Insecure Writer’s Support Group’s Goodreads book club. She is also the author of the Disaster Crimes series. Visit her blog, Write with Fey, for more tips.

Writing Tips: Digital Forensics for Screen Writers and Novelists

February 13, 2019 by Creative Guest 5 Comments

It can be a challenge to keep up with technology in our real lives, let alone inside the books we write.

In this article, cybersecurity expert Cynthia James offers tips to writers who want to make sure their handling of technology in legal circumstances is factual and authentic.

Want to be just a little more accurate with your plots that involve digital evidence?

Or do a better job writing about an investigator who is trained in technology?

Let’s look at the fun stuff first, two solid technology-oriented ploys which could work in real life. One can be used to change evidence AFTER it has been collected, and the other is a way for law enforcement to obtain data quasi-legally without a company knowing (no warrant).

Oops, the evidence changed…

We all know every police station has a least one evidence room. Most Law and Order fans also realize that it’s legally necessary to document every twist and turn the evidence takes, and with whom, between collection and court – this is called the Chain of Custody.

The idea here is to ensure there is no opportunity for the evidence to be altered from the time it is seized to the time it is presented in court.

However, digital evidence can be altered more easily than physical evidence, because it can be changed while it’s still locked away. For example: if a system is simply sitting on a shelf somewhere and it has at least some battery power left and there is a wireless network in the vicinity (where isn’t there?) this provides access to hackers.

Why not frame someone by adding some salacious email or browser history to their PC about human trafficking or dealing drugs on the Dark Net?

It would also be a cinch to pre-program a device in advance to connect to the police station’s wifi without any human intervention, or to connect to a nearby wireless when it reaches the evidence room.

Once it’s connected to the internet, the device easily reaches back to whoever infected it in the first place and then follows the instructions received. This could include possible self-immolation, in case the hackers want to destroy other evidence in the same facility…or maybe the whole gambit is set up just to hack the police station network.

In any case, these are just some of the reasons a detective is supposed to remove the battery from any computer or phone which is seized; when ordinary citizens are hacked, what often occurs is that the laptop or PC wakes itself up at night, connects to the wifi, behaves badly, erases its tracks and goes back to sleep.

So the attorney’s question should be, “Was the battery was removed from the laptop before it was put into police evidence?” If we are to believe most movies we see, the answer would be, “Nah, that never occurred to us”.

And in fact, too few police investigators are trained on handling digital evidence, and this is usually overlooked.

Dang it, did you lose your data?

The biggest privacy problem with storing anything in the cloud (besides the fact that companies constantly mess up their security settings so it gets hacked) is that your data resides on a server alongside that of other tenants.

If one of those tenants commits a crime (think white collar, like SEC infringement), the entire server can be seized without notice, and your data goes along with it. This could be a cool way for investigators to discover evidence about a company that appears squeaky clean – it falls into their hands because the co-tenant broke the law.

Now the FBI or SEC isn’t supposed to share such evidence with local law enforcement, but that still happens via the loop-holes provided by the totally unconstitutional Patriot Act.

One challenge is that whoever is keeping your data in the cloud for you can be put under a gag order by the FBI where they are prohibited from admitting your data was seized.

A partial solution to this problem which we have used in high tech for many years is to add a contractual clause like a Warrant Canary. It works like this: you ask once a month if your data has been seized. If one month they don’t deny it, that’s effectively a “yes”.

Now onto the four basic rules

These should be applied by police detectives to all seized digital devices (soon we will need to include all other smart IoT home devices on the list too):

If it is off, don’t turn it on (check for lights, heat, vibration). (If it’s confirmed to be off, take out the battery, bag it separately.)
When removing evidence from a crime scene, be sure to not to mess up fingerprints and other bio evidence (hair follicles, skin) before hacking in.
If it is on, don’t touch it unless you are fully trained in digital forensics.
Collect all other media you can find at the scene which can be used to store data (including USBs, SIM cards, play stations, DVDs).

Complications of gaining access: Location

As we would expect, the forensics process also includes trying to obtain or guess passwords to all devices. The devices are then brought to a digital forensics lab to be accessed. However: multi-factor authentication now includes location in many cases, so it may be easier to hack a device from the perpetrator’s home. Interesting, eh?

Going back to the crime scene just to authenticate the user? There’s also a timing problem: if the perp has already logged in from a new location, the old location may be rejected.

Anyway, good luck fiction writers – accurate tech depictions are going to get harder over time before they get easier! If you have any questions about what is technically possible or plausible, please ask in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer.

Do you write contemporary fiction or mysteries that involve technology? How do you keep up with the tech changes your characters would encounter? Please leave your thoughts below and join the conversation.

Cynthia James has spent over 25 years in the field of high tech with the last decade spent in cybersecurity. While working for the Russian cyber intelligence firm Kaspersky Lab, she obtained the top credential in her field, the CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) and in 2016 completed a Master of Cybersecurity Strategy and Information Management from George Washington University.

She is currently founder and principal consultant of Cyberus Security, a firm who focus on protecting small and medium-sized businesses from cyber threats through on-site training and auditing. She lives in Silicon Valley and has written two non-fiction books, including Stop Cybercrime from Ruining Your Life! Sixty Secrets to Keep You Safe.

How To Be Successful In Writing Horror With Iain Rob Wright

February 11, 2019 by Joanna Penn 2 Comments

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:06:54 — 54.4MB)

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Writing deep in a genre you love is a great way to make a living with your writing. In today's show, Iain Rob Wright shares his tips on writing horror and also becoming a successful full-time indie author.

In the intro, I mention the ‘future of digital journalism in question' [The Guardian], even as Spotify buys Gimlet Media and Anchor. Is the future audio-first? [Recode] Google has also announced Live Transcribe, an app that takes real-world speech and turns it into real-time captions using just the phone’s microphone [Google Blog].

Vellum now has Large Print, mass market and international print sizing. Click here for my Vellum tutorial. Plus, my first fiction self-narrated audiobook is out now, A Thousand Fiendish Angels [Audible US | Audible UK | Google Play | Other stores]

This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors.

Iain Rob Wright is the bestselling British author of over 20 horror novels in a number of subgenres, including the apocalyptic novels The Final Winter and The Gates.

You can listen above or on iTunes or your favorite podcast app or watch the video here, read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and full transcript below.

Show Notes

Writing horror that’s based in hope

On the intersections between thriller, horror, crime and paranormal

Tropes in horror and cliches to avoid

Success through subverting tropes and doing things first

On the wide variety of opportunities available to authors with streaming services

On choosing to go deep or wide with an author business

Financial security when sticking with one genre

Persistence with advertising and seeing returns on investment

You can find Iain Rob Wright at IainRobWright.com and on Twitter @iain_rob_wright

Writing Tips: How To Turn A Thesis Into A Book That Sells

February 8, 2019 by Creative Guest 2 Comments

Writing a thesis is a huge accomplishment, and in today's guest post Tracy Stanley discusses how all the work you put into that project doesn't have to end once the thesis is submitted to your academic advisors. As always, your writing can be turned into more than one asset; it's possible to turn that thesis into something you can sell.

I spent four years researching and writing for a Ph.D. on the topic of How Work Environments Contribute to Creative Behaviours and Employee Engagement.

When submitted it was 103,850 words and I knew that no more than six people in the world would read it. As a result, it was unlikely to have an impact on anything. Yes, I’d written shorter academic articles, but these were also designed for a mainly academic audience.

I wanted to share what I’d learned to a different audience, to managers, and to share the main messages in my own voice, not my carefully restrained academic voice.

Starting was hard

The journey took me a couple of years. Like many, I suffered from the Jekyll and Hyde phenomena of thinking:

Who am I to write this book?
to
Of course, I can write a book.

Audiobooks For Authors With Will Dages From Findaway Voices