Author Toolbox Blog Hop: HTML Information to Format Your Book Description on Amazon

#AuthorToolboxBlogHop

Hello and welcome to the Focused on Story Blog and to the Author Toolbox Blog Hop #AuthorToolboxBlogHop which meets every third Wednesday of the month to share resources and tips for authors. Thanks to Raimey Gallant for hosting this venture. 

Please join us to learn more about the craft of writing and to meet bloggers who are dedicated to helping each other become the best writers possible. Click here to visit other blog hop participants.

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If you are an author or publisher, you know how important a book cover and book description are for getting eyes on your book.

You also know how difficult it is to write a book description whether it's for a fiction or non-fiction book. Spending hours on figuring out just the right phrases, choosing the bullet points, and crafting the correct Call to Action at the end can all be for naught once you upload it to the KDP form that is all about your book.

I filled in that box on the KDP form for the book description for my journal, Your Words, Your Life Story, and waited for my masterpiece to be published. Below is what I copied to the book description space. 

Notice the larger font in places, the bold and italicized words, the bullet points and spacing.

Do you want to tell your family and friends about your life experiences, but you don't know where to begin? The task is overwhelming? You need help in recalling memories to share? Life story teacher and published author, J.Q. Rose, can help.

Your Words, Your Life Story: A Journal for Sharing Memories, is a journal and a guide for capturing the moments that impacted your life—the happy, sad, funny and crazy times that shaped a generation. Family and friends want to relive your experience through your words.

Not into writing? Discover audio and video programs to bring your authentic voice to your family.

This journal does not ask silly questions but prompts you to remember life experiences and details to develop a rich tapestry to share in single vignettes or in a compilation. You can take the opportunity to tell those small stories you know so well, and then organize and keep them just for your family and/or to publish them. 

Your Words, Your Life Story will help you ignite and share your memories.

Free added bonus: Receive support for your journey down memory lane through the Private Facebook group, Tell Your Life Story and Memoir. In this helpful group, we share our stories, resources, tips, experiences, and memories. You’re invited to join in no matter where you are in telling your story, just beginning or completed. Hope to see you there. (You need not purchase this book to come in.)

Preserving the experiences of the past for future generations is important. They will wonder as they peruse the stories how you ever lived without a TV, computer, or microwave (or what else they may be using in the future?). 

The story of your life, the struggles, the joys, the accomplishments, will be what the next generations understand. Your account will be a guide to help them through their own lives.

Start now to put together the stories that make up your life story, a treasured family keepsake.

Inside Your Words, Your Life Story you will find:

·        *Larger print

·        *No silly questions

·        *An easy way to begin

·        *Inspiring quotations

·        *Ways to spark memories

·        *Exercises for you to recall YOUR life stories

·        *Lined pages to jot down memories

·        *Information on storytelling

·       * Links to sites for submitting your story

·       * Links to sites for telling your story via writing, audio and/or video

   

     INSTEAD, all the formatting was gone! Just a bunch of sentences piled together all in one paragraph. I didn't realize I had to use HTML in order to format the description. With my heart pounding, I checked the KDP help page and sure enough, there are supported HTML tags on the sales page, but no help in how to use them. Click here to see the KDP help page for supported HTML tags.
  
      Now I was really scared! Was I done? With a junky description like that, no one would take time to read it.
     But I was saved by a timely video by Keith Wheeler who directed viewers to use an HTML Auto Generator that would format the description for me.

     YOU TUBE VIDEO--Book Descriptions That Sell by Keith Wheeler

    Click here to discover Dave Chesson's Kindlepreneur Amazon HTML Book Description Auto Generator.

         Click here to join the Telling Your Life Story and Memoir Circle Facebook Group. It's so much easier and more fun to tell your story when like-minded people are there to support and share with you. See you there!

       I hope this information is helpful to you. Do you have another way of converting your book description into the HTML format? Please comment below.

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Your Words, Your Life Story: A Journal for Sharing Memories by J.Q. Rose

Now that you've read the book description, 

you may want to know more about the journal for you 

or as a gift for someone in your life. 

Click here to order the paperback journal.

Your Words, Your Life Story: A Guide to Sharing Memories

The content in the journal is available as an eBook, 

a Guide to readers on telling their life stories.

Click here to download the digital copy from your favorite online bookseller.

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GOOD NEWS: I finally figured out how to send the Rose Courier out to subscribers. The inaugural edition went out on Thursday, January 9. 
If you subscribed and didn't receive a copy, let me know!
To receive the February edition, please enter your email address at the top of the page under The Rose Courier to get this jazzy update every month. Thank you!!

    

Format an eBook for Publishing by J.Q. Rose, #Authortoolboxbloghop

#AuthorToolboxBlogHop

Hello and welcome to the Focused on Story Blog and to the Author Toolbox Blog Hop #AuthorToolboxBlogHop which meets every third Wednesday of the month to share resources and tips for authors. Thanks to Raimey Gallant for hosting this venture. 

Please join us to learn more about the craft of writing and to meet bloggers who are dedicated to helping each other become the best writers possible. Click here for the list of participants. Take a break and visit them. 

I will be away from the office this week so I can't visit hop participants, but I'll catch up when I can. 

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Format an eBook by J.Q. Rose

Format an eBook by J.Q. Rose
#Authortoolboxbloghop

Indie Publishing--If you want to publish your ebook to amazon, Kindle Create is a tool provided by amazon to build your eBook. I haven't used it, but I plan to with my next book! Click here for information on Kindle Create.

Smashwords offers the FREE Smashwords Style Guide to create, format and publish an ebook. Click here to get this helpful guide.

I have used Draft 2 Digital for my latest indie-published eBooks. Just download your ms file to the site and D2D does all the formatting for you. They're very helpful. I had a glitch with my Table of Contents and they explained what I had done and fixed the headings for me, so all I had to do was to download the file they sent me. What a relief! In 2011 when I downloaded a file to Smashwords, I spent hours and hours and days and days working on a TOC. Thank you, D2D! Click here for information about self-publishing with support from D2D.

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Traditional Publishing--Procedures for book publishing have changed so much since eBooks have come into our lives. Formatting the manuscript can be different for each publisher. The best advice is to read the guidelines from the publisher you plan to submit to and format EXACTLY how the publisher wants the ms. Your ms may not even get a look if it is not formatted according to their instructions.

If you would like templates for formatting your manuscripts, click here to download templates from the William Shunn site. This also provides a rounded word count. I haven't used them, but they are well-known in the industry.

Please leave a comment below letting us know about your experience in formatting and suggestions for other possible places for distribution of your books. Thanks!

Thanks for stopping by. 
Now hop on over to more bloggers to discover nuggets of information 
you can use in writing, publishing and marketing.
 Click here for the list of participants.

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About J.Q. Rose

Whether the story is fiction or non-fiction, J.Q. Rose is “focused on story.”  

Author J.Q. Rose

She offers readers chills, giggles and quirky characters woven within the pages of her mystery books. Her published mysteries are Deadly Undertaking, Terror on Sunshine Boulevard and Dangerous Sanctuary released by Books We Love Publishing. 

Using her storytelling skills, she provides entertainment and information in articles featured in books, magazines, newspapers, and online magazines. With her non-fiction book for girls, Girls Succeed! Stories Behind the Careers of Successful Women, she returned to her first love, writing about real people. 

Click here to visit and like the J.Q. Rose Facebook page.
Thank you!

What IS Hybrid Publishing?

Hello and welcome to the J.Q. Rose blog! 

Today we're discussing hybrid publishing and all the possibilities for publishing your book. Let's discuss this idea by leaving comments below. We'd like to hear how you publish your book(s) and your opinion on hybrid publishing. We can learn from each other's experiences. If you haven't published a book yet, what are your plans for publishing?

The Definition of Hybrid Publishing

The term, hybrid publishing, is used in two instances.

1.      Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords defines hybrid authors as “one who publishes books both with conventional publishing (traditional publishing) and who also self-publishes.”

2.      The second definition is when an author uses a company which will allow the author to pick and choose services such as book cover design, editing, formatting, distributing, etc. She Writes Press for women writers or Bookbaby are examples of companies who provide these service menus.

k    Let’s begin the discussion about hybrid publishing using Mark Coker’s definition--“one who publishes books both with conventional publishing (traditional publishing) and who also self-publishes.”

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What are the advantages of using both traditional and self-publishing?

Traditional publishers benefit from self- published authors because they can sign authors who have stretched their writing and publishing muscles to complete a book. They have learned about distribution and marketing and established an audience of readers through self-publication.

Indie authors can supplement their income because they reap a bigger royalty percentage as a self-publisher.

A word of caution: you aren’t going to make a ton of money on self-published books and an author needs to sell at least 3000 e-books for a traditional publisher to look at your work.

I come from the retail business world where the saying is you can’t sell out of an empty cart. I believe the more books you have on your amazon page for sale, the more books you will sell. If a reader likes your book, then she’ll return to find more of your writing no matter how the books have been published.

Self-publishing

The stigma attached to self-publishing books is fading due to the improved quality of the ebooks and the fact that well-known authors are doing it too! The MOST IMPORTANT advice I can give you is to write a really, really good story to attract and keep readers, edit thoroughly, and wrap it all up in an attractive professional looking book cover.

Self-publishing pros and cons

PROS

+Hone writing and marketing skills

+Build your platform (your brand)

+Royalties up to 70% on books from $2.99-$9.99 on amazon

+No printing costs for e-books-(Createspace told me to expect to spend at least $400 when publishing a print book)

CONS

-You are in charge of making all the decisions and doing all the work to get the book into hands of readers.

-You need a network of people you can depend on to shout about your book to the world.

-Most self-pubbed books sell only about 50 books.

If you are interested in learning more about self-publishing, here are two books that have been helpful to me.

Mark Coker’s Guide Smashwords Style Guide - How to Format Your Ebook FREE and Crush It on the Kindle by Michael Thomas

Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) has a lot of information on their site for formatting and uploading a Kindle ebook.

Do you have resources that have helped you? Please share them in the comments below.

Traditional publishing pros and cons

PRO

+You don’t pay for anything. The publisher takes care of cover design, editing, formatting, and distribution. 

+You will still have to do the marketing, but you have a network of authors who will help you spread the word about your book on their blogs and social media.

CON

-The publisher will take longer to get the book ready for publication. 

-Royalties are less.

Hybrid Author for you? Here are a few examples how authors use this model.

1.      Each author will have to decide for herself what is best. I started with the traditional publisher and have kept my mysteries there and then chose to self-publish non-fiction titles.

2.      Another author may want to self-publish first to get her name known, develop a network, and gather readers—all of which may attract traditional publishers who could offer a contract for your writing. Publishing a short story or information guide related to one of your books and making it permanently free is a good way to attract attention to your books.

3.      A third author may have a contract with a traditional publisher for print books, but self-publish his e-books by not giving up electronic rights to the books. It’s much cheaper to publish an e-book when compared to publishing a print book.

Whatever you decide, research any publisher first. Vanity publishers can charge you outrageous amounts to get your book out. Be sure to understand charges and services before you sign up for a vanity publisher. 

Successful hybrid author Hugh Howey offers 3 questions to help you make a decision.

1.      What are you willing to invest? (Consider both time and money)

2.      What do you want from your writing career?

3.      What should you expect?

Every author is different and will approach publishing in their own way.

Will you consider becoming a hybrid author? Why or why not? I'd love to read your thoughts on this discussion of hybrid publishing. Please leave a comment below. 

Connect online with me at these links:

J.Q.Rose blog 

Facebook 

Google+ 

J.Q.  Rose Amazon Author Page 

Books We Love Author Page 

Goodreads

Wishing you all the best in your writing career! J.Q. Rose

Every Friday join a guest author in the Readers Circle.
Meet the author. Discover great reads. Win prizes!

This Friday, July 28, mystery author Marsha R. West takes her seat in the Readers Circle. Please come on over. There's a chair in the circle reserved for you.

Click the cover to check out Crush It on the Kindle by Michael Thomas

Self-Publishing Perks by J.Q. Rose

Writing is easy...

Writing is easy...I had to laugh when I saw this quote. That's like saying self-publishing is easy. I'm here to say self-publishing isn't easy, but it is gratifying when a writer sees his words actually ready to be put into the hands of a reader either through print or digital formats.

I'm considered a hybrid author because I have traditionally published books (my mysteries) and self-published books (non-fiction.) You can find all my books at my amazon author page or My Books Tag above. Because there is a whole ocean packed with fiction books, I decided to offer my mysteries to a publisher figuring I could be found more easily. An instant network is available when joining a publishing house because authors are so supportive of each other.
Self-publishers have to find and make their own networks and it takes a lot of time to do that.

Here are the perks I found when I self-published.

8 Self-publishing Perks I like:

• Freedom to determine my book cover.
• Set deadlines and release dates.
• Play with pricing.
• Determine sales promotions and dates.
• Get data to discover if the promotions worked or not.
• Change keywords.
• Glam up the book description.
• Add to, correct, or re-write the e-book and have it online the next day

What can you add to this list? If you have a question about a perk, please ask in a comment below.

Thank you.

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I'm running a Back to School Special Pricing promotion right now on my non-fiction e-book for Middle Grade girls, Girls Succeed! Stories Behind the Careers of Successful Women.

To inspire and empower girls

Study guide for Girls Succeed

It was my privilege to interview fifteen successful women who are role models for girls. They share their passion and drive to achieve their careers. Find out the obstacles on their path to their dreams and how they overcame them. Dream big!

Click on the links below to download a sample or to purchase.

Amazon.com  

Smashwords.com 

Kobo Link

Barnes and Noble Link 

Sony Link 

The Study Guide for Girls Succeed! is also available at these booksellers.

Self-Publishing with KDP, This Week, Giveaway

The Good Neighbors
How could being good turn out to be so bad?

Self-publishing with KDP by J.Q. Rose

Yes, I tried it. I published my short story, The Good Neighbors, on Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). I am not a guru when it comes to formatting, so I was really nervous about getting it right. I learned a LOT about formatting from Mark Coker's FREE Guide to Publishing on Smashwords and reading amazon's information. I think the short story, 4000 words, was a good one for my first project because there were no chapter headings to worry about formatting for a Table of Contents.

After I published The Good Neighbor, I discovered a ridiculous, obvious error, so I re-pubbed it after fixing the error. I uploaded the story and it was live again within hours. 

Designing the book cover was difficult for me. I'm not satisfied with this one…pretty amateurish, but I wanted to use the cartoonish flamingo to clue readers into the idea that it is a funny, holiday story. It also helps readers realize the same characters are in my mystery novella, Sunshine Boulevard,  because flamingos are on the cover of the mystery e-book.  

Sunshine Boulevard
Mysterious deaths upset the Florida retirement community
interfering with their seasonal activities and turning up more than dead bodies...

 Not only did I enjoy re-visiting my characters, Jim and Gloria Hart, in my mystery/horror novella, I hope The Good Neighbors will stir up interest in reading more of my books. 

Check out my humorous story, The Good Neighbors on amazon. While you’re there, discover Sunshine Boulevard on amazon or at the Muse It Up Publishing bookstore and major online booksellers.

Have you tried self-publishing? What did you learn? Are you a reader? Do you notice who publishes the books you read? Thanks for your input.

Post originally published on my Word Press site

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Coming Up This Week

Wednesday, January 7

First Wednesday of the month means it's time for the Insecure Writers Support Group (IWSG) blog hop. Join me and a few 100 of my writerly friends as we talk about writer's insecurities.

Thursday--January 8

Romance and Mystery Authors on Writing series 

Mystery author Sara-Jayne Townsend offers her writing tips and advice. Sara's newly released title, Dead Cool: A Shara Summers Mystery, is second in the series of the Shara Summers Mysteries. Find it at amazon, MuseItUp Publishing, and all major online sellers. Please join us and enter to win a door prize!!

DEAD COOL
They were dying to be famous.
And someone was prepared to kill for it.

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Writers on the Move Host Me: Self-publishing with Smashwords

Writers on the Move will help you with your writing career.

I'm a guest blogger today on the information-packed website for writers, Writers on the Move. I am sharing my experience of self-publishing on Smashwords with the readers.  According to Smashwords information, they are the largest distributor of self-published e-books in the world. Their service is free to upload a manuscript and churn out a finished e-book. They publish the work on their site in all the formats used for reading on the many devices available now for e-reading. Then, if your e-book passes the strict guidelines for getting into the premium catalog, your words will be distributed to major online booksellers in order for you to reach more readers.

Click on over to my blog post at Writers on the Move to read about my experience and to discover this helpful site for writers.

BTW, the book I published on Smashwords is Girls Succeed: Stories Behind the Careers of Successful Women, a non-fiction e-book for middle grade girls. Take a peek at it.