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Chart Those Book Sales

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As I am an engineer, an analytical guy, and someone who loves lists and numbers, the easiest and most effective way for me to keep track of my progress towards my goals of selling 200 copies of  my children’s book  Frankenstein’s Science Project , is by creating spreadsheets. Monitoring your progress in the 2 nd  M in the  DREAMS Cycle ™ .    For the selling of Frankenstein’s Science Project, I actually created four spreadsheets.  You can follow the link to actual information I captured.   1)  Expenses and  Revenues   This spreadsheet captures the money I spend on selling the book and the revenues I make. Capturing this information is not only an indication of the progress on the sales, but it will be very useful come tax time. This spreadsheet has two tabs, one for expenses and one for revenues. Every time I have an expense, I write the date, the expense, the vendor and an explanation. I do the same for the “revenues” tab but instead of a vendor, I capture the sourc
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Book Launch Party to Reach the Stars

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The masterpiece of literature that you just published won’t move off the shelf by itself. You need to let the world know that it is out there. This is where the book launch party comes into play; it was the first major action I undertook to reach my goal of selling 200 copies of my book , Frankenstein’s Science Project . “Moving forward” on actions identified in your action plan represents the first M in the DREAMS Cycle ™ as discussed in previous posts. Publicist, publishers and marketers will tell you that the book launch is the culmination of a sustained effort to market your book before it is available for broad distribution. The Book Launch Party is that fun event that celebrates your accomplishment of having published your book. It is part of a publicity campaign. The book launch party for an author is a bit like a wedding party. You invite all your friends and family to celebrate a major achievement. Here are a couple articles on book launch parties: Writer’s Digest
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Reading Your Writing

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Photo by   Pixabay  from  Pexels When I joined the Ottawa Independent Writers (OIW) in the fall of 2016, I had never heard of a book reading. A few months later, the OIW advertised that they would have a poem reading at the Christmas Party. I am not a poet and I was not available the day of the party, so I missed out on the readings. The next spring, I participated in the OIW Writer’s Workshop. It was held in the beautiful village of Westport, Ontario, right by the lake. During the workshop, there was an evening dedicated to readings. This would be my first reading ever. I selected a flash fiction story, Take It Away Sam , that I had written the previous year and that was published online on the Flash Fiction Press website. When it was my turn to read, I was surprised at how nervous I was. I regularly present in front of audiences of up to 100 for my job, but this was a new context and I doubted my writing and delivery skills. My nervousness brought out some old habits of mi
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Selling Your Self-Published Book to Family and Friends

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Photo by Lisa Fotio on Pexel Selling your self-published book to your family and friends sounds so easy. Just ask your spouse, kids, parents, uncles and aunts, and close friends to buy your masterpiece. In reality, I found this more challenging than I expected. As I am not selling my book to make money and I have a well-paying job, I found it difficult to ask my family and friends to purchase a book from me. Based on my goal of selling 200 copies of my children’s book , Frankenstein’sScience Project , my action plan included approaching my family members and friends to distribute copies of my book. The first person I approached was actually the illustrator for the book, Alex Bjelica . He was not really a friend, but a working colleague on the book. After my book was officially published in January 2018 through Lulu , I sent Alex a free copy of the book. He had done such a wonderful job on the illustrations, that he deserved a copy. When he received his copy, he thought th
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Pricing Your Self-Published Book

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  Photo by  rawpixel.com  from  Pexels I published my book, Frankenstein’s Science Project , through the Lulu platform . I have used it in the past for a running manual, Plan on Running Your Best , and a running memoir, Take 10 and Reach the Boston Marathon . Lulu has many advantages such as reasonable prices for publishing your book, wide international distribution, you control the publishing and it is pretty easy to use. When I was ready to publish, I had to decide on the price of my book. There were quite a few elements I needed to consider. The first element was the cost of printing and shipping. My book is a softcover children’s chapter book of 136 pages with one black and white illustration for each of the 19 chapters. The dimensions are A5 (14.8x21.0 cm or 5.83x8.26 in). The printing cost from Lulu is $5.78 per book. Shipping varies by the number of copies; if you only ship one book it would cost about $5. Lulu often offers rebates of up to 20% and they sometimes
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What It Takes To Sell Your Book

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 https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-reading-book-256455/ My goals for selling my self-published book, Frankenstein’s Science Project , have now been set, as described in a previous post : I will sell 200 copies of Frankenstein’s Science Project within 2 years of the published date. I will get 25 reviews of Frankenstein’s Science Project on Amazon, Goodreads or Google Books within 2 years of the published date. Now, I need to determine what it takes to sell a book and to get reviews. This is the first “A” in the DREAMS Cycle ™ which stands for Acquire Knowledge. To gain insight, I searched the web, read blogs, watched YouTube videos and joined the Ottawa Independent Writers . Here is a list of wonderful resources: How to Promote and Sell Your Self-Published Book 5 Things This Self-Published Author Did to Sell Over 20,000 Books With Almost No Money 7 Book Marketing Lessons for the Self-Published Author I Wrote A Book – But It Won’t Sell – Here’s How T
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SMART Selling Your Book

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Photo by icon0.com from Pexels Once you captured your dreams for selling your self-published book and you know why you want to sell that masterpiece, you need to set a goal. To be realistic in your expectations, you will want a thorough understand of where you are currently in your life. This is where the Dice of Life and the 5 L’s of Life can be useful as presented in a previous blog post. Now is time to explore your dreams and establish your goal. Explore Your Dreams Exploring your dreams and desires corresponds to the first E in the DREAMS Cycle ™ . This involves examining your dreams and how they fit with your purpose. This will assist in determining what you want to achieve. My dreams for selling my book were the following: Become rich. Become a bestselling author. Get positive reviews of my books in newspapers, magazines, television and social media. Become rich To me, becoming rich means earning a million dollars. This comes from my yo
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