Book Publishing

March 31 2019

Today I am addressing the topic of Manuscript editing.

After being in the book publishing business for many years now, I see one mistake made by authors over and over. And that is not getting their book edited by a professional. Often times, they think that having a friend or two read it is sufficient. However, unless those friends are professional proofreaders or book editors, this will not improve the quality of your writing.

In many cases, authors have submitted manuscripts that have a great storyline, but they fail to hit the mark in quality structure and this can hurt their reviews. It also makes it difficult for the publisher to market the book for professional reviews.

Your manuscript must be as close to perfection as possible. If not, the overly abusive critics on Amazon, the largest book distributor, will rip your book apart in reviews, and this will dramatically decrease sales. The reviews are so brutal on Amazon that authors are warned not to take them to heart. However, you need to avoid getting bad reviews in any way you can.

If you want to publish a high-quality book, whether it is self-published or you are planning to go the old school route of attempting to secure an agent that might land you a contract with one of the large publishing houses, you must have your manuscript professionally edited.

There are two kinds of editing you can choose from:

1) COPY EDITING:

A basic word-by-word edit that addresses grammar, usage, and consistency issues.

Check for typographical errors, spelling errors, and consistency aspects, correction of grammatical and linguistic errors, attention to punctuations.
A brief review to ensure accurate and consistent usage.
Editing time: 8 to 10 business days

*Note: This is included in our publishing packages of Gold or higher.

2) LINE EDITING:

A more intensive structural edit that focuses on the finer aspects of language—the flow of ideas, transition elements, tone, and style. May require rewriting a sentence or an entire paragraph to make sure the whole thought is portrayed properly.

Correction of awkward constructions and suggestions to make sentences crisper and tighter by fixing redundancy.
Review of key aspects of the manuscript—the narrative, vocabulary, structure, characterization, style, and development.
Editor’s notes and overall comments.
Editing time: 2 to 4 weeks depending on the word count

*Note: This is not included in any of the packages except the Diamond Package.

Empire Publishing performs two rigorous rounds of editing. The first is mechanical using academic software and then personally by editors with a Degree in English/Literature.

Our editors will not change your original manuscript but will make recommendations for suggested corrections. The author receives these suggested edits via “track changes” in an edited version Microsoft Word file. We recommend submitting your manuscript as a Word 2007 for best results. It is your responsibility to accept or reject the editor’s recommendations and make those changes to your manuscript. Our goal is not to alter your story or voice, but to enhance it for the better.

The estimated time frame for most manuscripts on an average is approximately a week to two weeks depending on length and complexity.

Empire Publishing is here to help your book be as successful as possible. So please, do your book a favor and have it professionally edited.

~Sentiments from The Team at Empire Publishing

To purchase the service of editing click here: EDIT MY BOOK

February 28 2019

By Francesca Maria, Author Rep at Empire Publishing (1)

The 6 Most Important Investments for the Self-published Author…

Where should new authors put their money?

Everything good comes at a price, either through time or money. When you invest your time to write a book, then you also must invest money to ensure it’s a success. Here are the 6 places a new author should invest in their book.

Editing. No matter what, professional editing is the best investment for any book. Every single successful self-published book has been worked over by an editing pro, without exception.
Cover design. Give your idea to the pro’s who do professional cover design. Empire Publishing has in-house professional graphic artists who specialize in cover design. You can write the greatest book since Don Quixote, but if it doesn’t have an eye-catching cover, nobody will ever discover the contents of your book.
Book formatting. A close second to cover design, when it comes to important investments of your book. This is when it is better for a self-published author to hire the services of a professional literary service who specializes in formatting books for print and digital books. All of Empire Publishing’s packages include appropriate formatting for their books genre.
Producing printed books and eBooks. Printed books remain the dominant format, and it’s too easy and inexpensive not to invest in eBooks as well. All of Empire Publishing’s packages come with an eBook!
Maximizing distribution. Having your book available on Amazon isn’t good enough for most self-published authors. Using an aggregator like Empire Publishing can put your book and/or book link in dozens of the leading bookstores and book-selling websites around the world. Such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, etc…
Marketing. This is the part of the publishing process that most writers hate, so investing in it is doubly important. For writers who are not marketing-inclined, spending money on consultations or hiring someone to market your book can make a huge difference in sales.

Side Note: Audiobooks are a great innovation, and with the rise in ownership of smart speakers like Amazon’s Echo or Google Home, they’ll continue to increase in prominence. Still, they remain a poor investment for new and independent authors. Until you garner a major following, you’re better off focusing on the more foundational aspects of publishing and promotion that will bring a higher return on your investment. Your book is your business, treat it like you would treat a storefront business. Polish it, promote it, advertise it, be proud of it.

For more information about book publishing and marketing see our other blog posts at https://empirepublishingblog.wordpress.com/

Happy Book Writing!

From Francesca@EmpireBookPublishing.com

February 25 2019

Congratulations – you’ve recently put the finishing touches on your first book and now it published on Amazon and hopefully Barnes & Noble! Yay! Believe it or not, that is a rare accomplishment that not many people can claim. If you thought writing your book was hard work, brace yourself for the next necessary phase: marketing your book.

The tremendous recent changes to the publishing industry have been a double-edged sword: they offer greater opportunities for self-published authors but they bring a lot more competition. No matter how great your cover is and no matter how great the content is – a book will never sell itself. You and you alone are going to have to be creative if you want to boost your sales. One way to do it is through effective use of social media. So how do you use social media to promote your book?

Here are seven social media marketing “musts” for first-time authors.

1. Create great Social Media Posts with Quality Content

You put in a lot of time and energy to ensure your book is of the best it can be, and you’must match that quality and make your social media content stellar. Your audience wants/needs distilled information presented clearly and directly. Since you are now an author, you can claim a degree of expertise in your chosen subject. Use that expertise to make every Facebook post, Instagram Post, LinkedIn article, and Tweet a highly engaging experience. Provide tips and information your readers won’t find anywhere else, and do it in a concise fashion. If you have written a Romance Novel, instead of providing tips you provide a juicy piece from your book… get people slobbering on themselves and wanting to know more. Ask questions about what readers are looking for in your genre.

2. Investigate new media

Facebook and Twitter are among the top social media platforms, but that’s not to say you should focus on them to the exclusion of all else. Pinterest, Instagram, and Vine are all good options too. Tumblr can also be a great place for Authors to get engagement with readers. You should make a “page” on Facebook just for your book. Name the page the Title of your book. That way you are easy to find. And you can use that as your fan page. Do not try and do them all – all at once, though. Engage one at a time, with a clear strategy for each, and you can effectively increase your reach. Consider writing short blog posts with links to your book. Posting your blog posts on Social Media is a way to say a lot more to your audience. One place I always direct new authors to is Good Reads. Go on there and claim your book and develop your Author Profile. Invite friends to Good Reads and connect your Good Reads account to your Facebook page. This is a form of cross-marketing that works really good. Yes initially it takes some time to do all of this, but you can accomplish all of this in just 4 hours a week. And your book deserves 4 hours a week of dedication to getting it seen. In only 90 days you will see your ranking get higher on Amazon and your book sales will elevate.

3. Respond to each comment

The last thing a writer has time to do is sit on their social media pages waiting to instantly jump to reply to every comment. So if you have created a “Book Page” on Facebook, you can have a couple of admins to help respond to comments or messages. Always remember the “social” element of social media. Respond to each and every comment, whether positive or negative. Your goal is to develop a conversation and an ongoing relationship with your followers. Even if you’re simply expressing gratitude for someone taking the time to comment, you’re doing yourself, and your book, a big favor.

4. Connect with other authors

Be sure to connect with authors in the realm or genre of your book. Respond to some of their posts and start to develop a relationship. You can gain exposure this way, and you never know what a fellow author might be able to assist you with. You can also exchange reviews with other authors. Getting reviews is very important, and sometimes you need some to get started. Offer a free Kindle download to your readers and other authors and politely ask for a review.

5. Offer an inside look at your book

Consider providing a link to your website (if you do not have one refer to number 6 below) from your social media accounts where a follower can download an inside look at your actual book – the first chapter, for example. It’s a great move that can ultimately improve your sales. You just need to put a chapter in a PDF format so they can download it. Social media is an interactive format, meaning you should be trying to get your readers involved.

Social media marketing for writers is serious business, and there’s a good bit of work involved if you’re going to get it right. If you start to develop a solid audience and then make a misstep, you’ve just wasted valuable time and energy. Manage your schedule as best you can, giving 4 hours a week of your time to devote to your social media marketing and improve your book sales. You can break that into 1 hour 4 times a week or 2 hours twice a week. The first 90 days is critical to stay consistent. After that, you can reduce to 3 hours a week. Now you need to consider writing book two. (See number 7 below).

6. Develop your Author Central Page on KDP

If you are a self-published author, then you have a KDP account. In your KDP go search and type in “Author Central” sign up and develop that page. Even if you have a website, you can use this Author Central link on all your social media posts. This is a great way to tell readers more about yourself, add pictures and videos and you can also attach your blogs RSS feed to your Author Central page. At Author Central, you can share the most up-to-date information about yourself and your works with millions of readers. Learn more See timely sales data for free, including sales trends over time and a map that shows where in the US your books are selling.

7. Start thinking about writing your second book

Now that you have established some fans from book 1, this is a great time to get them involved with your second book before it is even published. You can ask questions like “What is a good name for my 19th Century European Princess in my upcoming book?” Or, “should I make my next book a little sexier?” Start giving little exciting clues about the plot of your next book on Social Media. This will set you for increased sales when you do your next book launch and it will entice people to want to buy your first book so they can start a collection of your books. The second book says to people, “I am an established Author” and this gives you far more credibility as an author. Think of a songwriter, we make jokes about the one hit wonder, it hit the charts but they never got another song out there. Don’t be a “One Book Wonder” go for the whole package and become a well known respected author.

Good luck and happy bookselling!

If you want someone to help you get everything all set up, please contact us, we are here to help!

Francesca@empirebookpublishing.com

January 30 2019

It goes without saying that unless you are Dr.Oz or a well-known doctor or speaker on the topic of health and natural healing, that if you write a book about this topic, it is a hard sell. However, there are ways to get your book the attention it deserves. And increase the sales of your book, and gain notoriety in the book selling world.

Man Authors have done extensive research on certain topics in regards to health and body, natural cures for disease or holistic health, and their books have a wealth of information that would be or could be life-saving information for thousands of people. But, how do you know which book to buy? How does an Author get in front of the right people at the right time?

I wrote a book called “A Mother’s Wisdom, Natural Healing Remedies, Faith, and Wellness” and I quickly learned that just having my book on Amazon, and Barnes & Noble was not enough. I did some Social Media posts and it helped a little tiny bit. I published a couple of chapters on my personal blog, and that helped a little tiny bit, and then I started looking into how to sell books of this genre. I learned from experience, that it takes some fine tuning, using the right keywords and doing the promotions in the right places.

There are some steps that an Author needs to take after they publish their book, depending on how many books they want to sell will depend on which strategies to use.

If you contact the book marketing people with Empire Publishing, you can get the ball rolling pretty fast. Expert advice and top notch customer service with the combination of seeing your book sales rise each month is a winning combo!

If you have a book in the Health and Body genre and want to know how to increase books sales, please do not hesitate to make the call. It will be the best choice you can make for your book.

Go here now: MARKETING ASSISTANT

The price is awesome, only $299.00 and you get so much more than you could imagine. Because you not only get the help you need but you get one on one personal training that you will be able to use every month.

Happy Book Selling!

For more tips on book publishing or bookselling visit https://empirepublishingblog.wordpress.com/

December 13 2018

A SMART CHOICE

There is a hurdle that Authors come upon when it comes to making royalties and doing promotions for book sales. The profit an Author makes off of one book sold on AMAZON can be on average, between $1.00 and $8.00 per book depending on what the selling price of the book is and the wholesale cost of printing it.

There are many ways to market a book, some cost more money and some marketing strategies do well for one book while another Author using the same strategy for their book of a different genre will not work as well for their book. There is no perfect formula for selling a million books. But there are some sure-fire ways you can increase your sales. While I am not going to address all of those options in this post, you can hop over to a page I wrote before and gain a lot of information there. Click on this Book Marketing Link and it will take you there. But first, keep reading for the best thing you can do if you want to publish a book, but are overwhelmed with the options and the prices of using a professional Self-Publishing Company.

A New Strategy – Guaranteed – Better For Publishing and Making Money!

The initial cost of publishing can range dramatically, depending on your word count, the level of editing, and if you choose a package that includes marketing. The range is from $299.00 to $10,000.00 which means the money going out for publishing can directly affect how much you have to put towards marketing. But the Author is in a catch of 22 because in order to sell more books you need to market the heck out it, especially as a new release.

Empire Publishing has teamed up with PayPal Credit, which will allow an Author to publish their book and not have to pay off the publishing package for 6 months. It takes on Average 6 to 8 weeks from the time of submission of your manuscript to the time of the book going live on Amazon. Then, Amazon does not pay Royalties for another 60 to 90 days after going live. So the Author is out a lot of money before they ever make one penny.

Allowing this payment plan option to pay off in 6 months, gives the Author the benefit of having a book published and Royalty payments already being deposited to their bank account before they ever have to pay off the publishing package means that they can do better promotions and sell a lot more books.

You can purchase Publishing packages, Marketing Packages, Services or anything you want or need all with our Finance Option directly from the Empire Publishing Website. Simply click on the Payment Plan Credit Link on the product or service you want or need for your book and we start the process as soon as you send over the manuscript.

Now that is the deal of the century!

Start your fingers to typing! You have a book to publish!

Other Good information about Book Publishing can be found here “The Book that Never Lived”