These are a few tips I have discovered for anyone who wants to make any money from writing fiction novels.
1. Business
– It is handy to keep track of the money you spend on paper, Tipp-Ex, pens, printer ink, printers, writing software ownership or membership fees, website ownership costs, editors fees, cover art charges, ISBN costs, publication fees, publicity costs, printing fees.
– Also, if you are lucky enough to publish into a market place then the amount of money you make on sales of each book and how many you have to sell to break even.
– I do keep a spreadsheet of the expenses and revenue.
2. Social Media
– Just having a Facebook, Twitter, Google+, a dedicated website, Path, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tumblr, iAuthor account and publishing things to these accounts is not enough.
– You need to interact with people with hashtags: #crimefiction #noir #femalesleuths #hardboileddetective #writer #writing #reader That you identify as being applicable. Attract your audience.
– It would be excellent if you could make YouTube videos about interesting things and make them humorous as people would rather watch an amusing video for a few minutes than read a long paragraph or pages of writing (I’m looking to get into this at some point with a YouTube page).
3. Marketing
– There are two types of marketing, Product Promotion and Brand Promotion.
– Product Promotion – This is the novel you are writing and should be in place just before you have finished the book and it is available for sale.
– Brand Promotion – This is yourself and your writing style and genre, or genres in which you write. This promotion should be ongoing all the time. Every day you should be using your website and Social Media to promote who you are and the subject of your novel to find people who are interested in that genre and get them excited about what you write. After all your job is to manipulate their imagination and take them to places that they will enjoy.
4. Graphic Design
– The cover of a book is very, very important and don’t think you can design it yourself and catch the passerby’s eye enough to buy the novel. You need to go to a cover art designer for the cover of your book, be it a paperback or an E-book.
5. Web Design
– There are some website design brands; I have chosen WordPress as you can choose from many website designs, link to all the social media sites and have regular visitors and their email addresses. You also have how many views per day your site is getting; which country the viewer came from and what link or search engine they used to arrive at your website.
– Be careful about copyright and not use images, sounds or videos from an unknown source, as you may infringe copyright laws.
Crime Fiction: Hardboiled Detective 