As part of Black History Month we’re shining the spotlight on a few of the Black authors we’ve had the privilege of working with over the past year. These self-published authors are promoting their books in a range of unique ways. Take a look to inspire your own book promotion ideas!
Record a podcast at your launch event
Author Ray Byfield recorded a podcast episode to answer questions about his new book at his launch event. Last September, Ray hosted a socially distanced book launch to celebrate the release of This Business of Life and Business. He shared this video to his YouTube page; he posted it to his website; and, he promoted it on his Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook pages.
Creating one piece of quality content can go far when you adapt it for promoting on each of your platforms.
Pitch to journalists for a deeper connection with your audience
Arnelle M. Cruz was interviewed by The Hollywood Times to discuss her book The Survivor Story of Arnelle: A Girl from Africa. Arnelle opens up about what it was like growing up in Liberia, and she tells readers how they too can overcome adversity.
Interviews and feature stories, like Arnelle’s interview, give readers a deeper insight into your story.
When meeting with author Irony James about her upcoming inspirational novel #imatter: Unicorns Live Here, she posed the question of not only what resources were available to her as an author, but also what resources were available to her as an author of colour. Irony is passionate about being a black, female author, and wanted to connect with fellow POC creatives within the industry to share her story.
This conversation prompted a deep dive into festivals, organizations, and platforms that pride themselves on giving black authors a voice, and allowing them to make connections with other POC creatives.
We wanted to share some of our awesome findings with you!
APPLICATIONS
The StoryGraph The StoryGraph is an up and coming virtual library platform! Created by Nadia Odunayo in late 2019, The StoryGraph prides itself on being ethnically diverse with it’s authors and content, instead of focusing on only mainstream books. Similar to Goodreads, The StoryGraph provides readers with a place to find great new reads, and review their favourite books.
When signing up for the website, readers are prompted to fill out a survey discussing their reading preferences including favourite genres, favourite book characteristics, genres that they would be uninterested in, and what they don’t like about certain books. The StoryGraph uses these preference tags to recommend different books to users across the platform, so readers can request to see books that only feature POC Characters, LGTBQ Characters, books written by POC authors, etc.! Readers are also prompted to rate books based on criteria like themes, moods, pace, and the characters themselves (such as character development, how diverse the characters are, whether or not the characters are loveable, or if their flaws are on display, etc.), so the ratings can’t be skewed or biased.
Home workouts, new reading lists, and words of inspiration are among the Tellwell team’s New Year’s resolutions. Take a look!
JH, Subject Matter Expert/Publishing Consultant
New Year’s Resolution is to burn those quarantine gains and get back in shape!
Charlyne, Project Manager
My new year’s resolution is to be committed to my personal growth; physically, mentally & spiritually. This year, I want to focus on quitting toxic habits that are not good for my body. I’ll start to be more active and live a healthier lifestyle. I also aim to be more kind to me and allow myself to be vulnerable enough to accept my flaws. And, keep in mind that not everything is in my control and that it’s okay to screw up sometimes because that’s what makes us human. Lastly, I want to always look at the bright side of things, be more grateful and celebrate life everyday.
Our January author of the month, Kathleen Boucher, is an award winning author, certified lifestyle coach, a certified neurocoach, a certified stress and wellness consultant, and a registered nurse! Kathleen’s book 9 Ways to Empower Tweens #Lifeskills is a self help book for tweens, teens and adults alike! The book focuses on practical life skills. These life skills include how to have more confidence when presenting in class, the importance of work ethic, a simple writing technique to help deal with anger, and more. There are exercises at the end of each chapter that tweens can use to integrate what they’ve learned. Kathleen has been featured in many articles and blogs, on top of receiving high praise from industry professionals like IndieReader!
1. Tell us a bit about yourself
I am a registered nurse working in an Intensive Care Unit full time, an award-winning children’s author, lifestyle coach, neurocoach and stress & wellness consultant. Want to learn more about Kathleen, click here!
In 2014, I wondered if there was something else I could do to help people. I prayed for guidance. Two weeks later, I remember sitting bolt upright at 0300 am in the morning. The voice inside my head indicated that I should write children’s books. So I did.
2. What inspired you to write your book?
I want to help parents and teachers with techniques that helped me raise my children. I am told that adults find these strategies useful as well. Bonus!
3. How have your personal experiences influenced your book?
My son was very active and had a hard time focusing on homework when he was in elementary school. I did some research that showed that with intense focus, one could bend time and get more done. For example, have you ever crammed for an exam and have gotten a lot of studying done?
Before we started his homework I made sure my son was rested. The idea was for him to do his least favorite subject first, and get it out of the way. I put a timer at the end of the table and made it fun by seeing how much he could get done in five minutes. Once he finished what he disliked doing, the rest of the homework flowed because he was focusing on subjects he loved.
4. What were some of the more significant lessons you learned writing and publishing a book?
Write what inspires you.
The first draft is only the beginning. Don’t be afraid of rewrites. In fact, expect to do more than one rewrite.
Writing an outline really helped organize my thoughts. Figure out what works for you.
Take the time to create a rapport with an illustrator so that he or she understands your vision. Then allow them the creative freedom to be fabulous.
Accept constructive criticism with grace. Step back and look at your work from a different perspective. The new angle may make your work better.
Categories and keywords are the words and phrases used by online retailers such as Amazon or Indigo to help categorize your book among similar titles, similar to how a bookstore shelves books with others of the same genre. This is the metadata linked to your online book listing.
Choosing relevant keywords and categories will help readers interested in the subject matter to find your book among similar titles when searching online retailers, which can help you sell more books.
Choosing Categories
METHOD 1
Selecting your categories can be as simple as scrolling through the available categories (or BISAC codes) and picking the ones that most closely fit your book’s content.
Pick categories that actually match your book’s content.
Well, I have a busy life! I write historical fiction, I run a business and I work as a physiotherapist. I was born in Sussex, England, brought up in Surrey and now live in Sydney, Australia. I was formerly a professional archaeologist – being graduate of the University of York, and having worked at the Museum of London in the late 1980s and early 1990s; I was also a tour guide at the British Museum.
I have been lucky enough to have enjoyed a few careers. I qualified as a physiotherapist in London in 1998. Whilst studying for my physio degree, I worked as a chef for four years at the Covent Garden Brasserie, which is now the site of the west end apple store! I moved to Australia in 2000, the year of the Sydney Olympics; thinking that it would be a temporary move, but I have been here ever since. Currently, I have my own holistic Physiotherapy and Wellness centre (Excel Physiotherapy and Wellness) in Sydney.
I live in Elizabeth Bay, which is in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, and I love it here. I have a partner and a dog. I love getting away from town though for ocean swimming, bushwalking and rock climbing. I’m passionate about history, archaeology and philosophy and I love the variety of media forms available now – books, audio, podcasts. Reading history and archaeology is my main relaxation and my escape.
What inspired you to write your book?
I’ve always been a writer – be it poetry, short stories, memoir, health and wellness or just letters to the press. I had been writing a lot before I discovered my character; the day I found him was a revelation and I decided that I just had to write about him.
That said, I discovered Juan Luis Vives by mistake. I’d never heard of him until I gave a Spanish friend in Australia a book about exiles from Spain and I thumbed through it first and found out about this incredible man.
His life-story became my inspiration. It then became my mission to bring him back into the light and writing a novel rather than a non-fiction book allowed me to give him a human voice. As a Spanish Jew, he had to hold so much back in his academic writing and yet you can still feel the struggles that he endured. By writing in an intimate diary format, I could give the man himself a voice. That was a privilege, because Vives, forgotten by the mainstream, really contributed to making the world a better place.
Who is Juan Luis Vives and how did you become interested in his story?
Juan Luis Vives was born to a family of Spanish Jews in Valencia in 1492. His family were faced with an excruciating choice: leave Spain permanently or stay and convert to Catholicism. The family decided to stay and convert – a decision that they would later come to regret – as one-by-one they were ‘picked-off,’ by the Spanish Inquisition, for the crime of ‘Judaising.’ He left Spain at the age of sixteen – never to return for fear of the Inquisition. He moved to Paris and then to Flanders, and he eventually came to the English (Tudor) Court of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. There he became tutor to Princess Mary and he became closely acquainted with the well-known characters of the English court such as Thomas More, Anne Boleyn and Cardinal Wolsey.
Vives spoke about ideas that were quite revolutionary in the 1520s. He was a great scholar, writer and teacher. His ideas encompassed the rights and equality of women, the necessity for peace over war – at all costs – and the cessation of sedition, oppression and persecution. He advocated for state-funded schools, skill-training and hospitals for all; regardless of class. Vives hated lofty, pretentious academic speech. He studied his subjects closely, and he spoke about syndromes such as ‘post-traumatic stress disorder,’ and addiction to such an extent that he has been named the Godfather of Psychoanalysis (Zilboorg, 1941). He also wrote about care of the animals – that they experienced emotions and had memories – quite revolutionary for his day.
All the while, he was struggling with great internal conflict. He was always keeping one step ahead of the Spanish Inquisition and staying out of danger himself. He was also trying to help his family and his people, who were still in Spain.
I have created this educational video for YouTube to explain, in greater detail and depth, the man who was Juan Luis Vives.
If Tellwell was a clinic, a publishing consultant would be the doctor. First, we ‘assess’ your needs as an author and the requirements of your book project. Second, we ‘diagnose’ and match your project to a set of services that we offer. Thirdly, we ‘prescribe’ and recommend the most fitting set of services that would help accomplish your publishing goals and provide solutions to your author needs. And lastly, we ‘educate’ and impart our knowledge to you as experts in the field of self-publishing, all for the ultimate goal of giving you a positive and pleasant journey towards becoming a published author.
2. What do you enjoy most about working with authors?
Apart from the sense of triumph, I feel after seeing my authors achieve their life-long dream of publishing their book, it would be the process itself – the consultation. Every conversation is both a surprise and a learning experience. You never know who you’re talking to next and their story. You can go from smiling ear-to-ear after hearing a sweet coming-of-age novel to getting your mind blown by a Chinese government-taking-over-the-world conspiracy story. Either way, it is never a bore!
3. What advice do you have for authors considering self-publishing their book?
Nothing beats the sense of relief as a result of an informed decision. That’s why I always tell my authors to spend time gathering information about the self-publishing industry. Ask questions, read literature and never hesitate to reach out to a publishing consultant. Above all, I always tell my authors to believe and have faith in themselves and in what they have written.
4. What is one question you encourage authors to ask any assisted self-publishing company they are considering working with?
I encourage authors to ask the company what their royalty structure looks and to break it down in detail. Ask, dissect and scrutinize even the smallest details of a company’s royalty structure. This will help you understand and realize what the company has to offer you in terms of returns in the long run.
Here is a selection of books published by Tellwell featuring spooky ghost stories, paranormal creatures and mystical adventures. Plus, learn the truth about Dracula from Bram Stoker himself.
Drafts of Dracula
by Bram Stoker
A decade after making Bram Stoker’s Notes for Dracula available to the public, Robert Eighteen-Bisang and Elizabeth Miller reach a new plateau with this revised and updated version of their groundbreaking work. – J. Gordon Melton, The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead.
Robert Eighteen-Bisang and Elizabeth Miller’s Drafts of Dracula builds upon their pioneering work on Bram Stoker’s notes to give us new insights into Stoker’s typescript, his play of 1897, and the mystery of Dracula’s Guest. – The London Library
Wicked Night & Unusual Night
by Evi Rhodes
Follow the journey of a strong, independent, yet caring woman as she navigates the supernatural world she is thrust into. Gwen steps out of a dysfunctional family life and into a world filled with danger she never realized lives at every turn, fiery passion, and a love that is ever binding. How will she handle her strange new surroundings as well as the man with the intense and overbearing personality who threatens to destroy the emotional barriers around her heart?
Wicked, the next in line to become the vampire king, is caught off guard when he grudgingly agrees to take on a charge, something he never wanted to do. He is unsure how to handle this fierce and vibrant woman with the unsettling green eyes. It doesn’t take long for them to clash, but will it end passionately or burn down around them?
A rare five-star review from IndieReader to Tellwell author Graham Forlonge for his book In One Lifetime. Congratulations Graham! Click here to read the full review.
“Graham Forlonge’s memoir IN ONE LIFETIME is an expansively honest and brutally detailed submersion into aspects of trauma that left the author with a lifelong case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and is most touching when detailing his healing process.” C.S. Holmes for IndieReader
