Hey Guys - 

We just wanted to reach out to you today to highlight and give you a couple of BRP titles to check out.

Our author for the day - Stacey Darlington - Davis is one of our promising writers for young people. She has penned four fantastic books, 3 specifically for young children and 1 for Tween - Teen and Adult audiences. 

First up - Fourteen Snakes by Stacey Darlington - David  $12.00

Is she a Goddess? Or a Monster? It's hard enough having fourteen snakes for hair, now Asudem has the frightening new ability to turn living things to stone with her eyes. Orphaned at birth, Asudem sets out on a mission to seek her family history and find a way to stop her deadly new power. Along with her two best friends, Pretal the Lion Goddess and Drella the Goddess of Vanity, the trio travels the terrifying region of lower Olympus. There they must battle and outwit some of the Greek mythologies most dangerous creatures. In the end, will it be worth knowing the truth?

The BRP online purchase link - 

https://www.breakingruleswritingcompetitions.com/store/p90/Fourteen_Snakes_by_Stacey_Darlington.html

Next is A Cat Named Tweet 

By S. Darlington - Davis - $12.00

This is the adventure of a lonely house-cat named Tweet. His human is busy and rarely home so Tweet spends his days watching the outside cats play. He imagines their lives on the other side of the brick wall behind his house. What a free and glamorous life they must have! Tweet soon learns that things are not always as they seem. He sneaks out one night and discovers the dark alley beyond the wall. He meets a mean cat named Milo as well as a glaring of hungry strays that would gladly trade places with Tweet. Colorful illustrations frame a fun to read story told in rhyme. A Cat Named Tweet, shows valuable lessons as it promotes sharing, gratitude and brings to mind the reality of the homeless cat population.

BRP online purchasing link -https://www.breakingruleswritingcompetitions.com/store/p95/A_Cat_Named_Tweet_By_S._Darlington_Davis.html



Check out the Breaking Rules Publishing website at www.breakingruleswritingcompetitions.com to see more of Stacey's books as well as order these two fantastic books. 

Breaking Rules Publishing is currently accepting new submissions - 

if you're publish ready - contact us at this email - breakingrulespublishing@gmail.com

www.breakingruleswritingcompetitions.com

20 Easy Marketing Tips That Will Take You Just 5 Mins

Ways to promote a book in only a few minutes

Hey Guys - As you know learning how to market a book is one of the challenging tasks in the publishing process, but it doesn’t need to take hours of your time.

However, it is worth taking a moment to recap and define what it means.

In brief, any action you take to bring your book to the notice of potential readers is of high value. Whether it be an expensive advertising campaign or a simple social media post, the aim is exactly the same.

It is to encourage as many people as possible to consider your book, but importantly, it is not a means of finding people to buy your book.

Think of it this way. Attracting social media followers is all about finding people, connecting, and then communicating. It’s a very slow and time-consuming process.

Online marketing or promoting your book is about getting your book out to the world in as many ways as possible and to as many people and places as possible. The more eyes you can attract to your book, the better your chances of making book sales.

Ideally, the various means you use to do this should be both time and cost-effective, as well as having a long-lasting effect.

With these goals in mind, here are 20 ways to help your book sales that will each only take around ten minutes for you to do. 

Before we offer you the typical ways to market yourself and your book we are going to suggest that you place an add in The Scribe - the Breaking Rules Publishing online and hard copy magazine.

Also - Breaking Rules Publishing is currently accepting manuscript submissions. Breaking Rules works with our authors to help market them and their books. Look to the Breaking Rules Publishing website at www.breakingruleswritingcompetitions.com for additional information.Last

Now for the real work - 

1. Re-Post one of your 5-star book reviews

You can add your review on Facebook and Twitter along with your book cover image and pin it to the top of your feed so every visitor will see it – for weeks.

To get the link to your review on Amazon, go to the review, and click the permalink button. Then copy this address from your browser.

2. Open a Pinterest account

Pinterest helps you to gain image search traffic to your site or blog. It’s an ideal social network for your book covers.

3. Add a comment on a popular book blog

Look for articles on three high traffic book blogs and post a comment.

You’d be surprised how many people click on comment links, which will lead readers to your profile, author website or blog.

It’s a bit like a book tour, but it is much easier and quicker for you.

4. Add a comment to a newspaper article

Look for a major newspaper lifestyle article. Make sure it is a non-topical article though. Avoid politics! Once again, your profile link as a published author will be valuable in gaining some traffic to your blog and books.

5. Check your author bio again on your website - don't have one? GET ONE!

Carefully read your bio or profile on your social media sites. Has it been exactly the same for a very long time? Does it need refreshing to make it more appealing to readers? Can you improve it? I am sure you can.

Authors hate writing bios, and would much prefer to write a book instead. But, it’s a task that has to be done.

If it has been a while since your book launch, perhaps you could check your book trailer again too and improve it.

6. Publish to Medium

Open an account on Medium and re-publish your best-performing blog posts.

It’s a very easy process to import articles from your blog and Medium can help you gain a lot of new readers. Remember to put a link at the end of the article to your author website.

7. Do you have a Facebook - Twitter - LinkedIn - Instagram pages?

If not, create one and then invest a little money in gaining Facebook Likes for your page.

On average it costs about 8 to 15 cents per Like. That’s cheap, and also a wise long-term investment to get people to read your book as Facebookers very rarely unlike a page.

8. Open a short URL account

You can open an account on bit.ly and shorten all your commonly used book links so they look far more attractive when you post them on social media or add links to your blog posts or comments.

Tip! You can edit these short links to reflect a little of your book title or author name.

With bit.ly you can change this very ugly book link:
https://www.amazon.com/One-Last-Love-never-late-ebook/dp/B007L5C424/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1499424937&sr=8-16&keywords=one+last+love

To this attractive and meaningful link:
http://bit.ly/onelastlove

Which one do you think will work better and attract more clicks?

 9. Run an ad

You can run ads on Facebook or on Amazon if you are enrolled in KDP Select. But with either, be prudent and stay within your budget.

10. Place an ad on your blog

Find your three best-performing blog articles and place your book cover image as a text-wrapped ad, with a link to Amazon, or use a universal link to all your book retailers.

11. Find three high traffic book, writing or publishing blogs and write an article

Make contact and ask if you can write an article for them.

Many sites have a Write For Us or guest posting page, so keep your eyes open for opportunities to promote your writing to a much wider audience.

Tip! In fact, some writers don’t even bother with having their own blog, because having articles published on popular sites brings far more traffic, readers and importantly, social shares.

12. Set up a free ebook promotion

It’s a lottery, but hopefully, someone will read your free Kindle books and be kind enough to post a review. Online book clubs often use free ebooks, so it’s worth a try.

On this point, I discovered I had a new book review today, which I think came by way of a free Kindle copy of an ebook I last offered for free over a year ago. Now that is long-term book promotion!

13. Is your book cover absolutely fabulous and eye-catching?

Now, be brutally honest with yourself, or better, ask people what they think. If you don’t have a top-shelf killer book cover, take a few minutes to search for a reputable book cover designer and get one.

14. Buy affordable long-term book promotion

Whizbuzz Books offers one year of book promotion for only $49.00. There are many book promotion sites offering different book promotion services.

15. Read an article about SEO

Read an article about SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and put one or two ideas into practice for your blog or website.

Search engine traffic is by far the best way to attract new potential readers and book buyers, day in and day out.

16. Check your book metadata (SEO for books)

Check your keywords and categories for your book on Amazon KDP or any other online retailer you use.

Can you make a few small changes to your categories or keywords that would help readers find your book more easily?

17. Is your book in KDP Select?

If your book in not enrolled in KDP Select, why not try it for 3 months to see if you can attract Kindle Unlimited readers.

Or, if you have been in KDP Select for quite some time, perhaps try open publishing for a while.

18. Change your book price

Is your book too expensive, or even perhaps, too cheap? Try changing the price for a few weeks.

19. Use the Amazon book widget

Add Amazon’s embedded book widget on your website or blog. It looks fantastic and gives visitors a chance to read a preview of your book and buy it, directly on your site. It is one of the best widgets to help you sell books.

20. Create your Amazon author page

Every bestselling author has one. If you haven’t done so yet, create your author page on Amazon Author Central. You can add your blog feed, change and improve the look of your book descriptions, add editorial reviews and much more.

An Amazon Central author page is a must-have promotion tool.

Tip! You can create your author pages on Amazon US, Amazon UK and Amazon Germany.

Bonus Tip – Update your email signature

You use email a lot or have an email list, this is as close to word of mouth advertising as you can get.

Add your, blog, Amazon Author page or even a thumbnail or your book cover to your email signature.

Breaking Rules Publishing Monthly Book Club

Check out the new Breaking Rules Publishing Book Of The Month Club on our website - www.breakingruleswritingcompetitions.com

15 Great Marketing Ideas

Gone Writing ...

Hey Guys -

just a few ideas that we thought would help you in your

 marketing plan.

Read On - 

Identify your audience Let's face it, your book likely won't appeal to everyone. A pre-teen romance novel and a book about political ideologies probably won't have the same readership. Therefore, an important initial step of a book promotion campaign is to identify your audience. Understand your readers, as well as their hobbies, interests and where they spend most of their time so you can employ strategic marketing techniques to target them.

Time your release - If you haven’t already launched your book, then you should time your release to receive maximum impact. Consider the best time of year to release your book, and then allow time for your book to generate buzz before its release.

Think like a journalist - When it comes to marketing your book, the media can be your best friend. Through media coverage, you can get your name out there, reach your audience and establish yourself as a leader within your genre or field. To land great media coverage, think like a journalist. Get creative with your media pitches and make them newsworthy. Your pitches shouldn't simply promote your book. For fiction books, create a pitch on a newsworthy topic related to your book's genre, theme, characters or setting. Non-fiction authors should stay up-to-date on what's trending in the news so they can create an interesting pitch that will grab the media's attention.

Create a media kit Attract media attention by creating a media kit. Your kit should make a strong, lasting impression and make reporters want to contact you for an interview. Stick to a traditional press kit that includes professionally printed business cards with your contact information and photo, a photo of your book cover, a brief author biography, a recent press release and/or media mention, and where to purchase your book.

Make an author website - It's essential for authors to have an author website. Your website is the first place readers, reporters, booksellers, book reviewers and publishers will turn to learn more about you and your book. Your website should be simple with a clean design and include links to important pages, including your blog, social media profiles, Amazon profile, online bookstore, and recent media mentions. Be sure to include a brief author biography, a short paragraph from your book to intrigue readers and critics, and information about where they can purchase your book.

Blog regularly - Writing is your area of expertise, so you should have no problem creating interesting blog posts on a frequent basis. Blogs are a simple and efficient way to reach your readership and build up your fan base. Do not write all your blog posts solely about your book. Instead, provide content that's interesting and meaningful to your audience. Use your genre, industry, and characters to come up with interesting topics for posts. Connect your blog to your website, social media profiles and Amazon page where your book can be purchased.

Write guest posts  - Writing a guest blog post for a popular blogger who relates to your book can be a great way to gain exposure. The blogger will already have a wide audience that reads the blog, which will increase your visibility and attract more people to your own blog, website, and bookstore.

Utilize social media Social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, are effective tools for promoting your book. You can engage your audience, media personnel, and fellow writers. Your social media channels are also a great way to spread the word about upcoming media coverage and promotions and share your blog posts.

Run a Facebook ad - Run an ad on Facebook to target your specific audience. You can use an ad to promote a special contest or giveaway. Or, if your book is centered on a specific event or time of year, you can run an ad right beforehand to spark interest in your book.

Post videos Sometimes videos can be more captivating than static content. Create a series of videos to share on your website, blog, social media profiles and YouTube channel. Provide your name, book title, bookstore, and website at the end of the video or in the description.

Generate book reviews - Readers and book reviewers often reference online book reviews before deciding to purchase a book. Amazon is the most popular site for reviews. Increase your rating on Amazon by asking 20 of your friends and colleagues to write an honest review of your book. For those who don't have your book, send them an online copy or even just the first few chapters. You could also offer a free giveaway to readers who write a review of your book to bump up your standing.

Create an e-mail list - Through an e-mail list you can connect with interested readers and keep them updated on your newest promotions, blog posts, media coverage, and public appearances. Use a service like iContact, MailChimp or Benchmark Email so you can easily track your mailing list and its performance.

Use your connections - Connecting with your fellow alumni can help boost your visibility. See if your college or high school has an alumni book listing and add yours to the list. Also, add your former schools to your media pitch and press release distribution list, so your alumni office can notify alumni and/or current students about your upcoming events and appearances. You could also offer to speak at the school or do a book signing.

Never stop promoting - Many authors work tirelessly promoting their book before and during its release but stop once the book is no longer new. Just because it wasn't recently released doesn't mean it's no longer relevant. Never stop promoting your book. Always look for new angles to make your book appear fresh and interesting.

Hold book readings - Establish a personal connection with your readers by holding an in-person book reading. Depending on your audience, you can have a book reading at a local school, hospital, library or bookstore. Set up a table where readers can meet you and purchase a signed book after the reading.

Just some ideas - we hope it help!

New Things Are Happening

Hey Guys -

There are a couple of fantastic things that are happening here at Breaking Rules Publishing.

First up - 

The Breaking Rules Publishing Monthly Book Club.

It's easy to subscribe and only $10 a month. We will be rotating books each month and you will have your choice. You also have the option of keeping the book for yourself or sending it to another for a gift.

Use the link below to start your subscription now.
www.breakingruleswritingcompetitions.com.


Second - 

Our first issue of The Scribe Magazine is finally here. The Scribe will be made available 6 times a year. Inside you'll find some of our new releases - some short stories - poetry - marketing time and advice on writer's block. You'll also find our faithful sponsors as well.

You are able to purchase the magazine for $10 each or $7 an issue with a subscription.

Use this link to start your subscription now.

https://www.breakingruleswritingcompetitions.com/the-scribe-magazine.html

Third - We always have new releases check out a few of the most recent.

        

Go to Breaking Rules Publishing to see our entire inventory.

www.breakingruleswritingcompetitions.com

Thanks for stopping by.