March 2014
Welcome to Issue 42 of the SUPERIOR BOOK PRODUCTIONS newsletter!
If you’re an author, you need a website, and if you don’t have one yet or yours needs updating, Superior Book Productions can help. Below our website designer Larry Alexander gives a quick overview of what every author needs in a website—and a couple of things they could use.
Hello everyone. Larry here.
So you’ve finally finished your book and you’re ready to introduce it to the public. You’ve listed it at Amazon, which is a great first step. But you need a marketing strategy. You need a web presence. Basically, you need a website.
It doesn’t have to be expensive. Simple websites work just as well as high tech sites. And hosting can be as little as $4.99 a month. Some hosts even advertise free hosting, although those usually require you to allow ads on your site, which I don’t recommend.
All your site really needs is:
- A design that visually "supports your brand." The art on your book(s) should reflect what your book is about—the art becomes your brand. Your site should also be a reflection of your book(s). Design elements on your site should remind the user of your book(s).
- A home page—General information about your book, your cover prominently displayed, a nice header and easy to use navigation.
- A page or a link that allows folks to buy your book, whether the link is to Amazon or your own PayPal, or similar account.
- An About the Author page—most people like to know something about you. Don’t leave them hanging.
- A contact link or page. Even the big guns of writing let you email them. You should, too.
Two other nice options are Blogs and Media Kits. Having your own blog should be free. But if you start a blog, be prepared to blog a lot. At least once a week. A media kit is just information about your book which looks a lot like this: The Best Place Media Kit page. It allows people who might want to interview you to find information easily about your book they can use to promote you. You want to make it easy for them.
And, of course, whatever else you’d like to add. It’s your site. It reflects you and your book, or books, so make it your own.
Oh, yeah. Tyler says, “And thank you for reading the Superior Book Productions Newsletter!” He's such a nice guy.
LA
New Books
In The Nest, Cherie Johnson is a high school English teacher about to retire when she finds out that her husband Dave has lost his job. At the same time, her oldest daughter, Hope, decides to move back home since she can’t find a teaching job and has just broken up with her boyfriend, Liam. Add to these difficulties that Dave and Cherie’s younger daughter, Wesley, is about to get married. Where will the money come from?
Inspired by the economic downturn of recent years, the nationwide trend of adult children moving back home, and concerns about unemployment, The Nest does not offer easy solutions to these situations. The alternating point of view chapters in Cherie and Hope’s voices also allow for the characters’ personality conflicts to be presented.
To read more, visit The Nest.
L. Faxon’s debut novel The Life and Times of Lorna Rae is an unexpected pleasure to read. As a man, I was hesitant to read a book about a woman and her handbag. I’ve gotten silently irritated plenty of times over women fussing about their purses, and I never understood why a wallet and a pants pocket won’t do for a woman like they do for a man. But L. Faxon has won me over. Now I understand why women carry handbags—heck, I even understand what it must be like to be a handbag.
Faxon writes this novel in the third person point of view, with alternating chapters. Half of the chapters focus on a young career woman who serves as a type of everywoman with her name simply being She. The other half are focused on Lorna Rae, She’s favorite designer handbag, with a few sections told by other handbags in She’s closet.
To read more, visit The Life and Times of Lorna Rae.
Diana Ruiz’s Healing Your Life with Water is a life-changing book. In fact, it’s like reading two books in one. I imagine most people will choose to read this book so they can better understand, heal, and rejuvenate their bodies. And I hope they do read this book for all the fascinating information it contains about understanding the body’s pH levels, what foods to eat to help the pH level, and all the other information that promotes good health, healthy eating, and kick starts the “inner fountain of youth.”
But this book is more than that. Diana sums it up this way, “We are made up of 70 percent water and there is a certain way to eat, think, and feel in order to keep your ‘body of water’ healthy.” In these pages, Diana shows how our thoughts and emotions affect our body of water and, ultimately, our health.
To read more, visit Healing Your Life with Water.
Gulnaz Fatma’s Ruskin Bond’s World is a long overdue look at one of the world’s most prolific and enduring authors. In this short book, Fatma covers a great deal of ground, including giving the reader a look into Ruskin Bond’s childhood and early years and how it influenced many of the themes in his writing, from depictions of grandparents and animals to marriage and love.
These biographical details interested me the most since I had only read a couple of Bond’s stories previously. I found, however, that Bond and I are kindred spirits. In the unhappiness of his childhood (his mother left his father to marry another man, and then his father died, so Bond went to live with his mother and stepfather) he found his solace in books until reading became his religion. When he read Dickens’ David Copperfield, he decided he wanted to be an author.
To read more, visit Ruskin Bond’s World.
Robin O’Grady has written an inspiring new book in The Optimist’s Edge: Moving Beyond Negativity to Create Your Amazing Life. First, let me say this is no Pollyanna-type optimism book. O’Grady never becomes cutesy or unrealistic in the optimism she promotes. The book is filled with real-life examples of how people can find themselves mentally and emotionally in a better, less negative state in life, and also how their improved attitude can bring them more of everything they wish they could have by using some simple tools that revolve around changing their attitudes and viewpoints.
Robin is brutally honest about her own journey as she uses it to illustrate the points in this book. A lot of people would use the negative experiences she had as excuses to throw a lifelong pity party, but Robin realized early on that she had to be responsible for her life, rather than blaming others.
To read more, visit The Optimist’s Edge.
Josh Wade’s new book Becoming a Stronger Person is destined to be a hit with male and female readers alike. Besides telling his personal story of how he became an accomplished competitive and professional bodybuilder, Wade provides practical and inspirational advice on how to live life to your fullest potential, increasing your physical, mental, and emotional strength. He provides numerous examples of exercise routines and nutritious meals to help both men and women build muscle, lose weight, or simply stay in shape. Most of all, he inspires dedication to achieve the goal to be healthier and happier.
Becoming a Stronger Person is divided into four sections—Change, Passion, Nutrition, and Exercise. The first two sections tell the story of Wade’s life, from troublemaker and delinquent teenager to devoted husband and professional bodybuilder.
To read more, visit Becoming a Stronger Person.
