Metadata is what drives search engine optimization (SEO) and enables web designers to get their websites to rank higher in search results. But metadata isn’t only for website and blogs, it’s also for books. Like SEO, metadata is text written specifically to aid computer systems and search engines. In an era where online shopping is the norm, an absence of metadata (or poorly written metadata) means a book won’t show up in the search results when shoppers are perusing the digital shelves of their favorite online marketplace.

Book metadata helps sell books by using keywords and phrases that make it easy for readers to find them. Because of this, it’s vital that indie publishers include metadata creation as part of their book promotion strategy. So what exactly is metadata? Continue reading →

Writing, it’s said, is a lonely profession. Images of writers sequestering themselves away for the purpose of finishing their novel abound. Some novelist are so overconfident, they believe they don’t need help. Others avoid seeking help, paralyzed by the secret fear that their writing simply isn’t good enough. But, behind every successful author is a slew of people who have left their mark on the manuscript.

Self-publishers, eager to see their books in print, often ignore the undervalued topics of manuscript evaluation, revision, and editing, instead focusing their attention on buying ISBNs, contracting print-on-demand services, and marketing. They do this at their peril. These are the essential steps that makes a manuscript worth reading. Flawed plot lines and inadequate character development are impossible to salvage after the book is published. To catch (and resolve) problematic aspects early in the writing process, the manuscript must be read by others, starting with its earliest draft forms. Continue reading →

Write a book, get published, make millions, right? Wrong.

I’m not sure what bothers me more about this misconception: the would-be authors who think a book deal is the key to financial success and easy living or the countless readers who operate under the delusion that authors are so well off that they ought to give their books away, for free.

Authors Earn Less than Minimum Wage

The Bureau of Labor Statistics list average annual income for writers and authors as $63,200. What many writers and readers fail to realize is, this average includes the salaries of corporate writers who are responsible for crafting the limitations for your insurance and warrantees, the microscopic legalese that’s included with the terms and conditions of your credit card, and the impossible to follow instructions included with every “assembly required” item you’ve ever purchased. Actual author income is much, much less. Continue reading →