Greetings and Salutations -

I hope you had a wonderfully relaxing weekend, and if you celebrate Christmas, I hope yours was just what you dreamed of!

As we head into the last week of 2011, this is the perfect time to set up an easy support structure for your new year! Step one is to have the forums contact you whenever there's info to help you out!

The steps to set up a forum watch list are here -

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art68525.asp

Let me know if you have any trouble setting this up. I highly recommend you "watch" the Barter & Swap forum - many editors are looking for help with projects. It's a great way to earn some extra money! List your own needs, and see what you can get help with!

I also highly recommend the Stress Management / Life Coaching / Self Development trio of forums. There are threads in there where we are all working on our priorities and goals, and cheerleading each other!

Of course, be sure to watch your own forum, so you know when visitors are asking for help! That quickly builds traffic from your loyal fans.


KINDLE

Today I ran a free promo on the Kindle. While my non-fiction books tend to sell themselves, I was having a challenge getting my fiction books found in the giant sea of books out there. There are almost 10,000 historical romance novels on the Kindle, never mind the wider field of romance. So I put A Sense of Duty up for a free promotion to catch fans.

I’m happy to announce my book has had 573 downloads already. It’s vaulted to the #12 spot in historical romance, and I really think it’s all due to the cover! I talk about that here and give examples of other books which are “near me” on the list –

http://www.lisashea.com/lisabase/writing/gettingyourbookpublished/bookcoverkindle.html

The images on the Kindle Fire are only 1/2 inch wide. Readers are making their initial decision on a book based on a 1/2 inch wide image. That is all they see, that image and the title. They don’t even see a blurb or description until they click. So that cover absolutely has to catch their eye.

I’m scanning down the list of covers and most of the covers are unintelligible blurs at the small size. There is no clear sense of where they are set or what they are about. Mine is very clear, and that is key.

Hopefully I’ll get some good reviews from some of these readers, and convince them to then buy my other books! So offering a book for free is great marketing.

I again highly recommend everyone to post a book to the Kindle system, even if it’s a short how-to book. It’s amazing how much publicity they can draw. Make sure your cover is CRYSTAL CLEAR at a small size. No dense backgrounds, no confusing images. Go for a crisp, sharp single image that stands out. That gets you the sales you want. If you need help with that, post in our barter & swap forum :)


Lisa Shea, owner
BellaOnline.com

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