Birds of a Feather Press

06/24/2021

If You Love Something Set it Free

Over at Romancing The Genres -- the theme for June is Relationships. So I wrote about the one person who has ALWAYS been there for me.

A world wide blog for romance readers and romance writers

04/28/2021

Laughter as a Coping Mechanism by Jay Artale

I've joined a group of writers over on Romancing the Genres - writing a monthly article. This month's prompt is "Laughter" - and I've written about one of my favourite topics - my mum.

Using laughter as a coping mechanism to deal with Dementia or Alzheimer's

01/27/2021

The 100 Best Websites for Writers in 2021

Thanks Nina Amir - it's been wonderful to be part of your journey ... there aren't many recommendations under the Blogging section, so it's fabulous that they've recognised your contributions to the blogging community. Even better that you're sandwiched between Copyblogger and ProBlogger - amazing company indeed! Well done.

We asked, and you nominated — this list features the 100 best websites for writers in 2021 in freelancing, blogging, publishing and more.

01/20/2021

How to See Your Book Categories

Dave Chesson over at Kindlepreneur just published this video. It’s under 4 minutes and has some key information in it.

If you have Publisher Rocket it has a slick and easy way to check your book’s categories, and even get a list of potential categories for you book—now that you can list your book in 10 Amazon categories, this is something worth investigating.

Dave Chesson over at Kindlepreneur just published this video. It’s under 4 minutes and has some key information in it. If you have Publisher Rocket it has a slick and easy way to check your b…

01/12/2021

5 WordPress Site Settings Necessary for Successful Blogging

You’ve set up your website using WordPress. You are almost ready to go live with it and to publish your first blog post. Wait! There are a few settings you need to change first. Today, Jay Artale (), explains which ones to change and why.

You've set up your website using WordPress, and you are almost ready to go live with it and to publish your first blog post. Wait! There are a few settings you need to change first. Today, Jay Artale (), explains which ones to change and why.

12/31/2020

Travel Guide Cover Design Case Study: Insight Guides

This case study looks at how Insight Guides have updated their travel guide covers. This review also includes design prompts for designing your own travel guide cover.

https://www.birdsofafeatherpress.com/cover-insight-guides/

This case study looks at how Insight Guides have updated their travel guide covers. This review also includes design prompts for designing your own cover.

12/30/2020

8 Simple Tips For Editing Your Own Book

Here are 8 simple tips to follow to make light work of your editing work. Editing your own book is a challenge but, by giving your work a close reading, you can become a better writer.

https://www.birdsofafeatherpress.com/8-simple-tips-for-editing-your-own-book/

Here are 8 simple tips to follow to make light work of your editing work. Editing your own book is a challenge but, by giving your work a close reading, you can become a better writer.

12/20/2020

Extreme Nomads: A Guide to the Ultimate Adventure Lifestyle

Nomadic Times contributor, Indiana Lee, shares her tips for balancing an adventure lifestyle and being a digital nomad

12/18/2020

How to Schedule your Bargain Booksy Promotion

A step by step process for scheduling your Bargain Booksy Promotion. With Tips for setting your nonfiction pricing strategy.

Bargain Booksy is managed by Written Word Media who also own other book promotion sites, including Freebooksy, Red Feather Romance, and New In Books. Set up your Author Account on Bargain Booksy Cl…

12/16/2020

Author Interview with Memoirst Ruth Hampson

This week we’re joined by Memoirst Ruth Hampson, author of Salford to Shanghai: An Extraordinary Ordinary Story. It's part memoir part travelogue. Find out how Ruth wrote and published her memoir is the latest in my author interview series.

This week we’re joined by Memoirst Ruth Hampson. Now I had to fess-up, I was tidying up my email and came across Ruth’s interview that had somehow got lost in the shuffle. So between su…

12/15/2020

How Travel Writers Self-Publish

I published Ep#44 of my Podcast: Promote your Nonfiction Book with Bargain Booksy
In this 10-minute show, I talk about using the book promotion site Bargain Booksy to promote your book when it's at a promotional price under $5. Here's some of the topics covered in the show:

Bargain Booksy Nonfiction Genres
The Emotional Resistance to Reducing your Book Price
Bargain Booksy Pricing Strategy
Amazon Countdown Deals
Amazon Regional Pricing
Amazon Reviews
Bargain Booksy has lots of benefits. It's low cost, and it's one of the best book promotion sites for nonfiction authors with only a few (or no) reviews or star ratings for their books. If you're looking for an entry-level book marketing activity, this is one to cut your teeth on.

Are you ready to establish your subject matter expertise and earn passive income by transitioning from travel blogger to author of your own travel book, but don’t know where to start?...

12/15/2020

Should you use a Fiverr Designer for your Book Cover?

Dale L. Roberts is an indie author and YouTube content creator, and earlier this year he conducted an experiment to test out the success of using Fiverr designers to design his book cover

https://www.birdsofafeatherpress.com/should-you-use-a-fiverr-designer-for-your-book-cover/

Indie Author Dale L. Roberts conducted a cover design experiment on Fiverr which ended in success. Is it an option for you?

12/15/2020

There's no better way to help other authors in their indie author journey, than leading by example, so a couple of years ago I started a new Author Interview series "A Journey from Blogger to Author" where I pose the same questions to indie authors about their self-publishing journey. If you're a non-fiction author and would like to share your self-publishing experiences and expertise, please get in touch.

There's over 60 interviews already, and more to come...

https://www.birdsofafeatherpress.com/category/author-interviews/

12/14/2020

Book Marketing Tips from 10 Travel Writers #5

These Book Marketing tips are for indie authors looking to get the biggest impact with the smallest budget, and were compiled with interviews with writers who have written and published a travel related book.
https://www.birdsofafeatherpress.com/book-marketing-tips-5/

These Book Marketing tips are for indie authors looking to get the biggest impact with the smallest budget.

11/18/2020

Newsflash: Amazon KDP now prefers an EPUB file

If you’ve recently uploaded an ebook to your KDP dashboard, you may have noticed a change. Amazon now recommends providing an EPUB file for publishing instead of a file in their proprietary MOBI format.

Book formatting just got easier—Amazon now recommends providing an EPUB file for publishing instead of a file in their proprietary MOBI format.

11/17/2020

Use Freebooksy or Bargain Booksy to promote your Travel Book

If you’re looking to promote your free or promo priced non-fiction book, look no further than the sites managed by Written Word Media, who manage Freebooksy and Bargain Booksy. These two promotional sites give you the opportunity of featuring your book when you’re offering it for free, or if the purchase price is less than $5.

Scribe Writing did an assessment of the effectiveness book promotion sites for nonfiction books. They ran a promotion for a paid book (at .99c) on Bargain Booksy which resulted in 30-40 additional sales. Bookbub is the highest performing book promotion site, but entry is competitive and you need book reviews in order to book a Bookbub promotion, so if you don’t have any reviews your #1 options should be Bargain Booksy or Freebooksy.

Freebooksy and Bargain Booksy are two promotional sites that give you the opportunity of featuring your book when you’re offering it for free or if the purchase price is less than $5.

11/16/2020

Researching the Budget Travel Guide Category

If you’ve been reading my recent blog posts you’ll have seen I’m focused on updating and optimizing my Amazon Categories and Keywords.

Before I started this journey I was a bit skeptical about the impact changing a category could have on my book, but I’m going to share a case study of one of my Category and keyword tweaks so that you can see the benefit of spending time and effort to find the most relevant and lucrative categories for your book.

I write travel guides for independent travelers on a budget who want to explore off the beaten path locations, avoid tourist traps, and immerse themselves in the culture and rhythm of daily life. Even though I’d spent time and effort identifying my target audience to compile the content that went into my travel guide, I didn’t put the same amount of effort when it came to choosing my keywords and tags. I was in so much of a rush to get my book published and start writing my next one, that I didn’t pay enough attention to the elements that would help readers discover my book.

I’m focused on updating and optimizing my Amazon Categories and Keywords, here’s how I evaluated Budget Travel using two online tools.

11/14/2020

A-Z of Travel Writing Tips: J is for Journaling and Journalism

Being an prolific and effective travel writer can be overwhelming, so I’ve put together this series of A-Z Travel Writing Tips.

Each article provides a concise list of prompts from A to Z, which provides your travel writing the TLC it needs. We cycle through all letters in the alphabet in turn, and provide links to additional resources and examples of how to implements each tip.

In this edition of our A-Z travel writing tips we’re looking at Journaling and Journalism

Travel Writing Prompts: J is for Journaling and Journalism. Use these Travel Writing Prompts to make it easier to connect with your readers. No matter what you’re writing.

11/12/2020

Buy tickets for Bradt Guides Travel Writing Competition, Mon 9 Nov 2020 - Mon 21 Dec 2020

Have you seen that Bradt Guides are now accepting submissions for their new competition? The theme for this year’s competition is I’d love to go back. Entrants are invited to submit an original piece of writing of between 600 and 800 words on the destination they most want to return to when travel opens up again, and what it is about that place that draws them back. This could be a particular event that occurred there or person they met. The piece must be a true story, based on the writer’s personal experience and written as a first-hand account, in the first person and in English.

Buy tickets for Bradt Guides Travel Writing Competition, Mon 9 Nov 2020 - Mon 21 Dec 2020 - Enter the world’s best competition for unpublished travel writers! For over 20 years, Bradt Guides’ ‘New Travel Writer of the Year’ competition has been seeking out and championing new writing talent....

11/12/2020

Author Interview with Destination Travel Writer Mike Miller

This week we’re joined by destination travel guide author Mike Miller, who specializes in writing about the great State of Florida. He and I followed the same path to publishing our first book—we both started off blogging about a destination we were knowledgeable and passionate about, and then leveraged that content to self-publish our travel guides.

Writing a full-length travel guide can be overwhelming, but when you break your book down into blog-post sized chunks of content, suddenly a book seems achievable. This approach is an effective way to streamline your content creation, but it’s also a great way to test-drive your content to make sure your have a built in audience for your books.

If you’re thinking about blogging your destination travel guide, here’s some tips and inspiration. ~~ Jay

Florida Travel Guide Authors shares the steps he took to turn his travel blog into a series of self-published travel guides to reach a broader audience.

11/11/2020

Travel Guide Cover Design Case Study: DK Eyewitness Travel

This case study looks at how DK guides have updated their travel guide covers. This review also includes design prompts for designing your own cover, including the use of contrasting colors. If you're looking for design inspiration for your cover, this case study series could help you with your decisions.

This case study looks at how DK guides have updated their travel guide covers. This review also includes design prompts for designing your own cover, including the use of contrasting colors.

11/10/2020

How Travel Writers Self Publish Podcast Ep#40: Travel Writing details you need to capture when you’re fast drafting

Have you listened to the latest podcast from my show How Travel Writer's Self-Publish? In this 10-minute episode, I talk about fast drafting and this episode provides tips on what to Fast Draft.

In this 10-minute show, travel writer Jay Artale continues the discussion about fast drafting and this episode focuses on what to Fast Draft.

10/19/2020

One Travel Writer’s Journey for a Professional Line Edit (Part 2)

Travel Writer Sally Jane Smith shares her journey of finding an editor. She shares the lessons she learned during the process of writing and editing her first book.

10/18/2020

How Travel Writers Self Publish Podcast Ep#39: A-Z of Travel Writing Tips. C is for Clichés, Conversational, Cadence, and Cycle

In this 10-minute show travel writer Jay Artale continues her travel writing tips series. Each episode provides a concise list of prompts from A to Z to give your travel writing the TLC it needs. Today’s episode looks at the prompts beginning with C.

In this podcast episode #39:
Cliches
Conversational
Cadence
Cycle Back to the Beginning at the End
We’ll cycle through all letters in the alphabet in turn from A-Z. Jay also invites you to become part of her beta reading team to review her new book for writers, Fast Drafting for Travel Bloggers, and let’s you know how to claim your free copy of her Introduction to 5 Senses Travel Journaling PDF.

Each episode in the A to Z podcast series provides you with inspiration to give your travel writing the TLC it needs. Today we’re covering the letter C.

10/17/2020

How Travel Writers Self Publish Podcast Ep#38: An Introduction to the art of Fast Drafting for Travel Writers

How Travel Writers Self Publish Podcast Ep#38: An Introduction to the art of Fast Drafting for Travel Writers. In this 10-minute podcast we cover how my fast drafting technique will help you streamline your note taking tasks while you’re traveling, so that you can spend more time exploring and less time writing.

In this 10-minute podcast we cover how my fast drafting technique will help you streamline your note taking tasks while you’re traveling, so that you can spend more time exploring and less ti…

10/15/2020

To those with the goal of publishing a book in 2020…quarantined creativity searching for an outlet...a story that needs to be shared. This one’s for you! IngramSpark are offering FREE title upload on print books, ebooks, or both! Simply use promo code* FREE2020 (all caps, no spaces) at time of upload.

https://myaccount.ingramspark.com/

10/08/2020

If you have an adventure story to tell - check this book out by Jon Doolan. It’s free to download.

https://link.freebooksy.com/click/21729224.270619/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYW1hem9uLmNvbS9kcC9CMDdDODE0SlkzP3RhZz1mYnN5ZW1haWx3d20tMjA/5d5f8748cac67b19c3286aaeCd352094d

10/01/2020

Build your Travel Blog Community with Blog Commenting

I’ve always been a fan of blogs, and when I’m planning a trip I always search blogs to get ideas, inspiration, and information to help me plan my trip. I find that blogs often have unique and quirky insights that you wouldn’t find in a travel guide. But prior to the Covid-19 outbreak I didn’t spend a lot of time reading other blogs unless I needed information for my travel.

But earlier this year I had more time on my hands, and wasn’t traveling so much so I started participating in blog commenting threads for my personal travel blog Roving Jay. Now I’m a voracious reader of other travel blogs, and I’ve discovered bloggers I want to follow on social media and collaborate with. Through these blog commenting activities I’ve found travel bloggers to write a guest blog post for and have contributed to their round up posts.

If I wasn’t an active blog commenter, I wouldn’t read as many travel blogs. I’ve been introduced me to different travel destinations, and it’s made me enthusiastic to visit places that hadn’t previously been on my list.

How to build a reputation for your content by attracting blog comments on your travel articles, and where to find groups to help you get them.

09/30/2020

One Travel Writer’s Journey for a Professional Line Edit

Part One of a three-part series on tackling a professional line edit. from Guest Blogger Sally from Just One Step - Travels in Greece, Turkey and the World ... Sally Jane Smith was injured when the bus on which she was travelling through Sri Lanka suffered a head-on collision. A decade on, she journeyed to Greece in a quest to recover her wanderlust – and proved it is possible for an out-of-shape, middle-aged, female traveller on a budget, armed only with a guidebook and her mother’s 1978 travel diary, to take that single step away from the mass tourism track and experience a remarkable adventure.

Travel Writer Sally Jane Smith shares her journey of whether or not she needs a professional line edit. She shares the lessons she learned during the process of writing and editing her first book.

09/29/2020

How I got my Books to #1 and #2 on Amazon

How many times have you read a blog post, book, webinar, or YouTube video offering book marketing advice to authors, and thought: “I need to be doing this” …. and a month later you still haven’t put any of the successful strategies into action? Welcome to my world!

I knew I needed to change my approach. In my defense I’ve been so focused on writing books that I haven’t had the time or energy to focus on book marketing. Oh! let’s be honest—I’m an introvert, and marketing and promotion doesn’t come naturally to me, and with limited time available I want to make sure that the activities I’m during are going to make an impact. So I decided to put together this case study to use the strategies I’ve been learning about, and monitoring the impact of my efforts.

I put together this metadata case study to use the Amazon KDP strategies I’ve been learning about to see whether I tweaking my categories and keywords can improve my category ranking.

09/28/2020

Book Marketing Tips from 10 Travel Writers #3

I started hosting an author interview series a few years ago, and have interviewed 60+ authors so far. Each one of them has written and published a travel guide, travel memoir, travel narrative, or a piece of travel fiction. I pose a standard set of questions, and I find their responses enlightening, inspiring, and entertaining.

Over the years I’ve noticed that book marketing is consistently one of the most disliked aspects of being an indie author, so I thought I’d bring all of the marketing sections together into small groups in order to inspire you to throw off any concerns you have about marketing or promoting your book, and to dive right in with an activity that resonates with you and doesn’t fill you with fear or dread. There are so many different marketing techniques you can use for your book, that you have the option of picking and choosing the strategies that you’ll feel comfortable using, and have the biggest impact on increasing your book sales.

We don’t want you to get overwhelmed, so are only including feedback from ten authors in each post, to give you enough choice to pick from, but not enough to get overwhelmed. If there’s a technique you’d like to use but aren’t sure where to start, leave us a comment below and we’ll feature an article that goes into more detail about technique.

In this week’s book marketing recap, our authors mention the following marketing techniques:

Use Word of Mouth, Social Media and Influencer Marketing
Maintain an Author Newsletter
Offering a free starter library or first in a series Lead Magnet
Try Amazon Ads and Facebook Ads
Maintain a TripAdvisor Forum presence
Aquire reader reviews
Content Marketing on your website and blog posts
Be a guest on a Podcasts
Create an Audio Book version to cross-promote your ebook and print books
PR activity with niche magazines
Offer a book giveaway
Personal appearances at conferences
Feature your book on Facebook groups & email lists offering free books

We interviewed 10 travel writers to get their take on marketing and promoting their travel book. Find out which techniques have worked to sell more books and reach more readers.

09/27/2020

Author Toolbox: How to add your Book to 10 Amazon Categories

When you set up your book on Amazon KDP you can pick three categories, but have you ever wondered by your book is listed in a category you didn’t choose?

Or requested that your book be added to a specific category but you can’t tell if it was added?

Did you know you can list your book in up to 10 Amazon Categories? Forget just choosing 3 when you set up your book. Do your research and increase your chances of being discovered by asking Amazon …

09/26/2020

Author Interview with Travel Fiction Writer Jane Dunning

This week we’re joined by Jane Dunning author of 'Thirty-five minutes from St Tropez' who used a house sitting assignment as her inspiration for a travel fiction series set in France.

She’s already two-books into her three-book series, and shares her writing and self-publishing experience in this author interview. Writing a series is an excellent way to build your reader base. Book marketing takes a lot of ongoing (…continued, never-ending effort…), and if you’ve only written one book where can that lead your readers?

There’s no point writing a great book and then pouring all of your energies into promoting and marketing you book, only to lead your readers to a content dead end. When you write a book series, you’re creating an opportunity for that voyage of discovering to lead somewhere – ideally to the purchase of the other books in the series.

So take a leaf out of Jane’s book and focus your energies on writing a book series, before pouring your heart and soul into book marketing. ~~ Jay

Travel Fiction Writer Jane Dunning shares the inspiration and her first-hand experience of writing a three book series. Find out what self-publishing and travel writing lessons she’s learnt a…

09/26/2020

Self-Publishing: Carnival of the Indies Issue #120 - The Book Designer

Head on over to this month's Carnival of the Indies to see this month's best blog posts for Indie Authors.

https://www.thebookdesigner.com/2020/09/self-publishing-carnival-of-the-indies-issue-120/

In this month's Carnival ... my article How I got my Books to #1 and #2 on Amazon is included. “Could tweaking your Amazon categories and keywords propel you to the #1 spot in a niche category—even though you’ve had minimal book sales? Jay experimented with the KDP metadata on two of her nonfiction books, and created this case study to illustrate the impact.”

Self-Publishing: Carnival of the Indies Issue #120 including C. S. Lakin, Nate Hoffelder, Belinda Griffin and many others

09/26/2020

Looking at your blog stats is an excellent way to see what people are searching for and how they found you.

One of my Top Searches this week is "where to page numbers go in a nonfiction books"

When I type that into my Google search bar, a relevant article from my website is a Featured Snippet.

What is a Featured Snippet? For some searches, Google provides a quick answer or summary with a content snippet from a relevant website. These featured snippets are most likely to show up when your search is in the form of a question. Featured snippets come from web search listings. Google's automated systems determine whether a page would make a good featured snippet to highlight for a specific search request.


For some searches, Google provides a quick answer or summary with a content snippet from a relevant website. These featured snippets are most likely to show up when your search is in the form of a question.