There are several ways you can do this.
Buy a book
This is perhaps the rather obvious one. Just think. Every time you buy one of our books an author receives a small royalty and this also goes some way to enabling us to publish more books.
We’re not for a moment suggesting you should buy every book we publish but do take a look at them and buy any that appeal to you.
How to find our books?
We mention every new publication in our newsletter. Not receiving this? Sign up here.
Every week we send out an email that either mentions our latest publication or tells you of offers on some of our books. Occasionally we pick three random books and make an offer on those. Everybody who has signed up to the list gets news of the new publication and the random offers. Other weeks we have target offers- for example. young adult books, little square flash collections or single author collections. You only get these if you have opted into them. If you would like to sign up for this list you can do so here.
The same material is also published on Scribblers Book and here you can find additional offers.
Browse or search our book shop now and then. You’ll certainly find some good choices for birthday and Christmas gifts there.
Also, I’ll often offer a free book on bank holidays. Look out for these.
Strapped for cash? Contact us for a review copy – as long as that title hasn’t already got its 50+ reviews on Amazon.
Write a review
We really try to get those fifty or more reviews on Amazon and we’re always willing to offer a PDF or a file for Kindle of any of our books that haven’t managed that yet – even if you aren’t allowed to review on Amazon – where you have to have either bought the book from them or spent enough with them in other ways.
Again we don’t expect you to review every book we mention. I actually review every book I read. After all, why should I expect people to review my books if I don’t review others? There is always the worry that you really won’t like a book and you want to be honest. Two points here: even two and one star reviews tickle the algorithm. I did read a certain very popular novel and gave it a one star review. But it really wasn’t my type of book. I’m fussy about what I read. Hence, I end up giving mainly four and five stars and very occasionally a three star.
Reviews don’t need to be long. Who has time to read long ones? A couple of paragraphs is enough. Say what you liked about the book and say what you didn’t like Justify the star rating. Can you give a reason either way per star?
We suggest that your review on Amazon (if you’re allowed), Good Reads where they’ll let everyone review and on Story Graph, which has a few nice additional features. And send us a copy of your review. We may put it on our online bookshop if we don’t already have three good ones. Or we might put it out on our Facebook page. And of course you can use it on your own sites and social media.
Part of our marketing routine is to send out requests for reviews. If you would like to be on the list, sign up here.We notify you of all new publications that need reviews and only tell you about the back list that needs extra reviews in the genres that you sign up for.
Buy via the Amazon Affiliate link
You will notice on our online bookshop that we have Amazon affiliate links. This means that if you buy from Amazon via that link we get a few pence as well. If you then go on to buy toilet paper, new underwear or confectionary, we’ll get a few more pence.
You might also like to look out for affiliate links on authors’ web sites. Okay so this time we don’t get the revenue but you’re still helping that author to sell titles and that may include one of ours.
Follow our authors on Amazon
If you follow authors on Amazon they become more visible. The Amazon algorithms get to work if an author has followers. Even if one of our authors writes completely different material from you, you at least you have in common that you are published by us. How to find their page? Find their book in our online bookshop. Follow the link to Amazon. Click on their name.
You might like to create an author page on Amazon even if you’ve only had one book published, Even if that’s only one story in an anthology. It all helps.
31 Day Book Tweak List
A new version of this is publish every month on https://apublishersperspective.blogspot.com/p/31-day-book-tweak.html. We adjust to reflect what we’ve deemed to be successful the month before. You could this list for all of your books. Do one action a day: work through your list, starting wit the one that’s sold the least.
Some of the action require a payment and if you don’t want ot pay or can’t pay, perhaps think of an equivalent that doesn’t cost. Instead of doing an Amazon ad for example could you flag up a book on social media page?
Some actions might be only suitable for a publisher to do but could you think of an equivalent one you could do?
Blog tours
Sometimes writers pay quite a lot to go on a blog tour. Yet we already have an easy way to connect to other writers. Our newsletter goes out over 600 authors. If you join the Scribblers Group, you have immediate access to a smaller group of proactive writers.
How to make this work? If you see a writer you’d like on your blog in our Publication or Writers’ News slots and you don’t have their contact details, contact me and I’ll put you in touch.
Not in Scribblers but would like to join? To be in the Scribblers Face Book group you must be published by us or work for us. ‘Published’ can be as little as one story on the CaféLit e-zine or as much as several single author titles with us. ‘Work’ can be as little as having proof-read one book or helped with a book launch.
You need to be invited to join. If you’d like an invite, then contact me. Then there are three questions to answer:
- What do you have published with us?
- What do you hope to gain from the group?
- What can you bring to the group?
Then, all you need to do to see if someone will have you on their blog, is put a general notice in the group.
Kofi and Tip Jar
Several of our sites have a ‘Kofi’ button on. It invites you to shout us a coffee i.e. pay a small amount towards what we’re doing. Also as you know you can pay us a tip when you submit via Duosuma. Many of you have bene very generous with this and thank you for that. We’d never suggest for a moment that you pay something every time you visit one of our sites or every time you submit but if you can occasionally, that’s great.
Half of what we get that way goes to CaféLit writers and half goes to general expenses: web site space, set-up for books, ISBNs, copies to the British Library and the Legal Deposit Libraries – what’s flagged up in the Overheads spreadsheet , updates each month in Dropbox.
One peculiar expense
As you probably are aware, you get the rights back to your work three years after the release date in your contract. Individual short stories on CaféLit or in our annual anthologies are yours again as soon as they are published. We do reserve the right to republish your CaféLit story in The Best of CaféLit.
However, we don’t take your book out of print unless you specifically ask us to. But it does cost us £8.40 a year to keep it in print. This is actually incredibly good value for the service that’s provided BUT we need to sell sixteen copies of the book to cover the expense.
Donations are always gratefully received.
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