Welcome to the D.I.Y. Author Release Party!

A room with book shelves and books stacked in background. Print copy of The D.I.Y. Author, champagne on ice and two glasses of champagne and balloons in foreground.
Text: Release Party

About the Book

Being an author today is more than just writing the book. Authors in this digital age have more opportunities than ever before. Whether you pursue independent or traditional publishing models, or a combination of the two but being an author involves not only writing, but often, the publishing and marketing of the book.

In this writer’s reference guide, multi-genre author and independent publisher, Kaye Lynne Booth shares her knowledge and experiences and the tools, books, references and sites to help you learn the business of being an author.

Topics Include:

  • Becoming Prolific
  • Writing Tools
  • Outlining
  • Making Quality a Priority
  • Publishing Models & Trends
  • Marketing Your Book
  • Book Covers & Blurbs
  • Book Events—In Person & Virtual
  • And more…

Meet the Author

Author Kaye Lynne Booth

Greetings! Thank you so much for dropping by to help us celebrate the release of The D.I.Y. Author. You all know me as author Kaye Lynne Booth, but with the release of this book, I hope to be known as the D.I.Y. author. This is the book that only I could write, where I share knowledge and experience as I build my author business. This is not a book on craft, but a reference for authors and aspiring authors who wish to expand and grow their author business on a limited budget. Learn the tips and tricks, sites and tools, which took me over a decade, and three masters degrees to amass.

I’ve always been a do it yourself kind of gal. I’ve built my author business up around this blog, finding ways around obstacles which stood in my way, learning new skill sets because outsourcing was more than I could afford. My first novel was published by a small independent publisher. But as the five-year contract ran out, I felt I could do better through my own small independent publishing house, WordCrafter Press, so I re-published it as the first book in my Women in the West adventure series last year, and I sold more copies than that other publisher had over a five year stretch. I just released the second book in the series this month. When Covid struck, I organized and hosted two virtual writing conferences, because writers are tribal bunch, and we need contact with like minded people. Networking is a huge part of building an author business. I use that networking to build not only my author business, but my own author tribe. I’ve published my own books, and collaborative anthologies, as well as publishing books for others. And I’ve built a winning blog team here on Writing to be Read with Robbie Cheadle, Jeff Bowles, Arthur Rorsch, and DL Mullan.

No one else has shared in these exact same experiences that I have, and that’s why only I could write The D.I.Y. Author, and why I can hold that title. But enough about me. The D.I.Y. Author is a great reference packed full of links to sites and tools and tips for increasing productivity, publishing choices, and marketing your books.

We have a great release party ahead to send this book off right. We’ve got exclusive offers running this week only. After Saturday, the whole D.I.Y. store will disappear, so take advantage of them now. By buying direct, you are supporting this author and her works more than when you purchase from retailers.

My D.I.Y. Video

Author Video Introduction – Author Kaye Lynne Booth

On with the party!

Thanks for dropping by for The D.I.Y. Author virtual release party. We’ve got some great things planned, including a giveaway for all attendees, so be sure to leave a comment, so I’ll know you were here. I’ll be monitoring the comments throughout the day and will answer any questions you might want to post there. While you’re here you can peruse the D.I. Y. store below, for exclusive and discounted offers that you won’t find anywhere else. The store will come down at the end of the week. After that you’ll have to pay full price through retailers, and signed copies will no longer be available.

And if you are already a bestselling author and you don’t need this book or the WordCrafter services offered here, you can still offer your support for the author and this project by using the ‘buy me a soda’ button below.

Buy me a soda

Show your support for author Kaye Lynne Booth and her many endeavors through WordCrafter Press & Writing to be Read.

$1.00

You can get a sample of the topics in the book in my post,”Writer’s Corner: What it means to be an Indie Author”

Thanks for joining me today for The D.I.Y. Author Release Party. I hope you found a few useful tidbits here. For more tips and advice, you’ve got to buy the book. If you miss the window for the D.I.Y. Store, you can still purchase this useful writer’s reference here: https://books2read.com/The-DIY-Author


Review in Practice: How to Market a Book

About the Book

Writing a book is hard. Marketing it can be even harder.

Marketing a book in 2023 can seem like a full-time job, what with the crazy number of things authors seem to be expected to do: social media, blog tours, advertising, price promotions, mailing lists, giveaways, you name it.

But here’s a little secret: you don’t need to do all those things to successfully set your book on the path to success. What you need is a solid plan to find the one or two tactics that will work, and start to drive sales… in a minimum amount of time. And that’s exactly what you’ll find in this book.

Instead of drowning you in information or inundating you with hundreds of different tactics and strategies that eventually prove fruitless, this book will guide you through a step-by-step framework to find the ones that actually work for you and your book, so that you can start marketing more efficiently.

In particular, you’ll learn:

✔️ How to change your mindset and sell more books with less effort.;
✔️ How to write books that guarantee a lasting, profitable career;
✔️ How to get Amazon’s Kindle Store to market your book for you;
✔️ How to get thousands of readers into your mailing list before you even release the book;
✔️ How to propel your book to the top of the charts at launch; and
✔️ How to automate your marketing so that you can spend less time marketing and more time writing,

After helping over 150,000 authors crack the marketing code through a popular weekly newsletter, Reedsy’s Co-founder Ricardo Fayet is sharing everything he’s learned over the past few years in this beginner-friendly, jargon-free guide to book marketing.

Purchase Link: https://www.amazon.com/How-Market-Book-Overperform-Marketing-ebook/dp/B08TZJQ1FB

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Today’s author needs to be able to do all stages of the publishing process in order to run their author business, but one person cannot do it all. It can be overwhelming, even for the D.I.Y. author. (That’s me. 😉 ). I share my experience and knowledge about doing my marketing and promotions myself in my book, The D.I.Y. Author, which will be released on June 4th, 2024. But learning to run an author business doesn’t end when you publish a book, and although I just wrote a book about building and growing your author business, I still have much to learn on this never ending road to success. That’s why I took advantage of the free ebook by Reedsy‘s Ricardo Fayette, How to Market Your Book: Overperform in a Crowded Market. Fayette knows a lot more than I do on the subject of book marketing, so I refer my readers to his book in my book.

I don’t do paid advertising, and that is what a good portion of this book is about.

“But couldn’t I reach a larger audience with paid advertising?” Absolutely.

Someday, I hope to be able to expand into the paid advertising arena, so I read through those sections, and I must say, Ricardo Fayette explains things in such a way that even someone like me, who gets headaches when thinking analytics, can understand, and he is very thorough. He lays out the differences between Amazon Ads, Facebook Ads, and BookBub Ads, weighing the pros and cons of each. And man, did I learn a lot, particularly about BookBub Ads. He really gave me a lot to think about. Hopefully, I will be able to include what I’ve learned about paid advertising from this book in the revised edition of The D.I.Y. Author by putting it into practice at a future date.

Fayette also talks about the importance of a mailing list and how to set up a newsletter with a reader magnet, reminding me of another area where my efforts have been lacking. He compares several email servers and offers the basics of a good newsletter. I set out two years ago to find a new email server because I wasn’t happy with MailChimp. But things got busy and life happened, and my quest for an email server got laid to the side. I opted to stick with what I knew, not wanting to take the time to learn a new server system, let alone the time it takes to research them first. This book offers a list with some I wasn’t familiar with which are geared more toward authors. This peaked my curiosity, as it sounded like it might be just what I’m looking for. I haven’t sent out a newsletter in over six months, and my readers have probably forgotten me. This might be the motivation that I need to get a newsletter up and running, and keep it running.

He shares tips for working the Amazon system, as well as some of the other retailers, for those who publish wide. He even talks about selling direct from your website, and how to make each of these methods work for you. He covers keywords, backcover copy and book covers.

On the subject of book covers, I have to disagree with him as he insists you must outsource your book cover with an expensive professional cover designer. I do outsource many of my book covers because I’d rather put my time into my writing, but although I am a writer and not a book designer, I posess the design knowledge and most of the skills to create a good book cover. I designed the covers for my Women in the West Adventure Series and I’m quite happy with them. I wasn’t happy with the cover I did for The Rock Star & The Outlaw, so I outsourced it to someone who had more skill than I did, and changed the cover three months after publication. So, while I’m not saying you shouldn’t outsource your book covers, I don’t think that it is an absolute necessity. While Fayette is adament on this point, reminding us of it repeatedly throughout the book, I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one.

This is one of the most comprehensive books on book marketing that I’ve come across, and one I will be referring back to many times in the future as I grow and expand my author business. A great value from a free book.

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About Author Kaye Lynne Booth

For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets; Books 1 & 2 of her Women in the West adventure series, Delilah and Sarah, and her Time-Travel Adventure novel, The Rock Star & The Outlaw. Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.

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Want exclusive content? Join Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for WordCrafter Press book & event news, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. She won’t flood your inbox, she NEVER sells her list, and you might get a freebie occasionally. Get a free digital copy of her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, just for joining.


WordCrafter Books Are Discounted for the 2024 Smashwords Read an Ebook Week

When:

March 3 – 9, 2024

Where:

On Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/ebookweek

What:

All WordCrafter Press books

The Discount:

50% off!

Find all WordCrafter Press books on Smashwords:

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Kaye_LynneBooth

Get all your favorite WordCrafter Press books today!

If there are WordCrafter Press books on your TBR list, now is the time to buy them. All WordCrafter Press Books are 50% off for the Smashwords 2024 Read an Ebook Week. That’s right. All titles in the WordCrafter Press catalog are on discounted 50% this week only on Smashwords.

Titles Included:

  • Ask the Authors: Writing Reference Anthology, by Kaye Lynne Booth, et. al.
  • Ask the Authors 2022: Writing Reference Anthology, by Kaye Lynne Booth, et. al.
  • Behind Closed Doors: A Collection of Unusual Poems, by Robbie Cheadle
  • Delilah: Book 1 of the Women in the West adventure series, by Kaye Lynne Booth
  • Feral Tenderness: Poetry & Photography, by Arthur Rosch
  • Hidden Secrets: Paranormal Mystery Novella, by Kaye Lynne Booth
  • Last Call and Other Short Fiction: short story collection, by Kaye Lynne Booth
  • Lingering Spirit Whispers: Paranormal Anthology bundle, by Kaye Lynne Booth, et. al.
  • Midnight Roost: Weird and Creepy Stories, by Kaye Lynne Booth, et. al.
  • Once Upon an Ever After: Modern Fairy Tales & Folklore, by Kaye Lynne Booth, et. al.
  • Poetry Treasures: Poetry Anthology, by Kaye Lynne Booth and Robbie Cheadle, et. al.
  • Poetry Treasures 2: Relationships: Poetry Anthology, by Kaye Lynne Booth and Robbie Cheadle, et. al.
  • Poetry Treasures 3: Passions: Poetry Anthology, by Kaye Lynne Booth and Robbie Cheadle, et. al.
  • Raise the Tide: Daily Devotional, by James Richards
  • Refracted Reflections: Twisted Tales of Duality & Deception, by Kaye Lynne Booth, et. al.
  • Small Wonders: Reflective Poems, by Kaye Lynne Booth
  • Spirits of the West: Western Paranormal Anthology, by Kaye Lynne Booth, et. al.
  • The Rock Star & The Outlaw: Time Travel Adventure, by Kaye Lynne Booth
  • Visions: Multi-genre Anthology, by Kaye Lynne Booth, et. al.
  • Where Spirits Linger: Paranormal Anthology, by Kaye Lynne Booth, et. al.
  • Whispers of the Past: Paranormal Anthology, by Kaye Lynne Booth, et. al.

WordCrafter News: March Celebrations

Newsprint background. WordCrafter quill logo Text: WordCrafter News

Smashwords 2024 Read an Ebook Week

March 3-9, 2024, all WordCrafter Press ebooks will be on sale at a 50% discount in celebration of the Smashwords 2024 Read an Ebook Week. That will make some of my backlistThe discount will apply only to books purchased on Smashwords during this week, dedicated to encourage the reading and thus, purchasing of ebooks!

There are two ways that you can participate in Read an Ebook Week: by purchasing a discounted ebook on Smashwords and by sharing this post with all of your book channels and groups of hungry readers.

A caracature of a girl reading a book on a digital device.
Text: Read AN Ebook Week, my books are 50% off, smashwords.com/shelves/promos

Hello, Readers!

We are fast approaching Read an Ebook Week, a week that encourages readers to pick up the digital device of their choice and download a new book to read.

I’m excited to announce that all WordCrafter Press digital titles will be available at a 50% discount, as part of a promotion on Smashwords to celebrate 2024 Read an Ebook Week! This is a chance to get my book, along with books from many other great authors, at a discount so you can get right to reading.

You will find the promo here starting on March 3, so save the link:
https://www.smashwords.com/ebookweek

If you wouldn’t mind taking part in promoting this celebration of Ebooks and reading, please feel free to share this promo with your friends and family. Share on social media channels wherever there are readers who would love a chance to find their next favorite book and, as the name suggests, read an ebook!

Thank you for your help and support!

Happy reading!

60th Birthday

That’s right. March 3 is my birthday, and I’ll be 60 years old. I’m thinking the Smashwords Read an Ebook Week celebration can just double as my birthday celebration, so if you want to give me a birthday gift, buy an ebook on Smashwords. For the 50% discount, you can find my books in the Smashwords store on my profile page: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Kaye_LynneBooth

I’ve always said “You’re as young as you feel”, but lately, I’ve been feeling pretty old. Sure I do things slower and a little more painfully than I used to, but that’s not what I mean. I’m talking about that feeling like time is running out; the biological clock is ticking down.

On the other hand, this milestone could be opening a new chapter in my life, a chance to do something new, and perhaps unexpected. My day job of nine years ended last March, and I’ve been seeking other employment ever since. The job search has taken me down unexpected paths and I’m still not sure what I will end up doing. My writing has also been taking some unexpected paths lately. I can’t help but be curious, and perhaps a little anxious to learn what comes next.

AI Audiobooks by Kaye Lynne Booth

Three Book Covers: Delilah, Hidden Secrets and The Rock Star & The Outlaw

Books by Kaye Lynne Booth: Delilah, Hidden Secrets, and The Rock Star & The Outlaw are now available in AI audiobook on Google Play. And during the month of March, you can get each one for only 2.99. Buying one to check it out would also be a great birthday present, so grab your copy on Google Play March 1 – 31, 2024.

W.I.P

Book Cover: A manual typewriter with a page of typed words visible in foreground. A shelf of books in the background. Text on page: Write a Book, Format the Story, Publish the Manuscript, Create an Outline, Create a Marketing Plan, Generate Reviews, Hide Under the Covers Text: The D.I.Y. Author, Kaye Lynne Booth

With my books, I have a better idea of what’s to come, and I’m excited, in March, to be working on my writer’s resource book, The D.I.Y. Author, scheduled to come out in June. In the conception and writing of this book, I take on a new persona. This book isn’t how I do what I do. The D.I.Y. Author is who I am. With this book, I am taking that persona public and you can now find me on X (formerly Twitter) @DIY_Author. Look me up. Say “Happy Birthday”, or just say “Hi”. I always enjoy hearing from friends and fans, as well as potential readers.

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Want exclusive content? Join Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for WordCrafter Press book & event news, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. She won’t flood your inbox, she NEVER sells her list, and you might get a freebie occasionally. Get a free digital copy of her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, just for joining.