Authors Electric

Self published authors know that they can’t do everything themselves. We may have decided that we do not need the “full raft” of services that the big publishing houses offer, but we do need the help of some of the clever people who slave within the bowels of those giants. Before anything else we need editors to keep our words under control, and we need designers if our covers are to look as good as, or better than, the ones churned out by the big guys. Both editors and designers are fairly easy to find on the internet and don’t cost too much if the book has a budget and a chance of earning some money back. But then we come to the marketing side of the business, or creating “discoverability”, as it tends to be called these days. This is altogether a knottier problem. Back in May I wrote in this slot about a “real life 50 Shades of Grey" which I had been hired to ghost for an anonymous European lady. The book worked out well and one of the biggest agents in London agreed to ta...

According to a post on Problogger, my Undercover Soundtrack series might doom me to deepest obscurity because of new Google search algorithms. In a post titled Why Blogs that allow Guest Posts Will BePenalised in 2013 , Problogger explains that the term ‘guest’ and the use of multiple links are now likely to make Google bots condemn my content as spam.   In the Undercover Soundtrack, I host writers who use music as part of their creative process ( here’s a recent post that explains ). It’s guests galore.  Don't say 'guest' Problogger says: ‘Stop using the words “guest post,” “guest blog” etc. Oh dear. What other noun do I use to introduce a post that’s not by me? ‘Guest’ is perfect. Like ‘said’ in dialogue, it does its job and doesn’t get in the way. Anything else is absurd. Bad to link And what of the other major SEO clanger, links? They’re not all bad, says Problogger, as there’s a difference between ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ links.  Her...