TCK Publishing Videos

Every author wants to see their book on a bookstore shelf. Sure, the Kindle store is awesome and it’s where most of us make the majority of our sales, but there’s something about seeing your book on an actual store shelf that just gets the ol’ heart pounding and drives home that you’re really a professional author . But how the heck do books end up in stores anyway? If you want to get into a major store, beyond just your local indie shop, it’s a little bit of a complicated, confusing process. Let’s take a look inside and find out how it’s done. Retail “Retail” is where sales are actually made to customers. Retailers are in the business of selling books. They want books that their customers will snap up and they want to be sure that they’ll sell everything they put on the shelves, rather than being stuck with a book that sounds great but that sells only one or two copies. Any place you can personally buy a book is a retailer—Amazon’s a retailer, as is your local indie bookstor...

For the past five years, I have been on a roller coaster ride through the world of self-publishing. In that time period, I have written more than 50 books, had 15 best sellers, broke the top 200 of Amazon’s chart, sold almost a million books, and nearly gone bankrupt. The journey, which has been one of sublime elation and crushing disappointment, has given me a unique perspective on this industry. In the hopes of sparing you first-hand education in some of the lows along the way, I would like to offer the following words of wisdom for those seeking to make it as a self-published writer. Write from Your Heart, Market from Your Head The most generic of all writing advice is to write from your heart. Go on any forum and you will see this drilled into every young hopeful. While it is true that the muse leaves us if we do not listen, it is also true that listening too much yields abstract pet projects. You may have a deep love for a particular story, but you need to make sure that wha...

Going old-school with some of your branding and promotions doesn’t have to mean being boring. While certain classic techniques like having business cards to promote your writing can be good strategies for a modern writer, you don’t have to use stuffy corporate designs. Remember, writing is a creative profession—your personal branding should reflect that! Rather than cramming your unique appeal into a blah template that ten thousand businesses use, have a little fun with your business card and let your unique style shine. If you’re a clean, green health-focused writer, choose a design that echoes that focus, possibly with lots of white space and green text. Hard-charging business consultant with a book to promote? Share that through your business card’s visual design—carry through your brand’s logo and style, but add your book’s title and some of the elements used in its cover design. Write romance novels? How about a sweet card with touches of pink and elegant cursive font? Are...

Once you’ve made the conscious decision to overhaul your mindset , practice mindfulness , and bring gratitude into your life , it can feel pretty good! But as with every major change, it can be hard to make these positive moves stick. It takes about a month of continual work and practice to create a new habit, and practicing an attitude of gratitude is no different. With all the pressures of daily life, it can be tough to remember to take a moment to be thankful for what’s going right, instead of what we’re struggling with. This is where gratitude journaling comes in. What’s a Gratitude Journal? It’s pretty straightforward: a gratitude journal is where you write about stuff you’re grateful for. Simple, right? Maybe so, but it’s also incredibly powerful. Writing things down makes them more real to us on a psychological level (and writing them by hand , even more so). By putting your thankful thoughts onto paper, you’re making them physical and real—you’re giving them more power...

Chris Brogan is a New York Times bestselling author. He has written nine books, including Find Your Writing Voice— which is, naturally, about how to find your unique writing voice. He’s also the CEO of Owner Media Group, where he teaches strategy and skills for modern businesses. This is a great interview. We talked about how to find your writing voice and what it means to be an entrepreneur. Chris has a unique take you’ve never heard before. Chris started blogging in 1998 when it was called journaling and nobody was on the internet looking for blogs. It took him eight years to get his first 100 readers. What Chris likes about blogging is that there are no gatekeepers. You can write whatever you want, and that’s exactly what he did. He says, “I wrote garbage for a long time until I learned to write something that might be appealing to humans who have interests and needs.” How to Find Your Author Voice In order to find your author voice, you have to do two things: You have to w...

The first rule for being a successful author is to write. The second rule for being a successful author is to write more. The third rule for being a successful author is to always be networking. You never know where your next fan will come from. It might be someone who finds your book on Goodreads, but it might also be the person in front of you at the grocery store or the guy you bump into when you’re out for pizza. You might get chatting with someone at the bowling alley. You might end up discussing your book at the DMV. Your next reader could be anyone, anywhere. So you need to be prepared! That’s why business cards still matter in the digital era. Although we all tote tiny computers in our pockets all day, it’s still a pain in the butt to exchange contact information on a phone—not everyone uses the same system, vCards work with contact and email programs but aren’t universal, and NFC transfers are kind of clunky. Besides, after you dump your information into someone else’...

It doesn’t matter if you’ve written the most amazing book in the world if no one can find it. By now, we all know that—discoverability is king. People can’t buy your book if they don’t know it’s out there, ready and waiting to solve their problem, and so you have to ensure that people can come across it when they’re searching for related topics. But discoverability also applies to you personally as an author. People can’t fall in love with your writing, become fans, and support your author career if they don’t know you exist and can’t find you! Now, this doesn’t mean that you have to throw open potlucks at your house every week, engage 24/7 on every single social media channel (and a few that haven’t been invented yet), and generally sacrifice your privacy and sanity to the fishbowl of public life. But it does mean that you have to make it relatively easy for people who are interested in your writing and your career to find you, contact you, and share with you. Here’s why—and ho...