My workshops & classes
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Critique Groups
Finding and Forming Critique Groups
As an author, you spend many hours alone while writing your stories, but sometimes you need the perspective of others. You may have heard of critique groups, but never attended one and you’re concerned. How can they help me? What should I expect? How do you find a good group? Are there rules or best practices that I should know? In this lesson Kyle will answer those questions and more.
What Can I Expect
What should I expect from the different avenues to publication?
You’ve completed your manuscript! Should you try and find a traditional publisher? What should you expect from them? What about self-publishing? Is that a viable option? What is indie-publishing and hybrid?
In this one-hour introduction to the publishing world, award-winning and best-selling author Kyle Pratt will answer those questions and a few you may not have thought to ask.
STEP 1
So you have a manuscript—Now what?
You’ve finished writing the manuscript and are considering indie publishing. What do you do?
In this step, I discuss the editing process, critique groups, and what you should expect from a good one. I also discuss the four types of modern publishing and which might be right for you. Finally, we'll examine what it means to be be an indie author and how to be a successful one.
STEP 2
The four skills every indie author needs
What are the four skills every indie writer/publisher needs, and if they don't have them, what can they do?
Indie authors need writing skills, but beyond that, they need to edit their stories, design book covers, and work with computers to complete, upload and market manuscripts. Few authors possess all these skills, but in the age of the Internet, they can easily find people who do.
Kyle will discuss where and how to find people with the skills you need.
STEP 3
Uploading: Creating books, ebooks and audiobooks
This step is an introduction into how indie publishers create books, ebooks and audiobooks.
Kyle will identify free programs to assist with book creation and where to find affordable professional book designers. He also shows how authors can create audiobooks at home for little cost or have them done professionally using the Internet.
STEP 4
Introduction to Indie Marketing
Now with your book available for purchase, how do people discover it among the millions available? In step four Kyle teaches how to market your book in ways that don’t leave you feeling icky.
Marketing is essential for the indie author and publisher. In this step Kyle will discuss free ways to promote books that even bestselling authors use, and share inexpensive marketing tips employed by large publishers.
STEP 5
Intermediate Marketing - Giveaways
The website is up, you have a mailing list, and you’re active on social media. Now the problem is discoverability—how do you make your book stand out from the other nearly two million titles available on Amazon?
You need to start marketing your book and one way to do that is to give it away. Well, maybe not all of it.
You might give away part of it, or a prequel or sidequel. In this lesson, I’ll show you how to create both individual or group giveaways using Bookfunnel and Instafreebie.
Step 6
The Book Release Plan - 180 Days of Marketing
As an indie writer you need to be thinking how to market your book even as you are writing it. Starting about 180 days before your planned release date, this course discusses what you should be planning and doing for a successful book launch.