Friday Social Media Tips: Twitter and Facebook.

Whether or not you opt for the marketing packages North Highland Publishing has to offer or you decide to have a go at marketing your own book you'll have to get the news out there that your book exists. 


So, with that in mind, how should you go about doing just that?

The power of Facebook and Twitter should never be overlooked. 


On Twitter you can directly search for your readership as Twitter filters out users who share the same interests as you by clicking on the '#Discover' button. Once you've done this, type in the exact keywords you'd like to find relating to your search. This will lead you to find users who 'tweet' about the same topics that relate to your book or writing. Twitter is free of charge to use and allows your followers to feel as though they're having a direct conversation with you. 


Facebook 'fan pages' are ideal for either setting up in the name of your book or under your author name. Facebook follows a different format than Twitter but it still allows you to have a direct line of communication with your 'fans.'


Through both of these mediums you can share links, pictures and any updates with your books.

DIY Self Publishing: Should You or Shouldn't You?

When you heard the words 'self publishing', they sound pretty tame in comparison to the traditional route of publishing you might be more familiar with; the competitive conglomerates who will take up only a handful of manuscripts per year, who are ultimately not able to meet the demands of many wannabe published authors.

Hence why self publishing is opening the door where it may have once been closed - and with digital book sales and e-readers growing in number and popularity, it's no wonder that any sales savvy author would snap up the chance to self publish.

Wikipedia says that self-publishing is; 

Self-publishing is the publication of any book or other media by the author of the work, without the involvement of an established third-party publisher. The author is responsible and in control of entire process including design (cover/interior), formats, price, distribution, marketing & PR. The author can do it all themselves or outsource all or part of the process to companies that offer these services.  

At North Highland Publishing, we're a company who will let you, the author have complete control over the design of your front cover, the formatting of your fonts, marketing and promotion - with a little help from us. You send your manuscript to us, we'll pass it onto our Editing Department and we'll send you a quote based on our most updated price list as to what work needs done on your manuscript. 


Authors probably have enough on their hands with the marketing and promotion of their books so we will take your manuscript and sculpt it into a book; hard copy, eBook or both. 


But, if we can do it, anyone can do this - right? 


Our team have a combination of industry and personal experience when it comes to self-publishing and eBook publishing, specifically. 
We have worked on various manuscripts; fantasy, crime, thriller, fiction and non-fiction works. 
We have converted books to be sold as eBooks.
We manage several on-line book shops. 
We sell hundreds of eBooks per month. 
We sell eBooks across the world. Our authors have sold hundreds of their print copy books.


The difference between 'Do It Yourself' self publishing and jumping on board with North Highland Publishing is that when you DIY your publishing, you may make many mistakes along the way. Mistakes that may cost you time and money to make. 


We're not saying we haven't made the same mistakes as the DIY'ers make, we probably have, but the difference is that we have learned very quickly with each mistake. There is also the advantage of a whole team there to cushion any blows we might have faced. 


So can a person 'do it themselves' when it comes to self-publishing? Absolutely. Is this for everyone? Absolutely not. 


Not everyone knows where to begin when it comes to selling and promoting their book, not everyone knows how to edit their book and not everyone knows where to sell their book once it's completed. And once you decide to get serious about publishing, these are just the top three most important things to know.


Most people starting out in the self-publishing world won't know about these things and will spend an awful lot of time - and money - discovering what works and doesn't. With an established publishing company like North Highland Publishing you can rest assured that we've been there and done it several times over, getting it better each time we do.


Another hurdle that authors face is that they don't have the experience of repetition, which we do. We've done this several times over and over, are signed up with a number of book retailers and have guaranteed monthly sales. 


If you're serious about publishing with North Highland Publishing, get in touch with us here. 

How To: Download an eBook.

To download a book from our site, it is very simple. Follow these instructions;

Once you have purchased an eBook you should have been taken immediately to a download page where you could download your book(s).

If not, here is the link to download the book (you will need to either log-in or register at this point):

My Bookshelf

Make sure you save the files (by following the instructions on the download page) to your hard drive in a place you can find them before you do anything else.

You should save the file to your "desktop" so you can find it easily and quickly once you have finished downloading.

Unless you change the name of the eBook file you downloaded, it is named (xxxxxx) -- this is important to know if you have a problem finding the file later.

London Book Fair, 2011.

Back in January I wrote about our experience with the 2010 Book Fair here. 

 April came around yet again for another year and off to the Book Fair some of the North Highland Publishing Team went.

This is one of the biggest events in the book publishing calendar with an estimated 23,000 publishers, journalists and other experts from the industry from all over the world in attendance. This years focus was on the emerging world of digital publishing. 

Underlying this focus is the perception that a change from paper to electronic books is approaching. 

In the UK, electronic book sales make up about 5% of the market, whereas in the United States, it is up to 10%, with Amazon US stating that it sold more e-books for its Kindle device than paperback books in the last three months of 2010. This, combined with the the pressure put on independent booksellers by giants like Amazon, Google and Apple, means that publishers of all kinds are having to adapt quickly to this changing market.

North Highland Publishing was fortunate to attend seminars on self-publishing, electronic publishing, marketing of Ebooks and many other seminars while at the Book Fair.

The most insightful Masterclass was delivered from Acorn Independent Press -  a brother and sister team who specialise in self publishing - who discussed how the recession and technological advancements had made an impact on the World that is known as self publishing and explained the boom in authors who are self publishing.

 And with known "marketing gurus" like Seth Godin opting out of traditional routes to publish, this comes as no real shock or surprise that the demand for self publishing has risen. Seth made an interesting point on his blog about traditional publishers by saying;

 "I honestly can't think of a single traditional book publisher who has led the development of a successful marketplace/marketing innovation in the last decade."

As far as I can deduce self publishing (and more so electronic publishing) is the innovation; it is current to technological advancements and how customers interact with technology and it allows the author to control what services and products they would like to use for publishing, promoting and selling their book; from electronic publishing, to hard back and POD (print on demand) the options seem far more catered to individuals who have, not unreasonably, individual needs and wants when it comes to publishing their books.

  As demand increases for self-publishing, it will be interesting to watch the shift between traditional and self publishing, especially for first time authors who may otherwise be chewed up and spat out in the big conglomerate publishing house.

Check out our FACEBOOK to see the rest of the London Book Fair photographs.