I’m delighted to announce that Book Rookie: Tips for First-Time Authors was just re-released in an updated version. We were perplexed for a while about the correct term, but we did some research and decided on “Newly Updated.”
According to publishing experts, if you change less than 10% of a book, it’s not technically a new “edition,” and it doesn’t need a new ISBN. We could have called it a new “version,” too, although book people seem to prefer “edition.”
If you were wondering, swapping in a new cover is not considered a new “edition,” so it uses the same ISBN. But if you add a chapter or a foreword or other bonus material, that would definitely be a new edition with a new ISBN.
All this research was because Book Rookie needed an update. New social media platforms have become popular while others have faded away. Some old tips are no longer as useful as they once were. And the authors I quoted have published more books – yay them!
Book Rookie grew out of questions I heard from fellow authors. When publishing my earliest books, I attended all the writing groups, meetings, and festivals I could find. This was in the Wild West days of self-publishing, before CreateSpace even.
I was meeting loads of other writers who were also trying to publish and market books. People were paying for seminars, webinars, and email courses to learn about book promotion, and some of those courses were quite pricey.
Now I’m all for someone with knowledge being paid for their expertise. I have paid my fair share of experts for help with projects beyond my skills. But for many new authors, it just doesn’t make sense to jump headlong into expensive promotion. Preparation should begin with free and low-cost options, the do-it-yourself tasks. That leaves more in the budget for extra marketing later.
So, I took what I learned from personal experience, my day job in internet marketing, and from fellow authors, and published it as Book Rookie: Tips for First-Time Authors.
This isn't a ten-step process to success, but a discussion on where to start and what to expect. Do you need a website if you use a social media platform? How do you get into an author fair? Why should a reclusive writer try public speaking? I also include checklists at the end of every chapter to help authors organize their thoughts, and I share quotes from author friends who have gone through this themselves.
The “newly update” Book Rookie is now available on Amazon, and I’ll have copies at the upcoming author fairs on my calendar. If a writer you know is ready to publish for the first time, Book Rookie is a breezy read that can help them successfully start their new author life.