Indie Author Conference Parma 2019
Introduction
I attended the Indie Author Conference in Parma, Ohio on October 12, 2019, at the Parma-Snow branch of the Cuyahoga County Library at 2121 Snow Road Parma, Ohio 44134. The Cuyahoga County Library sponsored the conference for the fourth time. There were three presentations in the morning and a local author fair in the afternoon. The focus of the conference was for writers and authors to learn more about self-publishing. They featured thirty-one authors in the showcase. The listed authors all had at least one published book in either 2018 or 2019 for sale.
Link to Cuyahoga County Library website
https://www.cuyahogalibrary.org/
Summary
Saturday, October 12th at 10 AM
Understanding Amazon.com presentation with J. Thorn
The goal of his presentation was to show how to best sell a self-published book on Amazon. The slides to this presentation can be found at https://theauthorlife.com/iad2019/ J. Thorn also offers a free book on how to self-publish on his website https://theauthorlife.com/ The first important point to understand is that your cover must tell your genre. He became a bestseller when e-books just began in 2012 with his book, The Seventh Seal, which had 34 thousand downloads that year. After writing the book and looking at reviews, he realized that you need an editor to make your book the best you can make it.
Amazon is algorithmically driven. It isn’t like the library, Kobo, or Barnes & Noble. Amazon shows the potential buyer selections based on the algorithm. In the others, purchasers select the books to be displayed. The order of importance in selling a book is the cover, then title, then description. Know and target your ideal reader to cater to the algorithm. Amazon cares about the reader, not the author. Think like them to sell the most.
Using these methods, his book, Dawn, had one million page reads in 100 days. He thinks it is better to keep writing instead of chasing reviews since he gets one review per 1000 reads of his books. To help to find your ideal reader, he suggests the book by Chris Fox, Write to Market: Deliver a Book That Sells. Be a part of the community you want to serve. Engage your audience through social media or other means. Get to be a super fan of your genre to learn the conventions of the genre. Write what you read, don’t write the flavor of the month. Your readers will know if you understand them.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13511587-the-seventh-seal
They held the presentation in the Administration Building Auditorium with 32 attendees and the start increasing to 50 attendees at the end.
Saturday, October 12th at 11 AM
Protecting Your Work presentation with Willie and Rachel Scott
They Started TKI Publishing to help writers publish.
Willie and Rachel started TKI Publishing to help writers publish.
This talk was about protecting your work. The ISBN captures the information for your book. It is necessary to have an ISBN to sell your book online. Book barcodes are created from the ISBN which is needed for print books. You should own your own ISBN. ISBNs can be bought from Bowker at https://www.myidentifiers.com/
If you want to Copywrite your book, get a Library of Congress number at https://www.copyright.gov/ for $55.
They held the presentation in the Administration Building Auditorium with 50 attendees.
Saturday, October 12th at 12 PM
How My Self-Published Book Sold Over 100K Copies presentation with Dustin Brady
Dustin Brady Self-Published his children’s book, Trapped in a Video Game, in 2016. He had the idea to write the book that he would have liked as a ten-year-old boy. Watching the Nickelodeon Arcade inspired him to write his book with the protagonist playing inside a video game. The book has sold 250K copies to date. He said his secret was that he got lucky. His marketing strategy is to promise something that someone wants, then overdeliver on that promise.
The someone is your target audience which should be small and definable. He discovered his audience were the parents of small boys who hate reading. The promise starts with the cover. He learned that parents and teachers are the ones who buy his books, not the boys themselves. The cover should tell what the book is about and how it meets their needs. Over-deliver by putting in the work, it’s the only way to succeed. He found that the author’s guild helped him by giving lawyer advise about reviewing contracts. https://www.authorsguild.org/
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30969081-trapped-in-a-video-game
They held the presentation in the Administration Building Auditorium with 50 attendees.
Saturday, October 12th from 1 PM to 4 PM
Showcase with 31 Authors.
The authors set their tables up to sell their books. Willie and Rachel Scott and Dustin Brady ha tables set up. The authors gave five-minute readings of their work.
They held the showcase in the Parma-Snow Auditorium.
Recommendation – Conclusion
The Indie Author Conference at the Parma-Snow library was interesting and well run. The presenters each gave a personal and relatable story with their lectures. They didn’t know what they didn’t know when they started but persisted with luck and perseverance. J. Thorn made navigating the Amazon.com jungle easier, the Scotts made protecting your information crystal clear, and Dustin Brady showed how he made his book series a success. You can find proof of the possibility of success at the independent author showcase. My Star of the Con was J. Thorn. His presentation was the most interesting. It was another excellent conference at the library, and I intend to return next year.
Links
I attended the Indie Author Conference and Showcase on November 12, 2016, at the Parma-Snow branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library in Parma, Ohio. This is the link to my recap.
I attended the Indie Author Day on October 14, 2017, at the South Euclid-Lyndhurst branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library in South Euclid, Ohio. This is the link to my recap.
