New Website Layout Increased Sales

Two weeks ago I decided to redesign my website homepage over at RuthIsWriting.com.

For quite some time the homepage has contained links to a few useful items from other websites, like gifts for writers (mugs, hats, T-shirts, etc) and a writing magazine subscription.

And I decided that it was time to use my homepage for my own books and ebooks.

What prompted this is because I recently set up three of my ebooks as print books too.

So I changed all the links to my books over at Cheriton House Publishing so that they included links to the newly available print editions, and I also decided to put links to them on the home page of my writing website too.

So I moved all the homepage links and ads for other products to inner webpages and listed some of my own books on the homepage instead.

Did it make a difference?

Absolutely. And it was much better than I thought it would be.

First of all I received quite a few new signups for my emails AND I sold more books and ebooks than usual.

How many more? It's hard to say in exact numbers or percentages (without doing a lot of counting and math) but I have definitely sold more books in this past fortnight than usual.

This could be partly because it's getting near Christmas (it's currently Christmas Eve, Eve) but I'm sure it has something more to do with my new webpage design and placing more book links on my own homepage.

Which just goes to show that marketing does work, even some that I didn't even tell anyone about. I just put up the new ads and left them to do their own thing.

So if you have somewhere that you want to put more links to your books, but you haven't done it yet, maybe now would be a good time, because it may increase your books sales more than you think it will.

And below is a link to one of my books that can help you start your New Year off with a much bigger online writing income.

(Gotta get my sales pitches in wherever I can) :)

Living The Laptop Lifestyle: How to Start & Grow a Profitable Online Business So You Can Quit Your Job

Click Here to learn more.

Writing News November/December 2016

Here are some of the latest writing news and writing information from around the world.

Brooklyn Beckham to publish photography book What I See
Brooklyn Beckham is to release his first book - publishers Penguin Random House have announced.
What I See, which will be released in May 2017, will consist of 300 photographs taken by the 17-year-old alongside new images of him.
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-38149735

Spider-Man Writer Creates Transgender Superhero
Meet Chalice, the world's newest transgender superhero. The dude dressed in a miniskirt is set to be the central hero in the Alters series, a comic ironically about societal outcasts who end up with superpowers.
http://www.charismanews.com/culture/59007-spider-man-writer-creates-transgender-superhero

A Look Back at the (Business) Year That Was
From Brexit to brand rehab to virtual reality, all the big developments in 2016 offer us lessons for 2017.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/286094

YouTube's Highest-Paid Star Just Trolled Everyone. Here's What You Can Learn.
Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, known as PewDiePie to now more than 50 million YouTube subscribers, posted a video earlier this week announcing he would exit the platform that made him famous if he reached the 50 million threshold.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/286344

Selling My Books With CreateSpace
I’ve been writing and selling books for years and until recently I’ve had my own books printed and sold and shipped them myself.
But last month (November) I began to use Amazon’s POD publishing site, CreateSpace.
http://ruthiswriting.com/articles/2016/createspace.html

5 Ways to Trick Yourself Into Being Productive When You're Just Not Feeling It
Writing notes, taking a walk and allowing yourself simple rewards are little hacks that can increase your motivation.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/286003

IDW and DC Partner Up For a Graphic Novel to Honor Pulse Nightclub Victims
IDW Publishing and DC Entertainment have formed a partnership to publish Love is Love. More than 200 writers and artists have joined together to create an anthology graphic novel that honors those who suffered from the tragic shooting at Orlando’s Pulse Nightclub in June 2016.
http://www.adweek.com/galleycat/idw-and-dc-partner-up-for-a-graphic-novel-to-honor-pulse-nightclub-victims/125232

Smashwords Self-Published Bestseller List, October 2016
while the vast majority of bestsellers at Smashwords are romance -- only four of the books on this list are not -- Hal Elrod continues to chart, coming in at # 13 this month with a work of nonfiction: The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM).
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/pw-select/article/72173-smashwords-self-published-bestseller-list-october-2016.html

My wife likes your colouring-in books, Prince William tells author
Johanna Basford was picking up an OBE at Buckingham Palace for services to art and entrepreneurship when the Duke of Cambridge revealed that Kate likes to colour.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/29/wife-likes-colouring-in-books-prince-william-tells-author/

Iran jails author for unpublished story on stoning
An Iranian author and human rights activist has been jailed for writing an unpublished novel about stoning.
Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee had returned home after being convicted by a revolutionary court for “insulting Islamic sanctities” when her house was violently raided.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iran-writer-jailed-golrokh-ebrahimi-sentence-stoning-story-unpublished-amnesty-a7379556.html

Goosebumps Author R.L. Stine to Write Series of Marvel's Man-Thing Comics
Famed Goosebumps author R.L. Stine has joined the ranks of well-known writers turning to comics, with an upcoming five-issue comic for Marvel based on Marvel’s Man-Thing character. The first issue comes out in February, and the collected edition will be available in summer 2017.
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/comics/article/72267-goosebumps-author-r-l-stine-to-write-series-of-marvel-s-man-thing-comics.html

Get More Joy Out of Sundays by Doing Week Prep First Thing In the Morning
Taking a little time on Sunday to organize the coming week is a great way to get ahead. But Sundays should also be relaxing so you’re primed for the Monday morning rush. Here’s a way to have the best of both worlds.
http://lifehacker.com/get-more-joy-out-of-sundays-by-doing-week-prep-first-th-1783615592

Strange, Surreal Cookbook by Salvador Dalí an Improbable Holiday Bestseller
In a season of blockbuster cookbooks, there has been one unlikely hit—a reprint of an opulent cookbook by Salvador Dalí that's been out of print for 40 years.
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/cooking/article/72213-strange-surreal-cookbook-by-salvador-dal-an-improbable-holiday-bestseller.html

Bana Alabed, seven-year-old tweeting from Aleppo, goes quiet
A seven-year-old girl whose tweets from besieged eastern Aleppo drew worldwide attention has disappeared from the social network amid an army offensive.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-38205889

The Crazy Egg Guide to Conversion Copywriting
PPC campaigns, email marketing, social media management, SEO optimization or good old fashioned word of mouth.
All viable and potentially profitable methods to grow your brand. But they’re also all very different.
https://blog.crazyegg.com/guides/conversion-copywriting/

U.S. Supreme Court backs Samsung in smartphone fight with Apple
The U.S. Supreme Court sided with Samsung in its big-money smartphone patent fight with Apple, throwing out an appeals court ruling that the South Korean company had to pay a $399 million penalty to its American rival for copying key iPhone designs.
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN13V1XL

Award-winning Australian author Shirley Hazzard dies in New York aged 85
Shirley Hazzard, the celebrated Australian writer whose 1980 novel The Transit of Venus won the US National Book Critics Circle Award has died at the age of 85.
http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/books/awardwinning-australian-author-shirley-hazzard-dies-in-new-york-aged-85-20161213-gtan4p.html

Microsoft-LinkedIn deal cleared by regulators, opening new doors for people around the world
It was roughly six months ago, on June 13, that we announced that Microsoft would acquire LinkedIn.  At that time, we said that we aimed to close the deal by the end of the year. Today, the European Commission announced that it has cleared the acquisition. As a result, we’ve now obtained all of the regulatory approvals needed to complete the acquisition, and the deal will close in the coming days.
http://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2016/12/06/microsoft-linkedin-deal-cleared-regulators-opening-doors-people-around-world/#sm.00000w1k6htseud3azh1zdjc0knme

Amazon unveils its Amazon Go grocery, where you just take things from the shelves and walk out
Its new physical store uses a mobile app, computer vision and other technologies to track every product and then charge your Amazon account.
https://martechtoday.com/amazon-launches-physical-grocery-store-just-take-things-shelves-walk-192990

Free eBooks
Free ebooks to help you make money from writing. Download immediately no email info required.
http://cheritonhousepublishing.com/free-ebooks.html

How To Write A Sex Scene: Three Authors Weigh In
Garth Greenwell, Jade Sharma and Rebecca Schiff on tackling the taboo.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/how-to-write-a-sex-scene_us_583f2981e4b09e21702c3740

Overdue Library Book Returned After 120 Years
The granddaughter of a man who attended Hereford Cathedral School in Hereford, England, returned a book to the school’s library earlier this month, which was only about a century overdue.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/12/12/overdue-library-book-returned-after-120-years/

The best thing you can do in 2017
An inspirational and motivational article by writer Mridu Khullar Relph to help you be more productive in 2017.
http://www.mridukhullar.com/best-thing-2017/

What Successful Authors Do to Maximise Book Sales and You Need to Do It Too

It's no good writing books if you can't sell them.

Some authors seem to believe that if they write a book, readers will appear.

But it doesn't work that way.

If you want to write books for living then there are three things you need:

1. A great idea for a book.

2. The Skill and self discipline to sit and write your great idea into a great book.

3. A ten-point marketing plan.

You see, if you wanted to publish your book through a publishing company, not only would they expect you to write a great book, but they also would want you to present them with a ten-point marketing plan.

Why?

Because marketing your book is more important than writing it.

This is why publishing companies want you to outline at least ten different ways you plan to market your book.

And this is what all successful authors do. They go out and find their readers and use their marketing skills to make their book sales soar.

So even if you want to self publish your books, decide who your readers are and make a ten-point marketing plan that will not only let them know about your book, but make them eager to buy it.

Read more about publishing books and marketing for more sales at http://ruthiswriting.com/articles/2016/submit-to-publisher.html

How Much Money Can You Earn From Your Writing in a Year?

How much money do writers earn?
How can I earn money as a writer?
How much money can I make as a writer?

These are questions that I get asked all the time.

And do you want to know the answer?

It all depends on one thing - YOU.

It depends on how well you write, what you write and how much you write.

So someone who writes useless blog posts once a month isn’t going to make as much  money as someone who writes in depth, weekly blog posts that get read by hundreds of thousands of followers.

But now is the best time to become the successful writer you’ve always wanted to be - as long as you’re prepared to work at it.

This is the time of year when everyone is thinking about plans for the New Year.

And you can do it too by making a 12 month writing plan and thinking about these 3 things:

How much can you realistically write in 12 months? You’ll be surprised just how much is possible. for instance, writing for just one or two hours a day is enough to write a 50,000 word book a month.

What will you write? do you want to write ebooks? Novels? Or do you want to be a blogger? A scriptwriter? A copywriter?

How much will you need to write to earn enough money? This is where it becomes a bit of a guessing game, but it is possible to come up with a winning strategy of how much money you need to earn plus how you’re going to do it (it’s math, people).

In the end we’re all different so you need to come up with your own writing plan.

But the advice I can give you is that you shouldn’t wait till next year.

Make your plan now and start writing.

Don’t wait till the New Year.

——————————

Want to learn more about writing and earning money?

Read my latest article How Can One Year of Writing Be Too Much?