In this post, I’m going to talk about why conferences are so important for writers, and I’ll give you my best tips on how to choose the right event and how to make the most of the experience.

OCTOBER 17, 2024 by KEVIN BACHAR (GUEST BLOGGER)

I first transitioned from documentary film narration to writing feature screenplays. Then the Writers Guild of America struck in May 2023, bringing the screenwriting world to a halt. Rather than work on a screenplay that might be shelved during the strike, I decided to give writing short stories a shot. By September, I had written enough short stories for my first collection. Sticking with my style of incorporating personal experiences into my writing, Dread was a look at the dark side of nature, a collection of horror and suspense tales that you’d never find in a David Attenborough documentary.

I had a book, and now I needed a plan. Launching books is like making first impressions: You only get one shot at it, so how would I make sure I got it right? Below are some of the paths I followed to get me to my final destination: a successful book launch.

Convincing readers to purchase a book written by an author they haven’t heard of before is a common marketing challenge, whether you’re promoting a debut book, trying to expand your readership, or breaking into a new genre.

Are you overwhelmed by the amount of book marketing you seem to have to do? There are countless ways to promote a book — but you don’t need to do all of them to drive sales. Instead, focusing on tactics that reach the right readers with the right message at the right time will let you spend less money (and time!) and sell more copies.

Being an author isn’t just about writing anymore. Authors — both independently and traditionally published — have to wear a lot of hats: writer, marketer, administrator, content creator, personnel manager, and operations manager, among others. With so many roles to juggle, how do they balance the time it takes to actually write books with the business of reaching readers? What do writers do on a daily and weekly basis?

BookBub surveyed more than 500 authors in the BookBub audience to ask about how they actually spend their time — see what they had to say.

Your author newsletter is a crucial tool for building a strong, direct connection with readers, even before your first book is out. But it’s a good idea to think strategically about encouraging readers to sign up. When we get so many emails already, many of us ask ourselves: What’s in it for me?

If you’ve used Google or other search engines lately, you’ve probably noticed that the results, and the way books and authors appear in them, are changing. Searches no longer return just a long list of links — they include rich data, FAQs, AI summaries, and other new answer formats.

These changes are both a challenge and an opportunity — authors who adapt and earn placement in the new, richer results stand to sell more books and grow their audience. Meanwhile, authors who don’t adjust could see declines in their search-driven traffic and sales.

What do you need to do to make sure you benefit from these changes?

This article aims to answer that question by looking at the key ways search is changing, and the steps you can take to prepare.

Generative AI and large language models (LLMs) have developed rapidly in the last few years, and now represent one of the most controversial topics in the publishing world. We regularly survey our partners to understand how they’re using different platforms and technology and to share those insights with our audience, and we recently did the same for AI. We heard from over 1,200 authors who told us how they’re currently thinking about AI in relation to their work.

A large, engaged email list is a valuable asset for any author. It’s an audience of readers that you control — unlike audiences you might be able to reach on social platforms or retailers. And it can be deployed any way you want: to grow reviews for a new release, to drive sales of your backlist books, to help out an author friend, and more. The beauty of your email list is that you decide.