Link of the Week – Viabox

Need a PO Box address but don’t want to pay for it because you won’t use the physical box? That’s the case with many authors. We send out newsletters but because of the CAN-SPAM Act, we must provide a physical address. Most of us don’t want to give out our home address for obvious reasons. And many folks don’t want to pay the post office or other facility a monthly fee to have a box we likely will not receive mail in.

Here’s a great solution! Viabox! This company provides a FREE physical US address.  One you can receive mail at…or not. (wink, wink)

In a nutshell, Viabox is a package forwarder — shop any US retailer, ship to any country. Viabox “allows you to receive mail, packages of any size or even oversized items on pallets that are shipped from merchants using major shipping carriers such as UPS, FEDEX, DHL, USPS, etc.” You only pay them if you want them to forward anything that has been mailed/shipped to you. Sa-weet! This is perfect for those of us who need that physical address that is not our private residence—even if we don’t live in Oregon (which is where Viabox is located).

https://www.viabox.com/

https://www.viabox.com/about-us.php

Link of the Week – Magic Text to Sell More books

A friend shared this blog post with me recently and, like her, I think the information is worth passing along. It comes from the Where Writers Win blog. The post discusses results found testing a variety of text used describing books featured in BookBub daily newsletters. It’s worth the read and can help when creating your own descriptive text across the mediums. Check it out.

https://writerswin.com/six-magic-phrases-you-can-use-to-sell-more-books/

Link of the Week – Click To Tweet

In this digital age, authors and entrepreneurs are tasked with marketing themselves on social media. Love it or hate it, Twitter is a big part of our society. In our community of authors, we often request that our peers throw us a bone and tweet about our latest book, a discounted price, a giveaway, or other general news. But even when we create the perfect tweet to share, our peers have to take the time to go to their accounts to do the sharing, meaning they just might not do it.

There is an easier way. Click to Tweet is so simple, there really is no excuse for not sharing. At Click to Tweet, write a tweet and the site will generate a clickable link. Once someone clicks the link, it will share your tweet to their Twitter status box. It literally takes mere seconds. Click to Tweet also tracks the activity of the link, too.

For giggles, here’s one for you to try.

http://ctt.ec/2s0rO

See…super easy! And thanks for the share!

https://clicktotweet.com/

Link Of The Week-An Easy Book Trailer

They claim they are the world’s simplest video maker! I poked around a bit and took a look at some author’s who have used them for their book trailers. Looks pretty good! Check it out and let me know what you think.

 

https://biteable.com/

Link of the Week – The Digital Reader – Amazon Pruning

Is Amazon at it again? Would you, the author, be surprised? Amazon has cut ties with ebook newsletter services that have affiliate accounts with the giant. Bye-bye Fussy Librian, Pixel of Ink and  eReaderIQ. Sure, we all want the reader experience to improve. But at what cost to the writers? Read about it at The Digital Reader.

Amazon Lowers the Boom on Discount eBook Sites

http://the-digital-reader.com/2016/06/15/amazon-brings-the-hammer-down-on-discount-ebook-sites/

Read this article posted back in May.

Is Amazon Purging eBook Promotion Letters? http://the-digital-reader.com/2016/05/10/is-amazon-purging-ebook-promotion-newsletters/

And in case you hadn’t heard that Goodreads (owned by Amazon) is getting into the ebook discount business (Whaaat? Have you been living under a rock?)  Move Over BookBub, Fussy Librarian – Goodreads is Getting into eBook Discounts http://the-digital-reader.com/2016/05/17/move-over-bookbub-fussy-librarian-goodreads-is-getting-into-ebook-discounts/

From Goodreads’ Blog: https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/648-new-great-deals-on-ebooks-personalized-just-for-you-u-s-members

Discuss this amongst yourselves. 🙂

Link of the Week – Goodreads Ebook Giveaways

Authors, in case you missed the news, Goodreads had added a new way to offer giveaways. Up until now, Goodreads only allowed print book giveaways. It was a nice way to get some discoverability toward you and your books. Now they’re introducing Kindle ebook giveaways. It’s a beta program currently for US residents only.

Here’s how it works: The author or publisher of a book – whoever controls the digital distribution rights to the book – can now offer up to 100 copies of the Kindle ebook in a giveaway. The author or publisher chooses how long the giveaway will run, and Goodreads does the rest. At the end of the giveaway, Goodreads randomly chooses winners and automatically sends the Kindle ebooks to their preferred devices and Cloud accounts. Winners receive real Kindle ebooks, complete with all the great features and security that Amazon’s Kindle platform provides.

Sounds pretty cool. Ah, but not everything that is shiny is gold. There is a cost involved.

Read all about it on the Goodreads blog. But don’t stop there. Read some of the comments, too. You decide if the program would work for you.

https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/646-goodreads-introduces-kindle-ebook-giveaways-beta-program-u-s-market

Link of the Week – Facebook’s Message on the Down-low

Wow. How frustrating and embarrassing. Apparently Facebook has a secret message inbox. Secret to you, that is. You could potentially have many, many unanswered messages (and spam) that you never knew about. Potentially from fans, long lost friends, one of the Hemsworth brothers. Potentially making you a jerk for not answering.

This week’s link is an article about it on Hello Giggles and where to find this hidden stash.

http://hellogiggles.com/apparently-theres-another-hidden-message-inbox-facebook/

I checked mine and while I had legitimate messages that went without a reply (so sorry!), there were just as many weirdos and ne’er-do-wells trying to make contact with me.  Potentially.

Have fun checking your mystery message box.