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Ad Coaches, Anonymous Ratings, Barcodes, And More Questions Answered By Orna Ross And Sacha Black In Our Member Q&A Podcast

Ad Coaches, Anonymous Ratings, Barcodes, and More Questions Answered by Orna Ross and Sacha Black in our Member Q&A Podcast

Ad coaches, anonymous ratings, and barcodes are a few of the topics covered in this month's AskALLi Member Q&A with Orna Ross and Sacha Black.

Questions include:

  • What do I do if Amazon terminates my account?
  • Should I pay a coach to help me with Amazon Ads?
  • How do I determine if a contest is worth it?
  • Do I need a barcode?

And more!

Our Members Q&A Podcast is brought to you by specialist sponsor Kobo Writing Life, a global, independent ebook and audiobook publishing platform that empowers authors with a quick and easy publishing process and unique promotional opportunities. To reach a wide audience, create your account today! We'd like to thank Kobo for their support of this podcast.

Find more author advice, tips, and tools at our self-publishing advice center. And, if you haven’t already, we invite you to join our organization and become a self-publishing ally. You can do that at allianceindependentauthors.org.

Now, go write and publish!

Listen to the Podcast: Ad Coaches, Anonymous Ratings, Barcodes

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Watch the Video: Ad Coaches, Anonymous Ratings, Barcodes

Ad coaches, anonymous ratings, and barcodes are a few of the topics covered in this month's #AskALLi Member Q&A with Orna Ross and @sacha_black. Share on X

Show Notes

About the Hosts

Michael La Ronn is ALLi’s Outreach Manager. He is the author of over 80 science fiction & fantasy books and self-help books for writers. He writes from the great plains of Iowa and has managed to write while raising a family, working a full-time job, and even attending law school classes in the evenings (now graduated!). You can find his fiction at www.michaellaronn.com and his videos and books for writers at www.authorlevelup.com.

Sacha Black is a bestselling and competition winning author, rebel podcaster, speaker and casual rule breaker. She writes fiction under a secret pen name and other books about the art of writing. When Sacha isn't writing, she runs ALLi's blog. She lives in England, with her wife and genius, giant of a son. You can find her on her website, her podcast, and on Instagram.

Read the Transcripts: Ad Coaches, Anonymous Ratings, Barcodes

Sacha Black: Hello and welcome to ALLi's Member Q and A podcast. No Michael this week, but we do have myself, Sacha Black, and we have Orna Ross. Hello Orna, how are you this week?

Orna Ross: Hi Sacha, I am very well. Hello everyone, it's nice to be here again for one episode at least.

Sacha Black: Yes, we've got our lovely faces back. I do just want to double check you're recording everything for us.

Orna Ross: Oh yes, indeed, thank you Sacha, excellent reminder on the local recording, which I had indeed forgotten. Thank you.

Sacha Black: Okay, so we've got a jam-packed episode as usual. Michael is away, but he will be back next time. However, we have got some excellent questions and the first one is relevant to the podcast. So, the question is, how does one download the show notes to a podcast?

Orna Ross: To a podcast generally?

Sacha Black: Yeah, well, I think it's actually specifically to ours, so I can add, but it is in general as well. Let's answer both ways.

Orna Ross: Yeah. So, our podcast is housed on the Self-Publishing Advice Center, which is selfpublishingadvice.org. So, it is at selfpublishingadvice.org/podcast.

Every week, that's updated with the latest episode, and it includes all the show notes that are mentioned in the episodes. So, all the links and everything that's referred to by the presenters will be there as well as a transcript of the show which is downloadable as well. So, that's how we handle it.

You also podcast. So, do you do things a bit differently?

Sacha Black: Well, not really. I used to do transcripts, but just because of time restraints, I don't anymore. But I do have a blog with the links and the things that are mentioned, and they go into the podcast as well. So, even on a podcasting app, you should be able to see the show notes; if you just scroll down, there'll be a button that on whichever your podcatcher is that says, ‘go to show notes'.

I don't know if you can download them from the podcast, but you certainly can from my blog. I think it's quite common that most podcasts have some kind of static website where they will then update each week the show notes. Can't guarantee it, of course.

Orna Ross: No, not every podcaster is as wonderful as us, but I think show notes are a very important part of a podcast because for obvious reasons, if you want to follow up, but also in terms of authors who are listening here who may be running their own podcasts are considering running a podcast, I think it's really important that your listener has the option to go further. So, loads of them will just want what they got on that particular episode, but lots of them may want to, you may have a call to action like, buy my book, or something like that. So, the show notes is the place for all of that. So, thinking about the show notes at the beginning when you're setting up, I think is really important.

Sacha Black: Yeah. Okay. So, our very next question is perfect for you because it's about poetry. So, this question is from Abby, and it's quite a long question, so I'll just pull out a couple of bits from it and then I'll summarize it for you.

So, the question revolves around Abby, who has been writing and wanting to publish a poetry book for some time. They've been exploring various themes and collections in their writing, and they've been using their Instagram hashtag chapbook, which has inspired them to publish a series of chapbooks with individual themes but connected to a larger theme of chronic illness and trauma.

So, the summary of that then is, what is the best way to maximize my use of a poetry chapbook?

Orna Ross: Okay, great. Well, first of all great that you're doing this, Abby. So many poets don't think about self-publishing, so fantastic, and you've really thought it through in terms of maximizing the publication opportunities here.

So yeah, a chapbook, picking one of them, picking the most accessible, the one that's likely to, and you may know already, has proven most popular with your readers, and making that one free is a good idea. Having a permafree chapbook that gives readers a sense of what your poetry is about. You can use it to gather emails, that's probably the most effective way you can actually use it. So, it's no cost, but you're just asking for people's emails if they want to access it and beginning to build your email list in that way.

I'm asked by poets all the time, “I'm a poet, I'm publishing poetry, do I need an email list?”, and poetry really is published just like anything else is published. There really isn't that much difference in the actual publication process, particularly when we get to, there is in terms of typography and stuff depending on how the text looks on the page and stuff, if you write that kind of page poetry where it's really important that it's laid out in a particular way, yes, then your production can be quite different to straight text, but once you get into the marketing and promotion, it happens incredibly similarly. There is no great reason to depart. You may back it up with more performances and more readings and stuff like that because poetry lends itself well to that kind of promotion, but essentially everything that an author-publisher of fiction and non-fiction does should be done for your poetry as well.

So, I would say the most effective use of your chat book would be to set it up as permafree. Use it to gather email addresses and perhaps do an audio version as well. You can do the narration yourself unless you'd really rather not, very often readers like to hear the poet read the poetry, even if they're not experienced narrators, there's something about hearing the actual poet.

I mean, I wouldn't dream of narrating my fiction or nonfiction, but I do narrate my own poetry for that reason. So, you might want to consider that, but an audiobook is another way to spread the word, and then maybe do some kind of a video trailer of your chapbook. It could be, well, the sky's the limit in terms of what you want to do and how creative you want to get. It could be as simple as just you reading a poem and them seeing you.

So, poetry is very personal, it's the most personal of all the genre. So, capitalizing in a sense on that personal touch, and thinking about your chapbook almost like a calling card, a sample; here's me, here's my heart on a plate, have a little look, see what you think.

People will either, some people will go for it and lots of people won't go for it, and that's the thing about poetry as well, because it really is very personal, finding your readers and finding your niche can take a little bit longer. So, the chapbook is a great way to begin that.

Sacha Black: Lovely. I love that about the audio. My wife is a big audiobook listener and has recently mentioned that she prefers to listen to authors narrate their own work, and I was like, oh, that's a tricky feel because we don't all like to do that, but those that do, I really do think it does give that personal, even more intimate feel to the fiction or non-fictional poetry. So, yeah, love that.

Orna Ross: Without a doubt, if you can do it, you should do it.

I mean, you've got a great voice and you read very well, so it's a bit of a no-brainer for you. If you're not skilled. If you're not a good reader, if you slur your words, or you're indistinct, or your accent makes it, you know, that it's difficult for you to be understood, no, it's best to get somebody.

But if you can, a number of us are there or thereabouts. With a bit of training we could be there, bit of practice, so it's definitely worth considering. It also saves you. It takes a lot of time, but it saves you a lot of money if you could do it yourself.

Sacha Black: I agree. Oh, you've just given me a lovely idea for a goal for next year. But anyway, let's move on.

Okay, so the next question is from John, and this one is around reviews. So, the question is around different countries, and they want to know which countries a reader can leave anonymous reviews. So, for example, just ratings.

So, on most retailers, readers can just leave reviews, especially if it's via a digital book, because usually at the end of the book, you're allowed to just hit a star rating, and that's not necessarily specific to any country, I don't believe, it's to reduce friction and encourage reviews. It's not that old, I don't think. But it is frustrating, obviously, if someone leaves a one star and doesn't leave any explanation, so we understand that.

There was a comment in the question specific to UK readers not being able to leave a rating, but I can confirm, because I do read digital books and I'm in the UK, and I can leave just a rating.

The other thing to know is that on Amazon specifically, they're recently including Goodreads ratings as well. I'm not quite sure why they've done this update, but they are doing that as well. So, I don't know if you had anything else that you wanted to add on it. I mean, the question is essentially, is it possible for readers to leave anonymous reviews, and if so, what country and what retailers?

Orna Ross: Yeah. So, no, I have nothing to add. Align completely with everything you've said, beyond saying that authors are feeling bad about the Goodreads and Amazon hook-up because they use slightly different ratings systems and a three star on Goodreads is known to be a better kind of rating than a three star on Amazon KDP, but there's nothing we can do about that. We must just deal with it, so, yeah, onwards.

Sacha Black: Okay, so the next question comes from, oh dear, where's the name gone? The next question is from Anna, and this one says, I've just bought an ISBN number. I plan to publish my book on KDP. So, what sort of format/barcode is required? So, the overall question is, do you need a barcode for your self-published book?

Orna Ross: The short answer is, no. So, don't barcode it up because you'll just cause endless difficulties for yourself with the paperback and hardback producer people, which is essentially Amazon KDP Print and also IngramSpark. If you want to publish outside of the Amazon ecosystem, it's recommended that you would use Ingram Spark for that, for your print books, paperback, large print, and hardback, as well as Amazon. So, it's not one or the other, but in both cases, do not put a barcode. You don't need to, they will do that in the printing process. It's one of the advantages of self-publishing.

Sacha Black: Yeah, and just to explain in terms of liaising with your designer, typically the designer will leave a blank white rectangle, and that rectangle is in the correct place for the printers to print the barcode on for you automatically.

Okay. The next question is about rights, and this one comes from Jennifer. Jennifer says, I published through a vanity press and they're not delivering like they claimed, what are my best options to get my book more exposure?

So, the first thing that I would just mention is, and we've mentioned this before, but there's a great book by Katlyn Duncan, which is called Take Back Your Book, and that talks about how to get your rights back, essentially, if you've been duped, or if you are out of contract, or if you are wanting to break your contract.

So, you essentially need to go back to your contract and see if there are any outs, what the clauses say around when you can ask for your rights back, and then if you can't get your rights back now and you still want to market the book, then I would say, the best thing to do is a lot of research. So, start with ALLi's selfpublishingadvice.org website, because that's where we have our blog, and there are not just hundreds but thousands of posts on our blog that talk about all aspects of marketing and publishing.

In fact, all seven stages of the process of creating your author business. So, I would go on there, you can check the tags, so you can look under specific tags on the website or category. So, you could go to marketing, for example. We've got a ton of marketing posts on there. We've also got a new book on pre-order, which is coming, I believe in April, is it April 23? Yeah. Which is all about how to market your book.

We also have a ton of very successful members in our Facebook forum. So, you can go to our Facebook forum, and you can ask questions in there.

We also have fantastic ambassadors like Joanna Penn, who has a podcast The Creative Penn. I highly recommend you listen to all 660, or whatever it is, episodes of her podcast. So, that's over a decade's worth of content on how to market a book and there are a ton of books out there as well that you can read on the best way to market your book. Orna, I don't know if you want to add anything else.

Orna Ross: Yeah, I think returning on marketing, it's about working out what kind of marketer you are, who your reader is, where your target audience lies, what niche you're in, what genre you're in. All of that takes time, and then when you've got that established in your mind and you know where you're going, then you can begin to do specific promotions.

If you went to a self-publishing service and they did everything for you, in a way, you haven't acquired a lot of the publishing skills you need.

So, you'll need to go back to the drawing board, or sorry, you need to go to the drawing board, not back to it because you won't have started beginning to think about all of those things.

Returning then also to getting your rights back, depending very much on the service that you have used, they may not have your rights. In fact, they had no right to your rights, so hopefully they didn't take your rights. So, you paid a service for the job of putting your book together. A lot of vanity services present themselves as publishers and some of them actually, as well as making you pay too much money to do what they do, they also get you to sign over your rights, but that isn't actually okay. It's not okay for them to do it. Now, depending on who it is, depending on the service and who they are, you can actually sometimes be very successful in getting your rights back, even if they have taken them.

Or they may not have your rights at all, in which case you could let that edition of your book go out there, because with most vanity services, it's just going to fall to the bottom of the heap and nobody's going to be aware of it, and you could take your book and you can actually go through the publishing process yourself with a new ISBN, and put a new edition of the book out there as a properly independently self-published title.

So, you might want to think about that, I'm not sure. So much depends on your situation. So, if you wanted to investigate a little bit more, if you wanted us to take a look at the contract, just get in touch with Sarah on the Member Desk via [email protected].

Sacha Black: Lovely. Okay, now we have a collection of questions.

So, we've got questions from Delaney, Michael, let's start with Delaney and Michael. Okey dokey. So, the questions are around KDP accounts. So, what should an author do when Amazon wrongfully terminates their KDP account? That's the first question.

Then the second question is closely linked, with Amazon sometimes asking for proof of copyright, what advice do you give to UK authors on how to copyright our work? Because from what I can see in the UK, we automatically own the copyright, which means we have no official copyright registration. So, these are both around rights and proving to yourself.

We do have an article on ALLi already, which I will put into the show notes, but it's selfpublishingadvice.org/prove-your-publishing-rights.

So, yes, I don't know if you want to dive into this or if you want me to give a small summary?

Orna Ross: I'll make a start and then you can add if I've left stuff off. So, I'll go back in the end of the question back to the other bigger question of when it's terminated.

So, Amazon famously uses an algorithm to make this happen. So, it's not a human person who's coming along and questioning your rights. So, just first of all, on the question of copyright and the UK and the US and all the rest of it. In every copyright jurisdiction in the world, copyright belongs to the author at the moment of creation. So, you own your copyright everywhere, you don't need to register copyright to own it.

What you do need now, with self-publishing services, and in the case of plagiarism if something was to go to court, you need a way to demonstrate that you are the copyright holder. For an author, that's generally easy, and I know Sacha you've had this experience. It would be interesting to hear about yours, but just from a general point of view, there are a number of ways to do it, and they're all listed in the article that Sacha's just given you the links for, and that is in the show notes.

But the important thing to realize is that Amazon is not interested in shutting down legitimate copyright owners and copyright holders. So, don't worry if you get the letter, it's phrased in scary sounding language, and it really can give you a fright, and often you're given five days to sort things out, and all that kind of thing.

First thing to do is just immediately register with the support desk that you are the copyright holder, that you are an author, because their bot doesn't know that, and begin the process there. The support desk will come back to you, sometimes it's as easy as that in the first email, everything gets sorted. Sometimes it's not, and we'll talk a bit more about that in a second.

But if you run into severe trouble and you're not getting anywhere with support desk or you're sent around the houses, which can happen with Amazon sometimes, where you're sent from one person to another, and nobody's solving the issue for you, if you're a member, just get in touch with us and let us know, and we can take it to somebody in Amazon who will look at your case and hopefully get things sorted for you. We can't guarantee that, because we don't know why your book would've been flagged, and in some cases, you may have done something inadvertently.

We've had authors who have done things that have been a problem with other people's copyright, perhaps an illustration, or you've been over liberal in your fair use of somebody else's work, o inadvertently plagiarized or whatever. So, we can't guarantee a solution, and it is a very serious matter, particularly if you are only publishing on Amazon, which again, as you will know, if you listen to us regularly, we don't recommend. We recommend you not put all your publishing eggs in one basket, but we do know that a lot of authors do. So, it's a very serious matter to get this right, if you like, and to understand the implications of copyright.

Tell them about your story.

Sacha Black: So, I had uploaded my book via, because this was a wide book, so I'd uploaded via Amazon and then I'd also uploaded to IngramSpark, and I had not double-checked a minor detail. So, in the book's metadata section, there is a section for who the publisher is, and for whatever reason, IngramSpark was defaulting to Sacha Black, as in my name, but I have an imprint name of Atlas Black Publishing. So, I noticed this when it came up on Amazon, the IngramSpark paperback appeared on Amazon, I was like, oh, the publisher's saying Sacha Black, that's weird, let me go in and edit that. And of course, I clicked Atlas Black Publishing and then Amazon, for whatever reason, assumed that I had sold the rights to Atlas Black Publishing, and therefore Atlas Black Publishing needed to prove that it owned the rights, and it was this whole debacle and I definitely only got five days to sort it, which was extremely stressful.

But the way that I proved it was by showing my, so I did all kinds of things from sending email trails from designers, like historical records to say that I was one and the same, but it wasn't accepting any of that. So, the only way that it accepted it was that I showed my ISBN account with Nielsen, and it had both Sacha Black and the publisher’s name on the same page, and that was the only way that I proved that I owned the copyrights. So, all praise the ISBN and owning your own ISBNs. That's all I can say.

Orna Ross: I've never heard the sentence all praise to the ISBN before and I don't expect I ever will again.

Sacha Black: One and only time, that's it. Okay, great. So, that covers the copyright one, and then what do you do when Amazon wrongfully terminates your account? That's a slightly different question, but all rolled into one.

Orna Ross: Yeah, that was what I was saying, if you are finding that you're not having any luck, and often if you're terminated, that's the end of support desk, you can't get access to your account and therefore you can't ask for help anymore and you can't contact them and all of that. So, if you are an ALLi member, and you are a legitimate author, and you haven't been messing about and doing things you shouldn't have been doing, then, yes, if you contact us at the support desk, the address again is [email protected], then we will put your case to Amazon for you.

We will need your case history and any information and documentation you have about it, and again, if your account has been terminated, you may not have those details, but we will need something to go on. So, to authors keeping good records of their books and their correspondence, downloading correspondence with support desks generally makes sense just in the rare and unlikely event of something like this happening, at least you've got the documentation that can show what you need. So, do take a look at that blog post and look at the proofs that are needed and that are accepted, I should say, and make sure that you have them.

Sacha Black: Think I might go and screenshot my account.

Okay, so the next question is oh no, we just had that one. Okay, so the next question is from Jane.

Jane says, is it worth paying a coach to help me with creating Amazon ads, and is there a risk that the ads will become very expensive if there are many clicks?

So, not a bad idea to pay for a coach if you've got the money, but you could also take a self-paced course. There are many courses out there, and do obviously make sure you read all of the reviews, get testimonials, or even better, ask for suggestions of courses from other authors who've already taken them and have known that they have been useful.

Because what I would say is that, if you can do it by yourself via a self-paced course, you will save yourself a lot of money in the long run, and that will make them more affordable for you.

Another thing to say is that Amazon ads actually take typically, and obviously you can't quote me on this, but typically they won't swallow money as fast as other platforms like Facebook and BookBub for example, which if you set a budget, it will absolutely spend that budget. Whereas that's not necessarily the case with Amazon, and it's also all set by clicks.

So yes, you've asked about clicks here. If you set your cost per click at, say 30p and you get a hundred clicks, obviously you can times that by a hundred and you'll get what your costs will be. So, yes, it could cost a lot of money, but if out of those hundred clicks, you are getting 20, 30, 40 book sales, then actually, you are going to be more than making your money back. So, this is why it's really good to understand the systems. Take a course to explain this information and how it works and how to get return on your investment.

The last thing that I will say is, with any type of advertising there is a learning period and an investment period. So, you are going to need a little bit of money put aside just to experiment and to learn what works and what doesn't work. So, if that's not something that's feasible for you, then this type of advertising might not be the right solution for you, but if you do, even if you can start with just a small amount of money to experiment with, you might find that eventually you can increase your budgets.

Orna Ross: Yeah, and conversely, if you do have money, because if you're considering a coach, you may be somebody for whom financial budget is not the most serious thing, I would say also, something that you might consider is getting an expert to run your ads for you. So again, you're going to have to sell an awful lot more books obviously, to cover their costs, and the costs of the ads, but when you've got somebody who really knows what they're doing, that can make a difference. So, it very much depends on whether you are time rich or money rich, or if you're like most authors neither, as to how you may approach this.

If you are getting, your original question about, lots of clicks on costs and stuff, if you're getting lots of clicks and you're not getting sales to match, then there's something wrong with your Amazon page. So, it's not converting, and that will be because either the book description's not right, the cover is not right, something there is not appealing to the potential reader who was interested enough to click on the ad and go through to your sales page but didn't convert over. So, if that's happening with lots and lots of clicks, then that's good information. That tells you, and one of the great things about doing ads, be it Facebook ads, BookBub ads, Amazon ads, whatever, is that they can highlight that in what's not working.

So, if you're not getting clicks, the ad's not working. If you are getting clicks and you're not getting conversions, then the sales page is not working, so that's good information. It's good to know.

Sacha Black: Yeah. Okay. So, three more questions, two quick ones and one slightly longer one. So, the first question is from David, which says, I've self-published a new non-fiction, evidence-based, positive-psychology, self-help book through Busy Bird publishing. They're great, and I'm wondering if there is a list of non-fiction book awards here in Australia and internationally that is available to members.

So, we have a contest directory on our ratings and services page. So, the specific link we can put into the show notes-

Orna Ross: It's actually selfpublishingadvice.org/awards.

Sacha Black: Is it self-publishing advice or is it on the ALLi member service site?

Orna Ross: It's on the Self-Publishing Advice site.

Sacha Black: Perfect. Okey dokey. So, that was the first question, and then the second question is similar. So, this one is from JWM, and they say, at one time you had a concise table that ranked various available services such as publishing and editing, et cetera, thereby facilitating a search for the best appropriate services. I'm a little bit confused and wondered if you could point me to where I can find this information.

So, that's selfpublishingadvice.org/ratings

Orna Ross: Just ratings. Yeah, there's a couple of friendly links now to all of them. They have their long, unwieldly links, but yeah. So, for the awards, selfpublishingadvice.org/awards and for the ratings, selfpublishingadvice.org/ratings.

Sacha Black: Okay, and both of those will be in the show notes as well.

So, the last question then is from Lee, and Lee is asking about IngramSpark. I've been waiting for Ingram Spark to finally approve a recent update to my title, and it's gone into weeks. The publication date I set is fast approaching, should I advance the publication date, so it won't be there before the IngramSpark approval, or just leave it as it is?

So, I think a general question is, what do I do if I encounter problems with Ingram's service?

Yeah. So, first of all, with anything like that, don't just wait. With all of the services, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, you need to be proactive in terms of stuff like that. So, it sounds like, and perhaps that's just a mistake in how we're reading your question, but it sounds like you may have just put the update up and then just waited and watched your launch approach with ever increasing panic.

So, it's always good to ping them and let them know you're waiting. Let them know about your launch, get into a conversation with support desk. Sometimes with the best will in the world, things take a long time, and it depends on where you are in the world how long things are taking at the moment. There are lots of things affecting print, not least a paper shortage. So, print lead times are longer than they have been before. Especially at this time of the year, when it gets very busy, then you need to be careful.

But the support desks are your first port of call, the support desk for the service, and then, again harking back to the questions that we had earlier, if you find that you're not getting anywhere, then do drop us a line [email protected], and we can see if we can make things happen for you.

However, it's unlikely that we would be able to act within a timeframe that would speedily sort something like that out. It takes us time to get through to the right person, takes them time to come back to us and also to get back to you.

So, I suppose the overall advice, in addition to do use their support desk services, that's what they're there for, the overall advice would be, if you're publishing, when it comes to publishing your print, make sure that you leave long lead times, leave the lead time that seems reasonable, and then add some weeks onto it. Sometimes authors don't realize that print is more complex and takes longer to set up and get out there and get approved and everything, in comparison to the eBook, it's not the same. So, do make allowances for that.

Yeah, I used to leave a month and now it's like you need to leave even longer than that, really.

Orna Ross: Yeah, absolutely, and it's not a long time when you think that bigger publishers publish months, years in advance sometimes. Publishing takes time, and you can view it as time in which you can be setting up your marketing. There's lots you can be doing as a publisher in advance of the book coming out. So, a delay in the actual publication date is not necessarily a bad thing, and be very wary of setting a publication date without your books done and dusted and available really, because what's the hurry? The book's going to be out for the rest of your life and you're just creating a big stress for yourself.

So, it makes a lot more sense to set your marketing up around a date that's a bit further on. I say this as someone who has lived and learned.

Sacha Black: Okay. I did just notice our most popular question a couple down, which was from Jeffrey, who says, where can I find the IngramSpark code to not pay the $49 fee?

So, you'll need to navigate to our member site, which is allianceindependentauthors.org, and then once you are logged in, you can navigate to discounts and deals, and then you can search in there and it's always in there. And just to note that the code does change regularly, so every time you need it, you need to go in there and look for it.

Orna Ross: Yes, that's right. It's monthly, so if you used it last month, you can't use it, it will be a different code this month, and also you can only use it five times within a month.

Sacha Black: Okay, perfect. So, that brings us to the end of the episode. Thank you for stepping in.

Orna Ross: It was fun to be back, and thank you for the great questions, and thank you everyone for sending your questions in. Keep them coming. It really helps other people to hear. Only members can submit a question, but obviously everyone can listen, and so it helps everybody when you ask your question in this public forum. So, thank you for doing that.

Sacha Black: Yep, and Michael and I will be back in January, so we will see you in January. Have a lovely festive period or lovely summer, depending on what hemisphere you are in, and we will see you in 2023.

Orna Ross: Happy holidays. Bye-bye.

Author: Howard Lovy

Howard Lovy is an author, book editor, and journalist. He is also the Content and Communications Manager for the Alliance of Independent Authors, where he hosts and produces podcasts and keeps the blog updated. You can find more of his work at https://howardlovy.com/

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