Dominique Gibson

It’s that time of the year again.

They have been announcing it for a while now (I think they announced it back in January or February) and I am just now coming around to this news. Harlequin has announced that they will be doing the Romance Includes You once again this year. I don’t know if any of you have been paying attention to my blog over the last few years, but I have entered the Romance Includes You Mentorship Program since it started. Even though I wasn’t successful when it came to winning the actual prize, that never stopped me from trying. Will I try again this year? Absolutely.

I know what you are thinking: Why would I want to sign up for this when time and time again, I keep getting rejected.

One: I love reading Harlequin Novels. Right now, I am reading a Harlequin Presents book called Breaking the Playboy’s Rules by Melanie Milburne. As of right now, this book doesn’t suit me at all (I will be doing a review of this book as well in the near future) but I am now thinking that the only reason why is because I have been leaning more towards Harlequin Heartwarming vs. Harlequin Presents (Although I still haven’t given their new romance imprint, Afterglow books a chance yet).

See? I love reading Harlequin Books

Two: It has been my dream since I read my first romance novel to write for Harlequin. I will never forget the first book I read in romance. It was a Harlequin Novel (Silhouette Desire to be exact) and I remember how much I wanted to write a romance novel ever since. My self-published novels features either the romance as a main plot of the book (with light sci-fi as a secondary plot) or vice versa (The sci-fi plot takes over but still has a romance subplot which ends in a happily ever after). In my self-published novels, they have a huge sci-fi element to the series. In this contest, I would be writing in a different genre (category contemporary romance) to stretch my creative writing muscles.

Three: This will finally give me the opportunity to become a hybrid author (If I win). This will in return give me the opportunity to slowly save my money as a second source of income while working full-time as an infant teacher and writing my self-published books on the side. Once I am able to do it, I will make the transition from being a full-time infant teacher to being a full-time writer, writing in the Truson S.E.T. Series (Self-publishing) and writing for Harlequin (traditional publishing).

Considering I am still working on the latest draft of Courtney’s Redemption, the fourth book in the Truson S.E.T. Series (I am in the final stages of the self-editing process), I will be starting this new project for the contest very soon (probably sooner than you and I can imagine) and will have it ready before the May 31st deadline.

If you want more information about this contest, Click on the link here and here for more.

That’s all for now. See you soon.

Dominique Gibson

Hello! Dominique Gibson is back with another post. So, the one question that has been on my mind for a couple of months now is how to market my books. What other ways can I market my books besides me doing free book giveaways on Tiktok? Some of the things I tried doing in the past was outsourcing this part to other people via Fiverr (Which I have to admit was somewhat a success most of the time). But I wanted to explore more things that I may try in the future when it comes to getting the word out there for my self-published books.

So, I searched the internet and found another article titled ‘How to Market Your Book in Ten Simple Steps’. I think that this was mostly geared towards nonfiction writers but I think that it could potentially be pretty handy when it comes to fiction writers as well. One of the advice that they give out is to drop everything and do an author website. As someone who has been creating all sorts of content on my own website for years, I cannot emphasize this enough when it comes this point. If you want to stand out from the competition, you are going to need an author website to do so (This rule is a necessity for self-published authors but couldn’t hurt for traditionally published authors as well.)

But then the article gets interesting by talking about Google Search Console and Google Search Analytics account (They recommend that you use both) to figure out who your target audience is. This way, you will be able to promote to that audience and figure out if your keywords and SEO are working. Another thing that I do agree with is choosing your social media platform to grow your audience. Out of all the social media I have done over the years, I have posted more and more video content on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. At one point, I used to post all the time on Youtube which I plan on getting back to later this year.

If you want to check out this article, you can click on the link down below for more information.

How to Market a Book in Ten Simple Steps

That’s all for now. See you soon.

Dominique Gibson

Oh boy, oh, boy, oh boy.

I couldn’t wait to jump on this one.

I had a feeling about this ever since I started seeing a lot of hybrid publishers pop up on my Instagram and Facebook Feeds as ‘paid ads’. But now, my prediction is slowly but surely coming to life.

Hello, My name is Dominique Gibson, self-published author of The Truson S.E.T. series and two nonfiction books The Gibson Newsletter: A Year in Review. So, I just so happen to wake up this morning to a Youtube video created by Alyssa Matesic about this huge publishing news about a new publishing company forming around the publishing space called Author’s Equity.

To dig a little further when it came to this issue, I went introduced to an article about this particular subject and decided to share this with all of you:

Click here for the article.

Both the video and the article talks about how some of the biggest names in the publishing (Aka the publishing veterans) are forming a new publishing house titled ‘Author’s Equity’. Some of these big names that are forming this new publishing company is Madeline Mclntosh and Don Weisburg, who served as the CEO of Penguin Random House and Macmillian and Nina Van Moltke, president and director of development at PHR US (Whatever that means). Anyway, The article states that it would abandon the traditional publishing models by offering no advances but will offer a higher percentage of the book profits–a model that is used by most hybrid publishers.

WAIT, WHAT?

You read that right.

They basically said that they are going to be a hybrid publisher that offers authors no advance but a higher percentage of royalties to the authors. Now, don’t get me wrong, if the royalties are as high as the Amazon royalties that self-published authors get whenever they publish a book on Amazon (70%), then that would be great. But I am not sure I would agree when it comes to giving out no advances on this. How many years would it take for an author to publish with them without an advance (One year, two years?).

For authors who dreamed of living off of the advance to supplement their bills, this would be a huge game changer and not for the better. After everything that I have seen and heard over the last year or two when it came to traditional publishing, this is just giving me vibes that traditional publishing is going down a slippery slope when it comes to both debut and established authors who are so used to the ‘old-fashioned way of doing things that this new model would either turn them off to traditional publishing completely or look for other alternatives (Self-publishing).

What do you guys think?

See you soon.

Dominique Gibson

Hi! Dominique Gibson is back with another post. I don’t know if I actually made a confession when it came to my writing and publishing journey but I did announce that I was going back and forth with being a hybrid author. In case some authors are scratching their heads, trying to figure out what this means, I will be happy to explain this to you down below:

Hybrid Author: An author who has both a traditionally published book with a publisher and a self-published book.

Considering that I already have self-published five books as an indie author (Three in the Truson S.E.T. series and two in the nonfiction space), I have decided to dip my toes in the water once again by trying to get the attention of a literary agent or publisher through a contest. The contest is called The Storyteller’s contest and it’s sponsored by a website called The Writer’s Sanctuary. This contest is a perfect way for both aspiring and self-published authors to get their work seen by two bestselling authors and have the opportunity to win a mentorship and the possibility of having your work seen by a literary agency!

What are the requirments?

1. You only need to submit the first page of your unpublished work.
2. Follow the instructions they state on the entry.
3. Pay a 25 dollar fee (Yes there is a fee but it’s a small fee depending on what you get as a grand prize.

Want more information about this contest? Click on the link here for more info. Hurry, the contest ends on February 29th, 2024 at 11:59.p.m. (Pacific time).

That’s all for now, see you soon.

Dominique Gibson

So, I will admit that today has been a very interesting day considering I spent the majority of my time watching Youtube Videos and listening to a podcast that proved to be very beneficial for those who are self-publishing and looking for ways to either market their book (Especially when it comes to outsourcing your marketing services to other people through Fiverr) and what self-published authors can expect to see in 2024 according to the ‘Write the Damn Book already’ podcast.

First up: Sean Dollevet – Youtube videos about Amazon KDP

Click here for his Youtube Channel

This man has multiple videos on different tips on how to make money using Amazon KDP. I just recently watched a couple of videos where he talked about using Fiverr for book marketing and gives you really cool tips on what to look for when it comes to the different book marketing promotions that will make you money vs the ones that are a waste of time. Those videos are quite handy when it comes to what you want to look for when it comes to outsourcing services from yourself to hiring other people on Fiverr to do so.

He also has a lot of other videos when it comes to how to make money selling books on Amazon KDP as well so be sure to check him out.

Second in line: “Write the Damn Book Already’ : 2024 predictions for self-publishing

Click here for more on the podcast

I came across this podcast while searching google about self-publishing. This podcast talks a lot about indie publishers getting their books in bookstores in addition to the self-doubt that both self-published authors and traditionally published authors go through when it comes to marketing their book on social media. She makes very good distinctions when it comes to what and how much freedom the self-published authors have vs. how much freedom traditionally published authors have when it comes to marketing the book themselves. Overall, I think that this is a very important podcast that everyone should listen to on the future of self-publishing.

That’s all that I have for today. Please be sure to check out my website for future posts and videos here. If you want to learn more information about me and my books, please check out the tab where it says ‘ The Journey Begins’ at the top of the page or you can click here for more info.

See you soon.

Dominique Gibson