Payhip

Can Book Review Blogs really lead to sales?

There’s no doubt about it: writing a book is a gargantuan task. Publishing is another minefield. But once the writing is over, the editing complete and the words in print, how do you actually tell the world about your work? How do you even start to build a readership, let alone make your way onto a bestseller list?

Promoting your novel is a challenge to say the least. For some authors, the logical first step is to get a few reviews under their belt, directly from specialist bloggers. But others vehemently claim:

No! It’s not worth it!.

So, do book review blogs actually benefit the author – resulting in sales and greater awareness? Or are they a waste of time?

New features: Affiliates, Send to Kindle + more!

Just like you wonderful authors, we are working hard to prioritize what we should be working on next. No one wants to work on something that isn’t going to be useful to anyone!

But we’ve had help from you a few months back on what we should be working on. We’re thrilled so many authors are using Payhip and we can’t wait for you to try out the new features we are announcing today! The new features are as follows:

A Complete, No-Nonsense Guide to NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo: what’s it all about?

It all began with twenty-one aspiring writers. Twenty-one people who set themselves a collective challenge: to complete a 50,000 word novel in one month. It was brave, certainly. Naive, even. But do you know what? They all did it; every single one. And they decided that if they could do it, others could too.

And just like that, National Novel Writing Month was born: a gargantuan project for writers of all backgrounds. Sixteen years on from that first experiment, NaNoWriMo can quite comfortably be classed as a global phenomenon. Last year 310,095 writers took part, with 2014 set for even greater things.

The rules of NaNoWriMo are simple. On 1st November, sit down and write the first word of your novel. Keep going until you have at least 50,000 words: just make sure you hit that target by the end of the month. From crime thrillers to YA fiction, anything goes: as long as you hit the word count.

As this year’s event draws ever-closer, the writing community is gearing up for another 30 days of furious noveling. Whether you’re a seasoned author or a total newbie, here’s everything you need to know about NaNoWriMo.

5 tips you need for writing a self published bestseller

So, you’ve been an avid bookworm since you were knee high to a grasshopper, and think you’ve got the chops to craft stories that people all over the world will love? Then maybe it’s time that you take the big plunge and start churning out a new novel!

Thanks to the advancement of technology, everyone who has a flare for the arts is able to share their creativity with the masses. Ages ago, people who were looking to write a book and make some money, had to submit their manuscripts to publishers and hope they would consider printing the book. Typically, this resulted in stacks of rejection letters tall enough to reach the peaks of Mount Everest. Those days are long gone.

The big “thing” now is eBooks! The next time you visit the local coffee shop, take a quick look around, and you’ll see everyone has something in their hand, and it’s not a Frappuccino. Just about every human being that breathes has a smart phone, tablet, or e-reader, tapping away furiously at the tiny touch screens with their fingers.

Most people are now using these devices to read the works of their favorite authors! The beautiful part is that these electronic books no longer require a big New York publishing house to print and publish the material! Instead, writers can now write about their passion, publish the material online, and market the book themselves!

If you’re ready to give this a whirl, then here are a few tips to help you get started!

New Features + Claim Your Profile Page!

We have been working hard for the past few months trying to understand how authors use Payhip and based on our findings we are super excited to announce some new features to kick off the new year!

We’re thrilled so many authors are using Payhip and we can’t wait for you to try out the new features! The new features are as follows:

Vote for New Features

It’s that time again where we start working on some exciting new features. But we need your help to decide which ones to work on first!

VOTE HERE

Here is an overview of features to vote on:

New Features

This is a reminder that the new features and pricing change will take effect at 9pm (GMT) on Thursday 30th of May 2013.

We received tremendous feedback and support on the proposed changes and we are really excited for the release on Thursday.

We’re thrilled so many authors are using Payhip and we can’t wait for you to try out the new features! Just to remind you, here are some of the features we will be introducing:

Brief Service Outage

We experienced a short down time between 5.48am to 11.00am (GMT).

Our hosting provider (Media Temple) generously upgraded the RAM for our Payhip servers and this required a reboot. However, after the reboot which was almost instantaneous, our application failed to startup after the reboot. The problem had to be resolved by manually starting our application.

We apologies for this and we have put certain procedures to stop this from happening again.

How readers buy ebooks easily on Payhip

This is a very short video demonstration to show how your readers buy ebooks from Payhip.