Services

Welcome to AUTHOR SERVICES

THROUGH THE LAST 15 YEARS I’ve tried many ways of working with authors, always “work for hire,” meaning I work for what you pay me, and do not share in your royalties and rights. You keep 100 percent of those, and you are in complete control of your book. This is a great advantage self-published authors enjoy, and many have made the leap from a traditional contract to being self-published for greater control over pricing, updates, distribution, data gathered from marketing, and so much more.

I used to offer comprehensive packages for BOOK CREATION (which is actually just one third of the process, see below) for a long time, with packages from $5,000 to $20,000. Compared to traditional ghostwriting where rates sometimes start at $40,000, it was a great deal, and my packages included editing, design, production, publishing, and help with your launch!

From the beginning 15 years ago, I’ve gotten to work with some very established marketers, either solo professionals, small firms, or a client’s in-house team, and frankly, been disappointed.

You Made the Whole Process Super Easy

It’s been huge, and the coaches that I coach . . . the one who initially shoved me into putting this all together, he now wants to make sure when he has a new group of coaches that they have the book. Very exciting. Super excited. . . I looked forward every single time we got together to get another chapter or two out of my head and into a recording that could be transcribed and edited. . . I loved doing them. It was really awesome to have you as an audience and funny—I felt it was easy to put the book together. . . you made the whole process super easy to me.

Cynthia Freeman
Pioneer/Coach and Author, The Power of Done

No offense intended, because I found selling books is a highly specialized niche, and frankly HARD, especially with just one book. But I looked on Amazon one day a few years ago and found a wonderful author I’d helped after say five years had maybe only five Amazon reviews. It made me sick. So in recent years I’ve expanded my services little-by-little to include the REST OF THE PUBLISHING CYCLE. And it’s working.

On the BEST PRACTICES page and in my book The Modern Author what I outline is the just FIRST of THREE publishing stages: BOOK CREATION. But the full process is really threefold:

BOOK * PLATFORM * PUBLICITY

Or, sometimes I prefer:

PRODUCT * ORGANIC GROWTH * STRATEGIC GROWTH

(I owe a big debt of gratitude for the latter terminology, which I learned from client and friend Nick Bradley, whose brilliant business book is to be released in 2025.)

If you come up with a product, that’s the first of three stages. Next, you need a storefront, right? And to have that storefront viable you need to start finding customers, one-by-one with marketing. And third, once you have a product and a storefront, you are able to engage in publicity and marketing efforts that find groups of customers with one appearance, etc. Applied to publishing, this is just one more traditional publishing BEST PRACTICE modified for self-publishing. And it works!

QUICK NOTE: Getting a book on Amazon is like getting a bottle of hot sauce on the shelves at your local grocery store. It’s an achievement, but you’re still a drop in the ocean and need to market. That said, for clients whose goals do not lean heavy on book sales but credibility as foremost, Amazon alone can work, and skipping the PLATFORM stage can also work, going straight to publicity. It all depends on each client’s goals. I tend now to talk in terms of FULL-TIME AUTHORS and their need to build platforms and grow readerships.

Today I offer the entire process, at times with the assistance of third-party professionals I have vetted such as professional publicity, social media, press release distribution, and more. And, thanks to some intense searching and about a year of business development, after 15 years I believe I have a CUSTOM solution for anyone I want to work with, who also wants to work with me, in any one or several of three ways:

1. Custom Collaborations

We meet for a 30-minute intro consultation ($75, refunded if we work together). I assess your goals, vision, needs, interests, timeline, and budget, and get back with you in 24 hours with a CUSTOM COLLABORATION PLAN tailored to YOUR needs and budget. Projects can include as little or as much as you need, all done with and for you, from concept to writing; editing; design; production; distribution and bestseller strategies; pre-launch; launch; branding; web development; marketing (funnels and email campaigns); appearances on podcasts, events, and live signings, ad campaigns; pricing strategies; book “promo” sites/email campaigns; professionally DISTRIBUTED (important) press releases; publicity (in-house and/or professional); strategic author partnerships; even author acquisitions, and more. Projects can run from $5,000 to over $25,000 and all on YOUR timeline.

2. Hourly Services

If your project or needs likely fall under $5,000 I offer (based on availability) HOURLY SERVICES. We meet as above, assess, and I get back with you with a suggested custom plan and estimate. (By the way, I have yet to meet a client I did not have NEW ideas for, things they were not aware of.) Going “hourly,” even at my current hourly rate ($100) has SAVED customers/authors THOUSANDS. (I remember being a handyman in another life, and a real estate broker, where you had to judge the contractor by his rate AND effectiveness.) PLEASE NOTE: I am not always available for hourly services, please inquire.

Truly Cares

I have had the privilege of working along side many professionals and mentors throughout my business journey and I must say that working with Rodney as my book editor and designer has been one of the highlights for me. Rodney is not only brilliant at his craft, he is an incredible human being who gives from the heart and truly cares deeply for his clients and their positive outcome. In fact, he feels more like a friend after the many conversations we’ve shared and I feel grateful that our paths crossed. As you can see, I’m a big fan and I’ve no doubt I’m not the only one that feels this way about you Rodney!
Thank you so very much.

Amanda Clarkson
Author, "Frustrated to Fabulous"

HOW I WORK

I work in “sessions,” usually of one to three hours. I keep a log of hours, noted to the minute (not rounded up as lawyers do), and for almost every session:

  1. I write a quick summary of what stage or tasks we’re on.
  2. Create a check-listed work plan for that session.
  3. Execute the plan, checking off tasks and making notes both to myself and for you.
  4. Share the results (usually an updated file), as well as my hours log and work notes, and explain next steps and anything I need form you.

Lovely.

In fact I’m so happy with how I now work I’ll be writing a book (someday) and have planned a “Freelancer’s Lounge” space in the upcoming private community to help freelancers.

In my previous post, The Future Of Self-Publishing, I mentioned that the infrastructure needed to create a robust and healthy self-publishing industry is slowly developing. One key aspect is author services, but what are they and why should you care?

Any self-published author knows just how much hard work goes in to preparing a book for publication and how many new skills authors need to develop if they are going to truly do everything themselves. From story analysis and development to cover design to typesetting, publishing and marketing, there’s a vast range of skills that the true DIYer needs to develop. But what if it turns out that you’re rubbish at cover design? Or that you can’t get the distance you need from your story to do proper analysis and development? Or if you find ebook formatting too confusing and esoteric?

This is where author services come in.

Suw Charman-Anderson, Contributor
An Introduction To Author Services, Part 1
Forbes.com, June 21, 2013

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