Hello and welcome!

I have some news, good news, for both authors and readers. Read on to see what one of my fave authors, Erika M. Szabo has to say in her news.

Welcome back to my blog Erika! For those of you who missed my previous chats with Erika, you can read them here and here. One of her heroines came for a chat back in 2015, check it out here.
Thank you for having me Eniko!

I came across this post on your Facebook mentioning your online magazine. I flipped through it and I think it is such a great idea for both authors and readers. For those interested check it out HERE.

How did this come about?
I started publishing my book teasers as 3D flip-books and readers seem to like it a lot more than my newsletters. In May, I abandoned my newsletter because less and less people opened them, and I started publishing what I usually added to my newsletters, as monthly online magazines with fun, short anecdotes and book teasers. It pains me to see how much the Indie authors spend on promotion, so I stated adding Indie books by fellow authors.

Why do you think it will work?
The flip-book type magazines are easy to read on computers, phones, or tablets, easy to share them on social sites, and they can be embedded into website and blog pages.

I also saw the post about the call-out to Indie authors to sign up for the 2021 catalogue. How much is the fee to be included?
I’m planning to publish an author catalog in January, to introduce Indie authors. The magazines I put together previously, Meet the Author Gang and the anthology One Picture Thousands of Words had been very successful in spreading the word about the authors. Both had been read by thousands and because the magazines are displayed on the shelf, readers are regularly click and read them.

The entry fee is $5 per page to the Author Catalog. Authors who have 8 or less books published, they can fit everything on one page. Authors who have more books can fit everything on 2 pages.

In my monthly magazines, $2 per book on pages where I add 6 books with genre and link, and $5 where I add 2 books with blurb and link per page.

What can the authors who sign up expect?
Although the magazines are shared by many and read by thousands, I can’t promise sales for everyone. I can only promise a lot of exposure, the rest is up to the readers. My experience is that readers tend to click on the catchiest book covers to read about the books, and they tend to click on author links if they find the bio interesting or fascinating.

Who should they contact to sign up or get more info?
Interested authors can ask to join the Facebook group I created for this purpose where I share the info and ask any questions that come up.

Being an avid reader, I always look for info from my prospective.
What can readers expect from a digital magazine?
Every magazine, book teaser, or anthology I publish is reader oriented, except the ones I specifically publish to help authors such as the Self-Publishing issue.

In my monthly magazines I try to add short stories and anecdotes that readers can enjoy as well as books from authors they might not know yet.

For example, the October issue had spooky stories and poems, fun Halloween recipes and decoration ideas, as well as books fit for Halloween.

I create author portfolios as well check out mine for example.

The One Picture Thousands of Words was a fun project. I gave a picture to the participating authors to write a story based on the feelings they were getting from looking at it. The end result was amazing! Every author saw something different in the picture and everyone wrote something different in various genres.

Thank you Erika for the most enlightening chat, looking forward to read about new-to-me authors in your digital magazines. Let me know when you decide to do one for bloggers too 

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Well, I hope you found this as interesting as I did and share this with your fave authors. The authors who read my blog, I hope to see you in the 2021 Indie Catalogue.

Check out Ms. Szabo’s digital portfolio here. It is a lot of fun.

Until next time, happy book reading / listening and don’t forget to show your love by leaving a review!