ABOUT SHELF HELP
Shelf Help was born in early 2012, when fantasy author Ben Galley realised the need to provide honest, detailed, and helpful advice to fellow authors around the world. Since then, Shelf Help has assisted hundreds of authors to publish, sell and making a living from their books.
For the first time in history, authors have another viable way of reaching readers besides traditional publishing. It’s an exciting time, but it can be challenging. The self-publishing landscape is still a relatively young and tumultuous one. With the influx of new technology into the publishing industry, countless new ways of publishing and marketing have sprung up, leaving many keen authors more than bamboozled by the amount of options and lack of knowledge. It can be daunting. Mistakes can be made. Money can be wasted. We live in a time where good advice needs to be shared far and wide.
When it came to publishing his debut novel in early 2010, Ben Galley tried and tested a number of new self-publishing paths, and in doing so, recognised the need for a method of publishing and marketing that was affordable, professional, and driven by the new technology that is now at an author’s fingertips. Releasing his second book helped him to firm up his methods, and as such he began to give talks and lectures on what he came to call the ‘Shelf Help Method.’ This website is the result of his, and others’, experiences, and Shelf Help has been going strong since 2012.
ABOUT BEN:
Ben Galley is an author of dark and epic fantasy books who currently hails from Victoria, Canada. Since publishing his bestselling debut The Written in 2010, Ben has released a range of award-winning fantasy novels, including the weird western Bloodrush and the epic standalone The Heart of Stone. He is also the author of the brand new Chasing Graves Trilogy.
Ben enjoys exploring the Canadian wilds and sipping Scotch single malts, and will forever and always play a dark elf in The Elder Scrolls. One day he hopes to live in an epic treehouse in the mountains.
Before going full-time as an author in 2015, Ben worked a freelance digital marketing, working with a range of clients, agencies, and companies such as Jaguar Landrover, Sony Playstation, Expedia, and GoBe.
THE PILLARS OF THE SHELF-HELP METHOD
Professionalism is paramount to shaking off the unfortunate self-publishing stigma that is now attributed to indie authors. Although the stigma is slowly waning, many readers see self-published books as low quality, and not worth the time of day. This is primarily due to the huge amount of eager authors who rushed into the industry at the dawn of the self-publishing revolution, when technology first changed the publishing game. A great deal of these authors spent neither time nor money striving for a professional standard, and hence the authors of today must work a little harder to stand apart. Shelf Help will help you to achieve those high standards.
Affordability is important to new authors, just like it is to today’s digital start-up companies. By keeping initial and ongoing costs low, authors can maximise return, breaking even earlier and therefore having a better chance to make a living. Authors may publish just for the love and passion of writing, but most publish seeking a viable career, and that means being aware of ongoing marketing costs and thinking like a business. Shelf Help upholds this mind-set.
Lastly, a technology-driven approach. Technology started this revolution, and now it continues to give us the tools we need to reach readers and make a viable living. Thanks to eBooks and eReaders, indie authors can now reach global audiences, and publish at the click of a button. Thanks to print-on-demand publishing technology, we can now sell print books at affordable costs. Thanks to social media, we can now talk to our readers in real-time, from all over the world, and advertising platforms such as AMS give us visibility across giant stores. Shelf Help can teach authors how to use these 21st century platforms, once again keeping it cheap and professional, yet maximising the chance of success.
