Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Is marketing worth it?



I’ve been reading a lot of threads and forums lately dealing with the topic of marketing your book. It seems there are a lot of “newbies” out there in this relatively virgin explosion of indie publishing and many can’t understand why their books aren’t selling. When asked if these new authors market and promote their books most say yes, but complain that they have limited time for the endeavor, maybe a few hours a week.


These authors wonder why they have little or no sales. Well, here’s a hard truth. To be a successful indie author you have to market your books as much if not more than you spend time writing them. It takes a lot of work to get noticed in a publishing sea that now includes a million new published books yearly. Competition to get readers’ attention is ten times harder than it was three years ago. But it is not impossible.


With the internet, the exhaustive task of promoting is now accessible to even the most introverted writer. No longer must writers sit in nearly empty bookstores peddling their signed wares or go out on long book tours just to get a little recognition, that recognition can now be achieved at home. It can be done. You can get noticed. But it ain’t easy.


Internet marketing does sell books. I’m living proof. A complete unknown three years ago, since then I’ve sold thousands of books to absolute strangers. I also spend an average of two hours a day marketing. It’s tough to find the time, believe me, but I do it. I used to pay for sponsorships with mediocre results and placed samples of my books on all those hundreds of author sites that promise tons of exposure. They worked to some degree, but not worth the hours of drudgery downloading in comparison to sales. I earned roughly eighty cents an hour in sales royalties for my efforts. And paid Facebook and social media boosts do virtually nothing. Blindly spamming and pushing your book over and over only turns readers off. You seem desperate for anyone to buy your book. Then I discovered the secret to gaining an audience.


The proper way to promote is to build a readership through online book discussions and joining groups. Respond when a reader emails you. Get involved in discussions other than about your own work. Get people interested in you by being interesting online. Word-of-mouth will cause your audience to grow in time. It will! Marketing on the internet will sell your book, but you have to do it properly and have patience. If you tell a great story readers will find out about you. And they will tell their friends.

Thursday, May 1, 2014

Awesome day!



What a great day. First, this new 5-star review for DROP OUT.

***
5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring, April 30, 2014
Verified Purchase (What's this?)
This review is from: Drop Out (Kindle Edition)

This was an absolutely awe-inspiring book. It was not my normal type and I actually bought it quite by accident. That being said, I finished it in one day and enjoyed. I cried through a lot of it, but totally enjoyed it. It was very uplifting and inspirational.

***

And second… drum roll please. THE END TIME is now available worldwide. Get your copy now! Thanks all.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00K08TEYA


Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Birthing

Well, after nearly exactly 15 months my latest book, THE END TIME is about to be birthed. The cover is complete, the blurb and pitch are complete, and I just sent all my material to Chris O'Byrne at Jetlaunch. Chris is the man who formats my manuscript for ever ereader imaginable and places the book on all the sell sites for me. Like my cover artist, Judy Bullard, I've used these same two people for all my ten published books. This gives my titles and format and consistent look. I advise all indie writers to try and do the same.

Look for THE END TIME very soon. I will be launching a huge promotional campaign once it's out.

Friday, April 18, 2014

Never pay for a review



Though I’ve touched on this subject before on this blog I think it warrants repeating. I will never pay someone to read and review one of my books. Period! Most paid reviewers give glowing reviews on the books they read even if the book is not up to par. Why? Because they want your money and repeat business. Think about it. Would you pay someone a second time if they gave your book a bad review the first time? Of course not. Would you publish the book anyway? Would you be in denial and blame the bad review on that person’s particular taste? That they just didn’t understand the story you were trying to communicate?

Fake reviews are one of the main reasons why indie books have been getting a bad rap. For sometimes enormous fees an author can get several good reviews based solely on what they paid for the review and not the content of the book. These bad books with so many good reviews hit the virtual bookshelf like a bait-and-switch sale at an appliance shop. The reader buys the book because so many other “readers” said it’s great and then is horribly disappointed by the content inside. They feel cheated and angry and become biased against indie authors.

I truly believe a good, honest review is a large part of garnering interest in the book and making it successful. You can only fake worth for so long before word gets out that something is amiss with all the praise for a crappy novel. Real reviews have passion for the story that comes across in the way the review was written. It takes time and effort for a fan of the novel to post a review, done lovingly and without reimbursement.

Friday, April 11, 2014

Creating characters from scratch




          I’m often asked by media and friends how do I create my characters? At last count I have somewhere in the neighborhood of over one hundred spread over my nine published and three unpublished books. These characters have detailed histories and vivid personalities. Some are absolutely terrifying, some are adventurous, and some are tragic. All of my characters are like my children and they all have one thing in common. They are not modeled after any single, real person that I know.

          Each of my individual characters are a conglomeration, a mix, of people I’ve known and associated with over the course of my life. This naked truth always perplexes my friends who often tell me that a certain character is just like them in every way and how much they relate to that particular character. I’ve even had an old girlfriend (before I was married) get angry with me because she thought a character in one of my novels was too much like her. I had to assure my ex that the psycho girl (who needs to be highly medicated but isn’t taking her anti-psychotic pills) in my novel was not based on her, but on at least eight different people, most of whom I went to college with. I’m not certain if she believed me or not but I recently noticed that she un-friended me on Facebook..

          When I write I transform into and become my characters. I become the clairvoyant prostitute and the daring young man fighting an alien insect invasion. I am the disfigured 9/11 hero and the dignified young woman dying of cancer. I immerse myself in these characters and their worlds and live for a time in the fantasy. It would be hard for me to pretend to be someone I know as a person, if that makes any sense.