Black Friday

It’s here, the day when the crazy people of the world jam into stores and fight for the best bargains. Personally, I avoid that mess at all costs. That doesn’t mean black Friday doesn’t have an impact on me, it does. But from a writer’s point of view. As I mentioned in my last post, the ads for Kindles and Nooks are out of control. The ebook marketplace is definitely gaining steam and soon ereaders will be as common as cell phones. Because I believe black Friday does influence people to shop I will be spending the day marketing and promoting my books. I tried to get a sponsorship for today, but naturally there was none to be had. All writer’s web site ad space has long been snatched up. I have a book sponsorship for DROP OUT coming up on Nov. 30^th  with Kindle Fire Department.com but that’s about as close as I could get. My assumption is that most new ebook owners will want to check out the websites associated with them and want to see what kinds of books are available. Since most people are off of work today it is a perfect time to make a greater presence in cyberspace. So, with a plate of Thanksgiving leftovers in front of me I embark on my promotional madness.

Holidays are coming!

I’m just amazed at the number of Kindle and Nook ads that I’m seeing on television. It seems just the other day that people were scorning ebooks as a fad that would never take off. Well, guess what? People were wrong. Kindles and Nooks are selling by the millions now. I foresee a near future where paperback books, like music CD’s and large boomboxes, will be an oddity, a relic from the past. Now, I’m not talking about coffee table books and photography books, and the book as a work of art. I’m talking about commercial fiction novels; the stuff I write. Every time a new ereader ad comes on television I smile, not because the world is turning to ebooks and I’ve got my ninth coming out in a few weeks, but because this new revolution in publishing is allowing talented introverts (like me) to write what we want in peace and without worry about the marketplace. If the story is good it will find its niche. Making a living as an indie author is a slow go and there are literally thousands more books available than ever before. The big-time publishing process is slowly eroding, but the new ebook revolution gives renewed hope to those writers who would never have endured the long, arduous road it used to take to publish a commercial novel in a major publishing house, only to have the book available for six to eight weeks and then disappear forever. So bring on the holidays, and new book buyers, and indie writers with stories to tell. Bring on the holiday travel (ugh!) and all that mess. And be sure to bring along an ereader to pass the time. And perhaps, check out what I write.

In a year

I’ve been working feverishly lately trying to finish IMAGINATION by November 30^th, but alas, it doesn’t appear that is going to happen (I’m about a month from completion). Between the damage from Superstorm Sandy and my wife’s cancer, my priorities have changed a bit. Had I finished the book on time it would have been a year to the day that I wrote the first sentence. When I first conceive of the plot of IMAGINATION (What if everything we perceive, all that we experience, is just a figment of someone else’s imagination? And what if that someone is dying?) I had wanted to start it the first week of January 2012, but the call of the story was too great and I started it a month early. Now, nearly twelve months later, I’m doing the final edit and the story is complete. I’ve discovered that a lot can happen in real life in the time it takes to write a novel. A lot has changed in my life since I started the book and a lot has changed in my writing career since then. Last year I was selling a few dozen books a month and now that number has grown substantially, though my sales have dropped off lately because I’ve been spending more time finishing the new novel than I have marketing and promoting my others. I know I’ve missed a few great opportunities because I’ve wanted to write original material rather than sell my existing stuff. But sometimes, that’s just how it goes when you’re an artist. As I’ve mentioned, I do have three holiday promotions coming up on Kindle Nation Daily and Kindle Fire Department. Hopefully, that will get some buzz going again. I plan on a six-month promotion blitz when IMAGINATION is complete and have begun to budget for a slew of ads. Watch for them in the future.

Changing the description

When you buy a book especially on the internet, what do you look for? Is it the cover that attracts you? The reviews? The description? The key to selling books is to have all three of these as plus’s. A good cover, good unbiased reviews, and a blurb that makes people want to look at the book. With ebooks, a consumer can’t take it off the shelf and feel its texture, skim through the pages, get a sense of the thickness and how long it will take to read. They must rely on the free sample pages and all the other fluff on the webpage to make their decision. Now, for me, there’s one book in my collection that just isn’t measuring up in sales as my others. That book is DEGENERATES. I know DEGENERATES is a book that will appeal mostly to guys and that seventy percent of readers are woman, so I knew I had that going against me, and the cover is a little grisly. But the reviews I’ve gotten both on Amazon and on various other sites have all been favorable. So, why isn’t it selling like I want? I’ve come to the conclusion that my blurb isn’t as good as it should be. It doesn’t compel you to want to read the book; it doesn’t spark curiosity. So, I’ve decided to change it. Simplify it. Cut the essence of the book down to its bare bones. Now, it may take several weeks for the new blurb to appear on book sites, so it may be a while before I can report if there has been a change in sales. But, I will. Here’s the new blurb, we’ll see how it does.

DEGENERATES - Beware dark alleyways and deserted streets at night. Don't talk to the handsome stranger sitting alone at the bar. Keep your children close if they play in the park. But especially watch out for City Café, that's where the degenerates are. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007FFN5LY

                               

Superstorm

I finally received the insurance check to fix the damage left by superstorm Sandy. Though, I count myself among those lucky enough to still have their home, the storm did a bit of damage to the roof, gutters, and some interior stuff. A power surge blew my computer, erasing countless scraps of ideas and phrases. I know I should have backed them up, but I had so many I thought I take a full day to do it. That day won’t happen now. I also lost more than two weeks of marketing online, which as I’ve proven again and again, that much time away from writer’s groups can really affect sales. And it did. I’m way down for this month.  There were also a few other promotional opportunities that I missed because of the power outages and disrupted services. But, now I’m back promoting and finishing up on my latest novel which stress from the storm has delayed. I’ve got roofer estimates coming out tomorrow and I’ve hooked up my laptop to my desktop system until I can get a new one. Okay world, I’m back!

Books can save you

It’s been two weeks since my last post and I’m still at a loss over the destruction caused by hurricane Sandy. Though I was away on vacation at the time of impact, I had relatives that were evacuated from New Jersey staying at my house so they surveyed the damage for us. We sustained some minor roof and siding damage and lost power for five days, which resulted in us having to throw away all of our refrigerated food. We were lucky. Sometimes it takes something as powerful and tragic as a major weather event to realize how good society has it and how much technology rules our lives. When I asked my relatives what they did during the outage, they replied; we read. The answer seemed so simple, yet so profound. In this day of TV, and video games, ipads, ipods, Twitter, Facebook, etc. what my family and I’m sure thousands of families relied on to keep from going crazy was reading. A good story can temporarily take away all those other worldly distractions and the miserable plight some of you are in right now. I’m sure a few of my followers won’t be able to read this post because they still do not have power. But what they can read are books and hopefully find peace and acceptance amidst all this destruction.

How to blog

When I first started blogging I wrote about the dumbest things. I wrote egotistical articles about how cool I was to write books and have people admire me; basic self-serving crap. Then I started into the indie revolution in book publishing and my content changed. I spent a few months blogging about the nuts and bolts of writing, editing, designing a cover, and publishing an ebook from scratch. And lo and behold, I started getting followers. As I continued to blog every other day about the indie publishing world I got even more followers and my hit meter started to fly off the charts. One post got over 14,000 hits. I began to realize what posts got the most reads. Posts that incorporated a bit of my personal life, mixed with the actuality of the book publishing market, and usually sprinkled with a little universal anecdote at the close. I’ve found that using your blog strictly as a marketing tool for your works isn’t enough. Readers bore quickly of the day to day self-promotion and want to LEARN something from the blog. I try to impart a bit of my twenty-five years plus experience of publishing stories, books, and poetry into each post to save writers from making the same (sometimes costly) mistakes that I have made in getting to the level of selling books on a daily basis. So my advice to new author-blog owners is to post from the heart about your writing and publishing experiences and don’t spend every word promoting your own material. If the articles you write are good, talent will come across on your posts and you will get resultant book sales. My blog is my web presence, my introduction of myself to my readers, and my way of telling the world about my life. Keep your content interesting and followers will come. The kinds of followers you want. The kind that are interested in you.

 

Patience, oh man.

All good things come to those who wait, isn’t that what they say? Patience is a virtue? And I totally agree. And I’ve been patient, Lord, I’ve been. But how long can I keep it up? Writing a minimum of three hours a day, everyday; marketing and promoting at least an hour a day, more if I don’t write as much, jotting down notes on napkins, and bits of paper. And it is paying off, as anyone who reads my blog or follows me on social networks knows. I have sold thousands of ebooks and given away tens of thousands in promotions. But my patience to hit it big is wearing thin. This usually happens when I’m near completion of a book as I am with IMAGINATION. Self-doubt begins to creep in overshadowing the grand accomplishment of actually finishing a book. I get antsy that more people haven’t discovered me and sometimes feel lost on how to get more exposure. But as always, these doubts will lift as I begin the process of getting my newest onto Amazon and Smashwords and into the world. As I look at the last two years since my first ebook AFTER was published, I do get a rise in how much my blog has grown and how many people read it (to date more than a quarter million hits). My sales, though impressive to some, are still way below what I’d hoped them to be, especially in the U.K where it almost seems like I’ve dropped off the map. I do have three prominent promotions coming up for three different books. Maybe that will get the ball rolling again. Just one viral pop, that’s all I’m asking for. One chance for millions to get a glimpse of what I do and the kinds of stories I write. Then if sales disappear I’ve got only myself to blame. Even then I’ll still write. It’s what I’m hard-wired to do.