My Steps To Self Publishing

How to find readers for your novel–ACTUAL STEPS! Honest Answer 10

Posted by deana72 - October 25th, 2011

Every time I’ve searched for information on how to get readers and/or how to market or promote my novels, I find a “great title” but absolutely NO REAL INFORMATION on what I should do.

That’s been my frustration and one of the main reasons I started this blog. No one provides REAL steps on how to accomplish things. Either that, Or maybe the majority of people don’t know HOW to give steps, like providing driving instructions– they give just pieces of what to do and where to go and you have to try to make sense of it all or figure it out like a puzzle.

Now granted, I understand that if you follow someone else’s steps that it may or may not work out for you, but at least provide something that DID WORK and give some kind of direction, STEPS, on how it got done. If you do find a site that claims they have the actual steps on how to get fans and/or how they self-published and sold thousands of books, you then would have to pay for it, and usually (though I haven’t paid for any information…but I know this is what would happen because the first part of information offered for free isn’t anything useful) it would be just some “workshop-generic” stuff that just wouldn’t help me, because I found that information, FREE, online somewhere else.

So, what if you’ve already done this list below, which seems to be the basic of what I always find online:

Create a blog
Create a website
Put RSS on your sites
Social media outlets
1. Create a Facebook page
2. Get a Twitter account
3. Sign up for LinkedIn

Then there’s this list that’s practically very hard to do:

Get Book Reviews
Begin an email newsletter
Setup a Book Tour either online or locally

In the beginning, I did dip my toe into sending out to have my books reviewed (just to three places, and yeah, I know that isn’t enough. Like I said, I dipped my toe…and then stopped). And…you know…it reminded me of sending a query letter all over again to publishing houses and agents–the long wait, the rejections, the silent unresponsiveness, the uncertainties. Just like publishing houses and agents, these places that do Book Reviews are SWAMPED. So it’s hard to break in, or to get anyone, to review your book, and to accept you for a Book Tour (You can pay for one of these too, if you like, but see my Slush Pile fear further below). Then, if you DO FINALLY get one or two book reviews, it would take awhile before it’s posted, and they just might not like it, or what if you get a bad review?

I’ve changed my idea on trying to get Book Reviews. And besides, I had always HATED when I went to the bookstore and saw a cool cover, turned the book around and all it had was Reviews and NOTHING to tell me what the book was about. I don’t know who these Reviewers are unless it’s a big name like Stephen King. And the statement about “Best Seller…New York….” review?…this has been sssooo overdone, I’ve just ignore them. I figure, if/when my book starts to get a fan base, my fans will put reviews down for me, and word-of-mouth would be the review. And they did: See Going Free on Amazon…And Book Reviews.

I got confirmation on my new belief on not getting Book Reviews from this person: Brian Spratt. On Number 6 on his page, Letter B, for his Advertising advice, let me quote:

Reviews-They really don’t do as much as one would think. If so, my books wouldn’t sell for The Unsuspecting Mage, my free book, has been eviscerated repeatedly by reviewers. Yet, it is the one that drives all my sales.

Think of it this way, no amount of good reviews will mean squat unless someone can find you to read them. Even then, the climate for reviews is suspect.

Now back to the three-item list above. The item regarding the “newsletter” advice….uh DUH! You need a fan-base FIRST to send them to? Unless you PAY for your novel to be sent by someone who already has a subscriber database. I’m always scared of those because I’m thinking that they would be sending my novel and everybody else’s novel to the SAME PEOPLE (Same Blog sites), and, again, my book would just get lost in the Slush Pile.

However, you can slowly build a email distribution list by having a field/option on your website to subscribe for notifications whenever you get a new novel out. Make sure to add where they can subscribe to the back, or end, of all of your books. However, you do need to have people actually BUYING your book in order for them to want to subscribe…sigh.

Then there’s these additional items to do:

Join forums
1. Kindle forums
2. Barnes and Noble Nook
Post comments on blogs
Have friends and family post USEFUL reviews on Amazon
Go to the Author Central on Amazon and sign in to make your Author Profile
Create a Listmania! list on Amazon
Get Car magnets
Do Search engine optimization (SEO) on your website/blog
Make a Book Trailer
Do the LINK thang

I’ve joined author and writing forums, and then realized, though they are also readers, I wanted to now reach people who weren’t authors and writers. I mean, authors and writers got enough on their plate and probably have a back-load of books they’ve been meaning to take time to read…that is, once they get that next chapter finished…and that next novel completed. Plus, they’re doing the same thing I’m doing, and that’s to sell their books. That’s like two salesmen trying to sell the same product to each other. So, I continue the forums to learn something new, but now I’m turning my focus to finding readers. That was the theory anyway. But then I learned something NEW and my theory of selling to other authors changed. Other authors and writers can help to promote you, they can write reviews of your book, they can give you guest posts and interviews on their blogs, share your stuff with their circles and help reach other readers as well. They can help push your book FORWARD. Staying in touch with these forums keeps the sales going.

As for commenting on blogs…if the blog isn’t already FULL of other comments, who’s to say that yours would even be looked at. Besides, the blog-site might have high traffic or even low ones, but don’t want you posting your URL there. You can try to get around it with spelling it out, but people can see what you are doing. The only thing that will benefit is having your link on a popular blog that will help make your website become more popular by the search engines for having your link there.

Friends and Family? Trying to get your friends and family to post USEFUL Reviews besides “it was great! buy it!” is kind of hard. I mean, I feel like I’m dictating to them on what they need to say and how to state it (Now, children, remember to answer the Who, What, When, Where and How questions when completing the review). And more than likely, that would delay them from commenting because that would take too long to type and they would have to find time to type it. Speaking of delay, they may just be that type to delay anyway, late on everything…especially delaying to read your book in the first place (heh. heh.).

The car magnet idea? It might give me some curious bystander once in a blue moon, to come over and inquire, which has actually been pretty fun :). And the Amazon Author Profile is only useful when someone actually finds you. And the Listmania! is useful if people like what you list, which might be connected to what your write. And doing the LINK thing to increase your site’s popularity, goes along with SEOs. You could also create another website on another topic that you are interested in and post LINKS back to your novel’s website as well. But that’s another topic and readers might not be interested in your novel if it’s not related. Or, they might like your personality and be curious about you and buy your novel…that is, if your novel’s topic happens to be another one of their interests. This also goes along with posting on forums (in your signature is your Link Thang) and comments on other blogs. If you write Reviews for anything that you buy, link it back to your Author Name–that is, spell out your first and last name and post it at the end of your review, and put your URL in your profile (i.e. Amazon products that you’ve bought). Don’t put your website at the end of your review because that just changes the mode of your posting–making it sound as if you WANT something and not GIVING something. If someone likes your review, they would Google your name and/or look at your profile to see who you are. Then, BOOM, your URL is right there for them to see.

As for the SEOs? Please don’t pay anyone or anything for it. I’ve got four (4) pages as “top ranked” and I didn’t do anything but post on my blog information that I just didn’t find anywhere else and no one was talking about it. That’s how you do it. Put the search words, you know, words people would type to find sites on Google, and put them in the Tag lines (NOTE: Google Analytics gives the search words used that direct people to my websites and I put those exact words in my Tag listing), but mainly put it in your Title of your site or blog. And that’s it! That’s all I did. No hard-coding html, no looking up of “keywords” or anything. I just posted up simple things that I wanted to share because I couldn’t find it on anyone else’s site. I did the work to do the deed and shared what I found out. Also, my blog has AGED enough (being that I started it in the latter part of 2008) for the search engines to know that my site isn’t Spam. The obvious about getting “top ranked” is that your site just won’t get there if it’s information that’s already saturated. Example: Science Fiction Author. Those keywords just ain’t gonna cut it. So ::shrug:: gottah find another way out of the slush pile of the internet of Science Fiction and Fantasy novels, and that is posting something unique that people might want to read about. My unique things was posting stuff about things I could not find readily on the internet to help me…so I figured it out myself and posted it up.

The Book Trailer, though, was pretty fun to make for me. See my posting about it Book Trailers here. But we’re back to square one–people need to know you’re out there for them to view it. I would recommend Fiverr and do a search for jerrylittlemars to get help on increasing your audience on YouTube. He has some ideas, being that I was a newbie and all, that I had no idea about. Some of the ideas may seem like “cheating” to some people, but the tagging thing on Amazon that some authors take part of (Google: Author Tag Exchange), or “liking” each other Facebook pages, or adding Followers on a huge, already populated list of authors for Twitter… all of that may seem like “cheating” to others as well. Just do what’s comfortable to you, which mean, you can use the tools as it’s intentional purpose–it will take longer, but you’ll benefit from it nonetheless. I, for one, will do a little of this or that (more this than that). And I don’t like to support other Authors if I really don’t like what they write…which makes my list very, very, very, very slim. But does Book Trailers bring readers? Not really. It’s one of those “nice-to-haves” for those who want to know a little bit about your book…when they do hear about it. I wouldn’t pay thousands to have one made…it would be a waste, unless you’re already have a huge fan base and you have that kind of money to support your art.

Advertisements(below): let’s not forget the list suggested for that. Most of them you would have to PAY for (and You know I don’t like that word):

Google AdWords $$
Projectwonderful.com $$
local community/city newspaper $$
prlog.org FREE
prweb.com $$
Pay-Per-Click: Google, GoodReads $$
Facebook Ads $$

I’m not using two dollar signs to say it’s expensive, I’m just saying that it costs money. I guess advertisement won’t hurt, but I always go for the FREE stuff (See what I said about PrLog). And then there’s that thing of trying to get the reader’s attention (Hey! Marcel! Are you listening to me!… Heh. Heh. I think that AT&T U-verse commercial is funny). You, again have an ad in a slush pile of other ads. AND from what I’ve read, PAYING for advertisement, just doesn’t quite work most of the time. You end up wasting money. But it has worked for others….

Then there’s the other social stuff that requires a little less effort for those who love to read books where you can do GiveAways and ARC.

You get involved in these communities and also suggest your book and/or provide free books with GiveAway promotions. Just don’t put up only your books on your read list and only have YOUR BOOKS always on the forefront of your entire profile/login and in your ENTIRE conversation. Be a part of the community because you’re also reading other works. Learn about the community in order to become a part of it. For me, however, I barely have time to write, let alone read books. So, this will come later for me…when I have that time again, to really get into the community, I think it would help–but I did sign up. I listed some books I’ve read 20+ years ago on Shelfari (I used somewhat the same list I have on Listmania on Amazon), only because Shelfari is connected to Author Central. See my “What the Heck” blog on what happened when I did that. I also exported the Shelfari list and imported into GoodReads and LibraryThing. Easy Peasy. Writers are Readers–we love books! So, reading and talking about books you like makes you a part of something fun!

You can also do the GiveAway by providing coupons to people through Smashwords. Do the coupon instead of using your own money of gifting in Amazon, which, though you get some money back, you have to pay taxes on it. And, if you do use Amazon for gifting, use a limited credit card–i.e. gift credit card you can buy from a store. Do not use your personal credit card, to buy it. It helps manage things better, and keep the Credit people from thinking someone stole your credit card (one author posted) for buying items for people overseas. Offering ARC (Advanced Reading Copy) to readers is something you can do too. ARC is a proof of a book prior to full distribution. They are usually not the final copy of the novel and are uncorrected. It’s used for promotional purposes–NOT FOR MONEY. You don’t sale ARC books. But getting people to WANT your ARC is the same as trying to get a Book Review.

Then comes the bottom line about getting readers….

If none of this is working for you, then the last thing you need to do, the online “helpful” people state, is:

Make sure you have a polished book (grammar, edited, good cover etc.), and a well written one, because that might just be the problem

What if you’ve already did this (hired the editor, great cover book artist) and you know your book is professionally done and there’s still no one buying your books and there’s still no traffic coming to your blog and/or website?

How do you get those readers darnit!

Sooo…how do you do that?

You might be a bit disappointed of my answer because you wanted answers to that MAJOR question…but if you’ve looked everywhere like me, you’ll see that there isn’t one. You might feel jilted and bamboozled because you read this entire thing for an answer, and that’s exactly how I felt doing this research. THERE IS NOT AN ANSWER. That’s the bottom line. No answer. Nope. No answer. None. Zip. Zelch. Nada. Nothing. Nooooo.

And when I can’t find an answer, then I come up with my own. That’s what you do, and that’s how things happen. During this journey, I’ve come to the end and seen the answer; and though all the things that I’ve stated above sounds negative and pessimistic–and that’s only because none of it will guarantee ANYTHING–my answer on to how to market and get your book notice…?

DO IT ALL!

Do every thing that you can possibly do to be seen. DO EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!

My personal example…

In 2009, I didn’t sell a single book..the ENTIRE year.
In 2010, I didn’t sell but ONE book, and that was in December.
From December 2010 – February 2011 I was selling one (1) book a month on Kindle.
Then starting March 2011, there were four (4) books on Kindle.
In April, it went to three (3) books sold on Kindle.
In May 2011, there were three (3) books sold on Kindle.
In June 2011, there were six (6) books sold on Kindle.
In July 2011, there were seven (7) books sold on Kindle, along with my new book I just added this month, making four published books total.
In August 2011, there were 40 books sold on Kindle, because Irid, amazingly, went free. See my What The Heck! posting. I had lowered my pricing to $0.99 as well to encourage more buys. And at Diesel, through Smashwords, sold six (6) novels. I then raised the price again back to $2.99 before September.
In September 2011, there were about forty (40) books sold on Kindle..and the sales kept up a few weeks after my book stopped being free. (Any sales for Smashwords this month, I have to wait on reporting because they have to wait on the other stores to send them their report).
In October 2011, sales have trickled down to 19 on Kindle, so far this month.

It might sound like very small potatoes and numbers to you…but for me IT SOUNDS GREAT!! I don’t know where these readers came from or how I did it (I didn’t sell anything in 2009 or 2010–well, one book in 2010). It might be when I started giving my books for FREE on Smashwords (i.e. Nook as well), and going FREE on Amazon definitely helped. I have no idea. But, I highly suggest you do that, being a new author, make your book Free, because who can’t pass up a Free Book? And who wants to spend money, and take a wager, on someone they don’t know? Give your book away…for FREE. I know, you want to get paid for all that hard work and all that money that you put into this project, but to get money, you have to spend money/loose money…and build a fan base.

BETTER YET, think of this strategy as NOT HAVING TO PAY FOR ADVERTISEMENT. This is how Word-Of-Mouth helps you out. FREE is a marketing tool. You’ll reach a lot of people this way, and it will save you hours and hours of trying to market it yourself. It’s worth it. Also, just because it is Free doesn’t necessarily mean people would be interested in it–so, don’t be fooled. They might not like the description, or sample, and pass it up. OR, they just might like it enough to actually purchase one of your other books. If you don’t want to do the FREE thing, do the $0.99 thing. Call it a PULL (as Role Playing Gamers call it when positioning a Boss Monster for the kill). Pull your fans to you. Give to Receive. Provide service in order to be served. The yin and the yang. And with each hard step, or fun one, you will reach your goals.

I’ve reached my goal!

Yep, I sure did. These small potatoes of sells have MET MY GOAL! Yep. Yep. All I wanted was a few “strangers” to read my stories. That’s it. I didn’t have a number of “how many,” I just wanted someone to be interested.

And someone was…interested. YEAH! WHO-YAH!
Take that FATE! Take it! Take it!

Yeah! I’m EXCITED with a capital E.T. !

I’ve done the deed and met the goal without the “formula” to do it–because there is no formula.

JA Konrath

Chance. Luck. Randomness. We hate these things, because we want to be in control of our careers. We want to believe that working hard will make us winners.

That isn’t necessarily true. But working hard can improve your odds at success.

No one has a formula of what will be popular. If one Book was popular, someone could take another book, do the exactly same things for promoting it and it bombs. You don’t have to be popular or famous or already in the marketing to know this. Just look around at music and TV shows and movies. Ideas are started, and those who started the idea become shocked with the results when it becomes popular. Case in point: Married… with Children (TV show) and The Simpsons.

Then there’s shows that I really, really liked: Witches of Eastwick, Journey Man, John Doe, Stargate Universe, WitchBlade, The Dresden Files, TheBackYardigans…and they were all cancelled before I was ready for them to go. But shows like Smallville goes on for years (I like Smallville, but not as much as I liked those others I listed that were cancelled). And look at The Bee Movie. Great animation, great line-up of actors, but the story and so called “comedy” was horrible! And how about that famous photo V-J Day in Times Square. Who knew that a photo like that would last for lifetimes! And those other iconic photos: The Kent State Massacre and the Vietnam War, and Marilyn Monroe’s flying dress, and the raising of the U.S. Flag on Iwo Jima. So, you get what I’m saying. No one knows and no one has the golden key. So…

DO EVERYTHING!

And that’s what you have to do. Increase your Odds.

Increasing the amount of stories for consumption would help too.

WRITE MORE BOOKS

Yep. Increase your odds. Get working on those novels, short stories, novellas…. The more works out there, the more consumption, the more readers, and more of keeping it NEW.

And make a few of them FREE!

Aaannnndddd…lower your expectations. Yeah. lower them. Start with small goals and when you meet them, then start another. My goal?…To reach a few strangers who might like my book. DONE! My next goal? I wanted (Past Tense “wanted”) to see those FREE Books on Smashwords numbers continue to increase. I wanted them to keep going until they’ve reach 5,000–for one book, not a combination of them. That was my goal.

It didn’t happen.

What did happen was that I surpassed the 5,000 downloads goal when my book IRID went free on Amazon. Over 8,000 downloads!

Goal met!

My next goal? To keep my trickle of buys per week…UP. How to do that? I’m working on an idea and we’ll see if it works.

Back on topic on goals: Small accomplishing goals. Think Small. Any other way of thinking, you might as well be thinking of winning the lottery (see this blog on Publish your book or play the lottery?). So, really? You’re gonna win the lottery? That’s what is means to be as “successful like Stephen King, J. K. Rowling and Amanda Hocking” is all about. You have to change your mindset…and build gradually…and define your own success. But You CAN make a living, according to Dean Wesley Smith on his blog: You CAN Make Money Writing Fiction. All you need is dozens of books for your store instead of having a store and only selling ONE (1) item. Having a store with MULTIPLE things for purchase can help you make money.

Read: So You Want To Become A Bestselling Author–Here’s How (Part 1)

It might redirect your mental aim a bit and get you where you need to go. Because running after the Lottery would only smother your spirit. And you give up. You stop. And become bitter. Instead of concentrating on increasing your merchandises for purchase, you just stop.

So, continue to do it all. DO EVERYTHING. And after you’ve done everything, then there’s TIME. Yep, time. You have to wait. Let things build up. Just like webpages have to age to be accepted as legitimate sites, so does your name and book titles. You have to wait and wait and wait. And while you’re waiting, you’re writing; and while you’re writing, you’re blogging and socializing. DON’T SELL–SOCIALIZE! Do the things you love to do online and become social. The more you’re out there and become a part of many different communities, the more people get to learn about you and what you do. Then you wait some more, and get more novels out there, and wait some more, and communicate to the online communities, and wait some more. Some writers state it takes anywhere from 9 months to 2 years before your books starts getting noticed and bought.

I don’t mean to disappoint anyone, but that’s the Honest Answer….so don’t go paying for one, because it’s not out there.

You might say, “Well, you’re not successful! You’re not selling thousands of books!” To me, that’s the same thing as saying, “Well, you’re not a millionaire! So, you’re not successful!” And to both of those statements I’ll say, “Successful? Why, yes I am!” Because I met my goal. I have a house. I’m debt free (meaning, no credit cards and everything paid in cash); both cars paid off, student loan is history, a little savings, a daughter, a cat, and a wonderful husband who cooks my breakfast, lunch and dinner (I do the cleaning); and I can travel twice a year for vacations; and we’re not living from paycheck to paycheck. Now that’s successful in life for me. And it took years to build it–from elementary to college to temporary jobs to professional experience, to giving up cable, to saving and not spending on things that are not “needful”, and doing a lot of stuff myself (my hair, my lawn–though now we can afford someone else to do the lawn–ironing instead of dry cleaning, etc. etc.). This is the same as self-publishing.

My novels? I have a few strangers buying…and it’s slowly building. And I got a few more books that I’m working to release. I’ll let you know if I’m still not successful in a few years, and even then, I’ll tell you the same thing: “Why, yes I am!” Because I wrote my first book in 1997 (finished two years later) and didn’t decide to self-publish and do the “Do It Yourself” project and get it out there until 2008. I wrote books over the years, and today I can afford to pay an editor and a Cover Designer, when I couldn’t 12 years ago. And my book is being bought! Something that wasn’t happening several years ago.

You understand what I’m saying now? Remember your first job? I do. Mine was at Del Taco. Am I still working there? Heh. Heh. Not in your life. So that’s why I can honestly say, if you ask if I’m successful in a few years… my answer will still be: “Why, yes I am!”

Your goal is to be successful, and to do that, you have to make your own way and find and define your own answer, because it’s the uniqueness of things that are popular.

JUST DO IT! DO EVERYTHING!

And then let time take its course.

Until Next Time.

10 Comments »

Lulu, CreateSpace, Lightning Source, Kindle, Smashwords…Oh My! 10

Posted by deana72 - October 5th, 2011

Lulu vs CreateSpace vs Lightning Source vs Kindle vs Smashwords…Oh My! Oh My!

In a previous blog in 2008, I couldn’t make up my mind on where to go! Now, almost 3 years later, I know what to do.

eBook before Paperback

Pricing: I’ve now decided to do the eBook thing BEFORE the paperback thing. Why? Well, for us self-publishers, doing the Print-On-Demand really costs. Meaning, the printer gets paid…a lot of PAID, before you do. The pricing for the printed book is just not reasonable. I would prefer to make my books less than $10.00, but I wouldn’t get any royalty if I did that.

Mistakes: Also, I can update immediately with eBook if there’s any mistakes. I know. I know. It’s suppose to be perfect BEFORE it’s published, but I’m Human, I’m just me, and my editor, and sometimes there’s mistakes. Even Trade Publishing books have mistakes. Every book is going to have mistakes. It’s just that with eBook publishing, you can fix them faster. AND IT’S THERE TO BE USED! No matter what anyone says, you can do it if you want to. So why the heck not?

MONEY!!: I have yet to sell any paperback books from an online store. Still waiting. But with eBooks, I’m getting PAID! Just 2-digit numbers, but paid nonetheless. Also, the royalties for eBooks are higher than paperbacks, and they are more of them selling.

eBook Publishing Reviews

Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP–Amazon) and Smashwords (distributes to Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and the Diesel eBook Store) are the major two sites that self-publishers talk about. Then there’s PubIt (Barnes And Noble NOOK eReader), where some go to directly instead of using Smashwords. I’m going to list just these three (3) formats, because, believe me, you would get tired from trying to conform your novel(s) to each company’s formatting requests. However, I have heard some use the Smashword format, take out the Smashwords wording, and submit it to PubIt.

Kindle File Format: ePub, Microsoft Word (.doc), HTML (.zip, .htm, or .html), Plain Text (.txt), Adobe PDF, Plain Text Format (.txt)
PubIT File Format: ePub, Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx), HTML (.zip, .htm, or .html), Plain Text (.txt)
Smashwords: Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) ONLY

For me, I formatted KDP with HTML so that I can make sure it would work with the Kindle with the Table Of Contents and Go To Cover options. See my Kindle Template. With Smashwords, if you know your way around MSWord, then you won’t have problems taking the hour, or two, formatting your book to their instructions. BIG SUGGESTION: Copy your ENTIRE novel and paste into Notepad and START FROM SCRATCH before formatting your book to Smashwords specifications. It will save you a lot of headache. Make sure you do Step 1 on my Kindle Format instructions FIRST to find your Bold and Italics and Underlines because you will loose your formatting when you copy your novel to Notepad…which is the point of doing that, so that the old formatting doesn’t get in the way, and you novel doesn’t get accepted by Smashwords, and you have to do EVERYTHING BACK OVER AGAIN.

Royalties: Smashwords is 60%. Kindle is 35% or 70% depending on your pricing. PubIt is 40% or 65% depending on your pricing. And, of course, any overseas sales are calculated differently. I’ve made my money on KDP, which most self-publishing author will tell you. Amazon is the largest online! I’ve also got money from Smashwords.

When do you get paid? PubIT is 60 days or more. Smashwords can by 3 months. Kindle is the same as PubIt, 60 days following the end of the calendar month.

Sooo…if you still want to do the Paperback, which is always good to do so that customers can have options, I would stick with just one and see how it goes for you. I would not recommend Lightning Source, unless you can do some major marketing to companies that would like to order your books…because they are expensive and it takes some time to do. HOWEVER, my paperbacks did get to Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million, Indie Bound, and eBay (of all places), because of Lightning Source. As I said, I haven’t made any money on my paperbacks, so paying fees doesn’t benefit if you’re not recovering that cost. But…if you still want to do paperback, see my reviews below from the past years. I didn’t put the pricing or royalties because, like I said, I don’t get paid from them, and it all depends on what you want to price the book, and what you want in return, and how many pages your book is, what size (6×9 or 5×8) you want it to be, what type of binding, and what type of printing you want for the cover and inside paper, etc. etc. You can go to Lulu Royalty Calculators for more information and comparison with CreateSpace and Amazon.

Print-On-Demand Reviews

Below, you will see me lean more towards CreateSpace, because I like their print, price, look and ease of things. But if you’re just starting out, I would suggest using LuLu first, to get your feet wet, and then move on to CreateSpace. It will help you get a better understanding on formatting. I like to do the hard stuff first and then when you move on to easier pastures, it’s much more…well…easier. And you have a better understanding. As for distribution, CreateSpace now has Expanded Distribution for only $25.00. So, if you’re considering distributions and want to use Lightning Source because of that, consider using CreateSpace first and see how your paperback sells go before moving over to Lightning Source. I say this because Lightning Source formatting and process isn’t for the faint of heart, and it’s expensive if you need to make updates. Now on to printing comparisons….

Packaging: Lightning Source they didn’t look too bad, though the packaging could be a bit better for my proof copies. It was just in a box and one of the books got bent (just a wee bit) during the shipping process. So the presentation wasn’t very nice…but maybe that’s just because they’re just proofs. CreateSpace and LuLu put like shrink wrapped and bubbled stuffing and things to keep the books from moving about, but Lightning Source, the most expensive one for proofs, mind you, just had a tight fitted box, not securely sealed (just had the tabs tucked in and it could just easily be pulled and the books taken out and tucked back in with no problem…then you could just get an empty box–but someone bothering to steal my book…I guess I wouldn’t have minded too much :).

Print: The printing quality is okay on Lightning Source, but I still like CreateSpace overall for print quality. LuLu kind of squished the pictures in some of the book covers I’ve ordered from them. Besides that, between Lulu and Createspace there actually wasn’t much different. The front cover of LuLu’s was a bit sharper for my bookcover The Made novel (I liked LuLu’s cover better) but you really can’t tell that much of a difference. CreateSpace didn’t bleed slightly over from the front to the binding like LuLu, and the Title was printed in the middle of the Binder, whereas LuLu’s was more to the left edge and not centered. I think with LuLu that had something to do with my uploading my picture and doing that all myself. Oh well. It’s still decent. However, Createspace with The 9th Symbol just BLEW MY MIND with the cover. It was like CAKE ICING! It was beautiful!

I Like CreateSpace’s interior print. The paper is a bit darker than LuLu’s, but both LuLu and CreateSpace printed my illustrations wonderfully. CreateSpace did send me messages multiple times that the dpi of my interior pictures was 98 and that they suggest 300 dpi. Well, I couldn’t figure out how to change it, and since LuLu’s printed fine, I just said, “What the heck,” and I left it alone. Came out just the same!

I do LOVE that CreateSpace will put the ISBN barcode on your book for you, so you don’t have to worry about that, and Lightning Source provides a barcode too with their template. You can create your own barcode at Tux for LuLu and size it using Gimp.

Proofs Prices: Createspace’s price is cheaper than LuLu’s for proofs, but the book itself is much more expensive to buy off of their website. Lightning Source is expensive for their proofs and expensive for any updates (updates on LuLu and Createspace are free. Just need to buy the proof) and charges yearly. CreateSpace, however, is considering the option to bypass having to buy proofs, which would be great for corrections, and is cheapest on proofs. LuLu’s proof price is the same as buying the actual book.

Formats: PDF. PDF. PDF. Lightning Source has this really strict guidelines on how the Book Cover has to be in High Quality format and the interior has to be PDF/X-1a:2001. HOWEVER, if you can get LuLu to print your books, or CreateSpace to print them…just send the same files to Lightning Source and they will print them too. I would practice first with one of the other two before Lightning Source to make sure everything is okay, because the pricing for Lightning is high. All three will provide templates for sizing for the bookcover and, besides Lightning Source, there’s online preview to make sure it fits. NOTE: OpenOffice, which is FREE, can help with the PDF as well.

ALL-IN-ALL

I haven’t gone back to Lightning Source for my 4th book, The 9th Symbol,which was done in July 2011, nor have I gone back to LuLu. I did, however, download Lightning Source’s template to send to my Cover Designer to use for CreateSpace. I would at least have the files ready when I do send to Lightning Source…when I’m ready to do so. (The template worked fine, by the way, for CreateSpace…LOVED IT!!). I’ve worked strictly with CreateSpace for Paperback since it posts on Amazon, which goes along with the Kindles which are selling and are getting more exposure online than any other place. Also it has Expanded Distribution for only $25.00. Smashwords sales are slowly creeping up as well.

That about sums up my experiences on printers and distribution centers.

Until Next Time!!

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Irid No longer Free on Amazon

Posted by deana72 - September 24th, 2011

It was fun while it lasted! Irid, as of today, is no longer free on Amazon and has returned to its original price. I quite enjoyed the six(6)-week run (Starting somewhere around Aug 10 or 11th and ending Sept 23). Now the real test will come.

Will people remember me?

Here’s where word-of-mouth really comes in. My book is now sitting in thousands of people’s Kindles and most will never read it. But for those who do…. let’s see.

Until Next time 🙂

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What size should pictures be on my webpage? 1

Posted by deana72 - September 11th, 2011

I put my pictures around 200-250 x (???) whatever makes it still look normal and not stretched out.

GIMP (which is Free, you know) helps to automatically size my pictures when I type 250 for the width and the height it takes care of.
You just go to IMAGE > SCALE IMAGE

The image above is 398 X 342 pixel. The resolution is 72 pixels.

Fortunately, in WordPress, it gives you a suggested size for images before inserting them, so you can choose small, medium or large no matter what size you make the image. However, in Movable Type, there’s no help in sizing. You have to size the images BEFORE you upload them. What I do like in Movable Type, though, that in the DRAFT view while you’re typing up the text for your page, when you insert an image, it actually displays the image. In Word Press you have a very, very long HTML code and have to use the Preview to view how it looks.

Need to cut your pictures to 800×600? Use FrameSize. You can NOT keep the entire image when you turn it into this size without skewing, but you can view what will be cut out first before sizing it with this frame tool. This helped me with my Book Trailers.

I just wanted to write something up about that, because it was a question of mine when I first started posting and then decided to add more pictures to my blog so it doesn’t look so… blah. With my website, I don’t worry too much about the picture sizes because I can immediately view it in Dreamweaver just like Movable Type, and drag corners to resize the images…so it wasn’t a concern.

Hope this helps. Until next time.

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Going Free on Amazon…and Book Reviews 2

Posted by deana72 - August 26th, 2011

In the KindleForums, I always see these HUGE numbers quoted of books being sold, and then I see my small potatoes of sells, and… I’m Happy! Thought I would say I was NOT happy? Huh? Huh? Nope.

I’m happy!

I’ve set my prices free on Smashwords, to make it free on Barnes and Noble some months back. I didn’t upload to PubIt only because I didn’t know about it until I found the KindleBoards forum, but I do like the coupon option and multiple eBook formats given by Smashwords (I might mess around with PubIt sometime later). I didn’t get any sells on my one (1) book that was not free on Smashwords (The Made). But I did get a few reviews on Barnes and Noble and a few ranks (about seven people marked the stars).

Then one of my books went free on Amazon. I didn’t do anything to get it free. The one thing I did do was connect my books with Shelfari, and as soon as I did that, one went free. Not sure if it was related, but that’s what happened (See What the Heck).

I’m small potatoes in sells, not anything that’s been listed on forums, which are hundreds of sales in days and week, but I’ve let you know that I’ve only sold about 7 books a months since this March 2011 (I’ve had the books out since 2009–things changed when I put the books for free on Smashwords/B&N earlier this year and sells trickled then to Amazon). Now that I’ve had one book Free on Amazon (my book IRID), I’ve sold 40 of my other three books. I did set two of my books to .99 for a week (The 9th Symbol and Ruby, Flesh and Heart), and that’s when it really sold. Next week, they’re going back up to 2.99…just to see what happens.

So, since IRID went free on Amazon sometime around Aug 10 or 11, 2011, I’ve had almost 8,000 downloads (over 14-15 days), and I’ve gotten three more reviews added to my one review that’s sat lonely since March 2010. I had about 3,000 downloads on my two free books on Smashwords over a period of 5 months. In the forums, people quote these numbers happen to them in just over a period of days, but mine took a week. Why is that? I don’t know. It might be the genre and my subject matter–the mixture of the two is pretty rare. However, what has happened for me for this month is better than the entire 2009 year! So, that’s why I’m

HAPPY

I’ve since changed the pricing on Smashword and the downloads stopped. It took almost 2 weeks for the Free status to change on Barnes & Noble. Now…I’m going to do the waiting game and see what happens.

On Amazon, it was fun being #1 in a genre for a week!! 🙂

REACH FOR THE STARS!

About Book Reviews

I’m currently writing about my new opinion on how to get readers, which includes a area about Book Reviews. It will be posted at a later date. It also includes my new opinion on not soliciting for Book Reviews. But for now, I wanted to say that because of the free books, I’ve managed to get a trickle of reviews on Amazon, as I said earlier. Then, when I registered with GoodReads, LibraryThing, and Shelfari, I saw who had it marked to read my book, who had read them, and saw a few more reviews–just little numbers:
GoodReads – 1 two-stars with a written review, 2 three-stars (1 star is “I didn’t like it” 2 stars is “OK”, 3 Stars is “I liked it”, 4 stars I really liked it and 5 stars is “Amazing”.)
Amazon – 2 two-stars and 2 five-stars (1 star is Awful, 2 stars is Poor, 3 stars Neutral, 4 stars is Good and 5 stars is Excellent).
LibraryThing – no ratings, but a few people have IRID in their queue (Star rating can include 1/2 stars, so it’s like movie ratings)
Shelfari – no ratings but 18 people have it on their shelf (1 star is “I hated it” 2 stars is “I didn’t like it”, 3 Stars is “I liked it”, 4 stars “I really liked it” and 5 stars is “I loved it”)
Barnes and Noble – about 7 ratings averaging 4 1/2 stars–no ratings on The Made (not loaded yet) and The 9th Symbol. (1 star is Poor, 2 stars is Disappointing, 3 stars is “Okay, but not great”, 4 stars is Recommended, 5 stars is “Outstanding”)

When looking at the different rating stars, you have to remember the differences. A 2-star on Goodreads is a 3-Star on Amazon.

There you have it for today. My Book Reviews without soliciting for them. So far, they are pretty neutral. I can’t wait to see more in a few months, once those who have downloaded the free versions start posting their opinions.

Negative Book Reviews

From an advice on the forums that I’ve been reading, an author should NEVER, never, never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever… comment on a negative review. Ever. I read how some authors who have commented, and things got really nasty, and really bad…really fast. Some authors just gave up and pulled all their books off the shelf, just because of this. Just remember to wear your thick skin. People are entitled to their opinions. What one reviewer might not like, another might. Some negative reviews even bring on more readers!

Example, I got two negative reviews (they at least gave me 2-stars and not 1-star), but then a 5-star came around after those and, to me, that blew the other 2-star reviews away by reading like a very thoughtful and in-depth review, in just a few short sentences! I thought, at first, that my story telling wasn’t getting across correctly, and I was discouraged and down for a few days. THEN this review came in (and my down emotions went up and skyrocketed! Thank goodness it came soon), and now I know I’ve reached at least one person on why I write what I do. I also had to remember that at the other book store, I got more 5-stars than not. See what I’m saying?

You’re going to get bad reviews. The only time to start worrying about them is if you KEEP getting bad reviews. And remember there’s different cultures and different types of readers. You’re a reader, right? There are some things you like and some things you don’t like. You might see at one store that a particular item has 5 stars and at another it just has 3 stars.

You must form your own opinion based on everything provided. Let time let you know the overall results, and don’t give up! And keep reaching for those stars!

Until next time!

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What the Heck??!!! Amazon Kindle book Free? 3

Posted by deana72 - August 15th, 2011

Yeah! What the Heck?!! I kept reading how HARD it was to get your book free on Amazon and that the only way to do it is to use the area where it states: Would you like to give feedback on images or tell us about a lower price?, and then and only THEN, and only SOMETIMES and RARELY would your book become free on Amazon Kindle.

SOOoooooo… why the heck is my book Free ALL OF A SUDDEN!??!!

Hey, I’m not complaining…not in the least, but it surprised the heck out of me! I checked my KDP sales reporting everyday (I know, I’m obsessed with my little small potatoes of sales) and I see that IRID has 1975 sales. I was like, “there’s a mistake somewhere.” So, I went to the book’s site on Amazon to see if there were any book reviews. Nope. Still just the one. But then I saw the ranking and it was number 65 for Free books.

Huh?

Yeah. I’m scratching my head. Then, I looked at my book’s pricing and … $0.00 is what I see.

What the Heck??!!

I went to my Author Central page and took a look at my book, and sure enough, it states:
This format of “Irid” is currently ranked #65 out of over 15,000 free books in the Kindle Store. (updated hourly)

I look over to my hubby and tell and show him what’s on my laptop. “How the world did this happen?” I ask him. Then I answer my own question. The only thing I did differently was connect my Author Central Page to Shelfari (just learned that it had that capability) on Aug 10th and now one of my books is Free, and that happened somewhere around Aug 11 (my other free book didn’t get “un-freed”…hmmmm). I’m guessing someone must have flagged IRID because it was free on Smashwords and Barnes & Noble? OR the Amazon Bots found out? I don’t know how it happened. I don’t care how it happened. I’M JUST SO DARN HAPPY IT DID!

I’ve gone and “un-freed” my books on Smashwords, which will take a bit to update to Barnes & Noble, so when I do get IRID back to being a paid Kindle book, the “bots” or whatever will know the pricing is the same. So, no more Free books for right now…well, on Barnes and Noble, the two books are free until it updates. I still have the Smashword’s coupon option if I want to give away any free eBooks.

What was really shocking was that after all this researching for answers, I went back and my ranking jumped from 65 to 57, AND I became #2 ranking in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Genre Fiction > Romance > Fantasy, Futuristic & Ghost. AND the books jumped from 1975 downloads to 2048 to 2090 to 2111 to 2122 to…. And my ranking went from 57 to 54…. I had to get my excited butt to sleep. I had things to do in the morning. So, you know it was the first thing I checked when I woke back up, right? IT WAS LIKE CHRISTMAS!!! What’s inside that beautifully packaged, bowed present….??!!!! The rank went to 52 with 2580 downloads at 8:30AM to 3242 downloads by 5PM (That’s Central Time)!

Every time I refreshed my webpage, the numbers kept going. And, of course, that’s what I did for the rest of the night, and the next day, watching the numbers grow…and my ranking go down in the overall free books for Kindle (not for the genre–it stayed at #2). But hey, the numbers of downloads kept growing and, about the rank,…that’s just how it goes. The most uplifting part for me is that I had wanted One book to be downloaded by 5,000 people in Smashwords, but the number of downloads was just getting slower and slower. At the rate that it was going, it was going to take TWO YEARS to reach 5,000 downloads. NOW! NOW! Now, I’ve reached that number with Kindle in just FOUR DAYS!!

HURRAY!!! Another goal accomplished!

On Aug 14, by 10:20pm, the count was at 3683.
On Aug 15, by 5:40pm, the count was at 4670 and by 10:25 it reached 5,044!!

Some people might think, heck, the book is Free, why wouldn’t anyone download it?

Just because it is free, doesn’t mean it’s something someone would want to read. Think about how you would want to spend your time? You want to read something you would enjoy…free or not.

And what’s great about FREE books?

FANS!!!!!

I got a few more purchases of my other books because of the free IRID sales on Kindle. COOL BEANS!

Now….now I sit back and wait for those people who’ve downloaded my book to start posting reviews. It might take a few months, since people download FREE books and have a large collection of books on their Kindles. It will take some time before they get to actually reading my book. Until then, as of the night of Aug 15, 2011…I became #1 Free book, of the Top 100, in the genre.

I’m scared… 🙂

3 Comments »

The 9th Symbol on Paperback & The Made on B&N & Rise of the Apes

Posted by deana72 - August 10th, 2011

Okay, so I’m late putting The Made on Barnes and Noble. I had wanted to look over it some more…but…my waiting on doing that was a bit long. I figure I might as well upload it just like it’s uploaded to Amazon. Heck, it’s selling on Kindle, so might as well make it available on the Nook.

Also, I’ve uploaded The 9th Symbol to CreateSpace, using the file template I downloaded from Lightning Source for the book cover pdf file. I looked over the proof–and it’s BEAUTIFUL! My Book Cover Designer used the file and made my pdf cover for me. The paperback is now available on Amazon. I’ve decided to wait on uploading to Lightning Source since I’m not particularly getting any finances from those sources yet (yeah, yeah, I’m stalling again with Lightning Source like before). I’m only been getting my small potatoes of money from my Kindle sells–enough to buy me lunch, but hey, it was better than nothing (and nothing was 2009 AND 2010) and I’ve got people I don’t know buying my books. I’m pretty excited about that; and thus I’ve met my goals to get readers :)!

Now to get more readers and keep them? I’m working on Creations and finishing that one. Jetta is already finished. I just have to look over Jetta again, and I’m still using Book 2–Jetta to correlate with Book 3–Creations. When will book 2 and book 3 be done for The Calling Series? I have no idea. I get blocks of time to write, here and there, between a 12 hour day of work and commuting and raising, my now, two year old daughter.

On the weekends, I just want to rest and watch movies and try to catch up on my TV shows–online streaming; as well as rummage around on the internet and try to find some other socializing site I can get into that would be fun (putting my URL in my profile and using my pen name as a login-id for those who are interested in knowing who I am).

And, oh, by the way, I MUST say Rise of the Planet of the Apes …IS AWESOME!!! My husband and I went to see it while the toddle was with kinfolk, and it just BLEW ME AWAY! I LOVE, absolutely love, a great story line filled with emotion, characters to connect with and action and…did I saw STORY! What a story! I think it’s up there with all my other loves of Sci Fi: King Kong (2005), Dark Crystal, Fantastic Planet, Legend, Avatar–The Last Air Bender, Claymore, Farscape etc. etc.

I know people are tired of remakes and rehashing of older films; especially authors feel this way, and screenwriters, who have other ideas that could be incorporated and made into movies–but this one ROCKED!

Occasionally new things come out, like The Matrix and Inception and Push, but it’s a big risk for film makers. I think they think we want to stay with what we know. It’s where the money is. And it worked before.

So, that’s where we Indies come in to mix things up a bit–to bring out those unique things that people seek. Thinks like INK.

Science Fiction and Fantasy films are just getting better and better, especially with CGI in the mix. I’m in love, and so happy to be in the time and age that these things can become “real”…at least on screen :).

I don’t expect my books to get on the big screen, just not that type for films, you know? It would be nice to see it, but that would be like making Octavia Butler’s book Dawn on screen. And I’m not sure how the film makers would go about creating it…with bypassing, you know, “those scenes”.

Anyway, I digress. The books are up, and I need to get back to more books stuff that I need to do.

Tootles!

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Self-Publishing is judged like Freddy Krueger–Scary and Disgusting

Posted by deana72 - August 7th, 2011

Yep, there’s a war going on and some people see Self-Publishing like they look at Freddy Krueger–Scary and Disgusting.

I’ve been trying to find a group of people who are doing what I’m doing–self-publishing. I’ve wanted to learn more and more to make improvements. But, I’ve gone to several forums and every time I think I found a good area that I might learn something new…a fight breaks out. Yeah. Really. As soon as the word “self-publish” enters into the conversation, a complete blow-out happens and the knowledge of information that could have been acquired and passed on to each other gets lost.

At first, I just thought it was a subject that gets debated…a lot. That forums loved to discuss and rehash the topic on Self-Publishing versus Trade Publishing whenever someone mentioned self-publishing their book–because that was the way it was for something so new (by the way, Trader Published authors “hate” it when you call them “Traditional” Published authors or refer to Trade Publishing as “Legacy”).

I remember when iUniverse came about and I heard of sooooo many bad books being produced from there, and so I thought I should never go that route. I should never self-publish because it was bad–B.A.D. But since 2000, I kept my eye out on self-publishing to see how things were going; but it was still bad…so I kept improving on my writing and looking at it again …. occasionally.

It wasn’t until 2008 that I decided to make the plunge and do it anyway and started my massive research into this new world. I couldn’t find much step-by-step information until I found this one blog of a self-published author. I actually bought and read his book, someone who did it on his own: Michael R. Hicks–In Her Name: Kreelan Warrior. And saw that…it was great! It was a wonderful book! I couldn’t stop reading it until I got to the end.

This book made me realize that there were some people who could produce very good self-publsihed books. It inspired me even more after I had made the decision to try it (to at least try it). I have been going at it ever since…and Loving it!

Then I searched for forums for any more information I might need to improve upon this new business (and yes, you must see it as a business, though I’ve been seeing it as something fun to do and self-improvement while dwelling in the internet world). But the majority of the forums had this scary campaign against self-publishing. They would give big WARNING signs that you would ruin your chances of EVER getting picked up by a major publishing house. That you’ve just given away your FIRST PUBLISH RIGHTS, and no one will want you (One. Two Freddy’s Coming for you!). That your novel isn’t good enough (Your Freddy Krueger Burnt Up Face Novel is just…Disgusting!!) unless you go through the waiting period and solicit agents and get picked up by the Trade route. Then and only then, and then only, would you really know that your novel is good enough. Plus the many people working at the publishing house would then make your book.. BETTER! Oh. And by the way. Since you’ve never been picked up by a publishing house, then it’s an absolute that your book isn’t good. What? What you say? You’re selling on Kindle? (Freddy’s claws the blackboard making that screeching sound that hurt your ears). Well, that doesn’t mean a thing. What? Selling a thousand a month? Oh no. It’s still not good enough. And besides, that NEVER happens and YOU’RE LYING ABOUT YOUR FIGURES! And even if that’s so, you can NEVER call yourself a Best Selling author…that is, if you can call yourself an “author” at all (Three. Four. Better shut the door.).

(NOTE: I’m not selling a thousand a month, but there are some self-published people who are selling that many, and other forum members are saying that they’re lying, when all they have to do is go to Amazon and look at the book’s ranking and numerous book reviews).

It took me some time to find the right place where I could be comfortable and be at home: Kindle Boards (for some reason I kept thinking the Amazon Discussions were the KindleBoards and the Amazon Discussion Boards were too hard to navigate and I had no idea how any one found any information on it). I’m so glad that I’ve finally found “the somewhere” where I can get more information from people like me! The Freddy Kruegers on the Block!

On the flip side, those in Trade Publishing are also feeling attacked by Self-Publishers who put down the steps they had taken to get published. The “constant waiting” and the endless “rejections” and the 18-24 months before the book gets into print and the amount of money they DON’T make…all of these negative aspects are attacks towards them (Five. Six. Grab a crucifix). Self-publishers put down Trade Publishing and give all sorts of negatives information about it, and that, in itself, causes those who choose to continue to go this route to counter-attack. To be honest, Self-Publishers can’t really attack something they’ve never been through, accept to state that they’ve never got picked up (Every town has an Elm Street! Heh. Heh. Heh.).

Those who are in the publishing side say that Indie Authors are just like the Mom-and-Pop stores on the corner. These types of stores don’t damage or cause any sells to drop from, let say, the Wal-Mart stores. Indie authors are just a pee in an ocean. There’s NOTHING to compare. The Indie world is not taking over and bringing down THE MAN. They’re not causing the monoliths to fall. They are nothing, and shouldn’t be compared with, publishing houses. And, darn it, there are other publishing houses out there besides the BIG SIX. Indie’s are just a bunch of mice squeaking about how GRAND they are.

And to this, I say, I’ve always loved the fable of The Mouse and The Lion. Yes, we’re different and we don’t cause any “damage” to the publishing houses, and we’re not in competition with the publishing houses and agents. And, no, we don’t rule the internet book market.

However…

There are those who have done both sides of publishing, and NO ONE can argue with them. The main person who once put his nose up against self-publishing has now become the Voice of Self-Publishing: J.A. Konrath.

On the Absolute Writers forum he stated these things:

You say that starting in legacy “seems a good strategy.” It’s not. It’s a poor strategy, for a multitude of reasons.
Rather than hijack this thread and list them all, here’s a 15,000 word dialog that explains many of them, and a 13,000 word dialog that explains many others.
The times are changing at an amazing rate, and signing a legacy deal is harmful, pretty much in all cases. Unless the Big 6 are going to offer you life-changing money in one immediate, lump sum (and what are the odds of that?) you’re better off going it alone.

Kindle, the customers know what they want to buy. If your book fits and it’s withing their budget, they’ll buy it. If it’s good. They’ll want more and they’ll tell their friends. If it’s bad, they won’t buy the book and they’ll still tell their friends.

Either way, the good writer goes on. The bad writer goes on or gives up

There is a fast track to publication. It’s called Kindle, and unlike AuthorHouse, it costs no money at all.
What new writers need to learn is that there is no fast track to success. And they’ll either learn that on their own, or they won’t.

But it’s a lot better to upload a lousy book to Amazon for free, and get bad reviews and sell poorly, than it is to spend big money going the POD route.

I also recommend no one self publish without learning all about it.
The book has to be great, no doubt. If it isn’t great, it won’t sell.

But it also needs a great cover and a low price, and the author also needs to release multiple titles so browsers can find them easier.

My favorite statement that he made on the forum was this: Someone stated that J.A. Konrath was making a foolish statement on *guaranteeing* authors that they would make more money than traditionally published authors. And he answered:

A limited shelf life for a traditional print deal vs. forever as an ebook.
Forever wins. Always. Guaranteed.

Another one that Indie’s should be concerned about, and be knowledgeable and research about self-publishing…

There is a cottage industry built around bilking newbie writers out of their money. Publish American on POD houses, agents that charge reading fees, contests that have fees, conferences that teach newbies how to pitch and write query letters, and so on.

But uploading an ebook on Kindle and Smashwords costs nothing. No writers are getting ripped off. This is a much preferable alternative to blowing lots of dough nurturing false hope.

One person stated that authors will get the impression that they will get high returns with self-publishing and will not be able to recognize that when this doesn’t happen, that the problem might lie with their own abilities. The answer to that….

So it’s better for them to start querying agents and spend years getting rejected?
If an author sucks, and tries to find an agent, they won’t land one. Hopefully, they’ll try to improve their craft.
If an author sucks, and self-publishes, they’ll get poor sales and bad reviews. Hopefully, they’ll try to improve their craft.
In the first scenario, there’s a lot of waiting, depression, and helplessness.
In the second scenario, there is some money, instant gratification, and the potential to learn from mistakes much faster.
All authors dream about landing a million dollar contract. The disappointment will come no matter what route they take.
But I believe self-publishing is empowering, and writers can learn from it.

I know that’s a lot of quotes, and trader published authors are sick and tired of self-published author quoting J.A. Konrath. “J.A. Konrath, said..” … “But, J.A. Konrath says…” … “And J.A. Konrath said….” And J.A. Konrath said that he gets misquoted a lot, but he continues to put down what he actually means. He never said that everyone would make as much money as him, but he does say they can make money…if you put the effort out there…somebody is going to buy it. And you will make money. Will it be enough to pay your rent? Only time will tell. Will your book be overlooked because of the hundreds of thousands of books being put online…?

So, yes, there is a flood of bad books being put out on the market by those who don’t take the time and money to get their books polished. However, self-publishers state that the houses put out bad books as well. There’s a fear that the GOOD books will be swallowed up and no one will see them because of the slew, and a large Noah-type flood, of books would overload the online book stores (Seven. Eight. Better stay up late). There’s an answer for that….

I can’t wait to see how in five (5) or more years, what authors would say about books. Because today, I know that the average reader doesn’t know the difference between trade or self published books (like they would have known when iUniverse was the big thing). Readers only know if they like the book or they don’t. And when they pick it up (or view) the cover (Ooooo. That looks interesting!), that’s the first hook. That’s what you use to do when you roamed the dozens of rows of books in the library or book store. Right? If the book is any GOOD, people will tell their friends and the “Word of Mouth” would spread like hotcakes. Look at YouTube. If a video is funny or deemed worthwhile to tell your friends, then it will get noticed…sometimes over night. Look at the internet? How many web pages are put up a day? Blog sites? There’s a flood of websites out there, yet people still find a way to get the information that they want. The BAD books? Well, just like bad websites, they will be reviewed only briefly, (i.e. book reviews stating how horrible and bad the novel is) or flagged as “Spam” (Amazon and the likes will take it down if reported), or it would never get bought because people viewed the inside of the book and saw how horrible it was (Nine. Ten. Never Sleep Again).

The Good Books will still prevail! (Take THAT Freddy Krueger!)

Tomorrow, authors will have a different view, I’m sure, because tomorrow always brings more knowledge than today.

Until Next time 🙂

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What is my website’s popularity? 2

Posted by deana72 - July 18th, 2011

Want to find out how many people are viewing your website? Or even who put links back to your website from their personal sites? I got a few little places and tips you can use.

Google Analytics
This is the best one yet to view how your website is doing with popularity (do you like me?). You have to copy/paste some code to your website, but it’s worth the bit of effort.

WebStatChecker
WebStatChecker is pretty cool as well. Just type your domain in, and click on the underlined hyperlink number for the Yahoo Backlinks. But for Yahoo Backlinks, the below method will pull the same results.

Advanced Search Operators
You can use this method that’s in all of the major search engines. For example, in Google search box, I would just type: linkdomain:zhollis.com, and it will give me a list of sites who have my site linked on them. I can type it in Yahoo, Ask.com and search.aol.com. But for Bing (this is also MSN search engine), I had to actually enter and search for my site name FIRST, then press the “Advanced” option menu. It used site:zhollis.com, which I didn’t want; so I did -site:zhollis.com (see the negative sign says “exclude”, meaning “Don’t look for this”) and also retyped zhollis.com to see if it will displays sites containing zhollis.com without finding my actual site. It looked like this [-site:zhollis zhollis.com]. It didn’t bring up much 🙂 .

HeadKeys
Headkeys gives you an idea of the popular Key Words your website is using that people will search for and possible click to come to your site. Not sure how this will help, but it might tell you how strong your site is with the key words people normally search for.

Reverse Internet
Reverse Internet can give you some ideas of who is linking back to you as well.
It didn’t show much for my websites though. But I tried a different website and it displayed a lot of information. So that’s why I’m listing it on my blog.

That’s about it. Go ahead and try some stuff out and see which ones work for you.

Happy Narcissism!

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The Book Cover for The 9th Symbol is here!!!

Posted by deana72 - July 4th, 2011

Yep, my 4th book is here…in the flesh! You can check out an excerpt pdf-flash flip page and the Book Trailer here at my website.

Here’s the first sketch for the cover. I really liked it, and I liked the wishing well in the back, but I didn’t think that people would notice that it was a “well” and not a flower pot.

OH! CLICK THE PICTURE TO GET A BETTER VIEW! 🙂

So I asked my Cover Designer to change the well to look like the picture I have in my Book Trailer.

Then color was put into it. But I needed her hand to have her gold ring and the key bobbing in the water of the well had to be gold and the balls on the well had to be gold. A lot of “had to” but the image goes along with the novel.

Then with all excitement abound….the final!

And that’s it! HURRAY!

My Cover Book Designer is awesome as always!

So, I did all of the other publishing stuff as well for this book, but only for the eBook portion to start off with. I’ll work on the paperback later. I’ve already got it book formatted in MSWord for print, just got to put it in pdf and upload to CreateSpace and Lighting Source. …But later.

Stuff I had to do for The 9th Symbol
1) Format for Smashword
2) Format for Kindle
3) Created the pdf-to-flip file
4) And of course the Copy Right and I had my ISBN number already ready to go.
5) Oh yeah, and I got it edited as well.
6) Updated my webpage, uploaded to Smashwords and Kindle, embedded my YouTube videos, and went back several times to redo stuff that I’ve forgotten to do. 🙂
7) Now currently waiting for Smashwords to approve my file so it can be distributed to Barnes & Noble Nook and other eBook sites…. That’s gonna take awhile. I’ll let you know when I’m finally approved.

While going through my steps above, I had to refer back to My Own Steps to Publishing and all the different websites and stuff to do. I even had to update this site as I went along to make it current.

See the previous post for Irid’s Book Cover design steps.
See previous post for Ruby, Flesh and Heart Cover design steps.
See the previous post for The Made Cover design steps.

Oh yeah! Happy 4th of July!!

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