GET STARTED RIGHT

I keep thinking the debates on “self vs. traditional publishing” are over, but I still see a lot of new writers making horrible mistakes.
Instead of realizing that:
--It’s not really a “versus”: you can do both, do neither, do the whole thing smart or stupid. The important thing is to get out there and get readers, hopefully without losing your pants doing so.
--Money up front is a dangerous gamble. This is one of the obvious problems with “vanity publishing”—paying somebody money you hope to get back on sales (unlikely) instead of a press that invests in your work and takes profit from your later sales. But the same thinking goes for laying out thousands of dollars for editing or artwork or formatting, having been convinced that it will “sell your book” and you’ll get the money back in sales. (Slim chance.)
--You have to follow up. You have to promote your book. Nobody else is going to do it for you unless they charge you money up front for the least worthwhile author “service”.
--Buying into all the “rules” left over from traditional publishing and not applicable to what you will be doing—selling ebooks off amazon and other eTailers. There are no back cover blurbs (or back covers), no advance copies, no store browsers, no interior design.

If you are still new to what lies past finishing your manuscript, let me suggest that you take a look at this fun, possibly helpful, “revolutionary” free ebook.

If you have figured out that you want to go commando indie, this guide to bridging the gap between MS and reader base might be a big help.
Read Linton's interesting bio on his website: http://linrobinson.com/
Linton Robinson
Lin's Amazonpage

The Self-Promotion Treadmill: Part Two

Lately I have been making myself crazy over the cover for my next book, The Seventh Pillar. One of the dictums of self-publishing, something you hear all the time, is the necessity for a good cover. But it's not just a cover: it's the KEY TO EVERYTHING, or at least that's what the gurus seem to be saying. If your cover isn't "good enough" your book is doomed to remain unnoticed, hovering somewhere around the 2,000,000 mark on Amazon, if you are lucky enough to have any number at all.

I have a wonderful cover designer for this book. Her name is Bonnie Lea Elliott and I am sure I am driving her to drink. I know I'm driving myself to drink. See, I know someone who is a really super guy who is also a genius when it comes to the publishing industry. I developed a cover with Bonnie that I thought was really good. My friend didn't like it. He gave me some very constructive criticism, some of which I cheerfully accepted. I made changes. He still didn't like it. But I like it. Bonnie likes it. Other people like it. It's a scary and powerful cover.

The creeping shadow of self doubt has filled my soul and now I am lost...oh, wait, that's from a bad story I never finished....
Self promotion, for an Indie writer, means you wear all the hats. It's like being an entire football team on its way to the Super Bowl and then...one of your hats is a punt returner. One is a field goal kicker. It's easy to make a mistake that can cost you...what? Not the big game, but that's what the mind tells you. If the cover isn't right, no one will buy it.

How did we get here, with this self promo thing? I just lost almost an entire day I could have been writing, thinking about this cover. Perhaps you have had a similar experience. It's true there are a lot of bad covers out there. But I don't buy books because of their covers. Ebooks aren't like going into a bookstore. I buy an ebook because I have read other works by that author, because someone I trust recommended the book, because something appealed in the excerpt, because I liked the description. I might even buy one with a lousy cover, for the same reasons. So it isn't the cover so much as the reviews, the word of mouth and plain serendipity.

Self Promoters Of The Indie World, Unite! Throw Off Your Chains! Throw off the shackles of conventional thinking about what works and write! The Revolution demands sacrifice of the Old Gods...

I am reminded of an Ojibway saying, which I try to remember when I feel like I'm screwing everything up, like my latest cover, because of obsessive and unrealistic thoughts about what it's supposed to do. Here's the saying:

"Sometimes I go about in pity for myself, and all the while

A great wind is bearing me across the sky."

I'm going to make myself a drink, now.

Alex Author of WHITE JADE and THE LANCE. 
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THE VALUE OF 'SELLING' YOUR EBOOK FOR NOTHING

Last Monday and Tuesday I put my ebook Dear Coca-Cola on Amazon Kindle for free. It ‘sold’ around 4000. The outcome of this has been somewhat surprising. I expected that sales of my other nine books would rise a little over the next few weeks – people would read Dear Coca-Cola, some of them would like it and buy one or more of the rest of my nine books. What has happened, in the seven days since, is that sales of Dear Coca-Cola have increased by 300% and sales of my other books by an average of 35%. Collectively I sold approx 1000 more books than I did the week before.

However I don’t expect this trait to continue for long as the majority of the extra sales were made during the first four days - in sales are already heading back towards their previous level.

But I will of course gain some future sales to people who have bought Dear Coca-Cola for free and will subsequently by one or more of my other books. Another point to bear in mind is that many people who downloaded Dear Coca-Cola will not have read it yet – there are literally hundreds of books free on Kindle at the moment, people take advantage of this and stockpile. When all is gathered in my guess is that I will have sold about 4000 more books than I would otherwise have done.

This means of course that I have given away 4000 books in order to sell 4000. Does this concern me? Not at all. It wouldn’t bother me if I had to give 10,000 books away in order to sell 4000. There are more than a billion people in the world who speak English so it would be a long time before I ran out of potential customers.

Terry Ravenscroft

email terryrazz@gmail.com

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