My Adventures in E-Publishing begin!

[rebelcheese]

Originally Posted by J. Tanner

I see Look Inside is now available on your book.

I'm glad that's available now. I'm hoping there'll be some sales finally if people like the prose.

[bernster]

Don't skimp on cover designs. You can get a simple front cover like that done for less than $100 nowadays. Doing your own cover is like (years ago) how my sister used to sew her own clothes and would sew me a shirt for my birthday. One sleeve's always too short and too narrow, collars are never right...you get the point.

[rebelcheese]

I hope that once my income situation improves I'll be able to pay for a cover one way or another.

I know that I botched things to a degree. I've only sold 2 copies so far, and that means somewhere I screwed up.

[J. Tanner]

Originally Posted by rebelcheese

I know that I botched things to a degree. I've only sold 2 copies so far, and that means somewhere I screwed up.

Not necessarily, except in having unrealistic expectations.

You've made something available. That alone does not drive very many purchases. One here, one there. People are not discovering your book. Since you've done nothing to get it discovered, you're achieving the typical result.

Ebooks tend to start slow if you don't have a built in audience or do something to start building one. Publishing is a long term business.

marrihiatt started out about six months ago and you can see here start in her thread here: http://absolutewrite.com/forums/show...50&postcount=3

And she started out with 3 novels and a couple shorts. About the same sales as you've achieved. And you're behind with just one book.

So writing more books is one key.

Her thread also starts out with her first bit of success in discoverability--taking advantage of a free promotion on Amazon which helps "prime the pump" of their discoverability algorithms. It's getting harder and harder to do that well every day but it can still work. You might consider that.

You also could start the process of self-promoting. That's another avenue that successful self-publishers have used to build an audience. Some have been successful at it even with only one book.

[triceretops]

Yes, the promo and marketing is really a never-ending process, unless your book/s have found their own momentum. Then, a wonderful kind of snowball effects happens. I've not reached that pinnacle yet, having to promote at least three or four times a week to maintain a decent rank and make some sales. Be creative in where you link or list your book, and avoid massive spam campaigns.

[merrihiatt]

Originally Posted by rebelcheese

I hope that once my income situation improves I'll be able to pay for a cover one way or another.

I know that I botched things to a degree. I've only sold 2 copies so far, and that means somewhere I screwed up.

Two copies in a short time is not bad at all. It's hard sometimes not to have these great expectations of selling hundreds out of the gate. It just doesn't work that way unless you've built up a following before releasing a book or haven't tried offering the book free to get exposure. As J. Tanner said, people need to find your book. It's one title among millions. Do not lose hope.

I have two suggestions:
1. Start writing your next book.
2. Now that your book is "out there," go back and read it again with a critical eye. As a self-published e-book author, you have an opportunity to polish the book even further and upload a revised version. Ideally, the final version would have been the one you uploaded, but it's easy to get in a hurry.

Good luck!

[rebelcheese]

Thank you for all of your advice.

FTR, my expectations weren't that great. I was hoping for 6 sales by this point. I thought I could do that.

A Twitter buddy of mine did tweet my novel's existence to his 100 or so followers but none seem to have bit. But hey he was a really nice guy to do it.

[JustJas]

It's very frustrating when you've got people tweeting & facebooking for you and still there are not many bites. Personally I just don't think it's worth it to spend a lot of time promoting your book to get 1 or 2 sales. I'm just leaving all my marketing to Amazon now because the free book promotion on Kindle Select leaves everything else for dead. Although my sales are still very modest I did notice a flow-on effect from a free promotion which helped boost my confidence a bit. Good luck!

[merrihiatt]

Originally Posted by JustJas

It's very frustrating when you've got people tweeting & facebooking for you and still there are not many bites. Personally I just don't think it's worth it to spend a lot of time promoting your book to get 1 or 2 sales.

I think the best way to use social media is to be yourself first, establish rapport, then mention your writing. I have a low-key approach (probably too low-key, but it works for me). I mention how many words I've written on my wip and add a line about what's happening in the book. I post when I have a free e-book, contest or new book available. Otherwise, I post about everyday things or pass along quotes I like.

[rebelcheese]

Okay, I got a stupid question: I was going to put the book up for free for a day. But how do I do that again? Do I literally just going to the price-setting screen and change the "2.99" to "0.00"? Or is there some special way to get the price and then revert it back to normal?

[WackAMole]

Originally Posted by rebelcheese

Okay, I got a stupid question: I was going to put the book up for free for a day. But how do I do that again? Do I literally just going to the price-setting screen and change the "2.99" to "0.00"? Or is there some special way to get the price and then revert it back to normal?

You select the book on your bookshelf by checking the little box next to the title.

Below that (and also above it i believe) is a small box that says 'Actions' click on it and select 'Manage Promotions'.

Then that should open up a window for you that allows you to select the dates you want your book to be free.

[Kriven]

Go to your KDP Bookshelf.

Put a check in the box beside the title you want to make free.

Click the "Actions" tab.

From the "Actions" drop menu, click "Manage Promotions."

In the "Manage Promotions" window, click "New."

[merrihiatt]

You'll also be prompted to enter a name for your promo. You can put anything in that section (book title, promo #1, whatever). Also, be careful when choosing your dates. If you want the e-book free for one 24-hour period, the dates will be the same (i.e., April 12, 2012 to April 12, 2012). A two-day period would be April 12, 2012 through April 13, 2012. It's easy to accidentally sign up for a two-day period when you meant to sign up for a one-day period.

[rebelcheese]

Thank you very, very much! I'm probably going to make it free in a couple of weeks.

[rebelcheese]

I'm going to make it free on Friday. Just an FYI.

[James D. Macdonald]

Originally Posted by rebelcheese

I'm going to make it free on Friday. Just an FYI.

You might want to put your book in your sig line here.

[rebelcheese]

Originally Posted by James D. Macdonald

You might want to put your book in your sig line here.

Yeah, I really need to do that . . .

[rebelcheese]

And . . . I did.

[Rob Lopez]

Good luck with that. I've downloaded a sample for a quick read.

At the risk of being obtuse, may I make a couple of suggestions?

In your blurb, which opens with a very long sentence, the line 'the older sister he seemingly brought back from the dead could be nothing but a glorified zombie' doesn't follow on so neatly from what precedes it.

I would have advised cutting it out altogether to make a snappier and more rhythmic line - except that she appears to be a character that does need to be mentioned.

Reading the sample I notice that you have a punchy, short sentence style. I like it, and I think it fits the YA market (though I'm no expert). It is vastly different from the blurb style though.

Considering it is for the YA market, perhaps writing the blurb in a similar style to the content might be a good way to grab the right attention? Maybe even make the blurb 1st person too?

I don't want to sound too prescriptive, and it's up to you, but I just found that the blurb didn't grab me the way the novel's opening did.

Also (stop reading now if I'm being a pain), in the blurb, you describe the most brutal game in history as: HUNT.

Now the fact that this is capitalized made me think it was an acronym for something I didn't know the meaning of. And it may well be. But do you mean, 'The Hunt', as in, you know, hunting?

Hope it all goes well with the free promo.

[jnfr]

I've got my fingers crossed for your success, Mackenzie! I really hope you've taken Merri's great advice and are already working on your next book. That's the most important thing you can do, I believe, is keep writing!

In case you end up looking for inexpensive cover work, I keep a page of resources for self-publishers. Link is in my sig. There's a section for graphic artists at all kinds of price points, and all kinds of odds and ends I've picked up over the past year that you might find useful.

I don't have any commercial interest in anything there, by the way. Just information I've pulled together in my own work.

[rebelcheese]

Originally Posted by Rob Lopez

At the risk of being obtuse, may I make a couple of suggestions?

In your blurb, which opens with a very long sentence, the line 'the older sister he seemingly brought back from the dead could be nothing but a glorified zombie' doesn't follow on so neatly from what precedes it.

I would have advised cutting it out altogether to make a snappier and more rhythmic line - except that she appears to be a character that does need to be mentioned.

Reading the sample I notice that you have a punchy, short sentence style. I like it, and I think it fits the YA market (though I'm no expert). It is vastly different from the blurb style though.

Considering it is for the YA market, perhaps writing the blurb in a similar style to the content might be a good way to grab the right attention? Maybe even make the blurb 1st person too?

I don't want to sound too prescriptive, and it's up to you, but I just found that the blurb didn't grab me the way the novel's opening did.

Also (stop reading now if I'm being a pain), in the blurb, you describe the most brutal game in history as: HUNT.

Now the fact that this is capitalized made me think it was an acronym for something I didn't know the meaning of. And it may well be. But do you mean, 'The Hunt', as in, you know, hunting?

Hope it all goes well with the free promo.

Well the sentence is meant to be intentionally long but in hindsight I wonder if that killed potential appeal for the novel because it isn't, well, grammatically correct. And yeah, Karin does need to be mentioned, she's in the vast majority of the novel and plays a pivotal role in a potential series (the whole thing is planned out, I admit it).

I didn't want to make the blurb first person because I think that's kinda cheesy, like the way the Maximum Ride blurbs are. But maybe that's just me and I should try it.

I mean "the hunt" yeah. It was originally italicized but I couldn't make it show up so I hit all-caps.

I'm glad you found the opening good. My novel should be free for the day any minute now so you can enjoy the rest if you so choose.

[rebelcheese]

It looks like it's climbing a little . . .

[rebelcheese]

Well . . . it looks like the promotion got 128 downloads. Not a bad haul, considering today didn't go according to plan Internet-wise and I couldn't get online to seriously push its existence. I kinda wish I could've made it onto the top 20 free though, looks like I'm going to top out at 21.

I'm going to have to do this again and this time make sure I can get online to do a push.

[Rob Lopez]

Good going for just 24 hours. Will be interesting to see if paid sales pick up a little after the promo compared to before the promo.

[rebelcheese]

Originally Posted by Rob Lopez

Good going for just 24 hours. Will be interesting to see if paid sales pick up a little after the promo compared to before the promo.

So far . . . doesn't look like it. I had 137 downloads while it was free but no sales so far today.

I'm probably going to have to do another freebie day, or even days, so it has a chance to build more or something I guess?