I left you in a bottleneck on our last blog, knowing that you push your own product over and over, infinitum will not work. At best you will be ignored, or at worse, reported as a spammer and banned.
So, how do we achieve becoming known enough to be read? To be read, and enjoyed and sought after. How do we become a best-selling author?
Having a polished, grammatically correct, easy to read story is a must. I cannot reiterate this enough. I understand the excitement of finishing a story, but I also understand if grammatically incorrect, most readers that pay money for their books, printed OR eBook will want an easy read, and will return the book or like me, never buy the book because the synopsis is stilted, or not interesting, or grammatically incorrect.
Amazon has the feature now where most books are accessible to read the first chapter or two. I can generally tell within a page or two if it will hold my interest or if I will be stumbling over fractured grammar.
Now, our product is ready to sell, we have been telling people it is coming. We have shared bits and pieces of our WIP, our Work In Progress. We have gotten people interested in reading it, some will become our BETA readers – check out what they do at this wiki link, and now it is for sale. Promotion begins in earnest.
Let us now rejoin Samuel Z. Jones and his take on this promotion problem ~
Trouble is, you get a bottleneck effect; the gaps between books mean that your networks get neglected and then suddenly stressed. We can lessen this effect by pushing other things on our network between book launches; that could be memes, merchandise, blogs, vlogs, reviews, interviews, short stories, comics, artwork, other people’s books...
Eek! I need to do these things one at a time. If you throw all this at me, I will go off, and write another story and hope someone will find my book and read it. I know that’s not the answer, I know no one will find me, but this is overwhelming.
Getting the idea? Our networks are real things, like nerves and muscles in the body, virtually. The problem, metaphorically speaking, is that all of us in the very new field of digital publishing are still learning basic motor skills.
Let’s compromise. This week I will look into what these things are, but I need help with setting things up. Enough! Let’s talk next about sites.
Establishing a site or a blog will be the first thing needed. Those sites will be my homes, for my book or books and for my interaction with others.
For now, here is my profile on The Booktrap that has most of my links. Check them out to get an idea of what can be done, what not to do.
Samuel’s site is in progress, but check out his Smashwords profile and start there - make a profile whether you use it to publish or use it as a reader.
So, how do we achieve becoming known enough to be read? To be read, and enjoyed and sought after. How do we become a best-selling author?
Having a polished, grammatically correct, easy to read story is a must. I cannot reiterate this enough. I understand the excitement of finishing a story, but I also understand if grammatically incorrect, most readers that pay money for their books, printed OR eBook will want an easy read, and will return the book or like me, never buy the book because the synopsis is stilted, or not interesting, or grammatically incorrect.
Amazon has the feature now where most books are accessible to read the first chapter or two. I can generally tell within a page or two if it will hold my interest or if I will be stumbling over fractured grammar.
Now, our product is ready to sell, we have been telling people it is coming. We have shared bits and pieces of our WIP, our Work In Progress. We have gotten people interested in reading it, some will become our BETA readers – check out what they do at this wiki link, and now it is for sale. Promotion begins in earnest.
Let us now rejoin Samuel Z. Jones and his take on this promotion problem ~
Trouble is, you get a bottleneck effect; the gaps between books mean that your networks get neglected and then suddenly stressed. We can lessen this effect by pushing other things on our network between book launches; that could be memes, merchandise, blogs, vlogs, reviews, interviews, short stories, comics, artwork, other people’s books...
Eek! I need to do these things one at a time. If you throw all this at me, I will go off, and write another story and hope someone will find my book and read it. I know that’s not the answer, I know no one will find me, but this is overwhelming.
Getting the idea? Our networks are real things, like nerves and muscles in the body, virtually. The problem, metaphorically speaking, is that all of us in the very new field of digital publishing are still learning basic motor skills.
Let’s compromise. This week I will look into what these things are, but I need help with setting things up. Enough! Let’s talk next about sites.
Establishing a site or a blog will be the first thing needed. Those sites will be my homes, for my book or books and for my interaction with others.
For now, here is my profile on The Booktrap that has most of my links. Check them out to get an idea of what can be done, what not to do.
Samuel’s site is in progress, but check out his Smashwords profile and start there - make a profile whether you use it to publish or use it as a reader.