Some words of advice to Dorchester authors
I went on line late this afternoon and was bombarded by the swirl of news and commentary about Dorchester Publishing’s decision to switch to an e-book/POD approach to publishing. At first I simply felt a wave of sympathy for those authors who found their familiar world swept away, particularly those authors who had books that were supposed to come out this fall and were in the middle of marketing campaigns designed around traditional trade paperbacks and brick and mortar stores. See for example the discussion on the Smart Bitches website. Next I thought about what advice I would give these authors from my experience this past year as an indie author whose book, Maids of Misfortune, is in both ebook and POD formats. Like many of the commentators on the Smart Bitches site, I would suggest that once they know Read more…
Establishing a Brand
I have been working my way through the Platform/Promo Lessons in Publetariate’s Vault University curriculum by April Hamilton and Zoe Winters (I was fortunate enough to win access to Vault University as a winner of Publetariate’s First Anniversary Contest.) While I don’t plan on revealing any detail on the excellent material presented in this curriculum (if you are interested, the fee is just $5 a month for monthly lessons, and I would highly recommend signing up and/or purchasing a copy of April Hamilton’s Indie Author Guide), I am using the subject headings of the sixteen “lessons” in the curriculum to evaluate my own attempts at promotion of my historical mystery, Maids of Misfortune: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery. As someone who has been teaching (and therefore evaluating students) for 35 years I figure it will be a humbling experience to Read more…
Help! How do I get people to find my book while on Smashwords?
I put my book, Maids of Misfortune: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery, up as an ebook on Smashwords and Kindle at approximately the same time, for the same price ($4) in December 2009. In the six months since I published the book I have only sold 2 books on Smashwords, while at the same time, I have sold 120 books on Kindle. What I am trying to figure out is: why the difference and is there anything I can do about this? A year ago on the Smashwords blog, (http://bit.ly/c79MXp)Mark Coker wrote that “Approximately 80 percent of Smashwords web site visitors arrive to Smashwords via deep links, meaning they arrive to an author page or an author’s book page…” But today, the group I am interested in is the other 20% who are simply browsing for a book to check Read more…
^