Dhewco's Diary

Dhewco

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I know I said I would wait to post this kind of thing, but I was going to ask another question and decided I might as well start the journal. I'm not sure what to put here...but the comment I wanted to make is this...I really need to stop checking the Dashboard ever few minutes. It's freaking me out.

I know self-publishers have a hard time breaking out of the only 'friends/family' thing...especially with no marketing budget at all. Still, if everyone who said they'd buy a copy actually will, I'd have 20 sales. I keep checking and only have one and now my paranoia is going crazy. So, how do newbies stop checking every few minutes? LOL, it's going to make me nuts. It's only been 5 hours or so. Ugh.


Someone teach me to stop. LOL
 

Dhewco

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I sent an announcement to the editor of the local small-town paper. I don't really know how to do such a thing...so I probably screwed it up. However, I was honest about it being self-publishing and asked them that if it wasn't already news to give me a number to sell before they'd consider it news. Like I said, I'm sure I said the wrong thing. LOL.
 

lizo27

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I spent probably the first few weeks after my book went up driving myself bonkers by refreshing the sales report. Don't do that. Here are a few things to keep in mind, from my very seasoned two months experience:

1) Not everyone who said they would buy a copy of your book will buy a copy of your book. Some of them were just being nice. Let it go.

2) You have to do some legwork to get your book out there. Sending an announcement to the editor was a start. Look up some bloggers who review self-pubbed books and request reviews. Here's a useful site: http://www.theindieview.com. Get a Twitter or a Facebook and fill out your author page on Amazon and Goodreads.

3) And this is most important: Get to work on the next book. This one is out there, it's doing its thing, and there's only so much you can do to help it along. I've heard it said here before: the best advertisement for a book is another book. So get cracking! :)

Best of luck!
 

Dhewco

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Good advice. I'm not sure about giving out free books for review. I'm not sure how that works. Do you gift them from Kindle or send them your .epub file? Frankly, it took a lot of courage to put it on Kindle. I fiddled with the book for a long time before I finally did it. I'll probably follow your advice and try it...but it's going to take awhile before I eek out the guts to do so. I'm such a wimp. LOL.

As for the next book, I'm not sure about doing the sequel. I have another wip in a different genre that I'm a few chapters from completing. I'll probably do that one first.

David

PS. I'm a paranoid pessimist. I never expect anyone to do what they say. I allow myself a little hope; but I acknowledge it'll be crushed. My FB friends insisted they'd support my YT channel. They watched maybe three of the vids and stopped. They'd 'like' the post...but never watch.
 
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lizo27

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Most reviewers will take an epub or mobi file.
 

Dhewco

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BTW, whoever recommended Calibre was a life saver. I don't think I would have been able to do it without that program. I couldn't afford the full Word program and I don't know if OpenOffice would have worked. Free is what I could afford, lol.
 

Dhewco

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Does anyone know how to figure out who bought? Is there a way?

Basically, I want to know not necessarily who...but where they're coming from: FB, here, or Twitter. I'm just not sure how to track it. Anybody got any hints? I don't want to ask directly, because if they're FB who are buying just to be nice...I don't want them to be pressured to actually review or anything.
 

Dhewco

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5 sales is not too bad for a first day, is it? I've really gotta stop.
 

davidjgalloway

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Take this with the typical grain of salt inherent in any "psych yourself out" games, but maybe you could establish a rule that you can't check sales until you've written 5k on the current wip.
 

Dhewco

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You know, I have to be honest with myself. I spent months while editing preparing myself for the release. I told myelf time and time again not to expect anything. Told myself that I should be happy to expect four or five sales because that's how many friends I actually have that are trustworthy.

Why do I feel so disappointed? I told myself I shouldn't expect anything. If anything, I lowered every expectation I consciously could. I don't get it. I should be happy with the six I actually have received so far.

I did everything possible to avoid the feeling that I would outsell King and Koontz.


Sorry for the whine. I'm just confused. (Not why I'm not selling...that's due to a small internet footprint and no marketing budget and not yet brave enough to send to review sites.) I'm confused that I'm still disappointed after telling myself all that.

ETA: Not going to debate the quality of the writing or anything. I'm just not prepared to do that after only three days.
 
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Norman D Gutter

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So, how do newbies stop checking every few minutes? LOL, it's going to make me nuts. It's only been 5 hours or so. Ugh.

Someone teach me to stop. LOL

I'm afraid this type of demon comes out only with time. Distraction helps too, such as the distraction of writing the next book.

Good luck with your book, David. And I'd say 5 sales the first day is fine.

NDG
 

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Why do I feel so disappointed? I told myself I shouldn't expect anything. If anything, I lowered every expectation I consciously could. I don't get it. I should be happy with the six I actually have received so far.

I did everything possible to avoid the feeling that I would outsell King and Koontz.

My motivation levels seem to fluctuate on a daily basis, in direct proportion to my sales. It's a disease I've been trying to cure, but nothing has worked so far.

Give it a week, then start writing the next book.
 

Dhewco

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I'm spending the time revising a detective story/thriller I've had on the backburner while doing edits on Humanity. I'm not sure about writing the sequel to the one I've just put on Kindle. It might take longer than a week before I can get back into that world. I've heard that series work is easier to sell for self-publishers, but it's hard to get enthused about a 'world' that I just spent 8 months or more trying to edit.

However, good advice and recommendations...thanks
 

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Does anyone know how to figure out who bought? Is there a way?

Basically, I want to know not necessarily who...but where they're coming from: FB, here, or Twitter. I'm just not sure how to track it. Anybody got any hints? I don't want to ask directly, because if they're FB who are buying just to be nice...I don't want them to be pressured to actually review or anything.

Tracking links is as close as you can get. It's a hassle, but it works for seeing where the links were clicked through...but not as far as whether someone actually bought. There are a variety of vendors.

bit.ly is a popular one. So you sign up for a bit.ly account and then you take your amazon.com/mybook URL and enter it into your bit.ly account and label it "for twitter". bit.ly spits back a different link. You post that on twitter. Then repeat the process with a new "for facebook" tracking link. Create a different link for each place. All them them end up at the same book page. Then you go to bit.ly and see how many clicks each link has.

Amazon affiliate links will tell you who bought, but you can't use them everywhere. You need to read Amazon's TOS which pretty much limits use to your own web site. (You can direct everyone to a page on your site from twitter, FB, etc, but then the affiliate link is just going to report all the traffic from your site.)
 

Dhewco

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I don't have an author site. I really should get one. All my buying traffic is from four sites and my crit group. The sites are Evil Editor (They tried to help me fine tone the query back when I tried to sell...but I gave up on selling it. I let them know I self-pubbed.), Twitter, FB, and here (I'm assuming...it's the only other place I can think of that people know about my book).

Anyone kow any good places for really cheap, or free, author sites? I'm assuming there's a forum chat here about them that can help me get started. Can anyone link it here? I'll try to search, but I often fail at that.

Thanks again.

David

ETA: I'd seen bit.ly links before but never researched. The info is appreciated.
 
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Dhewco

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Another question...has anyone done an event at their local library? I contacted mine a few minutes ago asking if they do events or could stock a hard copy (I might do Createspace depending on the answer)? Well, technically it's the local library I grew up frequenting. It's only two counties over.

I'm trying to think of cheap marketing to get a few extra sales.
 

ASeiple

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Well, I donated a few copies of my books to my local libraries, they were happy to have them. Haven't done any events there yet, though I get the feeling that if I came up with something and showed them a plan, they'd be happy to slot me in. They're always looking for community stuff.

How well do you know your genre? You could always offer to host a panel on that.
 

Dhewco

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Oh, I know the genre pretty well...but panelling is what I don't know. I've never done such a thing. I've never even attended one in person. I've seen some web videos of panels, but never live.
 

ASeiple

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Well, paneling was just an example of something you can throw together that they might be interested in.

Unless you get a librarian with a project in mind, most libraries want YOU to come up with the sort of event that you'd like to do. Which is pretty reasonable, really. They don't know what you're good at. Sure, you can write a book, but how will that put butts in seats?
 

Dhewco

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True, but I was hoping they'd have some ideas based on previous signings and events there. To be honest, I'm not sure what I expected. I didn't really think the marketing through as much as I should have. I should have searched local venues before I released it...but I'm an idiot.

I got a reply from the library that agreed to give me the space for a few hours and congratulated me on my publication. However, I didn't get any advice on past successful events. So, I'm completely in the dark about what to do.

I didn't plan on hardcopy/Createspace until I reached 20 or so copies sold. At this rate, it's going to take me until I write the third book before this one hits twenty. LOLOL. I don't know how to do an event with just digital copy available.

I hate to say it and I know I've read it here somewhere...but I really should have planned other areas out. I was so focused on the editing and cover art.
 
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ASeiple

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Hey hey hey, it's cool. There are no wrong moves, there are only learning experiences.

You don't have to be a worldbeater straight out of the gate. You just have to find the strength to keep on keeping on, no matter if times are bad or good.

May I recommend a book reading and discussion? That's easier than a panel. Find a good excerpt from your book, an exciting scene or a self-contained chapter, and read it to an audience. Have a discussion afterwards. You probably won't get many people, but some folks will attend, and this'll let you press the flesh, so to speak.

Do you have physical copies of your book, yet? Looks like no. Well, Createspace is free and not too hard to learn to use. You'll have to shell out a few bucks for copies, but ebook profits can cover those.

Maybe hold off on a reading until you've got a physical copy of your book at hand. Then you can donate a few to the library, and you're more likely to sell some after a reading.
 

Dhewco

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I made the mistake of checking my former hometown paper for a 1/4 page ad (the biggest I THOUGHT I could afford). OMG, I never realized space was such a premium. I wonder how they can charge so much (193/week in a weekly paper) in a medium that some say is going away. The current local newspaper (where I've lived for a few years now) never replied to my announcement, so I didn't even try them. I wanted the ad to be big enough that a person's eyes won't just glaze past it.

Well, learning as I go. Never give up and all that.

Thanks for reading this,


David


(Ps, I don't use parentheses too much, do I? LOL)
 

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I don't have an author site. I really should get one.

Yes, you should.

Wordpress.com is free and fairly easy. (There are alternative free blogging sites but wordpress is the one I'm familiar with and probably the most popular.)

Set up blog as your site. You can put a "cover page" on if you prefer something more static and don't plan to post much.

Next step would be to own your own domain name which is a minor expense. So it would be, for example, dhewco.com instead of dhewco.wordpress.com. (This makes your site portable so the main link will work even if you decide to change host sites later.)

Next step would be self-hosting which allows more control, more options, but also more expense.

These are long term steps. Most people can get by on wordpress.com for quite a while.
 
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Dhewco

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First week: 8 copies.

Better than I expected with only FB and Twitter marketing, but I'm still a little disappointed. I had a lot of people tell me they'd buy...but I really doubt even half of them did. I'm almost positive half my sales came from Twitter followers and not FB friends. No real way to be sure since I didn't do that bit.ly thing, but I'm still close to sure. I have about 20 FB friends, I think and only four of them would even like my post about the book. (only one shared it) It's possible that it got lost in their feed as most of them have a bigger FB presence than I do, but I posted three times in the last week and I hope that all of them saw it at least once. I didn't even get a like from my ex-GF (her 21yo son was the only one that shared the post).

Anyway, this turned into more of a whine than I meant. I'm sorry. I'm going to try to get back to writing the next novel and make do with a few tweets and one or two FB posts on Humanity a week. I'll probably do an author page later in the week although I'm still not sure about what to put on it.

David