Dhewco's Diary

Dhewco

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I wish I could write romance. I've never had one, so I doubt I'd be able to write one. The closest to reading romance I've ever gotten Phylis Whitney (sp?) and that was as a kid. I read some of her more supernatural stuff. Also, I loved the stuff with younger characters in it....and I was bored.

I used to think scifi was a 'hot' genre. Maybe it is, but as far as self-pubbers go it seems that romance and erotica are the real moneymakers.

My next book that I'll finish is a police/serial killer thriller. (And the one after that, but not with the same characters)

I had a plan to begin on the sequel to the published book if I managed to sell 20 in the first two months...but I probably won't hit that any time soon. I'm only 30k from finishing (projected as goal) that aforementioned thriller. So, I want to do that before I go back to this world. I guess I'll have to keep going for more long-term goals.
 

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I'm trying to figure out how to judge a FB friend's praise of my book. He liked it, so far. He's only on chapter two. He's someone I knew kinda in HS, but we weren't in the same circles. I'm trying to decide if we're close enough 'friends' that he'd lie to make me feel better or if I can take his praise and actually feel pretty good. I didn't solicit his opinion and didn't even know he bought it until he said something. However, I did say that I was going to move onto the next book since I didn't have any budget for promotion on this one. He responded by saying he was enjoying the book so far and that I had written a decent book.

Would ya'll be suspicious? Feel pretty good? Think I'm overthinking it?


David
 

Dhewco

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Cool, I must show as a paranoid guy with no self-confidence and I'm sorry for that. LOL, it's hard for me to think anything positive is going to happen to me and for me the praise was something positive.

Thanks for the response.

It helps.
 

WriterBN

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Yup, treasure all the positive feedback you can get. It helps for those times when you get the drive-by one-star ratings (with no review, of course) on Goodreads :)
 

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I found my book on Goodreads but I don't have a review there yet. Of course, I don't have an account either. It's just not something I thought of. I probably should do some networking there.
 
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Dhewco

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It'd probably be in bad taste to rate my own book, I suppose. I don't understand why when I search my name it does all the books under the name David Hewitt and not just my book. There's no way for the algorithm to distinguish one David from another?
 

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Once you join GR and claim your author profile, you can sort that out. Otherwise, it remains an automated process with no human intervention.
 

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It'd probably be in bad taste to rate my own book, I suppose. I don't understand why when I search my name it does all the books under the name David Hewitt and not just my book. There's no way for the algorithm to distinguish one David from another?

When authors have the same name on Goodreads, the usual way is to add an extra space between the names. It doesn't show on the page, but the database knows it's a different author. So I've turned you into David (two spaces) Hewitt.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15146231.David_Hewitt

If you get signed up and get librarian status, you'll be able to add the extra space anytime someone adds one of your books and it goes to the wrong place. A lot of Goodreads is entered by people, rather than automated. The system relies on people to sort out errors.
 

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I applied for an Author profile a few hours ago. Followed instructions and told them that Humanity was the only book that was mine. It'll probably be a little time before they get back to me.
 

Dhewco

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Prepare yourself for a completely noob, stupid question:

Has anyone ever posted their Amazon Kindle book link in Craigslist's Community section (book section seems to be for hardcover tech books)?
Stupid right? I guess I'm casting around for any sort of free advertisement. I couldn't get my local newspapers interested and the two review sites didn't even answer the email. Maybe I didn't ask right, but I thought I followed pretty close to their requirements. So, yeah, free is what I can afford. The 5 dollar Fiverr thing will have to wait until May. I'm really stretched that tight.

I'm sure I have a decent book. I have two people who tell me they're enjoying it...one's my aunt, though, lol. The other's someone I barely knew in high school. So, hopefully I can believe them.

Anyway, Craiglist...an idea too stupid to do any good, right?

David
 

WriterBN

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Anyway, Craiglist...an idea too stupid to do any good, right?

David

It doesn't hurt to try--it's free, and shouldn't take much time.

In my experience with free advertising (besides social media), the only sites that have actually produced results are Read Freely and AwesomeGang. Not a lot of sales (4-5, in most cases), but they didn't cost me anything. They do require discounting your book, though; mine were all $0.99 at the time.
 

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That's pretty much what I figured. I've exhausted the FB and Twitter options, I think. Author pages are great, I'm just not sure I'd be engaged enough to draw a following. I might have to suck it up and write the sequel and go from there. I only have a vague outline for it and it'll probably take four or five months to get to maybe second draft stage, maybe 6 months to final. Hindsight, it would have been better to publish it after I had the sequel's draft written. A lack of confidence, among other reasons, kept me from 'wasting' my time with the sequel until I saw how the first one did.
 

Dhewco

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Robin Reads haven't answered my Facebook message yet and their 'contact us' is broken...or maybe it's my computer...anyway, I'm going to try bknights first. It's a little cheaper and maybe I'll make enough sales to pay for the 5 dollar fee. It's worth a shot. Craigslist didn't do squat. Maybe I didn't do a enticing enough ad, lol.

Anyway, wish me luck. Hehe, I might need it.

David
 

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I was going to, I sent them a request asking them info about coordinating it. There are a couple other options on Fiverr that I want to try, too. Crossing fingers.
 

WriterBN

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I think I mentioned this on another thread, but just be aware that the $5 option with BKnights is for free books only. For $0.99 books, $5 gets you on their endlessly scrolling web page of hundreds of books, and a few tweets and FB mention (essentially useless). To get into their newsletter, which is where you might actually see some results, you'll need to cough up another $5.
 
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Dhewco

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Really? Hummm, I should try something else first. Like it's been said on this forum, there's no real purpose to do the free thing if you don't have a second book in the series ready to go and I'm nowhere close to doing that. I was planning to drop it down to .99 and I didn't want to pay 10.

ETA: I've been through a lot of Fiverr's 'Influencer Marketing' and 85 percent of the feedback is the same few words by different people. There's no real information there. It makes chosing the best one a dart game with closed eyes. There's one person giving feedback on a lot of different 'influencers'. Either she/he's lying or she's trying many at the same time or, worse yet, the person is going through them one at a time and leaving positive feedback for people that aren't really helping. Not sure if there's a fourth option.

I just don't know. Robin Reads never did respond to Facebook message.
 
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WriterBN

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Frankly, the only person on Fiverr who has proved reliable (and believe me, I've researched the hell out of it) for e-book marketing is BKnights. And that's not saying much.

There was a thread here or in the promotion forum about which sites worked and which didn't. Also, before you decide to try a marketing site, check them out on kboards. There's no shortage of opinions :)

If you absolutely need something free, try Read Freely or Awesomegang. You should get at least a handful of sales from them.
 

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The problem is, I'm not ready to give the book away yet. I have no other content that it would drive anyone to. So, having readers just for the sake of readers doesn't make sense yet. So, when I see things like Read Freely...well, I'm not ready for that. One of BKnights 'gigs' say I can lower it to .99 and I can almost see myself doing that. .00...no, not yet. Not when there's no sequel to use that to drive people to. I already paid 5 dollars for one guy, this Alan Lawson. I liked the idea of an interview...even if I had to pay 5 dollars for it.

Never been on kboards, I don't think. I'll go take a look.


Thanks,

David
 

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The problem is, I'm not ready to give the book away yet. I have no other content that it would drive anyone to. So, having readers just for the sake of readers doesn't make sense yet. So, when I see things like Read Freely...well, I'm not ready for that.

Read Freely is something of a misnomer, I'll admit. They actually encourage you to price at $0.99, not free, probably because Amazon's affiliate program will kick them out of they get too many clickthroughs on free items.

I would never price a first book free. Actually, I don't believe in doing free (full-length) books in general, even with others out here, but that's another story...
 

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I'll have to look them up. I'm trying two promotions right now. Family gave me 20 to spend on promotion this month, so I'm trying two different Fiverr deals...Perfectpromoter and Alan Lawson's writercommunity.co.uk. That leaves me 10 bucks left. I'll let you know when the promotions go through and if they do any good. Fingers crossed.
 

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Hmmm, someone has started reading pages from a borrow...I don't know what to think. 11 pages have been read so far. Is that where they stopped? Am I going to start obsessing about this?
 

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Next book? heh, what book? I'm such a procrastinator. I put it off all day and then, at the end...end up writing maybe a page or two right before bed. Put off 'til...that's me.