Self publishing: two questions from a new member

Hello and welcome.

Your two questions somewhat interconnect. There is no governing body within self publishing that grades the quality of works published. However, researching bloggers / blogs that cover your genre and contacting them with a request to be reviewed is the closest thing you're going to find to what you are looking for. (Quick note: you'll want to look into how to properly present your novel for review; there is etiquette to be learned.)

There are other, more general, pro-self publishing sites who may be able to get word out for you. But ultimately, word of whether your book rocks or sucks is gonna come down to bloggers and buyers--you wanna get them on board.

Just a thought, but the way I've come to see it is that with trade publishing you get an agent, who sells to a publisher, who gets you readers via marketing. With self publishing, you publish, then try to get readers who (hopefully) spread word of your book's greatness. As self publishers, we trade speed at having an audience for speed of getting the book out (especially when starting out.)

Good luck!

Your book's been out almost exactly a year. Where's your second novel?

Your next release is always one of your most valuable marketing tools.

As shelleyo noted, write more books. That's the single most consistent factor I've encountered when researching self publishing.

Actually, it's the only consistent factor.

Sales of prior books go up with the release of new ones. Rinse. Repeat.

Ref the Amazon KDP program for giving your books away, opinions are mixed. Some say it helped them, but many say its a waste. I fall in the later camp. I tried 4 KDP experiments in 4 genres to evaluate if it actually did eventual elevate sales. I correlate all promo activities with royalties and site hits and the results were dismal , IMO. Only marginal positive affect I experienced with free give aways was an anthology I wrote with 18 other authors. Doesn't mean freebies weren't downloaded cause they were, several thousand of 'em. Yet it never really translated into sales or site visits. My conclusion is that those who download the freebies use that outlet for their primary reading material. In fact of the two dozen promo avenue I've evaluated, the freebie giveaway ranks at the very bottom of the stack. JMO.

To make your book free on Amazon, you'll have to put it in KDP select, and you won't be able to put it up on any other site while it's in the program. I know a few people have used it to help drive up sales of their other novels, so you may want to look into it when you release your new book. Personally, I haven't used it since I only have one book out, but I'm sure someone here can tell you more about it!

Hi & welcome!

Go to Goodreads and upload your book info there. It's an easy process. Do you have a printed copy of your book? If so, you can do a giveaway for as many copies as you are willing, in exchange for an honest review. You can also use this site to join groups with readers of your particular genre and interact with them. Most of the groups have an area where authors can offer their books (ebooks or print) to readers for free in exchange for an honest review.

Library Thing is similar to goodreads. Go there and put your book info on that site. Once it's there you can offer a giveaway to members. You do not need a printed copy of your book to do this on this site. You spell out your own terms of the giveaway, and can give away as many copies as you like.

Find blogs that review books for your genre. Make a list of the ones you think would like your book and start sending them free copies.

Now, even with doing all of this, there are no gaurentees that any of these people will actually review your book once they get a free copy. That's the risk you take. Also, most blogs have a long waiting list to review books or aren't even taking any new ones on.

You can set up a blog tour to help get your name out. I used Goddess Fish Promotions to do this for me for a small fee. Most people told me i could do this on my own & shouldn't pay for this service but I couldn't get one blog to fit me in their already busy tour schedual. Once I used Goddess Fish, I have 6 stops set up for one week in June. (I chose to do the tour for just one week) Some will review the book and I will do guest blogs and interviews on the blog sites.

Depending on your budget, you can pay for adds on popular blogs of your genre, or on wesites that sell books in your genre.

Personally, I have done giveaways through Goodreads, also with specific groups on Goodreads, Library Thing, contacted every blog I found, set up the blog tour with Goddess Fish Promotions, paid for an AD in the RT Aug issue that will be given out at the RWA convention, and used social media to get my name out there, and get reviews for my books.

So far, what has worked best for me is the Goodreads giveaway I did through the groups I am a member of, and Twitter.

You need to be out there for people to know who you are so social media is a must. Get involved!

And as everyone always says, write more books!

Good Luck!
I have a self publishing journal on here where you can read more of what worked and what didn't for me so far. I have also been in this for a year.

Dragonwriter said:

Thanks for the advice, all!

I'm not doing Kindle KDP Select because I want to have the freedom to market the book through other channels (for example, I have it up on Drive Thru Fiction, through which I can send out up to 5,000 free copies a month if I so desire).

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You also need to get it up on Kobo (go direct with Kobo Writing Life for best results), Barnes & Noble (sign up with Nook Press if you're in the US), Smashwords web store and iTunes, either through Smashwords or Draft2Digital (which I'd recommend). Drive Thru Fiction doesn't generate sales like these big stores do, so don't miss out on those.

My second novel in the series is done--it's been beta read and I'm doing a final edit on it while I wait for my cover artist to finish up. She's great, but she's very busy with other projects so I have to wait for her to fit me in. I'm hoping to have it out within a month or so.

Thanks again!

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That's the one you want to get craft advice on--the one that's not up yet. Trying to get writing feedback on the first one is shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted. That's the one you want to get sales for by contacting lots of book bloggers who review self-pubbed stuff--choose the ones with big followings and those that will review you on Amazon.

I read Old Hack's review site regularly. I've never been tempted to purchase a book reviewed there. Most of the books she gets are nowhere ready to be published, yet they have been. I never go there expecting to read a good review. It doesn't have a following of people ready to purchase and discover a good book so much as a following of people who feel they benefit in some way from reading the criticisms of the books, whether for enjoyment or education. Vastly different audience, I think, than the one you really need.

You can submit there, of course, but my advice would be to also focus on review sites that have buying readers as an audience. If you're worried about your craft, get plenty of feedback on the new one before it's published.

I may be telling you things you already know--if so, sorry about that.

Hey Dragonwriter-- I am someone who vets, sort of. People send me their self-published books, and if they live in my state and wrote something good, I will sometimes write it up in the newspaper I work for. That happens less and less often, because there are so many books, but I still notice the ones with a strong local angle and/or great writing, as there aren't many of them.

Anyway, while I can't review your book (the location issue), I did check out the sample, and this is the kind of book I'd keep reading. I'd recommend you find some blogs where people review your genre and pitch it. Read reviews for books in your genre on Goodreads; many of the most popular reviewers will probably have blogs. Try them. I'm sure they're inundated, but you should have a good chance.

I bought my first self-published book because blogger Wendy Darling called it the next Hunger Games (and it was only 99 cents). The book took off, and now Amazon Children's has republished it. It was and still is the author's only book (grrr, where is that sequel?), but it had great word of mouth.

I'd also consider punching up your blurb, maybe taking it to Query Letter Hell here and getting feedback, if you haven't already. It's nice and clear, but maybe doesn't get to the exciting stuff as soon as it could. I couldn't tell from it that the book has a creepy social-collapse setting, which is a draw for me.

Oh, and put it on B&N and iBooks, so I can buy it! Good luck.

Some things work for some writers more than others. It's all a learning process. i did a radio show with a radio station in the USA boated two millions listeners. Did not sell one book in the two weeks after it. Did a blog talk radio show boasting 7,000 listeners and sold two books the next day - and sent two as prizes for a competition.

But it was just an essay on the habits and genetics of lying probably not something anyone wants to read

Now we are selling in the US and UK as a publisher, with other writers, and every month we make a little income doing much as they say here, getting reviews from bloggers never paying for a review, answering questions on forums from our knowledge base and building up readers.

I do think e-books are a vital way to go. Learn.

Dragonwriter said:

I will definitely do as you suggest and check out Query Letter Hell (and find out if newbies are eligible--I think I still need to spend more time getting my feet wet and building some cred before I start asking for things! )

Anyway, I appreciate your comments!

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Thanks!

You need to make 50 posts on AW before you can post in QLH, but just reading the threads and jumping in with your own critiques can teach you a ton. I've not yet gotten up the courage to post my own query, yet have made tons of good revisions based on what I read there.

Fuschia, that's not quite right.

Members need to have fifty posts or more to their name before they can start a new thread in any of the Share Your Work rooms, but they can post there no matter how few posts they've made elsewhere. And building a post-count by writing critiques for other members is just about the best way to get reciprocal critiques when fifty posts are made.