My Insane Self-Publishing Adventure…

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Grimball4

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Part 1

Before 2013 I didn’t know anything about self-publishing, creating a website, posting a picture in a forum, let alone planning to write a book. I had always wanted to be an author, and have written several dozen short stories, and half completed scripts that sit on my hard drive. But I would lose confidence with anything long or on rewrites. Then comes 2013 and with 13 being my lucky number things suddenly changed.

I get this incredible story idea I’m just dying to write, I come up with a different writing technique which overcomes my constant writer’s block, and I get laid off from my crappy job so I would have a lot of free time. Writing the novel full time becomes one of the happiest six months of my life. I actually complete it and the book turns out better than I could imagine. This excited enthusiasm then translated to my self-publishing effort, I just had to get the story out there.

First off I created a blog that ties into the book without stating that it is a blog for a book. Learning web design through YouTube videos, I created a blog by one of the characters in my book. Next I shoot a trailer with my brother for the book, using all family members, and making it basically free. My book takes place on Halloween so I would publish it during September on Amazon Kindle.

Right before the release date I posted in some related forums about a witch sighting. Complete with picture of a witch flying on a broom, something straight out of my novel. Then I said in the forums and blog that I would have video evidence about real monsters on Friday September 13th. Of course the video was the book trailer for the novel I published that Friday morning…

To be continued…
 
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Grimball4

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Part 2

With the release of my book and trailer that Friday I ended up with around 200 views on the video and sales of my book got me #1 hot selling Halloween book for the day and I was up to #5 in best selling Halloween books. I guess that’s pretty good for a children’s eBook from someone nobody had heard of before. With my book now out I then concentrated on marketing.

First with researching, then in listing my book on book sites that don’t charge you money, like, Goodreads, BookDaily, Bublish, Shelfari, and Nothing Binding. Posting on these sites didn’t amount to much and in my research; reviews are what really matters in sales. By the end of September I started to contact eBook review bloggers and children’s blogs. The October craziness was about to begin…

To be continued…
 
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Spell-it-out

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Nice story Grimball! I'm delighted that it appears to be going so well. What are you plans now?
 

FionnJameson

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Rooting for your success, but do you think part 3 can have some paragraphs? I keep getting lost in your posts...
 

Maryn

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My old eyes are grateful, Grimball4. Thanks.
 

Grimball4

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Part 3

October had begun and I knew I had only one month to make all my big sales. The problem being, putting out a children’s book with Halloween on the title really seems to appeal to readers only during the month of October, even though any reader who likes a good action pact thriller would enjoy my novel.

As I contacted bloggers from lists on the sites The Indi View, Maggie Lyons Blog spot, and other list sites, I also started emailing Halloween and Horror blogs too. I did this at first to get reviews or features of my book, then later to do cross-linking of our websites. They would do a post about my book and I would do a post about their site on my blog. I called the whole thing the E.O.H.F. (Esoteric Order of Halloween Fanatics).

When I finally made it through all the blogger and website lists two weeks later, I ended up contacting over 200 sites and out of all of that 30 of them were willing to promote my book in some way. Anywhere from reviews, guest posts, book features, interview, and even a few book giveaways. The end result was if you searched the internet for my books name you would get 8-10 Google pages of it, and my book trailer seemed to be everywhere. Now that was cool… After that there was still about three more weeks till Halloween and things would get even crazier…

To be continued…
 

Grimball4

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Part 4

Having survived a massive amount of emailing and online conversations, I still had a few more weeks before Halloween to promote my book. Next I tried the news sites, starting with Horror and Science fiction ones; like FEARnet, Dread Central, Bloody Degusting, Blaster, IO9 and others. I then tried just about any news site that did features on books USA Books, NPR and others.

The hard lesson I learned from that was not to waste my time. Not one bothered to respond to my emails, even though some of the sites had features on eBooks and their trailers. The only good that came out of that effort was becoming an I-reporter on CNN and having my trailer on their site in their Halloween section. This got me over a hundred views and listed as breaking news on an African news site for a day or two. The main stream media is a tough nut to crack; does anyone have a good nutcracker? Now with only two weeks left until Halloween I decided to have a sale on my book…

To be continued…
 

Old Hack

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I think the problem was that you left things too late for the reviews and features, as they're usually scheduled several months in advance; and you're one of many authors who would have had books out at that time, so you had to compete with all of those authors for news slots--and again, this is the sort of news that would be scheduled a few months in advance.

If you want mainstream media to help you, you have to help them by working to their rules and schedules.
 

JournoWriter

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Consider that most trade-published novels don't crack the national media, and don't waste your time pitching the NPRs or large metro newspapers.

Unless you have a great personal story - like you grew up in an anti-Halloween cult, escaped, and wrote your novel to help raise awareness of the thousands of other kids trapped in anti-Halloween cults - there's nothing immediately apparent to differentiate you from the other self-pubbed ebooks out there.
 

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Part 5

Deciding to end the holiday with a bang, I put my book on sale during the last weeks of October. To promote the sale, I made a mini trailer video that starts out as one of those scary Halloween prank videos and then ends with an ad for my book. I then posted the video on various forums, Reddit, and used Facebook ads.

Trying to make my video go viral, I made the mistake of using one of those YouTube booster services. The video ultimately got around 3,000 views in two weeks, but it got kicked off of YouTube, fortunately after my sale was over. I also used a couple very cheap eBook ad sites to advertise my book such as the eReader Cafe, Bargain eBook Hunter, and Book Goodies. I’ve a feeling they didn’t help much because on the days the ads ran sales didn’t really increase.

Ultimately the book stayed within the top 100 Halloween books throughout October, peaking as number 15. All in all it was a lot of work, and also a lot of fun, I’m happy to hear from people who have read my book, and I hope to go through all this again with my next book in 2014.
 

merrihiatt

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How many sales did you garner in 2013, if you don't mind me asking? General ballpark figure. You put in a lot of hard work and I'm hoping you found it to be a worthwhile endeavor (disclaimer: sales aren't the only indicator of success).
 

Pushingfordream

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How many sales did you garner in 2013, if you don't mind me asking? General ballpark figure. You put in a lot of hard work and I'm hoping you found it to be a worthwhile endeavor (disclaimer: sales aren't the only indicator of success).

Yes I'm also very curious what your figures look like.
 

Grimball4

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Considering that not many children read eBooks, they rather use there device to play video games, and probably only dozen people knew I was writing a book before it ever came out... I think I did good.
 
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