Hello fellow authors. Took me a while to get here. Had an agent in the US and two publishers, all of whom failed to market my works properly. Sacked them, eventually, after they threatened law suits on me and I got my IP back. I then self published on Amazon, but all they ever did was promote everyone else. So, I gave up for a year and focused on other things.
2017 saw me focus on my elderly uncle and getting him into a nursing home, which is now achieved. He wrote his autobiography in 1990s, but lost the manuscript. It was on Amazon, so he must have had one, but lost all his emails and contacts over the intervening years and Amazon wouldn't send it to me, even when I gave them a copy of my Enduring Power of Attorney. (What an evil company they seem to be...) So I set about recreating it (scanning and fixing the text), rewriting the bad bits, adding new photos and finally finished the project in December with a new cover adapted from one of his old photographs.
This exercise gave me renewed vigor, so I went online to get some new covers made for my two novels. I'd done the previous ones and they were terrible, no wonder I didn't have any sales except to family and friends. I've attached the results and recommend Fiverr and Upwork as places to seek out talented artists and people to do a webpage for you. I'd penned 40k words on the third novel in series and, when I had time, started writing again. Now up to 57k and can see the end in sight.
Amazon had done nothing for me either, but it wasn't easy to cancel my books, just a terrible company to deal with, but I've already said that.
I know some are not fond of Ingram Spark, but from the research I did, I decided to go with them. The uploading process is a bit tedious first time, you've just got to know what they want and line up the four files required for an ebook and print copy. The good thing is that their distribution partners is a big list and your books are automatically picked up by the big and small players all around the world.
I'm just about to invest a few hundred dollars in hard copies and intend to sell at my local markets which have a big tourist element, so hoping word of mouth can help. But the profit on sales will also help my dwindling savings and income.
My big task is not just to get eyes on the book - it's to get more reviews from those that read it. Facebook is little help, same with Twitter, everyone is selling something and I have more author friends than reader friends, but will persist. I am also going to open a Wordpress account as I've been blogging by commenting on sites like nakedcapitalism, macrobusiness and theaimn sites. I post these to fb and get the usual suspects sharing but little other engagement, noone wants to know just how bad things are for everyone.
So, I am here to offer advice and also to listen to what others are saying. I hope to help you as much as I get help in my own quest.
Can't seem to work out how to add an image from my computer, so the covers will have to wait until next time...
With my thanks for reading this, Chris
2017 saw me focus on my elderly uncle and getting him into a nursing home, which is now achieved. He wrote his autobiography in 1990s, but lost the manuscript. It was on Amazon, so he must have had one, but lost all his emails and contacts over the intervening years and Amazon wouldn't send it to me, even when I gave them a copy of my Enduring Power of Attorney. (What an evil company they seem to be...) So I set about recreating it (scanning and fixing the text), rewriting the bad bits, adding new photos and finally finished the project in December with a new cover adapted from one of his old photographs.
This exercise gave me renewed vigor, so I went online to get some new covers made for my two novels. I'd done the previous ones and they were terrible, no wonder I didn't have any sales except to family and friends. I've attached the results and recommend Fiverr and Upwork as places to seek out talented artists and people to do a webpage for you. I'd penned 40k words on the third novel in series and, when I had time, started writing again. Now up to 57k and can see the end in sight.
Amazon had done nothing for me either, but it wasn't easy to cancel my books, just a terrible company to deal with, but I've already said that.
I know some are not fond of Ingram Spark, but from the research I did, I decided to go with them. The uploading process is a bit tedious first time, you've just got to know what they want and line up the four files required for an ebook and print copy. The good thing is that their distribution partners is a big list and your books are automatically picked up by the big and small players all around the world.
I'm just about to invest a few hundred dollars in hard copies and intend to sell at my local markets which have a big tourist element, so hoping word of mouth can help. But the profit on sales will also help my dwindling savings and income.
My big task is not just to get eyes on the book - it's to get more reviews from those that read it. Facebook is little help, same with Twitter, everyone is selling something and I have more author friends than reader friends, but will persist. I am also going to open a Wordpress account as I've been blogging by commenting on sites like nakedcapitalism, macrobusiness and theaimn sites. I post these to fb and get the usual suspects sharing but little other engagement, noone wants to know just how bad things are for everyone.
So, I am here to offer advice and also to listen to what others are saying. I hope to help you as much as I get help in my own quest.
Can't seem to work out how to add an image from my computer, so the covers will have to wait until next time...
With my thanks for reading this, Chris
