Exposing myself

Minds outta the gutters, people! I mean Advertising.

I’m taking the plunge, and putting up some Ads for the Midnight Reading site this week, and taking yet another of the steps one must climb all by one’s onesie – or, something.

I may have mentioned a few posts back that I was looking into using a site called Project Wonderful, a place that acts as liaison between you, the advertiser, and them, the popular websites / blogs. My friends mentioned this site to me months ago, as a source of advertising that perhaps wouldn’t break the piggy bank. And I admit, when I first checked it out, I freaked.

At Project Wonderful, you’re faced with hundreds upon hundreds of sites to pick from, but instead of a simple “price tag” for an ad, you bid on ad space and time – – something that confused me to the point of running in the opposite direction. But then, a few days later, I caught my breath and wandered back, then started seriously checking it out.

Well, okay, I was bored one day and had the time.

But I’m glad I did, because as one would expect – upon further and more calmed exploration, I realized it’s not all that scary. A little odd, but after reading everything and seeing some examples, I realized it’s really pretty damned nifty. You create your own ads per their size templates, then pick from a massive list of sites available – and yes, you have to put in a bid for space and time – but instead of paying massive huge amounts for ad space, you’re only paying what you WANT to pay. You bid a minimum, and a maximum, and you can set total limits so that, regardless of what happens, you’re not spending a penny more than you say you want to.

And you’re not charged for any time your ad isn’t on display.

I have a feeling it will require some fussing and watching, to make sure your bid is the highest often enough to give your site some exposure. And in time, I might learn to time it along with a new release, and up my bids to ensure more exposure when I have something new to offer. But it’s a start, and a step in the right direction.

And in keeping with my Indy mindset, I’m using ONLY profits from my book sales to fund the advertising, via Paypal. One hand washing the other, or perhaps the snake eating its tail, but it works. I vowed when I got into this that no money was coming out of my pockets for the books that the books hadn’t already put in there.

Again, your mileage may vary, that’s your business.

I’m still setting things up, and checking out some sites, but I hope by Friday to have some bids in, and I’ll be watching my stats to see if there’s any affect. Naturally I’ll report back, pro or con, in case some of you are teetering on the edge and wanna see someone else hit the ground first.

I can happily report I learned today that Keeper was reviewed by a blogger and thanks to him, my page stats increased – prompting me to finally get my advertising stuff together and get moving.

Power to the People!

Make Love, Not War!

Call now, and we’ll double your offer, just pay additional shipping!

money for nothin’

I came across a website last week that had yet another un-known, un-proven writer with pie-in-the-sky ideas of making his or her fortune with a subscription-based online novel. This happens now and again, someone gets the idea he or she can web publish a novel and expect people to pay a subscription fee for the privilege of reading it in weekly, or monthly installments.

If that author had a proven track record of quality writing, perhaps had a few traditionally published novels that sold moderately well, or at least could boast a massive online audience who had expressed a willingness to pay for a chance to read their work – great. Go for it.

I don’t expect them to succeed.

The one in particular, I’m not linking to mainly because I can’t for the life of me recall the url for, happens to be “writing this as I go” in a completely unpolished, unedited form. He or she expects the readers to pay for the chance to watch this novel take shape in real time. Okay, sure, to each his/her own. I was reading the standard “About Me” information and following along well enough, ignoring spelling and grammar errors in that page, and trying to ignore the use of “Fiction Novel” in one sentence. This author was taking the Indy stand, and I was prepared to at least offer a golf-clap, if not full-on applause, until I reached the final line . . . Asking any Publisher who may want this novel to Please Please Please email at this addy.

Well alrighty then. Completely lost the point, my respect, and frankly any hope of happiness until that huge wrinkle gets ironed out.

Contrary to popular belief, and the stories traditional writers will tell Indy authors until they’re blue in the face, is the truth that Yes, you can still become a traditionally published writer even if you’ve self published, or give your work away for free online. You’re not shopping those novels to an agent, you’re shopping something new that’s never been seen before. You haven’t completely tarnished your reputation with other work, and you don’t have “cooties“.

The point of this post today is two-fold.

Firstly, I’d like to address the All In concept. You may or may not agree, and I’m not offended either way, but in my opinion – what worked for ME in going Indy – was finally reaching the commitment stage of This Is It. This is what I’m doing. I’m not producing my own work in the hopes that maybe, possibly, some day an agent will come along and “discover” me.

That’s rubbish, and isn’t ever going to happen. To any of us. Trust me.

It wasn’t until I crossed completely over the line that I became fully committed and capable, not only to produce work myself, but to be happy about it. I’m not pining away in the dark, secretly hoping to one day become a traditionally published writer. And I’m not shunning you if you still are. But for me – and I think it’s true for a lot of writers who still aren’t willing to admit it – you can’t do it, and be good at it, or find happiness, with one foot on either side of the fence. First of all, it’s really hard to get anywhere straddling an old dream like that, and secondly – you could chafe.

If you’ve decided to go Indy for only certain titles, and still hold the dream of writing other fiction that will be published traditionally, that’s great. But I’m certain you realize you’ll have to still do all the work – writing, researching agents, submitting, waiting, all that. No one’s coming along and reading your webpage or your Lulu novel and offering you up a three book deal with Del Rey. You’ll have to go out there and work for it, but rest assured your self publishing days did not ruin you.

If you’re going Indy right now because it’s your only option right now, that’s fine too. Things may change for you in the future, they may not. You’re going into this knowing it’s the right move right now, but later on you may change your tactics. Again, your fairy god-agent isn’t going to flutter down on wings of contracts and spot you there, just remember that.

Which takes us to my second point – There’s no pot here.

Unless you rolled your own, this isn’t the end of the rainbow. You’re not gonna get rich being Indy, but nine out of every ten traditional author isn’t, either.

When I decided this was what I wanted to do, and then became fully and wholly committed to the idea that I’m an Indy author, everything fell in place. I knew I’d be giving away my fiction online for free, and I knew, deep down, that the free option was going to be the biggest hit. I knew I was offering up eBooks and paperbacks basically at cost, with little to no profit margin. I knew the idea of readers making donations was extremely low. But I did this will the full understanding that years of writing and research afforded me.

I do sell some copies, although the eBook is the biggest seller, it’s the online free version that gets the hits. Thousands of readers per month are taking advantage of the read-online version which – while it doesn’t fill my wallet, most certainly warms my heart. I have a day job that pays more than any mid-list writing contract ever could, so the real pride and pleasure for me is to see my novels reaching readers. To see my characters gain an audience.

I think that’s where most people choke up.

You’ve got a whole rash of writers out there who figure they’ve just stumbled on to the greatest idea since individually wrapped soy cheese slices, who then rush out and build a subscription-based online novel, with no proven record of sales or readership, no proven ability to even complete a cohesive novel, and completely lacking in any sort of advertising campaign.

All too often I see these appear, only to vanish a few months later when the lack of paying readers causes them to give up not only on the idea, but on the novel as well – proving once again they were just another in a stream of “oh, I could write a novel and get rich quick” thinkers who found out the hard way, it ain’t never gonna happen.

Does the idea of signing people up to read your work online only if they’ve paid you money sound appealing? Sure. Who’s gonna turn down dollars, right?

Does the idea of writing and posting a novel online that only two people have paid you to read seem like fun?

Respect yourself and your readers. Either Fold, or go All In.

Power to the People!

Make Love, not War!

Give me twenty on the number two horse in the third race!

a different kind of art

Sorry about the lack of updates this week, I’ve been hard at work getting ready for this weekend’s Art Festival, but next week I’ll be back with more thoughts and information about publishing the DIY way.

In the meantime, if you’re in the Pacific Northwest and happen to wander by Pouslbo, come see me!  I’ll be at the Poulsbo Art Festival, you can find maps and information here:

http://www.cafnw.org/

hog the covers

So you’ve written your novel, and picked POD as your method of publication. You’ve got your book all nicely edited and formatted in whatever size/shape you’ve picked – be it trade paperback or a hard cover. You have a nice teaser for the back, to entice readers, and you’re ready to take the plunge.

Hang on, wait a sec . . . What about the cover?

This is my second favorite part about writing – – creating the cover. It wasn’t, at first. I hated it. I had grand ideas but no ability to properly bring them to fruition. And while I believe I’ve grown in huge strides and can now turn out a fantastic cover – you may think otherwise. Eye of the beholder and all that jazz, yanno. But I’ve grown and learned a lot in one year, so I’m pretty happy.

One thing that helped was looking at other covers. Not just looking at them, because we all look at book covers all the time, right? Our bookshelves are filled with books that have covers, we spend hours in bookstores and libraries, where covers abound. We look at books. We should know this. How hard can it be?

Pretty damn hard, at first. For some of us anyway.

It’s one thing to look at covers, quite another to really analyze them and allow yourself to see what works and what doesn’t. Even a favorite, beloved title might have a cover that really sucks. Chances are you never really noticed, but we all know not only is judging a book by it’s cover wrong – it’s also common. And nothing screams SELF PUBLISHED NOVEL quite like a really pathetic cover.

I know, because I’ve made them.

You’ll find a few blogs who do cover art comparisons. They’ll show two or sometimes three covers and have people vote on their favorite. Looking at covers side by side this way helped me see subtle differences in what was catching my eye and what wasn’t. But reading other people’s opinions is what really taught me a lot.

It’s not just about artwork that properly conveys the feel and mood of the novel inside, but the text, font, even color and placement play a large role. One of my own pet peeves are covers that have the author’s name not only above the book’s title, but printed in a larger font. They’re not to blame, unless they’ve POD’d this themselves, it’s their publisher who made the cover art call. But come on, people! It’s not about the author, it’s about the story.

Remember that. It’s not about you, it’s about what the reader is about to find between that front and back cover. It’s about the story you’re telling, the tale you’ve woven. The world and wonders inside. Your cover art is the one chance you have to visually explain what you’ve written. To catch someone’s eye, and get them to pick up the book and read the back copy. A beautifully done cover will at least garner you a pickup or double take, a crappy one won’t even get noticed.

And remember, a novel about space pirates really won’t benefit from a photo of your cat.

Especially if you’re gonna try to charge $24.95 for it. (but that’s a topic for another day)

You’d think the hardest part was creating the perfect artwork, but really that’s only part of the battle. Where things got educational for me was the text, not just the right font/color/shading, but the placement. You want the observer’s eye to flow over your cover and drink it in, not get stuck on one glaring huge thing or lost in a sea of white space. Personally I prefer the title of the novel near the top, or at least the most prominent of the lettering, with the author name nearer the bottom and approximately half the size, in the same font/color.

You’ll definitely want a nice healthy selection of font styles, so you can pick the right font for the right novel. The style will really help set the tone and should match or at least not take away from the art. Eventually you’ll probably develop a smaller handful of fonts that you use, but in my case, I needed a wide swath of selection to get myself started. Nothing says ‘newbie’ quite like a Victorian script font on a piece of military fiction. Or accidentally picking a font from one of the Star Trek incarnations because you’re not such a geek that you would have known, you just thought it looked cool.

Don’t be afraid to cover up your artwork with your title. And conversely, don’t be afraid to minimize your title in favor of setting the tone with your art. Sometimes less is more. And along that thinking, don’t be afraid to go minimalist entirely. You can make a bold statement with little or not art at all, but that’s risky if you don’t have a dramatic and engaging novel to go with it. There’s an expectation you’re creating with the image, or lack thereof, and you don’t want the cover to scream Blank Space Here.

This is where those of us who are doing it all ourselves have an advantage over the others. Sure, many of them ended up with a cover they loved, that really did their novel justice. But just as many had no input, no voice, and most of all no choice in the cover their publisher picked for the book. I think most of us have a vision while we’re writing the novel, an idea in our heads as we daydream about the perfect cover. As an Indie, it’s all on you to produce it. It’s your vision, your novel, and your cover. It’s also your credit when it works, and your fault if it stinks.

Maybe you have a few friends who are graphic artists – maybe you’re talented with a brush or pixel yourself. Do up a few covers, show your writing group, show your friends, get their input. And don’t be afraid to try different things, experiment until you get a cover that wows you.

Months ago I was convinced I had the perfect idea for the cover of my soon-to-be-released novel In The Time Of Dying. I’d had this image in my head the entire time I was writing the book, then started to experiment and play around. After creating two samples I showed my friends – and got mixed reviews. But I loved it, so I kept it.

Then a month or so later, I had another notion, and played with that – made two slightly different samples and got one vote for each! Well, I figured that was good enough. I was pretty happy.

The final cover I’m using wasn’t anywhere NEAR either of those!

So play around. Experiment. Make several different covers, then get your friends to vote, make suggestions. Find out what’s working and what isn’t. Take the time to do the best you can, and put in as much effort as you did with the story itself. Agonize over it, become obsessed by it, let thoughts of it take over your mind like — ahem, sorry, that’s what I do. Your mileage may vary.

Power to the People!

Make Love, not War!

Baroque; when you run out of Monet.

r-e-s-p-e-k-t

If you’re doing it yourself, going alone, self publishing, being an independent – whatever you prefer to call it – there’s something you need to be doubly aware of. Something a whole lot of writers are ignoring these days, including the ‘traditionals’, and that’s Respect.

For yourself, your fellow writers, but most of all – your readers. Those people you’re writing FOR, the ones you’re hoping will shell out a few bucks to be entertained by your stories, the folks you’d like to follow you throughout your career, regardless of what shape it takes.

Respect for your readers is so much more vital when you’re one of us – because that’s the ruler everyone else is holding up, or in many cases not even bothering to, in order to judge you by. This is the ruler they use when they declare that 99.9% of all self published fiction is crap. Again, anyone making that claim deserves kudos – imagine having the time and wherewithal to read 100% of everything ever self published! And keeping up with it, in this growing POD world. Bravo, I say.

But those who haven’t read 100%, and just like to whisper that number among their equally puffed-up peers who nod in agreement – they’re using that same ruler. Making every assumption they can without actually having to READ what you wrote. How do you fight that, you ask? By respecting your readers enough to first write a fantastic novel, then editing it. Preferably having someone ELSE edit it. Let your writing group have at it with their red pens, let your Beta reader or that guy in the next cubicle who reads the dictionary in his spare time. Make sure you’re telling an entertaining story, with a beginning, middle and end. Then make damn sure you didn’t change someone’s name halfway through, accidentally write time in reverse, completely forget to resolve the plot, or let spell check be your final say.

Respect the reader. Give them a compelling story, rich characters and satisfactory conclusion. Don’t loose them at page one. (I’m gonna trust you to get that pun!)

Respect for yourself follows the same lines. It used to rankle me, how those of us who take this route are so seriously disrespected by the rest of them. We can’t get regular channels to review our work – many of us are too ashamed to call ourselves writers in public – and often we feel the need to either apologize or explain why we’re not sitting on the shelf at B&N with ACE or Tor typed on our spines. (well, our books, anyway. Any tattoos you may have are your own business)

It doesn’t rankle me so much any more. Sure, it’s irritating, I admit. But you can’t control how other people think, you can only control yourself. And consequently, the only person’s opinion that matters is your own, and following your own, the opinion of your readers.

That’s it.

Seriously.

Respect yourself – and your decision to go it alone. Respect your readers enough to make sure you’re putting out quality deserving of your name and their time/money. And respect your fellow writers.

If you hang out at writing forums, or places where the ‘traditionally’ published mix with the hopefuls, the learners and the unwashed masses, you’ll quickly learn any and all talk of Indie or POD is met with harsh criticism and open mockery. It’s a hostile world out there, but the most hostility you’ll find comes from other writers who feel you’re deluding yourself, you’ve failed — or failed to try hard enough — and either took the easy way out or really have no clue what you’re doing. Spend some time in a large group and watch for the subject to pop up. Read the responses. When you happen upon one you believe is at least slightly positive or accepting, take a better look at the sentence structure of their reply.

Did they start out suggesting that they don’t recommend you take that road, then ease into a few considerations if you do intend to go that way regardless of their advice, assure you that in very very few instances there could perhaps maybe be a niche market for you, offer up a smidgen of politeness, then make a point of seeing to it you and anyone else reading their post understands this is something that they would never, ever consider for themselves?

If a compliment contains a caveat, it’s an insult. Pure and simple, from the eight dimension! (ten points if you got that reference)

The only real response to disrespect is to take the high road. Respect yourself, respect your readers, everything else will either fall in place, or fall away. And get out of those forums, they’re rotting your brain! Or is it just me?

Anyway . . .

I’m tired of hearing writers complain about the quality of work being purchased by publishing houses, or the hoards of readers lining up to purchase what they feel is inferior, sub-par writing. I’m tired of writers moaning about the next Dan Brown selling millions, or the plethora of vampire romance hitting the shelves. If you’re a traditionally published writer – or completely determined to be one – you should know that what you’re in is a business. Businesses exist to make money, and will cater to whatever the customer is buying. You may argue that the customer is only buying what’s shoved in their faces but that’s not entirely true. They’re buying whatever strikes their fancy, whatever is being heavily advertised, talked about, displayed on big posters in the store windows – but if they didn’t like it, they’d stop. If they hated those books, they’d all be returned, not devoured in one weekend and passed along to friends or turned into major motion pictures. You’ll have to respect that if you hope to make it in the world.

Me – I just have to respect myself, and my readers.

Power to the People!

Make Love, not War!

R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me . . .

more on isbn’s

It’s too hot to really think clearly (current temps: 101*F) so I’ll elaborate next week, but it would appear Lulu has made a few changes since I started using them this year.

Right now, if you wanted an ISBN for your book, and didn’t care if you own it or Lulu owns it – they’re free.  You can create your title at Lulu, pick “Published by Lulu” as an option, and they’ll assign an ISBN number AND bar code, then make your title available via Ingrams to any bookstore and all online shops such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

This isn’t bookstore shelf space, mind, but it does provide your readers more options when it comes to a company where they don’t mind using a credit card online to buy your book.

If you’d rather go it completely solo, you can purchase a single ISBN via Lulu and be registered as the Publisher of Record.  Lulu will produce your book and list it via Ingrams, yada yada, but YOU will be the Publisher, not Lulu.  These are $99.95 each, sold one at a time, and you still have to figure out the bar code – purchase one or make it yourself.

More on this subject later, when the ice age returns and my brain works again.  Also coming up, I’d like to discuss Respecting yourself and your readers – Cover art for the do-it-yourselfer – approaching an Indie bookstore owner – and more.

Power to the People!

Make Love, not War!

Does the thermometer even GO that high?

not dead!

I haven’t stopped my Indie publishing series – I’m just swealtering in a nasty, evil heatwave-from-hell.  I’ll resume posting next week, when the temps come down from the triple digits.

Gah!

two thumbs up?

So now that you have that novel written, edited, polished and printed – you’ve gone out and found yourself an ISBN, maybe a bar code too – and while you realize your pretty new novel isn’t going to sit neatly on the shelf at Barnes & Noble, it’s really only lacking one thing you’ve always wanted to have.

A review.

Well first, give up any hope of regular channels reviewing your work. Those sites you visit all the time that feature book reviews and opinions on the newest title to hit the shelves isn’t going to touch your book with a ten foot pole. You’ve seen them post reviews of every genre you can imagine, and read their write-ups of even the most obscure titles around, but read their guidelines and you’ll find a special spot in the Delete file is reserved for any author of a self published work who dares approach them with a copy.

They’ll couch it with something benign, like “If we did it for one of you, we’d be flooded with requests and wouldn’t have time for the real ones.”

It’s okay, we know by now we belong to a group called “one of you.” We picked this alley to walk down, remember? We knew all along this wasn’t the popular or safe route, but we knew it was the way we wanted to use to get there.

Does that mean we can’t get reviewed? Does it mean no one will read our novel with an intelligent, thoughtful eye and respond in kind? No, it doesn’t.
It just means we have to be more innovative, and use our brains, drive and determination a tad more than our traditional cousins. There are people and places out there who welcome self published novels and non-fiction works, and will give your work a review. All you have to do is find them, read their guidelines, and in most cases simply jot off a polite email asking if they’d be interested, and wait for a response.

People like: Pod People

Or Self Publishing Review

Or maybe llbook review

Head over to mickrooney.blogspot.com and scroll down the left side, you’ll find a host of sites willing and able to read and review your self published book.

Keep in mind – a review is just that, and can be good or bad. Just because they look kindly on “one of you” doesn’t mean they’re automatically in love with what you’ve written. Like any review, their opinions may vary, and will definitely be based on their own personal preference. If you don’t have a firm grasp of storytelling, grammar, syntax or style, expect to hear about it. If your characters fall flat, your dialog is stiff and unrealistic, or your plot is wildly unbelievable, don’t assume they’ll gloss over the realities and give you two thumbs up. Do, however, give them credit where credit is due. They’re intelligent people, who love reading books – so much so, they’ll give any new novel a try. If you’re good, they’ll gladly tell the world. Entertain them, and they’ll thank you for it.

And the next time you hear someone say “Ninety-nine percent of all self published novels are utter drek.” Be impressed. Be very impressed, because you’ve just met someone who had the time, and the wherewithal, to read ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of every self publishing effort there ever was, to date! Imagine the dedication, the love of reading they must possess to have read that many novels. To have had the time, and good eyesight, to read every book ever written, in order to make that bold statement, is a thing to be admired.

Applaud them, for theirs is a task that will never be complete.

Power to the People!

Make Love, not War!

Do I smell cookies?

commercial break

One of the biggest hurdles facing anyone self publishing or trying to make it in the Independent world is reaching the public. Letting readers, potential readers, buyers, and creepy stalkers know you have a book out there. Finding ways to bring eyeballs to your website or storefront.

In a word: Advertising

Your book isn’t sitting on the shelf at Barnes & Noble, and there’s no big fancy poster hanging in the window (guess what: the same is true for over 90 percent of books out there). The ugly truth is that traditional publishers aren’t spending ad dollars on your average mid-list author, let alone the newbie’s debut novel. They’re spending what few advertising dollars they have these days on the breakout hits, the sure-fire returns, the blockbusters.

So often times you’ll find your “traditionally published” cousin completely ignoring this aspect of their writing lives, resting assured in the belief their publisher is going to see to it their titles are heard about, seen and purchased. Plenty of them, however, are hip to what we already know.

You gotta advertise.

Loads of the traditionally published realize the best use of their advance is in PR and Advertising. We have it doubly-hard in that our books aren’t in Barnes & Noble, so our ad savvy has to be spread further and wider and with more hard-earned thought. No one’s gonna buy your book if they have no idea it’s there. Those who do see it are less likely to run around spreading the word than you might think. To rely solely on word-of-mouth will take a lot longer than if you were to spread it with a butter knife instead.

Maybe you’ve looked around a bit, maybe you haven’t yet. Maybe you’ve got your eyes on some web sites you’d love to see YOUR ad sittin’ pretty on, but you haven’t gone so far as to figure out how to do it.

Here’s a warning: It’s not cheap.

The more popular the website, the more expensive it is to advertise with them. And most of your extremely popular sites use professional services that, frankly, are priced so far out of your league you can’t even find a parking place near the ballpark’s service entrance.

But we have to advertise. We really do. Which is what led me to start wandering around, and pester my friends for advice. One site I found, thanks to some advice, is Project Wonderful. They place ads on popular sites in all sorts of categories, blogs and web pages that receive varying numbers of hits per day, all of which is right there for you to examine.

Project Wonderful isn’t your mother’s advertising agent. There’s no set price for placing an ad somewhere. Instead, they use what they call a proxy bidding system which at first glance sent my head spinning right off my shoulders and onto the floor where it rolled under the desk and collected some dust bunnies !

But I book marked it, and went back a few days later and started to read up on how these bids and auctions work After about an hour reading their examples, my head remained on my shoulders, but I was dizzy. It seemed like a good idea, but to me it looked too open-ended. As if I could make a bid and then, before I knew it, find myself a month later in some serious debt.

But this week I took a chill-pill and sat down again and REALLY examined how this site works, and I’ve come to the conclusion it’s pretty damn spiffy. I’ll only have to pay for the ads when they actually run, and not only can I set my minimum and maximum price for each day’s bid, I can also set limits for the month or week or day – so that no matter what happens, by the end of, say, one month I won’t owe any more than what I said I wanted to spend.

The ad sizes vary, and the sites vary. They have a massive list of participating sites, in multiple categories, and each site’s views-per-day are listed, so you can find only the ones with enough views to be worth your while. So what I’ve done is taken down their template specs, and begun building some ads. This weekend, I’ll sign up and get serious about finding sites I’d like to bid for, and actually start placing some bids and getting some ads out there.

Another avenue useful to Self Pub’s and Indies are friends with blogs, acquaintances with web sites, people willing to share space – perhaps trade links. I’ve started to toy with the idea of offering up free copies of my as-yet-unreleased Military SF to site owners willing to post a banner or leaderboard ad for a month. I’m also going to load various sized ads onto my own web page and offer them as links for visitors to use.

Reviews are another good form of advertising – and before you say “But no one out there will review a book not traditionally published by the big names”, you’re wrong. We’ll talk about that next week.

You can advertise using the popular social medias such as Twitter or Facebook, utilize a blog to your best advantage, network on forums you participate in, talk yourself up.

It’s not enough to think outside the box – we have to think beyond it.

Power to the People!

Make Love, Not War!

Do these jeans make my butt look big?

isbn addendum

I’ve just stumbled into something that might allow the purchase of a single ISBN for a cost of $125.00 without requiring enrollment into any sort of service while keeping myself (yourself) listed as Publisher of Record. (power to the people!)  With optional barcode purchase for another $25.00 (still, ouch).

The reason a single purchase looks so good to me right now is the idea of using one novel, with an ISBN, as a test-run to see if purchasing these really makes a difference in sales/marketing or just the Ego.

So I shall investigate and report further . . . in the meantime, on Friday we’ll talk about the all important demon known as Advertising!

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