eBooks
Heart of a Dragon – Featured at Kindle Books & Tips – .99 limited time
0Book I of the DeChance Chronicles – Heart of a Drago – is featured at Kindle Books and Tips Blog
Heart of a Dragon – Book I of the DeChance Chronicles, by David Niall Wilson, is regularly $3.99 but has been discounted to just $0.99 today in the Amazon Kindle store. This book has received an average user rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars based on 10 customer reviews.
Category: Fantasy
Here is the book’s description from the Amazon website:
Author’s Revised Edition
Donovan DeChance is a collector of ancient manuscripts and books, a practicing mage, and a private investigator. Over the span of a long life, he has gathered and archived the largest occult library in the world.
When a local houngan begins meddling with powers she may not be able to control, a turf war breaks out between the Dragons motorcycle club and the Los Escorpiones street gang—a war that threatens to open portals between worlds and destroy the city in the process.
With his lover, Amethyst, his familiar, Cleo – an Egyptian Mau the size of a small bobcat –the dubious aid of a Mexican sorcerer named Martinez and the budding gifts of a young artist named Salvatore, DeChance begins a race against time, magic, and almost certain death.
The fate of the city rests on his success, and on the rare talent of a boy who walks in two worlds, and dreams of dragons
Click here or type in http://smarturl.it/ptxcnd into your web browser to pick up your copy ofHeart of a Dragon – Book I of the DeChance Chronicles.
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eBook & Publishing Predictions for 2014 10 + 2 Bonus
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***Bonus prediction one from the Crossroad Press Organic Shredder – Gizzy Momo – pictured left … Thunder & Lightning All Day long…***
I’ve seen some other folks making predictions about publishing and eBooks. Some of them seem pretty obvious, others show some insight, and still others seem kind of self-serving and more wishful than anything else. Crossroad Press has been in business for going on five years now (seriously, and a bit longer as a hobby). We’ve grown, made some mistakes, had some huge successes, expanded, and paid attention, and I thought, just for fun, I would make some predictions of my own for 2014. Some will be in direct disagreement with those of others…but all will be just me, talking about what I’ve seen, and what I know…
***BONUS PREDICTION FOR 2014: Neil Gaiman will continue to be wildly popular because he is an incredible storyteller ***
1) Print book sales are actually up. I see Barnes and Noble pointed out as about to flounder time and again, but here’s my prediction. Come next year, though people will probably still be predicting their demise, they’ll be right here. Nook book sales are steady for those who don’t spend as much time bashing Barnes & Noble as they do promoting books there, and working on sales. They lost the tablet war, but that was a war that no one should have started. Nooks are fine, and ePub books work on many devices. So, prediction #1, B&N will be in at least as good a shape this time next year as it is now. Probably better.
2) Audiobooks are going to start playing a bigger part in total sales, as systems like Audible’s ACX continue to make more titles accessible. With Amazon’s Whispersync for Voice program – something other eBook retailers can’t match – more readers will be able to pick up audiobooks at very reasonable prices, and more audiobook listeners will be picking up eBooks in order to get the bargain price on the audiobooks. The percentage of titles that make it to audio is already much higher than it was five years ago, and will continue to grow.
3) Content in eBooks that is video, enhanced, full of programmed features, will not do any better this year than in previous years, because they simply require people to read on tablets, not readers, and the trend (currently) seems to be (among serious readers) back toward simpler devices that are mostly good just for eBooks. If people want to watch a movie, they will download one – but books are not going to evolve into some new meta-entertainment system. At least not in 2014.
4) Libraries will continue to grow their downloadable content, and will embrace the new technologies and systems put in place to assist them. Overdrive will start to lose its market share because of simple greed – if it’s as expensive, or more expensive, to provide eBooks to readers, it isn’t going to help already suffering library budgets evolve and sustain. From personal contact with many librarians and buyers for libraries, I can state that there are a number of independent systems buying now directly from publishers, and more coming in the future. While I have seen people saying libraries will be buying directly from authors, don’t fool yourself. There will be an aggregator, and whoever that is is going to take a cut. Libraries don’t have the manpower or overhead to sift through hundreds of thousands of solicitations from authors to carry their individual books. In 2014, libraries will buy a lot more eBooks, but they will buy directly from publishers, or distribution systems.
5) Promotion of eBooks will continue to evolve. What works today will probably be on the wane by 2015 because it will become bloated, too many people will copy it, and the effectiveness will be diluted. Companies who succeed in weathering the storm will be those that keep their prices reasonable, pre-screen their titles to keep the quality as steady as possible, and change with the market. I expect that at least one of the big promoting machines will pick up on my earlier comment about Whispersync and audiobooks. I know from our own statistics that during really successful eBook promotions, we sell a ton of audiobooks on titles that are part of the Whispersync program.
6) It will not be any easier for a new author to promote or sell their books in 2014 than it was in 2013. Famous authors will continue to sell crazy numbers of books. Retailers like Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble will continue to announce books as best-sellers before they even go into pre-order. NYC will pump in the money that ensures millions of sales for books by tried-and-true authors. Most of the “Best of the Year” lists will ignore about 95 percent of the best of the year in favor of the Best of the Year published in high profile. The game, in other words, is just a modified version of the old game. The Catch-22 is that if you haven’t got a lot of money and aren’t fairly famous, the odds are stacked against you. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t buck those odds, just stating a fact. A new cover, better description – .99 bargain price? They just don’t matter unless something causes readers to SEE YOUR BOOK. That is the key. The people who see it should not be your family, friends, and a thousand other authors…they should be people who don’t know you from Adam, but like to read.
7) Gurus will continue to tell you they know all the answers. I will continue to say – if that was really true, they wouldn’t spend so much time trying to do things other than write, they would be using their secrets and making millions. What works for one person won’t necessarily work for another. Pay attention to what successful authors say, watch what they do, but don’t try to be them, and try to find ways to use what you learn in your own way. “The next…” anyone will never be more than a dim shadow of the original, so why strive to be that?
8) Smaller print publishers will continue to be treated by bookstores as if they are big publishers, and many of both will fail because of this. Unless independent bookstores find ways to embrace Print on Demand publishers and distance themselves from the big distributors, they will continue to disappear and by 2015 there will be considerably fewer of them, shifting most print book sales to Amazon and B&N online. The old model of buying a bunch of books and then returning half of them will disintegrate as independent publishers flourish, and NYC slowly decays.
9) The age-old practice of looking at what’s hot and trying to copy it really fast will proliferate in 2014, continuing the spiral into that nonsense generated by successes in 2013, such as every variation of a shade of gray that can be applied to any sort of title being used to bump sales. You will continue to see people go on and on about thousands of “sales” that were free giveaways, best-seller lists that are meaningless, and piles of five-star reviews that don’t actually equate in any way to quality or sales. This is why – as stated above – the very popular authors will continue to be popular, and it will be hard to break in. For every book someone spent time and effort on, there are fifty crap titles with nothing in mind but ‘cranking them out’. This makes people gunshy about buying from new authors, and is also why the legit, careful promotional services will continue to draw actual readers.
10) The traditional author / agent / editor / publisher role will continue to morph. Agents are now admittedly scraping new clients off the self-published best-seller lists (probably from a lot of people they ignored when the books were originally submitted) and all this can do is lengthen the already ridiculous lag time between submitting a manuscript and hearing back. As more and more successful authors begin to see the huge profit margin shift of more independent publishing, more of their peers will begin to experiment and follow suit. Agents have a tiny number of slots they can fill these days, and the advances against royalties that almost never sell-through, according to statements, have grown so small that no one could possibly live off of them without selling five to ten novels a year. A steady income earned through solid, quality output and direct royalties back on a regular basis will win the day. Companies paying a fair amount to the authors and taking over responsibilities authors should NOT have to learn to do (despite what gurus tell them) will do well in 2014 will flourish, as will rip-off groups charging authors an arm and a leg for scanning, formatting, promotion, etc. and keeping huge percentages – something that sadly a number of literary agents seem to have indulged in. New models will emerge. Subscription based reading services like ScribD and NokBoks will test new waters.
I know a lot of this is kind of vague, and in several of these single predictions, I predict a bunch of things, and even offer possible alternative outcomes. The thing is, it’s fluid. No one knows everything, and new technology, players, and talent emerge every day. Keep an open mind, write… always be writing… and pay attention.
And from all of us at Crossroad Press, have a great New Year…
-DNW
Thanksgiving Note to All Who Have Supported Crossroad Press
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LAUNCHED A COMPANY LIKE A ROCKET…
Several years back i got the crazy idea to start getting my old books and stories digitized, and I started a very long, very involved learning curve that led me through the creation of Macabre Ink, and then the expanded Crossroad Press Digital, and finally – to what we have now – Crossroad Press Publications – print, audio, and eBooks from more than 130 authors.
First and foremost I want to thank David Dodd, who came on board early on and has been a lifesaver to the company. He is the master of spreadsheets, formatting scanned documents, and keeping me organized through years that have not grown simpler, but crazier – mostly in good ways. He is also responsible for a HUGE number of book covers, a talent he took up from scratch and has brought to an artform.
Many don’t understand how little of what we make, we keep. If we invest any money at all up front in a book, it can take hundreds of sales for us to even break even. Why? Because we have stood by our guns, and will continue to stand by our guns. This is an author’s first company, and most of the money goes to them. This means some books never make us any money, and others make us a lot – we share the risk, and the profit. We do what we can to promote and build readership, and I can tell you that the number of hours spent doing this is incredible – for myself, Dave Dodd, the love of my life Patricia Lee Macomber who has edited HUNDREDS of books in recent months – Kurt Criscione, Daz Pulsford, Anita Smith and an entire small army of proof readers have helped us present clean products, and as we’ve always said – the beauty of digital is you can fix things. We have been quick (and will remain quick) when it comes to remedying any mistakes we make or problems found by others.
I could go on and on with the thanks but instead, I’ll just end this with some pretty impressive numbers, and let it go at that:
Here is a short growth curve (rounded slightly in some cases) to show how our company has grown since 2010.
…………………Net Sales…………………………………Royalties to authors
2010………… 3094…………………………………………$4,324.39
2011……….. 27,971……………………………………..$56,268.51
2012……….135,410……………………………………..$88,064.25
2013……….170,523…………………………………….$197,600.00 (so far)
We are looking forward to great things ahead. We are making inroads in promotion, and have completely redesigned our website, and our presence, breaking into imprints for the various age groups and genres. You can see the beginnings of this at OUR NEW WEBSITE – once we get all of the author pages populated on all the various imprint sites, it will be much simpler to find our books, and our authors, without digging through more than 700 digital titles at the old online store. We have also published more than 350 unabridged audiobook titles, and have an impressive number of books available in print. Right now we are hard at work on the Official Book of the Winter Olympics – 2014 edition – which should be huge for us.
I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season, and to all of you – readers, listeners, authors, copy-editors, partners, and family. Thank you… I can honestly say, I never saw this coming.
-David Niall Wilson
Nevermore Included in Storybundle Thriller Package!
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I am privileged and excited to be included in one of these very cool eBook bundles – a chance for readers to get a bunch of books cheap – and for authors to reach a new and wider audience. I’m not going to go on about it – all the details are below. The image is linked to the Storybundle site.
THRILLS AND CHILLS IN OUR OCTOBER THRILLER BUNDLE
Thrillers come in many different shapes and sizes and we’ve assembled a wide spectrum of tastes in this new thriller set, available Oct 22 through Nov 12. From worldwide conspiracies to rampaging kaiju creations, this bundle has it all!
StoryBundle’s Thriller Bundle is curated by international bestselling author Joseph Nassise, and includes his own novel The Cerberus Protocol, the first in a high-octane action thriller series written with long-time friend and co-writer Jon F. Merz. “We wanted to combine the action and suspense of the thriller genre with the chills of dark fantasy, which we think is a perfect combination for the autumn thriller bundle.” Nassise is best known for his internationally bestselling Templar Chronicles series and is a regular contributor to the Rogue Angel thriller series from Gold Eagle/Harlequin.
Joining Nassise and Merz are a host of fantastic authors bringing some truly original works – award-winner Christopher Golden brings the first in his Body of Evidence series; bestseller Jeremy Robinson treats us to a kaiju thriller to rival Pacific Rim; supernatural thriller writer David Niall Wilson shares a novel of love, loss, and Edgar Allen Poe, bestseller Russell Blake gets dark and deadly in a noir detective thriller. The U.K. contingent rounding out our bundle is equally impressive – #1 U.K. bestsellers Steven Savile, Zoe Sharp and Sean Black all deliver tension-filled excitement in their action-oriented thrillers.
Nassise, who assembled this talented collection of writers, says, “I wanted to showcase the variety inherent in the thriller genre today and decided that only the best would do. To that end I put together a group of bestselling and award-winning writers, knowing the result would be an impressive showcase of the very best the genre has to offer.”
The initial titles in the Thriller Bundle are:
- The Cerberus Protocol by Joseph Nassise and Jon F. Merz
- Body Bags by Christopher Golden
- Project Nemesis by Jeremy Robinson
- First Drop by Zoe Sharp
- Nevermore by David Niall Wilson
- Black by Russell Blake
If you pay more than the bonus price of just $10, you get all six of the regular books, plus two bonus titles, which include:
- Ogmios by Steven Savile – a three-in-one omnibus edition that includes the novels Solomon’s Sealwritten with Steve Lockley, Lucifer’s Machine written with Rick Chesler, and Wargod written with Sean Ellis.
- Lock & Load by Sean Black, a Ryan Lock novella
That’s a total of ten novels in all!
The bundle is available for a very limited time only, via StoryBundle, and allows for easy reading on computers, mobile devices and Kindles via file transfer, email, or other methods, with multiple DRM-free formats (.epub and .mobi) available for each book.
It’s also super easy to give the gift of reading with StoryBundle, thanks to our gift cards—which allow you to send someone a code that they can redeem for any future StoryBundle bundle—and timed delivery, which allows you to control exactly when your recipient will get the gift of StoryBundle.
Why StoryBundle? Here are just a few benefits StoryBundle provides.
- Get quality reads: We’ve chosen works from excellent authors to bundle together in one convenient package.
- Pay what you want: You decide how much six fantastic books are worth to you. If you can only spare a little, that’s fine! You’ll still get access to six thrilling titles.
- Support authors: StoryBundle is a platform for authors to get exposure for their works, both for the titles featured in the bundle and for the rest of their catalog.
- Give to worthy causes: Bundle buyers have a chance to donate a portion of their proceeds to charity. We’re currently featuring Mighty Writers and Girls Write Now.
- Receive extra books: If you beat our bonus price, you’re not just getting four novellas, you’re getting seven!
StoryBundle was created to give a platform for independent authors to showcase their work, and a source of quality titles for thirsty readers. StoryBundle works with authors to create bundles of ebooks that can be purchased by readers at their desired price. Before starting StoryBundle, Founder Jason Chen covered technology and software as an editor for Gizmodo.com and Lifehacker.com.
For more information, visit our website at storybundle.com, Twitter us at @storybundle, Like us on Facebook, and Plus us on Google Plus. For press inquiries, please email press@storybundle.com.
Killer Green – From Twitter to Screenplay to Option to Novel Reviews Needed
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Here’s the deal. Back in 2009 a very warped idea was conceived on the social media micro-blogging site, Twitter. It became my latest novel – KILLER GREEN. This project has done well so far depending on social media as it’s platform, so I’m reaching out again. The book needs readers and reviews. I will therefore gift 20 copies of this book to folks willing to review it on Amazon.com – and I’m making this call through the blog where the original screenplay that became this novel was written and shared – and through Twitter and Facebook, where it has continued to exist – largely due to the friends and online family that helped bring it to life. Below is the Author’s introduction to the book, which gives the whole sordid story of the screenplay and it’s journey to eBook – soon print and unabridged audio. To receive your copy either DM me on Twitter at @David_n_Wilson – send me a message on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/DNiallWilson or send an e-mail to david AT macabreink DOT com. First 20 in get the books. Tell me your preferred eBook format in your note, and if you want the Kindle book, please supply the e-mail you use on Amazon so I can gift it to you.
Here is the Synopsis for those who have missed it: Quentin Tarantino meets Smokey & The Bandit in this noir, science-fiction thriller. Sometimes, people just need killing. When Sam West wanders into the Sunny-Side-Up Diner for the last time, hoping for a last slice of Mort’s world-class pie, and one last look at a waitress named Delilah, he has no idea he’s about to become the instrument of a great, karmic cleansing. The only thing crazier than the seemingly inevitable trail of bodies following Sam and Delilah south is the fact that – as State Police and local sheriffs begin to investigate – they find no evidence. Nothing. And the missing bodies are just the start, as an unlikely band of companions are drawn together in a scientific experiment more in line with the TV Series Fringe than anything in reality, with the threat of alien probes, local law enforcement, and rednecks around every corner.
The Birth of a Novel, and Some Comments on Commitments
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The other day a blogger took me to task for being disappointed that one of the blogs that signed up for my tour didn’t post the guest post I gave them, or respond in any way to queries about it. There was going to be a review at that tour stop too…something I’ve come to anticipate, as I’ve gotten only a moderate number so far on the book. Here’s the thing.
There was a bare minimum of effort required for that blogger to meet their commitment. I wrote the post, and I handed it in to them more than a month ahead of time. I provided a free copy of my book and, while that blog does have a review policy that says reviews not guaranteed, they committed to the review when they chose it as an option on the blog tour AND their own policy states that if they just couldn’t finish, or whatever, that they will say so… They said nothing.
Thankfully, the talented Michelle Lee let me borrow her blog space, and, albeit a day late, the Character Interview with LENORE is live (link below). Maybe I have unreasonable expectations, but these things have two-way commitments. I met and exceeded mine, and it’s frustrating and off-putting to have that work ignored. Enough on that. I hope nothing horrible happened in the life of the blogger in question, and I wish them well, but as a cautionary note – if you set up a blog tour, vetting the blogs carefully is important, and one thing I would check is how long it’s been in operation (the blog) and how regularly it’s updated. Also important? Traffic, comments, and popularity. If most of the traffic on a particular post is channeled through my own post about it on my blog, then I didn’t really need that other blog at all…the idea is to diversify and build the audience. I hope I’m doing that. On the up side, 287 people (or so) have signed up to win one of the prizes…
Today’s post is about the birth of Nevermore, A Novel of Love, Loss & Edgar Allan Poe. It covers the pre-story in Kali’s Tale, and moves on to explain how the book came into being. I hope you’ll enjoy it. Here’s a snippet:
“Eleven months ago, I wrote the following at the beginning of a post at my website and blog:
THE TOUR SO FAR:
Read a Character interview with LENORE (My version) at Michelle Lee’s blog
Read my post about what influences my writing at Rinn Reads!
Read my guest post about Donovan DeChance at the Paranormal Book Club
Read my post about romance in books over at Fierce Dolan’s Blog..
How personal and North Carolina history affect the novel – read at the FLYING HIGH blog!
Read about mining history for your fiction at Christine’s Words!
Read about the cover art by Lisa Snellings at Workaday Reads
Read the review of the book, and the guest post on keeping your series new
Read the interview at One More Chapter
Read my post about writers – and reading – at Janna Shay’s blog!
Read My post – Everybody Loves a Mystery – here in this blog!
Read my post “Let There be Magic” at the main Buy the Book Tour Site!
Read my post about “The Dark South” at The Open Book Society Blog…;
Read about Genres & Why I hate them : ==> AT THE AUTHOR’S CAFE
READ THE Guest Post about History in fiction at MELISSA’S BLOG!
Interview with me at the Blog of author Hywela Lin
Interview with Donovan DeChance at Laurie’s Thoughts and Reviews
Interview with Edgar Allan Poe at MJ Schiller’s Blog (join the discussion)
Get the details of the book tour – and the giveaways – at Buy the Book Tours…
BUY NEVERMORE! AT AMAZON.COM or BARNES & NOBLE or CROSSROAD PRESS
DOWNLOAD THE AUDIOBOOK FROM AUDIBLE.COM – NARRATED BY GIGI SHANE!
The Blog Tour hits the Paranormal Book Club – BUY THE BOOK
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As you can tell from the long list of posts, interviews, and reviews below, I’ve been working this blog tour for quite some time now. In that time, according to Statpress, I’ve had about 7,000 visitors to this blog alone, and about 30,000 page views. That seems like a lot. Here’s the reality of it – no matter how much I write about this book, people don’t seem to be buying it.
I am not a quitter, I am a writer. I invested nearly a month of my life writing posts for this blog tour, and I want to find a way to make it work. If you know people or hang out in places where there are people who like Dark Fantasy, or Edgar Allan Poe, or whatever, please…take a moment or two today and pass on the link to either this blog, or one of the many below. Sign up to win a copy, even if you don’t want it, and then give it to someone who does if you win…
Meanwhile, back near the Dismal Swamp, I am typing the long-lost Cletus J. Diggs novel “The Crazy Case of Foreman James” into the computer, and should move straight from that into “A Midnight Dreary,” Book V of the DeChance Chronicles… The words they won’t stop rollin’, no they just slow down…
Today’s post is over at the Paranormal Book Club. It’s not about Nevermore, per se. It’s about Donovan DeChance, and all the characters, stories, and books that led to the writing of Nevermore. Here’s a snippet:
“The DeChance Chronicles & Nevermore, a Novel of Love, Loss & Edgar Allan Poe
I’ve written a lot of guest posts on this blog tour in support of my newest novel, Nevermore, a Novel of Love, Loss & Edgar Allan Poe but I think it’s about time I spent a little time on the books that have come before, and the characters who made Nevermore possible.
I have written four books, so far, about a man named Donovan DeChance. Donovan is a mage, book collector, investigator, and self-appointed guardian of the balance of power in the world. He has a familiar, an Egyptian Mau grown at least twice as large as it should have. Her name is Cleo. In later books, he also has an old Crow named Asmodeus. His partner and romantic interest is a woman named Amethyst, who is an expert in the uses of stones and crystals.
As a younger man, I wrote a lot of licensed fiction. I did a Dark Ages vampire trilogy for White Wolf titled The Grails Covenant Trilogy, as well as several clan novels and standalone books. All of the time I worked on those novels, I was chomping at the bit. I pitched idea after idea, but they had a vision in mind for what their books would be, how their characters would act, etc. It was confining, and in the end, soul-sucking, and so I moved on to writing my own novels in my own worlds.” — Read the Entire Post at The Paranormal Book Club ->
THE TOUR SO FAR:
Read my post about romance in books over at Fierce Dolan’s Blog..
How personal and North Carolina history affect the novel – read at the FLYING HIGH blog!
Read about mining history for your fiction at Christine’s Words!
Read about the cover art by Lisa Snellings at Workaday Reads
Read the review of the book, and the guest post on keeping your series new
Read the interview at One More Chapter
Read my post about writers – and reading – at Janna Shay’s blog!
Read My post – Everybody Loves a Mystery – here in this blog!
Read my post “Let There be Magic” at the main Buy the Book Tour Site!
Read my post about “The Dark South” at The Open Book Society Blog…;
Read about Genres & Why I hate them : ==> AT THE AUTHOR’S CAFE
READ THE Guest Post about History in fiction at MELISSA’S BLOG!
Interview with me at the Blog of author Hywela Lin
Interview with Donovan DeChance at Laurie’s Thoughts and Reviews
Interview with Edgar Allan Poe at MJ Schiller’s Blog (join the discussion)
Get the details of the book tour – and the giveaways – at Buy the Book Tours…
BUY NEVERMORE! AT AMAZON.COM or BARNES & NOBLE or CROSSROAD PRESS
DOWNLOAD THE AUDIOBOOK FROM AUDIBLE.COM – NARRATED BY GIGI SHANE!
The Blog Tour Continues – even though I'm in Florida at a Con
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We are at a convention in Pensacola, trying to sell books and hunt ghosts…so today I’ll just post about the great review I got over at “Brook Blogs” and to tell you about my guest post there about Cletus J. Diggs, and about memorable characters that aren’t your average, run-of-the-mill heroes…Read the guest post and the review here. She liked it!
THE TOUR SO FAR:
Read my post about romance in books over at Fierce Dolan’s Blog..
How personal and North Carolina history affect the novel – read at the FLYING HIGH blog!
Read about mining history for your fiction at Christine’s Words!
Read about the cover art by Lisa Snellings at Workaday Reads
Read the review of the book, and the guest post on keeping your series new
Read the interview at One More Chapter
Read my post about writers – and reading – at Janna Shay’s blog!
Read My post – Everybody Loves a Mystery – here in this blog!
Read my post “Let There be Magic” at the main Buy the Book Tour Site!
Read my post about “The Dark South” at The Open Book Society Blog…;
Read about Genres & Why I hate them : ==> AT THE AUTHOR’S CAFE
READ THE Guest Post about History in fiction at MELISSA’S BLOG!
Interview with me at the Blog of author Hywela Lin
Interview with Donovan DeChance at Laurie’s Thoughts and Reviews
Interview with Edgar Allan Poe at MJ Schiller’s Blog (join the discussion)
Get the details of the book tour – and the giveaways – at Buy the Book Tours…
BUY NEVERMORE! AT AMAZON.COM or BARNES & NOBLE or CROSSROAD PRESS
DOWNLOAD THE AUDIOBOOK FROM AUDIBLE.COM – NARRATED BY GIGI SHANE!
Five Ways to market your book – the good, and the bad + More Blog Tour
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1) FACEBOOK: Here’s the thing. You can amass huge numbers of ‘friends’ on Facebook. Maybe, as in my case, you have at least a vague idea why each of them is there, maybe you just clicked and clicked to get the numbers rolling. Either way, you are not going to be able to resist trying to sell books there, so here’s a good, and a bad thing about Facebook.
GOOD – All of those with enough interest to follow you will know when you have a new book out, and some of them will read, review, and buy it. Probably not very meany, because all 2,000 or so of THEIR ‘friends’ also have books, or etsy shops, or Kickstarters for videos of their cats with toy balloons, and they are busy marketing and socializing, just like you. (Note that tis “Good” is not all that good)
BAD – most of the people who will see your posts on Facebook already know you. They already know you write, they already know about your books, and have probably already made their decision about buying them. Each time you tell them AGAIN, the filter around your posts grows, and you fall further into the gray area. Facebook marketing, unless you spend a bunch of money on it, generally just markets to the same small group of folks, and in the case of authors mostly markets to other writers trying to market to you.
TWITTER: You may, like me, love the quick, witty banter of a service like Twitter. I’ve made some long-standing friends there, and I’ve been with the service for a very long time. Here are my good, and bad thoughts on Twitter marketing.
GOOD: – if you play your cards right, interact with a lot of people, build relationships and (holy grail of twitter) get onto the radar of people with real reach, Twitter can push the news of your new book a long way. A single post about your book from the right celebrity can send people scurrying to see why their idol suggested it. A simple retweet of a post asking to be retweeted has a lot less gas than one that actually originates with the celebrity I am NOT saying you should start pummeling celebrities … just that if you can get their notice, you can sell books.
BAD – barring the time spent building relationships and the celebrity connections, if you mostly tweet over and over about your book, new reviews of your book, new places to buy your book, etc… lots of links with the words switched around? No one is going to follow those links. No one likes impersonal advertising, and particularly on Twitter, where interaction is the name of the game, spammy, scheduled posts about books people have already seen a hundred spammy scheduled posts about are more likely to prevent sales than to win them.
FREE GIVEAWAYS: There was a time when this was a great idea. There have always been proponents of this method, and it doesn’t take much research to see that most of those really successful proponents were already well-known before they tried it. Like anything else, it works better for a popular author than an unknown.
GOOD: – If you make use of the sites that will announce your book, plan ahead for your giveaway to be sure it’s promoted far and wide – plan the dates carefully and make sure the book you choose has good reviews / etc. you can really spread the word about your work. If you are lucky enough to land a slot somewhere like Bookbub or Boookblast, the freebie can get real legs.
BAD: – Barring something amazing, follow-on sales are sketchy. At one time Amazon counted free sales as “something” but now they have separate lists. Once your free promotion is over, you go back to being ranked 650,000 that very second. If you get lucky, you might coast a while on sales from the curious who found your book through a free promotion, got to it too late, and bought it anyway, but the lasting effect of free giveaways is not what it once was, and not likely to spur huge sales. Also, if you get in the habit of doing these, interested readers just wait for each took to be free. Also, some of the best promotions for what I will talk abut next, sale pricing, will not accept a book that has been recently free.
SALE PRICING:
THE GOOD – The .99, $1.99 and even $2.99 sale price is what the free giveaway used to be. This method can work wonders, if you handle it correctly, and if you are patient but according to the experts in Tampa internet marketing, you are going to need reviews. I don’t think it’s wise to start such a promotion without 7-10 positive reviews, and it’s probably better to have more. Plan your sale in advance. There are services like Book Gorilla, Book Bub, Book Blast, where you can request a promotional day far in advance. If they accept you, they cost money. Spend that wisely. Ranked in effectiveness, Book Bub has worked by far the best, but is the hardest to get into. Book Blast has worked well for us, and is also much more economical than either of the others. Book Gorilla seems not to have much affect on sales, but I have only been involved with it once, and have one friend who used it. Sales were not affected much. Note that Book Bub and Book Blast give you average download and sales numbers, while Book Gorilla – much like Kindle Nation Daily – only tells you how sales ranks changed, which can be accomplished with a very small number of sales. The idea of the sale price is to get a lot of momentum, move up the sales chart, and then go back to normal price and try to sustain those sales. The REALLY good thing about this is that whatever boost in sales rank you get – you keep it at the end of the promotion.
THE BAD – It doesn’t always work. If you don’t promote it well, no one will see it – because no one was seeing it before the sale price. If you try it as the sole means of promotion, you’ll just make less on the few sales you manage. No promotion is any better than the effort put into it and the reach of its visibility. Combining this with the first two, Facebook and Twitter, won’t help that much because – again – those people already know about your book.
BOOK BLOGS: – This is not a new thing, but it has grown into a PROLIFIC thing . A lot of people have set up shop reviewing books, talking about books, creating book clubs for group reads…here’s what I know about them.
THE GOOD – you can reach a solid network of readers if you can get your book into the right book blogs. There are book bloggers with huge followings, not only on their blogs, but in their entire social media networks – you tube channels, Twitter, FB, Google +, etc. They can really create a buzz if your book catches their attention.
THE BAD – Just like with any good marketing source, there are a limited number of book blogs with the reach to really help sell books, and in those blogs, there are a limited number of slots for book promotion. Most reviewers and book bloggers have policies on submission of titles, and most of the really good ones have become difficult or impossible to get into if you weren’t part of their network early on – or don’t manage to become part of their network later on. Some have even grown into big book sites, with hundreds of thousands of followers. Just like getting a celebrity to endorse your book – good luck getting into one of the important book blogs. It’s not impossible, but is’t not easy. The sad fact is that, while you might get another good Amazon review out of a blog post about your book – and that’s a valuable thing in combination with other promotions – most blogs are still fighting to find an audience. A good gauge of how much reach you can get from a blog is to check the average number of comments they receive on posts. I’ve been blogging here forever. My traffic is (theoretically) pretty good. No one ever comments. Well, almost never. They might today, since i’m talking about book marketing again…
When I have finished it, I will blog about my blog tour – still ongoing. The jury is still out on this… You can be part of it by checking out all the posts, and interviews, and reviews that have accumulated this far. Today I have a post over at FIERCE DOLAN’S blog – about romance in books, the erotic, and the subtle. You can read that post by CLICKING HERE….
ALSO – for those interested, I have posted a story here from my collection Etched Deep & Other Dark Impressions. I wrote it when I was sort of caught up in the edges of the literary fiction scene… the poseurs and the literati, the infighting for a slot in the oh-so-posh pays not a cent hip ‘zine of the day. It’s titled “Pretty Boys in Blue With Long Hair Dangling,” and it’s available from the Short Fiction Excerpts menu at the top of the page.
THE TOUR SO FAR:
How personal and North Carolina history affect the novel – read at the FLYING HIGH blog!
Read about mining history for your fiction at Christine’s Words!
Read about the cover art by Lisa Snellings at Workaday Reads
Read the review of the book, and the guest post on keeping your series new
Read the interview at One More Chapter
Read my post about writers – and reading – at Janna Shay’s blog!
Read My post – Everybody Loves a Mystery – here in this blog!
Read my post “Let There be Magic” at the main Buy the Book Tour Site!
Read my post about “The Dark South” at The Open Book Society Blog…;
Read about Genres & Why I hate them : ==> AT THE AUTHOR’S CAFE
READ THE Guest Post about History in fiction at MELISSA’S BLOG!
Interview with me at the Blog of author Hywela Lin
Interview with Donovan DeChance at Laurie’s Thoughts and Reviews
Interview with Edgar Allan Poe at MJ Schiller’s Blog (join the discussion)
Get the details of the book tour – and the giveaways – at Buy the Book Tours…
BUY NEVERMORE! AT AMAZON.COM or BARNES & NOBLE or CROSSROAD PRESS
DOWNLOAD THE AUDIOBOOK FROM AUDIBLE.COM – NARRATED BY GIGI SHANE!