Theft of Souls: The Trial of Lawrence of Arabia (Book) - 12/19/2016 6:25:42 AM
Very interesting concept ... and these 100 odd years later, there is much for Whitehall and White House to answer for ...
Small Steps to Bigger Book Sales weekly marketing checklist for you (Article) - 9/14/2016 4:00:06 PM
Ronald, Small Steps to Bigger Book Sales came about after I had published my first thriller on Amazon and Kindle. I was intrigued by the long tail nature of the Amazon market (a dozen or so products account for most of the unit sales, with thousands of others selling a handful a year, if they are lucky - the old 80/20 clustering principle). I wondered how self-published authors promoted their books. That set me off on a two year research project (in between writing more books), and I read everything I could get my hands on. I found out that there is a lot of guesswork out there about how to promote self-published books, and a lot of misinformation. Small Steps is a combination of that research into marketing best practices, and other business principles I learned over decades in law and business.
The essence of the Small Steps Plan is that you tailormake it to suit your needs. YOU decide how much time you want to spend trying to reach readers, and when you want to do it. The Small Steps weekly engagement list gives you a menu to choose from.
Spamming is a no-no; the Plan recommends contacting only those who have indicated that they want to be contacted.
As to whether my books are worth reading, the readers will judge that (check some of the Amazon reviews for some views); and I believe they are.
The acid test is simply this: Do I have fun writing? Yes!
And do I think a plan to market your books is better than no plan, and that the Checklist and Small Steps Plan can help writers grapple with promoting their own books? Yes, again.
Thanks for your comments.
Small Steps to Bigger Book Sales weekly marketing checklist for you (Article) - 9/13/2016 5:47:21 AM
First, I'm impressed that you can come up with so many ways to "churn the waters" to promote your books. That is a dizzying list that tires me out just to read it. And, it looks like a full-time job, because you seem to include a lot of activities like contests and prizes that would require you to do a lot of follow-up unless you your website has a database to do that automatically for you. Impersonal response or no response to inquiries could be deadly.
You also seem to require a lot of social networking that, to my mind, is mostly just an extension of what used to be called, chat rooms, basically for people with nothing better to do. With all the targeting and continually sending advertising to your key people, some of what I see seems to be spamming.
But does all this activity make you a better writer or are your books worth reading? That is a question unanswered. From what I read here, as a creative writer who is retired from day-to-day drudgery to make money, I find your list more drudgery than enlightenment.
Ron
Want to improve your promotion of your own books? (Article) - 9/12/2016 10:51:23 AM
Thanks for your comment, Ronald. My 8 books are self-published (Kindle eBooks and Amazon/Createspace printed softcovers), and I remember the feeling I had when I received a copy of each one: wonderful! And talk about bragging rights with your friends and relatives!
I strongly recommend that every writer consider self-publishing if they cannot find a mainstream publisher. Forget about vanity presses: you can publish your eBooks or softcover printed books on Kindle and Amazon/Createspace for next to nothing, and get very professional products.
And I also recommend that you think again about promoting your books. Try a few simple steps and see if you like the results. You could start with my next article, with its 120-point weekly promotion plan. See how many of those ideas you have tried for your own books. You might be surprised at the results?
Want to improve your promotion of your own books? (Article) - 9/12/2016 5:38:03 AM
How-to books seem to sell because so many people find these kinds of step-by-step approaches helpful in their progress. I have one that I got for free with 99 ways to promote my book in 99 days. Unfortunately, I think I only got to the 10th day before I got sidetracked and never got back to the other ideas and days promoting.
From what I read, you focus on social media. Social media seems to be the panacea for everything today because it's such a fad. The only social media site that I go to is Author's Den. And I devote too much time here.
I'm sure that marketing sells books just like Coca-Cola is one of the largest companies for selling carbonated sugar water to idiots. But are the books any good? Are they worth reading? The way that publishers are these days, most of them are vanity presses. They will publish anything you write as long as you pay for and promote it yourself. So, there's a lot of trash being promoted as good reading.
I'm glad I don't have to live from the sale (or marketing of) my books. I'm just pleased when someone tells me they like what I wrote.
Ron
