Rowan’s Comments (group member since Aug 29, 2010)

Rowan’s comments from the ANZ Authors group.

I think the organic growth is the strongest type - people naturally put a lot more store in friend-and-family type recommendations. It's the sign of a good product, too. :-) I only remember to recommend the exceptional ones!

My original promo method was fairly simple - a permanent freebie! *grin* Add forum participation and the occasional 'new book out now!' post where I think people will be interested, and... you've kinda got my promo strategy. *shrug*

There's a lot more that I could be doing, but I honestly believe that word-of-mouth is the most important thing to be fuelling. For that to happen, I simply need:
- a book that's easy for people to discover and get hold of
- something in that book which makes it stand out and be worthy of comment
- easy access to my non-free books in a similar vein

That last point is the most pain-in-the-neckish at the moment - I'm waiting for my latest ebook (sequel to the freebie) to be distributed to several retailers. Then, in the next few months, I'll get an idea of how well my marketing strategy actually works. :-)

Paul wrote: "Okay, that is -very- strange indeed. File uploads in browsers is a fairly standardised protocol. Really drives me insane when this sort of stuff crops up. I wonder if Firefox suffers the same.
..."

*helpless shrug*

No idea. I've never come across that particular issue. It took me hours to think of changing browsers just because I've never had a problem like that. It's a fairly recent release of Chrome, too.

I'd try it with Firefox, but my nerves are pretty much shot for the day. *lol*

I nearly tore my hair out this morning, trying to upload a .doc file to Smashwords. Yes, it was created in OpenOffice, but I really didn't think that was grounds for the "The book you upload is in a format we do not support ("")" error. I tried alllll sorts of things... different programs, different Word version formats, taking out graphics...

And the problem turned out to be that I was using Google Chrome as my browser. Why is that a problem? No idea. But as soon as I tried the original file with IE, it all worked beautifully. *shakes head*

Let this be a warning to you all! :-)

Murray wrote: "lol Is that what's going to happen? Paul, I think I'd better tell you up front that I'm studying. It could be years before I get time to read Tree of Life again. Please don't stalk me."

... or if you do, stalk quietly, he's trying to concentrate. *lol*

Paul wrote: "Oh, I have to say I've not so much stalked people :cough: but I certainly enjoy watching their movements. My biggest stalking ground are the web-site logs, though I don't know who is visiting it i..."

Oooh, sounds like fun... *ponders*

Do I really want to go down the stalking path of life? Do I want to be one of those authors who PMs complete strangers to ask why they haven't finished reading their book yet?

One big problem with Goodreads?

Makes it soooo easy to stalk your fans and see every single comment they might make about your books... *lol* I have to keep reminding myself - "don't click... write!!!"

Am I the only one??

Thought some of you might find this interesting - my PERSONAL take on reviews, bad or negative or both.

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

Mozette - makes sense. :-)

Paul - some days I'd LOVE to do something similar, just hand a book off to someone else for 'the other stuff'. But I'm a control freak.

Mozette wrote: "I'm not really into e-books. I don't read them, so I don't see why I should publish them. I know a blog is a little like an e-book, but still I like to have a solid book in my hands; I don't even want a Kindle. "

*nod* Fair enough. Only two reasons I can think of - to gain readership amongst people who do read ebooks, and to be self-published without the required financial outlay of paper-publishing. But it depends on our motivations for putting our work out there. :-)

Paul wrote: "Alright, I've uploaded my couple of PHP files to http://pldaniels.com/downloads/itemsa..."
Thanks Paul! I'll take a look at it when I'm not suffering from brain melt.

Paul wrote: "okay... give me an hour or three to actually make the PHP files look decent and can be understood."

Thanks! I have SOME web knowledge, but just bits and pieces here and there, picked up at random. It's rather frustrating at times.

Paul wrote: "If anyone wants, I can provide a terse guide on setting up your own set of pages for selling your eBook via your own site + PayPal with PHP. "

I'd certainly appreciate it! :-)

Mozette, are you considering going into ebooks sometime soon? Smashwords is worth checking out.

I have:

- Samples available in PDF on the website: http://naomikramer.com/downloads.html (please excuse the dodgy site design, it's very new)

- Excerpts on my Goodreads blog

- A whole novelette available on Smashwords, Goodreads, Feedbooks, my website and possibly a number of other places I've forgotten about

- bits and pieces uploaded to Wattpad as I write

This looks like it'll be a very useful thread, Paul - thanks! :-)

If books you've written are listed on Goodreads, please add them to the Group Bookshelf, using the group-author tag. I've tried to add at least a couple from each member as you join, but I'll doubtless miss people now and then.

Thanks! :-)

Paul wrote: "Hi Naomi. We offer several samples on our WWW site ( http://elitadaniels.com ) in both PDF and ePub formats. Should we post the links here?"

Feel free, Paul! As well as giving other writers some examples of what we're doing, readers might be wanting to check out the thread. :-)

Samples from your books, that is! :-)

If yes, where? Your own website, wattpad, somewhere else entirely?

Edited to add, because Paul just reminded me of a good point:

Which format(s)?

Thanks Soma, you too. :-)

I suspect that sometimes indie authors worry TOO much about promotion. Our attraction, ideally, is a good product at a great price, without the cookie-cutter feel that some publishers manage to put on their ranges. If a few people read a book and enjoy it enough to recommend it, the readership will increase. The primary point of promotion is to give those few people a reason to read it in the first place.

Edited to add: I'm sounding like a fortune cookie now.

Murray wrote: "But it sold 80 copies on Amazon before I even knew that it was up there. I'm pretty happy about that."

*blink* 80 copies pre-ordered already? No wonder you're happy!! :-)