Memoir Authors discussion
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Please help me right now by...
Done! Go vote for my book! (An Uncommon Friendship)
Anyone else please feel free to let us know how we can help you. Please remember to keep your requests ethical - in other words, we can't rate books we haven't read etc. but there are so many other ways to ask for support! So go ahead...
Hi,Hi
Quite a while ago I posted a suggestion that we (memoirists) stopped dissipating so much energy on individually ‘running around’, trying to promote our books and put our combined efforts into jointly raising all our profiles, via a dedicated platform. There wasn’t much of a positive response, so I’ve set up a memoirs only library for Goodreads authors, published on Amazon.
I very recently contacted about 10 memoir authors I'd been recommended for inclusion in the library but I received a response from only one of them, so I'm going to put out the same message I sent to them, to all the memoir authors in this group, and depending on the response I will either keep updating the site, or close it down.
If you do decide to respond (via the email address at the end of this message) please be aware that it does take a little while to 'convert' the appearance of the image for the site.
In order to protect the reputation of all the authors in the library I’m insisting the minimum requirement for inclusion is one four star review on either Amazon or Goodreads.
If you don't have any reviews, post a request to the other authors in this group.
Reviews are not always easy to get, so I expect other authors to step up to the plate and respond with an honest review (the reputation of their own work will be at stake (if the response is good enough and the library stays live).
I also expect the reviewers to treat the author of the book they are reviewing with kindness and respect. If it hasn't been well written enough for a 4 star review and needs revision, or editing, or proof reading, or formatting properly, please talk to the author in a decent fashion and point out where the extra work needs to be done. Many of us have had their books edited by a 3rd party and proof read, so we know what it means to 'bite the bullet' when something we thought was to our satisfaction was not met kindly by the editor, or proof reader/s.
Take a look at the library. The link is: http://memoirsonly.weebly.com
If you like what you see and want to be included please send the following to me at the library email address:
memoirsonly@gmail.com
If you choose to be part of it you will need to send the following to the same email address.
Book cover image (minimum size as close as possible to 350 x 400 JPEG or 300 x 455 GIF)
Full links to your Amazon.com and Amazon.UK pages
Book description
Author profile
Links to any websites, blogs, Goodreads profile page, any interviews you’ve given, facebook pages/groups and twitter account (include anything else you think might be helpful to promoting your main book).
If you decide to be included I’ll let you know when the site gets indexed by Google and you can then put the link on all your pages, that way we increase SEO and thereby raise the profile of all the works in the library.
Link reminder:
Library: http://memoirsonly.weebly.com
email: memoirsonly@gmail.com
From Richard von Hippel (Author NOT AGAIN: “My body’s a write off but I’m all right”)
Sorry -- I've been busy, on vacation and then work, but I'll take a look as soon as I get a chance.
Hi Monique,That's all right. Will wait a little longer to see if any of the others can see the value of readers having access to their works, in a central place, that can be more easily optimised in such a way as to be an easy access, 'one-stop-display' for people who like memoirs, and a place that can raise the curiosity of readers who would not normally turn to a memoir.
Richard
I will get to it within 24 hours; thanks Richard. I just did a guest blog post for "Beyond Limits - the Fearless Life"
Pushing Hard - An Excerpt from Bringing Progress to Paradise | beyondlimitsmagazine.com
beyondlimitsmagazine.com
The blood pumping through my veins, my lungs sucking hard for air, and my heart pumping rapidly felt great. And all around me was the great outdoors ...
http://beyondlimitsmagazine.com/pushi...
Richard, thanks so much for doing all this. And please don't give up on it too easily. Everything takes time, and coordinating a group of people together is not easy. This group took months to get members and get discussions going. Keep up the good work, we appreciate your efforts!!!
Hi Leila,Will hang on in there.
The only reason I'm impatient about it is that I want a decent collection in the library before Goodle indexes the site. If there are only 4 books on there I think the biography/memoir readers (on the Amazon biography forums) who say they are sick of celebrity memoirs and are looking for memoirs by ordinary people will just look at it as a few people self-promoting and won't take it seriously. Then a great opportunity will have been thrown away.
Richard's Memoirist Lib looks good, but needs more books. Others should send him the info to post your books. Check it out.2 of my books lack reviews on Amazon & Goodreads. If anyone would please post reviews for "Light in the Mountains" and/or "India - Nepal Himalayas, in the Moment", I would be happy to reciprocate.
Wouldn't you need to read our books first? Have you? I have to admit, I haven't gotten to yours yet.
Of course we'd have to read the books. We either advise of purchase or email files of the books to each other. However, it should be noted that Amazon has taken down reviews that are clearly swapped.
Hi everyone,Getting reviews can be a real pain, as I know! So, what I'm going to do, over the next few days, is to set up a submissions section on the Library, which I will mention in the Header.
The purpose for that is twofold. The first is that it will at least give the authors of books awaiting a 4 star minimum review a 'presence' in a single location, easily accessible to reviewers.
The second is that it may be attractive to reviewers, in that they can browse and choose, without the effort of having to plough through mounds of review request emails.
If that does become the case, It is even more important that memoirists, with submissions, have their books well edited, proof read, and formatted - for their own and not the library's sake, as it will still be down to a minimum 4 star review for inclusion.
Hi everyone,In response to Jeff’s request for reviews, I’ve added a submissions page to the memoirs only library http://memoirsonly.weebly.com
The submissions page gives Reviewers a focal point and also gives the author the extra exposure we all need. This will become increasingly more important because of the way Amazon is dealing with reviews. Some people are finding bona fide reviews disappearing overnight, as the following article details: http://www.forbes.com/sites/suwcharma... Then click: Continue to Site to read the article
The sudden and massive increase in book blogs has also prompted one prolific blogger and reviewer group to start actively looking for guest bloggers to fill their demand (I have been approached and have declined). When both of these are taken together, it becomes obvious that we are approaching the end of an era in self-promotion and the way forward is to work collectively
When we wanted to read a book, before this era, we used to go to a library and then go to the section of that library containing the books that interested us. There wasn’t a great and often disorganised mix of books as can be the case on Amazon (just take a look at the biography forums, where people who ‘live’ on Amazon are asking ‘where can I find biographies of ordinary people’. Us ‘old timers’ never had that problem, we knew exactly where to find what interested us, because it always had its own and well-defined section in every library. This is what I am trying to do, for memoir authors. There may be other ways than a Library, but I haven’t seen any others, yet.
Anyone still looking for the minimum 4 star review on Goodreads or Amazon can get their book listed on the submissions page of the Memoirs Only Library (cover images need to be close to 450 x 500 JPEG or GIF. The image you uploaded to Amazon is fine). Please bear in mind that I have limited time to work on the site and convert the books into the way they are presented. So there may be small delays in getting your memoir posted, and all books in the library will be listed on a first come first served basis.
Check out the site for yourselves: http://memoirsonly.weebly.com. The weebly will be dropped, soon after the site is indexed by Google.
Richard has provided us a wonderful service and opportunity. Take advantage! Thanks again, Richard.
Hi Jude,Just send the following details to memoirsonly@gmail.com.
Book cover image (minimum size as close as possible to 350 x 400 JPEG or 300 x 455 GIF) the book cover image you uploaded to Amazon will be fine.
Full links to your Amazon.com and Amazon.UK pages
Book description
Author profile
Links to any websites, blogs, Goodreads profile page, any interviews you’ve given, facebook pages/groups and twitter account (include anything else you think might be helpful to promoting your main book).
Hi everyone,I've made so many posts about the library site that I must have strayed into the danger zone of boring. So I'm going to make this my last post on the subject, unless asked.
I'm sure all of you have received the following email from Amazon:
Hello Author Central Member,
We're always looking for ways to help readers discover you and your books, and your Author Page is just one way for you to be discovered.
Log into Author Central, go to the Profile tab, and add your Twitter handle and Blog feed. And while you're there, upload your image and biography if you haven't already.
Maximize your presence on Amazon.com and Kindle during the holiday season by completing your profile on Author Central.
Happy Holidays!
The Author Central Team
https://authorcentral.amazon.com
P.S. You may have friends who are authors; feel free to pass this email along to them.
This is just to let everyone know that as soon as I get 3 more memoirs on the site I'm going to 'oblige' the author central's comment that they are 'always looking for ways to help readers discover you and your books', by contacting them about the library. They may or may not draw their reader's attention to the site, but its worth a try and at the same time, I will make the biography forums aware of it.
I was thinking about using weebly's blog facility until I did a search and came up with the following and astonishing number of blogs: 1,730,000,000 book blogs, 1,380,000,000 author blogs, 10,600,000 memoir blogs! I'm not going to take on that scale of competition!
On a final note, I'm getting a bit 'long in the tooth' and I don't want to spend my entire retirement running a library. So I'm going to put a final limit of 100 books (including those in the submissions section). the place to send your details is memoirsonly@gmail.com
Those numbers are astonishing indeed! I have not been able to get into my wordpress blog for a month for whatever reason. I was feeling guilty about that but as I only have 25 followers and given the above new information, I suppose it really doesn't matter.
Hi June,They certainly gave me a shock!
I think the big issue that authors (of all genres) are not facing is that nothing is static. Everything evolves. Those who got in early with 'fake' reviews, free books and blogging tapped a fertile market. That market is now so saturated with stallholders, the customer is becoming over-faced.
If authors want to sell ebooks - other than ebooks on how to sell ebooks - they are going to have to take new approaches, because the current approaches are becoming pretty much gridlocked.
This article from American author, about free ebooks, makes interesting and thought provoking reading http://americaneditor.wordpress.com/2...
all the best
I believe you are totally right Richard. I decry my books poor results, feeling like a total failure. And then I look around and see so many in the same boat or worse.Are we all spinning out wheels? At least you're trying something different - and unselfishly.
Society is obsessed with celebrity so they can sell their books with little effort. And as you point out; so can those who sell HOW TO sell books on Amazon. Discouraging! Or maybe I'm just tired right now.
Hi June,Don't get discouraged. I'm going to hang on in there with the library until the penny drops and some of the other authors realise the amount of positive market presence that can be created if a bunch of us are in the same place, all pushing at the same time.
Right now there are readers on Amazon's biography forums saying they are sick of celebrity memoirs, and are asking other forum members if anyone knows where they can find memoirs/biographies written by ordinary people.
Therefore, it doesn't take rocket science to work out that there are plenty of readers who can be attracted to a central point. It doesn't have to be the one I'm building - I would be happy to put my work on anyone's library and promote that library. I'm sure Goodreads didn't start out with the following they've built up!
I spent over 20 years competing in martial arts, so I know how to persevere, even when you've been painfully knocked flat on your backside, several times!
Keep the faith!
Richard
Just read the article you gave us above from Forbes. Thanks again Richard.This is an important article for all of us to read, regarding Amazon reviews. Of course we read books in the same genre as our own. I have given and received reviews from authors in the same genre and one in particular offered constructive criticism which helped clarify a few points. I would be devastated if such reviews were deleted. However, as stated in earlier posts, I am against the 'I'll do this for you if you do that for me' mentality that does seem to be prevalent on Goodreads. Fortunately, to date, I seem to have attracted or followed, sincere writers and reviewers. I could here cast suspicion on the one reviewer who gave me a one star review but I do believe that person too, was sincere, if misguided (Ha!)Every writer on Amazon should read the Forbes article. June
Hi Richard, I tried to copy that Forbes article and could not. Is there any chance you can forward me a copy? I want to post it on my blog. June
The Lib. is getting notice. I posted in Facebook about it and a friend asked me how to get a book listed.
June wrote: "Hi Richard, I tried to copy that Forbes article and could not. Is there any chance you can forward me a copy? I want to post it on my blog. June"Hi June,
I'm emailing you the Forbes article 'Are Free ebooks Killing the market?'
This is an excerpt from another article that should make all the self-pub authors understand why the 'old ways' may be dying out as the most effective ways:
'Bowker just released a new report showing that the number of self-published titles leapt by 287%, almost tripling to more than 235,000 print and ebooks per year. Self-published authors are in good – but crowded – company. More competition means more emphasis needs to be put on marketing and publicity efforts. What’s your plan for 2013?'
Jeffrey wrote: "The Lib. is getting notice. I posted in Facebook about it and a friend asked me how to get a book listed."Hi Jeffrey,
There is no doubt, in my mind,that the library will get widely noticed and that means more reader attention to memoirs. I'm just about to send out more 'invitations'
June wrote: "Those numbers are astonishing indeed! I have not been able to get into my wordpress blog for a month for whatever reason. I was feeling guilty about that but as I only have 25 followers and given ..."
June, I think 25 followers is quite good! I don't think I have that many :) Keep at it!
Richard - keep up the good work and thanks again!Are you going to start adding freebies? If so I have a freebie offer coming up Dec 1-3.
Hi Leila,If you want to send me the details I'll put it in the freebie section
Hi Leila,Sorry if I've caused any confusion.
If its 'It Rains In February' of course I've already got the details and it won't take much to list it in the freebies straight away. What I really wanted to know was whether or not its a new work you're promoting.
Hi Richard,It is for my book, It Rains In February. The free dates have changed slightly, they are from this Friday (30 Nov) to Sunday (2 Dec). Will be great if you could list it in the freebie section, with link only to my kindle book which will be free.
Thanks, let me know if you need anything else from me!
Leila
Leila wrote: "Hi Richard,It is for my book, It Rains In February. The free dates have changed slightly, they are from this Friday (30 Nov) to Sunday (2 Dec). Will be great if you could list it in the freebie se..."
Hi Leila,
Book is highlighted red 'see FREEBIES' just above book title. The FREEBIES page sends them back to your page for the links to Amazon (Kindle version). The reason I've done it this way, rather than just give the Amazon links on the Freebies page is to give your blog, website etc details more exposure.
If you think its too convoluted, say so and what I'll do is to get rid of the Freebies page and just highlight the book as a freebie, then add the free dates to your page.
Always open to suggestions on how to improve the site experience.
Hi Richard, it looks great! Thanks for all the extra effort!
Hello Richard,Thank you for the effort you are making on everybody's behalf. I still have to study your library proposal. I will get back to you on that.
I don't often contribute to these discussions because doing so takes away from my writing time and I am working on two projects--one of them a sequel to my memoir.
I read that article you posted about how freebies can hurt book sales. It was revealing. I, like June, "am tired of the ‘writing’ time I waste on promotion." It is not only a waste of time, but a colossal bore.
YasseenEmigrating Home
Leila wrote: "In the other folder - getting together and offering support, there is a place to add all your links so that we can all support each other in the usual places. In this folder, I thought that we coul..."done. I wrote a brief review as well.
Leila wrote: "In the other folder - getting together and offering support, there is a place to add all your links so that we can all support each other in the usual places. In this folder, I thought that we coul..."Hi Leila, great idea! Just voted for your book. Would appreciate the same :-)With Love, The Argentina Family: Memories of Tango and Kugel; Mate with Knishes
Please visit this GR list and vote for my book (With Love, The Argentina Family, Memories of Tango and Kugel; Mate with Knishes) by clicking vote for this book :)http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/25
Mirta wrote: "Please visit this GR list and vote for my book (With Love, The Argentina Family, Memories of Tango and Kugel; Mate with Knishes) by clicking vote for this book :)http://www.goodreads.com/list/sho..."
Done
A piece based on my memoir, Tasting Home, has been posted on the Huffington Post today. It's called "A Valentine for My Gay Ex-Husband." Please visit it at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judith-...
It's also permanently listed in my author archive: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judith-...
Judith wrote: "A piece based on my memoir, Tasting Home, has been posted on the Huffington Post today. It's called "A Valentine for My Gay Ex-Husband." Please visit it at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judith-..."
Thanks, Judith. That was an incredible story. It's true, there's something about the 60s, more than any other time, that encouraged boundary crossing. My mother and her husband (both white) were separated but still married when my mother met my father, a black jazz musician. Yep, I'm a true 60's love child. And when I mention the danger and absurdity of my parents' decisions, the answer is always the same, "You have to understand, it was the 60s."
Thank you, again, for sharing your story. It is yet another deposit into my knowledge bank.
Nancy, the best thing about doing this piece has been hearing the stories of those who connect with it in some way. The 60s live on! Thanks so much for writing.
Judith wrote: "A piece based on my memoir, Tasting Home, has been posted on the Huffington Post today. It's called "A Valentine for My Gay Ex-Husband." Please visit it at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judith-..."
Hi Judith,
If you want to, I can put your memoir in the submissions section of the memoirs only library, while its waiting for its first reviews and then move it to the front page as soon as it gets its first (minimum 4 star) review.
If you go to the following link and click the submissions button it will take you to the page, where you can either click on the book image or on MORE to see what your page would look like - it is a free service for memoirists in this group. www.memoirsonly.com
Sounds great, Richard. I couldn't get anything to happen when I clicked on MORE. Am I too early?
Hi Judith,At the very top of the first page that opens up when you go to the site you will see 3 buttons (HOME, SUBMISSIONS AND BLOG) click the submissions button which will take you to the submissions page and there you can click on the book image cover or MORE to go to that book's own page.
Clicking on MORE at the end of the paragraph under any of the books on the first page that comes up will take you to its book page.
You can Message me your details if you like what you see
Hi, I like the look of the page a lot but saw only one book to click on. And didn't see how to go forward to find more books.
Hi Judith,To see all the books you have to go to the very first page you arrive on when you first go onto the site.
You can always get back to that page by going to the top of any page, where you will always find the 3 Buttons marked HOME, SUBMISSIONS, BLOG.
Clicking on HOME Button will always take you back to the front page, where all the book images are displayed.
Scroll down the page and the book images are all displayed in lines of 4 images.
There are 22 book images on the HOME page. Under each image there is a short descriptive paragraph that ends with ....More (the word More is in blue).
Click on the blue More and it will take you to the page for that book.
The HOME button at the top of each book page will take you back to the HOME page displaying all the books and you can check out every book page that way.
let me know if there are any problems
Memoir Authors
Books mentioned in this topic
With Love, The Argentina Family: Memories of Tango and Kugel; Mate with Knishes (other topics)With Love, The Argentina Family: Memories of Tango and Kugel; Mate with Knishes (other topics)
Emigrating Home (other topics)
I'll start with an example -
Please visit this GR list and vote for my book (It Rains In February) by clicking vote for this book :)
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/25...