A Blog on Self-Publishing

Started by AmberStarfire, July 01, 2016, 08:37:27 AM

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AmberStarfire

#25
Thanks everyone who commented here and sorry it's taken me a while to get back to you. I'm juggling things to do right now, but I want you to know I appreciate your feedback and conversation.


Quote from: RedRose on November 08, 2016, 05:48:11 AM
Yup. I've noticed groups allowing self promotion often end up being ONLY self promotion

I've noticed this too,  unless they firmly rein it in. Even then, there are still people posting in the wrong places. I post in ones that are made for that purpose, but you still get annoying things like people posting multiple times in a row and they're people whose books I would avoid out of principle.


Quote from: Boatman on November 08, 2016, 05:02:44 PM
Putting my old designer head on for a moment, I would be thinking of making an open site where authors could publish attractive sections of their work indexed by keyword and genre/ sub-genre, so potential readers could scan for something of particular interest written in a style they would enjoy.
I would make feedback private to the author to prevent trolling.

For example, I would like looking for Roman-British fiction to read.
When I searched for works of this type on Amazon I was presented with pretty poor subject matches.

I imagine the sort of authoring site I am looking for probably already exists, just haven't found it yet.

I know Goodreads has an option to share excerpts but it's more quotes I think than sample chapters. Amazon has that option to look into a Kindle book and read a percentage of it before you buy it, and Smashwords has sample downloads and you can set the percentage. What I've found with the sample downloads with Smashwords (though it might've been Amazon too) is there seem to have been people harvesting free sample text and then listing fake book sale links or gimmicky web sites online to try and profit from it. They make it sound like they're selling my book or giving a copy of it away when you sign up to something, but they're just mis-using content put out there. You need to be careful of stuff like that, but I know there are plenty of authors who offer free sample chapters or stories on their web sites, in newsletters and things like that. I suppose they're not really for critiquing work though, they're to sell it or to offer it as a perk for signing up to something/to try and sell other books.


Quote from: Verasaille on November 08, 2016, 05:17:50 PM
I was wondering if you can just use Facebook links to promote your book to individuals and ask them to post on their pages to help out a starving writer? I like the idea of posting excerpts from your book and inviting them to pass the word to their friends. Instead of the group pages that list tons of writers, you would get more more attention, I would think.

(btw, Boatman, don't be afraid to list your partner. I have it on good authority she does not mind.  ;D  )

You can do that and I've done it before (asking friends to share a link). However, only something like 2 friends shared my post. I generally don't ask for shares in groups, but there's no reason you couldn't. Maybe you'd get some more shares that way. If you wanted to share a long excerpt, you'd probably be better off having that on a web site or something and sharing a link to it. There are some groups that do offer critiques. There's one called Authors that offers Critiques on a Sunday. It's not one of the more popular subjects (usually it doesn't get many posts). The link is here.




Boatman

In case of use to anyone->

Having spent a little time wading through blogs (many turning out to be by self-promoting authors) and looking for Indie self-publishing systems which were still relevant in a rapidly changing field, I found this up-to-date and extremely useful article about what is and is not working.
History, where creative writing was born.

AmberStarfire

Thanks for sharing the article.  :D I'm going to check it out now.


Boatman

Dear E authors,

We (Verasaille and Boatman) are please to report we have just published our first pirate novel called 'Kraken the Ruthless'.
We hope it will stand out as being very different from others in this genre.

Here's the link - goo.gl/vshnRr

BTW, I thought I had a basic understanding of publishing, but getting the text ready for print has been a fascinating learning curve, albeit with an upward incline. Things move on quickly and I had a lot of technical catching up to do.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is you can use free online tools to check and format your work for publication on Amazon (KDP).
I've made use of all the new features on offer, including X-Ray which allows you to link personal/ Wiki definition text to your characters and background objects.
So, for example, in this case, our characters have their adventures in the potentially boring setting of the War of Jenkins's Ear, to which we have provided historical links for those readers with an interest.

I guess reading is converging with gaming.

Season's greetings,

Boat
History, where creative writing was born.

Kaia


~ Who cares what and who we are as long as we no longer break ~


AmberStarfire

Boatman: Sorry I missed your post. This thread totally fell off my radar until Miss Kaia posted again (thank you).

I found the same learning curve when it came to publishing, and TBH the more I do, the more I find the learning curve continues. There's always something new to learn or that can help spread word about your books.

Was Kraken the Ruthless based off a story of yours on E or did you write it specifically for the book? I've heard of others turning their stories into books before. 



Kaia

You're welcome.  I'm working on my own book now, so I wanted to be sure to tag this for any insight <3

~ Who cares what and who we are as long as we no longer break ~


Verasaille

To answer you, Amber, Boatman and I started this about two years ago. It was basically an rp, which we did in Google docs. We were working so well together and having so much fun, we decided to try and publish what we had written. Wow, is that a challenge! We had over 400,000 words written and several docs worth of material. The funny thing is, what we did with Kraken is very unique. The main character is actually someone suffering from a disorder that used to be called Multiple personality disorder, but is now called Dissociative Identity Disorder.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/conditions/dissociative-identity-disorder-multiple-personality-disorder

We played rather loose with this, and the result has been a rather crazy pirate who has a lot of people fooled into thinking he is a demon. As we go along and edit and fine tune the story, we keep changing things and it is evolving still. We are working on the second book now, and I am thinking it may be at least a trilogy.
I have gone off in search of myself. If I should get back before I return, please keep me here.