Recent chatroom wisdom tends to dismiss the Amazon KDP marketing tools Countdown and Free Books as less than effective for eBook marketing. The reasoning is all about numbers - there are simply too many free books at any one time, too many books offering countdown prices, too many authors altogether. I disagree For those who … Continue reading Is the Amazon Kindle Countdown Effective?
self-publish
A Conference just for Indie Writers
The free on-line conference for indie writers and publishers, Indie Fringe, is coming around again. It happens at ten Saturday morning March 18. This is one of the best resources you never heard of. Again, it's absolutely free. You do need to register, but that takes seconds. They just want your name and Email. Did … Continue reading A Conference just for Indie Writers
Crunching The Numbers
As the old year wanes, the time has come to evaluate my book sales and learn from the data, hopefully to improve sales in 2017. Many charts and graphs are available to authors through the auspices of various retailers and distributors. In part, because these businesses must keep the data for their own purposes, in … Continue reading Crunching The Numbers
Are You Reading The Author You Expected?
It came to me after reading Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code first, his preceding novel Angels and Demons second––this awareness of author growth. I found both books enormously entertaining, yet the greater sophistication of the former in contrast to the latter was clear. I suppose I had not previously thought in terms of author … Continue reading Are You Reading The Author You Expected?
Why An Audio Book?
The hot topic in my writing circles lately is audio books. I sense a fascination among my fellow authors. Several have made them, many want to make them. And why not? Audio books are enjoying an enormous surge in popularity, having more than doubled sales in the last several years. For the author, it's never … Continue reading Why An Audio Book?
My Five Goals for a Conference
Two days after the convention is the minimum time I need to evaluate the experience, to let it soak in. There is an overload of information that needs to settle, like rainwater on dry soil, to begin the growth process. I need the time to separate my emotional high from the true value gained, the grain … Continue reading My Five Goals for a Conference
A New Partnership of Self Published and Traditionally Published Books: Five Ways We Will Benefit
Recently I viewed a documentary on the history of Western movies. I was struck by the challenge these movies faced with the advent of television. The Western B movie almost died then and there. But it didn’t, and isolated salvage efforts resulted in another surge in popularity that continues even today. It turns out there was a … Continue reading A New Partnership of Self Published and Traditionally Published Books: Five Ways We Will Benefit
The Automobile And The Horse
I was intrigued by Penny Sansevieri’s latest bulletin post in which she suggests that The Emperor (read New York Publishers) Has No Clothes (still don’t realize that their existence is in jeopardy). And as she goes on to surmise; perhaps they won't go away altogether. To draw an analogy, when the automobile arrived, the horse … Continue reading The Automobile And The Horse