Those things, yuck!
I'll admit, I thought going the self-publishing route and being an Indie Author was going to be awesome. While it has been very "freeing" and given me total control of everything with my novel, from the cover art, editing, proofing, and end cost of my novel...it has been exhausting to just get the word out and get my novel into reader's hands!
For one thing, no one on Amazon wants to even take a look at my novel unless it meets one of two criteria.
1. It has reviews. And I will tell you from experience that it is nerve-wracking to wait for the first reviews to come in. At this point, I want anything. Reviews and feedback, I'm hungry for them!
2. Free. People love free stuff! I ran a promotion on Amazon where the Kindle version was free for five days and it "sold" almost 150 copies world wide. There was no small measure of pride to see that two copies were downloaded in Austrailia! But still, it had to be free for it to happen in the first place.
1. It has reviews. And I will tell you from experience that it is nerve-wracking to wait for the first reviews to come in. At this point, I want anything. Reviews and feedback, I'm hungry for them!
2. Free. People love free stuff! I ran a promotion on Amazon where the Kindle version was free for five days and it "sold" almost 150 copies world wide. There was no small measure of pride to see that two copies were downloaded in Austrailia! But still, it had to be free for it to happen in the first place.
I've blasted it on twitter. Not annoyingly so, at least I hope not. That's one of the things I've been careful about. You certainly want to promote yourself on social media, but not to the point that you are constantly "shouting" it. I'm going by the breakfast, lunch, and dinner mentality. Also, I say other stuff as well. I like to put little inspirational things up on twitter, keep people pumped up about writing and just make people feel good. It doesn't cost me anything and I like to leave things better than I found them.
I also found this Giveaway tool that Amazon has. You pick a "lucky" number, you pay for the taxes, shipping + handling, and people basically do a lottery to try and get a copy of your book sent to them. The kicker is that they have to follow you on twitter. Amazon sends you the email with a button to post it to your twitter with a hashtag and you're all set. My inbox exploded! I did a lucky number of 25 with 3 books. Man, did I shoot too low on that one. But, 3 more people will have my book and I will, fingers crossed, have some more fans. All in all, it's a great tool to use.
~J
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