I published about six months ago on Amazon and haven't gotten much traffic. Link: Amazon.com: The Precipice: Gray Hours #1: 9798852176851: Atanasio, Charles Michael: Books I was initially going to publish on B&N as well, but their process frustrated me so I eventually gave up. I did investigate stuff like D2D, and a few other sites... But I was leery of paying money for advertising/reach for my first book since I knew first books usually don't sell all that well. Gave it my best go with that in mind, however! But now my second book is coming up in about six months and it might be more worthwhile to invest in some coverage or maybe an agent or something. So my questions are: 1) Is it worth it to jump through to hoops to have your work up on multiple sites, or is it ultimately not worth it? What are your experiences? 2) If it IS worth it, which ones should I invest time in? What would you recommend? 3) Are there pitfalls I ought to be aware of? I'm not a TOTAL neophyte, but I'm not a veteran either.
The question on wide verse narrow is a hard one to answer it depends very much on genre and audience. if you decide to stick to amazon only (for ebooks) then i'd recomend also signing up to Kindle Unlimited/ KDP Select where you get paid for page reads If you decide to go wide, i'd say go direct to amazon and kobo, and use an Agregator - D2D is the biggest one - to access other markets like B&N, Apple, google play, Tolino etc Whichever you pic you're like to need to advertise to get good traffic, amazon ads, facebook ads, and if wide the kobo promo service are the big three...whole books have been written on how to suceeed with that, but the biggest piece of advice is to get your product right first, good editting, good cover, good blurb as theres no point in paying for clicks when they won't convert
Well, looks like I'm on my way then! I have great product, I think. At least compared to what you get from all of the media giants these days... It's just getting some reach and exposure that's hurting me. Thanks for the advice! I'll probably be back here again closer to the publish date, probably with more questions.
So, I took a quick look at the link you originally posted (staff can see deleted things), and um... I don't want to be harsh or discouraging, but in terms of having a good product this has someway to go before its marketable quality. Top of the list for me would be the cover - it doesn't stand well with comparable titles in its genre - unless you've got strong graphic design skills I'd suggest using a pro designer or a premade Secondly that blurb won't convert well - i used to write blurbs as a side hustle, i don't do it anymore but I've written about 500 of the things and I wouldn't do it like that, you need to really grab a reader, you've got about ten seconds if that before they click away which means that the first line in the blurb has to hook... I'd suggest looking at 'writing killer blurbs and hooks' by Adam Croft for some pointers... you can also workshop it here in the self pub forum if you want Thirdly although the book has clearly been proofread and formatted, has it been structurally edited? because the first few paragraphs didn't really grab my attention or make me want to read more... ideally especially in genre fiction- the first line should make the reader want to read the second and the first paragraph should interest them enough that they read on... and lastly having 'copyright material' in the header and footer of every page just looks amateur - its a book, it a given that its its copyright. Its normal to put a copyright disclaimer in the front and leave it at that. As it stands i really couldn't in good conscience advise you to advertise that book, since I'd be very surprised if its conversion got anywhere near the 1:10 sale to click ratio you need to make a decent profit
Okay. I admit I am new at this, and it seems Amazon did put my page numbers all on the same side of the page... again. I swear, I fixed that a dozen times and it just keeps eating my formatting. Uh... What? =checks= No, that's just what Amazon puts on the free preview. I have no control over that and it's not part of the actual book. Well, thank you for your feedback. It's certainly good to get fresh perspectives on material. Thank you!
In my experience it depends on a number of factors If you are intending to write more it’s never to early to start building your mailing list and readership even if you don’t make a postive ROI straight away assuming you can afford to loss lead( this does depend on quality product because the reverse is also true in building a negative reputation) this is especially true if you are writing in a series where you can advertise book 1 and get read through to book 2
Weird, I’ve never seen that on a look inside before… maybe it’s an American Amazon thing ( I’m British so mostly I look at British Amazon)
I wouldn't know. Like I said, I'm very new... Maybe? As for your other points: Cover: You are not the first person that's had a negative opinion, but you ARE the second, so I think most people like it. And it cost more than a bit of money so it's staying. Blurb: I admit, I never really liked my blurb. I'm not good at writing small, concise things in general (hence the length of the book). What would you reccomend?
I’m sorry to be harsh but if you paid for that cover you were conned, I’d previously assumed that you made it yourself the image isn’t too bad except that the background won’t show up well in a thumbnail, but it is particularly let down by the typography a top tip for covers is to look at the ten best sellers in your genre, to a) get a feeling for what’s current zeitgeist is, and b) to make a mood board and put your cover against to see if it stands with them a key concept with covers is that it’s more important to fit in than to stand out because readers of certain genres have certain expectations When I’m back at a PC I’ll try and find a link to the Stuart bache webinar on cover design which explains this is in a lot more detail … I really ought to link that as a sticky in the cover design board it comes up so often end of the day it’s not the number of people who feedback that matters so much as the number of prospective buyers who don’t buy based on it… when you are advertising a poor cover usually leads to a poor clicks to impressions ratio, whereas as a poor blurb tends to show as a poor sales to clicks ratio because the cover is the key creative in the ad ( also a good reason to make sure the cover looks good as a thumbnail)
Blurb wise I’d suggest starting a separate thread in the blurbs sub forum and workshopping it there the keys points for blurbs are 1) the first line should be a hook, to make you want to know more. For example on Adam Croft’s her last tomorrow the first line of the blurb is “ would you murder your wife to save your daughter?” 2) the blurb shouldn’t tell the reader what happens, its purpose is to make them want to find out what happens 3) it should give the reader a reason to care about the main character, and an idea of what the stakes are 4) it absolutely must be well written and display good use of English. Potential customers will assume a poorly written blurb means a poorly written book. 5) American blurbs often include a call to action at the end… in the school of thought popularised by Brian Meeks a blurb call to action says in essence “ buy this book today,” the British school of thought as popularised by Adam Croft says that this is unecessary and maybe counter productive and that a well written blurb makes them want to buy without an overt call being needed Brian is more in keeping with classic advertising tbought but Adam sells way more books so you have to take your choice ( personally I’m with Adam on this)
On the cover: Again, everyone that's seen it has liked it EXCEPT a guy from Wheatmark, and you. The guy from Wheatmark said she ought to be facing the other direction (to lead the reader's gaze to opening the book - fair enough), and that she didn't look "mature enough" for the subject. Which is entirely subjective anyway. But your points are an entirely new angle! I don't feel the need to chase trends. What's more, if the argument is it doesn't fit the 'current thing'... that isn't a bad thing. You WANT to stand out in advertising, and that's what a cover is, essentially. Advertising. I just double-checked the thumbnail on amazon search. It's fine. The artist captured what I wanted, I think. Plus, I have this plan, to have each cover part of a greater whole: Book 1 coupling with the image on book 2. Like the Heir to the Empire books. They have this thing where each cover is actually a third of a much larger picture, I really liked that. And, if that's a bad idea, ok. You can't be great without risk. I will take that risk. Thank you for your advice! It is always good to get multiple perspectives. I admit I'm not a professional. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. On the Blurb: Fair enough. I admit, again: I'm not exactly a professional. I took inspiration from Berzerk in the blurb - the tone and content taking cues from its introductory monologue. "In this world, is the destiny of mankind controlled by some transcendental entity or law?" SUCH a good monologue. I might end up going back and changing it - I will have to go back and fix the page numbers being formatted wrong YET AGAIN anyway. But what I have seems to satisfy most of your advice anyway. Especially if you assume that Adam guy was right.
The you want to stand out in advertising is what I was talking about in ref of the above… with books it’s more important to fit in… as I said I’ll find the webinar for you rather than try to précis it, for anyone who doesn’t know Stuart is a top name cover designer. I’m not saying change it because I don’t like it, I’m saying learn more about the principles of cover design and then make an informed decision.
this is the cover design webinar i was talking about - don't worry about the plug for the course, the webinar covers the salient points https://selfpublishingformula.com/cover-design-webinar-video/ you really only need to watch the first half... the second half is more about actually doing design yourself, interesting but less relevant to this discussion. I've also restored the link in your first post - we don't allow members to post links to sales pages for advertising purposes outside of the success stories forum, but its impossible to have this kind of conversation when only staff can see what we are talking about.
also in ref of blurbs, this is an interesting podcast with Adam Croft https://writersinkpodcast.com/tag/adam-croft/
All right. I have a question: I just got told by someone on Absolutewrite that having a book out would significantly hurt my chances of an agent looking at the sequel, and/or the first book, and working with them. That's really worrying to me for obvious reasons, since it might mean I cut off future options by accident. I was under the impression that going self-publishing at first then maybe working with an agent later was fine. Is this a mistaken assumption?
It depends, I have eight books self published and I’m currently in the process with a big five deal but that deal is on a different book in a different series in fact a different genre, not one of the series which is self published Once a book is self published ( or published in anyway in fact) first rights have gone and that book is much less attractive- unless it becomes a massive massive hit of course Sequels are a hard sell at the best of times unless the first book was big because hardly anyone wants to buy book 2 before book 1 So yes having book 1 self pubbed but not doing much does hurt an agent’s ability to sell that series to a trad publisher… I’d tend to suggest going all in on self publishing that series it doesn’t mean you can’t get a trad deal for a different series later
*busts out of lurker mode* MOOSE!!!!!!! OMG, that is wonderful and could not be happening to someone more deserving.
