Quote:
Originally Posted by Vintage Season
Somewhere along the way, I started doing less talking and more writing... and the more I shut my self-promotional yapper, and simply focused on being a good wordsmith and storyteller, the better that first story did. It was a simple lesson, but a valuable one: word of someone else's mouth works far better than my own, as a promotional tool.
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We have to know it's out there, but yeah, once the word is out, it should spread from person to person.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Patricia Ryan
Whenever ebooks, free or not, are published without having been thoroughly edited first, it reflects poorly on e-publishing as a whole. We need to be encouraging quality, authorial pride, and a professional approach to self-publishing. Inviting people to publish second drafts isn't the way to do it.
[...]Kind of like your idea, but without presenting the book as a "published novel."
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Yeah, I can understand why authors need feedback, but that's what family and friends and professional editors are for. I could even see pushing it out there in a New Writer's Forum somewhere (not sure mobileread is the right place for that) and asking for feedback. But to offer it as a free download, it better be VERY CLEARLY labeled as a beta version of the book that you are requesting proofreading help on. Because that's exactly the reason I don't much self-published stuff. I don't want to read someone's rough draft; I want a finished work. And if I like the book and the writing, I'll pass it along to my friends and I'll probably even buy more of your work.