Quote:
Originally Posted by Worldwalker
And that is your problem in a nutshell: no one's noticed until now.
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Seconded.
@ Steven Lyle Jordan:
Whenever an author posts on a message board, these things should be clear per post (best done in a signature):
(1) They're an author
(2) They have books Y and X
(3) The books are in genres Y and X
There should be links to the books for the intrigued reader's easy clicking. Readers always have too many things to read, but their To Read list is flexible and moves around all the time. They can start reading something new by impulse if the mood hits them and it's easy enough. An online presence should make it easy for the reader.
I think the whole indie books scene can only get better in time, the promotions side of it is still fragmented and unrefined, but there's a community growing around it and there's more people getting into it. Heck, my mom went from reading James Patterson to reading indie mystery thrillers. She actually read several Amanda Hocking books without realizing she was indie. Everyone's getting all these fancy gadgets, they have to be doing something with it.
As a science fiction/fantasy genre fan, and someone generally pretty darn happy about the accessibility of all these works, not just ones published from New York, I put up a little of reviewers who primarily review SF/F and review indies.
http://indiesfreviewers.wordpress.com/ It wouldn't hurt to send emails to some of these folks. Not everyone will respond, but the ones who do will likely take the time to write a review on Smashwords/Goodreads/Amazon/etc. and pass the review on through tweets/facebook/etc as bloggers like their blog posts read. There's also some links to bigger reviewer databases and most of them can be searched by genre. The Simon Royle list is best for reviewers who are prolific (like GraceKrispy in these forums) and are more likely to respond to a request sooner.
Also, giving away books for free for an exchange for a review is a good way to get attention. It's promotional advertising in the early stages. I've seen other mobileread authors do it in the Self-Promotions forum and get some reviews that way. Having more reviews on your book's page makes it more likely for people to buy it when they do come across it.
Publishing indie is a long-term game I think, but the community for it is only going to get better from here.