Quote:
Originally Posted by AnnGirdharry
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This suggests that not only a low cost book is needed but a short one too?
I am glad to see this seems to fit in with Rev Bob's comments and experience as he's detailed above.
Chance, luck, skill, timing, patience, persistence- all seem to be factors at play for a new author?
Any comments?
regards,
Ann Girdharry
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Yes, short seems to be a good idea (says the man whose first published book was 140k words
). Low cost, or free, seems the only way to attract many readers to take that first look. While I said previously that downloads do not equate to reading, I do suspect that free combined with short encourages more people to actually try it out. However, so far, readers of my free short stories have not translated to sales of the novels (despite good, albeit very few, reviews of both - I think people, fairly naturally, find any book with just a few five star reviews a bit suspicious).
I was going to suggest that Rev. Bob might be over-thinking things with the pricing strategy. I think that presentation and exposure are more important than price (at typical Indie prices), especially with a new release. If you want to see people actually reading your work then you need to find ways to try and make sure they know about it - which means doing more than I have ever done in terms of marketing.
Chance plays an large part. For example: my experience so far has been that people are generally kind, they leave good reviews rather than bad. (I'm fairly sure not everyone that has read what I've written can think as kindly of it as the reviews would suggest - the world doesn't work like that - but the ones that have left reviews have been kind.) But there are people, as I've seen elsewhere, that appear to delight in being critical. Get a few of those pick up your work and the impression that shows on your book's page may be much less attractive. It's one reason why editing and so on can be so important - you want to try and ensure that they worst they can say is that they didn't like it.
But I still fall back to the idea that you should not get hung up about marketing for your first publication - unless you expect it to be your last. I'm quite sure I'm not the only reader out there that will pretty much ignore a new writer with only one or two works on the table; if I find someone I like, I want to know there is more to be had.
Which brings us to patience and persistence. Keep writing (if that's what you want to do) and keep publishing (if you think the result is good enough), and the eventually you might find success (in terms of sales and/or recognition). The important thing, for me at least, is that I've enjoyed what I am doing - that way any success that might eventually arrive becomes a bonus rather than an expectation.