Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
Hey, I'm in obscurity too. We should meet up some time. ... But it's pretty crowded here, we may have to book ahead to get two seats together.  |
Yeah, it seems like the ball room is getting too crowded these days for anyone to really be seen.
Quote:
|
I presume the costs you give are just the space rental, production of artwork to go up onto the board is going to add even more, yes?
|
A friend of mine would be doing the artwork. The cost of printing and installing is included in the $500/m price tag as you're locked in for 6 months at a crack. So technically you're paying like $200 a month towards the printing and install and the rest is space rental.
Quote:
|
The whole price thing is difficult to guess at. Yes, there are a lot of people that won't even look at a new indy author unless they can get the work free. (And a lot that won't even look then.)
|
lol, I've actually been doing this for about 25 years. I only started publishing them about 2010 after some friends convinced me to take the leap. Before that I was content just writing and sharing with friends and neighbors. I even won a few writing awards along the way. Sure, they're obscure awards, but they're still awards. ^_^
Quote:
|
But there are also a lot of people that think "free" is a sign of worthless. My own opinion is that price, at the level that most indies charge, is of less importance than other forms of marketing. A few dollars is effectively nothing compared to asking the person to invest their time in reading your book.
|
Oddly enough, I have friends who keep kicking me to start charging for my books, but I'm unsure of a "value" or "worth" I could slap on the books that would draw people in without scaring them away by being too much or too little. I'm open to ideas on any of my series if you wanna chuck some ideas out there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cinisajoy
Steven: Amazon is the big bookstore.
Now as to your friend: it seems everyone and their elephants wants to write a book these days.
|
Yeah, tell me about it. I get crowded out on Amazon because of that, as GMW kinda pointed out. Plus I absolutely suck at marketing. My problem is I haven't found anyone who is really good at it. At least not yet.
Quote:
|
Oh and just a little food for thought. 2 is twice one. 3 is 3 times one. Just add zeros. So your friend could have gone from 10 to 30. 100 to 300. 1000 to 3000. My guess is the middle one since I doubt your friend could do a good publishing job for 3000 people in a month unless he had a staff.
|
Yeah, he had like a staff of 8 or more. I forget how many. But once the billboard went up they went from a casual 10-15 a month to "OMG bar the doors, they keep coming!" lol. I think he did 60 new titles in one month after the billboard. So it did help. He laughs now because he actually had to turn people away. :P
Quote:
Originally Posted by BookCat
Steve: I went to your website and looked at your About Me expecting to find information about you as a writer. This is not what I found. What you've written there may deter some people from wanting to read your work. Imho it's best to avoid politics and religion.
|
It's funny you should say that as part of what I write is Christian books and pocket guides. The scifi part is just because I've been a scifi nerd for years. It might turn some away, but if so, then so be it. I do admit I have a sort of mixed target audience, but it's what works for me. Plus I ran a top 10 Linux site for several years with a writer's profile similar to that one and nobody had any issues with it. ^_^
Now, on a side note, completely skipping the whole billboard idea (apparently it's not gonna work until I get other things sorted out), if I do start charging for my books, what would you say is a fair price to charge? Like I said earlier, I don't want to go too high or low for what I'm offering.