Quote:
Originally Posted by Kemp
Hrm... I suppose you'll have to thieve the computer again, but how would you describe your marketing efforts on feedbooks? Have you seen a lot of luck with just random users passing by, or is the book buried too deeply within the site to find?
Admittedly, in my opinion, I think aesthetically and functionally, Smashwords isn't all that great for the free ebook. I'd say the general idea is sheer numbers, but Smashwords seems to have fairly constant site slowdowns and issues. Not to mention it being unable to actually find a book unless you're linked directly to it, and competing with the people charging for it.
At a glance, Feedbooks seems a little more streamlined and user friendly. Do you find this to be the case? Has anyone else used Feedbooks?
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Kids are at school, so I have free rein on my younger son's computer.
I have a large network within the fanfiction community so that's how I initially got the word out for my book on Feedbooks. It climbed rapidly and is now sitting at the #2 'all time' most popular spot, so it's not buried. However, I can easily understand how a book can get lost on both Feedbooks and on Smashwords.
I uploaded to Smashwords some two months after Feedbooks and it was very slow going to begin with. My 'network' had already been tapped for the Feedbooks upload. Eventually it began to climb on Smashwords as well, and 'popularity' is self-perpetuating.
I think I was lucky in that a few weeks after I uploaded my book there was an explosion of uploads, but there was enough time for my work to get noticed before it got buried.
The only 'marketing ploy' I used, if you can use that term in connection with a free ebook, was uploading the first few chapers on FictionPress with a note at the end saying where the entire book was available. Now that downloads have slowed somewhat, I'm uploading the rest of the chapters to FictionPress.
Of course, there's no way of knowing how many of the Feedbooks downloads originated at FictionPress.
I don't "do" social networking like Facebook or Twitter, but I've been told they can be quite successful if used for publicity. I don't blog or have a website, everything has been word of mouth or chance. I'm happy about this, because, of course, I've no intention of earning money from my scribblings.
--JanG.