GOOD NEWS...

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by Ramen

Well, none of the points raised have been addressed by Alm.

WordClay hasn't fixed their search engine, either.

Of course, they have no real reason to fix it. Their customers -- the authors -- undoubtedly have their book pages, or their writer pages they access them through, bookmarked. The search engine is primarily useful for book buyers, and -- as with any vanity press -- they're not the customers at all.

That's what so many people don't get. A while back, when there was a story in the local paper about an author who had "been published" (she paid to have her NaNoWriMo book printed), I worked out how much she'd paid. I think the cheapest options came out to about $600 or so, almost all of which is profit because their pre-press system is essentially the Meatgrinder. Let's say the company makes $5 on each book they sell. An author would have to sell 120 copies of any given book to equal the least they would pay to the company -- and that's not including the price of fancier covers, revisions to the text, or anything else. So the company could try to sell 120 items, or they could try to sell 1 item. It's more worth their while, in terms of sales, to try to sell one publishing package to an aspiring writer than to try to sell 100+ books to readers ... and, frankly, the majority of self-published books aren't going to sell 100 copies. Or 10 copies.

There can be times when that makes sense. A family matriarch having a cookbook printed, for instance, so everyone can have all her great recipes (I have one of those; she was a cool person, too). I'm working on something that I'll probably pay to get printed because I know it has utterly no commercial potential (I doubt if even my friends will want to read it) but it's stuck in my head and has to come out, and getting a few copies printed by POD for my own entertainment will be fun. There are people who sell pay-to-play books ... but they do it by putting a lot of work into the selling end of things, because nobody is going to come looking for books they don't know exist, and people whose market is authors wanting books printed have no incentive at all to look for penny-ante buyers when they can just keep on pitching their services, sometimes to the tune of thousands, to the apparently limitless pool of would-be authors. And personally, in latter case, I'd just pay a printer to print and bind my books from camera-ready copy, and put in a wee bit more work (nothing compared to the marketing) beforehand, which would save a bunch of money.

So I'm not holding my breath waiting for WordClay to fix a search engine which is essentially superfluous for them. Alm could fix those $0$0, though!

[Vonta]

Originally Posted by Alm Hlgh

You know the thing about me is, I generally am cool on the surface but all the while the little wheels in my mind are subconsciously turning. Anyway I kind of went through the thread "Self-Promotions" and I found a number of threads that were started with ALL CAPS and no one (especially you) was harping all over them about using caps; nor was there anyone ranting endlessly about them being self important than others etc. as you stated to me in your first post.
________
THE SCRUBS by Simon Janus
FROM VEGAS WITH BLOOD - a mysterious night in Vegas on your e-book reader...
DEMON CANDY by David Michael (Horror/Dark Urban Fantasy)
THE FEAR - novelette, $1.99 (Psychological horror)
AMSTERDAM 2012 - Political Thriller, $2.99
Gateway Drug by Scott Nicholson
WE ALL FALL DOWN--Thriller
Children's book IF I WERE YOUR MONSTER
___________________
Check them out for yourself and there are more....

Gotta tell you now I feel like crying. Yup you won you actually hurt my feelings for singling me out for something that seems like is pretty prevalent in this forum. So I guess you must be my first anti-fan. Thank you so much for that distinguished honor. Anyways, take care of yourself and God Bless. If you see me coming before I see you, turn away.

Alm...

Seriously, I don't know what you did to "piss-off/ offend" so many people, but don't get discouraged. I read the eBook version of The Princess & The Thug: Hood Love and totally fell in love with Miles and Angela. Don't give up or quit. I've told you before on one of your blogs, you've got talent. Not every form of writing is for everyone. Focus on your fans and let the haters hate. But seriously, did you.... nvm what I was about to ask I'm sure someone would take it out of context and turn a mole into a mountain.

[queentess]

Originally Posted by Vonta

Focus on your fans and let the haters hate. But seriously, did you.... nvm what I was about to ask I'm sure someone would take it out of context and turn a mole into a mountain.

Apologies, I didn't realize that giving pointers on how to market a book was "hating". In fact, I'd even call it helpful. But if you're going to see any form of criticism as "hate", then the publishing world is probably not where you want to be. Just telling the author to "think positive!" isn't really constructive and won't help him improve his marketing techniques.

[caleb72]

Oh damn - so this isn't a thread for a publication of the New Testament?

I'll get my coat...

[LCF]

Originally Posted by Vonta

Seriously, I don't know what you did to "piss-off/ offend" so many people, but don't get discouraged. I read the eBook version of The Princess & The Thug: Hood Love and totally fell in love with Miles and Angela. Don't give up or quit. I've told you before on one of your blogs, you've got talent. Not every form of writing is for everyone. Focus on your fans and let the haters hate. But seriously, did you.... nvm what I was about to ask I'm sure someone would take it out of context and turn a mole into a mountain.

If you look this thread, no one is arguing about the quality of her books. Problem is, the only way to find out about what the supposedly hot after life place is she talking about is to search the forums/google for her name and even then all you find are the ebooks (which, btw is not so bad).



I'm actually curious, Alm, why haven't you changed a single word* in the original post? There must be a reason for it, something special we probably can't see.

I mean, it's obvious, when an author posts a link to his/her work, video trailer and description to a book, probable even price, that this author wants to promote his/her work. But when all of the above is missing/broken, a really would like to know the reason for posting. And further more, the reason for not making the post a bit more informative?

I would really like a post like this one (I'm just giving the backbone, you're the one good with words ):

Hi all!

If you know my ebook series about Y (link to them) you also know I (insert something about fans wanting it) had planned a hardcover version of book X.
You can find it at (direct link!) for xx$.

A short description of the book, including genre and perhaps a bit of the plot outlines.

Here is a trailer (if you use the youtube tag all that has to be inside is the random string (like ag4e7gj6g38f) after the "=".

*checked, wrong - the broken video is missing - good

[Dr. Drib]

Dear Members:

For clarification purposes only -

1) The link supplied by the author does NOT go to the book; it goes to a first page of a main website.

2) The Search code supplied by the author does NOT go to the book. The search returns "no file found."

The author has NOT corrected this. That is certainly her prerogative.

With these facts now established - and with various comments from Members further establishing this fact - I feel discussion can now move to other issues.

Thank you for your understanding.


Don
(Moderator)

[basschick]

i'd like to see a title letting us know that this thread is about your book. perhaps the genre could be there, too, letting board members know whether or not the book is a kind they read. i'm only guessing at the genre in this example thread title:

The Princess & The Thug: Hood Love (Urban Romance)
or
My first novel - urban romance

then first thing, most of us would like to read a synopsis that will help people decide if the book sounds interesting to them. as far as this text

Originally Posted by Alm Hlgh

You've asked for it and now it's yours... You fell in love with them; watching them meet each other; watching them hate each other; watching them live with one another; watching them fight together and then falling in love.

we don't know the characters, we haven't met them yet. as a result, we haven't asked for anything. that makes the above text not informative.

as far as being in print, it costs nothing to turn your book into an ebook in several formats. then you can sell it on amazon and smashwords so mobileread members can read the sample, then perhaps buy it, download and read it.

best of luck with your book

p.s. fyi i've posted on many boards from music to business, and writing in all caps is considered yelling, and as such, bad manners. i suspect you didn't realize.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Dear Members:

For clarification purposes only -

1) The link supplied by the author does NOT go to the book; it goes to a first page of a main website.

2) The Search code supplied by the author does NOT go to the book. The search returns "no file found."

The author has NOT corrected this. That is certainly her prerogative.

With these facts now established - and with various comments from Members further establishing this fact - I feel discussion can now move to other issues.

Thank you for your understanding.


Don
(Moderator)

Now we can call this thread Good News.