give new authors a chance

[GMcG]

Originally Posted by michaelhillier

not sure how to do that - put my website address on my first post but it was removed. Am I allowed to give my blogsite address?

The link has been deleted because it was in your posting.
It is allowed in your signature. You will find more about this in the guidelines.

George

[MartinC]

There are a number of Hilliers on Amazon, including a Michael Hillier and a Michael R Hillier, both writing fiction*. You might start by going to Amazon's Author Central, creating a profile for yourself and linking your books to it, to give the thing a bit more focus (doesn't cost anything). I believe you still have to do this for each of the Amazon stores (.com .co.uk and .de) separately.

I don't know which are yours, but they could all do with product descriptions that sell the books a little - not simple synopses.

If "The Eighth Child" is yours, the product data looks a bit odd: The title is given as TheEighth Child throughout (no space between the first two words) and the Product Description has no capital letters at all. Doesn't inspire confidence.

*Mike Hillier also brings up a result - I think all three are you.

[VydorScope]

You might start by going to Amazon's Author Central, creating a profile for yourself and linking your books to it, to give the thing a bit more focus (doesn't cost anything).

Cool did not know you could do that. I just started one for myself. Thanks!

[banjobama]

You could try posting something witty about yourself and/or the book in the author self-promotions forum.

[Giggleton]

I would suggest offering your texts here for us to read and then placing a button inside your texts which links to a paypal account or some such thing to which we can send you electronic monies if we enjoyed your work.

[michaelhillier]

sorry I haven´t answered recently - have been offline for a number of reasons. I have my books on Smashwords (and have the marketing guide) for the minimum price of 99cents. I put them on Amazon as well at 99 cents and they are available on Amazon.co.uk for 70p but Amazon.com have added all sorts of taxes (because I don´t live the the US) and they come out at $3.24 which I am a bit peeved about. Haven´t tried book bloggers (didn´t know there was such a thing - shows what a novice I am) so I will see what I can find. Have started my own blog - blog.mikehillier.com and have opened a Facebook account and Twitter account but don´t have the least idea how to "tweet". Thanks for all the advice and I will try to act on it.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by DArenson

Write a great book. Write a great blurb. Get a great cover. Then just chip away at it -- contact bloggers, send the book to reviewers, hang out on facebook and twitter, hang out here at MobileRead.... Do a little something every day. If people like the book, they'll tell their friends. Word-of-mouth is one of the best ways to sell ebooks.

Not to mention having a good editor helping you. Even if a writer has a great story to tell, an exciting blurb, and an eye catching cover, even with all that if when the reader opens the book they seem a ton of grammatical and or punctuation errors they'll leave and very likely not come back for a second book. And they may very well blog about author x's book and how many errors it has which will also generate publicity for your work though of the wrong kind of course.