Secrets of Indie Success

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

So lookit me, I'm brooding. (At least now I look like I don't care if I don't sell any books...)

Mind you, the "Quote the avatar above you" thread is now completely ruined...

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

So lookit me, I'm brooding. (At least now I look like I don't care if I don't sell any books...)

Mind you, the "Quote the avatar above you" thread is now completely ruined...

That's not brooding, that's toothache.

[Anna Drake]

I think having free ebooks available to readers is important. I had three free ebooks out for nearly two years: a short story, a novella, and a novel. I did it because I assumed no one would even consider buying a book from an unknown, self-pubbed writer.

Anyway, people might not have bought the books, but they did read them and review them. I was stunned. Now, I've put a price tag on the novel and it is selling, not in large numbers, but at a rate that surprises me.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by Anna Drake

I think having free ebooks available to readers is important. I had three free ebooks out for nearly two years: a short story, a novella, and a novel. I did it because I assumed no one would even consider buying a book from an unknown, self-pubbed writer.

Anyway, people might not have bought the books, but they did read them and review them. I was stunned. Now, I've put a price tag on the novel and it is selling, not in large numbers, but at a rate that surprises me.

Thanks for this. Some real food for thought.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

That's not brooding, that's toothache.

I had about as much fun as one, trying to create a "brooding" photo. This was the best out of twenty dogs. (Full photo is on my website. You have been warned.)

[davidwfleming]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

I had about as much fun as one, trying to create a "brooding" photo. This was the best out of twenty dogs. (Full photo is on my website. You have been warned.)

I think everyone hates to look at pictures of themselves. It's somewhat like hearing your voice recorded for the first time.

[VydorScope]

Originally Posted by davidwfleming

I think everyone hates to look at pictures of themselves. It's somewhat like hearing your voice recorded for the first time.

Of topic, but wow the first time one of my sermons was recorded and I listened to it I did not even come close to recognizing myself! Hate how my laugh sounds! LOL

[davidwfleming]

Okay, next aspect of "Secrets of Indie Success": Blogs. We all have one. How many of us are attracting the traffic we feel we deserve or are at least having the blogging experience we expected when we got started. I've been snooping around Youtube for tutorials and I came up with a list of 12 ways I've used to promote my blog:

1. Blog Pinging i.e. Ping-o-matic, Pingoat.com, Feed Shark (enter your blog address and RSS and they ping these content aggregators).

2. RSS Syndication i.e. Amazon Author Page, Goodreads Author Page (enter your blog's RSS address, and syndicate your blog content around the web).

3. Link Dump Sites i.e. Fark.com, CollegeHumor.com, Gorillamask.com

4. Blog Comments and Blog "Liking" for a link (perhaps the most effective).

5. Social Media Pinging i.e. Ping.fm (set up an account to post a message to a bunch of social media sites at once).

6. Guest Posting 7. Blog Tours

8. SEO tactics, keyword, title, anchor text optimization

9. Forum Signature Line Links

10. Social media participation (tweeting, Goodreads-ing)

11. Syndicated podcasting with open/close calls to action, text links, etc.

12. Free ebooks through Smashwords with embedded blog links

Any one have any other methods, tactics or elaborations that they like to use to drive traffic to their blogs?

[Marj]

It sounds overwhelming. I guess I'm not ever going to sell many books. Several of the things mentioned above - I don't even know what they mean. I have a blog page that tells people about my books, and they can find it if they go looking. But if I set out to become an expert in blogging as well as everything else, when would I write? Currently selling one or two a week, some excellent reviews, and maybe those readers will tell people who tell people.
But no. I'm doing my best to be a writer. There are only so many hours in a day, and so many days in a life-time. I don't want to waste my remaining days doing things I'm not interested in. That does mean, of course, that the unique experience of my particular book will be missed by millions. I guess, so be it. (Any smilies here? I want a resigned smile.)

[davidwfleming]

Oh but it gets worse, Marj! I feel you on the frustration of not being able to write as much. I don't see another alternative other than putting a few query letters in the mail to agents every now and again. There's no rule saying an indie author has to stay indie.

Continuing on with my thoughts on blogging. Here are some concepts I've been considering. Some of which are my own name designations.

Above the fold: borrowing from the days of direct mailing, the most important stuff should be on the top third of a blog page.

F-Scansion: (my name designation) "Studies have shown" (or so I'm told) that people surfing websites tend to move their eyes in an F-shaped pattern: First back and forth in broad strokes at the top, then the strokes narrow until eventually the just start reading straight down. The structure of your blog can exploit this habit!

Standardization: If all posts on a blog have a similar or near identical structure, it will be easier for the end user to scan from post-to-post and find what catches their eye.

Analysis Paralysis: Too many options to click on a post or a page can frustrate a reader, causing them to freeze-up and just back out of the page.

Overselling: Too many offers on the homepage of a blog.

Eye-anchors: the places where the eyes must consistently move on a page to read the beginning of a line or a paragraph.

But this is all just food for thought. The best way, in my view, to improve one's blog is to study the layout and structure of people who are already getting the desired results.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by davidwfleming

"Studies have shown" (or so I'm told) that people surfing websites tend to move their eyes in an F-shaped pattern: First back and forth in broad strokes at the top, then the strokes narrow until eventually the just start reading straight down.

You have been told correctly. Understand, this is for most text-based presentation media, because that's generally the way it's organized. If your website is more graphics-based, the F-pattern no longer applies. On the other hand, it's probably the rare writer who will have a graphics-based website...

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Anna Drake

I think having free ebooks available to readers is important.

I have free ebooks available, a full novel and two sets of short stories. It doesn't seem to help my sales. I'm not sure if their being science fiction is somehow affecting their usefulness.

Edit: I just did some checking, and realized I haven't written anything new since April 2011. I've been spending my time since then trying to work out better promotion of my books... but haven't had any insights or success.

That's a year, pretty much wasted. That's not good.

[VydorScope]

Maybe if you get your toothache handled you could focus better?

[altworld]

Sleep...

[richnettleton]

The media is the message.
Forget being writers.
Start to become marketers. You have to take your work to the community. Find out where your target audience is and ask them why they are not buying your work. Your wasting your time asking each other.