03-07-2011, 12:02 PM | #1 |
Author of Icarus Rising
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Where to promote my book?
Hi,
My name is David Pauly. We are trying to promote my first book, Icarus Rising, on different websites. Have anyone try redroom.com (premium membership $250/year) or authorbuzz.com ($1000)? Are they worth the fees that they charge? Also, my wife is creating a non-kindle ebook version (the publisher will only support kindle version and he gives us the right to sell non-Kindle ebooks). We plan to give away some ebooks to readers for reviews, where should we put them? Which ebook sites should we contact in order to sell the ebooks and which versions, besides ePub, should we create? Thank you very much, David Pauly Author of Icarus Rising |
03-07-2011, 12:08 PM | #2 |
Curmudgeon
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The real question you have to ask yourself is this:
How did you find out about the books you like to read? Also, with regard to paid promotional websites, you need to consider who their real customers are. That is, who do they want to collect money from? If their customers are the people (librarians, etc.) who are hearing about books from them, then why are they charging you? And if their customers are authors, why would they care about people who aren't their customers? It's possible that these websites that want to charge you hundreds or thousands of dollars to promote your books are legitimate ... but that wouldn't be my first assumption. As far as giving away books to readers, email 'em. Or put them on Smashwords and email 'em coupons. Take a look at the Author Self-Promotion section here for some examples of people promoting their own books. |
03-07-2011, 12:18 PM | #3 |
Enthusiast
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Everywhere, you have to promote everywhere. Search for forums. Facebook, Twitter, blogs. Everywhere. And good luck!
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03-08-2011, 11:37 AM | #4 | |
Feral Underclass
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Quote:
You would be better off joining forums where people are likely to be interested in your book, but don't just jump in and say BUY MY BOOK, join in with whatever they are typing about. |
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03-09-2011, 03:09 AM | #5 |
Addict
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David, in case you didn't notice, you just promoted your book. You did such a good job that I went and searched for it in Google but I found a book with same name but with different author:
http://www.king-cart.com/cgi-bin/car...ct_match=exact Promote your book first by creating a website for it that has the cover image, synopsis and a button to your Paypal account that does the payment. Add some info about yourself as a writer and such. Then register to as many forums related to books and reading and include a link to your signature, like I have links in my signature. Next tiem you mention your book by name, make sure you include URL to the place where i can find it I would create ebooks to sell in EPUB, MOBI as well as PDF versions. |
03-11-2011, 10:18 PM | #6 |
Zealot
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Forums, Blogs, talking to people, and Press Releases are the way to go. Seems like a heavy investment to pay such a fee to promote your book through a site. If the results are worth it, then maybe...no way I would do it though.
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03-12-2011, 09:15 AM | #7 |
Grand Sorcerer
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Moderator Notice:
This is not a thread on self-promotion. We have a Forum for that. One post has already been deleted for straying into self-promotion. This is a discussion about venues of publication. Don (Moderator) |
03-12-2011, 10:20 PM | #8 | ||
Enthusiast
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Quote:
Quote:
As far as giving away ebooks to readers for reviews, you might try the Member Giveaway at LibraryThing.com. Hope this helps. Good luck. |
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03-13-2011, 05:00 AM | #9 | |
Curmudgeon
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Reading back over this thread, something odd just struck me:
Quote:
There's something about this situation that is making me itch. |
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03-14-2011, 09:49 AM | #10 | |
Hanger on
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Quote:
Plus, of course, a publisher is supposed to do the promotion for you - and pay for it too. If they don't, what's the point of 'em? Last edited by MartinC; 03-14-2011 at 11:00 AM. |
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03-14-2011, 12:10 PM | #11 | |
Member
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Quote:
On topic, it helps to have an author site and create those sorts of sites on Amazon, FB, and other social media venues. Get on some podcasts too, that doesn't hurt. You might also think about using a podcast to promote your book. |
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03-14-2011, 12:30 PM | #12 |
Author of Icarus Rising
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My book is published by Black Rose Writing. It's a hybrid of Printing on Demand and Traditional ones. I did ask the owner if he would publish the book as Epub and other formats. His answer was that he would only publish a Kindle version on Amazon and we had the free reign to create & publish other ebook versions.
Thanks to your suggestions and help, we now have it on Barnesandnoble & Smashwords. If your know any other ebookstores that are willing to accept self-published work, let me know. David N. Pauly |
03-14-2011, 12:34 PM | #13 |
Author of Icarus Rising
Posts: 17
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Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Albuquerque
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LOL, these hybrid POD publishers won't spend a penny to promote the books. So far I have spent a few thousand dollars to promote it (without using one of these expensive websites) and the results are still questionable.
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03-14-2011, 12:40 PM | #14 |
Member
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Looking at Black Rose's site it would seem that they do do some promo, but you're right. Even the bigger publishers don't do much for their writers unless you're "hot".
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03-14-2011, 01:25 PM | #15 |
Wizard
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All great suggestions. While Amazon is the single larget electronic book reader format available it by no means covers everyone. I would recommend publishing a few different formats in order to get the widest possible customer base. Are you going to use DRM? If so you will need to publish a sony, nook and epub formats. If you are not going to use any form of DRM then a simple epub format will do the job. DRM stands for Digital Rights Management is the means by which author can protect themselves from unauthorized re-distribution of their work, but is often abused by restricting where people can read your book and when they can do so. Troubble with DRM is it is easily removed.
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