New Writer, a few troubles

[RichardLSanders]

Hello all,

I have been writing for several years and finally decided to take the plunge into the e-book market. What appealed to me about it was the amount of content control I could have over my material. However, when dealing with the Kindle, I ran into a problem that I hadn't quite anticipated fully.

Background:
I just published a fresh new contemporary fantasy short story called Betraying Nexus on the Kindle. I am convinced that anyone would find it compelling and unique.

Oh what's that? You've never heard of it? Of course you haven't! No one has. And no one will!

Because the Kindle lacks two things I believe essential for newcomers trying to break into the market.

1. The Kindle will not let you publish for free. My prior belief was that by offering my story for free, people would be more inclined to find it and take a chance on it. Unfortunately I have to charge for it, so automatically anything I publish has to compete with professional e-books which are certainly going to be better marketed. (Although mine is cheaper, it still costs).

2. The Kindle (as far as I can tell) has no ability within the Kindle store (on the device itself) to filter the results. e.g. "show recently published" or "sort by price" or "up and coming" etc. You may look at different sets of books by genre, to an extent, but it always, always, always shows you the "best selling" first. (Which perpetuates their position on the best selling list, right?) So if my story is on page 500, I don't see how anyone could ever find it.

Have any of you found ways to circumvent these difficulties and actually create awareness of your writing? I'd appreciate any/all ideas.

Thanks,
Richard

[TrineDaely]

Still trying to work around that difficulty myself. You can sort results by price using the drop-down box, but you still end up with a LOT of pages of products at really low prices. The best bet might be to get some friends who buy from Amazon to buy it and others in similar genre to land somewhere on that "People who bought this also bought:" list.

[RichardLSanders]

Not a bad idea, thanks. I wish you luck. Also, tell me the name of your story. I'll check it out!

[RichardLSanders]

PS I just realized that my post sounds angry but I was shooting more for cheesy/melodramatic because I thought it'd be funny. On second thought, it isn't. Oh well.

[TrineDaely]

It's a collection of my poetry called "Life Games". The urban fantasy/sci-fi/paranormal stories will be along later.

[TrineDaely]

Oh, that was meant to be cheesy? I thought I smelled sarcasm instead, but maybe that's because I enjoy sarcasm. :P

[TrineDaely]

Richard I grabbed a sample of your book so I can properly add tags to it, that might help.

[jbcohen]

There are a few web services that do just that, the trouble is advertising the books once they are on that site and there are some services that will sell your material for the price you want but will charge you $5 per month to do that. Here are some possibilities:

1) B&N has a free book section, trick is to get the company to put yours in that section;
2) free-ebooks.net
3) Project Gutenberg
4) Getfreebooks.com
5) Homestead will do that for you but will charge you $5 a month to do that.

[RichardLSanders]

Sounds good. I'm having a little trouble finding yours. "Life Games" is apparently too generic for my kindle and it produces over a hundred pages of results. Maybe if I searched by author name?

[TrineDaely]

http://www.amazon.com/Life-Games-ebook/dp/B004WWQA5G

How would you classify your book? Any specific tags you'd like added?

And thanks jb.

[MickeyC]

Hi Richard and welcome to MobileRead

[GeoffC]

Welcome to Mobileread ….

You will, I hope have been into the Kindle Forum for all the tips and tricks.

Have you seen the Author Self-Promotion Forum ... and also the Writers' Corner ... Just two of the many gems we have on board ...


ps there is more to 'life' than the kindle .....

[Valmore Daniels]

welcome

[ImogenRose]

Hello and welcome to MR!

Imogen