You are browsing the archive for May 2009.
I’m always on the look out for a good marketing tip to share with our authors! Yesterday, I was given a reusable “green” shopping bag from a university bookstore and as soon as I saw the word “bookstore” printed on the bag I thought it would be an excellent promotional item if authors printed a picture of their book’s cover on the bag.
I received a hard copy of Anthony R. Fanning’s book in the mail a few months ago. Opening the package, I discovered the book was wrapped in brown paper tied with cotton twine much like a treasure map. What a cool marketing idea, I thought! It really gave me a nice visual introduction to the book. Unwrapping the paper, I discovered a nice little 4.25″ x 6.88″ pocket size book totaling 430 pages and only 19 chapters! But it’s orange cover (the author has since changed the color) and pencil drawing of a young girl standing in front of an Old World Caribbean map appealed to me even more. I usually frown at 300+ pages in any book, but the small size of this book made it read more like 215.
Yesterday, I posted about an email blast I got from Lulu saying my book had been picked to be part of the Amazon Marketplace program. Today, I have more information to add to that for the authors who are in the dark just as much as I am over the information presented in this Lulu email, or lack thereof.
Back on May 12th, I did a random search on Amazon.com for my book, Stealing Wishes, and found an odd separate listing for my book. It had no picture and only had one copy for sell by a third party seller. I promptly clicked on this link only to find the seller’s name was LuluPress. You can view the listing here, although the copy that was for sale and even the name of my book has since been removed from it. You can view LuluPress’s profile here. I decided to email LuluPress asking if their authors received royalties for these Marketplace sales. They replied two days later with a simple “yes.” So, I left it at that.
Today, like every day, I checked my Amazon.com sales rank and discovered it had bumped up quite a bit. I’m now at 101,491. Now as I’ve discussed in the past, this might very well mean I’ve sold just one copy over the weekend, or even up to 5 copies. And chances are the rank will fall fast unless another copy sells today.
Wordclay has teamed up with Smashwords and is running a great deal this month on E-Book formatting. For just $75.00 (regularly $150) Wordclay will properly format your manuscript for you to be sold as an E-book in 9 different formats on Smashwords.
It’s interesting that Life’s a Gas was published on the 25th Anniversary of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy because it will appeal to the same, slightly ‘off’ sense of humor as the Guide but it includes more modern innovations as cell phones and Eminem. It also has a bit more implied (and actual) sex, usually with holograms or shape shifting aliens, so don’t say that I didn’t warn you.
Straight into the action and more importantly, into the character’s mind. Blood Of Power Unredeemed, has an open, clear style that creates a fabulous atmosphere, where scenes leap out and grab the reader, pulling all further into the story.
Crosswords, acrostics, logic problems, word search, all of these were a big part of my youth. I could spend hours with a puzzle book figuring out the answers and filling them in. Sudoku had not yet come into vogue, or I’m sure I would have spent many a pleasurable hour working on those as well. With More Kindergarten Sudoku: 4×4 Classic Sudoku Puzzles for Kids
April Hamilton, founder of Publetariat.com, a website designed for indie authors, recently interviewed me about my thoughts on self-publishing, my personal use of Lulu, and the creation of the LLBR. I’ve always been a fan of April’s, ever since both of us participated in the very first ABNA contest. It’s amazing to look back and see how far both of us have come since then, and to see what we have accomplished. To me, Publetariat is my online newspaper of information when it comes to self-publishing. Before visiting all of the other review blogs, I usually stop there at least once a day.
C.V. reviews Chuggie and the Desecration of Stagwater by Brent Michael Kelley
Shannon reviews The Boston 395 by Jason Derr
Susan reviews Appraisal for Murder by Elaine Orr
C.V. reviews Hellwatch by Larime Taylor (February's 1st review)
Jaime reviews The Parrot's Perch by Karen Keilt
Susan reviews Dark Mind by Jennifer Chase
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