Hello and welcome to the April meeting of
the Insecure Writers Support Group(IWSG) blog hop! The sun is shining, spring's around the corner, and we have the opportunity to get-together to discuss all things writerly.
What a great time to be a writer.
Join us!
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| Internet Writers Support Group Blog Hop First Wednesday of every month. |
What is IWSG? Founder of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group and author Alex J Cavanaugh explains the group's purpose is "to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!" You're invited to become a member of this supportive group.
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The small business person in me fights the idea of amazon becoming a monopoly and squeezing out the other booksellers. But I must reveal that Girls Succeed!, while great for getting coupons to send to readers, has had few sales at Smashwords in the past four years.
Self-publish to KDP Select or All Markets? by J.Q Rose
Last Friday I revised and re-published my non-fiction e-book for girls, Girls Succeed! Stories Behind the Careers of Successful Women. The first
version was published in 2012 when I was just learning about writing and publishing. Now that I have some books behind me both trad and self-pubbed, I'm even more insecure about marketing!
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| Girls Succeed! by J.Q. Rose To inspire and empower girls. |
You know how a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing? Well now that I've dipped not only my toe, but my whole torso into this book business, I know enough to see how many marketing possibilities there are out in the cyberworld AND realize how many books are available for readers to peruse.
What are the best avenues to get a reader's eyes on a book? Recently I discovered, in a survey run by Smashwords' Mark Coker, a reader chooses books simply by browsing through the online and brick and mortar stores. Word-of-mouth is not the #1 choice. That surprised me.
Girls Succeed! is at amazon and smashwords so it can be distributed to many booksellers, but with the advent of KDP Select, a huge promotion tool for amazon, I wonder if it is better to yank GS from Smashwords for a few months and try to market it through KDP. I would appreciate you sharing your experiences or a friend's experience in using KDP Select.
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| Dream BIG! |
This book is a "heartwork." Maybe it's because I have two daughters and a granddaughter, but I feel the e-book is a wonderful way to inspire and empower girls to dream big. So I want to get it into the hands of readers, not for the money, but for the message.
Thank you in advance for any input you have to help me reduce my insecurity!
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| Romance Readers Want to Know series Every Thursday on the J.Q. Rose blog |
Come back tomorrow when we put sweet romance author, Joselyn Vaughn, in the hot seat to answer questions from readers on the Romance Readers Want to Know series at the J.Q Rose blog. Also a lucky commenter will win her witty and warm romance, Sucker for a Hot Rod.
11 comments:
What a great cover! I feel the energy and I love your honesty. Yes, girls need to feel empowered and to go out there and get every last dream. I wish you much success :)
More women need this kind of energy in their lives. I think you're doing an amazing thing. :-)
Anna from elements of emaginette
In today's market author have to be copywriters, artist and marketer's. It's kinda a like being a wife and mom with all the hats you have to wear to get your book out there. However, the payoff can be worth it.
Juneta @ Writer's Gambit
I've tried KDP Select in the past, and the idea is letting people read your book for free and drive up your placement numbers and possibly leaving you reviews. That's the idea anyways. I've had no success with it. I rather just be on all markets and use coupons with Smashwords than try to let someone else give my book away for free, and then get nothing out of it. I suspect to see any success from you, you have to do a lot of marketing to get people to download it and strongly encourage them to leave a review.
Hi JQ, that's a great question you ask, and I wonder about the answer, too! I've done the opposite to you. All my self-pubbed books are on KDP Select. I've had reasonable success with it by making use of the free days. I put The Silk Romance up for free over a weekend, for example, and promo-ed it like mad before and during. I had a lot of downloads and lots more reviews, and then a spike in sales and borrows. Readers can borrow your book if it's on KDP Select, and you then get paid per page they read. This can work out quite a lot of money, which is unseen in your rankings.
My next project is to put my books up on several platforms. I'm interested to see whether they perform better or not.
If you're interested, I wrote a post on Making a Success of your 5 Free Days on Amazon. You can find it here: http://helenafairfax.com/2015/07/31/making-a-success-of-your-5-free-days-on-amazon/
Good luck with whatever you decide!
Thank you, Erika, for your kind comments.
Anna- I hope the stories will inspire girls. I've had reviews from grown women who feel inspired by them too.
Juneta--All those different hats to wear certainly keeps life interesting.
Thank you for the information, Chris. I agree with you. I am over giving away my writing.
Hi Helena, Thanks for sharing your experience with KDP Select So glad your free days resulted in more sales and reviews. I really do believe having more reviews helps a reader to decided whether to buy or not. I'll look up your article and read it again.
Thanks for this post, JQ. I have a lot of questions about KDP Select.
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