That's a pretty intriguing combination of genres - I'll have to give it a look next payday!
Librarything are patchy (only a small number of people who win copies seem to review, and there's no way of linking to the giveaway directly) but they have two main advantages:
- They're free (as opposed to goodreads, netgalley, eidelweiss etc)
- Their standard giveaway section is primarily for 'middle-aged' books - the upcoming releases is a separate list altogether
The other giveaway site I use is Instafreebie, but that's less for reviews and more for getting people to download previews of the book so they'll hopefully buy the whole thing. I've had a decent number of downloads (1000-ish in seven months) but no way of knowing whether that's translated into sales or not.
So far I've mostly been met with a wall of silence on the blogger front so I can't recommend many individually - I got most of my names from sites like
Indieview, who list bloggers by genre and accepted formats.
I've had slightly more luck with local news media - groups like New Writing North seem happy to promote authors who live in the North of England and I think that got me a couple of sales?
I'd be delighted to brainstorm strategies - my first book came out seven months ago and sales have slowed down quite a bit, and I'm
really short of reviews for my newest release.
Cheers, Xagarath! I I'd say yours is right up my alley, too. Hey, maybe that's a good 'middle-aged' strategy. Book exchange with fellow authors? :D
Thanks for the rundown on the giveaways. For smaller authors, even patchy results are something, though, right? I'll have to check out librarything and see if I can't do some kind of push maybe right before the final chapter of Dead Leads is published so that I can tie it to book 2's release. Instafreebie sounds interesting as well. Even if it doesn't translate to high sales, people can get a taste of it. That might work well for getting people to hang around for a second book. Is that something you've thought about for your recent release?
I feel you on the bloggers. They're so tough to get eyeballs from. I'd kill to get a video review (that's not from a missionary who hates swearing). I did see in GoodReads that there's a review request section (
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group_folder/178227) that seems to have recent/some activity from bloggers. Maybe an option?
Will check out New Writing North!
So...
1) Media push to funnel readers to book 2/older release
- 'Celebrating' the release of latest book by giving away first one on Twitter, FB, related book sites
- Tie it to a holiday giveaway (Halloween, Father's Day, etc.)?
2) Book exchange with other authors to get fresh reviews to rekindle some momentum
3) Er... I need more coffee. :D
Do you have a Twitter, btw? Unless we're already connected? My brain is dead after months of baby.
Hello all! New to the forums (though I've been lurking for some time) and would just like to extend greetings to my fellow peers!
still an amateur myself, and am currently 29(30) chapters deep into my current WIP. TBH I wasn't expecting it to be this long (and unfinished), but getting this invested in my characters - the world and narrative I'm attempting to flesh out - it's been an enjoyable ride nonetheless.
Don't want to spoil too much, but the story delves into the psychological horror genre as an introspection in the ways early trauma can affect us later in life. Or, what I like to call - a significantly more grounded take on the popular "possession" trope.
Now that I'm on here I look to check in regularly - see what you guys are up to, offer and receive advice - that sort of thing. Let's make this process as fun as possible, together!
Welcome from one whose book is about ghostly possession to one whose book is about more grounded possession! Had no idea there were so many fellow horror lovers in here.
what references do people use for cyberpunk, just wikipedia or is there more to it.
As Xagarath said William Gibson is your man. He pretty much set the tone for a lot of the genre. Read Neuromancer, Idoru, Count Zero, etc. Some of my favorite books.
Any recommendations to do after finishing a project while hoping it grabs traction? The fall can be quite hard after finishing something that you feel is the best you can, but if it ends up not "working out" from a market standpoint, it can leave you completely devastated. Kind of like a break up that occurs that you didn't want to happen.
Screenplays sound much harder to market/grab traction because no one generally reads those for causal pleasure. If you've got media accounts, though, why not get some friends (or Era talent?) to read some of the scenes and record them. Then you can showcase those in timed releases to entice people to read the whole thing. You could do video, or just audio, or if you've any drawing talent, maybe storyboard scenes and showcase those?
Well,
Black Creek came out today and it's been a weird day.
First day sales are pretty much what I expected given no marketing so far. My pre-release giveaway copies haven't amounted to much in the way of reviews so far. My first review was a 3 star review that called it "a very well written book" but complained the story is too complicated. Which honestly just made me laugh more than anything. Got a couple better ones after that but still pretty low volume.
I've got some marketing starting tomorrow so it'll be an interesting next couple of days.
Congrats! And judging from Amazon and GoodReads, you've got a fair number of reviews already, especially with zero marketing. How many were you expecting? I think for most self-published authors, even getting a few is cause for celebration. What's your strategy moving forward?
