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I thought it might be of some help to starving and not-starving artists if I gave a bit of my experiences over my three-year quest to get my novel, Hard Luck Hank: Screw the Galaxy, written and published. Along the way I hired, and sorta fired, a number of creative folks to help me realize my project. I'll skip all the, "hey, I want to write a novel," stuff. I figured I would try Kickstarter. But I wanted more than just me begging. So I to make an animation movie. Which you can see the finished version of here: http://www.belvaille.com/movie.html I put out ads on Craigslist here in LA. Which is when I learned about supply and demand. The voice actors, I had about, literally, 100 people respond within a few days. I was offering $50. For the animators, I had maybe 5 people respond. I was offering $2000. Or 2500, I can't remember. The voice actors were easy, they all had demos I could listen to. Those that didn't, I didn't bother with, there were too many others. So if you're looking to break into any field like that, be warned, there is an insane amount of competition and they are all very professional. I took my actors out to lunch and we went over the parts and I was happy with them. We saw Flea from the Red Hot Chilly Peppers walking his dog. My animator turned out to be in the Philippines who happens to read the postings all across the world looking for animators. I was very worried about sending my 15% to him to start. If he just said "lolol, gently caress off" what was I going to do? He turned out to be great and super helpful. I really lucked out. Whatever you think of the animation, "I" liked it, and I was paying the bills. He made all the changes I asked for, which were not insignificant. I found the audio editor by looking at trade sites online. I would email and ask rates and such. Some were very flaky. There are a lot of people who have a mac and a mic and say they are an audio studio. The guy I got was super professional and was really good all around. It's not easy choreographing all the parts and getting everything sounding decent. I basically sat on the couch with headphones on and said yes/no but he did all the time-management, which was great because I was paying by the hour. One thing I regret doing was only listening to playback on mega super great stereos. Because not everyone has that. A sound effect I put in goes horribly wrong on cheap speakers. The Kickstarter was up and successful, but mostly just because of people I knew. I was not especially happy with the process. If you have a gigantic internal network (like you're a 5K friend cam girl), Kickstarter is great--but if you are a 5K friend cam girl, you don't need Kickstarter, just ask your 5K friends. I wanted to hopefully reach people I didn't know. But I didn't find it was especially good at that. All during my project I couldn't find my project during search. Or it was drat hard. They highlight the successful Kickstarters and even the successful, expired ones, over my dinky one. I used Google adwords to help push some people to it, but if I hadn't had free $ from opening my (crappy) website, I would have lost money for sure. Then I needed a cover for my book. I wanted a painting. A real painting. Because I had grown up with the Frank Frazetta type stuff and I wanted a bit of a send-up of that. And I wanted to support an oil painter. I had a few artists get back to me but almost no one was interested in doing real paint. I was offering $1000 for the commission. Finally someone gave me a sample, I liked it, and sent him on his way. OH, to interject, I got contracts from everyone. All the copyrights are mine in perpetuity etc etc. It's lame, but I just didn't want to be sued later if I put them on a t-shirt. And I'm wearing a t-shirt now with a character on it. I just found some boilerplate contracts online, changed "Joe's Dildo Factory" to my name. So the painting is falling behind schedule and the artist didn't respond much. He was very much unlike my animator, who was always communicative. The final product was...not that great. But I was of the mind that I spent $1K and I was going to use it. I rolled it up and looked around about getting it photographed and turned into a proper cover (it was a large painting). I just did a web search for digital printing and photographing and sent some emails. I met the people, who were old pros, and they said they had to stretch the canvas. I left and they told me that there was a problem. The painting had not been allowed to dry properly and was now very wrinkled. They use a suction to hold the painting up and mash it flat, but even that couldn't erase the creases. They sent me a picture and I could see it was basically hopeless. I lost my deposit on the photograph. They said they would mail back the painting but never did. I crossed it off as a loss and said I was going to have to go to digital. The era of the painting is dead (cue the denials). gently caress Craigslist. This was my cover. People/kids buy novels based on covers. I know I did. I searched around for pro artists who matched my style. Most were very expensive. I found an artist who had done covers for Heavy Metal magazine and concept art for games and tv shows. We went back and forth and emails. His first quote was $10,000!!!! I talked him down substantially. I am very happy with the art. He was advertised in the Cartoonist network, or something like that. I basically went through hundreds of artists and their samples of wildly different skill levels. Some pieces of advice, put up your best work, don't put up your "I drew this when I was 15." Unless you're 15.  After my novel was done, I needed a real copy editor. Cuz I iz bad engrish. Again, supply and demand. I was BEGGING people to edit my work. PLEASE TAKE MY MONEY! I was offering anywhere from $500-1000. I have never seen so many people who professed poverty turn down money. They wouldn't respond. When they did respond it was weeks later. Most said they were too busy. Maybe they just knew my novel was too sucky to bother with. But I finally got a copy edit. Again, this isn't even an edit for content/story it's just grammatical. I think I paid around $900. They were advertised in the US freelance editors guild or whatever. It was decent but not perfect. I personally edited it many more times afterwards and found a lot of corrections. I don't know how the Harry Potters of the world do this, they must have like 50 editors. Using Gimp image editing software, I stole an image from my animation movie to use as the back cover, made a black spine with the title, put the cover on front. Then I put it up on Amazon. As I ported it over to Kindle and checked it out on Ipad/Iphone and various Kindle readers, I kept finding small formatting errors. Literally like one line or character. I would then I have to go back and correct all the versions and wait another 24 hours for approval. It was an extremely long and difficult process, but using all my own money made me a lot more vested. I was cracking the whip. I felt like a studio exec telling directors to change their "vision." Well, yeah, it's my money. I'm pretty tired, but happy I got it up. And if I die tomorrow...well, okay, that will still suck, but at least I got a novel. http://www.amazon.com/dp/1492974900/
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Oct 26, 2013 11:29
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Eat suck, suckface! (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Oct 27, 2013 05:10
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^regarding the user above. "Eat suck, suckface" is one of the quotes from the book. So he wasn't trolling. It's like if I wrote about a Star Trek book and someone said live long and prosper. In any case, my book is: My novel Hard Luck Hank: Screw the Galaxy is now #1 in Amazon's ebooks for kid's science fiction and it cracked 100 for aye-dults. It's actually pretty exciting for me. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FZ4OPI4 Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,113 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store) #1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Children's eBooks > Science Fiction, Fantasy & Scary Stories > Science Fiction #25 in Books > Children's Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction #100 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction
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Nov 5, 2013 19:01
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You paid $2,500 for a Newgrounds flash animation, $1,000 for a painting you destroyed, an undisclosed amount for your new cover, $900 for unfinished editing, and however much for the physical paperback. I guess the industry of middle-to-low-tier creative professionals thanks you for being so free with your Kickstarter funds
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Nov 5, 2013 19:39
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DukeRustfield posted:^regarding the user above. "Eat suck, suckface" is one of the quotes from the book. So he wasn't trolling. It's like if I wrote about a Star Trek book and someone said live long and prosper. To be fair, I was intentionally being a dick, so the probation was warranted. I didn't like what I read of your book etc. etc., but congrats on having it do well on Amazon!
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Nov 5, 2013 19:43
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Why does Hank have moobs? Is he like Meatloaf in Fight Club?
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Nov 5, 2013 23:06
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DukeRustfield posted:http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FZ4OPI4 Congrats on hitting the stride so well. How does that translate to profit, just curious?
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Nov 6, 2013 03:47
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If it continued at the same pace, which it won't, I could make a living off it. That said, it's only been out for like 3-4 weeks. While it would be really neato torpedo if it accelerated sales, I'm guessing there's a lot of people I know and people they know and people they know who are buying it. And once my 8th cousins all have my book, the sales will drop off. But it also makes me understand why people crank out a book a year--good or not. Because at this rate it would be an okay living. But over two years or three years, it would be poverty. People aren't going to buy multiple copies of my book just so I can eat.
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Nov 6, 2013 04:20
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This was the Kickstarter where you had like 20 different T-shirt rewards, right?
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Nov 6, 2013 05:31
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DukeRustfield posted:#1 in Amazon's ebooks for kid's science fiction
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Nov 6, 2013 06:24
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Yah there were a zillion t-shirts that no one wanted. Though I made some for myself and I like 'em... Someone on this forum said to broaden the audience. It helps on searching and potentially puts you #1 in some weird category. Like I was looking at some of the books I was competing with and they were #5 in cyberpunk and #8 in alien abduction or whatever. I'm still playing with the categories, you basically set the top level to Juvenile and/or normal and then choose keywords.
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Nov 6, 2013 06:58
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Yeah but ignoring "it gets me more attention", is the book actually aimed at kids? I always hated the way some authors stick every single applicable tag on a book, even if it doesn't belong there. It's dishonest, and it makes browsing for books online a huge chore. Overuse of it is almost the whole reason why the Kobo is a piece of crap: authors are allowed to tag their own books and they stick it in every single remotely-revelant genre, to generate more attention. Oh yes, "erotic vampire seduction: the seductioning" totally belongs in biographies, science fiction, steampunk and young adults.
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Nov 6, 2013 08:11
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Well, you have finite keywords, five. And can only have two categories. But then it does it's own blending and cobbles together some weird thing. Most books aren't "uh" genre. I doubt there is much benefit from mislabeling your book. People can simply return them via Amazon if you're a big fat liar. Especially the ebooks. And it's not like they can't read the title and browse it. Are people really buying "Koala Hair-Styling" books accidentally when searching for Auto Repair? I have no idea the age cutoff for my own book. I didn't amazingly think about it or care. I figure if YA/Teens browse it and like it, they'll buy it, or get their parents more likely. If not, they won't.
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Nov 6, 2013 08:49
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DukeRustfield posted:Well, you have finite keywords, five. And can only have two categories. But then it does it's own blending and cobbles together some weird thing. Most books aren't "uh" genre. I doubt there is much benefit from mislabeling your book. People can simply return them via Amazon if you're a big fat liar. Especially the ebooks. And it's not like they can't read the title and browse it. Are people really buying "Koala Hair-Styling" books accidentally when searching for Auto Repair? quote:I have no idea the age cutoff for my own book. I didn't amazingly think about it or care. I figure if YA/Teens browse it and like it, they'll buy it, or get their parents more likely. If not, they won't. Or you know, I could write DEATH SEX MASSACRE 5000 WITH DOG PENISES EVERYWHERE, call it 'The Marvelous Adventure', then give it a bright pink cover with a bunny rabbit on it and put it in the children's section. If they don't like it, they can just return it. It's their fault for buying it in the first place.
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Nov 6, 2013 09:10
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Again, you're wasting your categories if you knowingly put it in the wrong section. I could totally put my book in Cat/Fiction/Religion/Norse. But no one will buy it there and I'm missing out on potential sales from it being in a more relevant spot. I didn't place it in the children's section. Amazon did. I already stated this. We don't choose those categories. I've had like five different iterations of keywords trying to make sense of it. Which is maybe why all those koala books end up in auto repair.
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Nov 6, 2013 09:35
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Wait, what exactly is in your book? Whatever I saw in your preview seemed tame enough although I don't know if there's gonna be a bunch of swearing and/or darker subjects turning up which may not be suitable for children who may be more appreciative of stuff like A Wrinkle In Time. I'm not accusing you of doing anything wrong of letting the book stay in the children's SF/F section, but if your book has those stuff you run the risk of a backlash of people angrily returning your book and writing comments on how you're lying to sell it to children.
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Nov 6, 2013 10:43
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DukeRustfield posted:Again, you're wasting your categories if you knowingly put it in the wrong section. I could totally put my book in Cat/Fiction/Religion/Norse. But no one will buy it there and I'm missing out on potential sales from it being in a more relevant spot. Why can't you be an upright dude and answer what age range your book would be most appropriate for? I have a feeling that if you messaged Amazon and were like, "Hey, there's a DEATH SEX MASSACRE in my book, so this is totally not okay for kids," it would be gone from that category in a flash.
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Nov 6, 2013 14:38
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Because it doesn't matter. There are plenty of people who can get their panties in a bind over content and censorship and saving children from the evils of society. They work at the MPAA or RIAA or ESRB or whatever acronym. There is, thankfully, no such nonsense for literature that I'm aware. If you can't determine if a book is going to turn your kid or yourself into a frothing monster based on the significant resources available, my advice is don't take the risk.
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Nov 6, 2013 19:14
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God forbid something like principles stop you from putting 'Writer' on your business card.
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Nov 6, 2013 19:46
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DukeRustfield posted:Because it doesn't matter. By this logic, concerned parents should never let their children read. It's a bit unfair to expect parents to read every book their children want to read. That's what the age range recommendation is for. An Amazon Reviewer posted:[Full disclosure: the author gave me a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review] Ask this guy what he thinks the age range should be. If you can't judge the age range or don't care, ask someone else who would care. Then, you can relay that answer. That said, I plan on buying myself a copy once I get my next paycheck.
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Nov 6, 2013 20:08
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There is no such thing as age range recommendation. As I said, you get to choose two categories. Juvenile Fiction, which encompasses zygotes/children/young adult/teen, and Fiction which encompasses everything not Juvenile. If people are concerned about this, and some here do seem to be indeed very concerned, I suggest setting up some sort of society for the protection of children. Define the exact age every book should be consumed and not before. Get national and international accreditation, and put some kind of mandatory warning labels on books. But I wouldn't stop there, paintings also don't have age limits, if you can believe it. And last time I was at a museum I saw a ton of naked lady statues. I've seen unbelievably crude bumper stickers which my eyeballs were forced to witness due to auto safety. And graffiti. Even threads on forums--I believe there was some potty language used in this very thread! What good is protecting our precious futures from novels if they are merely corrupted via smut they encounter elsewhere?
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Nov 6, 2013 21:05
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Your book is obviously not a children's book. Your highest ranking is in the children's category, therefore you don't want to fix the mistake. It's kind of douchey and dumb, but also perfectly understandable that you don't want to kill any possible momentum you can get. Don't try to act like that isn't the reason, and that you have this strong ethical feeling about how books are rated and what children should read. Your #1 category right now, for some reason or another, is children's and you DO NOT WANT TO GIVE THAT UP. Be honest, dude. Hypothetical situation: In a first-grade class, a little kid says to another, "Eat suck, suckface!" Does the teacher get mad? Yes or no?
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Nov 6, 2013 21:14
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It's too bad there's not a separate category for purile along with juvenile or adult.
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Nov 6, 2013 23:18
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DukeRustfield posted:There is no such thing as age range recommendation. As I said, you get to choose two categories. Juvenile Fiction, which encompasses zygotes/children/young adult/teen, and Fiction which encompasses everything not Juvenile. Just as a tip, you should probably learn something about public relations if you're trying to relate to the public. Your lovely attitude has entirely dissuaded me from considering your book (the cover and the title/description already had me hesitant). Imagine if you acted like this in a more public way. Do you think weaseling around a legitimate concern is the kind of thing that makes people want to give you money?
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Nov 7, 2013 01:03
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You did not answer my question on what exactly is in your book.
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Nov 7, 2013 01:24
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What kind of marketing did you do?
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Nov 7, 2013 06:10
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Looking at your categories, it looks like you fixed the children's books issue. You're listed in Teen / YA Sci-fi now instead. I need to come to the OP's defense here for just a second, since a lot of people seem to have a misconception about how Amazon's publishing interface works. The OP is correct that it's difficult (and often completely outside an author's control) to get into the right categories on Amazon. (Though he could've explained the problem just a wee bit better.) Amazon's categories on their website are different from what they offer to authors in their publishing interface. The publishing interface uses a screwed-up version of BISAC categories and does not contain a teen/YA option. It divides between juvenile fiction and adult fiction and then places sub-categories by genre from there. For adult fiction or children's fiction, this is no problem. Teen books are a huge sticking point right now because of how the market has evolved and what it considers acceptable content, though. What you need to do in order to get into the teen Sci-Fi category is: #1 - Select Juvenile Fiction --> Sci Fi (Children's Sci-Fi) #2 - Use 'teen' or 'young adult' or 'teenage' plus one of the following internal keywords depending on your content... KDP Help Section posted:Teen & Young Adult Science Fiction/Action & Adventure: action, adventure #3 - Hope and pray that Amazon's internal systems actually read your keywords and detect that you're a teen book. (Contact KDP Support is comedy option #4.) If any one of these steps fails (#3 fails on its own sometimes), it'll stick you in the juvenile books categories where you clearly don't belong at all. The same problem exists with most categories in the teen/YA spectrum right now, and the workaround is really not clear at all until you've screwed around with it a few times and been burned by it. It's a stupid system and causes stupid issues, especially since step #1 is a requirement and the fallback mode, should #2 or #3 fail, throws you into children's books. You used to be able to do the "UNCLASSIFIABLE" category and then e-mail KDP Support directly, but they no longer change categories for you that way and just refer you to the help pages. Sundae fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Nov 7, 2013 |
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Nov 7, 2013 16:52
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I actually never figured out the categories. I changed the keywords maybe a half-dozen times and there was a lag each time, sometimes many days before it switched. The only thing that got me out of children's was literally hard-coding in "Teen & Young Adult" as a keyword. I actually put the name of that category in as a keyword, which, according to their own methodology, isn't required. I never had any keywords specifically for children's other than the generic science fiction. So I don't know, I just left it like it is. I don't think it really matters. As I said, it believe it hurt my book being in childrens as opposed to YA/Teen which is the audience I was trying to get into. Marketing I did was kickstarter, which I wasn't very happy with. A flash movie on my web page. Since my book has been released, the number of hits the web site has gotten has about doubled (monthly and daily avg). I used Facebook ads and Google Adwords. Facebook I found to be insanely expensive and it simply didn't get many clicks, I don't recommend it at all. I like the control of Adwords and I think it has been a decent tool. I put some money on Goodreads and it's been a joke. I have ZERO clicks. Zero. Since you pre-pay for it, the money is deposited and I'm waiting for the clicks to run it down. The # of impressions are low and the clicks are zip. I keep adding keywords and I keep upping the per-click payment to try and get it placed better and more often to get ANY clicks. I think one key on that is I link directly to Amazon instead of to a Goodreads page. People see it and don't want to leave or if they do, they can look it up later. My friend was telling me about marketing you can do directly on Amazon to push up your book, but I haven't looked into it. Just since I've been on they used to have my book split into two hits, one ebook, one paperback, now it just lists them as one. And it used to have the categories it was #1 in and say bestseller, now it doesn't. The biggest "marketing" I did was buying the cover. It is by far what I think most impresses people and leads to purchases, other than the catchy subtitle. But that also goes with my audience. If you're marketing a Sudoku book, you probably don't need an oil painting cover. Since some people commented, I'm going to try and put some of the images from the trailer and cover on t-shirts. The problem is getting a payment system that isn't overly-complicated and insanely expensive. Having $35 t-shirts isn't going to generate any sales. Also, if you read my reviews, some of the people say "the author contacted me." That's another thing I did and I don't know how long that pony will last--meaning, Amazon lists all it's reviewers. You can directly contact them if you so choose. So step up and do it. I went through all the Amazon reviewers who had categories like sci-fi and such and asked if they would review. That was a bit scary, because a bad review carries a lot more weight than a few good reviews. And I knew not everyone was going to like my stuff. I'm still a bit irked because one reviewer gave me a 3 and said you had to suspend your disbelief when reading my book, and I'm like, what part of "screw the galaxy" and a guy in a pink bathrobe on the cover made this seem like it was going to be true crime? No one asked, but you can also sign up for KDP select on Amazon. This means your book is exclusive to them on digital. Oh, as for digital vs. paperback, no one buys paperback. At least mine. The sales are miniscule compared to digital. For me it's irrelevant, I actually make slightly more profit on digital sales. Anyway, in KDP select, you become eligible for book loans via their Amazon Prime system. There is a lot of debate whether this is worth it or not, because you can't list your book anywhere else. Not smashwords, barnes and noble, apple, etc. IMHO, if you have a $0.99 book, it may not be worth it. Your book is cheap enough that people can simply buy it. The more expensive it is, the more likely people will borrow it. The more they borrow it, the more royalties you get from KDP select. My # of borrows in KDP has remained about 6-7% of my total purchases consistently. So that's a pretty decent number. However, I think it depends on the book/audience/price point on whether you want to lock yourself in strictly to Amazon. Since this is my first book and I still don't know wtf I'm doing, I spend a lot of time hitting refresh on my totals. I've seen a lot of buying habits. I'm on the west coast US, but a LOT of my sales come in >10pm PST. I don't know if it's a lag of their billing system or what. But I'll look through the day, biting my nails that my sales suck, and late at night it takes off. Insomniacs are good customers. This last Thurs I had my first drop in sales and I was like, well, I guess that's it. But over the weekend I had the strongest sales I'd ever had. As I was typing this I sold 5 books. I mean, that's kinda cool. As my totals have gone way up and down, my placement in the top 100 hasn't changed. This seems to be a very recent change. Earlier today I was about #1000 in all paid ebooks, now I'm #1229 and I've been about #1500 or so yet I'm always the exact same number in my categories. I think they got tired of updating it every minute, which about a week ago it seems like they did that. Because I could hit refresh and be #2 then #1 then #3 all within 15 minutes. I have my first reduced price campaign coming up in a few weeks. I wasn't really sure the benefit, but people have talked about all kinds of things it does. Most importantly, it adds you to the "people who bought this also bought this" at the bottom of purchases. Even if you give your book away for free during the promo.
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Nov 11, 2013 07:48
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Have you made back the money you put into it yet? If you did, how quickly?
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Nov 13, 2013 03:09
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Not yet. But my sales haven't been exactly linear. The first week or so it was considered released it didn't have an ebook version. Then I was in sucky categories when it was released. I hope that by the end of this month I'll break even on all costs. If I was going to pop a bottle of champagne it would be grape Mad Dog 20/20.
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Nov 13, 2013 07:18
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Kind of interesting, I just published a novel, and your book is the second 'also viewed' item (after another book I wrote.) Congrats on the book, it seems to be going really well. You said earlier that you reached out to Amazon reviewers to offer them copies of your book. Did you have a method for finding people who you thought would like it? For example, is there a way to look at the top reviewers list and filter it by people who liked sci-fi/comedy/your type of book? Or did you just look at similar style books, find people who liked them, and then offer them a copy? I'd love to be able to send a reliable reviewer copies, but looking at the list of top reviewers, it's hard to know where to start. For example, I feel like this guy might enjoy my book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A2NOZB6VZCTOI4/ref=cm_cr_dp_pdp How do you get in touch with him? rereedrumr fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Nov 13, 2013 |
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Nov 13, 2013 17:48
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Good question. http://www.amazon.com/review/top-reviewers That's a THOUSAND pages of reviewers, 10 per page. Some hints: a) skip anyone without email, you can't contact them no matter their preferences. b) have your ctrl-f ready for your primary genre "sci fi" or whatever. c) some users have so many preferences you have to go to a second page, it goes like this: Interests Frequently Used Tags › See all 187 tagged items The › See all 187 tagged items is another web page. Kind of sucks, you have to search in the next panel that shows all tags. d) people get a lot of review requests. In fact, in some cases, amazon pays them I believe. They have a vested interest in keeping their "found this review useful" number high because they are ranked as reviewers. I had some reviewers write me back and express concern my book wasn't big enough to risk a review on... This is what one person sent me: >>Does the Author requesting the review have a network who will find my review helpful if it is indeed helpful? This is an important aspect for a reviewer because our percentages are what keep us as top reviewers. For example, if I review an obscure book, how likely is it that people will encounter it by browsing? The more reviews I have with no votes, the more my rank is impacted.<< It's up to you to determine how much time you want to spend on this. e) don't send paperbacks. They are expensive and some unscrupulous people might just sell them. While you can get a discount via your direct connect, you have to pay shipping from amazon and from you and you have to do it. Ultimately the book is cheaper if you just gift a paperback direct from amazon. But if you send an ebook gift, that's by far the cheapest. Because you are paying full price, but you also get your 70% royalty (which you have to pay taxes on, but still). f) Make a skeleton email and then plug in some personal info for each reviewer. A lot of people wrote me back and mentioned how many request for reviews they get. So I certainly didn't invent this and I'm not sure how much longer it will be viable because these people will be so swamped. So starting off Dear Sir/Madam/Whatever isn't going to cut it, IMHO. Also, a bunch of times even though people showed up as sci-fi, they just reviewed one book or something. I had a priest one time get back to me and say it wasn't his kind of book. So you can look at how many times they review, but that's a whole lot of work and this process is pretty crazy as it is. Good luck.
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Nov 13, 2013 21:04
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Oh, and I forgot. There are a bunch of forums on amazon. Look for stuff like Meet the Author. And various promote your books threads. I think that's how I got some of my earliest purchases. There are also forums for the reviewers.
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Nov 13, 2013 21:23
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If you have more budget than time, there is also a website out there where a guy has made a database of top Amazon reviewers already, and for a fee, he'll submit to them on your behalf.
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Nov 13, 2013 21:24
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OK, cool. So i wasn't just missing how to contact them, they've chosen not to list their contact info. Thanks for the heads up. I'll explore the amazon author forums too.
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Nov 13, 2013 23:11
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While it is inspiring to hear about your successes in self publishing, I just watched your video and I have to comment that it comes off really flat. There really really should be some kind of music in the background. Music, and more generally sound effects, are super important even when it comes to live action movies - in a relatively low grade animated sequence I'd say they are absolutely crucial. You're obviously having some success so maybe you can afford to ignore this unsolicited advice, but I'm sure I'm not the only person who was put off by the lacklustre sound editing in the video.
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Nov 14, 2013 00:22
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I agree. But it was to coincide with my kickstarter campaign and I had to move forward. I was basically left in the lurch by people who committed and then backed out at the last minute. In one case, someone I had supported in his own musical endeavors for quite a few years. In one case my neighbor who had...man, I can't remember how that one fell through but it did. And just a bunch of other flaky people. So I was really unhappy about it all and you're definitely not the first person to comment. However, I just had to get going.
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Nov 14, 2013 00:50
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Yeah man, I think the video hurts you more than anything. It is just overall so low quality that it would make me think the book probably isn't going to be good. I don't LIKE your cover really, but I think it hits the tone you want and also it looks professional, and I'm guessing that was quite worth what you paid for it.
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Nov 14, 2013 01:50
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I like the video. And I had fun making it. I know it's cartoony. My voice is in it (though heavily modified). The book back cover (and inside for ebook) is taken from a still from the movie and I think helps the book greatly. I didn't know I was going to do that until I actually got down to designing it. Maybe two days before the book was released. I was just going to make the back cover and spine solid black and I turned around and looked at my library and I was like, what kind of stupid idea is that? There are a number of things I did to try and get interest. Every book is a needle in a steadily increasing haystack. Kickstarter was one, the video another. Those were basically a wash, but if nothing else, thousands of people had seen something about it. Even if most hated it, that's still better than being completely ignored. At least they have the chance of being intrigued. Oh, another sneaky thing I did. I sent digital copies of my book to literary agents. This wasn't so much an attempt to get an agent. I didn't even put any contact info or any letter. I gifted it from Amazon. Why? Because I learned that literary agents have truly stupendous Twitter accounts. They loving live there. And 99% of those they follow and follow them, are book people. If every one of them tweeted, "drat I got a lovely book called Hard Luck Hank: Screw the Galaxy," that is better advertising than I could ever possibly pay for. Though I really have no idea if this was successful at all. And I did Goonreads 
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Nov 14, 2013 04:11
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A little late to the party, but I wanted to chime in on the categories thing. It really is a pain in the rear end to get them right. My first book is YA Fantasy. Since I figured this would fall under Juvenile Fiction, I selected that, which put me in the children's category. This wasn't so bad since my book doesn't really have anything objectionable (no worse than Harry Potter), but I know it wasn't doing me any favors. Shortly after publishing, Amazon threw its hissy fit when it added Mexican Amazon and stripped all of my categories. I then spent a month of back and forth with support, trying to get them to just add it to the Sword and Sorcery categories for Teen & Young Adult plus the regular adult version (the Teen and Young Adult -> Sword and Sorcery category was the important one, since that's the most fitting category for the book). Over that month, my book was put into all sorts of categories, including non-fiction and sci-fi. It's still in sci-fi, actually, but there's no way I'm contacting Amazon about it since they finally managed to put the book into the Teen and Young Adult -> Sword and Sorcery category. Is it sci-fi at all? Not really. But anyone that reads the description should be able to easily determine that. I put "Young Adult Fantasy" in there just to be sure. The guides Amazon puts up for getting the categories correct don't always work, and sometimes the system just hates you. And Amazon support is very hit or miss (it's usually just a copy and paste response).
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Nov 15, 2013 03:05
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