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Sundae
Dec 1, 2005
Too much drama and really creepy stuff associated with it. The threads are locked and archived (they were in BFC before), and all the discussion has moved off-site.

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ex post facho
Oct 25, 2007
Sundae, if I don't have PM, any way I could correspond with you directly?

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot
the brotherly phl, I'm going to critique a couple things about your book. I gave you a borrow so at least you'll have $1.30 to go along with my thoughts.

first of all, remove everything below "Undersold is a standalone, full-length novel." from your blurb. I can see where something like that could look pretty good, but you've got it all wrong. Your "short preview" is a generic line that could come from literally any book and is not really sexually charged at all. Your "About City's Secrets" could go in the section in Author Central for either editorial reviews or something else, but it looks bizarre here. The worst offender is "Categories" in which you list

quote:

City’s Secrets New Adult Contemporary Romance eBook Categories:


- New Adult best sellers
- Billionaire kink
- New Adult psychological
- Billionaire lust
- New Adult and college books
- Billionaire bdsmerotica
- Billionaire bachelors

It looks awful even forgetting that you have "New Adult" and "Billionaire" listed several times and bdsmerotica spelled like that.

brotherly
Aug 20, 2014

DEHUMANIZE YOURSELF AND FACE TO BLOODSHED

EngineerSean posted:

the brotherly phl, I'm going to critique a couple things about your book. I gave you a borrow so at least you'll have $1.30 to go along with my thoughts.

first of all, remove everything below "Undersold is a standalone, full-length novel." from your blurb. I can see where something like that could look pretty good, but you've got it all wrong. Your "short preview" is a generic line that could come from literally any book and is not really sexually charged at all. Your "About City's Secrets" could go in the section in Author Central for either editorial reviews or something else, but it looks bizarre here. The worst offender is "Categories" in which you list


It looks awful even forgetting that you have "New Adult" and "Billionaire" listed several times and bdsmerotica spelled like that.

Okay, got it. Thanks for the critique, I appreciate it.

I'm trying to place on specific keywords, which is why bdsmerotica is spelled like that, but obviously I don't know what the heck I'm doing. I'll put the City's Secrets bit in the editorial reviews on authorcentral, like you suggested, and cut everything else.

Should I put in a better short preview, or not even bother?

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot
We sometimes do excerpts but that doesn't really even register as an excerpt. Also, when you say you're trying to place on specific keywords, are you using those keywords in the "keywords" field? Because Amazon's search engine doesn't search the blurb. Google does but most people will come from Amazon's search engine.

brotherly
Aug 20, 2014

DEHUMANIZE YOURSELF AND FACE TO BLOODSHED

EngineerSean posted:

We sometimes do excerpts but that doesn't really even register as an excerpt. Also, when you say you're trying to place on specific keywords, are you using those keywords in the "keywords" field? Because Amazon's search engine doesn't search the blurb. Google does but most people will come from Amazon's search engine.

Yeah, I'm using them in both places. I didn't realize that amazon's search engine didn't hit the blurb, so that sorta makes the idea moot, yeah.

I mean I'd use a longer excerpt, but is it necessary/worthwhile?

Thanks again for the critiques/advice. I appreciate it.

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot
I personally use excerpts for my romance but what I use is an emotionally charged scene or something leading up right before the sex. Something that is exciting and sets your book apart. I tried to pull yours to say why yours isn't very exciting but you've deleted it through Author Central already, and I'll let you know that you've got four line breaks in between each paragraph now. Go to the HTML version and wherever you see <br /><br /><br /><br /> or <br /><br /><div></div> remove two of the <br />'s

Sulla Faex
May 14, 2010

No man ever did me so much good, or enemy so much harm, but I repaid him with ENDLESS SHITPOSTING
I swear I read on the appropriate subreddit that Amazon does search your blurb for keywords... I wonder how much of the advice and accepted rules in that place is actually true and how much of it is wrong (either through newbie echo chambers or deliberate misdirection). There are supposedly a few people doing very well on it but they tend to be short on practicable advice.

Sundae
Dec 1, 2005
Search for an exact line from your blurb and watch it not come up in results. Google will find it, but Amazon will not.

This is also how people figured out that Nook Press's keywords aren't actually search keywords for their B&N site, but for 3rd-party search engines: use a throwaway keyword and watch it not come up when you search for it on B&N. *If that has changed since early 2014, I wouldn't know. I haven't published with them in about a year.)

Sundae fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Feb 17, 2015

Sulla Faex
May 14, 2010

No man ever did me so much good, or enemy so much harm, but I repaid him with ENDLESS SHITPOSTING
I left my laptop at home so I will check tomorrow, but was that always the case? I got the book "Make a killing on kindle" by Michael Alvear based on some reddit recommendation and it specifically mentions that your book's "landing page description" (which I understood to mean the blurb) counts for keywords.

What a crock.. Is there even a standard reasonable resource for this or does everybody learn by doing, interspersed with the occasional kind-hearted mentor?

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot

Sulla-Marius 88 posted:

Is there even a standard reasonable resource for this or does everybody learn by doing, interspersed with the occasional kind-hearted mentor?

If there were a guide to doing this, I probably wouldn't be doing as well as I am.

brotherly
Aug 20, 2014

DEHUMANIZE YOURSELF AND FACE TO BLOODSHED

EngineerSean posted:

I personally use excerpts for my romance but what I use is an emotionally charged scene or something leading up right before the sex. Something that is exciting and sets your book apart. I tried to pull yours to say why yours isn't very exciting but you've deleted it through Author Central already, and I'll let you know that you've got four line breaks in between each paragraph now. Go to the HTML version and wherever you see <br /><br /><br /><br /> or <br /><br /><div></div> remove two of the <br />'s

Thanks for catching that, the editor was being really annoying and adding extra html in. I thought I had it right and went out to shovel.

You're totally right though, it wasn't exciting at all. I'm going to try something different when the keyword edits I made earlier this morning go through.

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot

the brotherly phl posted:

Thanks for catching that, the editor was being really annoying and adding extra html in. I thought I had it right and went out to shovel.

You're totally right though, it wasn't exciting at all. I'm going to try something different when the keyword edits I made earlier this morning go through.

Don't beat yourself up over it, but I'm glad you're making changes! :)

brotherly
Aug 20, 2014

DEHUMANIZE YOURSELF AND FACE TO BLOODSHED

EngineerSean posted:

Don't beat yourself up over it, but I'm glad you're making changes! :)

Hey, you guys know what you're doing, I'm just trying to learn. :coffeepal:

I fixed the HTML, now I'm going to find a better preview that leads right up to a sex scene.

Sulla Faex
May 14, 2010

No man ever did me so much good, or enemy so much harm, but I repaid him with ENDLESS SHITPOSTING

EngineerSean posted:

If there were a guide to doing this, I probably wouldn't be doing as well as I am.



These mother flipping fibbers. Gosh

Is there any consensus on Amazon keyword phrases? I've seen some people state without doubt that all keywords are split up into single words, others that phrases are crucial, and still others that they have never been able to figure a difference.

I've seen people recommend that you split several multi-word category keywords by commas, I.e. "dog and pony" and "frog and toad" should be separated by a comma. I've never understood that but it hasn't come up yet for me so I haven't killed myself thinking about it

brotherly
Aug 20, 2014

DEHUMANIZE YOURSELF AND FACE TO BLOODSHED

Sulla-Marius 88 posted:

These mother flipping fibbers. Gosh

Is there any consensus on Amazon keyword phrases? I've seen some people state without doubt that all keywords are split up into single words, others that phrases are crucial, and still others that they have never been able to figure a difference.

I've seen people recommend that you split several multi-word category keywords by commas, I.e. "dog and pony" and "frog and toad" should be separated by a comma. I've never understood that but it hasn't come up yet for me so I haven't killed myself thinking about it

Oh yeah I was wondering this, too. Is it exact match? On kboards, I read that having the exact match helps you rank higher (duh), but keywords stuffed into a huge phrase will still get hit too.

So something like 'doggy frog leaf pond bark ribbit woof' would ping your book if someone searched 'woof' or 'ribbit'.

Sulla Faex
May 14, 2010

No man ever did me so much good, or enemy so much harm, but I repaid him with ENDLESS SHITPOSTING
It will still definitely match but what I want to know is whether it will prioritise a phrasal match. E.g. two books with keywords:

Cat kills dog
Kill cat dog

Will result equally for the search "cat kills dog" or whether there is a preference for the first on exact phrase (and order of keywords) and that Amazon doesn't need to do its pluralisation/verb morphology thing on 'kill(s)'

Sulla Faex
May 14, 2010

No man ever did me so much good, or enemy so much harm, but I repaid him with ENDLESS SHITPOSTING
I remember spending a few hours on Amazon last week trying to figure out which of my keywords were working or not and for the life of me I couldn't understand why sometimes (out of a list of 5-15 keywords including one fake) Amazon will return my book using only a few keywords, and then if you modify the search slightly it will use return the book using completely different keywords (all, however, included in the original search).

For e.g. I might search for:

One two three four five xxxzzzz

The last one being fake and not a keyword I used in my book. It will return the book having located it using:

Two three.

I switch the search to:

One two three four five six xxxzzzz

And it will return the same book using one six.

Or some such insanity. I can't explain it properly because I just did not understand the pattern at all. Anybody else found this?

grenada
Apr 20, 2013
Relax.
I have a short story blog that gets about 100-200 unique visits a day. I want to monetize it. Obviously I should just write my own ebook and pimp it through my site. I've started outlining a young adult horror story, but the going is slow. In the mean time, is there a way that I can join a book blog network or sell adspace directly to authors/publishers in the same genre as me? Or is that a waste of time and I should just focus on writing my book?

edit: I only have about 15 stories. Maybe I should focus on writing more stories on my site, and then publishing those stories as a free collection on Amazon? Could be a good way to cut my teeth on the self publishing process while adding more content to my blog.

grenada fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Feb 17, 2015

Bobby Deluxe
May 9, 2004

Short stories generally don't sell on Amazon unless you already have a following. You'd be better off putting ads on the site and making money there.

In terms of exchanging links I hear good things about plugrush and linkstorm, but that was a while ago, you might be better off asking the blog thread.

Another idea might be to publish submissions on the site, then once you've got a few good ones, invite the authors who's work you liked most to do an exclusive for the compilation. That way fans of the site will have a reason to buy the compilation, and if you intercut the exclusives with highly rated favourites from the site, the authors will do most of the promotion for you. Not Sundae / Sean money, but possibly some nice cash on the side.

e: someone previously suggested editing your shorts into one narrative if possible.

Sefiros
Mar 16, 2006

go radish go
I put this up recently, it's a really awful novella that me and a few friends wrote. It's basically low-brow toilet humour fantasy. I'm not sure if the blurb can be improved any. Probably?



GLORY. HONOUR. LARGE WORDS.

One man must forego these luxuries and begin an epic quest filled with danger, peril, redundancy, and sodomy. One man must brave the uncertainties of a world filled with men, because it was written by men who are afraid of women. One man must set aside right and wrong, and do what needs to be done.

When sidekicks can't be trusted – when captured princesses aren't worth the hassle – when you're in the toilet and you've forgotten your smart phone – only one man can be relied upon to handle the situation:

BON'JELLAR: HERO OF ORDEGRON

On a journey to rescue a princess, an unlikely hero is determined to conquer any obstacle he may encounter – including the princess. Bon'Jellar, the Prince of Ordegron travels far and wide in pursuit of acquiring new skills, meeting resistance at every turn and finding himself in perilous situations. Along the way, the seemingly incompetent warrior battles kidnappers, warlords, and Bon'Jellar's cleverly disguised arch-nemesis, Ulcerman.

Imperfect
Sep 24, 2009
My impressions:

Your first paragraph sounds like it should be your last paragraph.

Why is the princess an obstacle to be conquered?

Your hero's name and home town sound like they should be a joke, but aren't.

His nemesis is Ulcerman, really? Maybe this name is relevant and appropriate in the context of the story, but it's not in the context of the blurb.

How is Ulcerman cleverly disguised? What does that even mean in the context of this blurb?

Avoid the use of the word "seems", it's wishy-washy.

I guess I wouldn't have understood that it was supposed to be absurdist fantasy if you hadn't hinted at it before the blurb. The blurb needs to be a lot more ridiculous in order to indicate that, otherwise it just looks like kind of off-kilter fantasy.

Sefiros
Mar 16, 2006

go radish go

Imperfect posted:

I guess I wouldn't have understood that it was supposed to be absurdist fantasy if you hadn't hinted at it before the blurb. The blurb needs to be a lot more ridiculous in order to indicate that, otherwise it just looks like kind of off-kilter fantasy.

Thanks, I'll try and have a poke around it and see if I can get anything better out of it.

The first half of the blurb was written by one of the guys who wrote the book with me, and the second half was written by someone on Fiverr after giving them the plot details.

brotherly
Aug 20, 2014

DEHUMANIZE YOURSELF AND FACE TO BLOODSHED

Sefiros posted:

Thanks, I'll try and have a poke around it and see if I can get anything better out of it.

The first half of the blurb was written by one of the guys who wrote the book with me, and the second half was written by someone on Fiverr after giving them the plot details.

could you work in the fact that the one part was written by a stranger who never read the book? seems like the sort of funny conceit your book works toward.

no clue if that will sell you books or not, I just think it's funny.

Vilgefartz
Apr 29, 2013

Good ideas 4 free
Fun Shoe
Dear Goons,

I have an older friend (70's) that i'd like to help publish his book. He's pretty much unaware of self-publishing on the internets as a whole.

Basically, it's a (as he described it) a 70% fact, 30% fiction (in that its posed in a fictional way) story about his history as a successful arms dealer across the world.

He's been in the ten of millions, and has done arms trade all over the world, including here in Australia with the federal and state police.

I'm just wondering how would one market this sort of novel in the case that it's worth a drat, and if there's a an audience for a 'based on a true story' sort of thing about powerful men and selling arms.

Imperfect
Sep 24, 2009

Sefiros posted:

The first half of the blurb was written by one of the guys who wrote the book with me, and the second half was written by someone on Fiverr after giving them the plot details.

With the number of times its been pointed out that your blurb is maybe the second-most important thing selling your book for you, I think that you'd probably do a lot better to put some honest effort into it yourself.


the brotherly phl posted:

could you work in the fact that the one part was written by a stranger who never read the book? seems like the sort of funny conceit your book works toward.

no clue if that will sell you books or not, I just think it's funny.

I think that's maybe more "in-joke funny" than actual funny. Like, authors might get a kick out of it, but regular joes who are just looking to buy a book are going to miss the point entirely.

moana
Jun 18, 2005

one of the more intellectual satire communities on the web

Eastdrom posted:

I'm just wondering how would one market this sort of novel in the case that it's worth a drat, and if there's a an audience for a 'based on a true story' sort of thing about powerful men and selling arms.
If he writes it as a thriller genre novel I can see it doing pretty well. The "Based on a True Story" wouldn't be the selling point, though, memoirs don't sell for poo poo. Market it strictly as a thriller if you want sales.

AgentCooper
Oct 27, 2014

There's nothing quite like urinating out in the open air.
So, I've been perched on a Judas Cradle in the most demeaning circle of Hell for the last half year (otherwise known as querying my manuscript to literary agents) and I thought I was at a thankful end (all rejections, CNR's, or people who just didn't respond to full MS for months who I assumed weren't interested) and could finally get around to self-pubbing like a well-adjusted person but I got an email from one of the agents essentially asking for a revise/resubmit and a phone call. I scheduled the phone call because I want to know if some significant changes I've made (with ravenkult's help, btw, props to him) are already in line with that he wanted, and also because it's important for the agent to realize I'm not a complete sociopath or a prima donna (only partially, thanks), but I'm also kind of leery of the whole thing, too.

I've read some dismal stats out there (and this is all anecdotal blog stuff or posters on querytracker so the legitimacy is in doubt) that suggest even an agent-represented debut author's MS has like a 15% chance of actually selling, whereas even established authors have maybe 60% chance of an actual sale once in an agent's hands (by the way, these are much worse numbers than your chance of surviving emergency aortic valve replacement, and that's the sort of surgery where if you're not bawling your eyes out at your own impending doom when the surgeon talks to you, you haven't been paying attention). The whole process can take years and years and your MS might end up in limbo for all eternity, as well. So even though this is really the self-pubbing thread, I wanted to see if anyone could comment on what I've heard about the trad pubbing process, and if I should even consider taking the gamble and try for the R&R, or whether I'd be better served by just saying "no thanks" and going to press much sooner. I have the resources to buy a good cover and my MS has already undergone professional freelance editing, so I'm virtually ready now. What do?

AgentCooper fucked around with this message at 15:54 on Feb 19, 2015

psychopomp
Jan 28, 2011

laxbro posted:

I have a short story blog that gets about 100-200 unique visits a day. I want to monetize it. Obviously I should just write my own ebook and pimp it through my site. I've started outlining a young adult horror story, but the going is slow. In the mean time, is there a way that I can join a book blog network or sell adspace directly to authors/publishers in the same genre as me? Or is that a waste of time and I should just focus on writing my book?

edit: I only have about 15 stories. Maybe I should focus on writing more stories on my site, and then publishing those stories as a free collection on Amazon? Could be a good way to cut my teeth on the self publishing process while adding more content to my blog.

Okay, if you want to make money writing short stories:

1. Sell them to paying fiction markets. New ones. If they're on your publicly available blog you've killed your first electronic rights, and that's what editors buy.

2. Put them on your blog after they've been purchased, or at least after you've given up trying to market them.

3. Post new stories on a regular consistent basis. Weekly is best. Bi-weekly is okay. You can probably get away with monthly. Set up a mailing list to alert people when you've put out a new story.

4. Set up a Patreon and push this at the end of every story. People pledge to donate $1 or more every time you publish a new story. Offer cool enough rewards and you'll get people to donate more. Say for $2 they get to read the stories before everyone else (stories sent to your patrons don't eat the rights paying magazines want to buy), or you could send them ebook collections of your shorts for free, or do hangouts, or whatever else you think would incentivize people to throw money at you.

Imperfect
Sep 24, 2009
Bleh. 25k words in, and I am keenly aware of all my story's faults. My main character is a milquetoast Mary-Sue, my dialogue is terrible, and my plot is opaque, aside from a myriad of other problems.

Still, two things keep me going:

1) Maybe I can fix it in revisions, being more aware of the story the second time around, and
2) People buy all kinds of crap these days.

Well, and also kinda 3) I'm really hard on myself. I found a short story I wrote about a decade ago and cringed, then read it and... well, the ending fell apart, but the concept was neat and the character voices came across pretty uniquely.

In summary, writing continues to be hard, but you all are inspiration. Thanks again for regular contributions to the thread. This tab remains open.

moana
Jun 18, 2005

one of the more intellectual satire communities on the web

AgentCooper posted:

So even though this is really the self-pubbing thread, I wanted to see if anyone could comment on what I've heard about the trad pubbing process, and if I should even consider taking the gamble and try for the R&R, or whether I'd be better served by just saying "no thanks" and going to press much sooner. I have the resources to buy a good cover and my MS has already undergone professional freelance editing, so I'm virtually ready now. What do?
What's your goal with this? If you are aiming to make money, you need to be able to write more than one book if you go the self-publishing route. I do a novel every 1-2 months and I still feel like I'm falling behind in visibility sometimes. If this is your only baby for the next year or so, then trad pub might be your best shot at making any money.

Sundae
Dec 1, 2005

moana posted:

What's your goal with this? If you are aiming to make money, you need to be able to write more than one book if you go the self-publishing route. I do a novel every 1-2 months and I still feel like I'm falling behind in visibility sometimes. If this is your only baby for the next year or so, then trad pub might be your best shot at making any money.

Your output is still super amazing to me, Moana. I want to tap into this boundless energy of yours and steal some for myself.

Edit: Maybe I could just start writing at work before my brain gets too exhausted... :v:

moana
Jun 18, 2005

one of the more intellectual satire communities on the web
I don't have a day job anymore, and you need to take care of yourself! And I have no energy; all of my output is fueled solely by self-loathing and coffee.

Bobby Deluxe
May 9, 2004

I miss coffee :(

brotherly
Aug 20, 2014

DEHUMANIZE YOURSELF AND FACE TO BLOODSHED

moana posted:

self-loathing and coffee.

fuel of champions

vez veces
Dec 15, 2006

The engineer blew the whistle,
and the fireman rung the bell.
You're missing a key ingredient for the full artistic process. Coffee, self loathing, and an ounce of narcissism is what my recipe calls for.

painted bird
Oct 18, 2013

by Lowtax

moana posted:

What's your goal with this? If you are aiming to make money, you need to be able to write more than one book if you go the self-publishing route. I do a novel every 1-2 months and I still feel like I'm falling behind in visibility sometimes. If this is your only baby for the next year or so, then trad pub might be your best shot at making any money.

Is a novel every 1 or 2 months the standard recommended rate?

i say swears online
Mar 4, 2005

chthonic bell posted:

Is a novel every 1 or 2 months the standard recommended rate?

The recommended rate is likely "as fast as you can without killing yourself".

Imperfect
Sep 24, 2009
Do you ever look at the NaNo challenge and just think "...chumps"?

In other news, how the christ do you punctuate that sentence? It feels like it needs a final period inside the quote to mark the contempt of the statement, but I the author am asking a question.

It's been a long day.

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Bobby Deluxe
May 9, 2004

Imperfect posted:

Do you ever look at the NaNo challenge and just think "...chumps"?

In other news, how the christ do you punctuate that sentence? It feels like it needs a final period inside the quote to mark the contempt of the statement, but I the author am asking a question.

It's been a long day.
Punctuation should always be inside the quotes, I was taught.

As a general rule, if a sentence is causing you trouble then reword it:

quote:

Do you ever think "...chumps." when looking at the NaNo challenge?

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