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magnificent7 posted:If the postal service will ship a book with feces smeared between the pages, I'll ship it to you free of charge. at least you know how to bounce back from a setback, I admire it
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Nov 14, 2015 05:09
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EngineerSean posted:at least you know how to bounce back from a setback, I admire it
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Nov 14, 2015 12:42
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It's the feel-good underdog story that somehow could still be improved by adding a wereanimal and a dangerous, sensual profession.
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Nov 14, 2015 13:08
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I'm at a book signing* today. And did I mention I got my book into a local library? My story is local, so the regional promotion and marketing is critical. * holiday gift market thing with a bunch of other artists.
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Nov 14, 2015 16:41
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I've been out of action for a while, I haven't yet checked/fixed my pagecount on Amazon. Is the procedure still as Jalumibnkrayal and others described a few months ago? Import in Scrivener, shorter paragraphs, double carriage return between paragraphs, export to mobi (via D2D if possible?)
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Nov 14, 2015 16:55
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Bobby Deluxe posted:That shoukd probably also be added to the cautionary tale - even if you think you hosed up, you can still pull it back. Shall do. 
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Nov 14, 2015 19:35
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Update on my in-person appearance to hock paperback copies of the book. Pre-gig details: 1. Where'd my paperbacks come from? BookTrope provided 10 free paperback copies, (for advance reviews, or whatever I chose to do) plus another 15 advance copies that are paid for with royalties once the money starts coming in. 2. What was this thing? What did it cost? This was a neighborhood crafts fair event, hosted by a friend who told me I should do it. Fee was $10 to participate. The promotion for it was astoundingly underwhelming to the point that i think less than twenty people came to it, (excluding the vendors). 3. How professional was your booth/table/setup? This was held in a neighborhood clubhouse. It's an old-money neighborhood in Atlanta, but it's just a clubhouse. They had a table with a tablecloth. I showed up with my box of books and a sharpie. (as far as the display goes. I also had my laptop in case it got boring). I took out the books, and wrote SUPERNATURAL THRILLER! on the side of the cardboard box with the sharpie. I pulled up a chair and expected to be ignored for the next three hours.  Gig Details: 1. What else was there? Everyone else was selling crafty stuff - jewelry, pottery, one hippie lady was selling massage oils and yoga stuff I think. I was the only male merchant, to give you an idea how out of place I was. And their stuff was pricey. The lady next to me was selling necklaces that started at $50 I think. 2. Were you reviled/ignored/hated by anyone because you are not arts, nor crafts, nor female? Nope. Everybody was nice, I got the feeling most of them had done a few of these. They had real marketing presentation-level stuff, business cards, brochures, credit card swipers, product-holders, big bright signs. I had $20 in ones to make change, and my cardboard box with "Supernatural Thriller" scribbled on the side. 3. What was the attendance like? I think that less than 20 potential customers came in, including children dragged along by some moms. ------ SO HOW DID YOU DO? -------- I sold 12 copies at $13 a pop. 5 of them were purchased by other merchants, and the rest bought by actual customers. Three of the buyers wanted their book club to read my book, based ENTIRELY ON THE BACK BLURB, THE COVER, and my elevator pitch: quote:them: "What's the book about?" My biggest mistakes: - assuming the whole thing was a waste of time because nobody buys books at an arts/crafts fair. - not promoting the poo poo out of the event to bring more people to the thing. - NOT HAVING AN EMAIL LIST because I'm a goddamn idiot. I had my laptop, I had a notebook and a pen, I meant to set it up soon as I got there. I forgot to do it. -- The takeaway: HOLY poo poo. People loved the local angle, loved the pitch, several people bought two (or more) copies. I doubt I'd have done so well if the story was not local, ("done so well" being a relative term). I get the feeling that promoting/marketing locally, in person and/or in print (local papers) is obviously the thing I should've been focusing on from day one. The friend who brought me into the event has worked in advertising for decades (like myself). She still lives in Marietta, (where the book takes place) and gave me specific great places to set up a table at some upcoming Marietta events. I'm driving over to Marietta in an hour to approach those stores and schedule some poo poo. 
magnificent7 fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Nov 14, 2015 |
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Nov 14, 2015 22:26
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Haha that "several copies were bought by other merchants" is really common. When we did a book signing at a convention I ended up buying more books there than we sold, haha. But hey, sounds like you could have put "SUPERNATURAL THRILLER AND MASSAGES" and you would have made more money.
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Nov 14, 2015 22:56
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Brotherly was giving me some advice in IRC earlier this afternoon regarding when to switch off a free promo period. His advice is basically to hit your peak free ranking, and then kill the free promo as soon as you see your rank begin to slip. Ideally you end the free promo the minute the rank refreshes, so that you're still showing high up in the free charts while the book is paid. My peak free ranking in the free store was #83 this morning. It's slipped to #90 now, and if I didn't have some pending changes (dicked around with categories at Brotherly's suggestion) I'd have killed the free promo already. I booked ExciteSpice and BKnights for Friday, and they hit at the same time giving me 1,866 dloads for Friday. I got a few people retweeting my promo (nice people from off-site doing me a favor), and that helped get me like 588 dloads so far today. Obviously it's slipping, and it's going to slip even harder tomorrow. The book was #2 and is now #3 in the shifter category, but it will probably start to plummet just based on the drop off in downloads from yesterday to today. Brotherly is correct, right, that I should kill the free promo now before the rank slips more? My paid promo is lined/lining up and this is what I have so far: quote:JustKindleBooks $36 - ACCEPTED. 19 November Anyone suggest I try for some other sites? Is this possibly overkill promotion? Is it not enough? For erotica I had a system worked out that relied on very little paid promotion; usually I just did Excite Spice Friday Feature for paid promo. For my first romance book I'm trying to err on the side of over-promotion. If the book flops or doesn't sell as well as I'm hoping, I want to eliminate the possibility of "didn't promo enough" from my list of things to fix for the next release. So far I've spent $219 on this release (including buying the cover). I think it's probably impossible that I won't make $219 back, and I'm willing to spend more if I have reason to believe it will increase my overall profit and author visibility etc. One thing I am doing for next release is hiring an editor. It's really hard to catch certain mistakes no matter how many times I read through, and adding days of extra proofreading time to my release schedule is days I could have been writing instead.
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Nov 15, 2015 00:23
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angel opportunity posted:One thing I am doing for next release is hiring an editor. It's really hard to catch certain mistakes no matter how many times I read through, and adding days of extra proofreading time to my release schedule is days I could have been writing instead. Another thing you can do if you can't afford an editor is to do a manuscript exchange with a fellow author in the genre. I guarantee there are plenty of shifter authors who would be willing to trade with you at either of the off-site forums. Also, do everything you can to keep that one reader on your good side. Unpaid editors are hard to come by! 
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Nov 15, 2015 00:57
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Sulla-Marius 88 posted:I've been out of action for a while, I haven't yet checked/fixed my pagecount on Amazon. Is the procedure still as Jalumibnkrayal and others described a few months ago? I don't think anything has changed. And I would export to .mobi straight out of Scrivener. I don't think you need to involve D2D personally. angel opportunity posted:Brotherly is correct, right, that I should kill the free promo now before the rank slips more? Brotherly is far more successful than I, but my understanding is that even if you peak on day one of your free promo you should still let it run for all five days. Yes, your rank will slip but if your downloads are too spike-y then Amazon's algorithms might not view it favorably. I think the notion is that long and steady is better than short and bursty. But I think it is important to kill the free promo manually while your audience at at peak viewership. Don't let it expire at 2am or whenever Amazon does it naturally. quote:Anyone suggest I try for some other sites? Shameless? Newotica? quote:Is this possibly overkill promotion? Is it not enough? Just depends on your expectations. You hit a really good free rank and I think you're definitely going to be in the green when it switches over to paid, IF the bargainbooksy comes through. If it doesn't, it might take a little longer. One thing I would definitely augment in a hurry are your categories. Three categories is on the low side. You want to be across a bunch of (applicable and appropriate) subcategories.
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Nov 15, 2015 01:11
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Sundae posted:Another thing you can do if you can't afford an editor is to do a manuscript exchange with a fellow author in the genre. I guarantee there are plenty of shifter authors who would be willing to trade with you at either of the off-site forums. I gave her a $20 gift card 
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Nov 15, 2015 01:19
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Jalumibnkrayal posted:
These are pending and I hope to god the new categories pop up once the changes are approved... Thanks everyone! What is the thought on the 5-day free promo vs. ending early?
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Nov 15, 2015 01:21
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angel opportunity posted:These are pending and I hope to god the new categories pop up once the changes are approved... Brotherly is right. That's the whole point, you cut it off when it's peaked.
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Nov 15, 2015 01:23
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angel opportunity posted:One thing I am doing for next release is hiring an editor. It's really hard to catch certain mistakes no matter how many times I read through, and adding days of extra proofreading time to my release schedule is days I could have been writing instead. I've edited several goon manuscripts, and if you're interested, reach out to me at booksidemanner at gmail dot com. Rates are reasonable and turn-around time is good.
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Nov 15, 2015 03:50
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brotherly is right about all things!!
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Nov 15, 2015 05:31
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brotherly posted:brotherly is right about all things!!
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Nov 15, 2015 05:38
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my updates are 'still in review' i'm going to just shoot myself now
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Nov 15, 2015 05:41
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angel opportunity posted:my updates are 'still in review' i'm going to just shoot myself now uh why?
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Nov 15, 2015 08:21
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I'm just over-stressing about this. Basically I wanted to end the free promo yesterday since my rank had peaked, but now the updates are taking forever so I can't end the free promo 
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Nov 15, 2015 16:21
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Thank you, brotherly!
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Nov 15, 2015 18:46
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angel opportunity posted:Thank you, brotherly! look at those sweet, sweet categories! and you're still in the top 100 in the free store, so good job.
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Nov 15, 2015 19:08
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angel opportunity posted:I'm just over-stressing about this. A) a good time to learn about not updating your book when you're trying to time your promotions is your first book B) lol at actually stressing out that you missed your ideal price-flip-time by eight hours. This is book publishing, not timing an orbital slingshot
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Nov 15, 2015 19:31
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I think you're panicking about minmaxing because you've been doing erotica long enough, you know there's so little money in it you have to wring every cent out of it. But my understanding is that you don't have to be quite so stringent with novels.
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Nov 15, 2015 19:44
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Well, I'm finally doing this, I guess. My first book comes out December 15th! http://www.amazon.com/Sky-Thief-Cloudkicker-Book-ebook/dp/B0181DH6IG/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1447614630&sr=1-1 Thanks a ton for this thread. It was super helpful with ideas and figuring poo poo out after god knows how many rejections. Maybe it'll only make, like, $20 but it's better than the nothing I was getting. Plus, I'm not really in the financial position to keep waiting on it. So, my big thing is that I'm also going through CreateSpace since physical copies are a fairly big deal for me. However, since I've already formatted the Kindle separately and gone through KDP for it ahead of time, will Amazon consolidate the pages for the physical and digital editions? I know CS lets you go through them to upload it for KDP, but the formatting was fairly different and I didn't really want to use the PDF I used for CS as the basis for the digital edition. On another note, figuring out formatting and cover design for CreateSpace was a whole experience, and I don't blame anyone for outsourcing that poo poo now. 
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Nov 15, 2015 20:36
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Axel Serenity posted:Skykicker https://authorcentral.amazon.com/ You and Magnificent7: You have to create an account there, and then it will ask you to "add books," you then search your book out and add it. This makes it so when people click your name by the book, it dumps them to the "author page," which will look like this: http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Brown/e/B000AP9DSU/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1447618075&sr=1-1 Instead of this: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_ebooks_1?ie=UTF8&text=Beau+Hall&search-alias=digital-text&field-author=Beau+Hall&sort=relevancerank You can customize your author page to add bios, link a twitter, add images, etc. Once you have multiple books, all your books will be listed there as well. Every time you publish a new book you have to remember to go there and manually add it onto your author page; it doesn't happen automatically.
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Nov 15, 2015 21:09
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angel opportunity posted:https://authorcentral.amazon.com/ Thanks a ton for the info! I'm doing it now, and it's super helpful. What about buying multiple formats from the same book page? Right now I just have the Kindle edition up, but I'd both formats to be available on the same link. Will CS consolidate those or am I going to have two separate store pages for two different editions?
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Nov 15, 2015 21:16
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I only do kindle editions, so I'm not sure how it works exactly. You can see on the Dan Brown author page that it shows under the book what kind of edition it is, and they look all mixed together. Then, usually you will see different editions listed on the landing page for a book (like in the below photo), but when you click "Kindle Edition" it dumps you to a new page. The ranking system for kindle editions and for print editions are separate. 
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Nov 15, 2015 21:21
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Sounds fair enough. I certainly don't have the output of Dan Brown, but hopefully I can figure it out. It's why I gave myself until the 15th; not to promote but to get this technical poo poo figured out. In semi-related news, let's talk about covers. Mostly bad covers. Because they're hilarious. I shared a spec of mine on Tumblr a bit ago as a reveal for promotion. That in itself isn't crazy; I like it and think the full-size jacket really hit what I was going for. But that's not what this story is about. Naturally, the reveal meant new follows from promotional bots peddling their wares in which, for only $5 I can have them promote my book on their profile! What a deal! Let's see what kind of work they attract...  The full subtitle for this one is "How to Get Sued by a Kardashian"   The colors, Duke! The colors! http://i.imgur.com/rQrEKQa.jpgAs goons, we all know the struggle of this man.
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Nov 15, 2015 21:37
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Axel Serenity posted:Well, I'm finally doing this, I guess. My first book comes out December 15th! Your cover is bad! Why is your cover bad? re: The editions, Amazon does that automatically. If they don't, you just drop them an email and they'll fix it.
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Nov 15, 2015 23:02
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Alright - I've absorbed 97 pages of wisdom over the past 2 weeks. Thanks for the free advice. Some of it has been a bit depressing (like the tiny, tiny audience for fantasy), and some of it has been quite encouraging (like seeing Hard Luck Hank's success). I've been writing Urban fantasy (think Harry Dresden or Felix Castor) for about a year and I currently have one finished 120k word manuscript and 64k words of a sequel (likely to clock in at ~120k words as well). After my 12th rejection on the original manuscript I was just on the verge of throwing the thing up onto Amazon with a horrible self-made cover and no promotion when I found this thread. Here are the things I will definitely now be doing: 1. Buying a cover. 2. Getting my blurb reviewed by the awesome people on this awful forum. 3. Writing more, more, more. I was averaging ~400 words a day. I bumped my minimum to 500 after starting this thread 2 weeks ago, and have averaged 750 since then. Did 1300 today. 4. Will pay for some promotion. Now for a few questions: 1. How much do you think localization matters? I'm an American living in London (yeah, the book is urban fantasy set in London, they have to be set there or Chicago apparently), and I keep wondering if I should do two versions and if so how I might do that to have both American and British english phrasing and spelling? 2. Should I wait to complete and prep the sequel before releasing? I'm only a bit over half way, but I have a good outline and know where I'm going. I think I could get to a finished product in 3 months. Seems like having a link to the sequel at the back of the book would be good, and this would give me a lot more marketing options. 3. I still have my American bank accounts and Amazon account. Is there any advantage to publishing via my U.S. account as opposed to my U.K. account? Thanks in advance.
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Nov 15, 2015 23:49
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ravenkult posted:Your cover is bad! Why is your cover bad? I am echoing this. Your cover is at least, if not more important than, the content of your book.
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Nov 15, 2015 23:55
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gerg_861 posted:Alright - I've absorbed 97 pages of wisdom over the past 2 weeks. Thanks for the free advice. Some of it has been a bit depressing (like the tiny, tiny audience for fantasy), and some of it has been quite encouraging (like seeing Hard Luck Hank's success). Hire me for your cover! UF is no romance, but it's still fairly popular compared to say, horror. 1. Spelling shouldn't matter too much imo. Like you said, there's other books set in London so I don't see a reason to localize it to the US. Could be wrong, but I'm sure Gaiman has opened some doors for Brits. 2. I think you still need to let the first book make its sales before you start plugging your second, but it should definitely follow close behind. 3. I don't think it does anything as far as Amazon is concerned. Just consider your banking/tax situation and do what's easier.
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Nov 16, 2015 00:01
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gerg_861 posted:Now for a few questions: 1. The British market is far too small to justify a version in the Queen's English. The market for people who will not read Urban Fantasy unless centre is spelled correctly is even smaller. 2. There is something to be said for pushing a release so you can get a sequel out within the month, so you get essentially two months of high priority covering from amazon. But Christmas is coming, which a) will gently caress with your production schedule and b) is the biggest time for new releases. So, personally, I'd go with a release now. 3. Foreign accounts might make taxes more complicated. You get an automatic 30% tax on any sale of an author from a non-US country, unless you provide a valid US tax ID. That shouldn't be too hard, but I guess you still have to file taxes in the US as well, so why double the paperwork? ArchangeI fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Nov 16, 2015 |
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Nov 16, 2015 00:04
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Axel Serenity posted:Well, I'm finally doing this, I guess. My first book comes out December 15th! From the OP... 
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Nov 16, 2015 01:49
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Yeah. I'm trying to upload a new version with better typesetting so everything's nice and centered, but apparently I can't make changes while former ones are under review. The blurb is what worries me the most, really. I'm terrible with those things and given the disparity between my query results and my beta readers, it's definitely my weakest link. Working on making a better one, but I dunno. At this point, it doesn't even matter if it sells. I just want to be done with it. I have a few pre-orders already, though! 
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Nov 16, 2015 02:49
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Axel Serenity posted:Yeah. I'm trying to upload a new version with better typesetting so everything's nice and centered, but apparently I can't make changes while former ones are under review. Do you mean the cover? the typesetting doesn't matter. there's no image on it. The title is "sky thief," show me some loving sky and at least one thief.
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Nov 16, 2015 03:00
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ravenkult posted:Hire me for your cover! Thanks guys for the quick responses with advice. I'm not one to ask for advice and then ignore it, so I'll aim to get my first book prepped and ready to go ASAP then put the hammer down on the second book. I'm pretty seriously considering going with you Raven on the cover. Anyhow, here is my blurb, would appreciate some help on it (especially to know if it is kosher to reference other characters). Dream Job: Do you think Harry Dresden doesn't get beat up enough? Do you think Alex Verus is too much of a combat machine? Do you think the world needs more London based Urban Fantasy? If the answer is yes then meet Julian Adler. Whenever he goes to sleep Julian is plunged into battle against the worst nightmares of his fellow Londoners. In the morning he wakes up and tells himself that his family, house and 9-5 job are enough responsibilities for the waking world. Sometimes he even believes it. That all starts to fall apart when a magnificent red-head walks into his office and delivers a sales pitch that his co-workers describe as “the stuff of dreams”. His interest piqued Julian looks into the woman's firm and is shocked to discover that all of their previous customers have disappeared...thanks to a sleep-invading pet demon. Caught snooping and forced to defend himself Julian discovers an ability to wield the stuff of dreams in the waking world. Determined to preserve his secret and act alone, the wealth and power of his enemies soon has Julian's job in jeopardy, his wife convinced he's having an affair and his house in ashes. He's the only one that can help, but can he defeat the bad guys, save the world and get to his vacation on time? What do you think?
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Nov 16, 2015 09:23
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EngineerSean posted:A) a good time to learn about not updating your book when you're trying to time your promotions is your first book You can actually bookmark your book's advertise and promote page. If you later make an update (like to the blurb) that puts it into review and locks the promo button, you can go to your bookmark and end your promo regardless.
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Nov 16, 2015 10:40
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Jalumibnkrayal posted:You can actually bookmark your book's advertise and promote page. If you later make an update (like to the blurb) that puts it into review and locks the promo button, you can go to your bookmark and end your promo regardless. Awesome one weird trick...will definitely do this bookmark next time
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Nov 16, 2015 13:08
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