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KrunkMcGrunk
Jul 2, 2007

Sometimes I sit and think, and sometimes I just sit.

Eyeneedle posted:

Trawling through Reddit right now. Still trying to figure out how to get those first few reviews. Am a UK Goon and Amazon is running a UK only KDP contest to hunt for new UK authors. I think I'm in with a shot, but have no idea how I'm going to get UK reviews for a book that will only be available on the Amazon UK website. All the usual promo options are out.

You should check out a co-op for NetGalley. The one I used was Patchwork Press, but I'm sure there are others out there. iirc, it cost me like $50 usd in 2015.

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KrunkMcGrunk
Jul 2, 2007

Sometimes I sit and think, and sometimes I just sit.

SquirrelFace posted:

Yeah, I guess it would overestimate "sales" since it's not estimating any KU page reads which I would absolutely be utilizing.

Is there a rule of thumb any of you guys use when deciding if a niche is worth it? Is there an overall rank limit you look for in the genre or is it just a write and pray approach?

I work in data analytics right now so I want the numbers, but I know Amazon is not very forthcoming...

I would look for a subcat that has around a half dozen books in the 1000s, and also with its 100th rank book in the 30-40k range.

It's hard to give more than a general range as there are a lot of factors that can play into, but that has proven a decent rule of thumb for me thus far.

Flopstick
Jul 10, 2011

Top Cop
Amazon have ruled the cover of my latest book to be 'extremely scary, disturbing, morbid, or shocking' - I know, cool, right? - which means they won't display ads for it on Kindle start screens. I'm fine with that - no great loss - but does anyone know if it will affect it showing up in also-boughts and the like? If so, I might need a new cover here, which would be a monumental frigging pain.

Eyeneedle
May 13, 2012

KrunkMcGrunk posted:

You should check out a co-op for NetGalley. The one I used was Patchwork Press, but I'm sure there are others out there. iirc, it cost me like $50 usd in 2015.

Thanks mate. Always wondered how self-pub authors got on Netgalley.

Popular Human
Jul 17, 2005

and if it's a lie, terrorists made me say it

Flopstick posted:

Amazon have ruled the cover of my latest book to be 'extremely scary, disturbing, morbid, or shocking' - I know, cool, right? - which means they won't display ads for it on Kindle start screens. I'm fine with that - no great loss - but does anyone know if it will affect it showing up in also-boughts and the like? If so, I might need a new cover here, which would be a monumental frigging pain.

You can't say that and then not post the cover.

Flopstick
Jul 10, 2011

Top Cop

Popular Human posted:

You can't say that and then not post the cover.

Well, the bit they have a beef with looks like this:



In all honesty, I wanted something rather more subtle, but it proved to be a tricky one to communicate to my artist. And in the end I thought it might harvest a few browsing gorehounds beyond my usual readership, and was worth a go... (There is plenty of gruesome experimental surgery etc. in the story, but I don't think it's particularly schlocky.)

Reading around today, I can't find any indication it won't display on the website as normal in the 'inspired by your Wishlist / Shopping Trends', also boughts, etc. despite the lock screen prohibition. No one else seems to have had issues. Fingers crossed, I guess.

Camo Guitar
Jul 15, 2009
Anyone know if there's a way to download a copy of your book out of KDP? I've Googled, had a quick look throughout all the options but still drawing a blank. It'll probably be right in front of me, I just keep missing it.

Big thanks for all the hard work in this thread too by the way - it's been a huge help in getting things off the ground and finally being able to publish something. Now onto the next one! :feelsgood:

Mirage
Oct 27, 2000

All is for the best, in this, the best of all possible worlds
I hate to see this thread fall apart, especially since self-pubbing is kind of a moving target and it's nice for those of us who want to get into it to get bleeding-edge commentary on what's working and what isn't. The down-voting jerks won, I guess.

Also, eugh. Reddit. Blah.

Ms. Chanandler Bong
Dec 20, 2008

I've just finished an 8k word short horror story and want to put it on kindle. Can someone give me the short and sweet on recommended pricing? I'm in the UK if it changes anything. Do I go through the .com site to get it worldwide? Is putting it out for free initially for a a week or something the best way to get the sales ranks up?

The OP is really useful partic for blurb and cover, but I dunno how much has changed functionality wise since then.

Edit: Here it is. It's free for 3 days if anyone's interested.

Ms. Chanandler Bong fucked around with this message at 13:50 on May 20, 2017

Bardeh
Dec 2, 2004

Fun Shoe

Mirage posted:

I hate to see this thread fall apart, especially since self-pubbing is kind of a moving target and it's nice for those of us who want to get into it to get bleeding-edge commentary on what's working and what isn't. The down-voting jerks won, I guess.

Also, eugh. Reddit. Blah.

What's Reddit got to do with anything? The reason most established authors aren't posting here is because goons have a tendency to doxx self-pubbed author goons.

Mirage
Oct 27, 2000

All is for the best, in this, the best of all possible worlds

Bardeh posted:

What's Reddit got to do with anything? The reason most established authors aren't posting here is because goons have a tendency to doxx self-pubbed author goons.

Some of the doxxed goons over the past few pages were talking about moving their discussion to Reddit instead.

Bardeh
Dec 2, 2004

Fun Shoe

Mirage posted:

Some of the doxxed goons over the past few pages were talking about moving their discussion to Reddit instead.

I guess there might be some private subreddits that people use, but in my experience most discussion takes place in private forums and Slack/Ryver groups. It's unfortunate, but public and semi-public forums always seem to attract various shady types, and in a business like self-publishing where someone doxxing you can absolutely affect your bottom line, it's better to be safe than sorry.

Fleetwood
Mar 26, 2010


biggest hochul head in china
Hoping this thread doesn't die! I love the info in here.

My best friend has been doing independent editing for years, working for editing mills mostly, but specializes in academic research editing and for writers who utilize English as a second language.

She's branching into self-pub manuscript editing for those interested. I think her rates are pretty competetive:

https://www.cloverleafediting.com

The Fuzzy Hulk
Nov 22, 2007

ASK ME ABOUT CROSSING THE STREAMS


When did ACX stop sending out the 25 free codes automatically? I got the Your ACX audiobook is now available for sale! message and now it says I have to email them to get the codes? Also, now is it not OK to redeem them yourself and then send the audiobook out as a gift? Because that is what this says

http://audible-acx.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/6965/c/3540,3541

I would always redeem them myself and only give them as gifts, because the codes can be used for any audiobook, not just the one you are trying to promote. By giving them as gift certificates it ensured they would be used for my book, and not Harry Potter or 50 Shades. Did they change that too, so that the code is specific to your book, or are they still generic codes?

Icon-Cat
Aug 18, 2005

Meow!
Boy, I haven't posted in here in ages. Writing my little stories remains just a hobby for me, but I enjoy it, and I've become a better writer of prose over the past however-many years because of it. (I could hardly have gotten worse, ha.)

Anyway, here's my newest, FREE through Sunday. Enjoy!

-----
Sydney is a fairy-tale princess—at her stepmother's birthday party company, entertaining children on the cheap while her real life's stuck on hold. All she wants is to finish her master's, get out and join the grown-up world. Between her student loans and family debts, there's no chance for that happy ending.

But things might be looking up; she's just booked her first big corporate gig, playing princess at a fancy local ball. The money's great—and what's more, the client's son is awfully charming…

Award-winning writer and filmmaker Adam Bertocci has been praised by Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, The New Republic, GQ, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Back Stage, Broadway World, E!, Maxim, IGN, Wired, Film Threat and more. In this offbeat retelling of his favorite fairy tale, he spins the same old story in a brand-new way. Really.



https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B072JM979Y

The Fuzzy Hulk
Nov 22, 2007

ASK ME ABOUT CROSSING THE STREAMS


Is that the right link?

Icon-Cat
Aug 18, 2005

Meow!

The Fuzzy Hulk posted:

Is that the right link?

Well, this is a new one.

It was working before. Now none of my links to it are, in other forms, from other sites, whatever.

In fact, when I search for my title on Amazon, it comes up, but when I try to click through, it gives you that same service error.

My KDP bookshelf doesn't report any problems with my title.

Well, that's just great. :mad:

EDIT I seem to be having that trouble with all KDP books I'm trying, not just my own. So at least it's not just my projects, although, boy, great timing.

Icon-Cat fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Jun 7, 2017

The Fuzzy Hulk
Nov 22, 2007

ASK ME ABOUT CROSSING THE STREAMS


Yeah, bookreport is intermittently giving me weird application errors today. Amazon must be borked up. Might explain the slow sales today.

gently caress, even Harry Potter is broken.



If Harry Mother-loving Potter is broken, it is bad.

It seems to be working on my iPhone, but slower than normally, only my PC wont display the books...

The Fuzzy Hulk fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Jun 7, 2017

Dr. Kloctopussy
Apr 22, 2003

"It's time....to DIE!"
It's every product page on Amazon :lol:

The Fuzzy Hulk
Nov 22, 2007

ASK ME ABOUT CROSSING THE STREAMS


Jalumibnkrayal
Apr 16, 2008

Ramrod XTreme
I had more than a little heart attack to find my book page giving 503 errors when I finally got one to rank in the 200s. Not pleased but at least it's equally loving everyone over.

The Fuzzy Hulk
Nov 22, 2007

ASK ME ABOUT CROSSING THE STREAMS


Um, guess we know what happened now, unless I'm the only one with a completely different dashboard.

Might be a while before bookreport catches up...

Jalumibnkrayal
Apr 16, 2008

Ramrod XTreme

The Fuzzy Hulk posted:

Um, guess we know what happened now, unless I'm the only one with a completely different dashboard.

Might be a while before bookreport catches up...

Book report is fixed. It requires a new link and you run it from the bookshelf, not report.

The Fuzzy Hulk
Nov 22, 2007

ASK ME ABOUT CROSSING THE STREAMS


Jalumibnkrayal posted:

Book report is fixed. It requires a new link and you run it from the bookshelf, not report.

That was fast!

freebooter
Jul 7, 2009

Soooo it looks to me like I finally shelled out for Book Report just in time to see Amazon change its reporting data for the better so that you don't really need it anymore. Ah well.

Drunken Baker
Feb 3, 2015

VODKA STYLE DRINK
I was reading this thread about a month ago and there was a service you could sign up to where it sent out info on your book to a load of mailing lists and someone said that that, combined with a "free promotion" was a good was to get your work noticed via amazon?

Thing is, I can't for the life of me find it again and this is a long thread. Any clues?

Also I released this a while ago without checking this thread for advice about the blurb/cover. Any critiques?

http://bit.ly/2jVJjXK

Drunken Baker fucked around with this message at 14:20 on Jun 12, 2017

Jalumibnkrayal
Apr 16, 2008

Ramrod XTreme

Drunken Baker posted:

I was reading this thread about a month ago and there was a service you could sign up to where it sent out info on your book to a load of mailing lists and someone said that that, combined with a "free promotion" was a good was to get your work noticed via amazon?

Thing is, I can't for the life of me find it again and this is a long thread. Any clues?

There are a lot of paid NL advertising options. On the pricey side you have freebooksy.com and on the cheaper end there's BKnights on Fiverr.com.

quote:

Also I released this a while ago without checking this thread for advice about the blurb/cover. Any critiques?

http://bit.ly/2jVJjXK

The other books in your category: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-Horror-Anthologies/zgbs/digital-text/4542716031/ref=zg_bs_nav_kinc_4_362283031

Your cover is reminiscent of the old Weird Tales/Tales from the Crypt, which I think works.

Your first paragraph doesn't really hook the reader, so I'd change it. I'd rather know more about the main story: there's someone named Barney, and he did something. I'd rather get details about him and what he did.

Drunken Baker
Feb 3, 2015

VODKA STYLE DRINK
Cheers mate. I'll look into those when I get home.

As for the blurb, is this any better?

Book Blurb posted:

The world is doomed due to one man’s vanity!

Born a hideous, twisted wreck, Barney was willing to do anything for love and adoration. His facial abnormalities were too extreme for surgery to fix and his pride forbade him from paying for the company of women. With nothing left to lose, he decided to forfeit his soul in a deal with the devil for all the love, fear and respect in the world.

There’s just one small problem…

Barney doesn’t have all the facts. The Devil, as he believes him to be, doesn’t exist and what he’s summoned is something much older, much darker than anything humanity could have imagined and his wish is the final key that has unlocked the gates that will lead to the end of all things.

Dude wants the world to 'know his face'. a cosmic type 'old one' grants his wish in order to break into our reality then eats everyone... In the form of a giant head that looks like the fat guy who summoned it.

What about the other stories? Should I just list their names or give them a brief summary too?

Drunken Baker fucked around with this message at 11:11 on Jun 13, 2017

Jalumibnkrayal
Apr 16, 2008

Ramrod XTreme

Drunken Baker posted:

As for the blurb, is this any better?
...
What about the other stories? Should I just list their names or give them a brief summary too?

I like the new blurb, it's more descriptive. As for the rest of the stories, I don't know. Check out how your colleagues are blurbing.

On another note, D2D just sent out an email detailing their new partnership with Findawayvoices, so it seems like there may be another avenue for audiobook creation and distribution besides ACX. I don't believe they support revenue sharing, so you just have to pay the narrator per finished hour. Also, I don't know what their cut is.

Drunken Baker
Feb 3, 2015

VODKA STYLE DRINK
Thank you for your help. I had it in my head the description should be real short for some reason.

Jalumibnkrayal
Apr 16, 2008

Ramrod XTreme

Drunken Baker posted:

Thank you for your help. I had it in my head the description should be real short for some reason.

It's worth mentioning that my experience is in Romance, so things might be different in horror. Nine times out of ten it's a good idea to research what the bestselling books in your genre are doing.

freebooter
Jul 7, 2009

Drunken Baker posted:

I was reading this thread about a month ago and there was a service you could sign up to where it sent out info on your book to a load of mailing lists and someone said that that, combined with a "free promotion" was a good was to get your work noticed via amazon?

Thing is, I can't for the life of me find it again and this is a long thread. Any clues?

Not sure what the exact one is but there's a whole sortable list here...

https://www.readersintheknow.com/list-of-book-promotion-sites

...and there's definitely more than one which offer the service of basically saving you the hassle of individually signing up to all the free ones - if you pay them $20 or something they'll submit to about 35 free newsletters for you.

Personally I prefer to do it myself, because there's a lot of sorting the wheat from the chaff - a lot of the free ones have bad web design, outdated links etc and I doubt whether they're actually worth the time. I'm coming up to releasing my third book in a series and once again making the first book free, and last time I did that I basically just signed up to as many free newsletters as possible and dropped maybe $100 cumulative on the paid newsletters. It's a scattershot approach because it's impossible to tell which ones are actually leading to the clickthroughs and downloads, but it seemed to work. I made that $100 back many times over within a week, at any rate.

edit - also, this might be obvious, but it wasn't to me at first: keep track of anything you spend on promotions, and also what you spend on a cover or editing, because if you end up turning a profit they'll be tax deductible.

freebooter fucked around with this message at 08:17 on Jun 19, 2017

Drunken Baker
Feb 3, 2015

VODKA STYLE DRINK
That's superb, thank you.

Jalumibnkrayal
Apr 16, 2008

Ramrod XTreme

freebooter posted:

Personally I prefer to do it myself, because there's a lot of sorting the wheat from the chaff - a lot of the free ones have bad web design, outdated links etc and I doubt whether they're actually worth the time.

And if you advertise with newsletters that aren't specific to your genre, this could mess up your books AlBos (Also Boughts). This is a concern for later in your publishing career, but it's something to keep in mind. Basically Amazon offers any book that manages to meet a secret sales threshold in the form of free advertising by displaying it as an Also Bought beneath books that have common customers.

This creates a positive feedback loop when your Spy Thriller sells well to customers of Spy Thrillers and gets shown alongside other Spy Thrillers. But if your Spy Thriller gets shown next to Six Minute Abs diet books, that could send your book off into algorithm purgatory. Again, this is mostly an issue for when you start breaking into three or four digit ranks. Until then, get every sale you can!

Jalumibnkrayal
Apr 16, 2008

Ramrod XTreme
Amazon's July Surprise for 2017 so far seems to just be zero page reads for everyone.

The Fuzzy Hulk
Nov 22, 2007

ASK ME ABOUT CROSSING THE STREAMS


Jalumibnkrayal posted:

Amazon's July Surprise for 2017 so far seems to just be zero page reads for everyone.

Yeah, I love making GBS threads myself first thing in the morning. At least some sales are going through (unless that is just carry over from last night)

Jalumibnkrayal
Apr 16, 2008

Ramrod XTreme

The Fuzzy Hulk posted:

Yeah, I love making GBS threads myself first thing in the morning. At least some sales are going through (unless that is just carry over from last night)

Yeah sales are probably accurate, but they're changing something on the KDP back-end and that's always reason for concern. :/

Popular Human
Jul 17, 2005

and if it's a lie, terrorists made me say it
Oh thank Christ I'm glad it's not just me.

CrcleSqreSanchz
Aug 21, 2002

I'm feeling something new...something...I'm happy??!!

Jalumibnkrayal posted:

Yeah sales are probably accurate, but they're changing something on the KDP back-end and that's always reason for concern. :/

Amazon establishes "write or die" method where if you don't meet your amazon authorized page count each month they delete your back catalogue*


*kindle exclusive only and at a lower rate because this new technology is expensive.

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Trustworthy
Dec 28, 2004

with catte-like thread
upon our prey we steal
I'm about to release a title that desperately needs to make some money, DON'T YOU DARE gently caress ME OVER AMAZON :argh:

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