Self-Publishing Goons (Amazon, B&N, Smashwords, etc)

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > Self-Publishing Goons (Amazon, B&N, Smashwords, etc)

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Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

I just uploaded my first novel, Anchored to the Flesh, the first of a planned trilogy of violent fantasy novels for teenagers. I'm a college near-graduate and and I'm confident in my ability to craft a captivating story. I've been through several thorough edits and a professional revision; this is a tightly paced and entertaining pulp novel.

http://www.amazon.com/Anchored-Flesh-Silas-ebook/dp/B0057SMG5C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1308934768&sr=8-1

My only worry is getting the word out. I've read this thread and plan on buying some advertising on Facebook and maybe on SA, but if anyone else has any tips for a struggling newbie, I'd appreciate any help you have to offer.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2011 22:19

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 23:20

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

I honestly didn't realize that $5 was such a steep price. I've never worked with e-books before, so I simply lack the experience to gauge what is reasonable and what isn't. Also, taking your guys' advice, I reworked/expanded the blurb:

quote:

Silas is a wizard who travels from world to world searching for an artifact that will enable him to speak to his dead wife. When he and his friends Bottle and Kellikek find a good lead from the diviner Hargold Omenstop in the city of Sareb Forest Market, Silas is mistaken for the killer of the very man he sought.

"Anchored to the Flesh" is the story of Silas, bound to an oath of pacifism yet craving revenge, chasing after answers to the twin mysteries of the real killer and the fate of the only woman he ever loved. A gritty novel filled with frequent action, "Anchored" nonetheless explores Silas's psyche as he struggles to maintain his morality in a rotten world.

The first book in a planned trilogy.

After the price reduction kicks in, I'll hawk it on Reddit. Thank you, everyone.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2011 06:35

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

I've never bothered with Twitter before, so I never thought of using it for advertising. I need to get on that. And Reddit, from what I hear.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2011 22:05

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

Doctor Zero summed it up. drat, that was a great post.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2011 06:07

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

I've sold 4 copies total, all to friends and family. I'm signing up for that Independent Author Network.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2011 21:40

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

Roshi posted:

Do what I'm doing and write another book! Repeat until sales.

Already working on my second one. I will make a living with my writing come hell or high water.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2011 05:19

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

Friended you all on Facebook. Here's mine: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=628700402&ref=name

Roshi posted:

Can I twenty-five goons to like my facebook page so I can a separate login. http://www.facebook.com/pages/K23-Detectives/216577915032153

I can't promise I'll read it anytime soon, but I bought a copy of A Clear and Feathered Danger. Looks interesting.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2011 20:35

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

Yeah, I used a row of asterisks in my book and they showed up fine even on Kindle's notoriously finicky formatting.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2011 07:54

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

FingerbangMisfire posted:

Big Al's Books and Pals is great. Daily Cheap Reads as well. Those are just off the top of my head.

http://booksandpals.blogspot.com/p/submitting-book-for-review.html

"We are currently NOT accepting unsolicited review submissions until we catch up with evaluating those already received.

Blast.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2011 20:02

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

I too just got my first paycheck (well, direct deposit) from Amazon. 12 bucks. I'm in the big time now, baby.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2011 04:15

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

Tagged FingerbangMisfire's books. If you want to, here's mine: http://www.amazon.com/Anchored-Flesh-Silas-ebook/dp/B0057SMG5C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1308934768&sr=8-1 and http://www.amazon.com/Meat-ebook/dp/B0057QO56M/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315179767&sr=1-1 (Just one-up everything for both books, please). Thanks in advance to anyone who does this.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2011 00:50

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

Submitted a short story as well. Pulitzer, here I come!

# ¿ Sep 15, 2011 00:41

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

FingerbangMisfire posted:

In Kindle All-Stars News: I'M IN!

*High-fives*

That's pretty rad. I'm happy for you and wish you huge piles of money in the future.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2011 02:11

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

Also my book got covered on "Why Is My Book Not Selling?" They seem to think the opening was confusingly written and the cover was vaguely sexual. (Huh?) I will take their advice to heart and make improvements wherever possible, though.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2011 02:29

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

They are right that my blurb is kind of crappy and needs to be spruced up. Hopefully I can get something useful out of this.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2011 02:43

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

Not all of us can be best pals with Harlan Ellison. Throw some nepotism our way, will ya?

Edit: Be sure to compliment him on his Star Wars novels.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2011 03:07

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

MidnightRain posted:

I've just taken the plunge and put up the end result of my first full writing project, Tales of Newerth:

On Amazon and on Smashwords

It's a fantasy based setting with a series of short stories ending with a novella (130k words total, novella is 65k). I've also included the opening to the next full length project that's in progress at the moment.

I definitely feel that my writing improved steadily throughout writing this and in what i'm working on at the moment, however as this project is all finished and I think the stories are entertaining it would be a shame not to release it

I bought a copy of your book but I had to search for your name in amazon.com because the amazon.co.uk link you gave was stupidly denying me access to it based on region. Why would Amazon want to prevent sales like that?

# ¿ Sep 16, 2011 03:40

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

Quantify! posted:

I don't see anything sexual in your cover at all and I absolutely LOVE it. Better than a whole lot of print covers. Who designed it?

Based on the cover alone it's in my "buy when I stop paying for school crap" list.

Thanks. My brother Mike is a professional artist who offered to draw me a cover for my first book. I'll pimp his website here if you're interested in seeing more.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2011 19:07

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

Goat Bouillabaise posted:

I've been talking to them back and forth. They interviewed me last month or so, and since then we've been chatty. I was surprised, but they really liked the book. So there you have it.

Nice. This is a big break for you.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2011 05:11

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

MattDaddy posted:

gently caress that. I'm one unprofessional son of a bitch, and I don't care. Plus, there's no such thing as bad publicity when you're a nobody.

Don't do this. This is the worst attitude you can possibly have. Ask Jacqueline Howett.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2011 05:17

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

Azure_Horizon posted:

new ad just submitted to the eFiction online magazine. That tagline is SO dope.

Is it wise to have the tagline the same size as the title and author?

# ¿ Oct 8, 2011 09:06

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

clockworkjoe posted:

Book Rooster

I just Googled this site now and it looks fantastic. Considering my zero reviews, it seems a worthwhile investment.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2011 08:11

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

Some Kindle All-Stars editor said he liked my short story but I still didn't make the cut.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2011 01:37

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

workingdogv1 posted:

Great, I appreciate it. Funny how the marketing aspect seems so easy until you actually get into it.

Writing a book is easy. Writing a good book is somewhat difficult. Getting noticed is phenomenally challenging and the biggest obstacle to overcome as a writer.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2011 21:54

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

It looks like you need an invite to get on Triberr. Since you already have an account, you could start a goon tribe or something.

# ¿ Nov 9, 2011 03:07

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

vseslav.botkin posted:

PROPOSAL: goon erotic anthology.

Naked Came the Stranger: Goon Edition. I like it.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2011 05:11

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

CoffeeCat posted:

Is anyone brave enough to talk about how well their book is selling?

Are people making any money?

I've sold about $20 worth of books in five months. You've heard this many times before, but getting started is hard.

# ¿ Nov 20, 2011 04:26

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

A friend tried to convince me to write a series of crappy cliched vampire novels under a pseudonym to make a quick buck. Selling out is looking better every day.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2011 09:09

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

I'm still sending futile requests to agents and publishers but it could be years before anything happens on that end, so all digital for now.

# ¿ Dec 1, 2011 08:48

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

MattDaddy: Bought a copy.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2011 05:39

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

I put my e-book (48k words) on Kindle for $4.99 at first but lowered it to $2.99 based on advice from this thread. Not that it's helped sales any, but I think it was the right thing to do.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2011 01:32

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

I was lucky and my brother offered to do the cover of my book for free, and he had the decades of artistic and computer design ability to make it aesthetically pleasing. Also, another opportunity to pimp it out in this thread:

http://www.amazon.com/Anchored-Flesh-Silas-ebook/dp/B0057SMG5C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1317959534&sr=8-1

# ¿ Dec 13, 2011 21:41

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

Thanks to Bookrooster.com's services, I received the first review for my novel. I find it odd that he thinks the beginning was the best part since the beginning was the stuff I mostly wanted to get out of the way to proceed to the action. In fact, I think the final battle sequence is by far the best part of the entire novel. But it's hard to disagree with his conclusions.

I must improve.

# ¿ Dec 15, 2011 12:44

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

I will make a living with my writing come hell or high water. I just need to sell about a hundred books/day every day more and I'm set.

# ¿ Dec 27, 2011 21:34

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

leb388 posted:

He also posted a nice passive aggressive blog post about me, saying I'd be a better writer if I followed religious principles.

Tell him you're converting to the Moonies or Zoroastrianism or something and can't talk to him anymore.

And while we're discussing holiday sales, I got... one! Maybe I should up the price after all.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2012 00:40

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

I'll remove the couple of "damns" I have in one of my short stories and submit it. A little bit of self-censorship is worth potential publicity if it gets accepted.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2012 10:37

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

Pope Eggs Benedict posted:

I like goons and want to support them! All I have is a nook, though. Which of you fine authors are published in B&N? Give me links and I will spend some money on words and write some reviews.

Here's mine. Hope you like violent fantasy for teenagers!

# ¿ Jan 10, 2012 11:37

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

Damnitologist posted:

That kinda sucks. Get...erm...well soon. Or whatever you say to something like that.

You're supposed to say HANGIN'S TOO GOOD FER THE BITCH or something.

Also, got another review for my book. People seem to like the beginning but think it peters off, but I have the opposite opinion. It's also true that Anchored is full of excessive violence, but I ate that kind of stuff up when I was a teenager.

Live and let buy. People are somewhat enjoying my writing and I'm grateful for that. Instead of griping that no one understands me, I'll make my next book better.

Soulcleaver fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Jan 13, 2012

# ¿ Jan 13, 2012 07:50

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

Damnitologist posted:

Awkward, if they get back together and I'm the dickish one who was insulting his chick.

Prose before hoes.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2012 08:45

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 23:20

Soulcleaver: Sep 25, 2007; Murderer

workingdogv1 posted:

Wayyyy back before self-chat here, but I'm curious to find out whether these reviews are accurate so I picked up a copy.

Thanks, man. Every new reader is a good thing.

Also, I want in on the CYOA stuff. I loved that crap in grade school and the Kindle would be a great format for it. Maybe each goon author could write a separate section and Damnitologist could wrap it all together.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2012 23:08

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > Self-Publishing Goons (Amazon, B&N, Smashwords, etc)

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