Members of the Dollars, I come to you in a time of dire need. Recently, I have reached a point in my life where I am between jobs (I currently get unemployment insurance but it runs out at the end of the year), and to make ends meet I am trying all sorts of different things. One of those things is the publishing of novellas through Barnes and Noble.

Star Maiden is one such novella. Telling the story of a witch in an alternate world Spanish Empire, it's a quick 30,000 word read that I'm selling for two dollars per copy. It can be read on phones, tablets and PCs. I am quite proud of it.

Unfortunately, I have very few ways to spread the word about it, and that's why I'm coming to you all. I am not asking you to buy it unless you really, really want to. But if you can, please tell those you know about it. So far, I have sold less than five copies and it's been up since August. I have gone as far as to hand out flyers in nearby cities to no avail.

I cannot do this alone. Any help you all can offer will be greatly appreciated. The Dollars is a community that I have loved being a part of since 2011. Please, help me if you can. Thank you.

I think we can publish your work as featured of "helping the artists" this month. Hope that helps and people will share it =)

DONE!! https://plus.google.com/+TheDollars-missions/posts/XitmB52PCUb

Good luck!

bump

Something that comes up in any interview of an ebook author who has done well is the amount of time they need to spend online promoting it. Handing out flyers is one thing, but have you considered asking book reviewers to have a read? Have you found blogs that look and review independent authors?

>>6 nice advise!

>>6 I will definitely need to give that a try. Do you know of any independent reviewers I could contact?

(Damn, you beat me to making a thread like this lol)

Five sales in a month isn't terrible when you're starting off, but if you want to sell more, I highly recommend checking out the Writer's Cafe for tips on self-publishing.

http://www.kboards.com/index.php/board,60.0.html

Do you mind if I give some advice?

>>9 Bookmarked. And if you have any advice, by all means I'd love to hear it.

>>10 okii

1) Have you considered publishing on Amazon, Kobo, iTunes, GooglePlay, and the overseas retailers (which can be accessed via aggregators like Draft2Digital and Smashwords) as well? They're all just as easy to publish with. Amazon also has very helpful programs for exposing new writers if you sell a book exclusively with them for a few months. You can also distribute paperback versions on Amazon using Createspace.

2) The 1.99 price point is well known to be a dead zone when it comes to sales. I recommend choosing .99 or 2.99. 30k words is just long enough that 2.99 shouldn't make too many readers whine.

3) Your blurb is kind of confusing. I recommend skipping the setting and starting with a snappy line like the one you gave in this post. You can give the longer setting details after the catch.

What about something like this?
"Akantha is a Slavic witch with a bad reputation. Responsible for the fall of Spain and Portugal, it's no surprise she's facing hostility centuries later. But when a new world war rocks even the powerful Iberian Empire, her powers will leave the weight of the world on her shoulders once again. What land will find alliance with this ancient daughter of countless empires?" And afterwards you could do a paragraph discussing the state of the Iberian Empire and the current society, etc. without losing a hook.

4) Can I make you a more professional cover? I needed to download some more stock photos anyways. (And if you say yes to this... Would you say your book leans more towards literary, political, or fantasy fiction? Or something else?)

5) Your book has no table of contents. This can be a pain on e-readers. I recommend adding one at the start of your document, where each chapter listed links to the related heading. (Other than that, this is actually really well formatted.)

6) Once you've cleaned up the listing a bit, you may want to consider getting a Facebook ad. They work well for self-pub books. You can target them for specific audiences (such as people who have "Liked" a book similar to yours), and you can limit the campaign budget to a couple dollars at a time so they don't eat up your money. But don't do a post boost. Video ads are the cheapest but may not draw as much attention to your listing as a link/product ad.

7) Are you planning to write more books after this? If so, you may want to look into marketing yourself as an author. Set up a (cheap or free) website. Make social media accounts. And most importantly, open up a (free) mailing list with MailChimp so you can contact readers whenever there's a new release. You can put a link to sign up for the list at the end of your book.

That's what the experts suggest, anyway. I'll be publishing in the next month or two as well. (I'm using the Liliana Nirvana technique of putting out several books at the start of a series, which needs some more prep time.)

Lol I read it. Shittiest book ever. You really need to work on your writing. (If that book could even be considered to be literature), really disappoints me that this kind of stuff passes as literature. Read something like Corey in the House, that shit is the most intelligent and thought out book ever written.

>>11 Some things:

In regards to Amazon and iTunes: NO, NO, NO. There are multiple reasons why I will say NO from the getgo. When Amazon started their Kindle service, not only were books DRMed to hell, but it was written in their ToS that you could not sell anywhere else for one year. I don't know if those terms have changed in the past three years, but I do not trust them when it comes to being a seller. And as far as Apple is concerned, you have to pay them if you want a book listed. Not happening. Google Play does not offer a publishing service (you need an existing ISBN to sell with them so it's possible that the B&N ISBN will work but I'll have to do more research).

As far as pricing goes, with publishers like Kindle and Nook, your revenue stream is tied to the price as a percentage. When I set the book at $1.99 it was because it provided the most ideal percentage for someone who is a starting author (I'll make 40%, which is eighty cents, off each sale).

Now, the blurb. It's understandable what you are saying, but at the same time there is a bit of a complexity there in that one is trying to encapsulate the full context of the story. In the blurb you wrote, the context has been changed in a variety of ways. You wrote it as if she, the protagonist, were in control of the events of the story. The opposite is true; she is trying to come to grips with the changing world around her. Her turmoil is more of an internal (morals) conflict, which is why the blurb is set up the way it is.

While it's generous for you to offer to make me a cover, I must decline. The cover is one that was created from a set of photos I took myself. It's also one which I feel best melds to the setting of the book, which is why I chose to shoot the photos at the location I did.

There should be a way to jump between chapters pre-formatted into the book, because the book was adapted to B&N NookPress's method of sectioning. If there isn't, that is a limitation of the software.

As far as Facebook goes, I am vehemently against their services, so that's out. If I start penning additional stories like I have planned, then I will see about creation of a web page or blog. However, that idea is still a ways out.

Last night I did do a bit of research into what the "experts" believe a self-published writer should do. Frankly, I was disappointed because many of the techniques were ostentatious at best and downright aggressive at worst. One thing I will NOT do as a writer is compromise my own ethics.

COREY IN DA HOUSE IS THE BEST BOOK SHUT UP

>>13 Amazon has the majority market share when it comes to ebooks. For most indie authors, all those other channels combined are less than 20% of their Amazon income. They no longer have their year restriction (that was years ago). The only way your book is restricted is if you enroll it in their Select program, which is totally optional.

Apple does not have a fee. You can distribute to them through an aggregator service as well.

Google Play does have a publishing service, and you do not need an ISBN. https://play.google.com/books

I'm aware of the percentage that's taken. It's just that the 1.99 price point is a dead zone.

The blurb was just an example. I'm not aware of the actual story, so there's a limit to what I can do with it.

Jumping between chapters is usually possible on the host device, but glitches can occur, and there's no reason not to have a manual alternative (imo).

You don't need to compromise your own ethics. Just observe and educate yourself, and pick and choose what works for you in the end.

Congrats on publishing, by the way!
Good luck with everything c:

>>15 So after doing a bit of looking it turns out you were correct on the Google Play and iTunes things. I apologize. Anyway, I will see about adding to those storefronts but before I can it seems I have completely rebuild the ePUB file (the way NookPress encoded it is rife with errors). Also, I did up the price to 2.99, so we'll see what that does (if anything).

Because I have to rebuild the file anyway, I will see what I can do about its sectioning. Kind of a shame when writers have to double as programmers.

>>17 I agree. There are a lot of hats to take on when you're your own publisher.