Heather asked yesterday what promotion I do for my ebooks. I don't. I did try to hang around the Nook Forum and Kindleboards but I actually don't think of it. I think there is logic behind it. My books don't fall into what they seem to be excited by. I encourage everyone else to do it.
Reviews. Great. No one that I know of is reviewing middle reader books. Or YA for that matter. If you wrote a thriller kind of thing you can approach Red Adept for a review. Of all my books only Not Low Maintenance was reviewed. It got 5 stars, I'm sure the review is buried by now so I don't see how it can be a help.
So do I have a reason why my books are found at all. What sell sells. If you get on a list--the top 100 or whatever--it's easy to be found. Because the book is selling, it sells more. Charlie (Dream Horse) and Summer Horse have both been on the top something lists at Amazon and Nook for about 3 months. They sell because they're easy to find.
There is no better advice than from King Joe himself. Have a good, eyecatching cover. Write a scintillating description--yes, I hate doing it, it's like writing a query letter in that I have to be in the right mood for it. Tag your books. I still don't know the alchemy of how you're found. People must search based on their own preferences or desires of the moment.
One thing I have most writers coming to this don't have, is my entire lifetime of being a writer. So I have lots of books listed on amazon, some aren't digital, some I don't have the rights to. It's all self-referring. And I've going through most of my digital books to put in pointers to other works. If you liked Not Low Maintenance, maybe you'll like Sweeps.
The best advice I can offer and always offer is--DO YOUR BEST WORK.
A friend wrote a very inventive book quite a few years ago. Again mainstream publishing didn't understand it.
He has finally decided to go forward with it. He's such a good writer but like some of our compatriots here, he has no faith in his ability to do a cover. So I'm going to do one for him and perhaps he'll let me use the images as a tutorial for you. It's likely to be a very simple cover.
Let me stress now that you are better off with something simple. If you have a strong image, you don't need anything else.
Take a look at the Bad Apple cover. What's that. A close-up of a bad apple. And the title. I don't think I'll change it. Someone suggested a gun on the cover would be stronger but here's the thing--it's not what I want. Apparently I'm willing to lose potential sales in order to offer my sincere artistic vision. The whole Bad Apple series isn't catching on the way I would like but I want to write it.
So that's something a writer always faces. Do you write for the market or do you write to express something in you.
In Bad Apple 1, I quoted from The Thomas Gospel. This is part of the Nag Hammadi Library, fragments of original Biblical writings discovered in a cave in the 20th Century. There are some scholars who believe The Thomas Gospel may well be the only recording of what Jesus actually said.
If you bring forth what's inside you, what's inside you will strengthen you.
If you do not bring forth what's inside you, what's inside you will destroy you.
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