The Eighth Screwup

Let's talk about advertising, marketing, book reviews, and awards.

This is where we separate those that have money for their project and those who do not.  You need the talent to write your book.  You need to practice to bring your craft to a whole new level...  AND you need to have a secret hoard of dragon gold to pay to advertise it when you're finished.

There are a lot of people who are willing to take your money in order to market your book.  I get emails from them, telling me they think my new book is marvelous (there's no way they've read it) and they think the readers on their mailing list would love to buy my book.  A spot in their newsletter only costs $25.  Websites that promote books do this too.  Cover slot only $35, and they'll send out information about your book in their next newsletter.  Promotional packages cost between $10 and $400.

Stuff like this.

I don't know how well any of that stuff works.  My Facebook feed is full of people who have tried all this stuff for promotion and got nowhere.

Remember those digital publishing companies I mentioned in my post about ebooks?  Yeah, they won't help you much with advertising.  They'll put it all on your shoulders.  You know why?  Because this sort of thing is super expensive and very much like playing random games in a casino.  Who knows what's going to stick?

Now let's talk about book reviews.  Getting them is an enormous pain in the rear.  Finding someone who is willing to sign their name to a review, saying your writing is good is rare.  Also, Amazon really cracks down on reviews that have been paid for, and A LOT OF AUTHORS PAY FOR REVIEWS.  I've been working hard at getting reviews in 2020 and I'm starting to get better at it.  It does mean giving away a lot of books and doing a lot of begging.  Turns out, I'm not that bad at either one of those things.  

Now let's talk about book awards.  If I decided to be in charge of a book award program, it would become my part-time job, and here's how I would run it.  I would charge $40 for each book to be entered into the contest.  The top award would be $500 with three lesser prizes of $200, plus another ten honorable mentions.  This means I would only need 28 people to enter in order to pay for the program, but let's be real.  There are 5,000 ebooks published a day.  So many people are desperate to become authors that more than 28 people would enter with an entry deposit of only $40.  That's less than a lot of the ad campaigns I mentioned above.  I would send each of the entries a banner to put on their social media advertising the award and get a boatload of free advertising directly to the writing community (they're my customers).  After the submission deadline, I pick up the manuscripts and anything I can stand to read gets shortlisted.  I can drop anything I don't like without reading it to the end.  I can weed through thousands of manuscripts this way, by dropping anything that rubs me wrong immediately.  Chances are I would only like a few books well enough to finish them.  I'd sort through those and choose my big winner and my three runners up.  It would also be pretty easy to choose ten honorable mentions.  I'd make them all banners to put up on their social media so they give me more free advertising.  And cablooee!  I keep all the extra money!

Okay, I would never do this.  I hate reading.  I wrote the above because that's what my internal monologue says whenever I read the info packets for writing awards.  I'm staring at the deposit amount versus the prize amount and I think it doesn't add up.  The entries are probably generating a lot more money than what they're offering as prizes.  They can argue that they're paying the selection committee and I could argue that for myself with my setup above.  I just find it hard to believe that it could be a fair contest since the judges could stop reading with one mislaid sentence.  Reading stuff that sucks is soooo hard.

By the way, not all literary awards ask for a deposit.  Those awards don't offer a cash prize either, but those people are going to heaven FOR SURE.

Soooo... Advertising... you'll lose money.

The Seventh Screwup

I promised we could talk about ebooks and today we will.  

Let's start with digital publishing companies.  They don't publish print books and they don't prep manuscripts or covers for print-on-demand.

Do you know how long it takes to do the graphic design for an ebook cover once the art is complete?  Not long.  It's an absolute cakewalk compared to making a cover that wraps around a paperback.  Along the same lines, do you know how easy it is to prepare an ebook for publication compared to something that has to go to print?  Again, it's a snap.

Digital publishing companies prey upon writers who know how to write but do not know how to independently publish a book.  They'll lend you a hand with editing without being too handsy (unlike traditional publishing houses who are risking a lot and can get very handsy), they'll help you with a polished looking cover, and they'll do all the technical things you have no interest learning.  They'll skim a little off the profits on your ebook for themselves and everyone is happy.

These guys are less choosy than a traditional publisher.  You're way more likely to get a publishing deal with one of them.  Their standards are a lot lower because they have a lot less on the line.  They have invested very little capital in you (just what they paid for your cover art).  They'll put a few minutes into your manuscript in order to prep it for publication, they're tech-savvy and they're building an empire, so the more manuscripts the better.

Because their standards are lower, if you get turned down by one of them, it may mean that you are not ready to be a published author.  

However, do not despair.  Even if they turn you down, and you're done working on your manuscript, it's okay.  Go to a free writing website like Inkitt, Wattpad, Fictionpress, and post your writing there.  You can work with sample audiences there and get a feel for what people like.  You will have to write more than one book... but you were always going to have to write more than one book.