It is totally worth directing readers to a series or 'more from this author' page on your website. Not only does it drive a ton of traffic your direction, but a permalink means you don't have to update and republish files every time you release another publication.David Adams said:- Question: I always link back to the other books in the series in the back matter. How can I do that if they're all different distributors? One thought that occurs is to link to a page on my webpage, which is another step, but it means I don't have to republish every time I add a new novel to the series. That might be worth it. I noticed I was starting to get highlights on Demons, but then I updated it and lost them. Maybe I shouldn't have. Thoughts?
) to be much of an expert. Anecdotally, I get about 40% of my book income from Not-Zon, so there is a good market out there if you can find it.
Good luck! The only promotion group I've seen make a serious dent in markets outside of Amazon is Bookbub. But it'll cost ya.David Adams said:I don't have much of an idea. How to market? Promote your perma-frees? Swash your buckles? Any pitfalls to avoid? No idea.
What kind of preparations would you recommend? I'm having the books already formatted and ready to go, Smashwords account all set up (it's there from Faith), and basically I just need to hit go and hope they pass the meat grinder.JRTomlin said:I didn't prepare sufficiently so it is taking me forever (or weeks anyway) to get everything up at other retailers, so I suggest you do better planning than I did. I haven't tried Bookbub at other retailers yet, but I plan to. And it does indeed cost. That is NOT a cheap way to go.
'David Adams said:What kind of preparations would you recommend? I'm having the books already formatted and ready to go, Smashwords account all set up (it's there from Faith), and basically I just need to hit go and hope they pass the meat grinder.
David - my best recommendation is to NOT distribute via Smash. Go direct to B&N, Apple, and Kobo. If you're out of the US, direct to B&N isn't an option, and if you don't have a Mac, direct to Apple is more difficult (but not impossible). The reason: you will be able to control your pricing/upload. Going through Smash is a bit of a roulette - for some people, they're distributed/updated right away. For many, there are weeks/months of delay.David Adams said:What kind of preparations would you recommend? I'm having the books already formatted and ready to go, Smashwords account all set up (it's there from Faith), and basically I just need to hit go and hope they pass the meat grinder.
What a great idea! When I publish my next book, I'm going to update all the files on my previous books to do this. That's much easier than trying to constantly update with links for each individual book.Susan Kaye Quinn said:Here's what I do: I create a separate file for each formatter and update the links - i.e. B&N links in the B&N file, etc. The trick is to just use the link to your author profile on that retailer. So, in your B&N file, put a link to a search for your author name on B&N. You may have to iterate on this once, since you're not up on any of those retailers yet. But once you do that, you'll never have to update links again, because they're always searching for YOU not your books. This is better than sending them to your website, because there are less clicks to get to that "buy" button.
Good luck!
Having them formatted and ready to go really. And having the Apple account set up which I didn't and was a pain in the ***. I had to switch all the links at the end, for example. I underestimated how much time all this would take so I am losing money on not getting borrows but being slow at getting the novels up elsewhere.David Adams said:What kind of preparations would you recommend? I'm having the books already formatted and ready to go, Smashwords account all set up (it's there from Faith), and basically I just need to hit go and hope they pass the meat grinder.
Care to explain this?Susan Kaye Quinn said:if you don't have a Mac, direct to Apple is more difficult (but not impossible).
If you have the know how or know someone who can help you, you can use a virtual machine to run OSX on. However the tricky part is that OSX runs a check to make sure it's being installed on Apple hardware. Like anything else there are ways around this. So once that is set up, you can download and install Publisher/Developer or whatever that program is that you use to upload to the Apple book store.Mathew Reuther said:Care to explain this?
I was under the impression that you had to use Apple's software, which is Mac only.
Macincloud.com allows you to use a virtual Mac through your web browser. The cost is $20 per month (which you need to pay anytime you want to upload, but you can check your sales figures and I think make some adjustments without a Mac). On the plus side of going direct to Apple, you get paid about 10% more.Mathew Reuther said:Care to explain this?
I was under the impression that you had to use Apple's software, which is Mac only.
Unfortunately I am out of the US (Australia). I own a Mac Mini with Snow Leopard, so I can do my own distribution to Apple. I'll just have to suck it up at B&N. I like the idea of the author page though!Susan Kaye Quinn said:David - my best recommendation is to NOT distribute via Smash. Go direct to B&N, Apple, and Kobo. If you're out of the US, direct to B&N isn't an option, and if you don't have a Mac, direct to Apple is more difficult (but not impossible). The reason: you will be able to control your pricing/upload. Going through Smash is a bit of a roulette - for some people, they're distributed/updated right away. For many, there are weeks/months of delay.
