In the Self-publishing world, it seems there is nothing more important than marketing.  Too bad I have a degree in Engineering instead of Marketing.  But in the past couple of days I’ve found a few more tools to put to use.  The first is trying to get my book listed on a few sites, one specifically for YA books – YA Books Central.  This website has an indie section and only cost me $3.99 to list my book on.  You can view the listing here.  So far it has been viewed 25 times, which is more times than it would have been viewed had I not listed her.  Since I listed, I’ve had one more “borrow” with Amazon Prime, but hard to say whether or not that was directly related to listing on this website.

http://www.yabookscentral.com/yaindie/17514-tales-of-a-redheaded-sea-witch

I’ve also put down $20 to advertise on GoodKindles, but have not yet had any confirmation of this yet.  This is probably the most expensive advertising website  – other than Facebook – but as I’ve posted before, working a good paying day job allows me to feel comfortable with this kind of extravagance.  If I was trying to make a living from a self-published book, I’m not sure I’d been willing to spend this kind of money before earning anything, hence the difficulty!

And in NaNoWriMo news:

I’m only one day behind – so I consider that to be one track.  Yay me!  It’s been a difficult slog this year, mostly because my Dad broke his leg in two places, winding up in the hospital for over a week now.  Next year I’ll have to make sure family is clear on what my priorities are during the month of November, and how to just not have breaks ever.

That’s the thing with NaNo though, there is always some unforeseeable/unpreventable incident which will happen, threatening to pull you off course.  The hard part is writing through that, keeping to the commitment in the difficult times, forswearing television and phone calls, pushing that sewing project to the side, and pretending the new Soda Crush game you just downloaded to your iPad doesn’t exist yet.  Turn that focus to your Novel – the piece of art only YOU can create.  And just keep writing.

I paid $15 for a kboards “Ad”. 
Return on investment = $0.

Well, I have to say I’m a bit disappointed.  I wasn’t expecting much but I thought I’d maybe get one sale.  Here is the link to the site.
My Ad went up on the 7th of November.  I found it.  It looked nice there.  But didn’t do much else with it, just seeing what Kboards could do on their own, and it turns out, not much.
Sure, maybe I would have got a sale if I had bumped it around the interwebs a bit, but then that’s just me doing my own marketing, isn’t it.
So, overall, I would say not worth it.  Looking over the kboards blog now, there were a lot of postings, and mine was quickly buried under a heap of others.  One things for sure, the owners of that site are sure to be making good coin.

There are a couple more advertising sites I’m going to try.  Look for the next update soon.

Ah, last year.  I was at home with a young child, who kept me busy when he was awake, but blissfully took two hours naps where I could easily get all my NaNo words in a day.  Last night, I got home around 9 pm after an exhausting day of work (8am-9pm), and had to force myself to sit my bit in the chair and type.  At 300 words, I almost went to bed, at 750 words, I was pretty sure I was going to power down and go to bed, at 1200 words, I finally began feeling like I was getting close and that I could finish even though I was exhausted, smelly, desperately wanting a shower and my soft downy comforter.  At 1667 words – the daily goal – I wasn’t done my chapter so I KEPT GOING!  I finished off close to 1800 words and felt a smug sense of satisfaction that I had pulled through.  That is just the best NaNo feeling, don’t you think?  It’s like this drawing I did at work, when I was a having a moment of NEEDING TO BE CREATIVE.  I’m not sure if it’s and explosion or the sun, but it feels marvelous!

Day Three of NaNo.  So far day one and two have both been smashing successes.  But, as both of those days were weekend, this is the first challenging day.  Hopefully, by the time I get home from work I still have enough energy to mash out my 1667 words or more.  I wrote1667+ words on both Sat and Sun, which I’m hoping I can keep up, because I know EPW will be longer than 50,000 words.  Usually I am for 80,000 with my novels, which is a good number for potential future publishers.

On Friday, I paid for a KBoards book promotion.  I received my email stating my book will be featured on November 7th – this coming Friday.  I look forward to see what this site can do for Tales of a Redheaded Sea-Witch.

Yay!

NaNoWriMo 2014 is underway!

The title of this years novel is:

Emerald Paragon of the Wilds.

Yep, that’s right.  Came up with that one at work.

And as for the NaNo stash…

Mmmmmm, Yum!

Recently (I’ve been more than slow at this marketing thing; is there a word for that?), I’ve discovered the existence of book promotion websites, such as Bookbear, GoodKindles, and Kboards.  I should have discovered this months ago when I was first contacted by such sites in the twitter-verse.  Am I the only one who finds it creapy how quickly they can track down a new indie author on Twitter?

I think I am going to try one.

Or maybe all three, one at a time, and post reviews.

Has anyone tried these? 

Want to let me know about your own experiences?

Or, if you’d rather be reading something, you can always pick up a copy of Tales of a Redheaded Sea-Witch here.

So far I only have one review on Amazon.com – 5 Stars!  But I’d like to get more, as apparently this is a big factor in how often your book shows up for people in the recommendations section.

At most, it looks like I will lose $15 to $20 bucks per site, which I can currently afford since I have a pretty good paying day job.  Although, I think this means I may have to forgo that beautiful fall sweater I’ve been eyeing up.

Are you a NaNo-er?  Are you busy prepping for the most exciting month of writing of the year?  I am.  And I don’t know what to write.  Maybe it’s the halloween season, but part of me is thinking dark.  Much darker than the YA writing I’ve done and Tales of a Redheaded Sea-Witch which I self-published last spring.  And let’s be honest, that endevor is far from being a success (though that doesn’t mean I don’t still have plans to try more marketing sometime in the near-ish future once 2014 NaNo is complete.

Do you have your idea figured out for NaNo?  If you do, feel free to share.  I promise I won’t steal, but maybe it will inspire!

www.nanowrimo.org

It’s been a long and mostly productive summer.  And as it comes to an end it’s time for one more trip. A camping trip!  I love camping, though I haven’t spent a night in a tent in at least two years.  And after the beautiful northern light display in my backyard last night, I feel like I don’t need to go camping.  I sat on my deck for a half hour watching the Aurora Borealis dance through the sky.  I hadn’t observed nature like that for a long time.  It was cold out, and I was only in my pyjamas.  My cat moved around me, loving being outside in the dark.  It was a gorgeous night in the city.

But there is just something so peaceful about being in the woods.  I’m excited to feel that grounding back to the earth.  To feel my body move lower, closer to the ground, closer to real, closer to depth.  I’m excited to open up a notebook, click my pen, and write something new.  What will you be doing this weekend?

I’m going to be honest: I’m a terrible marketer.  Amazon Kindle Self-Publishing is not working for me.  Does anyone even see my books? I’m beginning to think not.

I had the opportunity at WWC 2014 the other week to sit in on a few SP sessions.  What I learnt is mostly what I already know: marketing is extremely important.  I also learnt a few tricks I can try, most of which will cost me money so I’m going to avoid that route for a bit longer.

I’m a bit disappointed with Amazon.  I feel like when I buy something from that site, such as a copy of The Lion King for my son, I get sent an email request asking me to rate the seller.  I have never been sent a request asking me to rate a product though, which means that I am relying on readers to come back on their own accord and rate my book.  Thank you to those that have!  Maybe this is a suggestion I should send to Amazon instead of gripping about it on my blog.

On to more things, but don’t forget: if you love romance, love, magic, mermaids, witches and tragedy, try Tales of a Redheaded Sea-Witch today!

I got another five star review!  Comments kept simple at “Good Book”, but that’s more than enough to make me happy.  If you haven’t read it yet, find Black Depths:  Tales of a Redheaded Sea-Witch in the kindle store today.

And thanks so much for the reviews!