Day: January 26, 2014

Bestseller List Secrets Weekend: Vancouver

The Bestseller List Secrets Weekend aims to put the “SELF” back in “SELF-PUBLISHING”.

In this two day, intensive, hands-on workshop running March 22 – 23, 2014, you’ll learn these secrets:

  •  Picking the correct categories and reaching the top of Amazon’s bestseller lists
  • Using Amazon’s Tools to showcase your book to thousands of readers
  • Connecting with top interview and review sites and getting reviews at NO cost
  • Developing marketing strategies that guarantee exposure to readers of books like yours
  • Creating a professional product without spending a fortune
  • Learning the secret behind great titles
  • Building support systems that work
  • Having media opportunities come to you

March 22/23 at Douglas College in New Westminster, BC.

Early-bird admission fee (until February 15) is $299. Use coupon code “indieunltd” to save $200 and pay only $299 (valid only until Feb 15 through vswonline.org) Regular admission is $449.

For more information, please visit the event link here.

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Information and announcements such as these are provided from time to time by Indies Unlimited in the way of a public service. We strongly encourage interested parties to exercise due diligence in researching and evaluating all such opportunities of interest before choosing to participate.

Video Trailer: This Time You Lose

This Time You LoseWhat would you do if street thugs invaded your home? What if you’re a daycare provider, caring for a dozen children at the time? Lisa, Kaamp, a most unlikely heroine, faces just suck a nightmare in This Time You Lose, the suspense driven story of one woman’s struggle to survive when she and the children she cares for become victims of a home invasion gone terribly wrong.

This Time You Lose, the suspense thriller by Chris Stralyn, is available from Amazon.com, Smashwords, and Amazon UK.

Don’t forget, you can cast your vote for trailer of the month on February 22, 2014 at 5 p.m. Pacific time.

Pitching to the New Gatekeepers, Part 1

gateNot that long ago, K.P. Ambroziak wrote a guest post for Indies Unlimited entitled, ‘A New Gatekeeper Rising’. That post triggered an interesting discussion about reviews and gatekeepers, however it was the author’s comments about review numbers that really caught my attention. Apparently, BookBub will not accept books for [paid] promotion unless they have a certain number of reviews – i.e. have a track record of popularity with readers.

As Indies, we all know the importance of getting a goodly number of reviews for our books; nothing looks so unloved, and unread, as a book with only a few reviews, or, -shock horror- no reviews at all. Like it or not, Amazon has conditioned us to see reviews as ad hoc indicators of popularity, and being herd animals, we associate popularity with quality.

Whether popularity really does work that way is a moot question, and not one I’m brave enough to tackle here. Nonetheless, I think we can all accept that, as a marketing strategy, popularity begets sales. After all, Amazon doesn’t publish all those best-seller lists for nothing. Each list is a bright, shiny life-raft for customers drowning in the sheer volume of ‘things’ on offer at Amazon.

For us Indies, getting onto one of those life-rafts is tantamount to being given the keys to marketing heaven.

The question then is, how do we squirm our way out of the sea, and onto a life-raft? Is BookBub right? Are reviews the answer? Continue reading “Pitching to the New Gatekeepers, Part 1”