When I published my first book I had one primary purpose—I wanted readers to read my book. And yes, there were other parts of the dream too. I wanted my friends and family to hold my book in their hands and see what I’d done, and I wanted to hit the bestseller lists and have the royalty payments arrive so quickly that I couldn’t spend the money fast enough. That part of the dream is contingent on my main objective being realized first though. Before anything else happened, I had to connect with readers, and to do that I needed to produce a professional product. If I’d just wanted to hold a book in my hands, and show off my writing to those around me, it would have been much simpler. I didn’t, though. I believe that I’m a pretty good writer and I want to earn my living writing and to do that I need to find readers. So, I got some help. Continue reading “Are You Publishing to Connect with Readers or Just to Publish?”
I read a Facebook post recently where an author was bitterly complaining about the service (yep, that’s the word they used), they were receiving from an administrator at an Indie book site. The service was slow and they weren’t happy that it had taken several weeks to have their book featured. And, just the other day a reviewer friend of mine who just lost a family member, emailed an author apologizing that their interview would be delayed and explaining why. The response back from the author was silence, no sympathy, just silence, and then eventually, a short email from the author tersely asking when they could expect their interview to be posted. This is unacceptable behavior, online or face to face.