Just how much progress have computer systems made in understanding the human voice? I don’t mean recognizing specific commands, like the hands-free Bluetooth in your car. I’m looking for a tool an author can use to write a book without typing. I want to know how well a computer can understand people when they just talk to it. And the answer is, “not very well.” Continue reading “Voice-to-Text Dictation Software”
Category: Staff Articles
Writing advice and insights from the staff of Indies Unlimited.
Book Promoting:Is $1.99 The New 99 Cents?
We’re going to talk about selling eBooks. We can call it “connecting with readers” or “building our reader base” or “expanding our discoverability” in other articles. Right here, right now, we’re going to call it what it is: selling books.
I’ve been through the ups and downs of free promotions. I’ve had mega-successful returns where I’ve sold tens of thousands of books and I’ve had disappointing returns where I have not covered my promotion costs. I’ve sworn off free promotions and come back to them and realized that they can still be effective in terms of selling books. Again, we are not talking about climbing up the rankings in a genre-specific category or how many email subscribers we can gain or how many books we can give away. We’re dealing with book sales, and with free promotions we’re referring to peripheral sales of our other books or paid sales when our free book returns to its regular price. Continue reading “Book Promoting:Is $1.99 The New 99 Cents?”
Author Promos on the Cheap (or even better — FREE!)
Face it, most Indie authors are strapped for cash. We can’t always afford to put out hundreds to thousands of dollars for promotions. We need quick, easy, and preferably FREE. So here’s one way I managed to sell a few books, had a fun time, made a few contacts, and became a more accessible part of the local community.
I don’t have any comic books, but I’m in the process of working with an illustrator to create one. (see: IU post) But that didn’t stop me from going to a local comic book store and inquiring if they had any upcoming events where I could set up a table and sell books. The owner was very cool — especially when I told him I was working on a comic, and said there was going to be National Free Comic Book Day in May (May 7th it was). The store was going to be hosting an event that ran from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. and I could set up and try to create interest in my books. Yes! Continue reading “Author Promos on the Cheap (or even better — FREE!)”
Goodreads Expands Giveaways to Include eBooks
For years, indie authors have wished that Goodreads would diversify its popular giveaway program to include eBooks as well as paperbacks. Now, at last, Goodreads is moving slowly in that direction. It announced a pilot project for Kindle eBook giveaways last month.
The Goodreads program is sort of like the one offered by its corporate overlord, Amazon, but sort of not. With the Amazon program, you pay upfront for as many copies of your Kindle title as you would like to give away and how you would like them awarded (every third entrant, randomly, etc.), and Amazon takes care of pushing the content down to your winners’ Kindles. Continue reading “Goodreads Expands Giveaways to Include eBooks”