I joined Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Select in February, and ran a free promotion. I was one of the lucky ones. It was early, and the magic hadn’t faded yet. Through KDP’s free promotion, I managed to get my book to a whole bunch of readers, over 50,000 of them the first time around. Since then I’ve been trying to re-conjure the same magic with varying degrees of success. In this post I’ll tell you what worked and what didn’t work for me, before and after KDP. These results are based on the fact that I have one book published; authors with a series of books or multiple books have had different results, as reported in Rich Meyer’s excellent post here. Continue reading “Beyond KDP Select”
Tag: author advice
Best of Devitt: What do we need to make it work?
[IU Contributing Author Jim Devitt is taking the week off to move some money to an offshore account or move to a different house or maybe move to the music. I’m a little foggy on the details. Anyway, here’s a selection from Jim’s greatest hits. Enjoy. – Hise]
Are you a serious writer? What does that mean, exactly?
I’m sure you are all familiar with the famous quote by Thomas Edison about invention being 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration.
If that were the case, a serious writer would not wait around to be inspired to produce their work. You would grab your lunch pail and show up at work every day to pound out 3,000 words or more. Continue reading “Best of Devitt: What do we need to make it work?”
Avoiding Self Publishing Calamity
by Lenore Skomal
17,500 readers uploaded my Kindle version of Bluff, my debut novel, thanks to the free giveaway promotion KDP Select offers. That was the count halfway through day three of the promotion.
I wish I could have enjoyed that number. But I couldn’t. I was too busy panicking about the fact that so many people had downloaded an unreadable version of my book.
Unreadable you say? How could that be? Especially with the previewer that KDP offers to check your Kindle file after it’s uploaded. I would have said you’re right about that, except now I know different. Uploading a file to Kindle isn’t infallible. Continue reading “Avoiding Self Publishing Calamity”
Tips From the Masters: Bill Fitzhugh
Bill Fitzhugh is another of my favorites who should be far better known and appreciated. And I’m far from the only one who feels that way. Maybe not quite a “cult” author, Fitzhugh decidedly commands a “niche” of rabid fans. Carl Hiaasen and Tim Courtney are among them: in fact if you ask any star of funny crime novels who they read, he’ll on their short list. If you doubt me, take a look at his website.
His humor is different from those two–and from anybody else–with a unique, rustly dryness about it. His criminals are folks like you and I who get caught up in something too awful to come to grips with and too quirky to cope with. He’s also a long-time DJ and major record collector, so music figures heavily in his books, including titles like “Highway 61 Resurfaced.” One of my favorite lines is when evil exterminators are cruising Manhattan one asks their guide if he’s sure they’re on the right street and he answers, “Positively, Fourth Street.” If you laughed, or even know why that’s funny, you should enlist in the Fitzhugh cult right away. Besides, he graduated from my own alma mater, U. of Washington. Go Huskies! Continue reading “Tips From the Masters: Bill Fitzhugh”