Success in ePublishing
J. A. Konrath, Amanda Hocking, Elisa Lorello, and Karen McQuestion. These are a few names that have been successful in the world of ePublishing. Amanda Hocking, a twenty something from Minnesota, has earned over a million dollars. They are the known few. There are 40k+ plus books on the Kindle list, so how can you make your book stand out and generate sales?
Here are a couple of tips:
Presentation Matters
Present your manuscript in its best possible shape. Whether print or electronic, nothing turns a reader off more than misspellings and grammatical errors
Cover Art
Poor cover art used to be the red flag that a book was self published. Hire someone if you have to. See what covers appeal to you and visit the writer’s website, sometimes they mention who has done their cover art.
If you are technologically challenged and cannot navigate Kindle’s or Smashwords’ instructions on formatting your manuscript, then hire an e-formatter. J.A. Konrath mentions on his blog who does his cover art and his e-formatting. Smashwords also provides cover art and e-formatting at a low cost.
Price Accordingly
The prices run from $0.99 to $3.99. There have been some arguments that pricing too low sends a subconscious message to the reader that your book is not worth it. Although Amanda Hocking said she priced the first book in her series at $0.99 to get readers to buy and hook them into the series, which makes sense to me and then charged a little higher for the subsequent books. As an avid reader, $1.99 to $2.99 is a fair price for me, especially in these recessionary times.
Self Promotion
It is tricky. If you are constantly hawking your book on your website, Facebook and Twitter, let me tell you that nothing turns people off more. Mention it once and get your book out there for reviews. Do include a great blurb about your book as well as an author bio. Get onto Kindleboards.com and get involved in the forums.
Luck and Perseverance
As in life, there is no guarantee because there is one ingredient in the mix that’s fickle: luck. Some have it and some don’t. A few of the successful ebook writers have said that other writers have replicated what they did and yet are still languishing in unknown writer heaven.
Do not expect skyrocketing sales the first, the first month, the first six months. When you feel like giving up, give yourself another six months.
Good luck and happy perseverance.
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