So you’re and independent writer and you’ve just finished
you’re first novel - you probably think the hard work is now finished and soon
the accolades and money will start to roll in. Think again! Soon you’ll realize
that the hard work is just about to begin. The quest to find an agent and a
publisher.
This is virtually an impossible task, yes it does happen,
but it’s seldom.
Therefore the next step is to self publish, and there’s
nothing wrong with that, in fact I would encourage you to do so. There are two
excellent options. Amazon Kindle and Smashwords. Smashwords will get your
product to the major eBook vendors, although Amazon will seldom accept a
Smashwords product, the good news is you can directly publish your eBook on
Amazon. In my opinion Amazon is the easier and superior choice.
I have all of my books listed at both Amazon and at
Smashwords, but from the stand point of sales Amazon is far better in my
experience. My Amazon sales are quadruple that of my sales on all of the Smashwords
vendors combined.
So now your eBook is published and available to all those
anxious readers. Now comes the hardest part of the process. How do you get exposure to readers that enjoy
the genre that you have written in? After
all the whole purpose of writing is to get your story into the hands of the
reader. Beyond a doubt this is the most
challenging part of the independent writer’s work.
You can establish a blog to hawk your product, or set up a
Facebook page. This will certainly help. Many experts recommend some form of
paid advertising. I’ve been reluctant to take this step as advertising can be
quite expensive and often the benefits are not realized. However, that being
said, in 2016 I have taken the advertising plunge.
Having decided to advertise my books it now becomes a
question of where to advertise? Since, I
have a three book series devoted to the concept of what an alternative reality
exists where the Confederacy wins the American Civil war, it would seem a Civil
War venue would be a good bet.
After some research I decided to go with the Civil War
magazine- THE CIVIL WAR MONITOR. This magazine is insightful and well received
and dedicated to the American Civil war. Hard print ads are expensive, but the
magazine has a great internet based site. The added benefit of taking out an ad
on their web site is that a reader can simply click on my ad for the series “REBEL
EMPIRE” and it will take them directly to my books on Amazon.
There’s the link to the magazine’s web site:
http://www.civilwarmonitor.com/
So, long story short I’ve taken out 3 months of online
advertising. It will be interesting to
see what effect if any this will have on my sales. I’ll report back with the results later in
the Spring.
REBEL EMPIRE
1. GETTYSBURG REDUX
http://www.amazon.com/GETTYSBURG-REDUX-REBEL-EMPIRE-Book-ebook/dp/B009EBPNAS/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
2. REBELS & DESPERADOS
http://www.amazon.com/REBELS-DESPERADOS-REBEL-EMPIRE-Book-ebook/dp/B00FRKG91C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414985280&sr=8-1&keywords=rebels+%26+desperados
3. FOR THE GOOD OF THE CONFEDERACY
http://www.amazon.com/GOOD-CONFEDERACY-REBEL-EMPIRE-Book-ebook/dp/B00TM02HFU/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
