Mostly for authors today…

I have many different things to write about tonight.

First, Disturbed is good music to listen to while doing your publicity stuff.

Second, if you’re an author, you NEED to go see if you’re on http://www.manicreaders.com/.  I happened to see it when searching for my name, and it seems that they created a skeleton author page for me, to keep track of Progenitor.  I have no idea how it got there, but I’m not complaining.  That having been said, it was quick and easy to claim my author page there as Ken Haramiru, and upload proper cover art and such.  TOO easy, in fact.  I’m perfectly happy since I was the guy who took my identity, but what if I weren’t?  It just TRUSTS that the first person to say is an author, is the author.

Third, I must request a favor.  I wrote “She Only Wore a Shirt to the Funeral” as a free book, but Amazon insisted that I put a price on it in order to publish it, then it has to be “price-matched” against a copy of the book at a free site before it will be free on Amazon.  Can you go to http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BFY4PGU and click ‘Tell Us About a Lower Price’?  It’s right above the “Customer Reviews” item.  You’ll fill in “Website”, then enter https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/284854 for the URL, $0 for the price and shipping cost, and then click submit?  If enough people tell them “it’s free over there, stupid!” Amazon will price-match Smashwords, thus making this story free (as it is intended to be).

Fourth, I’ve learned a lot about publicity since my last “Writer Stuff” post.  I have learned that Twitter is really where the action is for driving fan interest in your erotica, and that while Facebook may have been where it used to be at, it’s not there anymore.  I have also learned that erotica authors are a pretty easy-going group on Twitter.  You pretty much follow every erotica author you see, most of them end up following you, and regular fans make their way into your follower list sooner or later too.  I’m also observing with fascination a number of small publishing houses which seem to be just a matter of 4-5 authors getting together.  I guess they do group buys on cover art, and cross-promote?  Not a bad idea, and it probably would be awesome for someone who’s just starting out.

Fifth: If you’re a new erotica author, and your book is on ANY site, you owe it to yourself to fill out your author profile. On Amazon that’s authorcentral, on Smashwords that’s your author page, etc.  A blank author profile doesn’t get readers using it to look at your other books, you know.  Most importantly, it doesn’t really register to Google.  Some of the erotica authors I’m checking out who have published stuff are almost invisible on the internet, and they don’t have to be.

Sixth: I don’t know if this is really the case or not, but based upon my recent experience I think it’s a good idea to have 5+ eBooks out there before you release one as free.  Releasing “She Only Wore a Shirt to the Funeral” freaking spiked my blog views.  My previous record for views per day was 109, and the 13th (release day for Smashwords) broke 264.  I just mentioned on a few sites that I had a free book out, mentioned it on twitter, and more importantly mentioned it on a couple of forums which were related to the kink I write for.  I really didn’t go for the “free ebook” promo places.

Seventh: When you DO go for a free eBook, go all out.  I actually uploaded copies of my latest to ARe, Smashwords, Goodreads, Amazon, and (just tonight) manicreaders.  On Smashwords, since I uploaded it on the 12th, I’ve already gotten 447 downloads of it – which is more than 10x the downloads (sales or samples; it doesn’t differentiate) I’ve had on Smashwords for all my other titles put together.  No matter how you slice it, I’ve reached a lot of new people who may decide they want to take another bite of my writing at a later date.

Eighth: If you’re going to upload a free story, then fully exploit the end of it.  In the end of “She Only Wore a Shirt to the Funeral”, I include a brief summary of each of my running series and include a link to where they can get both the early free versions AND the commercial versions (i.e. the ‘My Writings’ page on this blog).  And any time I publish a new story, I am going to upload a new edition of the free story, which gets the tail end of the story added.  It’s your flyer, your business card.  It’s going to get read more often than anything else you write, and you should fully exploit it.

Ninth: Don’t underestimate the free sites – SOWaSttF has scored over 6000 views on stories.xnxx.com., which even dwarfs the Smashwords views I’ve gotten.  What do you think happens when you upload your free story to a site like that, and you include the same summary at the end of it as I mentioned earlier?


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