Indie writing is fun and addictive. Here you can make your dreams comes true. You can become a published writer. It may look like a glamorous adventure to those on the outside. In reality though it is a lot of hard work. Some would say writing is the easy part. It's the publicity and getting word out about your work that is time consuming, hard work.
For the past few days I've been on a writing marathon. That's all I've done. But from the shadows I've been watching, listening to what others are doing and what they're saying. It's been quite interesting.
Reviews and getting them are a big to do once you've got your book out there. And trust me I've spent hours working on trying to garner such for my book(s). The other side of reviews I've been hearing a LOT about are the reviews your book actually gets on Kindle (Amazon) or Nook (Barnes & Noble). The more reviews, the better review, the higher your book will be in the ratings. The higher the rating, the more readers (or sales). I just checked my solo book, Perpetual Love's reviews and nothing has changed. There is still only one review on each site. I've done emails to the masses, asking them to write a review (didn't matter whether it was good or bad) and why it helps,, etc. Nothing is working. BUT I see these authors who's books just out the gate are getting five star reviews. What have I missed? What are they doing I'm obviously not? I've purchased books from top authors on how they achieved their success and I'm doing everything they did/are. True I only have one book out (I pulled the other for reasons I've previously discussed), but I should be able to get more than one review. If you look at the top 100,000 rated books, I'm way down there in the 97,000th. The book is as good as most, not my best work, but certainly not my worst.
I live on a fixed income, which I hope to change with my writing. I don't have the extra money to dish out on blog tours, etc. like other authors. I use my background from years in public relations to help me promote my writing. For the most part it's worked. I've spent hours upon hours doing just that. Promoting.
So, this is my journey thus far in the magical world of indie writing and publishing. The first chapter. Share your story with me. . .
I agree with you completely. Marketing is far more challenging than writing, or at least it is for me!
ReplyDeleteSome people have large extended families that support family members undertakings and others are extremely social creatures. Other like me have two relatives and five close family members still alive and my friends are although tight the list is short.
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