R. Shannon's Blog, page 4
August 22, 2025
Coloring Page – Happy Labor Day
Click here to download an 8.5" x 11" png from Google Drive.
Click here to purchase at Amazon
Free Download for a Limited Time
Click here to download from Amazon
Click here to download from Bookfunnel.
John Walsh is a successful funeral director with a loving family but he has a weakness for other women. The modern world thinks cheating is a victimless crime, but is it?
Click here to download a free copy for a limited time.
Click on the graphic of my books and you will be brought to a page on my website where you can read a sample of my books in your browser. It's much easier than downloading samples from Amazon.
Check back often as I give away books all the time.
August 12, 2025
What’s Needed to Set Up a New Book Release
This is going to be a 1200 foot view of what's needed to set up a pre-order for the best results. The Components: It starts by having a high resolution ebook cover and a finished ebook manuscript.I have many blog posts about how to create and/or order a high-resolution ebook cover on the blog and on my YouTube Channel so I won't go into any details about those.I begin all novels and novelettes in Scrivener and then move to Word for the final proofreading as well as the final formatting before upload to Amazon KDP.2. PREORDER BOOK MARKETING:
At the very least you will need a social media post that is 1000 px by 1000 px for most social media websites and 1000px by 1500px for Pinterest. These can be made in minutes in Gimp, a free alternative program to Photoshop, or Canva that is very popular.To the left or above is an example of one of my social media posts, which I call a description panel, for my new novelette,
Writer's Block
, which I have just set up for a pre-order.3. DON'T FORGET PINTEREST:
I used to post the above social media graphic to Pinterest and just keep moving because who wants to make a separate graphic for just one additional social media site?Once I realized that Pinterest sent a trove of traffic to my website, I started making a matching Pinterest post as shown here. If you are new, you may or may not choose to do these.Tip for newbies: I create a few Pinterest Templates and then I copy and paste the upper panels into them. This way, I can make the matching Pinterest graphic in about 3 minutes or less. But it makes a huge difference. 4. MAKE A QUESTIONNAIRE FOR THE EBOOK:
I like to add a questionnaire to the back of most of my ebooks, especially the ones I give away. Not everyone fills them out, but the readers who do, I get enough raw and helpful feedback that I find so very valuable.
Above I have split my questionnaire into parts 1 and 2 to give you an idea of what type of questions I ask them. This one is for a short story, so it is slightly less detailed than for my novels.
However, I keep it short and sweet. No one has the time to spend 20 minutes answering too many questions. I also make them yes and no questions or multiple choice. This makes it easier for the readers.
If you want to see the questionnaire page in full, you can access this one here.
NOTE FOR AUTHORS WITHOUT A WEBSITE:
If you don't have a website, you can use a Google form or other online-hosted form to create a questionnaire. Since the rise of Substack, it's possible for any author to start a Substack and make it function very much like a website. So no worries if you don't have a website.
Once you have a questionnaire finished, you need to add an invitation to fill it out with a link to the form into the back of the book. I put it onto my Note to Reader page, but you can add it in the back of the book wherever you engage with your readership. I have an example of the verbiage I use above, which I don't claim to be award-winning in any way, but it may be helpful to newbies. When I was a newbie, I would look at how other authors handled things and that always gave me a starting point. 6. UPLOAD TO KDP:
Everything that comes after this point will require an ASIN number and/or a ISBN number which you don't get until you actual upload the book. I use the KDP-assigned numbers, so they are assigned to the book when uploaded. If you use your own ISBN numbers, you may be able to do a few of the following procedures without uploading your book.In my humble opinion, there's no downside to uploading your books as pre-orders. Amazon notifies anyone who follows you as an author that they can pre-order the book. It's like getting free advertisements from Amazon. So why not?7. FORMAT & UPLOAD THE EBOOK AS A PAPERBACK:
some text here . . .
Right Columnsome text here . . .
. PRE-RELEASE BOOK MARKETING - GIVEAWAYSGiving away your book for free is the most cost-effective method of advertising -- bar none. I always give away my books and don't understand the argument new authors make for refusing to give away 'their work'. In my opinion, everyone who reads and likes a free book will be ready to purchase a second, third, or fourth book by you.
That being said, I use Bookfunnel & StoryOrigin to give away my ebooks. This allows the book to be accessed by all of their customers, which is thousands and thousands -- again, free advertising.
I have posted above a screenshot of what the book looks like when it's offered to readers from Bookfunnel. The giveaway at StoryOrigin is about the same.
HOW THE PRE-ORDER MARKETING STRATEGY WORKS:https://readfirstchapter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Bookfunnel-Promotion-07-21-25-YT.mp4The reader downloads the free ebook and reads it. Hopefully, they will either fill out the questionnaire or send you an email giving you feedback. This direct feedback from individual readers is like getting your own focus group for free. It is well worth the price of a free ebook.
Secondly, as the readers from Bookfunnel or Storyorigin download your free ebook, they are required to give their email. These emails can be used to send newsletters or notices of new releases for you. It's possible to get thousands of new reader emails over the lifetime of a free book.Thirdly, by having these pre-order emails from readers, it's possible to send around an email request when the book is published asking for a review to the book. I cover how to add this link into the book in my longer blog posts linked within this article.Fourthly, enter the book into Pre-Order and/or New Releases Book Promotions on Bookfunnel. I won't go into detail how this works because it is a function of what Book funnel does, but all the authors in the promotion share with their individual newsletters. It's a win/win for all authors. I'll post a sample book promo I made for you to get a sense of how this process can widen your readership. The video is above.To sum up here, you may be able to collect up to 100 emails, as a new author, or many more as a seasoned author during just this pre-release marketing period. This is one of the best marketing strategies out there.
8A. HOW THE AMAZON PRE-ORDERS WORK AS A MARKETING STRATEGY: Readers who follow you on Amazon will get a notice from Amazon that you are releasing a new book. This is a form of free advertising. You can even add a link on the Note to Reader page asking the reader to click on your author name and follow you to be notified of new releases.By adding your book to Amazon early, the book will get into the algorithms quicker than starting on the actual day of release.This is another special event that you can coordinate an entire marketing campaign around: Release of the ebook cover, sign up for a free copy when it's ready, revealing the paperback cover, revealing the preorder, etc.9. FORMAL RELEASE OF THE BOOK:Once the book has been released, you can then create another marketing campaign about the actual release of the book. I have a few examples below for the newbies.
CONCLUSION:
I wrote this blog post while planning and executing a pre-order on a new novelette entitled Writer's Block which is available for preorder starting on 08/12/25 and the book will be released on 09/15/25. This will give me a month to market the book as a preorder.
Click on the book to be taken to Bookfunnel where you can download and read the book for free!
Don't forget to fill out my questionnaire and leave a review!
8. PRE-RELEASE BOOK MARKETING - GIVEAWAYS
Giving away your book for free is the most cost-effective method of advertising -- bar none. I always give away my books and don't understand the argument new authors make for refusing to give away 'their work'. In my opinion, everyone who reads and likes a free book will be ready to purchase a second, third, or fourth book by you.
That being said, I use Bookfunnel & StoryOrigin to give away my ebooks. This allows the book to be accessed by all of their customers, which is thousands and thousands -- again, free advertising.
I have posted above a screenshot of what the book looks like when it's offered to readers from Bookfunnel. The giveaway at StoryOrigin is about the same.
HOW THE PRE-ORDER MARKETING STRATEGY WORKS:The reader downloads the free ebook and reads it. Hopefully, they will either fill out the questionnaire or send you an email giving you feedback. This direct feedback from individual readers is like getting your own focus group for free. It is well worth the price of a free ebook.Secondly, as the readers from Bookfunnel or Storyorigin download your free ebook, they are required to give their email. These emails can be used to send newsletters or notices of new releases for you. It's possible to get thousands of new reader emails over the lifetime of a free book.Thirdly, by having these pre-order emails from readers, it's possible to send around an email request when the book is published asking for a review to the book. I cover how to add this link into the book in my longer blog posts linked within this article.Fourthly, enter the book into Pre-Order and/or New Releases Book Promotions on Bookfunnel. I won't go into detail how this works because it is a function of what Book funnel does, but all the authors in the promotion share with their individual newsletters. It's a win/win for all authors. I'll post a sample book promo I made for you to get a sense of how this process can widen your readership. The video is above.To sum up here, you may be able to collect up to 100 emails, as a new author, or many more as a seasoned author during just this pre-release marketing period. This is one of the best marketing strategies out there.
8A. HOW THE AMAZON PRE-ORDERS WORK AS A MARKETING STRATEGY: Readers who follow you on Amazon will get a notice from Amazon that you are releasing a new book. This is a form of free advertising. You can even add a link on the Note to Reader page asking the reader to click on your author name and follow you to be notified of new releases.By adding your book to Amazon early, the book will get into the algorithms quicker than starting on the actual day of release.This is another special event that you can coordinate an entire marketing campaign around: Release of the ebook cover, sign up for a free copy when it's ready, revealing the paperback cover, revealing the preorder, etc.9. FORMAL RELEASE OF THE BOOK:Once the book has been released, you can then create another marketing campaign about the actual release of the book. I have a few examples below for the newbies.
CONCLUSION:I wrote this blog post while planning and executing a pre-order on a new novelette entitled Writer's Block which is available for preorder starting on 08/12/25 and the book will be released on 09/15/25. This will give me a month to market the book as a preorder.
Click on the book to be taken to Bookfunnel where you can download and read the book for free!
Don't forget to fill out my questionnaire and leave a review!
I have posted above a screenshot of what the book looks like when it's offered to readers from Bookfunnel. The giveaway at StoryOrigin is about the same.
The reader downloads the free ebook and reads it. Hopefully, they will either fill out the questionnaire or send you an email giving you feedback. This direct feedback from individual readers is like getting your own focus group for free. It is well worth the price of a free ebook.
Secondly, as the readers from Bookfunnel or Storyorigin download your free ebook, they are required to give their email. These emails can be used to send newsletters or notices of new releases for you. It's possible to get thousands of new reader emails over the lifetime of a free book.Thirdly, by having these pre-order emails from readers, it's possible to send around an email request when the book is published asking for a review to the book. I cover how to add this link into the book in my longer blog posts linked within this article.Fourthly, enter the book into Pre-Order and/or New Releases Book Promotions on Bookfunnel. I won't go into detail how this works because it is a function of what Book funnel does, but all the authors in the promotion share with their individual newsletters. It's a win/win for all authors. I'll post a sample book promo I made for you to get a sense of how this process can widen your readership. The video is above.To sum up here, you may be able to collect up to 100 emails, as a new author, or many more as a seasoned author during just this pre-release marketing period. This is one of the best marketing strategies out there.
8A. HOW THE AMAZON PRE-ORDERS WORK AS A MARKETING STRATEGY: Readers who follow you on Amazon will get a notice from Amazon that you are releasing a new book. This is a form of free advertising. You can even add a link on the Note to Reader page asking the reader to click on your author name and follow you to be notified of new releases.By adding your book to Amazon early, the book will get into the algorithms quicker than starting on the actual day of release.This is another special event that you can coordinate an entire marketing campaign around: Release of the ebook cover, sign up for a free copy when it's ready, revealing the paperback cover, revealing the preorder, etc.9. FORMAL RELEASE OF THE BOOK:Once the book has been released, you can then create another marketing campaign about the actual release of the book. I have a few examples below for the newbies.
CONCLUSION:I wrote this blog post while planning and executing a pre-order on a new novelette entitled Writer's Block which is available for preorder starting on 08/12/25 and the book will be released on 09/15/25. This will give me a month to market the book as a preorder.
Click on the book to be taken to Bookfunnel where you can download and read the book for free!
Don't forget to fill out my questionnaire and leave a review!
https://readfirstchapter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Bookfunnel-Promotion-07-21-25-YT.mp4
August 5, 2025
Coloring Page – Read & Relax on the Beach
Click here to download an 8.5" x 11" png from Google Drive.
Check out my new Brainstorming Workbook!
Click here to purchase at Amazon
Free Download for a Limited Time
Click here to download from Amazon
Click here to download from Bookfunnel.
John Walsh is a successful funeral director with a loving family but he has a weakness for other women. The modern world thinks cheating is a victimless crime, but is it?
Click here to download a free copy for a limited time.
Click on the graphic of my books and you will be brought to a page on my website where you can read a sample of my books in your browser. It's much easier than downloading samples from Amazon.
Check back often as I give away books all the time.
July 25, 2025
Coloring Page – Dog Days of Summer
Click here to download an 8.5" x 11" png from Google Drive.
Click here to purchase at Amazon
Free Download for a Limited Time
Click here to download from Amazon
Click here to download from Bookfunnel.
John Walsh is a successful funeral director with a loving family but he has a weakness for other women. The modern world thinks cheating is a victimless crime, but is it?
Click here to download a free copy for a limited time.
Click on the graphic of my books and you will be brought to a page on my website where you can read a sample of my books in your browser. It's much easier than downloading samples from Amazon.
Check back often as I give away books all the time.
July 23, 2025
3 Quick Steps to Add a Direct Review Link
As authors, we all know how hard it is to get readers to take a few minutes of their time to leave reviews. I believe one part of the problem is that the Kindle app doesn't make leaving a review from the app from a tablet or phone easy.
Aside from that, I think people are just busy. But there is a way to add a link to the end of your eBooks that can take the reader to the exact review page.
However, it is just a bit tricky because you need to have the ASIN number when you don't get until the book is actually published.
3 QUICK STEPS TO ADD REVIEW LINK:
Publish your book.Add the ASIN number to the end of this link (Replacing the Xs):https://www.amazon.com/review/create-...No quotes.Reupload your final manuscript and check the link in the preview window.
That's it! It's that easy.
EXAMPLE PAGE TO PUT THE LINK ON:Below I have an example page where you can put the link and what verbiage you can use for it. If you already have a thank you page for your readers, you can also add it there.
NOTE TO READER (Page Name)
Dear Reader:
This is my first short story/novelette. I have not received any feedback from readers yet – except friends, who always tell me the books are great! But I would love real reader feedback. So if any of you would be good enough to fill out a short questionnaire, I can send you my next novelette (Working Title: Writer’s Block) that will be released sometime in August for your trouble. Here is a link to the questionnaire that is on my website.
This short story has only been out for a few weeks, so if you would be good enough to leave me an honest review at Amazon.com, I would be so grateful. Here is a direct link to do that.
I love to hear any feedback about the book and enjoy interacting with my readers, so if you would prefer to just send an email, that will work too!
My email is mailto:rshannon@readfirstchapter.com?subject=Feedback about Uninvited Remains.
Thanks again!
Click here to purchase at Amazon
Click here to download from Amazon
Click here to download from Bookfunnel.
July 18, 2025
Coloring Page – Books as an Adventure
Click here to download an 8.5" x 11" png from Google Drive.
Click here to purchase at Amazon
Free Download for a Limited Time
Click here to download from Amazon
Click here to download from Bookfunnel.
All my books have a thread of Catholicism running through them.
Ryan Mallardi Private Investigations
Jack Nolan Detective Series
Newport Vampire Stories Series
July 15, 2025
Best Tips on KDP Book Covers
When new writers think about a book cover, they tend to want to tell the whole story on the cover. I still have this problem myself! This often turns out to be a block to great design. The main mission of a great cover is to tell the reader WHO the book is about, WHERE the story will take place, and WHAT the story is about. Here are some examples:
Vampire – Modern Day New York City – Vampire huntersGaslighting – Mansion and/or Hospital setting – Psychological MysteryCrime Mystery – 18th Century – Who Done itCold case murder – Modern Day investigation – Secrets revealedThe purpose of the cover is to lure in readers who already read in your genre or find something about your cover that triggers their interest and they decide to give your book a try.
(Video of best seller lists showing which books catch the eye)
TIP 2 – COVER SIZE MATTERS:When a person holds your book in their hand, they will be able to see every detail on the cover. If they look at the cover after reading your book, they may see many things that foreshadowed the story. However, if there is too much going on on the book cover, when the size of the cover is reduced into the size millions of readers see the cover — during a scroll at Amazon.com — then all of that same foreshadowing and complex design is being seen at a size where not much besides the color scheme and the title — if you’re lucky — can be seen.
Show the different sizes that people will see your books in. Point out how simple design is often more effective.
TIP 3 – THERE’S FANCY AND THEN THERE’S TOO FANCY:The sci-fi and fantasy realm is an area where the covers can quite elaborate, very fancy, so to speak. Elaborate embossed titles, with dark backgrounds, smoke of glowing light, a sole figure who is reduced in order to get all the fancy background in, etc. In my humble opinion, there is such a thing as being too fancy.
It is possible to keep things simple even in the sci-fi and fantasy genres. Famous authors sell books to an already-established readership, so they can have book covers that are barely readable. They won’t sell one less book. However, if you are new and self-published, you will be relying more heavily on appealing to the tastes of book scrollers. eBook shoppers are not browsers who will see your book up close in a bookstore. They are Amazon scrollers which is a completely different experience.
This is a genre that sometimes less is more. Before you settle on a design, create the cover into the size that will be seen in the different scrolls on Amazon that I’ll demonstrate below. Make sure you can read the cover title, author title, and that the genre is clear. Those are the basics.
TIP 4 – NO DESIGN IDEAS? HERE’S A REMEDY:If you have no creative talent in the area of graphic design, here is a tip that will help you. First and foremost, find the subgenre you will be choosing. Below are examples of sub-genres and how far they are from the top genre selection. This sub-genre is your reader pond. This is where you initial readers will be swimming and scrolling.
Pull up the Best Seller pages in that subgenre and record the amazon link address to that very page. Then go to fiverr.com and find the brand new cover designers, the ones who are really looking to establish themselves and they are willing to make a cover for $5 or $10. Hire three of them and give them the link to the best seller list with a brief synopsis of what your book is about. That’s all the information you should give them.
When they all deliver an eBook, this should give you at least a direction to go in. This is usually enough to give even a non-creative person an area to go in. Then once you are ready to have a real cover done, you can hire a book cover designer with more experience, either from a recommendation from a self-publishing group or by looking at all the portfolios at Fiverr.com.
TIP 5 – THE LAST AND MAYBE THE BIGGEST TIP:Don’t use white as a background for your book. It creates problems with Amazon. First of all, Amazon wants you to put a border of a light gray onto your book cover which most beginners don’t think about until after their purchase. But it gets washed out against the white background at Amazon.
If you need a whitish cover for some unknown reason, choose a different white color so at least there is a difference between Amazon and your cover.
July 8, 2025
Reading Chart – Download
Click here to download an 8.5" x 11" PDF copy from Google Drive
Click to download a free copy
Free Download for a Limited Time
Click here to buy the whole series at Amazon for only $9.99
All my books have a thread of Catholicism running through them.
Ryan Mallardi Private Investigations
Jack Nolan Detective Series
Newport Vampire Stories Series
June 28, 2025
Proofreading Through Your Own Writing Weaknesses
Every writer has strengths and weaknesses. At some point, it's important for each writer to recognize what their particular weaknesses are.
I made a list of my weaknesses and it's an expanding list that I add to with every book I write. You can see a glimpse of part of it to the left.
This list is within a longer document I call "Info - Proofreading" and I keep lists of lots of things to check regarding the development elements of a storyline, my own personal troublesome words, and other information that I want to remind myself of about proofreading in general.
I pull this list up when I get ready to proofread and scan it to remind myself of all that I want to check for. I have my notes about Writing a Novel in 8 Layers also in this document.
The above list of troublesome words is at the end of the long proofreading list and I add to it every time I find a word that was misspelled and I read over without noticing the mistake. This way, I'm keeping track of my weaknesses as an author and writer.
Some of the words are spelling traps for me. Some of them are just words I tend to use too often and some are the adverbs that are frowned upon these days like just, really and very.
Once I review the list I then go into some other strategies that I have developed over the 14 to 16 nooks I have written. I go into them below and I also have a video at the end of this blog post where I go into it live.
I search and find each of my troublesome words to make sure I've used them and/or spelled them properly.
Once I'm done with that list, I search through the document using the Control F (Find feature) to check that all of my quotes have an open quotation mark and a close quotation mark. It takes a little time to do this, but I feel much more secure when I check them. I ALWAYS find an extra one or a couple of missing quotation marks.
Another strategy I have developed regarding troublesome words is that I used the Fine and Replace Feature. By capitalizing the words, there's no way I can read over them. It forces me to stop and analyze each one to make sure I am making a decision about each word.
Let me give you an example: In my last novel, I replaced all of the HE WAS and SHE WAS verbs with all capitals so that I could look at each one and decide whether I could use a more descriptive verb. I found this very helpful. Now, this does make the first proofread a bit tedious, but it's okay. I would rather move slowly through the first proofread to make sure I address all of my tricky words.
READ ALOUD WITH MICROSOFT WORD:After proofreading the text for my spelling, grammar, and verb weaknesses, I then shift over and use the "Read Aloud" feature in Microsoft Word and I listen to the book read back to me. This feature may only be available in Microsoft 365, but there are certainly plenty of other platforms where you can copy and paste your manuscript chapter by chapter and have it read back to you.
WHAT ABOUT THE EDITOR?
Now, some of you may say, why bother if you're just going to hand over the manuscript to an editor?
I do this much proofreading because I don't want to pay for an editor to go through my manuscript like a grammar school teacher with a red pen correcting silly mistakes I made from typing too fast, reading over my troublesome words, or my sloppy grammar problem. I want the editor to have a clean manuscript so they can concentrate on and check the details of the story, my time references and make sure the storyline makes sense. I want them to make sure I haven't assumed the reader knows something too soon and other details like this.
I have found that with a clean manuscript, this is where my editors are focused. The mistakes they find and/or suggestions they make are all ones I missed and would have continued to miss.
Great proofreading on a writer's end
leads to a more valuable and
higher-grade professional edit.
I hope these quick proofreading tips will help other writers get up on their feet quicker than I did. I try to write blog articles and do the videos I wanted to see when I was first starting out.
Below is a panel of my books that are all available on Amazon for sale.
CHECK OUT THE VIDEO THAT GOES ALONG WITH THIS BLOG POST BELOW:
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
June 27, 2025
How to Tell When Book Marketing is a Racket
I saw a video today posted by a channel named Jon Del Arroz entitled "Authors Furious after being scanned by a Book Conference with No Readers!" I'll post the video link below so you can watch it and subscribe to his channel.
In the video, I can tell that Jon, as well as many of the authors who felt scammed by the conference, all seemed shocked by the gall of these conference promotors who would do something like this to authors.
I used to be a small fairy doll maker and also a mold maker in a past life. I went to several scams of this nature but in my field, they were called "arts and craft shows". It took me about three times to figure out that these were nothing more than a 'racket-terium". That's what I call an arena that is disguised as a promotional sales venue that appears to be set up to help fellow 'artists' who always need marketing opportunities.
What tipped me off was when I realized that the promoters overcharged for the tables or booths based on how many people showed up and the average ticket price for any and all items that would be sold. Another tip is that when they call your table space a "booth", that means you're really getting screwed. For example, they would sell a table space in a strip mall for about $150 to $200 dollars. But the really slick promotors would call them booths and would start the feels at about $250 and up. The corner booth, which they claim get 'double traffic' (which is nonsense) were always at least double. Even those crafters who sold a few items, it never made up for the table, booth and/or travel expenses.
Aside from ripping off all of the artists, they put a "ticket price" to enter the show -- which was more money for the promotors. It wasn't shared among the artists, but went into the pockets of the promotors. And the really slippery promotors would then hire their son or nephew to set up a 'valet parking' station outside the venue somewhere to park cars for a few dollars -- plus, of course, the tip on the way out.
Then inside the venue there would be a food cart or two. These people probably had to pay money for their "booth" too -- again, this profit also went to the promotors. And because there was no competition for food, these food vendors would charge at least three times what any of the food choices were worth. I think they call it "Paying for convenience". I still call it gouging.
So by the time the customer gets to your booth, they have been scalped by the entry ticket price, the valet parker, and the food booth. So by the time they come around to your table to hopefully buy something, some of them have already spent their $20 for the day and they wind up being lookers and not buyers. If you do make any sales, the only money the shoppers have is whatever cash is left in their pockets or their budgets.
Putting aside the super wealthy, the millionaire and billionaire classes, there is only so much expendable income that each person has at the end of the day. And in today's world, after exporting every decent job to a 3rd world nation that have none of those pesky OSHA workplace safety rules or regulations, or any of those draconian worker's compensation laws, or people who are so dirt poor that they are willing to work under the slave-master conditions promoted by globalist billon-dollar companies, many people have barely enough to buy a lipstick or a comic book for themselves. So by the time they get to your table, they've probably already spent $20 to $30 just entering and walking around in the racketorium.
My heart breaks for these authors referenced in this video post when I think of how much these authors spent on the 'booth fees' and the travel expenses, only to show up and discover it was a racketerium masquerading as a legetimate place to sell books.
With all the voices shouting over one another with marketing tips today, my advise to new self-publishers is that when readers are looking for a new book, especially anyone under 50 years old, they go to Amazon or some other online retail platform. Maybe they will stroll into a brick and mortar bookstore if they see one.
In my humble opinion, it would always be better to buy Amazon ads than to pay for travel, hotels and food on the road to attend a book event.
There's one exception to this rule and that's where you go to a conference for reasons other than to sell a lot of books. There are other goals that can be equally as life-changing to any new or self-published author, that I'll go into in my next video. So be on the lookout for that.
Below is a video I made of this blog article if you care to watch it. Beneath that is the video I watched that brought back all of the marketing nonsense I came upon in my earlier career.
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
