S.E. Burr's Blog: Online Book Promotions

Gobbled Boxed Set--Free Review Copies

I'm trying to get some more reviews for Goblin Girl, Goblin Winter, and the boxed set of books 1-3. SO, if you want to read them (and hopefully are willing to leave a review here or especially on Amazon) please get your free copy at this link:

https://instafreebie.com/free/DVTD4

Enjoy!

Reading and writing

I haven't done a post here in a long time so I thought I'd check in again.

What I'm reading:
Non-fiction: I'm reading Write, Publish, Repeat and I'm loving it. It's full of great information about indie publishing, and it's really encouraging. A big point it makes is that writing lots of good books is the most important part of marketing which is great because I don't really like marketing itself.
Fiction: I just read Someone Else's Fairytale by E.M. Tippetts and really liked it.

What I'm writing:
I'm working on the third book in the Gobbled series, tentatively called Goblin Winter. It takes place in both worlds and the characters from both previous books have big parts so it's a bit challenging but a lot of fun to write.

Online Book Promotions: New purpose for my blog

I published Goblin Fruit through Create Space and Kindle Direct Publishing as an experiment. It's not my favorite of the books I've written. Don't get me wrong, I worked really hard on it for a long time and I'm proud of it, but it started as a class assignment, so it didn't exactly spring from the depths of my soul or anything. Still, I feel like it's a good story. I enjoyed writing it and a lot of you have said you liked reading it, or even that it moved you. Thank you.

I was frustrated with looking for agents and/or editors and I just wanted something of mine to actually be read. I chose Goblin Fruit because I thought I could bear to part with it. If I couldn't make the self publishing thing work, and no one read it, it wouldn't feel like an actual child of mine had died, more like a close friend or something. Really sad, but not debilitating.

What I wanted, and still want, is to promote it pretty much exclusively online. That's a real challenge for me, because before I published, I was using Goodreads and Facebook minimally, and they were basically the only social media sites I used at all. I'm learning as I go, and I feel really alone in that process a lot of the time.

But I know I'm not alone. I know there are a lot of Goodreads members who are writers and are trying to figure this all out just like I am, and I thought some of you might like to hear about my experiments with online promotion, my successes, my failures. I'll be posting them here.

(Hey, I'm not sure I understand the tag thing. I'd appreciate any comments below with tips, or just comment and let me know you're here. Sometimes I feel like I'm speaking into the wind.)

"Sociology" is a Finalist in Patterson Contest!

My story, "Sociology" has been named a finalist in the Patterson contest on Figment! They haven't announced the winner yet, so fingers crossed. You can read it here:

http://figment.com/books/547281-Socio...

I Won Milestone: 2012

I won Milestone: 2012, a literary journal/anthology from East Los Angeles College and I'm so glad I did because
it was fantastic. "Home" by Dario Serrano reads like a rap, and has some absolutely brilliant phrases. The beginning of "Chagrin" by Ariana Renteria is great as is the ending of "Blue Beta Fish" by Aaron C. Higareda. "The French Press" by Michael Alexander Becerra was probably my favorite. It's about a man with a horribly offensive, bigoted coffeemaker that is wrecking his social life but that he can't give up because of its wonderful coffee. This is likely a metaphor, but is a deeply funny and engrossing read without going any deeper. I highly recommend this book.

I saw a post in a forum discussion on Figment that said they'd be giving away a free copy to one of the people that posted a review of one of their stories or poems on the site. So, I spent two minutes, read a poem, and posted a review. I wasn't surprised when I won, because I was one of the only ones who posted. This was a promotional idea that didn't pan out very well for them. As an author (Goblin Fruit) I've had several of those myself. I would never have paid for this book and that is SO sad, because I loved it, but it's a literary anthology from a college I have no connection with, and this is the crux of the issue. More people are writing than ever and more books are being published than ever, but people are reading less, and fewer still are paying for what they read. Some of what's being written is fantastic (like this), some is horrible, and most is in between, but still worthwhile. I just don't know how we as authors get our work read by the people who would love to read it. It seems to be a very slow, expensive process that gets in the way of what we actually want to do, which is write. I have no solution to offer at the moment, but I'm glad I read this and hope you'll read it too.

1st Draft Finished!!! TCS

Yesterday, I finally finished the first draft of my third novel. This one seems more special to me than the other two, because those I wanted to write. This one just wouldn't leave me alone. It's a really, really strange science fiction book with the working title, The Coming Second, and I'm proud of it, and I'm scared for it, and I really hope I can find it a home outside my drawer and my head, but that's not the easiest thing to do...

Still I love it. It exists now, at least in an unpolished form. I'm not sure now whether I'll jump write in to polishing or work on the sequel to Goblin Fruit that some of you have sugested. If I do the sequel, I'm thinking about basing it around another Rossetti poem, The Prince's Progress. Thoughts?

Amazon Review Giveaway

Thanks for all your reviews of Goblin Fruit here on Goodreads. During March, anyone who posts a review of Goblin Fruit ON AMAZON will be entered in a drawing to receive a free autographed copy. Obviously, your chances of winning this drawing are much better than with the regular Goodreads Giveaways. (If you've already posted a review on Amazon you'll be entered too.) If you decide to participate, please send me a message letting me know you posted a review, just to be sure I don't miss you.

Thanks!

Erin

P.S. Read my figment contest entry and heart if you think it's worthy here: http://figment.com/books/547281-Socio...

figment, book coming down

Hi,
I know that not many people read this blog, but if you do and you have a figment account, I wrote a story today, "Sociology" for the Patterson contest and I'd really appreciate it if you'd read it and heart it. It's kind of unusual, but it's about a love no one approves of, after all. Here's the link: Sociology

If you don't have a figment account, maybe you should get one. I'm new there, but it's free, and it seems like if you like Goodreads, you might like it too.

Also, I'm taking Goblin Fruit (except for an excerpt) off Goodreads tomorrow, so if you're still reading it, you better hurry up.

Gum Road is awesome?

I've been messaging people who put Goblin Fruit on their "to-read" list and offering them a free read of the book here on Goodreads for a limited time (I plan to take it down 2/21 by the way. I know that's much later than I originally planned...)

Anyway, since I've asked everyone to recommend the book to their friends, I thought I should tell them where to send their friends to buy it.

Besides, Amazon and other sellers you're probably familiar with, you can now by Goblin Fruit on Gum Road!

Gum Road is a pretty new site meant to help people who make things more easily sell them. It seems really cool. It's really easy to purchase, they don't keep your account info unless you want them to, and they give me a much bigger percentage than Amazon. Also, there's an option for people to pay what they want above a certain level. I set that level to $.99 but it'd be great if people chose to pay more, since I'm losing money on this project for the foreseeable future.

Here's the link: Goblin Fruit

Anyway, I heard about Gum Road on the Vlogbrothers channel on Youtube. That is definitely awesome. I get to hear one of my favorite authors, John Green, and his brother talk about all kinds of random things, so how could it not be? DFTBA!

Read Goblin Fruit and I'll donate

I have done two Goodreads giveaways now. A very large number of people signed up for a chance to win a copy of Goblin Fruit. A smaller, but still very large number of people added it to their "to read" list. However, judging from ratings and reviews, only a very small number of people have actually read it, and a tiny number of people have actually paid to read it.

SO to try to generate more buzz about my book, and hopefully get more people to read it (and because it will give me a warm glowy feeling and make me feel like my book is contributing something to the world) for each of the next twenty-five reviews people write of Goblin Fruit that cleverly include the word "pomegranate" I will make a $1 donation to a fruit related charity. That's a penny more than it costs to buy the kindle version of the book.

I am thinking the donation will either be to the The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation or a micro-loan through Kiva to a fruit related business (I realize the micro-loan is not technically a donation, but it still does incredible good.) I am definitely open to suggestions. I promise that none of the money will go to planting "goblin fruit." ;-) When I've gotten 25 reviews I will make the donation all together at one time (or if it takes a really long time I might break it up or do the whole thing early.) After I've donated I'll post some kind of proof here. I was thinking a screen shot, but I don't see anywhere to attach a picture so I might have to get more creative.