eBook Marketing: A Reality Check

Welcome everyone to my first anytime, anywhere blog posting. Generally, I'll enforce no rules here. The more freewheeling, provocative, passionate it can be the better it will serve everyone. However, since the antithesis of honest, open debate is political correctness, anyone injecting it will be sent to the end of the line. Tact and courtesy will obtain, but not procrastination. In keeping with this blog's personality, let's get right to it.

To begin with, 'going viral' is nothing new. In 1848, the man on whose land a carpenter found a gold nugget, became the poster child for failed news censorship. Within months, men with gold dollar signs dancing before their eyes, overran his property. By 1850, and without Twitter or Facebook, the population influx, including from China, Germany, Chile, Mexico, Ireland, Turkey, and France had become so great, it forced the United States to incorporate California into the Union.

It even made possible our ubiquitous modern wear when a young German tailor, seeing the miners needed more durable, rugged pants, invented Levi Strauss' denim jeans.

Skip ahead, skip ahead, and we now have advanced computers rediscovering an old phenomenon. Writers, their eyes wild with dollar (and just in case Emma reads this, pound sterling *wink*) signs dancing before them, are swamping the internet in the self-publishing gold rush.

We even have our own poster child: Amanda Hocking. Morose and disenchanted at having failed for years to attract an agent who would sell her 17 unpublished paranormal books, she was desperate to see Jim Henson's Muppet show coming to Chicago. But she couldn't afford the gasoline needed to drive the eight hours from her home in Austin, Minnesota. What was a poor, destitute, diehard Muppets fan to do with six months counting down to the show? She didn't need much. A few hundred dollars at most. Why, join the gold rush, of course!

She selected one of her titles, studied proper Kindle formatting, threw it up on Amazon, and in six months sold 150,000 copies and pocketed $20,000. Amanda made it to the show and could even afford the popcorn she hadn't counted on. To date, she's sold 1.5 million books and banked a nifty $2.5 million. Our gold rush princess lives happily ever after.

What are we, toiling in our electronic denims, to make of this? Two similar phenomenons separated by time but not substance and character.

Kindle by the Sell will chronicle my adventures and misadventures as I embark on a quest to learn exactly how one goes about increasing eBook sales. What works, and as importantly, what doesn't.

Also, since it will underpin (or compromise) all marketing efforts, I will incorporate articles, thoughts, and essays on the craft of creative writing. I suspect the respective mix will be about 70%-30% but we'll see how it goes since I hope much of the agenda will be driven by your questions, responses, and contributions.

In any event, Amanda Hocking will not be the model to emulate. How did she do it? The truth is she didn't. Mathematical certainty and cold, precise logic will be the tools employed here. In any given population, the Law of Probability dictates that an Amanda Hocking must occur. Like a random plot point, she entered a curved slope at a precise moment that could not have been foreseen or predicted. With no social media presence, reviews, or marketing budget, she caught a Probability wave and it carried her to fame and fortune.

Speaking of which, I am very dubious social media does anything beyond letting people socialize, i.e., communicate more efficiently. Claims that membership within Facebook, Twitter, et al, are prerequisites to publishing success, reverse the Law of Cause and Effect and are made merely to validate choices made by those who bought in.

Consider this. Does anyone see ads paid for by social media companies parading the millionaires their systems created? Do they exist? Sure. But again, not beyond what the Law of Probability would dictate.

So, should we just sit around and wait to hit the writing Lotto? No. My point is our time, energy, and budgets should be directed toward activities that have concrete, measurable results. I intend to move away from the notion of selling more ebooks and concentrate on how to attract more readers. Goodreads has 20 million. One tenth of a percent, anyone?

And I just can't imagine the effort being made without some expenditure of money. We capitalists like to throw around our own cliches like, 'you have to spend money to make money'. How much, for what, and to whom? Here's another cliche. What gets the most bang for the buck?

I'll be covering these issues in extensive detail but that's enough on the business end. Let's turn to the creative side.

I would like to first introduce everyone to LOP, rhymes with dope. He is the Lord of the Plume. Yeah, I know, but LOTP is hard to pronounce. He is the god of ideas, concepts, twists, turns, and inspiration. Ever had a plot take an unexpected, unimagined turn? Ever have a character jump out of nowhere, personality whole and intact? Yup. That was LOP. Never had these experiences? Now you know why. Hint. He's partial to avocado incense.

And yes. He is a he. Any lady persons troubled by this just think of him as a son. He'll be a frequent visitor to this blog so please make him feel welcome and at home.

An example of him at work is my insight into 'deep writing'. I'm going to cheat a little and re-post an answer I gave to those dork GR questions on our author pages. It's an interesting concept, I think, so I look forward to what reactions it might engender. The question was, what advice I would give an aspiring writer.

"At the risk of being obvious, a writer must write. You must write until you have achieved an intuitive understanding of what I refer to as 'deep writing'. What is 'deep writing'? I present three examples.

"1. Like religion, the faceless officials demanded obedience.

"On its face, nothing jumps out from this sentence as 'wrong'. Even if it had a grammatical error, and it doesn't, grammatical perfection can sometimes be sacrificed for stylistic purposes. Almost always, it can be sacrificed in dialogue but never, in either case, if clarity is compromised.

"In this sentence, however, the adjective 'faceless' provides the clue. These are vague, nebulous, unknown officials. The definite article 'the' dilutes the adjective, indeed, contradicts it. Ambiguousness cannot be specific.

"Like religion, faceless officials demanded obedience.

"'Seeing' that this sentence now conveys a shadowy sentiment more powerfully is 'deep writing'.

"Moreover, on re-write and edit, include occurrences of 'the'. You'll be astonished how often you can remove it and thereby 'deepen' your writing.

"2. Ann motioned in the air, as if with an eraser on an old-fashioned chalkboard.

"Prepositional phrases, an essential component of the English language, are anathema to sentence rhythm and musicality. Rhythm and musicality permit a reader to forget he or she is reading and enter a state where the story flows directly into the mind's eye. Prepositional phrases interrupt sentence rhythm. On re-write and edit, look for every opportunity to reduce or eliminate them altogether.

"Ann motioned eraser-like, as if on an old-fashioned chalkboard.

"Sentence rhythm and musicality are highly, highly subjective and include aspects of voice and style. Taken together, these elements are antecedent to 'deep writing'. Nonetheless, the revised sentence has much better 'flow'.

"3. The beast leaped in the air. (For those who like puzzles, take a moment to consider what this sentence's problem might be.)

"Verbs are essential to writing. Strong verbs are essential to strong writing. Resist diluting them. In addition to being a prepositional phrase, 'in the air' is redundant.

"Two points on strong verbs. On re-write and edit, be merciless in removing 'was' from your writing. I read one editor who referred to it as 'wasitis'. 'Was' is a lazy substitute for an appropriate or strong verb. Yes, it will require work and effort. The result will be 'deep writing'.

"Secondly, the admonition against adverbs is correct. They too, are lazy substitutes for strong verbs. Though sometimes unavoidable (they are a legitimate component of the English language), watch for them. Lazy writing makes for lazy stories."

Before I close, I will hopefully be including images, links, and attachments to enhance future posts. Right now, I'm researching exactly how to do that on GR. Anyone who knows, I would welcome your shortcutting the process.

I am also nearing the point where I can write 'The End' to my current project, Seraphim. I will soon begin the process of going over my extensive and detailed roster of American (and one British, if I remember correctly) literary agents, checking for staff changes. It includes URL's, preferences, specialties, and specific submission requirements. When I do, I'll make it available through the blog but you'll have to PM me since I won't post it publicly.

So, the journey of a 1,000 miles is begun. I welcome your questions, responses, reactions, and critiques.