Is Your Book Not Selling? Get It Critiqued
by Thea Atkinson
Buy Me from Amazon
Recently, I submitted One Insular Tahiti to Victorine’s Lieske’s blog: Why is this book not selling. I had what I thought was a good product: it originally won me my agent, and we’d gone over it in edits, and submitted it to publishers with some stunning comments. It had to be at least passable, right?
Alas, as you know, it ultimately got passed over by the traditional Big 6, but still, I believed it was a good enough product to offer as an ebook and set about getting it out there. That was a year and a half ago.
Despite some great reviews, the book still languishes. Perhaps the Big 6 do know a winner when they see it, and they were right about One Insular Tahiti being a modest seller.
Truth is, I wish it were a modest seller. I’d love for it to be a slow seller even.
If you read the comments on the book over at the blog, you’ll see a variety of issues. Yup. They are all true. I do have a hard time finding a genre. It’s literary to me, but alas, I hate calling it that for two reasons I’ve discussed in the past: One: Litfic is typeically defined as that which does not sell, and Two: I am loathe to put myself in the same category as say: Margaret Atwood or Alice Munro or Donna Morrissey (all wonderful Canadian litfic authors)
So categorizing the thing has been a beeyatch to say the least. And the blurb is a tough one too. If you read some of the reviews, you might see the same from the readers who loved OIT.
And then there’s the title. Sigh. It’s my original title, and it fits the book perfectly. Seriously. It really does. My agent wanted to change it to Raise the Buried Dead, and maybe I should have gone with it, but after 6000 freeloads I’m afraid of confusing my readers if I change the title. So I’m stuck with what I picked, even though I believe it’s the best…and yet…it’s not the best if no one likes it. grin.
Ah, but the cover. The cover I could change. It has been through 5 revisions, this cover, and this (which I hope is the last) is the 6th. I hope I finally got it right and that folks will like it enough to click.
I’m still working on a great blurb. I would love comments. The insides are as good as I can make it–now to get folks to actually get to the inside. There’s the rub.
No one seems to make it to the inside. So this one’s gonna have to be in the 100 mile marathon it seems. No sprinting to the finish for this gal.
SO:
Onto the fun stuff.
I’ve been doing well in the Haystack Giveaway! Thanks to everyone who has entered. There’s just 30 days left, and I have to say, I’m pleased to see a review and two purchases of Water Witch. Mind you, there are a few people who bought a Thea read and have not come forth to enter. Please. Please. If you buy me, review me, tweet me, enter. I want to give you 50 bucks.
Click Here: (Please note: you can also enter on Facebook on Thea’s Writing Page)
A quick peep at the ways to enter:
Blog or reblog about the contest. That means you can simply click reblog on the wordpress bar at the top of my post, or you can write your own post about the contest, or just leave a review of one of my books as a post. I’m OK with any of it. I’ve even found a way for you to post the contest rafflecopter widget right on your blog. (If you’re wordpress free, then alas, you can’t I don’t think) Just go to: the Rafflecopter site and copy/paste the appropriate widget code.
You can buy a Thea book from just about anywhere. I just need some kind of assurance though. (like a forwarded email receipt…just be sure to delete any of your sensitive information)
You can leave me a new review of any Thea book you’ve read! I especially like this entry type. So I’ve given you a chance to leave 2 reviews. Grin. (If you complete this option, consider adding it to your blog as another entry)
You can Tweet about the giveaway
You can share the giveaway on FB or Pinterest or Stumble
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Thea is the author of several novels that she considers left of mainstream. You can find her on BN, Kobo, Sony, Apple
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