How Not to Launch an Ebook
So, this is the current state of play: the cat has recovered from her cystitis. Talented Daughter has handed over the sword she came across in her new cycle shed to the police, and I have finally managed to fit the very complicated state-of-the-art seat covers in the 2CV - I'm sure the tips of my fingers will regrow in time. Anything else to report? Nope: you're up to speed.
Meanwhile I'm sure that it hasn't escaped your notice that there is a plethora of 'How to do it' advice out there. How to become a millionaire in a year; How to have a beautiful garden; How to stuff your face with pies and cakes and lose weight at the same time (sorry, I made that last one up).
All this helpful advice is written by experts in the various fields for, gentle blog-readers, we want to learn how to do things properly and well. We want to think of ourselves as successful 'can-do' sort of people. Except, it appears, for one particular intention deficit disordered individual among us. So allow me, as an 'expert' in the art of 'How not to do it' to share the following advice with you:
1. Do not launch your ebook at the same time as a major sporting event. It is the Olympics. Nobody is reading books. Nobody is buying books. Nobody is in the remotest way interested in books. Everyone is glued to the TV.
2. Do not launch your ebook during the summer holidays. See above, but with added sea.
3. Do not think that just because you write books, you can also write blurb. Professionally qualified sub-editors earn good money doing this. You are not one of them.
4. Do not write the only book in the whole history of fiction that does not seem to fit into any perceivable category on Amazon Kindle. You will inevitably categorise it wrongly. Readers will notice. And they will say so. Publicly.
5. Do not believe all those people that say uploading to Amazon is a breeze. They are lying in their teeth. Think childbirth: hard work, bewildering and messy.
6. Do not totally neglect to organise a publicity schedule. Faffing around on Facebook and Twitter is not a publicity schedule.
7. Do not do a great long blog about how not to launch an ebook when you haven't actually launched the ebook yet because you are still struggling to sort out all of the above.
You see: I told you I was an expert!
This is the cover. Like it?
Meanwhile I'm sure that it hasn't escaped your notice that there is a plethora of 'How to do it' advice out there. How to become a millionaire in a year; How to have a beautiful garden; How to stuff your face with pies and cakes and lose weight at the same time (sorry, I made that last one up).
All this helpful advice is written by experts in the various fields for, gentle blog-readers, we want to learn how to do things properly and well. We want to think of ourselves as successful 'can-do' sort of people. Except, it appears, for one particular intention deficit disordered individual among us. So allow me, as an 'expert' in the art of 'How not to do it' to share the following advice with you:
1. Do not launch your ebook at the same time as a major sporting event. It is the Olympics. Nobody is reading books. Nobody is buying books. Nobody is in the remotest way interested in books. Everyone is glued to the TV.
2. Do not launch your ebook during the summer holidays. See above, but with added sea.
3. Do not think that just because you write books, you can also write blurb. Professionally qualified sub-editors earn good money doing this. You are not one of them.
4. Do not write the only book in the whole history of fiction that does not seem to fit into any perceivable category on Amazon Kindle. You will inevitably categorise it wrongly. Readers will notice. And they will say so. Publicly.
5. Do not believe all those people that say uploading to Amazon is a breeze. They are lying in their teeth. Think childbirth: hard work, bewildering and messy.
6. Do not totally neglect to organise a publicity schedule. Faffing around on Facebook and Twitter is not a publicity schedule.
7. Do not do a great long blog about how not to launch an ebook when you haven't actually launched the ebook yet because you are still struggling to sort out all of the above.You see: I told you I was an expert!
This is the cover. Like it?
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