C.B.’s Comments (group member since May 01, 2015)

C.B.’s comments from the Support for Indie Authors group.

Thanks for the insights everyone!

Good to know I have more to keep an eye open for! :)

April wrote: "I remember (sadly) a couple of television series I loved that were abruptly abandoned after ending the previous seasons on huge cliffhangers. :(

Developing a writing career takes years in most cas..."

It really feels like this is in the wrong topic. ^_^

YouTube hasn't gotten back to me as of yet. I was in my account at the time though, they may have just used that for the information.

It is a terrible pain though. Most of the fake sites seem to disappear after a few days at least.

DISCLAIMER: Never click on anything anywhere fellow authors!

I stumbled across a Youtube video today about my book today. Well, it was a 'livestream' that is scheduled to happen on September 20th - So I guess I missed it. I have no idea what - if anything - happened on that date.

There was no video, just a link in the description to read the novel for free. I did not click it, as I am sure it is scamtastical, but I did report it to YouTube.

Has this ever happened to anyone else?

I had no idea my life after publishing would become so full of people attempting to bait me. I should have just written a fishing book.

Uh oh...

Might need to get in on this as well...

I already almost made one of Riley as it is.

Thanks JD.

I was wondering myself about ebooks at expos!

I really do want to know if I should research this more and find someone who has been to expos. I wouldn't even know how many books to bring!

I have been using this avatar as an author photo since I started.

I don't really think it matters.

It might depend on your genre more than anything. A memoir written by an animated smoking skull... would probably do quite well actually! I want to read that now.

Teh buk was sew guder then uther buks eye reed. Moist gram-mer evar adn best spelt. Mee am loved by arthur, writting just for me;!

Plaught, yu now it!
Peoples? Chalk ful!
Terns! Twist! Shout!

I giv Fiyve starr!!1!

*****

Jay wrote: "C.B. wrote: "Jay- any book that has pages sticking together... was probably a pretty good book to be honest."

Let's test your theory. Fill up your bathtub and toss in all your books. Let us know i..."

- Obvious joke about why that isn't why book pages stick together if they find their way into the bath.

Jay- any book that has pages sticking together... was probably a pretty good book to be honest.

"I'm sorry", the operator said, "but the calls appear to be coming from inside the house, and were dialed by someone with a hook for a hand that turned out to be you all along!"

I was wondering if anyone has any experience with a book expo or festival or whatever they are going to be called by the event organizers.

Where do you find out about them?

How many books do you expect to sell at them?

Are they worth it? Do you sell many books?

Any help is appreciated, and any stories would be useful.

Thanks!

You can always just bring your completed file to a local print shop. It is often a better value than going to an online print place for short runs.

Two options will make them happy:
1. Just the single bookmark, with the appropriate 0.125" margins and bleed space.
2. Many bookmarks set up, with bleed and crop marks, on an 11"x17" page. Print shops do not use 8.5" x 11" paper for stuff like this.

(I can tell you don't have bleed or margins on your bookmarks at the moment. This will make them harder to cut out. You can find info on how to do this easily on google. If you can design it, you can add bleed to it!)

They will print them off for you very reasonably, and even cut them. I work for one of those and honestly, it is reasonable. You can get a deal if you cut them yourself.

Lamination is nice, but expensive. It is a bookmark, so I don't worry about it. Plus this way I can write on the back.

Finally QR codes are for smartphone scanning. They are easy to generate. Here is a place that is free, and lets you make them fancy colours!:

http://www.qrstuff.com/

Just be sure and test a QR code before you print them off! :D

What a delightful book, I am already eagerly awaiting the sequel and am going to give it the highest rating possible - 4 White Stars!
- Love, person that doesn't understand the internet

I have never once cheered for the zombies, but this time...

Every once in a long while you read a book that completely changes your life for the better - it isn't this book though, this one was just awful!

Three words: Needs much better proofreading!

Unfortunately you can't give a zero star review, so I was forced to give this a one.

An accidentally wise duck that sells noodles once said, "There is no secret ingredient."

It goes with marketing. there simply is no secret anyone can share! :D If you find it, tell us the flavour combo though!

R. A Goodreads Giveaway is a special promotional book giveaway that you can use to give away physical book copies to people that enter the contest.
You can read up about them in the little down arrow on the top of the menu.
I'm not sure what a limited time giveaway is, or if that is a good number or not. sorry!

Well ain't that a kick in the head.

That is too bad, I could see the photos being forced to be a certain size though, they did sort of dominate some screens. I see no reason to remove Bold, that was an amazing help.

I thought I would share my next results, and what I learned from them.

- Check your starting and end date before you list! I picked September 3rd, because it was relatively free of entries (unlike Sept 1st, and August 31st). This allowed me to be on the first page of September 3rd entries no matter where I ended up in the list, because there was only a single page ending on that day!
The last giveaway I was in had 9 pages ending on the same day, I ended up randomly on page 5. The order does not seem to change over the day, if you are on page 5, you stay there! So try and fit yourself in on a good low traffic day.

Avoid month ends, beginnings, holidays, etc.

- This time I made sure that all of the information was in the area people could read, without clicking on 'more info' button. The only info I had in 'more info' was a joke about clicking the more info button. I used bold and not italics this time for keywords. I only had the most vital of information on there - signed copy, comes with bonus mystery prize, etc. and made sure that the warning / content was not hidden in the 'more info' button this time, so that people didn't click it not knowing what they were in for.

Did this work? Well, I am but one giver in a sea of many, but this giveaway did have more entries, almost 400 more entries in fact than the first time! I was in the middle of page 2 for most requested giveaway!

So I personally think the changes to the giveaway increased exposure.

I will note, I only gave away a single book both times. I don't really think the number of books to be won changes how many clicks you get, so save on shipping, just offer one copy multiple times.

I'm not an expert, by any stretch of the word, but if you need help setting one up, I have a much better handle than before so just ask for help!