Tomas’s Comments (group member since May 15, 2018)

Tomas’s comments from the Support for Indie Authors group.

I'm back to revive this thread... again.
Working draft of Eternity's end, book three in my in-progress series.

Tyr’eshal’s head dropped and a few tears escaped his eyes. “Jandiel’s father… was the last Darkwood to die naturally of old age. Since the Order was founded… all my ancestors died on battlefields. Of the last five generations, none lived long enough to know their grandchildren.” He stared into the distance for a moment, shook his head, and continued. “My father said he thinks our family is cursed.” Tyr’eshal let out a hysterical chuckle, then shook his head again. “We are the curse, in our dedication to protect our world at any cost. This is the price we pay for our superior skills and our selflessness – we die young.”

Yeah, that could be it. I know that when it asked me for a tax ID, I mashed in my country's one, and Amazon pretty much hasn't asked me anything since, so it's hard to recall where it was. Hence why I wasn't able to provide a more precise answer. Glad that someone in the group came up with the solution.

I'm from Europe, not from Canada, but I think Amazon sends me some tax information each year. I pretty much ignore it as my country has a deal with the USA, so I registered with my country's tax ID and the tax is collected here.
Well, would be, if I had any income, but that's not the point here.

It can have a lot of reasons from bad targetting (keywords, authors, whatever you're using) through the "packaging" of your books (especially cover and description must give a clear picture of your genre) to book price. Compare those aspects to other books in your genre and see if there's something that's possibly putting people off from buying your book once they get to the book page...

Eldon wrote: "I don't know. A lot of authors make bank with FB or Amazon ads."

Sure, but the primary goal is still to make money for the platform providing those ads. Those gain the most from it. The ad providers always make money. For the writer (especially a beginner), the goal is often to get near to breaking even and get into positive by the after-effect of rising in the rankings for a while.

Yes, BookBub, Amazon, and FB are the "holy trinity" of book ads, but that doesn't mean people shouldn't try different ways...

Eldon wrote: "my guess is the only one making money on Reddit ads is Reddit"

Isn't that true for most ads?

So it would seem.

On a bit different note, has anyone here tried ads on Reddit? Asking mostly because I've just bought a book I saw as an ad on Reddit. Of course, I guess the target demographic and genre would matter, but just curious if anyone tried that.

Eileen wrote: "David Gaughran, who writes a lot about the indie publishing experience, has said that he thinks the average writer has to sell maybe 200 books to get one rating/review. My own average tends to be closer to 100, but it's clear you have to sell a lot of books to rack up the ratings."

David Gaughran also says that Goodreads is quite poor place to try selling books. The giveaways are very limited (I believe it's still only for US-based authors) and cost-inefficient. GR's ad options are also quite poor in cost and execution.

It would probably be more efficient to make your book discounted and spend the money the giveaway would cost on advertising that fact - if nothing else, a $1 discount will probably deter most people who just want a free book but may never read it.

On PC, if you go to Browse->Giveaways, then there should be an option to list one and, I assume, a guide on how to do it. But I'm really skeptical about any major amount of reviews coming from it, especially as it's been repeatedly mentioned that many readers enter for the sake of "chance on free stuff" and then don't even read the book.

A chapter break can work as well, no idea why I haven't thought about that before. Of course, that's only when the situation is good to use one (in line with how you use chapters, to keep things consistent).

I use the ol' good
***
if there's nothing to tell.

Maybe try writing a couple of chapters in both versions and see what feels better for you to write. My story... all the 10 years it has been merely an idea in my head, I saw it in first-person, but writing it in third-person felt much more natural.

Jeffrey wrote: "I might be the only one seeing this or thinking it, but the tone of it wasn't screaming out fantasy to me. It looks more like a dark thriller with a killer or a brooding hero instead."

When you mention that, yeah.

I agree with the others, the positioning of the figure makes it feel like a lot of empty space with the background having nothing really going on.

Aditi wrote: "My daughter is participating in a contest for which she has written her first book."

I know it can be hard to get your book seen, but the rules of this group EXPLICITLY say: NO LINKS AT ALL. This isn't a group to promote or otherwise show your book. Post removed.

Another one from my working draft of Secrets of the Eternals:
Context: Raltash the demonlord is interrogating one of the captives. Gor'ashi are ogre-like warrior demons.

Raltash watched the warrior [who is squirming and shuffling as one of the demons is holding him by the shoulder he had injured in the battle that led to his capture] for a while. “Release him and stand at the door instead,” he told the gor’ashi.
They looked up at him. “But won’t he escape?” one asked.
Raltash looked up at the guard. “Would the two of you let one injured warrior escape?”
“No.”
“If he did, I would first kill you for being useless, then his second-in-command.” He turned to the warrior. “I think that’s a reason for you to not try anything, am I right?”
“I may want to see those two brutes turned into mindless undead but not at the cost of my own.”

B.A. wrote: "He was "promoting" a marketing plan with promises of 100% more sales than I'm already getting. 100% of 0 is still 0 since I've been letting the book languish until I can redo it and the cover. He wanted $2000 for this "Marketing" plan. I could get more sales by spending $250 for a few promos with places like FreeBooksy"

True, I'm in similar position, leaving my book without any push until I have the third book of the trilogy close to release (currently working to finish #2 in the next 9-15 months) so I can then try to push them at once.
That said, I'm surprised none such attempts had reached me yet.

Roxanne wrote: "My rule: Email or phone, if it's unsolicited, it's a scam."
Pretty much. Sure, you can end up being called by someone who pressed one number wrong, but those cases are very rare these days (when I was 15-ish, someone called me to fix their fridge because they made a mistake writing a number they saw somewhere).

And, hopefully, a lot of writing progress, inspiration, and ideas for all of us.

I got just a couple (I made a clean up and unsubbed from a lot of newsletters some two years ago), but I pretty much just delete them on sight.

I'm in the same box as Ian, I just used the Tax ID from my country.