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

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

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.

I think this comes down mostly to what audience ends up reading the book.
If you write a book and consider it, let's say, aimed at people in their mid-20s but people in their early 20s enjoy it (and become the main buyers), is it a book for mid-20s or early-20s?

So, I guess, this is mostly a matter of perspective. That said, I'd say the themes (and how mature or not they are), as well as the age of the main characters, will have an impact.

The best way would be to have a friend who likes to draw... and would draw for you.

Eldon wrote: "Just deleted an obvious bot posted comment. Tomas, Dwayne, do we know if we can boot JettLeadbeater from the group?"

Only the leader of a group can boot people, as far as I know.

As for covers, the GR approach is to add a new edition with the new cover, even if it still has the same ISBN/ASIN, and mark it as an alternate cover edition. And they're quite strict about it, as far as I know, they'd probably ask me to do an alternate edition if I asked them to update my cover which differs by a slight adjustment of contrast.

The desync between brain and fingers is real. The faster I write to get an idea out of my head before it disappears into the void, the more typos I make...