Eldon’s Comments (group member since May 30, 2016)

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

Christine wrote: "Eldon wrote: "Christine wrote: "Dan wrote: "Yes my books. I paid for ads on Facebook and Amazon to try and push sales and kinda just fell flat. With the book pages, a lot of people just don't pay a..."

Thanks :)

Christine wrote: "Dan wrote: "Yes my books. I paid for ads on Facebook and Amazon to try and push sales and kinda just fell flat. With the book pages, a lot of people just don't pay any mind to what you are promotin..."

If you don't mind Christine, who is Paul Marles? Haven't heard of them.

Christine wrote: "Every 3 months I give away the ebooks on KDP, does anyone know where I can post so that the book will be downloaded? Sometimes it gets downloaded and sometimes not. Maybe you have a suggestion. Tha..."

Freebooksy works really well :)

Phillip wrote: ""

Hahaha!!

Jay wrote: "Well since you seem to enjoy a position of authority over the rest of us, Jay,

Someone in a position of authority sees expressing views they don’t hold as trying to seem an authority? Ah well, tha..."

If you took my comment as sarcastic, then perhaps I need to work on my writing skills. I didn't mean it to be sarcastic, but then again, the internet can lack tone.

You quite frequently post generalities about marketing and craft and I merely wanted to prod for more concrete examples that might benefit the group as a whole.

Thank you for what you provided.

Jay wrote: " As for getting people to the book's page to look at it.... First, the "new release" list steers people there. Then there's social media. And there's the author's note you place at the end that requests them to leave a review. There are ads on Bookbub and others..."

Well since you seem to enjoy a position of authority over the rest of us, Jay, and since this thread is about book promotion, please enlighten us with your success. How many copies of your latest release did you attribute to being on the "new release list"? What tactics have you found successful on social media? Share with us a success story for BookBub ads.

We're all here to learn and would love to hear the details of your marketing successes.

Jay wrote: "If you've written a best-seller, the reader has no choice but to come back and write a 5-star review, which will attract others to look at the first page, where they'll be hooked, and do the same."

Jay, your contention is demonstrably false. Just because a book is a bestseller and beloved by thousands doesn't mean every one of those readers will leave a review. Some readers just don't want to be bothered. No doubt not everyone who has every read a Stephen King book has left a review.

And while you're technically right about needing to hook readers with the first page, you're oversimplifying it in the extreme. The hook can be gangbusters, but how do you get them to your page in the first place?

I know nothing about Book Lemur, but I do know promotion is required no matter how good an author you are. And promotion is what this thread is about :)

Does anyone know if Amazon KDP is having issues at the moment? I tried to upload my print PDF and all I get told is upload file failed. But no reason as to why? Then when I click on help to send an email, the form doesn't load.

Anyone else experiencing this?

Saga wrote: "Hello,

Saga Fiction is happy to announce that we are launching two exciting new releases. Turtle A by Ellie Martin-McKinsey and Carrying On by Jonita Davis will be launched in collaboration with ..."

Sorry Saga Books. First no self promo and second no links.

Phillip wrote: "Today I celebrate 20 years of active duty service in the U.S. Army. When I joined, I said "20 years to the second and I retire." Two months ago, I was selected for promotion to full colonel, which ..."

Congrats Phillip!! A great accomplishment :)

M.A. wrote: "I'm an editor who has just come back after an illness, and so I've been perusing third-party websites with a mind to offering my services through them. While Reedsy, for example, takes 10% (a reaso..."

Good tip M.A.!!

Phillip wrote: "B.A. wrote: "Keeping to the musical-- Woodwinds or brass?"

Brass, every single time.

Breathe under water or able to fly (no environmental concerns for either)?"

Breathe under water. More to see down there ;)

Antia wrote: "Frances, go to Facebook.com and create a profile. It'll walk you through it. Then you can do what Chris said and get an author page. From there, you can advertise on Facebook, join groups, all kind..."

Sorry Antia. No links please :(

Julia wrote: "Peter wrote: "..."

Hi Peter, do you find Amazon advertising works? How do you get people interested in your book? My book is now in Kindle Unlimited; where do we see if we have sales from that? I ..."

Hi Julia! You don't get sales from KU, you get paid for page reads which you can see on your KDP dashboard :)

Andrea wrote: "Spain or France?"

Tough one. Despite not knowing French, France

Andrea wrote: "The Day After Tomorrow or The Towering Inferno?"

The Day After Tomorrow

Phillip wrote: "Disappointing this ended without a new question. How about:

10-Movie film series or 5 season (10 episode) TV show?"

TV show

Jay wrote: "People think authors make up situations and people. And to an extent, we do. But mostly, we adapt life to the needs of story. Pretty much everything interesting that ever happened to us, bad or goo..."

Nice quote from Ellen Goodman!

Phillip wrote: "

"

Great stuff!!

B.A. wrote: "Clicking the box that I'm not a robot is fine, but those picture things are rough. The pictures are so small even on a 15 in. screen that you can barely see what you are looking for. If I can't get..."

Something I think a lot of potential reviewers will say :(