Theodore’s Comments (group member since Apr 01, 2017)

Theodore’s comments from the Navigating Indieworld Discussing All Things Indie group.

Fair enough, Alex. The great thing about indie writing is that we are free to explore a genre and write that which makes us and our fans happy.

Best of luck with your books.

Okay, in the interest of being helpful and hoping to uncover whatever it is that might have attracted Greg’s and Ron’s attention—and on the possibility what I’m seeing in Written in Blood is representative, perhaps, of your other writings—I do see minor typos almost immediately upon opening the book. To wit:

“I said stop!”” Georgina was a surprised as He when she slapped him, it was completely out of character.

Unless the antagonist was the Lord Himself, the error is obvious. And, arguably, the punctuation needs correction.

Farther down, one sees … “mean going past the Land Rover, and Him, which she was too afraid…” Same problem. Unless, of course, I’m missing something.

It’s stuff like this that can stop a reader from going further.

As for language—and here, I have no idea what ENT’s limits might be or what you wrote in the books submitted to them—I found this:

Georgina was almost on her feet when He caught up to her, crashing into her like a rugby player desperate to keep the opposition from scoring. He knocked the air from her lungs and crushed her to the ground with his body. The weight disappeared after a moment as He lifted himself so he could roll her onto her back, but before she could refill her lungs he had a hand at her throat, choking her.

“You f#$%ing bitch! [word spelled out]. Look what you’ve made me do,” He snarled, screaming the words even though his face was barely a foot from hers. “I was just copping a feel; why’d you have to overreact?”

Look…the language in some of my Det. Louis Martelli, NYPD, mystery/thrillers occasionally gets a bit salty as well, though I tend to keep the violence more subdued (even in Night Shadows, which dealt with child abuse, teen rape, and teenage suicide, there never was any overt sex or violence; it was accepted by ENT).

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J828Q20/

All I was attempting to offer by way of help (and that was the spirit in which I offered my response) was that Greg and Ron may have thought the content was, in one way or another, not appropriate for their readership. Their opinion. Their site. I guess that gives them the right to make the rules.

Again, I’m only offering this as a possibility as to why ENT may not be the best platform for your use.

And you as well, Carole.

Yes, Liz is terrific, as are her children. Just a wonderful family.

Ted

Alex wrote: "I've tried a few times to get on ENT without success, I have a mystery and now a thriller that would be a perfect fit but they've turned me down every time I've applied"

Alex, I just went up on Amazon, and using Look Inside, peeked at your book Written in Blood. While, admittedly, it's a small window into "your world," I suspect (but again don't know) that it's the violence and language (plus the editing) that may have turned Greg and Ron off. Have you used a copy editor to go through your final drafts before publishing your books?

Ted

I can't comment, of course, not having read the books.

They do not require a certain number of reviews, but I would hope you would have at least five or six 4- and 5-star reviews before submitting a book to them. It just lends credibility. And yes, I know how difficult it is to get those reviews, believe me. Here are the requirements:

http://ereadernewstoday.com/requireme...

Your books must be:

Available on Amazon.com. We also promote book deals that are available at Barnes & Noble/Nook, Google Play, Apple iTunes and Kobo.

Free or on sale. However, we realize that some books have a regular price of 99 cents and we will promote these books for you.

A full-length book. Your book must be at least 125 pages. Children’s, non-fiction and cookbooks do not have to meet this requirement.

Not promoted by ENT in the past 90 days. Although we won’t promote the same book within a 90 day period, we have no restrictions on the number of times that an author may be promoted.

Other factors taken into consideration when looking at submissions:

The cover Books with professional looking covers do much better with our readers.

Reader reviews While we do not have a minimum number of reviews that are required, we do look at the reviews to get an idea of how well the book has been received by those that have read it.

Book is professionally edited If your book is professionally edited it has a much better chance of being promoted.

How much the book is discounted We have no requirement for the amount that a book needs to be discounted but the larger the discount, the better chance that your book will be selected.

Content of the book We will not post erotica, pornography, books that contain controversial subject matter or books that may be considered offensive to any race, gender, religion, etc. We reserve the right to refuse a book for any reason.

I wish I could be of more help. I did have one book rejected because it was just under 125 pages (my first book of short stories). But again, not knowing your books, I'm not sure why they aren't accepting them.

Ted

Thanks. Good to have found this group (thanks to PennyMindingMom).

Ted

It's the only site I use these days. In fact, I will be offering the Kindle edition of my second book of short stories at 99 cents for a week on ENT (it will be the Book Of The Day) beginning April 24th (actually, I'll put both of my Kindle editions of short story anthologies on sale for a week beginning that day).

I think if you were to ask any indie writer, they would tell you writing is the easy part; selling their books is the greatest challenge. According to the latest Bowker Report (September 7, 2016), more than 700,000 books were self-published in the U.S. in 2015.* Try making your voice heard above the noise in THAT crowd!

Many of us, of course, resort to all manner of marketing and sales mechanisms, from websites to online advertising (e.g., on Amazon.com and other sites), from e-mail and Twitter blasts to blogs, and from running giveaways on Goodreads (a waste of time and money, in my opinion…but that’s for another blog) to sales on such sites as BookBub and Ereader News Today (ENT), among others. It’s to the latter two sites that I’ll devote this blog entry.

Both sites alert subscribers to books that authors either are offering for free or at discounts for a limited time on such retail sites as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and others. For this they charge a fee that is dependent on your book’s genre or how the book is being presented (e.g., Book Of The Day on ENT). Alas, despite several efforts, I’ve never had any of my mystery/thrillers accepted by BookBub, to whom they were submitted despite some misgivings I perceived regarding the risk/reward ratio. That is, my concern here was the cost to place my book on their site vs. the potential number of sales I might expect. You can estimate for yourself what your return might for this site here:

https://www.bookbub.com/partners/pricing

For example, if you were to list a Thriller and wanted to discount it to, say, 99¢, the charge would be $788 with an average expected sale of 3,370 books. That’s big coin for my wallet, even though I was tempted to give it a try. Rejection (three times) at least had a silver lining; my bank account remained intact.

Searching for an alternative, I chanced upon ENT. This site’s price list can be found here:

http://ereadernewstoday.com/pricing/

In addition to a conventional listing, ENT offers you the opportunity to sponsor their Book Of The Day. The cost is $60 for a book priced below $2.99 or $150 for a book priced $2.99 and above.

I’ve done both types of ENT listings, with mixed success, depending on the genre! In the case of my mystery/thrillers (my Antarctic Murders Trilogy and Detective Lou Martelli, NYPD, series), I sold hundreds of discounted eBooks (Kindle) through ENT over the last three years (somewhere in the range 800-1000, to be exact). On the other hand, attempts to sell discounted Kindle editions of my YA novel The Hypnotist (written under the pen name Alyssa Devine) and my illustrated children’s storybook Pepe Builds a Nest were disappointing. When I discussed these disappointments recently with Gary at ENT, he indicated the best performing genres on their site were, typically (with some variance, of course), Mystery, Thriller, and Romance. You’ll have to be the judge, here, depending on the genre of your work.

By the way, I never give my books away. I worked hard to write and publish them. It’s never been my experience that giving someone a book for free has resulted in a future sale (much less a review, on most occasions . . . and what’s up with that!).

Explore the possibility of engaging ENT. You could be well rewarded by the results.

*https://www.bkconnection.com/the-10-a...

Hi...

My name's Ted Cohen, though I write adult novels (mystery/thrillers), short-story anthologies, and illustrated children's storybooks under the name Theodore Jerome Cohen. I also write Young Adult (YA) novels under the pen name Alyssa Devine. My blog is on Goodreads. Very happy to have found this group and organization.

Ted

Websites:

https://www.theodore-cohen-novels.com/
http://alyssadevinenovels.com/

Blog:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...