Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion
III. Goodreads Readers
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What's the best way for Self-Pub Authors to get more readers?
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Yzabel wrote: "Gregor wrote: "On the topic of folks in the US not giving authors with foreign-sounding names a chance, this may be true for genres outside of Science Fiction and Fantasy. But, it seems to me, that..."I have to agree with you Yzabel. Foreign sounding names are great for sci-fi books. If I ever feel the inclination to write one, I shall probably do so under a pen name that is male and Hungarian! :)
Lisa wrote: "Yzabel wrote: "Gregor wrote: "On the topic of folks in the US not giving authors with foreign-sounding names a chance, this may be true for genres outside of Science Fiction and Fantasy. But, it se..."Obviously you haven't seen some of the private messages I have received during the 8 months on Goodreads :) There was even a point I stopped flagging them...
Lisa wrote: "Brandon wrote: "Lisa, it's nice to know that others have had a similar experience. I guess poetry is just like that.... it seems many lovers of poetry like to read it and check it out online, but r..."Lisa, I worry about that too... sharing so many free samples that everybody just reads it for free but never buys anything. Still, it's hard to resist, because not posting anything regularly on social media is certainly no fun for me. :)
As far as releasing new stuff, I hardly ever post any new stuff that I haven't published yet... mainly because I want the copyright to be secured so someone can't steal it and call it their own.
It's happened before, but luckily the poem was already published in hard copy AND copyrighted officially through the copyright registration process, so I was easily able to prove my ownership and have the poem pulled from the offender's page by the site administrators. The plagiarized poem was pulled and the offender was banned from the site.
As far as selling poetry books, I'm hoping that as I branch out more into other types of writing (short stories, novels, children's literature) I might gain more recognition and then people might go back and buy some of my poetry collections once they are sold on my name. Not getting my hopes up, but it's a thought. Perhaps one can utilize recognition in writing other genres to help their poetry sell as well....(?)
As far as Twitter, one has to be careful not to over-spam people with links and samples, but yes it can be useful. Still, I get more followers than sales... way more. However, I have found Twitter extremely useful for finding book reviewers and book bloggers. There are a lot out there now, and if you're looking to submit review copies to the right people then Twitter can be like a big candy store of choices. Just be careful how you approach and pitch to them... a follow and some replies are good, but make it a point to go to their actual website and submit a proper review request according to their requirements and policies, rather than just begging them in 140 characters or less. ;P
You probably know that already, I'm just making general advice to put out there to anyone in general.
Vardan wrote: "Obviously you haven't seen some of the private messages I have received during the 8 months on Goodreads :) There was even a point I stopped flagging them... " No, I haven't, I am just speaking from my own point of view. It would not put me off buying a sci-fi book, but might actually intrigue me more. I am British, not American, and I haven't been on Goodreads very long. Also I haven't met any real trolls yet (and hope I don't). All I can say is good luck with your writing and please don't let people upset you, Vardan!
Lisa wrote: "Vardan wrote: "Obviously you haven't seen some of the private messages I have received during the 8 months on Goodreads :) There was even a point I stopped flagging them... " No, I haven't, I am ..."
for every troll I have met, there have been ten people like you and Yzabel and all the others on this thread, so it's not really upsetting me any more.
Brandon wrote: "As far as Twitter, one has to be careful not to over-spam people with links and samples, but yes it can be useful. Still, I get more followers than sales... way more. "I think with Twitter you have to interact at least as much or probably much more than you promote. Sometimes all I do is post funny stories, nice quotes or inspirational videos so people see you as a person, with views and interests, not a writing bot.
I think there is a lot of spamming going on from what I have seen too. It is a real turn off on Twitter (and here) to get DMs trying to persuade me to buy a book. I don't mind general tweets about a book or messages about giveaways etc, I mean one-to-one hard sell messages. Of course, on Twitter you only see your own DMs but here you see the lot! When I can see the exact same messages going out to dozens of other people individually and filling up my timeline I get a little irritated I must admit.
Sounds like your ideas about writing are much like my own! :)
Lisa Marie Gabriel
J.T. wrote: "OK guys and gals, let's call a spade a spade. Instead of using "Anglo-Saxon origin" let's say "English-American" because that is what it actually boils down to. "It's not just 'English-American' at all. It's not just to do with the 'New World', although it also applies to that group.
J.T. wrote: "The place name "Aibhneduin" is Gaelic which is anglo-saxon origin but is pronounced wrong frequently because the "bh" consonant pair is pronounced with the "v" sound. "
Ummm....not it isn't! If it's 'Gaelic', it certainly isn't remotely 'Anglo-Saxon', by definition!
At this rate, we'd better start writing in Proto-Indo-European; maybe this way, everybody will find some kind of common roots. ;)And yep, Gaelic is definitely very different in origin from the Germanic group of languages that gave Modern English—although both share PIE as a (far) common ancestor.
Oh, great. Now I want to start learning that. As if wanting to learn Old English to finally read Beowulf wasn't enough.
Is the self-pub industry any different in other countries compared to the U.S? It crossed my mind just thought I'd ask and get some thoughts on it.
T. wrote: "J.T. wrote: "OK guys and gals, let's call a spade a spade. Instead of using "Anglo-Saxon origin" let's say "English-American" because that is what it actually boils down to. "It's not just 'Engli..."
Sorry got my groups mixed up. It is of Pictish descent. Sorry, I get my conquering groups confused.
T. wrote: "J.T. wrote: "OK guys and gals, let's call a spade a spade. Instead of using "Anglo-Saxon origin" let's say "English-American" because that is what it actually boils down to. "It's not just 'Engli..."
When I write English/American, I am including England (and all their former colonies) and America (the "New World" I guess I should say North America). Sorry to Hyphenate instead of placing a slash. I was not meaning just the US in my statement. I was trying to include the majority of English speaking countries.
Justin wrote: "Is the self-pub industry any different in other countries compared to the U.S? It crossed my mind just thought I'd ask and get some thoughts on it."In Armenia, the self-pub industry is mostly focused on printed works. The market is small and many authors print something like 500 copies of their works that they try to sell in the book stores of the capital Yerevan. 99% of the published works are, naturally, in Armenian. If you want to do it any other way, you have to go through the Amazon pipeline. The royalty delivery process is protracted and takes a little less than forever to arrive.
Justin wrote: "Is the self-pub industry any different in other countries compared to the U.S? It crossed my mind just thought I'd ask and get some thoughts on it."Not too developed at the moment in France. We're still stuck at the concept of "vanity press", and those aren't seen well by a lot of people. Our market being much smaller, authors who really want to self-publish don't have that many means: either ebook or self-printing. And ebooks in French are often terribly expensive (like, 15€ for the hardcover, 12€ for the ebook... yeah, sure), so people who only read in French aren't too used to them yet.
And here's also why I'm only researching self-pub for the stories I write in English. I'm not going to bother with my own country yet, it'd just be a waste of time.
Yzabel wrote: "Justin wrote: "Is the self-pub industry any different in other countries compared to the U.S? It crossed my mind just thought I'd ask and get some thoughts on it."Not too developed at the moment ..."
Your country is Israel?
J.T. wrote: "Sorry got my groups mixed up. It is of Pictish descent. Sorry, I get my conquering groups confused."It's not a problem at all - people often get confused about the various peoples and languages of the British Isles (unsurprisingly, really - it's a complicated picture of invasions and cultural/linguistic movements).
Gaelic isn't really directly of Pictish descent either, though - the Picts left little written evidence, so are a bit of a shady lot - nobody's really sure whether they were a separate group altogether or a northern Brythonic tribe. In any case, what little evidence there is suggests that their language was far more likely to be a close relative (or even dialect) of the Brythonic language. Gaelic came across to modern-day Scotland from Ireland, and spread Eastwards across the Pictish lands after the Romans had left.
Anglo-Saxon, of course, is neither Goidelic nor Brythonic, the Angles and Saxons (and Jutes, of course - everyone forgets the poor old Jutes!) not arriving in numbers (and/or influence) in Britain until about the 6th century (around the same time that Gaelic was spreading from the west across what is now Scotland, into the former Pictish lands).
There are 2 distinct groups of 'Insular Celtic' languages - P-Celtic (Brythonic - Welsh, Breton and Cornish being the versions that survived, until comparatively recently in the case of Cornish) and Q-Celtic (Goidelic - Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic and Manx - the last native Manx speaker died in 1974, although, like Cornish, it has since been resurrected somewhat). The current theory, as I understand it, is that Pictish was closely related to the P-Celtic group, but influenced the development of the syntax of what became the Scottish form of Gaelic (a Q-Celtic language) as it spread East across the former Pictish lands.
The Anglo-Saxon languages (English and Lowland Scots) are obviously much later arrivals to these shores than the Celtic languages.
By the way, the song quote I mentioned previously, 'Ry'n ni yma o hyd' is the first line of the chorus of a modern Welsh folk song, and means 'We are still here' (the following line translating as 'Despite everyone and everything') - it's a reference to the fact that Wales and the Welsh language (the modern direct descendant of the pre-Anglo-Saxon language of most of Britain) have managed to survive, despite the centuries of various kinds of Anglo-Saxon (and other, but mostly them!) onslaughts and oppression.
We are still here: could be an Armenian song :)
Yzabel wrote: "At this rate, we'd better start writing in Proto-Indo-European; maybe this way, everybody will find some kind of common roots. ;)And yep, Gaelic is definitely very different in origin from the Ge..."
True enough, but a form of English has been spoken along the east coast of England and Scotland before the Romans according to archaeologists who study place names. The candidate may be an ancient 8000 year old culture that existed in the area of the North sea when it was land. The English language is rich in words and ideas from Druidism. Sun and son is but one example. They relate directly to the original concept of trinity .
Brandon wrote: "Lisa wrote: "I am a poet too, and I have to say that my very few sales (with the exception of one epub on Barnes and Noble) came from local people who had heard me read a poem on a special occasion..."Lisa wrote: "Brandon wrote: "Lisa, it's nice to know that others have had a similar experience. I guess poetry is just like that.... it seems many lovers of poetry like to read it and check it out online, but r..."
Hey everybody, Christmas is getting close, kind of hard to believe as well that 2014 is almost here, wow. Any who wanted to stop by and comment real quick.
Brandon and Lisa, it's nice to hear from some other poets. Before I published my collection, or rather before I decided I was going to, I learned that poetry isn't a popular genre and is a hard sell, a major motivator for self-publishing. Since it's such a tough sell when you're nobody it's even harder to get accepted by a publisher. While I was putting my book together I went searching for literary magazines that I thought my work might fit in and honestly I wasn't published until Oct in the e-zine "Synchronized Chaos". This point relates to your comments about "publishing" so much free work.
I didn't submit to as many publications as I looked in to and would have liked and this was because I thought I was going to publish last summer and a lot of publications ask for first serial rights and ask that they have exclusive publishing rights for say the first 3-6 months after they've accepted your poem. Now I know I'm not exact or accurate with these figures but I'm mostly speaking hypothetical. I think most of us know that literary magazines have turn around times ranging from a matter of weeks to several months. My projected publication, so I thought at the time, got in the way of my submissions.
But before I ever submitted I learned quickly that most publications also don't accept pre-published work, which always includes posting it anywhere online. (Some do accept published works but they are few and far between.) I was worried about posting samples on my website then because I wanted to send what I felt was my best to various editors at the same time that I wanted to put "my best" on my website too! So I can imagine how you both feel having posted works on the internet. It's a sticky situation because you want to share but you'd also like to get published if you find the right place.
I think branching out is a great idea. I personally would love to attract people who don't often read poetry but may take to my work because they like the way I write and/or like my subject matter. Perhaps someone finds they can relate to it and it gives them words and descriptions for emotions and situations they've not found for themselves. And I am proud to say that I think I have managed to do this. Several people who don't normally read poetry received my book through giveaways and liked it well enough. For this I am happy. Perhaps you both have wider audiences outside of poetry that would take to your subject matter and style of writing. It's a bit of a challenge in my case, finding ways to widen my audience scope while also targeting poetry readers, but what part of marketing isn't?
I'm not on Twitter, not really my thing but it's interesting to know how many people use it for marketing their books. I've always understood it in terms of providing your fan base with a means to follow you.
Poetry for me has always been a release, a means for creative expression, but writing has in its own way as well. I've wrote a lot of various non-fiction, although admittedly I've not completed these pieces let alone tried to have them published. Deciding to self-publish poetry encouraged me to take a shot at writing across the board. Might I be a writer, I thought. So I've been working on some fiction and still have all the non-fiction I've been interested in. It just so happens that those take even more time and organization, not to say that fiction doesn't! I really like how the differences in process add diversity to my writing life so that when I'm not "feeling" poetry I can turn to my stories and see what I can come up with and vice versa. It helps my writing overall.
One day when I've published, or been published, in another genre I hope that being even self-published will give me a bit more of an edge but I won't expect too much without my poetry fans also being fans of the fiction or non-fiction I write. Then again who knows, maybe people who don't prefer my poetry would be happy to have a second option (or third) if they're still interested in me!
That's all for now! Hope everyone's well and if I'm not back before Christmas, Merry Christmas! And again, nice to hear from some other poets in the group.
Sincerely,
eLPy
eLPy wrote: "But before I ever submitted I learned quickly that most publications also don't accept pre-published work, which always includes posting it anywhere online. (Some do accept published works but they are few and far between.)"My godmother is Josephine Austen and she used to edit the magazine "First Time" in the UK. I don't know if she still does, as she has been ill for some time. She earned the Dorothy Tutin award for services to poetry. Now I was aware that there was a strong small press group in the 1980s, but at that time I was not all that interested in publishing and never submitted to magazines. I didn't submit to First Time either, simply because it felt wrong because I knew the editor.
I decided to go down the self publishing route in 2005 with the 1st edition on In Remembrance and I used a small press for that - Poetry Monthly Press. By that point even Bloodaxe was closing its doors to new authors. (Too may poets, too little time) My poetry was more about finding myself again than it was about selling anyway.
When I published "A Whisper of the Romantic" I thought it a much better collection, but I only ever sold a few. I sent Josephine Austen a copy and she was over the moon with it, but as First Time is for unpublished poets I never expected her to publish anything from me.
One avenue I did explore with some success was using my interest in photography to come up with beautiful nature images I could use on poetry cards. I use Zazzle for that and every now and then I sell one.
I don't think I will ever make money from poetry (although it can be done - Seamus Heaney did!). I am happy to know that at least one "real poet" admires my work. That matters a lot. My godmother reminded me that she was self-published a couple of times before she was picked up by a "real" publisher. I think "real publishers" are in danger of losing the plot though. The real secret is marketing. Can anybody teach us that, I wonder?
In the meantime, there is The Cougar, my first novel.
Merry Christmas/Yuletide/Kwanzaa or whatever you all celebrate!
Love just is...
Lisa
Back to the post headline it seems to be a self perpetuating circle more readers generates more readers by word of mouth or reviews. I've tried ads, tweets and blogs and they all have a very limited impact, imho. Unless you have a very serious marketing budget then you will not attract any attention.John Locke's story is interesting as a self-pub and his ongoing success without mainstream publishing. Irrespective of whether you like his genre's or style his success remains an inspiration of what is possible. I do not know whether he tried to get published before but he's done OK since.
follow the example of Michael R. Hicks. offer first book on Amazon free. I found him just weeding through free books. I loved the first book, so I bought the rest.
Goodreads Authors/Readers
Books mentioned in this topic
The Cougar (other topics)A Phantasy And Other Prose Poems (other topics)
The Prophecy (other topics)
Authors mentioned in this topic
Lisa Marie Gabriel (other topics)Lisa Marie Gabriel (other topics)
I made some basic mistakes early on with my poetry that I regret now. I posted new poems frequently, not only on my own website over which I have editorial control, but also on writing groups. Like you, I was drowning in all sorts of fulsome praise which to be honest I loved. The best was being described as "a poet's poet" but it means little. Folks were visiting my website, but not buying my books. Conversion rates were virtually zero. I now find myself in a position whereby those early books can't even be on Prime and eligible for borrows because so much has been shared for free.
What I have found might work for some poets is Twitter. There is a lively group of #haiku #tenga and #micropoet afficionados on there. Occasionally I subject my followers to a "poetry slam" linking back to my website. It doesn't sell many books, but it does get retweeted by poets.
I know of one guy who regularly tweets a quote and links back to a poem of his own on his poetry blog. He has quite a following on Twitter, but I don't know if this is reflected in sales.
My next poetry book is now in the pipeline and consists of work that is hitherto unpublished online, so I hope to release it on KDP Prime (knowing full well that Kindle formatting sucks for poetry) just so people can borrow it. It is a longer project though.
In the meantime I have written a short novel basically because the main character came to me in a dream and said "Write my story" :D I also have two giveaways in progress, which I hope will generate some interest as I am new to Goodreads.
Lisa Marie Gabriel