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What was I thinking? That was the dumbest thing I ever did...
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Easy...hiring a PR agent...dumb, dumber, dumbest. Didn't produce anything. The saving grace was a threat to sue, which resulted in some significant benefits from the company I used to publish the book in question (like majorly discounts on the next three books published with them).
Dumbest thing I ever did...writing wise right? ;)I would say it was releasing my 2nd and 3rd books in a rush last year because I took the advice that the quicker you get your books out the better. I really wish I had taken the proper amount of time and planned out a marketing plan for them. Oh well, live and learn.
I regret buying a pack of 10 ISBNs instead of 100. I blew through the first 10 in a matter of months and had to spring for the 100-pack anyway.
Marie Silk wrote: "I regret buying a pack of 10 ISBNs instead of 100. I blew through the first 10 in a matter of months and had to spring for the 100-pack anyway."So lucky I live in Canada :)
Marie Silk wrote: "I regret buying a pack of 10 ISBNs instead of 100. I blew through the first 10 in a matter of months and had to spring for the 100-pack anyway."ISBN decision is a tough one. It's a lot to invest up front unless you are sure you're going to publish several books.
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Eldon, I am so with you. We are too rushed!! It cost a fortune pulling them back in a fixing all the errors, and you know what? I never learn.
Perhaps not the dumbest thing, but the biggest thing I struggled with was deciding when to stop researching and planning promotional activities and actually DO something. There is SO MUCH information available and a lot of it contradictory. I finally reached the point where I had to say, "Screw it!" and finally published.
The dumbest thing I did was not writing a series back in 2011 when I started my publishing career. If I could go back in time....
the dumbest thing I did was not saving the manuscript at least twice... guess who lost over 200 pages t ;_;
Oh thank you! it turned out to be better in deed but again... I didn't save it twice because I never learn from my mistakes >.< but I was lucky this time. I still have every chapter
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My derpy-do mistake: ignoring marketing. I'm just now working on Amazon sponsored ads, a good nine months into my writing "career."It's just so damn boring. Keywords, keywords, and more keywords. Categories, categories, and more categories. Writing enticing ad copy. Scheduling promos, and then using an e-megaphone to let everyone know. Etc. etc. etc.
Standard writer's complaint, yes. Once I make the megabucks I'll hire someone to do all this for me.
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Yes, I'll stand in as your den mother!! Maybe I should call it a pen mother.
Please be my pen mom too, Carole, although I'm probably old enough to be YOUR mother!!
Indecision would probably be my worst mistake. That and writing erotica. It would take me longer to find somewhere to promote erotica that works, than it would to write the stuff. There are a few places that will publicise erotica yet I look at the form and think "nah they'll only turn me down and I can't take the rejection"
And I can't even fathom if it's worth promoting something on Radish it's such a small audience and I'm such a minuscule percentage of that. Ugh.
I'm starting to think the dumbest thing I ever did was using Createspace cover templates for my books. I keep seeing the bones of my cover on other people's books! Argh! Original covers from now on :D
Oh I'm going to come across that sooner or later on my latest. I literally downloaded a free graphic (donated some money to the artist) and stuck some words on it. Not at all original.
Amy wrote: "Oh I'm going to come across that sooner or later on my latest. I literally downloaded a free graphic (donated some money to the artist) and stuck some words on it. Not at all original."You'll know it when you see it ;) Saw one today in a promo email for a cozy mystery *shaking head*
The trouble is my latest is a murder mystery on the Radish Fiction and the "cover" they show is a round thumbnail. So I wasn't going to spend any real money on it. Yes we're expected to submit a horizontal image in case we feature on the front page but the chances of that happening are small.
Amy,For next time out, here's a tip. You don't need to spend a great deal of money to make an original cover, so long as you have and know how to use a graphics program like Photoshop or GIMP (the latter is open source and available for free). My wife and I run a small press. We use Dreamstime.com for graphics. (Other similar sites are available, but this is the one we like the best.) You create a free account and put a modest amount of money on it (say, $35 or so if I recall) to purchase credits. You can then apply those credits to download graphics you select from a huge library of images that photographers and artists make available. You're buying a license to use the image. Sometimes it takes some searching, but usually we can find something suitable--and high-quality. Let me know if you have any questions about the process.
--Dale
Thanks Dale. That's pretty much what I did with the one above. Photoshop and something I downloaded off one of the sites.
Although I can't use that as the cover on Radish because they don't like words on their covers if you're trying to get listed on their front page. And you only see about a quarter of the graphic as the thumbnail when you're looking at the book lists.
I may be able to top all of you (but you be the judge)...In the late 1990's, I started shopping for an agent for an SF novel I'd written. I had a couple of "close calls," in particular one agent who said she really liked the novel but she was closing down her agency. Then a friend of mine who had some success as writing for local publications said he'd landed an agent for a novel and suggested I sent my work to her. She accepted it, but asked for a small fee (I forget the amount; it was a few hundred but not near a thousand). Because my friend had signed with her, I figured she would be okay, so I sent in my money and signed the contract and waited. We even had a couple of over-dinner meetings.
But (of course) she turned out to be less an agent than a con artist, and after a year of her doing basically nothing to sell my work, I asked for my money back. As if by magic, she found a publisher for me--which turned out to be a vanity press. Of course I didn't sign with them.
What happened next didn't really occur to me until much later. I stopped writing. I mean, I stopped writing. After a few years, I started writing nonfiction for a website I ran, but I didn't write a line of fiction. After maybe six or seven years, I tried a little fiction, but I pretty much hated the process and the results, so I put it aside again.
Basically, I did no real fiction writing for ten years. When I got the idea for The Fibonacci Murders, it took me another year or so to find a story to fit the idea, and when I finished it and handed it to my editor/wife, her first comment was, "Well, I can tell you're out of practice."
I've now written three novels in that series (True Death and Ice on the Bay which should be published late this year), and I'm only now feeling like I've returned to where I probably was before that ten year hiatus.
Moral: Don't stop writing.
Go with Publish America for my first book and which had a seven year prison sentence...I mean contract. Luckily I became part of a civil suit against them and was able to get out.
Not the dumbest, but I just realized I could link all my little fart books into a series. DUH! Then, Amazon lists them all as part of the series, creates a series page, and then if you ask KDP nicely, they bundle them all into one easy to purchase pack. OMG It took me like 10 minutes, and I could have been doing this for 12 months. Anyhow! Oh, and then they do the series page on UK, JP, and DE Amazon stores as well. Oh my....
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I know right? Geez. It links them all, they can click right on the series, they get their own page, and the list of books in the series is predominantly displayed above other books you may like. Anyway, sheesh. I emailed KDP so that they make the series available as a bundle purchase. Don't even have to format them as a bundle!
I think you should do all your country/period educational books into a series. Would be great for teachers to see them all linked together as a resource.
Navigating Indieworld Discussing All Things Indie
Books mentioned in this topic
The Fibonacci Murders (other topics)True Death (other topics)
Missing Remnants (other topics)
What was the dumbest thing you did in your writing career?
My biggest gaffe was pressing that darn Publish my Book button without checking the proof. Half of the inside of my book was missing. I send it to Oprah, of course. Guess what happened...she never picked me for her book club.