woensdag 17 oktober 2012

I can't figure it out.


So I’m like the rest of you self-pubbed authors out there who are trying to keep their heads above water in the exploding world of e-publishing.

I feel your pain and I’ve been trying more than a few of the tricks I found in a fuckload of blogs about self-publishing.

I have good covers for my novels, the writing is good (I think so and so I’m told, Ain’t bragging!)

I have read and figured how to maximize “free days” on kindle select.

I have used a “middle of the week” approach. I have nearly spammed twitter at every significant hours (morning commute, lunch hour and after-evening-commute-before-you-go-to-bed) of a bunch of major “English” population centers (England, East-Coast, Mid-West, West-Coast, Australia…) It’s a fucking annoying task to upkeep and I’m not particularly fond of social networks in general (twitter the least of them all.)

But I did it anyways, I semi-spammed twitter and the few occasional annoying post on facebook that will most likely drive my real friends away and my latest giveaway landed “The Factory Line” in the top 40 free in humor.

I was thinking “holy shit, somehow this worked!” and expected to give away more books per hour (and trust, me I was addicted to statistics and reports for days!) but it didn’t happened. I was actually giving away less than before despite another round of less-than-shitty tweets to promote the book.

I can’t figure out the pattern. And for a guy who LIVES to figure out patterns, this is incredibly frustrating. I might actually ask for a job at Amazon to try and learn the freaking pattern because so far I can’t do it.

I wish I could, I can't. I mean don't get me wrong. Gimme the least amount of publicity and a half-decent publisher, I might work somthing out. And it would be a little bit like this :
  
A)    write a gritty, transgressive novel with a shocking name. If it’s literary and has some social criticism at the same time, double “marty” points to come.
B)     Get a great title and a good cover.
C)    Get loads and loads of fake reviews (although I have moral restraints to do this and I can’t afford to anyways)
D)    Get some “real” journalists (or glorified bloggers) to talk about the book.
E)     At the right moment, send a shocking letter from some right-wing group (you’ve created from scratch with a fake e-mail and blog) to some jumpy right-wing elected official who’ll jump on the occasion to “defend good Canadian (American, English, Australian…) families and values.
F)     Reply vigorously and fuel the flames of the debate by trolling said elected official
G)    Get more press because of the feud, which will sell more books.
H)    When you see the sales going down, fake your pen name’s death.

That would make a killing, I'm sure of it. So what the fuck am I waiting for?

I have not a freaking clue!

(those of you who failed to see the sarcasm/satire (OK! mostly sarcasm) in my post are invited to read Beckett, Burroughs, Welsh or Palahnuick)

That's pretty much it!

Take care,

Ian

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