Like the old song goes, I've tried and I've tried.
So what are the major stumbling blocks when it comes to getting noticed in the eBook world? With hundreds of thousands of eBook pubs out there, how does an indie publisher get noticed? The $64,000 dollar question. Yes, I have a blog. Yes, I have a page on both authorcentral, amazon, and publishedauthors.net. Is it enough? I'm really not sure.
Is my price point too high? I'm not sure. I started the eBook at $9.99 and held it there for 5 weeks. Then I lowered it to $3.99. Still, not a significant number of sales, even after racking up a couple of great reviews. The next stop on this journey, maybe in about 60 days will be the bottom. Ninety-nine cents.
But, I have done this kind of thing before. As an artist. The prints I have done of my work usually start out around $35 and slowly over time drop and drop. The tail-end of the runs are usually just given away to fans and family. But, that's probably because I choose to publish them independently. In the eBook world, indie authors are pretty much required to do the same thing, until one develops a strong enough following to support the ungodly sum of $9.99.
Then why do we do it? Is the story so important to tell that we will practically give it away? Maybe. My two novels are long. The first one was 158,000+ words. The second one 153,000. It takes time to do this, it takes patience to do this, it takes perserverance to do this. My approach is not to make money. My approach is not to be famous. I have had both at one time or another in my life. My approach is to share thoughts and experiences with people that I would not ordinarily have the pleasure of knowing otherwise.
That is why getting traction is important. That is why we do it, that is why we carry on.
Let the creative juices flow, even though sometimes the pressure relief valve is stuck. "Zero Gee Plumbing" by R. Jones (c) 2007.
Tomorrow: How Long Are You Gonna Keep Writing?
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