Hi there :-)

I've had my eBook on sale (Amazon and the iBook store) for a couple of months now. It's done slightly better than I expected, but not as well as I'd like (if that makes sense).

I think I'm missing exposure, so before I focus myself on the next novel, I'd like to do something to give it a real boost.

I was thinking of taking out adverts and getting it reviewed somewhere, so I wondered if anyone could offer me some advice on how to go about this. Actually, I think I need advice on where to go about this. Are there good sites where I can drop and ad or two, and try to get my book reviewed?

Thanks in advance.

Dom

It does help when all of your Amazon reviews aren't written by people who have never reviewed anything before and then go on to give you 5 stars - it smacks of desperation.

Ben Yezir

You could email some of the book blogs that like the kind of thing you write, and see if they'd respond. Most of them are inundated, mind you. And of course you'd have to be prepared for them hating it, and saying so.

Promoting your work online depends on building up reciprocal relationships before you try to get interest in your own work. Netiquette is delicate thing, and people know when someone's only trying to promote themselves, and not trying to take part in the community: you can watch it happening on Twitter. When people know you, they'll read your work, and when they've read it they might want to blog about it, or whatever.

So it might be a better longer-term strategy to focus on that - twitter, FB, reading and commenting on booky blogs as yourself, and then hope you'll reap the reward in interest for your next novel.

As far as advertising goes - which is or should be entirely separate from reviewing - I don't know. It's never going to be remotely cost effective, so as far as I know self-publishers don't really do it.

Emma

It does help when all of your Amazon reviews aren't written by people who have never reviewed anything before and then go on to give you 5 stars - it smacks of desperation.

Can't be helped unfortunately. I ask that folk leave a review but I can't really tell them what to write or how many stars to give it.

You could email some of the book blogs that like the kind of thing you write, and see if they'd respond. Most of them are inundated, mind you. And of course you'd have to be prepared for them hating it, and saying so.

It's a good place to start. Thanks. And if they hate it then at least I know I'm on the wrong track somewhere.

So it might be a better longer-term strategy to focus on that - twitter, FB, reading and commenting on booky blogs as yourself, and then hope you'll reap the reward in interest for your next novel.

Unfortunately, that does make a lot of sense. I think I worry that perhaps focussing on selling to writers is perhaps not best way to go about it, but your everyday reader isn't going to spend all day looking for books on blogs, so it does leave me a bit low on options.

As far as advertising goes - which is or should be entirely separate from reviewing - I don't know. It's never going to be remotely cost effective, so as far as I know self-publishers don't really do it.

Which leaves the social networking thing. Great, I'm going to need a personality then ... :-)

I do like the idea of trying to help others though.

Thanks for the advice.

:-)



<Added>

And I do have a lot of workshopping experience, so there's a place to start.

your everyday reader isn't going to spend all day looking for books on blogs,

The big booky blogs have a much bigger readership than can just be writers - people do browse, although in the nature of things you're only going to be selling to card-carrying heavy readers. But that's the nature of the game. It's not as bad as for the poets, yet, at least. .

The thing to do is to target blogs which specialise in your kind of book. The bit chick-lit blogs, for example, have a huge and devoted following, and there are crime ones too. etc. etc.

good luck!

Also many book bloggers routinely post their reviews to Amazon and Goodreads, so a blog review can crop up in lots of places.

I agree with Emma that carefully researching blogs and then picking the best fit is probably the way to go - you don't say if you're self-published or not, but be aware that some don't accept self-published books, so do check the submissions guidelines to save your time.

The big booky blogs have a much bigger readership than can just be writers - people do browse, although in the nature of things you're only going to be selling to card-carrying heavy readers. But that's the nature of the game. It's not as bad as for the poets, yet, at least. . The thing to do is to target blogs which specialise in your kind of book. The bit chick-lit blogs, for example, have a huge and devoted following, and there are crime ones too. etc. etc.

Right, so a bit more googling needed, I reckon.

I agree with Emma that carefully researching blogs and then picking the best fit is probably the way to go - you don't say if you're self-published or not, but be aware that some don't accept self-published books, so do check the submissions guidelines to save your time.

Yes I'm publishing on my tod, so I'll definitely check that. Thanks.

:-)