My Musings on Marketing

[BWFoster78]

I've emailed copies of my book to people in Kindle form. On the other hand, pulling it off a Kindle yourself takes a few more steps, and if it has DRM it may deter a few other people because that takes some work to remove. On the other hand, some people don't want to buy it if it has DRM.

If the work can be copied from the Kindle, regardless of the difficulty involved, it doesn't seem worth it to me to pay to send out review copies since the only reason I'd go through the expense and the bother is to keep people from being able to copy it.

I'll do a bit of investigation first, but, if your statement is accurate, it seems to make sense to me to just email out the review copies.

 

[Steerpike]

I transfer files from my Kindles to the computer. New generations are coming, so maybe they'll change it, I don't know.

 

[Caged Maiden]

I think it is nearly impossible to protect your work. It's one of those things... even if you completely protected the file, someone could always resort to scanning, retyping.. I mean, for the truly desperate, there is always a way.

 

[gavintonks]

There are software bugs you can encode into files that prevent people from copying we were working on stuff that also erases the file after a predetermined time, but it is a mission and of course people can use the code as malicious so it presents lots of problems if abused

 

[Steerpike]

I think it is nearly impossible to protect your work. It's one of those things... even if you completely protected the file, someone could always resort to scanning, retyping.. I mean, for the truly desperate, there is always a way.

And even in the realm of electronic files, whenever a new method of protection comes out it ends up being broken in a few days and people post the hack all over the net.

 

[TWErvin2]

You cannot fully protect your work from pirates. If they're determined, it'll be copied. My works have been pirated--it's part of the deal that comes along with electronic publishing, although for very popular print edition only books they get scanned and copied.

As far as blog reviews, most bloggers that review are overwhelmed with requests from authors to review their books, especially well-respected bloggers with a lot of traffic. It's best to check on them and pounce when they open back up for review submissions. Plus, it is best to target reviewers for tastes, otherwise a less positive review is the likely result.

In answer to the question about Amazon Reviews: As far as Amazon reviews turning into sales, Amazon seems to change their algorithms frequently, so 'gaming' the system isn't easy and probably not worth an author's efforts. The energy focused else where would have benefits. I've seen it discussed that so many reviews makes a difference in placement on Amazon (showing up for suggestions). There are also the categories which if a novel is highly rated enough, they can get in the top 100 (like Epic Fantasy or Historical Fantasy). I can only speak of this with limited knowledge, based on one of my novels (I frankly haven't tracked any other novels, and not mine closely) For a while, Flank Hawk was up there, and it did drive some sales. Now it's in the 60s I think for historical, and not on the screen (top 100) for epic, although I've not checked for a while. And for it to make a difference, being in the top 20 is key, top forty is okay. Lowest Flank Hawk ever was, when I checked was 21.

I am not sure how they base the rankings, but # of reviews in addition to the average * rating is important, or appears to be. The spread of reviews over time and if the reviewer is a regular reviewer or a single reviewer (only reviewed the book in question) makes a difference. I suspect some bit of sales over time influences this as well.

There are also Amazon tags, for categories, if a reader wants a novel say, that is about Dragons or Wizards, or Action/Adventure, or Epic Fantasy. A reader can search by this on Amazon, and get top ranked (tagged) ones, or most recently tagged or trending tagged, in the various categories. I don't know anyone personally who searches by this, but there probably are.

There are forums at Amazon, to discuss things, but I've never ventured much on them, and from what I've seen other authors discuss, self promotion is more than frowned upon there. Folks can get hostile, I guess, and start posting horrid reviews of the self promoed work or negative tagging of such novels with bad categories or voting down positive ones as a form of retaliation.

There are Listimanias at Amazon that my publisher says have helped sales of some novels he's published. I've done a few listimanias, but not a lot, and I am not sure if many folks have grouped my novel in such lists. The theory is if you have a novel category such as Inexpensive Great Epic Fantasy Reads, then you list 5 or 10 titles with links. In theory, mix novels that fit the category, with popular/good-selling authors and your works or works that you like and would like for others to read because they're good. I don't know how effective this is, but it is something that costs only time and creativity to do.


Maybe I wandered off topic a little, but hope this helps.

 

[BWFoster78]

TW,

That's good info. Thanks!