Book Giveaway 12 July 2012

To celebrate the 28th birthday of Amanda Hocking, the patron saint of independent publishing, I am giving away my short story, "Essence" on Amazon (ASIN B008C253DC). The giveaway will be enabled whenever Amazon realise it is the 12th, which will probably be sometime after 0700 GMT, since their computers keep Pacific Time.

If you missed it last time, this is your opportunity.

Midsummer Giveaway

To celebrate the Day of Midsummer, I am giving away my latest Amazon publication, Essence. I suspect Amazon keep Pacific Time, so depending on where you live the offer may start on the 19th or the 21st, but for 24 hours, it will be free.

Watch this space.

Short Story on Kindle

I have put my short story, "Essence", on kindle: ASIN B008C253DC. It is a modern tale of scientific research, but with fairy-tale romance behind the science fiction.

I have set the price at the absolute minimum Amazon permit, but I'm also going to set it for free giveaways from time to time.

I hope you enjoy it.

Strandhill Summerfest 2012

I've been invited to speak at a forum on the new publishing technologies at Órfhlaith ní Chonaill's Strandhill Summerfest 2012.

If you are a writer living in the West of Ireland, I'd certainly recommend it: not because you want to hear me talk about making kindle books or print-on-demand, but because Órfhlaith runs such inspiring workshops for writers of all levels.

Having been along to her regular monthly writing workshops, I'm really looking forward to this.

Promotion

One of the interesting things about watching the whole "indie publishing" thing has been seeing what other authors are doing to "promote" their work. There are several places where readers gather and authors make themselves known, set out their stall. Kindleboards is an obvious example: GoodReads is another. A less obvious place is Amazon itself.

How obvious it is depends on how the site works, but all of these places are flooded with "indie" authors like me, hustling for sales. In every one of these sites, hustling for sales is severely restricted or outright banned, so the authors find less direct ways to promote.

The obvious one is lots of social networking. They spend a long time on the discussion boards (or groups, or whatever they are called) chatting about other works in their chosen genre, or about completely unrelated matters, in the hopes that someone will be their friend and buy their books. Maybe it works.

There are other ways of promoting, too. And I'm not doing them.

You see, I think my readers would rather I concentrated on what they like: my writing.

And the people that are yet to discover me? It would be better if, when they discover me, they have more to discover.

I'm sure I will get around to more serious promotion. But I'm going to write a whole lot more first.


http://www.readerviews.com/Articles-Marketing_Why_Authors_Need_To_Write_Second_Book.html

http://kriswrites.com/2011/04/06/the-business-rusch-promotion/

Small Moves

Last night I passed the 90,000 word mark on Book 2, "Hermes and the Sea People." So the first draft is a couple of chapters from being done.

Also, Rachael at my publisher, Cnoc Mhuilinn, has added a buy button to my website. You can order "Venus and the Sea People" in trade paperback, and if you wish I will sign it for you when I am next in their office.

Fly! Be Free!

I have put a copy of my book into the giant public-domain library that is BookCrossing. It's initially going out as a BookRay, which is a list of people who want to read it, kind of like a chain-letter - except that instead of sending money, you get to read books.

To get on the list you put your name down, PM me your address, and are added to a list. When it's your turn, the last person mails the book to you. And when you've read it, you mail it to the next person on the list.

http://www.bookcrossing.com/forum/20/475720