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Jennifer gets--and gives--advice...
My critique group and I met this weekend. Over dinner, we
talked about the industry and asked each other’s advice about marketing and
potential projects we were considering.
All four of us bring different perspectives to the group. I
publish with a small press and am fairly new to the writing world. One woman
has self pubbed one book and is working on her second. One woman is published
with an Amazon imprint and also self pubs. One woman writes women’s fiction,
self pubs and also has a back list that was pubbed by large publishers.
Usually I just sit and listen. I’m the newbie and I’m
soaking everything in. It’s fascinating to listen to everyone talk about what
they’re doing, how they’re marketing, what techniques are working, or not.
We discussed tsu and I know I’ve decided to let that social
network go for the time being. It’s too new and I don’t fully understand it
enough to believe that it has any worth at this time. We discussed discounting
our books and I hope to offer my first book in the Women of Valor series for
free when my third one is coming out, as an incentive (still have to talk to my
publisher about that though, so don’t hold me to it)—the freebies benefit
authors the most when there are other books that the reader can buy. We talked
about which conferences we plan to attend, and I’m hoping to go to RWA’s
National Convention in July. It’s in New York this year, so it’s an easy trip
for me.
As I’ve said in countless blogs before this one, critique
groups are great. But the added perspective that this one brings from four very
different but talented women makes this one unique, I think.
I've heard of tsu, but don't think it has many members yet. I have reservations about offering books for free (apart from contests etc). You may get a lot of downloads, but as I'm not sure readers go on to buy your other books at full price!
ReplyDeleteI know, that's my issue as well. But perhaps it might work for a short period of time 3-5 days. I still have to think about it.
DeleteI guess I was one of the fortunate ones. When the third book in my series was free, I did get a lot of downloads, but it also boosted sales on the other books in the series. The quarter in which the freebie was released was my best ever as a published author for actual sales.
ReplyDeleteI know that's not always the norm, though. TWRP has stopped offering their new books for free (For a while all new releases were for a week on Amazon) because across the board it doesn't always add up to more sales. I think if you do it every so often, it can't hurt.
That's interesting, Debra. Glad it worked for you.
DeleteI've read that authors are going to tau, but are readers? And there are potentially serious (I've read) downsides to tsu. I'm still learning Facebook and Pinterest. That's all I can manage with my new website.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad your critique group is working. I'd love to attend RWA in NYC. I could stay with my daughter. Trouble is, that's peak u-pick raspberry season, and my granddaughters are just 7 and 10, too young to manage it by themselves.
Yeah, tsu is scaring me a bit, so I'm avoiding it for now.
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