land-a-linkin'

There are a number of Kindle Unlimited sites, and also Authors-helping-authors sites, on Facebook, and I don't believe I've even found them all. I've found a few favorites, and maybe I should get out there looking for a few more.

I've concluded that everyone and their brother, in these times of quarantine, wants to be an author, and lots of people are cranking it out too. They appear to be paying someone to do their cover, paying someone to do their marketing, and probably paying someone to do their editing too. It's a major industry.

They aren't for the most part interested in reading mine. Mine have homemade covers, homemade marketing, and home-done editing. This sets me at a disadvantage since a lot of this is obvious at first glance.

I am, however, building up a steady readership. It's slow. I've got a few reviews; that's slow too. I try to finish my books at night, and get more up there; that also is slow. I just can't seem to write them fast enough.

I scroll through these facebook sites looking for people who are willing to trade reads and/or reviews. I am not sure if this is against Amazon rules (Amazon? If you are reading this please respond?). I don't see why it would be illegal. I am a reader too, perhaps more critical than most, and I know what I'm looking at. My opinions should count.

I do have a dilemma with things that are really crummy. On the author's site one lady posted a plea - please do not drop a 1 rating as you might ruin someone's life. Well, what if they write a 1 book? I have to work this out morally. I am still hoping they drop a 5 rating on my book, of course. But that wouldn't be fair, would it?

Perhaps the secret is to choose one's friends. People who are too busy to read mine, basically, shouldn't be friends anyway. Several have kind of lured me into downloading and starting their book but, after a while, I feel like doing nothing, if they have not kept their end of the deal. If they read mine, I should know it, and I don't.

Yes, that's right, I'm hooked on "page-read" statistics - I know when people read mine. I know, and I'm happy when they do. Any pages read seem to mean I've built my following.

 I a 5 have become much happier lately, knowing that I will 1) finish my first novel, and 2) have a marketing plan that will ultimately be successful, unlike the flailing that I have been doing (see below). If hard work and inspiration makes you successful, I can do it; if dropping your work on a sea of self-published work is entirely futile, then maybe one is doomed.

Anyway it is blog reckoning day, so I can tell you, things are looking better. In my top ten, more are getting better than crashing (by a 5 to 4 margin); in the second tier (which is easier to post to), it's more like 8 up, two down. The press blogs are sagging because I'm not publishing enough, but I'm working on it.

I've found a way to get yourself read - read others' work. Talk them into exchanging. One at a time, I get people to read mine. It works. Another thing I am working on is very careful attention to how it looks on kindle. It can be done. I wasn't doing it before; I was doing Kindle as an afterthought. Now, I'm all about kindle. Those paperbacks might be out there forever, but the kindle is hot - it's at your fingertips now.

The other thing I'm doing is checking who reads my work daily. Turns out you can count the pages that people read one day at a time, and know who's reading what. It's fascinating, and some of it is abroad, which is even more fascinating. I still have a kind of bent for the international scene - being known in eel / eel has always helped that way - and there are markets over there. Not that I make any money yet. But when I do, I'll let you know.