Kenshin Himura

Sorry!  I totally forgot that I was going to list people’s answers and reasons to Monday’s question.  Please check out the blogs and published works of everyone:

“I’m on board with most of that but I write poetry and know there is no money in that.” The Mirror Obscura

“I love writing because I’m totally addicted to it since the day when I started reading “anything” so seriously” Insight

“For me as a total readerholic and mental escape artist all my life, the writing came late, but now that particular joy of creating worlds, people, dragons, scenarios – whatever – can’t be matched by anything else that I’ve ever done.” Jo Robinson

“I think the reason evolves over time. I began writing as a way to express myself in a healing way. But then I began writing poetry. Poetry is a great self-expression for me and I…

Said THANK YOU to a reviewer and clicked the LIKE button under their review?

The means to do both is provided by Goodreads and Amazon!

Authors often complain about the lack of reviews for their Bestselling Stories, but how many of you interact with readers who DO leave their reviews?

Having received thank you’s and/or messages from authors about my short, simplistic and unprofessional (but honest) reviews myself, I know how nice it feels (and I deal with authors on a daily basis!).

It may encourage them to read at least one more of your books!

Likewise, when Amazon sends me an email to notify me that someone has advised that my review helped them, (they had clicked the LIKE button under it), it pleases me and it’s not always, or only, the author who does so.

AVOID making comments or taking up arms against unfavourable reviews – read

You check only blogs that mention someone selling books, hoping for a tidbit of information on how they are doing it.

You have had at least one serious relationship with a character from your books.

Your mind goes on auto pilot at all meetings and you begin seeing your characters as the other people in the room. Fizzle! Get down from there, this is the school board for goodness sake!

You identify with Poe for more than just his history of drinking.

You identify with Poe because of his history of drinking.

You feel guilty when you are on Facebook unless it directly relates to writing or promotion.

You don’t begrudge the other authors who are ahead of you on the lists any…

For the past year there has been a good deal of hand-wringing over the question of KDP Select free promotions. Have they de-valued fiction, do they attract negative reviews, do they even work anymore? As anyone who regularly reads my blog posts knows, I have been a strong proponent of offering ebooks free for promotional purposes, and free promotions have been very good to me in terms of increasing my reviews and keeping my books visible and selling.

However, I also believe one of the distinct advantages we have as indie authors is our ability to use our own sales data to respond innovatively to changes in the marketing environment. As a result, in the past year I followed a number of different strategies to keep the books in my Victorian San Francisco Mystery series visible, including beginning to experiment with the new promotional tool, the Kindle Countdown

I had a thought yesterday that birthed a panic attack that my dear friend Ionia had to smack me out of.  I think she rather enjoyed it a bit too much and I’m still looking for my missing contact lens, which is weird since I wear glasses.  There’s also been a phone ringing for the last 24 hours.

Seriously though, take a look at what an Indie Author has to face:

• Negative Reviews
• Abusive Reviews
• Abusive e-mails, FB comments, & Tweets
• Pressure of writing another book
• Writer’s Block
• Marketing failures
• Finding marketing sites
• Bad sales days
• No sales days
• Amazon rankings
• People reacting to your rankings falling as if it’s time to pack in the dreams and head for the nearest cubicle.
• Finding time to write
• Editing
• Hate sites if you get that far
• Haters if you make a wrong move
• Illegal downloads of your book
• Returns of your book