Eldon’s Comments (group member since May 30, 2016)

Eldon’s comments from the Support for Indie Authors group.

Rob wrote: "Had a bad experience with Coach Wendy Stevens and Guerrilla Marketing. She claimed she could make thousands of sales for my books. I paid her and got zero sales due to her efforts."

Sorry to hear that Rob. So many vultures out there :(

One thing you can do is check the registration of the website. When was it established? Most scams are fly by night and this will help tell you that. As for what the scam is, my guess is some type of information gathering. Tread carefully.

Terry wrote: "Not sure if this is the right thread to ask but I’ll ask anyway. I’ve never tried any sort of advertising or marketing of my books and I have the sales to prove it.
I distribute through D2D, which ..."

Your money spends as good as anyone else's - you don't have to be Amazon exclusive to advertise with them.

Paul wrote: "I thought I would share a recent experience I had with a Facebook marketing campaign. If you have any thoughts, please share.

I have two books and have just completed a three-day book giveaway for..."

Hi Paul. 1,500 free copies in three days would place you on charts within Amazon and would account for the copies not traceable to the FB ads. Sort of organic visibility - gotta love it :)

B.A. wrote: "A review that you pay for should be from a reputable company. Of all of them out there, Kirkus is probably the best, and of course, the most expensive. I've heard that BlueInk is hit and miss. The ..."

Great advice B.A.

James wrote: Paying for third-party reviews is a marketing expense. I do not expect much, which is why you need to pay for 5-6 or none. You just need one positive review to have a marketing purpose, and you can suppress the others.

Anyone who thinks that book reviews are predictive of anything regarding sales or quality or later impact should read this lovely take-down of the 'profession.'"

No links please

Christine wrote: "Advicesbooks Book Reviews wrote: "Amazon prefers reviews coming from a verified purchase. ARC is an outdated system now and is worth only for big book publishers and famous authors who send book co..."

I suggest perhaps we stop this line of inquiry now before the inevitable next post where AdvicesBooks pitches you on purchasing a review from them. Not saying they will for certainty, but they do offer paid reviews and I'd rather not get involved in removing links or self promo today.

I can tell you that ARC's are in no way outdated, nor does Amazon require verified purchases to review at this time.

Christine wrote: "Has Amazon gotten stricter with the reviews? So far, I've had two ARC Reviews denied on a new release."

Stricter would be nice, but I kind of doubt it :(

Robert wrote: "They do have success, but again, not for everybody"

Okay. The thing that has me stumped here is this. I went to their website and for the life of me, cannot figure out how they make any money. They position themselves as an aggregator, or meeting place for writers and agents or producers. But they provide no concrete examples of success stories that I could find.

Wouldn't a company such as this celebrate the successes they've achieved? Wouldn't that be a selling point to attract more business? It makes me wonder just who these "agents" and "producers" are that frequent the site. And, back to the money, just when the touch or request for funds will be applied.

Tread carefully.

Robert wrote: "StoryRocket is an interesting thing. If you have a book that has movie potential, you might consider it. But for most it's a waste of money. They do host online "Ask Me Anything" meetings that migh..."

Best way to determine if it works for anyone is to see if StoryRocket has ever optioned a book into a movie. A reputable company would be all about advertising such success. A scam, not so much.

Not in this case - has scam written all over it.

Robert wrote: "You actually deleted my post?"

As an admin in this group I'm required to follow the rules, Robert. The rules are no links.

Robert wrote: "Do I have my terminology wrong? I have two Kindle books enrolled on KDP Select, that means people who have joined KindleUnlimited can read them for 'free'. I am not in KU. Hope that clears things up. It's all so messy.
If anyone here is a member of KU and would care to borrow one of my books and read a few pages to see if I get page reads on the KDP dashboard as an experiment that would be great."

No links please.

As to your terminology, I think you have it correct and I just misunderstood. It's possible there is a delay in reporting, wouldn't be unusual for Amazon.

Robert wrote: "Thanks all. I'll recheck KU membership but I am absolutely certain I'm on it. Keep striving! :)"

Hi Robert! I could be completely offside here, but I'm pretty sure Amazon won't give you credit for reading your own book on KU. Seems like a no-brainer for them.

Ian wrote: "Here is my first trial blurb - please show me the weak spots.

A sequel to Spoliation. Two years previously the freighter Elysium en route to Mars was attacked by pirates, but since then the crimin..."

Congrats on a new book Ian!

The blurb is very informative but lacking in any kind of hook. There's nothing that screams this is a book that I need to read. If I were you, I'd shorten and try to find a cliffhanger to grab interest.

Hi Kirsten!! Good luck with your study. I'd help you, but I'm not from an underrepresented community. Best of luck :)

Guys. Not sure what we're trying to do here but no links. Rules are rules.

B.A. wrote: "A lot of tradtionally published authors are going indie and finding that they have a great fan base and can get more than they did under contract AND they get to deside what they want to write...."

Great point B.A.!!!

Eileen wrote: "Eldon wrote: "Jay wrote: " In fact it's always mystified me why big name authors like Stephen King stay with their publishers

First, for the services they provide. They have professional editors w..."

I would wager Eileen that the bestseller rankings are dominated by the same big names because they are the only ones receiving the marketing push by the publishers. Just another reason to go indie in my mind.

Jay wrote: " In fact it's always mystified me why big name authors like Stephen King stay with their publishers

First, for the services they provide. They have professional editors with experience in the genr..."

I hear what you're saying Jay, and don't disagree about the abundance of, shall we say, unprofessional books on Amazon. However, professional editors, and marketers, and whoever else can be hired in this day and age. I mean, we're talking Stephen King here. The King. Don't tell me that bookstores wouldn't stock his next book if it were self-published. No way. They know it'll sell and they'll want it in store to bring people in. Hell, at this point the guy could publish 400 blank pages and probably sell enough to be a bestseller. An exaggeration maybe, but not by much.

So I'm not swayed by the argument that he makes more money by giving away 50, or 60, or 70 percent of his revenue to the publisher. He could self publish, put out a tweet about a new release and rake in 70 percent of the proceeds for himself. I think the reason he doesn't, is just perception. So many people still perceive being traditionally published as some kind of higher achievement. But that is changing.