Harry’s Comments (group member since Dec 22, 2011)

Harry’s comments from the Scratch a back group.

I think Colin has done a fantastic job with the new website.

With so many indies out there the only realistic way for any of us are to be noticed is through cross marketing and alliances.

So its now up to us to promote the site- through tweets, blogs, whatever. Let's make it work!

Great ideal Colin, I'll add a link page to my site in the next day or two and return all links posted here.

Please link to www.harryfreedmanbooks.com

Also, please like www.facebook.com/harryfreedmanbooks and follow @harryfreedman1

Here's a snifter from Jerusalem Imperilled
News travels fast in a small province. Particularly when the Procurator’s household kept a close watch on his business. My enormous friend Meir Ben-Batiach was chasing a chicken around its meagre coop when his sixteen year old cousin, one of several kitchen boys in the Procurator’s household burst breathlessly into the yard.
The old stories talk of a beast called a Reym, an animal so large that Noah had to tie it to the side of the ark. If he’d lived at that time, Noah would've tied Meir alongside it. He was a giant. Bigger even than Og, king of Bashan. But although he stood head and shoulders above everyone else, when his mother ordered him to catch a chicken for the oven, that’s what he did. Or tried to do.
“Cestius is journeying from Syria,” the boy blurted out. “He will meet Gessius Florus in Jerusalem in a week’s time, two days before the Passover”.
In a last ditch attempt Meir flung himself full length to the ground, throwing up a cloud of dust big enough to cover the sun, and seized the chicken by the neck. He narrowly avoiding decapitating the bird- had he succeeded it would have been ritually ineligible for consumption, voiding his efforts of the past quarter hour. Shaking himself to expel the cinders from his robe, one hand shielding his eyes from the fierce white dazzle of the sun reflecting off the stones, the other keeping a firm grip on the fowl’s neck, he appeared to be performing some esoteric dance. “Then we will need to be ready for them. Good work, boy.” he added as an afterthought.
“They will be harder to snare than a chicken” laughed the kitchen boy.

I think its great that bloggers review books. But I wonder how useful it is to rely on them. There are so many book blog that many of them get very few visitors. And the good bloggers are booked up for months in advance.

The problem for serious indie authors is how to get our work noticed amongst all the noise. I'm not convinced that blogs, or blog tours are a sustainable solution.

I like Bronwen's idea. I'd happily join in a cross-promotion activity. This coming week is likely to be the biggest of the year for book sales, particularly ebooks with all those shiny new kindles being unwrapped.