Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion

So I wrote a book and published it on kindle to test it with the market. My intention is not to sell the book, but to get it reviewed and to know if it has any potential. There is, however, a decision which I took and consider a potential disaster. I passed the book around to a few people and edited a great deal of content, however, I did not hire a professional editor yet. The main reason behind publishing it on kindle is to expose it to a wide number of people I do not know for an objective opinion.

Before you even do that you can ask for beta readers on here. They might help.
I suggest listing it for review here on goodreads, if you haven't already. If you just post it on Amazon you may not ever have anyone pick it up. Or maybe you'll be an instant success! Only time will tell.

R.A. wrote: "Before you even do that you can ask for beta readers on here. They might help.
I suggest listing it for review here on goodreads, if you haven't already. If you just post it on Amazon you may not e..."

I just gt in the author community scene and have no idea how things work. This beta thing seems to be what I should have done though.

The downside to publishing before you feel ready is that once a negative review is posted, it can't be removed. You can tell people that it has since been edited, but it's hard to say how helpful that will be.
My suggestion is to unpublish for a while, until you feel confident that your draft is what you want people to see. If you're already happy with it, then by all means, start promoting!
I jumped into this blind. I changed my cover a couple months after first publishing, but the content was what I wanted. Who knows, I may change it again someday! I had never even heard of goodreads before then, and I had never purchased an ebook or written a review. Not a computer gal. It's a struggle, but all of this has helped me grow as a person, even if I'm still not hitting it big!

R.A. wrote: "The downside to publishing before you feel ready is that once a negative review is posted, it can't be removed. You can tell people that it has since been edited, but it's hard to say how helpful t..."

I like your suggestion. There is one thing, however, which is on my mind. Where can I find beta readers? Groups or just random asking around?

Tarek wrote: "R.A. wrote: "The downside to publishing before you feel ready is that once a negative review is posted, it can't be removed. You can tell people that it has since been edited, but it's hard to say ..."
There are many posts for beta readers on here and you can find them without any trouble. If I can offer a piece of advice, please don't let friends and family be your beta readers. I've seen too many people on here fall into that trap thinking that their writing doesn't need anything else because someone close to them liked it. I find that getting impartial advice with constructive criticism (as opposed to just general criticism) will really help you sharpen your skills and story.

I'd seriously look at getting a professional editor, but be prepared to pay something like £150 for 60,000 words

Jim wrote: "I'd seriously look at getting a professional editor, but be prepared to pay something like £150 for 60,000 words"

Thing is that I live in Egypt and good editors are insanely expensive, not to mention rare.

J. wrote: "Tarek wrote: "R.A. wrote: "The downside to publishing before you feel ready is that once a negative review is posted, it can't be removed. You can tell people that it has since been edited, but it'..."

I agree with friends and family not offering useful criticism.

Paul wrote: "Tarek wrote: "Jim wrote: "I'd seriously look at getting a professional editor, but be prepared to pay something like £150 for 60,000 words"

Thing is that I live in Egypt and good editors are insan..."

Good point.

Hi, on a similar vein of market testing I am interested to know if anyone else has used KickStarter of similar websites to fund the production of their books and also to garner interest prior to publication.

I ask this because I am currently working on a tarot deck and companion book with an artist friend of mine and the nature of this project means that. Can't self publish via lulu or similar ( well we can for the book, but not the cards ) and so we need to raise the funding to get the amazing artwork printed onto high quality card stock and cut and boxed.

Any help or suggestions would be great

Thanks

Arietta Bryant

Arietta wrote: "Hi, on a similar vein of market testing I am interested to know if anyone else has used KickStarter of similar websites to fund the production of their books and also to garner interest prior to pu..."

I personally didn't use it, but I might know someone who did. I will contact him and let you know if he has anything to offer.

For those that have published an ebook on Amazon/Kindle and also for Apple, Nook, and Kobo...how did you go about formatting your text/book or finding someone to convert it? I work on a Mac, but don't have Word (although I can save my Textedit in an old version of Word). I'm at that point now that I have everything else done but am trying to decide on a dependable and good formatter. It's a fantasy novel, no graphics or maps except for the cover. Thanks!

Never publish before you've redrafted with beta reader feedback and had your work edited by someone who knows what s/he is doing. The going rate for a good, professional editor is about $5.00 a page. I do hope you take others' advice here about unpublishing for the time being. You don't want to open yourself up to future regrets.

C.V., as long as you can save your work as an HTML (filtered) document, it doesn't matter whether or not you wrote your book on Word. What's really important is that you ensure your formatting is in the actual code you want it to be in. I do not know how it works with the Mac program, but with Word, you must physically set all formatting; simply clicking on your choice from the font drop-down menu or pulling the Tab bar to 1/4 inch, for example, does not ensure the final formatted copy will reflect that. Amazon has some great resources on formatting.

You can download a Mobi converter online for free. I use Mobipocket Creator, and it's very user-friendly. To ensure the actual Kindle file looks correct (it will not always look like your HTML file if you didn't set your formatting correctly), you can create the file and transfer it to your Kindle to view it as it will look to readers (or use Kindle for PC--also a free download--if you don't own a Kindle). There's a slight learning curve to creating Kindle documents, but once you've got the basics down, it's really not all that hard to do.

Nook books are super simple to create. There are a number of different types of files you can upload directly to the site, and Nook will convert the file for you. I haven't tried Apple yet, so I don't know how easy/hard those files are to create.

The best of luck to you!

Thank you, Leigh!

I use Edward M. Wolfefor my editing. He is really good and he does a sample chapter for free; he charges individually based on how long he thinks the edit will take him.

Maybe ask him about your book and see if he will help you out and get quotes.

Mercy wrote: "I use Edward M. Wolfefor my editing. He is really good and he does a sample chapter for free; he charges individually based on how long he thinks the edit will take him.

Maybe ask him about your ..."

Thank you, I'll do just that.

You have a couple of options.

1) Unpublish your book and browse threads in the Goodreads community for "read to review". This basically means you will exchange a free copy of your book for an honest review.
2) Keep your book published and offer it for free. This doesn't guarantee reviews, but it likely will generate some.

Amazon offers something called "Kindle Select" through Kindle Direct Publishing that means your book is exclusively available on Amazon, and you get 5 free promo days in a 90 days period. I've done it a few times, and it was good for getting published initially and getting some circulation going. I wouldn't recommend it for the long term.

You can also publish on Smashwords and offer it for free in hopes for some reviews.

As for a professional editor, I've never paid for one, but I have a lot of friends who are willing to read, edit, suggest changes and review. Once I got over my initial fear of "people I know will read this?!" it worked beautifully. I also like that my friends suggest changes and I ultimately decide whether to incorporate them.