The Humour Club discussion

I put my new book, "Death and Dawn" - a humorous detective fiction novel, on Amazon and other sites through Createspace. After much agony, I got it exactly (almost) how I wanted it. The KDP did not format correctly. Lines jump all over the place. I uploaded it at least 5 times. I spent hours on the phone going step by step with a technician. It was truly exhausting. It never did come out right. I am very discouraged with the ebook version. Any tips?

It is very dark humor, and not what most people would expect, but the description does not do it justice. Any suggestions on how to write something that may actually make someone want to read it? Should I include some excerpts from the book in the description?

Self-publishing and marketing are a major challenge for me.

Joel wrote: "Came across this which (mostly) discusses strategy for running your KDP Select freebie days. I hadn't really thought in terms of real strategy for giveaways before, so I found this somewhat interes..."

Good info. I'll have to remember that if I do another free promo. Definitely could have helped with the last one. ;)

I won't be doing any KDP giveaways, because I refuse to give in to Amazon's insistence on exclusivity. I'm also not a big fan of giving my work away, though frankly 99 cents is almost giving it away.

The Goodreads Giveaway is a little different, more of a marketing campaign and no commitments about what else I may do. Even at that, I'm not sure about them--I've not done that well with even getting reviews from my winners.

Rebecca wrote: "I won't be doing any KDP giveaways, because I refuse to give in to Amazon's insistence on exclusivity. I'm also not a big fan of giving my work away, though frankly 99 cents is almost giving it awa..."

More often than not the winners just want to sell the given book on Ebay.

Guy wrote: "Rebecca wrote: "I won't be doing any KDP giveaways, because I refuse to give in to Amazon's insistence on exclusivity. I'm also not a big fan of giving my work away, though frankly 99 cents is almo...

More often than not the winners just want to sell the given book on Ebay."

May they enjoy trying to get a lot of money for one of my books :) And I sign the books to the individual who wins, so it's a bit personalized for that :D

Okay, I'm looking to pick some brains here. It occurred to me that the second level of marketing a book (after you've fired all your guns at launch) would include contributor-content sites like Huffington Post. Unfortunately, that's the only one I can think of - I don't spend a lot of time online other than here. What are some others?

Apparently Forbes is a big one, too, just doing a Google search. I am by no means an expert on marketing, but did you try any reviewer sites? I did get a review from "Long and Short Reviews" and I had some interest in an ebook Giveaway on Library Thing. I don't know that it's helping. Has anyone else has had success with review sites?

Sonya wrote: "Apparently Forbes is a big one, too, just doing a Google search. I am by no means an expert on marketing, but did you try any reviewer sites? I did get a review from "Long and Short Reviews" and I ..."

Forbes is exactly the sort of thing I'm asking about. The reviewer sites and blogs are generally part of the first phase for me, new book-wise. It just occurred to me that after the first barrel is fired, national, contributor-oriented sites might be the next route to go.

I hadn't thought about making use of the users. Getting Huff post to publish something you wrote primarily as a means of advertising your stuff seems perfect, since they prefer not to pay contributors.

Yeah, this sounds like a great idea, Joel. Please keep us posted on any success stories that we may be able to duplicate.

This was just a new-ish thought I had. Who else besides Huff Post and Forbes accept articles from run-of-the-mill contributors?

Amazon has long banned paid-for reviews, which I always thought was a good policy. Now, however, if the reviewer was given a free book in exchange for a review, they will apparently consider that free book "payment". I don't yet know all the details, but it sounds fairly obvious they want people to buy your book on Amazon exclusively in order for reviews to be posted.
Any standard reviewing entity - newspapers, book review sites, etc. - are sent free books to review, and don't consider this payment. If it comes to people not being able to post reviews of your book on Amazon unless they are a verified purchaser, it may become necessary to copy reviews from other sources and quote them in the book description.

Yeah, I think Amazon would be short-sighted to limit reviews to verified purchasers. I mostly read from the library, and if I buy, it's as apt as not to be from Smashwords or B&N. But I like to post reviews in all the venues (when I remember--must confess I've been lax about that, and have some I need to deal with), and feel like it's too limiting otherwise. Shoot, when I accept a book for a review on my blog, there is usually a request to post to Amazon and GR as well.

That's a shame, since they make it nearly impossible to find your book if you don't have a lot of reviews.

I recently attended a talk on crowdfunding publishing, and anyone with a great manuscript and limited funds should seriously look into this. It is not as difficult as you might think, or at least as I thought, and it can help you pay for things like professional editing, cover design, etc. Depending on how you publish, this may also help you keep the retail price of print copies down, too - and the more competitive your book's price is with bookstore books, the more likely you are to sell some.

Hi Joel,

I tried the article route once and the only thing that you need to be careful with is making sure that the articles you submit go to sites with a high-ish domain authority. Also, don't ever use the same article twice. From what I've read (and from my limited experience) the main purpose of doing those articles is for high quality backlinks to your site. Any duplicate content or low-ranking backlinks will negatively impact what you should get out of it.

Any thoughts on book contests?

Diane Freund (S?) who taught creative writing at UofA won a book contest and got a top notch publishing deal out of it. The book was extremely well-written. The memoir-of-childhood subject has been overdone, but her skill as a writer is amazing. (She was my neighbor and died of cancer. The guy who bought her house died of the same type of cancer as well. Now that is a story.)

The most important thing when entering book contests is to look at previous winners. Most of them are looking for the type of writing I don't do. If I saved an autistic (or refugee) child from drowning, I might have a story they would be interested in. The edgier publishers are looking for incoherent writing that is of the tiresome-vanity genre. Romance writing contests are the easiest way to get a publisher, but I have a better chance at writing a cookbook. (fat or slim chance)

I have been burned by paying to enter book contests. So I'm not a big fan, but haven't entered a lot. I read some really good advice, that you should only enter a contest when you know that you will definitely get something out of it that you want. Ex. they will give you two critiques or your submission will definitely be read by some book publisher or a subscription to their magazine or a shiny new key chain just for entering. Barring that I would say that you could enter as long as you don't have to pay a fee. Otherwise, in my opinion, it feels too much like a scam and a waste of time.

I'm with you, Sonya. I won't pay to enter a contest. I've also seen a couple of short-story publishers (magazines, or ezines) that charge a reading fee. Nope. Not doing that. Might consider it if they would give a critique, but as far as I could tell, the one I saw recently just charged to get your MS read sooner rather than later.

I also agree with Brena--most of the contests are looking for something different from what I write.

Great discussion on book contests, Everyone. If anyone has suggestions on particular contests up our alley, I'd be grateful for the info.

Found this site thanks to a certain knowledgeable publisher I know. Worth looking into if you're an indie author:

https://booklife.com/

Joel wrote: "Found this site thanks to a certain knowledgeable publisher I know. Worth looking into if you're an indie author:
https://booklife.com/"

Looks interesting - thanks for posting, Joel

Brenda

An interesting article for any Humour Club members who advertise their books on Facebook:

https://www.janefriedman.com/facebook...

Joel wrote: "An interesting article for any Humour Club members who advertise their books on Facebook:

https://www.janefriedman.com/facebook..."

Some good info there. I've yet to bit on actually spending money for ads, but if I do, I'll bear that in mind.

Have any of you authors out there ever submitted to Kindle Scout?

Joel wrote: "Have any of you authors out there ever submitted to Kindle Scout?"

I haven't, but if you have a book ready to go, you should definitely give it a shot. My experience with crowd driven projects is that the best time to do it is in the beginning, when it is a new concept. They still expect you to promote it yourself....and that doesn't work for me. Wouldn't mind a $1500 check though.

John wrote: "Great discussion on book contests, Everyone. If anyone has suggestions on particular contests up our alley, I'd be grateful for the info."

The James Thurber award is now open: http://www.thurberhouse.org/thurber-p...

And Your Laugh Line has a contest with two forms of submission: Reader's Choice (get your fans to vote for you) and an adjudicated contest: https://yourlaughline.com/

Switching over from publishing non-fiction through long established international publishers to fiction via indie publishing has been an eye opener. As others have said previously, the sheer volume of fiction material now being sent to agents is overwhelming and what it has created in a way is a broken submissions system. Getting taken on by a traditional publisher has always relied to a large extent on luck, but the odds against all of the good quality humorous and other fiction that is out there making it are now so heavily stacked that the route towards self-publishing that Amazon and others have opened up has become the only way forwards for many writers. But the snag with this, of course, is that the huge amount of material now being published through this route in addition to traditional publishing routes has created another broken system. Unless they are very lucky new indie publications on Amazon are almost drowned at birth by the waves of books that hurtle onto the market in the same month. Existing methods of trying to get indie books noticed are themselves sinking beneath the waves under the sheer weight of everyone else using them simultaneously. What’s happened is that, as in the news industry and other areas, the continuing digital revolution is running faster than our understanding of how to tame it. It’s in the commercial interest of Amazon and everyone who has invested in the expansion of indie publishing opportunities to evolve and devise new methods of making indie authors much more visible on their websites, particularly at launch time. The marketing tools currently available may have been a good idea when KDP releases were relatively small in number, but they are first generation and the need now is for a second generation re-think of the possibilities. It’s a challenge for both marketing savvy web-brains and authors to get to grips with. But if things continue as they are currently some good work is going to be lost through people giving up on the publishing process altogether.

P.J. wrote: "Switching over from publishing non-fiction through long established international publishers to fiction via indie publishing has been an eye opener. As others have said previously, the sheer volume..."

I am convinced that the trick is getting indie authors less visible on traditional websites and into print media instead. Social media and author/publisher websites do not sell books, at least as far as I can tell from the experiences of myself and numerous others. Getting mentioned on websites with large national and international readership, such as HuffPost, may help. But you have to reach out to the right people there, and give them a good reason to mention your book.

Let me know how you go about this. There is such a glut of indie authors and author blogs, it is almost impossible to promote a book effectively. I have even tried literary mags and competitions, but even when you win an award or get into a mag, you sink right back into obscurity. Tough nut to crack!

I've lately been taking shots at contacting publicists, agents and managers of some well-known comedic actors, and asking if I can send a copy of one of my books to their clients. Some say yes, some no. If any of the yeses read it, like it, and comment favorably on it, I'll use that as an "in". I also just had the bright idea that someone (independent author or publisher organizations) could probably negotiate discounted ad rates for newspapers and magazines on those occasions when they have left-over white space at press time. It might be as simple as making a telephone call.

Joel wrote: "I've lately been taking shots at contacting publicists, agents and managers of some well-known comedic actors, and asking if I can send a copy of one of my books to their clients. Some say yes, som..."

Keep us posted on how that works out. Sounds promising...

Yes, the traditional media route is still important for helping book sales and I have been making some initial efforts in this regard also – bearing in mind the extra hurdles that indie authors face in getting an ‘in’. My original plan was to follow in the footsteps of other indie author/publishers and to generate sufficient sales via Amazon to be able to present selected key independent high street bookshops with a healthy enough track record for them to be interested in stocking the paper version of the book, etc. etc. By traditional over the counter sales and various other means I then hoped to reach a position where an agent/mainstream publisher would be prepared to take a risk with the book, thus greatly expanding the distribution options. I’ve already had one of the largest UK agents say they like it and unusually, in a bit of detail, but they wouldn’t take a risk with it. I think this is a particular problem with humorous fiction, going right back to the time of one of the greats, Flann O’Brien. Where they perceive the risk is high, agents/publishers now need to see evidence of meaningful sales before they will consider adding an author to their lists. But for this whole process to begin sales on Amazon or other distribution sites first need to take off and as I said in my last post the existing marketing tools on offer were great ideas when there were relatively few Kindle authors, but are no longer up to the job. It is early days yet, with word of mouth reviews still to make it on to Amazon, and while progress so far has been noticeable but slow, like Joel I’m trying a variety of methods to see if any have an impact in accelerating sales. I’ll report back on any that seem to be showing promise.

I've had success getting ms in front of editors at large publishers just by calling them up and asking if they have any interest in humorous fiction. You'd be surprised at how many editors who "only look at submissions from agents" will look at one directly from an author. The downside is it usually takes longer for your book to get looked at; but they do look, eventually, and are much more gracious than agents.

That's a very useful bit of information. In my case I will wait until the book gets a bit of traction and then try what you suggest. A combination of hard evidence of sales potential with a good pitch directly to an editor may well be a better strategy than going through an agent. It will be interesting to see. Thanks.

In my experience, you're better off trying editors before you've self-published the book. None of the ones I've talked to wanted anything to do with any work that had been previously published, especially self-published. A thought for your next one, maybe.

Joel wrote: "In my experience, you're better off trying editors before you've self-published the book. None of the ones I've talked to wanted anything to do with any work that had been previously published, esp..."

It would be interesting to do some research on this - thinking off the top off my head one of the big hits of 2015/16 (albeit in a definitely non-humorous genre) was Andrew Michael Hurley's 'The Loney', which was taken up by a mainstream within twelve months after they saw a small press make an initial success of it. I suspect it depends on individual preferences at publishers and there are no doubt many who do not take kindly to indie first publications.

P.J. wrote: thinking off the top off my head one of the big hits of 2015/16 (albeit in a definitely non-humorous genre) was Andrew Michael Hurley's 'The Loney', which was taken up by a mainstream within twelve months after they saw a small press make an initial success of it. "

If you check out the deal reports, you'll see that very very few debut authors are actually published by any of the big 5 any more. And when they are, most of the time, it's folks like A.J. Finn ("The Woman in the Window," a current NYT best-seller) who had a career in publishing as an editor or some other kind of direct connection.


They are happy to cherry pick the better selling small press and self-pub'd authors. Key words: better selling. They really don't give a rat's ___ if you self-published or went with a small press; if you're selling they'll take you on. Unfortunately, your royalties will be at a lower percentage than with a small press. Much smaller percentage. So you have to pray that they actually market the hell out of you.

Lisa wrote: "P.J. wrote: thinking off the top off my head one of the big hits of 2015/16 (albeit in a definitely non-humorous genre) was Andrew Michael Hurley's 'The Loney', which was taken up by a mainstream w..."

You are so right Lisa.

Most writers have a better chance at winning the lottery than getting picked up by a big publisher. It is a fluke when an unknown person makes it. We all want to be that next fluke.

The big guys are drowning in submissions from people within their inner circle and celebrities.

Self promotion is a sticking point with me. Just can't do it. I can't even get my relatives to read what I write.

Brena, I'm sorry about your relatives :) I can't say that I can get ALL of mine to read my books, but my Mom and one of my brothers both read them, and promote them. My other brother, not so much. I'm not sure if he's read them, and he doesn't do any social media so he doesn't promote (Mom doesn't do social media, either, but she'll hand-sell my books to her friends and connections).

I'm another who doesn't do marketing well at all. But the odds of getting picked up by a big publishing house seem so small, and the pleasure of publishing even without great profit keeps me going.

My understanding is that even if a big publisher works with you, you still have to work at promoting. Nor is there any luster with having your books in a bookstore. Most people these days are OK dealing with with Amazon, Ibooks and he like.

As Rebecca says, the pleasure of publishing even without profit is worth it. It is folly to write for any $$$ gain.

I made my living for 40 + years practicing law and I will say having published my book a few months ago after handing up my shingle was a much greater joy. It brings us out.

Do any of the youngsters our there remember the days before print on demand? Those were dark days indeed. To have a book printed required a substantial financial investment, and you had to have at least 500 friends to give copies to.

It truly is folly to expect to make a living off self-publishing, but writers must write. I love to write, but self promotion does my head in.

I don't know if anyone else has experienced this, but Amazon has recently removed some of my book reviews - even when I bought the book on Amazon - because it thinks the authors and I are trying to "game the system". Have you had this happen?

Amazon is struggling to find a fair way to control false reviews. They are currently making a lot of mistakes. They have busted trolls promoting pro-Trump books. (What is a pro-Trump book? Who would write such a thing?) Hopefully they will sort out this review process soon.

Joel wrote: "I don't know if anyone else has experienced this, but Amazon has recently removed some of my book reviews - even when I bought the book on Amazon - because it thinks the authors and I are trying to..."

It hasn't happened to me, as far as I know (I don't know if they notify you, and I don't check on my reviews), but it has happened to lots of others.

This looks informative, for those who are at that level:

https://insights.bookbub.com/successf...

Createspace going away. Have to move paperbacks to KDP. Ugh. Change pricing. Ugh.

Brena wrote: "Createspace going away. Have to move paperbacks to KDP. Ugh. Change pricing. Ugh."

I haven’t gotten notice about this. Are we going to have to re-issue books done with CS? I guess I’d better log in there and find out the scoop.