However, if you DID read an early review copy and would could put up a review on , that would be great too! (If you read an Early Reader copy, please do state that in your review, either as that, "Early Reader" or use the "ARC" (Advance Reader Copy" that is standard practice, from what I understand...)
Independent authors live and die on reviews, as Kyle knows. If we want anyone other than friends and family to read our books, we need to have a few reviews out there. They don't all have to be sparkling, five star reviews. They need to be HONEST. If you see flaws, you see flaws and should point them out, in a non-spoilery way, of course... (Nobody likes spoilery reviews...) Reviews that are more critical actually HELP a book, believe it or not. It shows that the reviews aren't all shill reviews from the Author's family or something like that! If there are a few 3 star or even a couple of 1 star (assuming there are enough higher reviews to balance out) it shows that a variety of people are reading the book and different people have differing opinions. If the people who are saying nice things are intelligent, thoughtful, well spoken individuals, like I know my core readers are... (apply butter... bake at 350 degrees for three hours and forty five minutes...) then the people who stumble upon the reviews on Goodreads and Amazon will be more likely to toss the book into their "To Read" pile and maybe even buy it if they contrast with a few that say, "Eh... it did nothing for me..." with low ratings.
I'm also considering using Amazon's "Create Space" service to make Paper copies of the book, mostly so I can run a "Goodreads Giveaway" for free. Goodreads has a beta program for Kindle giveaways, but it costs $119 to run a Kindle giveaway. Granted, you can give away up to 100 books at a time with a Kindle giveaway, and they say that approximately 60% of the giveaway winners eventually review the book, which would provide a boatload of reviews and a BUNCH of Goodreads dashboards that my book would appear on for the friends of those reviewers to see it and wonder, Hmmm... Maybe I should give that book a try...
However, the "Create Space" concept also has the advantage of being a Print On Demand service, which means that I could LIST the book on Amazon as a PRINT book. (It would be a Trade Paperback, and would cost significantly MORE than the Kindle version, but for people who either just don't like or don't have the ability to do ebooks, it would be an option. I've already had one friend one a paper copy... I could get her one this way.) I would also be able to have a paper copy for MYSELF and I could offer signed copies, both of which would be cool...
Anyway, this turned out MUCH longer than I had planned... Kind of like book 2... It seems that I am getting more long winded as I age... I think that is a standard thing... OK... I'll shut the hell up now...Statistics: Posted by Zen — Mon Nov 28, 2016 10:09 am
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