WHAT NO ONE WILL TELL YOU

 

The posts these days are all telling you how to make your eBook stand out in 2013.

You know the drill by heart:

1.) Build your marketing platform:

       a.) Facebook your book (but now you will have to pay $50 a pop for it. Ouch!)
       b.) Twitter your cyber-elbows past all those other authors hawking their books.
       c.) Ever see the floor of the Stock Exchange -- all those screaming buyers and sellers?
       d.) Blog yourself into an adoring following. 
       e.) (I would suggest talk more about others/less of yourself.  And make them laugh.)

2.)  Once the book is written, start crowd-sourcing.

       a.) Get fans, friends, colleagues and others to copy-edit and/or review the book.
       b.) Do this immediately before it goes on sale,
            so that as soon as it goes on sale you have a bunch of great reviews for the book.
       c.) Yeah, that won't look arranged or phony, will it?
       d.) John Locke ruined that strategy for us.

3.)  Lure in readers by putting your work on various sites.

      a.) Sadly, many blog surfers go right past a post hawking yet one more book, screaming, "READ  ME!" 
      b.) Surfers read mainly for amusement and being on the receiving end of a hard-sell is no fun.

4.) Get a HOOK of a title and a SIREN of a cover:

      a.) That idea still is valid.
      b.) I have picked many a book just on the pull of the title or the cover alone.

5.) THE PRICE IS RIGHT ... or is it?

      a.) John Locke's shabbiness got Amazon to ruin the 99 cent price allure for us.
      b.) People judge quality by its cost.
      c.) cheap translates into lesser quality vies with what readers will feel free to gamble on an unknown.
      d.) I would suggest $2.99 or $3.99
      e.) I price at $1.99 sometimes since I have many books and this will encourage new readers that if they like their first book, they will be able to reasonably afford to sample a few more of mine.

WHAT NO ONE WILL TELL YOU:

WRITE A GREAT BOOK!

     A.) Easy to say but hard to do, right?

     B.) How often have you heard friends say, "I usually don't read ______ genre, but all my friends were raving about this book so I took a chance."

     C.)  APPEAL TO THE HEART

          1.) Think of a crisis that tugs at the heart:
               a.) Dying mother struggles through a war-torn country-side to find medicine for her ill child before she dies.
               b.) Rape victim, deciding out of her faith to keep the child growing within her, slowly begins to realize in horror that her unborn is not human.

          2.) To tug at the heart you have to have a riveting crisis coupled with a heroine or hero that you find yourself rooting for after the first paragraph. (Yes, that's how little time you have to snag a reader.)

     D.) PACE LIKE A PRO

          1.) How many times have you heard a good joke told badly?
          2.) Think BREATHING
               a.) Three parts BUILD-UP
               b.) to one part PAY-OFF

     E.) USE WORDS LIKE A SON OF A BITCH

          1.) Caught you off guard, didn't I?
          2.) You must use POWER WORDS to propel your prose forward
          3.) Power words are your outboard engine to your craft.
          4.) The remaining words are your rudder to fine tune the direction of your narrative.
          5.) Power words are the spice.  The majority of your prose is the meat and potatoes.

     F.) MAKE THEM LAUGH

          1.) Dialogue that seems real is essential -- read the masters to see how they did it.
          2.) Laughter will keep your reader turning the pages as much as suspense will.
          3.) Suspense will get the reader to read your book one time.  Laughter will get your reader to come back to enjoy the ride again.

     G.) FRIENDSHIP

          1.) Friends are the only real treasure we have in this world, and they are the only wealth we can hope to find in the next.
          2.) Love is important, too, in your novels.
          3.) But the best lovers become the deepest friends -- so friendship is the bedrock of your novel.
          4.) Think the best movies you've seen, and it will have friendship as one of its biggest building blocks.