THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING UNREAD ... and THE SECRET!

Business is business.

A market starts, and barriers to entry are low.

There’s things like quality and consistency of product,

so that the early products are often of poor quality and have limited distribution.

Usually but not always. But the early entrants aren’t the companies who win through.

Then, there's Amazon. eBooks have been the making of Amazon.

A few years ago, Amazon was making a loss on the book side and accounting for 4% of the market.

With their aggressive promotion and bold introduction of the Kindle, they’ve claimed a big portion of the distribution market.

Which means exactly what for us? To me?

You say I can do little to change how things go.

Some believe I can just wave and feebly mention that I’m still here. As the market grows, my voice becomes feebler. All I can do, many sigh, is keep writing the stories I love and hope that someone else loves them, too.

But are they right?

THERE IS THE SECRET that says NO. Read on to discover it.

{Oh, interesting side-note:
Did you know that Amazon can remotely delete purchased e-books through a back door, much the way it did in 2009 on "thousands of copies of George Orwell's 1984? Big Brother indeed!}

THE SECRET!

Do you know how Robert Bindinotto managed to write and publish a debut novel that, without backing by a traditional publisher and with zero paid advertising, went on to become a Kindle bestseller?

Get out your highlighter to copy this secret.

Prepare yourself. Wait for it.

The short, unsatisfying answer:

HUNTER caught the eyes of the Amazon Kindle editors, who (bless their little hearts if they do this for me) singled out his book for one week-long focused attention and promotion on the Amazon website.

You go: "Duh! Well, sure! My book would soar if they did that for me!!!!"

Better question:

Why did they single out HUNTER from over a million items in the Kindle Store? Did Mr. Bidinotto do anything that made a difference?

Nobody from Amazon ever confided in him. But Robert (I can call you, Robert, can't I?) has a few guesses:

1. CARVE OUT A DISTINCTIVE NICHE.

To succeed in being noticed in an overcrowded marketplace, you must distinguish yourself and especially your product.

If all authors are blogging, tweeting, Facebooking, interviewing, pricing at 99 cents, etc., then there is nothing in that which makes the individual author or his book stand out.

Likewise, if you are writing the umpteenth rendition of the same kind of protagonist in the same kind of story, aping other successful writers who pioneered that same sort of character or plotline, etc., you are not standing out from the pack.

John Locke stood out by being the first with 99-cent ebooks, and he did sensationally well. But now, a zillion indies have mindlessly copied him, and as a result, 99-cent pricing no longer stands out or moves ebooks.

In fact, it screams “SELF-PUBLISHED!” to readers who have grown leery of quickie, low-quality, self-published titles.

Similarly, Amanda Hocking triumphed by being one of the first indies to develop a big social-media following for her books via Facebooking and Tweeting. Now, everyone is doing it—and again, nobody stands out as she did.

To stand out in marketing, you must be first to do something new and different. You must pioneer something.

It can be a new twist on an old formula, but it must be sufficient to create a kind of “niche monopoly.” Clancy invented the “technothriller,” a thriller subgenre. Rowling pioneered a parallel race/universe featuring young wizards.

Everyone knows the Western is dead:

So I have created an undead Paladin (HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL) in the haunted New Orleans of the present.

{Speaking of unique, Originally, each show of HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL opened with exactly the same 45-second visual.

The first season's Christmas episode, "The Hanging Cross," is unique.

Instead of drawing the revolver, Paladin unbuckles the belt and removes the entire rig, holding it out to the camera as he talks.

The camera then tilts upward, revealing Richard Boone himself speaking to camera, then hanging the belt, holster, and gun on a wall peg and walking away as the theme picks up and the title graphics appear.}

Vampires have been so overdone that they are crisp and black! So I have a flesh-eating Victorian ghoul as the love interest of my young street Gypsy, Victor Standish.

And see how my name is a household word? Ah, not so much, huh? Hey, it was just a guess on Robert's part!

2. THINK LIKE A READER.

Kerry Wilkinson, a self-publishing phenom who is currently #1 on Kindle in the UK, wrote that he put himself in the reader’s shoes.

So, if you were a reader in your genre, what would engage you?

Apply that consideration to everything you do–from writing, to cover, to formatting, to pricing, to marketing, to websites, to blogging, etc.

Also ask yourself:

Who are the readers for my kind of story? Where do they hang out? How can I reach them? What would catch their interest? If you answer those questions before you hit the “publish” button, you’re many times more likely to be successful.

3. CRAFTSMANSHIP COUNTS: NOTHING TRUMPS A GOOD STORY.

Authors should spend well over 90 percent of their time and effort not on marketing, but on crafting the best stories they can possibly write.

A great story can sometimes succeed without marketing fanfare; but no marketing fanfare can long sustain a poor story.

Catchy covers and pricing gimmicks may win attention for a book, but if that initial attention isn’t eventually affirmed by a positive and enduring reader response, long-term sales will be mediocre at best.

4. PROFESSIONAL PRESENTATION COUNTS.

When publishing, an indie author must pay attention to all the “little things” that lend an air of competence and professionalism to his book(s).

Covers, design, formatting, logos, your author blog or website–all of these things must exude a quality equal to anything issued or overseen by Random House or Simon & Schuster.

And no, you do not have to break the bank to obtain that kind of quality. Robert was able to do it all for about $1000.

{For more of his excellent guesses read:
http://www.bidinotto.com/2012/02/how-to-succeed-as-a-self-published-author/ }

{If you are interested in Victor or Samuel, read and see the new, improved product page: http://www.amazon.com/THE-LEGEND-VICTOR-STANDISH-ebook/dp/B005NCUTAG }

ALICE WENTWORTH'S song as she met VICTOR STANDISH at midnight by the crypt of Marie Laveau done by THEA GILMORE:

IS EPUBLISHING A BUBBLE ABOUT TO BURST? AND PROOF IT ISN'T!

Is ePublishing another tech bubble?

BEFORE YOU GET DEPRESSED ...

HERE IS THE LINK TO 36 EAUTHORS WHO ARE IN
The "200,000+ self-published ebooks sold" club:

http://selfpublishingsuccessstories.blogspot.ca/

Also there is a list of 177 eAuthors who have sold more than 50,000 books!

Ewan Morrison claims that market will collapse in 18 months:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jul/30/tweet-about-cats-just-write

When social media marketing collapses it will destroy the platform that the dream of a self-epublishing industry was based upon.

Self-epublishing author Louise Voss recently said that the success of her ebooks came about as a result of spending about 80% of her time marketing

(her writing partner also had a marketing background) and only 20% writing.

Sfumato! I might forget the alphabet if I did that.

San Diego-based "book publicity and promotions expert" Paula Margulies,
takes the 80/20 rule even further.

She claims that when tweeting and Facebooking you should spend "80% of your time posting about things other than your book, and 20% selling. You turn people off when you do otherwise.

Fine. Amanda Hocking famously wrote one of her bestselling ebooks in only three weeks.

But then again, Hocking has recently given up on self-promotion and self-epublishing to go with a mainstream publisher.

"I want to be a writer," she explained. "I do not want to spend 40 hours a week handling emails, formatting covers, finding editors, etc. Right now, being me is a full-time corporation."

The bad news for social media is that after all the hype and the projections, there are those pesky stats:

there is evidence, there are consequences, and heads may well roll.

In publishing terms it has recently been revealed that 10% of all self-epublishers make 75% of all the money; that 50% of self-published ebooks make less than $500 a year;

and that 25% doesn't cover the costs of production. What this means is that if you went out on the street with a book in your hand and tried to sell it to a stranger for 99 cents,

and you did this every day, you would still be making more money than 50% of all self-published authors on Amazon and all the other new epub platforms.

Ouch!

In economic terms, the only thing social media has yet effectively proven to be able to generate is more social media.

Anne Hill takes the opposite view:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anne-hill/social-media-for-authors_b_1745168.html

Of course, she has also written a guidebook on how to build your own platform, too.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007SIR8OS/?tag=gnosiscafe-20 {$1.99 for 15 pages.}

I do not believe self-publishing will collapse. I also believe that social media isn't the magic wand many of us would like it to be.

Let's take Amanda Hocking:

At the time she hit big, she had 500-1000 visitors to her social media outlets. Can a 1000 visitors drive 2 million in sales? No. Sometimes lightning just strikes.

Let's take gracious, warm hearted Indie Author, Lorna Suzuki:
http://bestsellerlabs.com/interview-with-indie-author-lorna-suzuki/#comment-456

"As fate would have it, just as I was contemplating writing a fantasy to break the helpless woman mould, the entire management staff at my workplace was let go.

On Feb. 6, 2002 I had a job to go to, the next day, I didn’t. I started writing the first book in the Imago series on Feb. 7, 2002. I suppose it was destiny.”

"I think what initially caught the attention of the executive producer who optioned the rights to the first three of nine novels in this series

was when I was interviewed on MTV.

I was discussing the book and doing a martial arts demo with my husband, Scott White, when he used my book as a weapon."

Lorna is a beautiful, loving woman who wrote the novels with her daughter, Nia, in mind as lessons in wisdom and self-reliance.

BUT HOW MANY OF US ARE GOING TO BE INTERVIEWED ON MTV?

It is lightning striking that propels eAuthors into the million seller ranks. All we can do is work hard and be prepared if ever the lightning strikes us.

But we should not bet the family farm on it.

SEX EXPLAINED!

SEX explained

We want to believe. And it causes us no end of troubles.

Many have emailed me, asking what I was doing with my SEX post.

In the last four hours of the day yesterday, I posted the one word, SEX, and two sexy photos. Nothing else. I tripled my existing number of visitors and far surpassed the highest day of the past month.

John Locke claims to know the secret of vast eBooks sales. I’m happy for him. But you don’t catch J K Rowling or Stephanie Meyers writing books on how to sell millions of books.

Why? Sometimes the lightning strikes. Sometimes it doesn’t. It rarely strikes twice in exactly the same way.

John is sure the key is to write “timeless” posts, twitter search who has spoken of your topic, then twitter them the link to your “forever relevant” post. BAM. Success is waiting to pounce upon you after that.

He wrote a post of his hero worship of Joe Paterno and his mother and followed his recipe for success. Lightning struck. The university which employs Coach Paterno chose Locke’s post as the blog of the month. Thousands of visitors poured Locke’s way. Fate’s spotlight sizzled upon him.

Locke had a backlist of books ready for the opportunity. He himself describes his books as lewd, shocking, disgusting, and deliciously bawdy. As yesterday proves, SEX sells. Amanda Hocking found out the same thing.

Can we duplicate that chance fall of the dice? Can we write something that will speak to the heart of an institution or international movie star so much that they will write of it in their blog or twitters? Lots of luck with that.

So far Stephen King hasn't written of me in his ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY articles. And I promised him a date with Olivia Wilde, too!

We all want to believe that there is a system. The casinos love those of us who cling to that delusion.

There is only the strike of lightning. Our responsibility is to have the best product we can craft should that lightning ever strike us. We can hold up the lightning rod all day, or we can continue to grow as writers. The smartest of us try to do both.
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