Recently I have been having issues with Weebly.  I update a post, which you would think would put it out there as the latest, however it is not doing this, which makes me feel like I am running on the spot and wasting my time.  I have no idea how to fix this issue, however this is an experiment to see if this will actually post in order, since it seems, my drafts don't.  The frustrations I have been feeling with this site have been keeping me from even wanting to write these blogs.  Life is short. So lets see how this goes...so far, not so good!

I have been reading different points of view on social media and book selling.  About cultivating a brand and developing a following.  It is all very interesting and very daunting.  The other interesting thing is, it is also very time consuming.

For instance, it has been common to put an e-book out there for a week for only a few pennies to download and try to solicit reviews on Amazon since the more reviews, the better.  A lot of writers want to be on Amazon's best seller's list.  This is seen as helpful and it is because if Amazon sees there is interest, they will do all they can to sell your book, since after all, they are in the business of making money like everyone else is.

However I also have been reading, that what worked before doesn't necessarily work this way now.  There is always change and how you sell your book is also open to this.  What worked last week, may not work this week and so on.  It seems, while before one could get away with pumping out to people an email saying that your book is free and your looking for reviews, now can be seen as boring and demanding. It is all very fascinating, however I think there is a balance of what worked and what is necessary.  I am still working on that balance, but we shall see.

I also was having an interesting read on alga rhythms. It seems getting a review is important however if you get reviews from folks who only buy recipe books for instance, on Amazon, then the good they do is minimal.  If you writie dectective stories, then if everyone who writes a review is a dective story buyer, it will send your book way up there due to how the books are picked up on Amazon.

Writing is not difficult, advertising and marketing, now that is!  

I find myself dragging my heels on my book release simply because I don't want to deal with the whole social media side of things.

I understand POD is the way to go, especially when you read in local paper that Canadian authors are getting a reduction in royalities, and so on for their daily bread here in Canada.  It seems like traditional publishers want more and more from writers for less and less.

I for one, don't see the point of sending something off to see if it will be accepted by a publisher if it means not only are you limited by the contract you sign, or the chunk of percentage they want, BUT THEY ALSO WANT YOU ALREADY TO HAVE A SERIOUS FOLLOWING OR THEY WON'T LOOK AT YOU!

So what is the point if I have to do the work to get the following before I even begin to get looked at?  Add to this, here in Canada many of the publishing houses get grants to do a good amount of their work.  I know in one case of a friend who had a book published by a small publisher, and then when he asked for re-print, they said "sorry, we don't have any grant money for that"! And of course, they had his book rights so he couldn't take it anywhere else!  His book but no control.

Another person had her manuscript accepted not knowing the company was splitting in two...the half that was going on line, had her manuscript and the half that was printing had nothing!  She had to go to court to get her book back and it took YEARS!

So, I remind myself of all this as I psych myself up to continue towards printing on Demand.  I will get there eventually, however I needed this break time to decide my options and which way I wanted to proceed.  Soon I will be back at it, but we all need time to "compost" before going any farther!
Good luck and carry on!