Social Media and Time

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.