Neil Ostroff's Blog – October 2011 Archive (11)

I’ve been doing a lot of marketing/promotion lately for my

books and have come up with a “must-be-on” list for writers who want to promote

their books. These website provide free services that can really get your books

noticed. There are many other sites out there but I highly recommend you

concentrate your marketing efforts on these. Did I mention that they are…

I work at a country Inn rumored to be

haunted. And I’m not just saying that. The Inn has been

written up in books about haunted places and actual ghost hunters have spent

nights trying to capture on film inhabitants of the great beyond. One of more

frequent questions I get asked by people who know the Inn’s

history is if I have ever seen anything out of the ordinary? Now, I’m at the

Inn late at night, I’ve done inventory in the “haunted” wine cellar at two…

Just a quick post before I spend my weekend working at my

job and this little piece of promotion disappears into cyberspace. If you’re an

indie writer and have a book to sell than check out the site below, Indie

Snippets. They have a pretty good base of readers and having my books placed

there has increased traffic to my book sites. I think they’re a little

backlogged right now, but take a moment to fill out their submission form. It’s

free, and free is always…

Lately, I’ve been blogging about memories, life experiences,

writing, my take on the publishing industry, etc. So, today I’ve decide to do

some good ole’ fashioned promotion. My latest three books, all released in the

last year, are now available for just $1.25. As I mentioned in a previous post,

although these books all came out around the same few months, they took more

than a decade for me to consider them finished. They all have been

professionally edited,…

I’ve been pondering the notion of my books one day going

viral and selling millions of copies. I’ve been pondering how much my life

would change and what I would do with my time if I didn’t have to work at a

conventional job anymore. Of course, I would still write books, that’s a given,

but what else would I do with my time? I guess it depends on the amount of

sales. A million copies sold would allow me to live a life of ease, but if

you’re talking in the millions,…

I dreamt of my dog last night. It has been exactly six

months since I made that awful decision to put him down. He was deaf, crippled,

and going blind. I had spent the last months of his life in denial of his

condition and constantly cleaning up his incontinence. When I went to work I

would have to line the floor with newspaper and still would come home to

messes. Finally, when all he could do was eat, sleep, and spin in circles, I

decided it was time. It took…

Once again, I’ve made the cardinal sin of trying to market

my books on forums and threads, and once again, a bunch of people are sending

me nasty replies. Which is fine if these forums and threads had a policy of no

author marketing, but they don’t. I learned early on that trying to post of

those sites gets you a base of enemies real fast. But what still confuses me is

the length that some people will go to, to make you feel bad for even trying to

distribute your…

I’ve been wondering how long it really takes for an author

to write a book. I’m not talking about a first draft, I’m talking about the

point where an author says “done!” and then sends it off to the publisher or

agent. For me, it usually takes about six months to write a draft worthy of

revision. But to consider the manuscript completed it takes a lot longer. Since

all of my books have been through the ringer with agents, editors, and

publishers and I’ve used their…

Tis the season to be spooky. That said, AFTER is now half

price for the Halloween season. Many of you read my article on pricing and I

received many comments both good and bad about lowering the price of my books

and the perceived worth of the material inside. I believe that by temporarily

lowering the price of my books I will be able to generate a larger audience who

will appreciate a good, original story and want to check out more of my stuff.

If you haven’t checked…

In earlier posts, I’ve often said that I think the 99 cent price on Kindle books seem to cheapen the worth of the book. Now, I’m not reversing that conviction completely, but what I will say is that 99 cent books

appear to be selling many more copies than those books priced just a few

dollars higher. Why? Let’s put it in terms of a used bookstore that has a rack

of books for 99 cents and a rack of books for three dollars. As a reader, which

shelf are you likely to check out…

My father always told me that it's okay to make mistakes, it's how you

learn. Well, I'm about to tell you the mistakes I've learned while marketing

and promoting my books so that you don't have to go through the same things

when you market and promote your books. I'll put them in list form so it's

easier to digest.

Number 1. When posting on forums don't just promote yourself with no other

redeeming information. When I first started out I'd post summaries…