The Time Bubble

People write and self-publish for many reasons. For some, it is purely for the sense of achievement. They want to leave their mark on the world and aren't worried if they don’t sell any copies. The fact that they've written the book is fulfilment enough. Others dream of writing a best-seller that they’ll load up to Kindle and will take the charts by storm. In reality it seldom works out like that. I have seen statistics which say that the vast majority of self-published books will never sell more than 100 copies. It’s fair to say that the quality of work out there is variable. Some people will load up poorly written books, riddled with errors that probably don’t deserve to sell. But what about those who have written brilliant well-crafted books that deserve to succeed, yet sit unloved on Amazon’s virtual shelves? How do the authors of these books feel, knowing they've written a fantastic piece of work that nobody is buying? Pretty demoralised, I would imagine. Ther...

A number of my writer friends have expressed an interest in Amazon's new pay-per-click promotional tool so I thought I would summarise my experiences here. Many are put off by the potential cost. Amazon require that you set a minimum budget of $100 per promotion, a figure most indie authors would baulk at. In fact, the reality is, you only need to spend a fraction of that budget, and if you feel at all uncomfortable with the amounts, you can terminate the promotion at any time. Compared to fixed rate ads, where you pay your $x or £x upfront, with no clue as to whether it has been effective or not, it's an option that I feel a lot more comfortable with. My current promotion has cost me barely anything so far - in fact less than a dollar. Although you have to set a budget minimum of $100, you don't pay any money up front at all and nothing for the ads unless people actually click on them, which the vast majority don't. That's not a reflection on our work, after al...