I know I haven't posted for a few days, and the last few posts haven't really had much of a response - I kinda figured that would happen, and I guess I'm writing these more for myself to document my journey more than anything - but I thought I would mention some of the latest news in my life and what I've been up to. If you're new to the series, you can start here.
First of all, in one of my earliest posts - the first of this series, I think - I mentioned a website called Back My Book, which allows independent authors authors to sell their stuff at a better rate than the Amazon Kindle store or iTunes give, and helps them with all sorts of information on who's buying their books and how to reach them. It's a great site for people who self publish. It seems that somebody here passed along the fact that I mentioned them and wanted to eventually get a membership with their site, because the cofounder emailed me a few days ago and offered me a free account completely out of the blue, mentioning that they heard about this series on doing. I have no idea who it was, and I didn't press for information, but if you're reading this, I humbly thank you! That's going to be a huge help for me.
I also mentioned that I've sent out a few review copies to some book review blogs, and most of them have replied with various reasons why they won't be reviewing the book, mostly to do with the fact that either they're already booked up or they don't review independent books. I can appreciate the latter, honestly, I can appreciate both, but the latter in particular because in today's world anybody can publish anything either online or through a vanity press, so when you get a bunch of stuff that comes from people without a publisher there's no guarantee that it's going to be worth your time, or even proofread for that matter. Really, I get it, but it's still frustrating. I guess it just means I'll have to build up word of mouth and some decent sales before I start getting some of the bigger review sites to actually look at me.
I did get response from one that's planning a Halloween week of reviews and will be doing my book at some point along the way, and they were really positive on the fact that I'm writing something with a disabled protagonist. That was nice. I'm looking forward to reading their review, which should be out sometime in the next week. I'll be sure to link to it, regardless of if it's good or bad.
I finished up a few art commissions, and my slate is free again. I also got hit with some unexpected bills that pretty much ate up the income it generated. If anyone is interested in art, caricatures or portraits, please let me know. The holidays are just around the corner and they make good presents. My outdated website is in my signature, I really need to put more recent art up to show what I'm capable of, and the prices are negotiable considering things are pretty tight right now and I need whatever I can get.
I guess the only other thing I've really been up to is recording the audio book version and breaking it down into podcasts, which is actually taking up quite a bit of time but is fun since I come from a theater background and it allows me to do some acting as I read it. I plan on putting out the podcasts for free as a marketing tool to hopefully attract listeners to then buy the ebook. It's actually fairly common in the independent publishing world now, and it works pretty well. I'll post links to that once I get it up.
I think that's about it. As always, I'm looking for people who've read the book to let me know what they think of it, give me some feedback. Writing a review on Amazon is also greatly appreciated. You can get links to the free copies of the book in the first post in this series, and even if you don't end up buying it I still appreciate the reviews and feedback. I'm not so much looking to sell copies on Amazon right now as I am to create a buzz and get feedback. I appreciate the support!