The Savior Libra - Part I on the Apocalypse Chronicles

[E.M.DuBois]

Do you know anyone here who would do a proofread for a trade or something? Like I format their work for them proofreading? (Namely fiction, so I could kinda peek and read some for myself.)

[HarryT]

Ask in the "Writers ' Corner" forum. That's where the people who can help you are.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=75

[E.M.DuBois]

Alright, thanks. And thanks for the advice. I do appreciate it. There's just some things I'm not willing to compromise on. It's not like I'm a starving artist, I have an income, so I don't need to stoop down to 2.99 to generate sales and hit it big. I just want to find my audience.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by E.M.DuBois

Then I guess I'm never selling a single copy. And why, you ask? Oh, Amazon has a little clause with Smashwords that says I need make a total profit of at least 2 grand in sales before I can distribute to them. Yeah, didn't know that til after I tried.

You can be at Smashwords and Amazon.
You just have to upload yourself at Amazon. I know many authors that do just that. And most of them hadn't made two grand at the time.
As to pricing, $5.99 is the highest I would go.

Other tips: write more books so your readers don't forget you.
On reviews: don't expect them the same day, the person buys the book.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by E.M.DuBois

Didn't watch schoolhouse rock after the first grade, so you're allusion is lost on me.

Well now on your description (oh and I haven't watched it in many many years), I kept hearing conjuction junction, what's your function.
Now find the sentence that bugged me.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by E.M.DuBois

Alright, thanks. And thanks for the advice. I do appreciate it. There's just some things I'm not willing to compromise on. It's not like I'm a starving artist, I have an income, so I don't need to stoop down to 2.99 to generate sales and hit it big. I just want to find my audience.

Well now honey, with your prices you probably won't find an audience. You might try 4.99.

Oh and darling, I know best sellers that generally price their ebooks at 4.99.

You want to make money, go to the forum Harry linked.
I have a thread there with everything I have learned from the big name self-published authors.

[Lemurion]

As others said, don't get Smashwords to distribute to Amazon for you. You can select not to have them distribute to that market and you should.

Also, and no one has mentioned this yet, you don't want to put an ebook on Amazon for more than $9.99 as that cuts the royalty in half.

[Cinisajoy]

Yes at $9.99, you will get roughly $7. $2.99 gets you roughly $2.09.
$15.99 will get you $5.59.

Just don't click select when you upload.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by E.M.DuBois

Do you know anyone here who would do a proofread for a trade or something? Like I format their work for them proofreading? (Namely fiction, so I could kinda peek and read some for myself.)

Tell me I am reading this post wrong.
Are you saying that you are charging $15.99 for a book that hasn't been proofread?

Out of kindness and because I have nothing to do for an hour, I will go look at your sample on Smashwords.
I looked at your sample.
Do I give you my opinion here or in private?

Your book has potential. You paint wonderful pictures with your words. The biggest problem I had was a sense of disjointedness between paragraphs.
It looks like a fairly decent first draft.
For a 672 page book, I don't think you will find anyone willing to trade proofreading for formatting.
I was reading with my critical eye, so I would be looking at an hour per 10 pages.

[E.M.DuBois]

[QUOTE=Cinisajoy;3511334]Tell me I am reading this post wrong.
Are you saying that you are charging $15.99 for a book that hasn't been proofread?
QUOTE]

I finished this work 3 years ago, published it just over a week ago: What did you thing I was doing that entire time. I proof-read it four times. And I found no one else interested in doing so, so it had to be me. Looking over the same words, over and over again. Yes, it's proof-read. But YOU said it sounded like it wasn't, so I started asking for people who'd be interested. In short, I THOUGHT I was taking your advice.

[HarryT]

You can't edit your own work - you MUST employ an editor. I looked at your sample and unfortunately I spotted numerous errors in the first few pages of it. It's very, very badly in need of editing.

E.g.:

The dreams never revealed what had caused the world to fall into this, but was alright.

This makes no sense. What was "alright"?

The elder of the brothers acted as a shield when his barrier for Lance, taking the blows for him. Very few made it passed to strike Lance.

The first sentence again makes no sense - what does "when his barrier" mean? In the second sentence, it should say "made it past", not "made it passed".

Those are two random examples out of dozens on the first few pages alone.

[darryl]

I'm going to be very blunt. I haven't read your sample, though if Cinisajoy says your book has potential, I believe it does. However, you need to do your research on the market you are trying to enter. It is very much a buyer's market. Supply far outstrips demand. Anyone can publish. There is no one who can say your book is not up to scratch, you can't publish. So the big word you will come across is discoverability. How can you make your books stand out from the rest so that readers will at least know about them and hopefully consider them for purchase. New authors find it difficult to even give away their books. Even many well established authors make the first book in a series free or very cheap. Even new authors with small publishers will price their books as low as $0.99. And hold promotions where they are free for a certain time. They beg people to leave reviews. And those who are serious about it invest in proof-reading and editing, though I'm sure many never recoup this money. No matter how well you write, putting up a book that has not been properly proofed will likely prove disastrous. Many who do read it, if there are any, will not read beyond the first few mistakes, and reviews are likely to be bad ones. Quite simply, it is unprofessional. If you are doing it as a hobby, and don't care if anyone reads your book, this may be acceptable to you. If you want more than a bare few people to read your book and have ambitions of "making it big", it is inexcusable.

Pricing at $15.99 was, as Harry said earlier, ludicrous. Ludicrous and naive. $5.99 is still ridiculous. You will sell few if any copies.

My advice to you would be to take the book down immediately and at least have it properly proofed. Preferably professionally edited. Given its length it would be good if it could be divided into two or even three parts. The first part you could look at putting into Kindle Unlimited or pricing it at $0.99 or both. You should use the opportunity to give it away for free for a limited time. Once you get a few readers and some reviews, you may be able to price the next book slightly higher. Many successful self-published authors have realised that it is better for them to sell a number of less lengthy works at lower prices rather than a very long work at a hefty price. Few very successful self-published authors sell their books for even $5.99. Many sell for $4.99, $3.99 or even $2.99. So forget $15.99. And forget $5.99 until you have many books under your belt.

It is not demeaning to price your books at $2.99 or lower. Even to give them away on occasions. What you need to do when you start off is to get people to read them, pretty well any legal way you can. Even if you manage this, it is most unlikely that you will ever "make it big" or even make enough to quit your day job. If this is your reason for writing, then forget it. Far better to write because you love doing so and hope that you might be one of the lucky ones. Unless you educate yourself about self-publishing and get realistic, I rate your chances as zero. Sorry, but that's the way it is.

[Dr. Drib]

^

That's the best advice about publishing and writing that I've seen here in a long time.

Now, when are you going to take Harry's advice about visiting the Writers' Forum? That should be your next stop.

[Lemurion]

I'm going to make a horrible admission: I self-edited my best-selling book. It can be done, if you have the skills and are willing to accept that it is much harder than editing someone else's work. You have to work ten times as hard for half the benefits.

When you do proofread your own work there are a few tricks you can try. One of the biggest problems you face is that you have to read what's on the page rather than what you meant to put on the page. That's why they suggest you print it out to edit. Another trick is to change the font from a proportional one (which most word processors use) to a monospaced one like Courier New. That changes where everything appears on the page so it looks new.

However, this only works if you have the skills to recognize the errors in the first place, and not all writers do.

Writing is hard, editing is harder, marketing is harder still.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

Writing is hard, editing is harder, marketing is harder still.

Spoken like a writer, who knows how to edit, and has tried marketing.

I imagine an editor, who knows how to market, and has tried writing, might list them in a different order.....