Let me make sure I have this straight. You and your brother self-published a book (of poetry?) and you want to know where you can advertise it?
I can help a little with that. I've done fairly extensive advertising for two webcomics, and I've been looking into advertising for a possible self-published novel.
For webcomics, your first stop is Project Wonderful. You make an ad graphic, put it on PW, tell it what sorts of sites to advertise on, and it just goes to town. For $100/month I got around
500,000 impressions and about 2,000 clicks. I'm running ads on sites like Dr. MacNinja and Sluggy Freelance right now. You don't need to be advertising a webcomic, and there are sites other than webcomics where you can send PW to advertise for you.
The 'grown up' version of Project Wonderful is called Federated Media. Much more expensive but much wider in scope, this is where you'd go to advertise on sites like BoingBoing and Gawker.
But paid ads are not the most efficient ads you can make.
Many books these days are coming with their own YouTube trailers. The authors mock up a video that's like a TV ad or a movie trailer, and then link the video everywhere they can. If the video goes viral you're gold. That's a longshot. But any attention helps.
The best option by far, though, is to get people talking about your book. Give it away for free to bloggers you like. Get someone to review it, or get a blogger to show your video trailer. Word of mouth is how the net operates best. It's not easy but when done right it can have incredible effects.
That's about all I have right now. I'm not sure how to advertise a book of poetry specifically, but I hope some of these ideas help you.
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New Webcomic -- Genocide Man
Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass slaughter can be hilarious.
I didn't self publish anything... My brother is an idiot and did this himself.
I'm Not spending money on this and if my brother is he needs to be kicked in the head.
I don't know bloggers that read... I don't read books... I don't follow blogs... i don't follow blogs about reading books... less you consider comics, which I'm not in this case. That's more or less where I'd think is the best way to go... but there are problems like I wouldn't want to "buy" a book to send to a reviewer... when I could just send them the text, but I'm not sure if that would be acceptable...
Further I'm almost certain that any review, even if they were the most amazing poems ever, would be negative with the price point he put up... 10 poems for $24 is just insane... ok 10 pictures too but still... i would ding that price point so hard that it i'd have to give it the lowest rating possible every time... but I dunno... that's just what I'd do.
Sounds like your brother deserves to be commended.
Thanks for eight fun years, Paragon.
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For?
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Originally Posted by ChrisMoses
Sounds like your brother deserves to be commended.
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The preview shows 9 pages of his book which only totals 24 pages. Hmmm.
Teams are the number one killer of soloists.
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I know... someone took a hatchet to that cuz there were like 100 pages before >.>
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Originally Posted by SerialBeggar
The preview shows 9 pages of his book which only totals 24 pages. Hmmm.
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I agree completely.
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Originally Posted by ChrisMoses
Sounds like your brother deserves to be commended.
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City of Heroes was my first MMO, & my favorite computer game.
R.I.P.
Chyll - Bydand - Violynce - Enyrgos - Rylle - Nephryte - Solyd - Fettyr - Hyposhock - Styrling - Beryllos - Rosyc
Horryd - Myriam - Dysquiet - Ghyr
Vanysh - Eldrytch
Inflyct - Mysron - Orphyn - Dysmay - Reapyr - - Wyldeman - Hydeous
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I'm trying to figure out what 'commended' is a typo for. Committed? Ex-communicated? Cannon shot in the head?|
Originally Posted by ChrisMoses
Sounds like your brother deserves to be commended.
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Yes, your brother showed initiative for getting a book out. That's an accomplishment. But he's done it in the worst way possible. What you have is essentially a 'vanity press' book. Tell your family about it. Some of them will buy it. In total, you should expect less than 20 sales from this book.
Learn from this experience, and use it to improve how you publish your next book.
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New Webcomic -- Genocide Man
Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass slaughter can be hilarious.
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Are you saying that due to the price point? or cuz of something else? It was not intended to be a vanity press book as far as I know, but my brothers an idiot so >.>
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Originally Posted by RemusShepherd
I'm trying to figure out what 'commended' is a typo for. Committed? Ex-communicated? Cannon shot in the head?
Yes, your brother showed initiative for getting a book out. That's an accomplishment. But he's done it in the worst way possible. What you have is essentially a 'vanity press' book. Tell your family about it. Some of them will buy it. In total, you should expect less than 20 sales from this book. Learn from this experience, and use it to improve how you publish your next book. |
Because he had the intitiative to self-publish. I would surmise that the slightly higher price point is an attempt to recoup his own expenses ASAP.
Poems are entire works, even if they're only one page. A book with 24 poems should be comparable to a book with 24 essays or 24 short stories, otherwise a poet could never publish any of their own material without belonging to an anthology or filling the book with illustrations or other material that they may not think are worth of publishing.
You may not value a poem on the same scale as that of a short story because the quantity isn't the same, but that shouldn't be the only determinant. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Shakespeare, William Blake - They didn't all begin in Anthologies.
Thanks for eight fun years, Paragon.
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I'm assuming the price is what it is because it's a physical book created by a print-on-demand company, and that's the cost of replication. POD books are almost always vanity books. They're too pricey to be competitive in any market.|
Originally Posted by Durakken
Are you saying that due to the price point? or cuz of something else? It was not intended to be a vanity press book as far as I know, but my brothers an idiot so >.>
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If it's not a physical book -- if he's trying to sell an ebook -- then the price is just stone stupid. Go to Amazon (or whereever) right now and drop the price to $1.99. That's the entry price for most novels. (I don't know about poetry.)
If it is a physical book, I would suggest creating an ebook version and putting it on Amazon for $1.99. (Drop it to $0.99 after a few months if the sales are slow.) Link the ebook to the POD version. "If you enjoyed this book, you can get a real paper copy of it by going here!" You might get a handful of physical sales that way.
In any case, if you're going to publish anything (and you expect to make money on it) then you need to start with a marketing plan. Otherwise anything you publish is going to be just for your own vanity.
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New Webcomic -- Genocide Man
Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass slaughter can be hilarious.
From what I can tell, it is a physical book. Durakken hasn't provided some of those details, and only presented enough information that we may come this his own conclusion: "Your brother is a greedy SOB for that price." There isn't more information for us to determine if he has any control over that price, if he paid for it himself, or anything else that may offer some validation or at least explanation.
He should definitely look into creating an ebook version, just because more versions out there can't be a bad thing.
And Durakken should read more books. Acting like he should be praised for not reading books in the first post has made me insane.
Thanks for eight fun years, Paragon.
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cool, I'll look into that.|
Originally Posted by RemusShepherd
I'm assuming the price is what it is because it's a physical book created by a print-on-demand company, and that's the cost of replication. POD books are almost always vanity books. They're too pricey to be competitive in any market.
If it's not a physical book -- if he's trying to sell an ebook -- then the price is just stone stupid. Go to Amazon (or whereever) right now and drop the price to $1.99. That's the entry price for most novels. (I don't know about poetry.) If it is a physical book, I would suggest creating an ebook version and putting it on Amazon for $1.99. (Drop it to $0.99 after a few months if the sales are slow.) Link the ebook to the POD version. "If you enjoyed this book, you can get a real paper copy of it by going here!" You might get a handful of physical sales that way. In any case, if you're going to publish anything (and you expect to make money on it) then you need to start with a marketing plan. Otherwise anything you publish is going to be just for your own vanity. |
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Originally Posted by ChrisMoses
From what I can tell, it is a physical book. Durakken hasn't provided some of those details, and only presented enough information that we may come this his own conclusion: "Your brother is a greedy SOB for that price." There isn't more information for us to determine if he has any control over that price, if he paid for it himself, or anything else that may offer some validation or at least explanation.
He should definitely look into creating an ebook version, just because more versions out there can't be a bad thing. And Durakken should read more books. Acting like he should be praised for not reading books in the first post has made me insane. |
I don't think my brother is greedy and never intended to give that impression. Though he is a moron in my opinion.
I had to look at the site to see what was up the cheapest you can get a published book is $19 for 20-40pg book and then you can set your "profit" above that. The reason it's like that is because when you buy the book from that site you are paying for that book to be printed.
He called me up and said "hey i got my book on this site, can you advertise it" which I told him "no" but he doesn't get that having the internet and how to program or how write or draw doesn't translate into being able to do everything on the net. So I am literally giving more info to you than he gave to me.
I have no idea how the book got up there, as in, who put it up and what sort of deal thee is with other people which there might be something...
I don't know where you got the whole "praise for not reading books" thing came from I stated the facts. I don't read books. Most people don't. It's idiotic to judge one way or the other based on that. I read a ton, just not books because books bore me for the most part and there is no where comfortable to read... and physical things, let alone books, get ruined where i live. The point is there are a number of reasons i don't read books in general. I have no problem with listening to them or reading in general. I'm probably one of the few people that actually read the text of missions in MMORPGs so :P
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Originally Posted by Durakken
I don't know where you got the whole "praise for not reading books" thing came from I stated the facts. I don't read books. Most people don't. It's idiotic to judge one way or the other based on that. I read a ton, just not books because books bore me for the most part and there is no where comfortable to read... and physical things, let alone books, get ruined where i live. The point is there are a number of reasons i don't read books in general. I have no problem with listening to them or reading in general. I'm probably one of the few people that actually read the text of missions in MMORPGs so :P
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Weird. I know only 3 people who don't read books although they do read magazines. Of the people I know who read books every one of them reads at least one book a month. By know I mean friends and acquaintances.
I suppose it's different for different areas. Probably not a lot of book reading going on in ghetto areas I suppose. And of course in High School 80 percent of the population thought book reading was punishment rather than entertainment.
Anyway, point being. Don't assume that most people don't read. Maybe most people you know don't read but like I said, virtually everybody I know reads books. Not reading books doesn't make you strange, but you are missing out on a lot. If the books you read are boring you then you are reading the wrong books.
Now I'm going to go off on a tangent as to why I have found that most people who hate reading stories do so. Reading is just like any other task, the more you do it the better you get and the faster you get. I came up with an experiment to try on a person who hated reading. I actually got the result I expected and had some of my friends try it on people they knew who didn't like reading. Maybe I can spread the test across a wider area by putting it here.
I just took a random book and had the person read one page of the book and I timed how long it took them. Then I timed how long it took me to read the same page out loud. In most of the test cases the person who didn't like reading took as long or longer to read the page as it took to read the page out loud.
Now I know in my own experience I read much faster than I am capable of speaking. If I'm reading a book and I do so out loud or even just moving my lips along with the words then the book seems to crawl and isn't nearly as interesting. When I'm reading silently to myself I'm not even aware of the words on the page. In my head I'm seeing the actions taking place and listening to the characters speak the dialogue.
So that is why I think some people hate reading. They were never brought into it at an elementary level. They never "exercised" their reading muscles so that they gradually got better. For them it's like watching a movie
Where
The
Actors
Say
One
Word
Per
Second.
Don't count your weasels before they pop dink!
Oh, and Durakken. Vanity press is just a name that was given to paying to have your book printed. The name was pretty much created by published authors who thought that anybody who had to pay to have a book published wasn't a real author and just wanted to impress their friends and family. In other words being done for vanity.
Even though self publishing of books is becoming more and more common and is actually used by quite a few popular authors "Vanity press" has become permanently associated with self publishing. So the reference to your brothers book being a vanity book doesn't necessarily mean he is vain. It probably just means he has no idea how much publicity is part of the book buying world.
Go into any book store poetry section and you will actually find a few books that are nothing more than a poem on one page with a matching picture on the facing page. But the reason those books can sell is vanity. Not the vanity of the author but the vanity of the buyer who has been conned into thinking that having that book on their coffee table will make them look intellectual or worldly.
As others have said selling through the Amazon Kindle store is probably the best option. Your brother may be tempted to try and sell his book at $2.99 to $9.99 because that is the break point for Kindle sales. In that range the author gets 70% of the sale price. Below or above that point they only get 35%. But I absolutely guarantee that a book of poems published by an unknown author at $2.99 will not sell any copies unless somebody accidentally clicks on it. At 99 cents however some people might be willing to give it a try and if it is good then word will spread. And 35% of $0.99 is a lot more than 70% of nothing.
Lastly HERE is a link to the FAQ page of Kindle publishing.
Don't count your weasels before they pop dink!
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That is a well known thing actually. People read slower when they have to think speak or whatever it's called. Generally it is an indicator of less reading comprehension and such.|
Originally Posted by Mandu
Weird. I know only 3 people who don't read books although they do read magazines. Of the people I know who read books every one of them reads at least one book a month. By know I mean friends and acquaintances.
I suppose it's different for different areas. Probably not a lot of book reading going on in ghetto areas I suppose. And of course in High School 80 percent of the population thought book reading was punishment rather than entertainment. Anyway, point being. Don't assume that most people don't read. Maybe most people you know don't read but like I said, virtually everybody I know reads books. Not reading books doesn't make you strange, but you are missing out on a lot. If the books you read are boring you then you are reading the wrong books. Now I'm going to go off on a tangent as to why I have found that most people who hate reading stories do so. Reading is just like any other task, the more you do it the better you get and the faster you get. I came up with an experiment to try on a person who hated reading. I actually got the result I expected and had some of my friends try it on people they knew who didn't like reading. Maybe I can spread the test across a wider area by putting it here. I just took a random book and had the person read one page of the book and I timed how long it took them. Then I timed how long it took me to read the same page out loud. In most of the test cases the person who didn't like reading took as long or longer to read the page as it took to read the page out loud. Now I know in my own experience I read much faster than I am capable of speaking. If I'm reading a book and I do so out loud or even just moving my lips along with the words then the book seems to crawl and isn't nearly as interesting. When I'm reading silently to myself I'm not even aware of the words on the page. In my head I'm seeing the actions taking place and listening to the characters speak the dialogue. So that is why I think some people hate reading. They were never brought into it at an elementary level. They never "exercised" their reading muscles so that they gradually got better. For them it's like watching a movie Where The Actors Say One Word Per Second. |
I am a slow reader largely because I do it on purpose to clear out clutter in my brain. I figure if I'm going to read I should pay attention to what I'm reading and if I don't do that my brain goes on thousands of tangents and wanders off into the woods of craziness. Especially with bad books or overly world-building books. There are just too many distractions (without speaking of other problems) in my world to be able to read fast and quietly and maintain a level of comprehension that makes a book worthwhile to read even if it's good.
I'm an anomaly in that I have a much higher comprehension than your normal person but have a extremely low reading speed. I also likely have some sort speed comprehension problem that is undiagnosed based on the fact that my reaction time to external stimuli is slower than I know others' time. In computer terms you might consider it something like my conscious buffer time is slow, but I have massive amount of memory and processing...
Another reason I don't like to read books is because they really do take up too much focus on one thing. If you really want to sit and read a book it requires you cut off most other things you are doing and I like to be doing 2 or 3 things at the same time. I know that if I so chose I could read/write several novels a month. It's just not something I choose to do as there are so many other pieces of media that I wish to take in.
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Self-publishing of e-books is becoming common. Paying to have physical books published yourself and then hoping to sell them is going the way of the dodo.
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Originally Posted by Mandu
Even though self publishing of books is becoming more and more common and is actually used by quite a few popular authors "Vanity press" has become permanently associated with self publishing.
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New Webcomic -- Genocide Man
Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass slaughter can be hilarious.
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Only printing in advance. Most authors who put an ebook out also have a POD option. Some people just like to have a physical book and it only makes sense to give them the opportunity to get it.
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Originally Posted by RemusShepherd
Self-publishing of e-books is becoming common. Paying to have physical books published yourself and then hoping to sell them is going the way of the dodo.
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Don't count your weasels before they pop dink!
So, anyone know any place where someone can advertise books?
I don't read books, and I sure as heck don't read poetry...
This is a follow up as to the previous book questions, if they are still around concerning my brother and his book...
I don't have any clue...and apparently it's "published" via blurb.com at http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2574860
So any clues?
btw... you can read the first several pages which include like 3 poems.
I'm not trying to advertise this book here I'm looking for some advice as to where I can or what is acceptable as advertising. I don't know where to begin besides reading the book but I refuse to read the stupidity that comes out of my brother's head so that's not going to happen. I guess saying that would be bad advertising lol
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I just looked at something...
I really wish to strangle my brother...seriously... is there anyone that would ever buy a 24 page poetry book with 10 poems for $24...