Monthly Archives February 2012

Smashwords and Tools

February 21, 2012 Uncategorized

Less about writing, more about testing: the Smashwords Tools have moved to http://www.smashingreads.com.The move had been planned for a while, but after Smashwords downtime due to the Slicehost failure it became obvious we needed it. The new setup has server caching that should keep the widgets visible throughout any downtime. And there's a new widget to go with it: author minisites with convenient links to third parties. Rather than detail them, I'll just show you mine as an example:http://www.smashingreads.com/author/vhfolland

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Musings on Marketing

February 14, 2012 Promotion

This is an odd post, and one that I didn't expect to write.Before Christmas I went all out on marketing - blogs, promotions, even a book launch and signing. After Christmas I stopped. Aside from one token offered in a competition right at the start of January I have done no promotion at all for the last six weeks. My sales figures are exactly the same. This hard data is a telling comment on the effectiveness of my marketing efforts. It's also a good reason to stop spending any time or money on them and focus on writing. The only things I am likely to continue with are the Project Wonderful ads (since the publisher manages those) and sending out review copies. Anything else appears to have very little effect.Many indie authors take the line that the best marketing is the next book. I think

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Market Fragments?

February 4, 2012 Articles and Opinions, e-book

There have been a few interesting developments in the ebook market this week.New markets often have competing formats. As technology develops many different ways are found of doing the same thing, which eventually standardise to two or three, and as the market matures and new technologies emerge, before one standard emerges.With videos the VHS/Betamax rivalry eventually came to a head and resulted in the triumph of VHS. With Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD, Blu Ray eventually came out on top.

Is the same thing now happening to e-readers? Initially there were hosts of formats, many of which are now falling by the wayside, but the first signs of the industry really polarising happened around Christmas 2011. Amazon offered readers a chance to go into bookstores, scan books and then buy on Amazon at

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Sequelitis

February 1, 2012 Articles and Opinions

"DC plans Prequels to Watchmen Series"I'm serious: check the New York Times.

That wasn't a headline I expected in my newsfeed this morning, but it also isn't a surprise. In summary DC Comics are getting new writers to write prequels to the classic comic Watchmen. Alan Moore, the original writer and character creator isn't involved. As the original comics tells two stories, many years apart it would be easy for prequels to spoil it for new readers, but rather than focus on that, I found the Alan Moore Quote at the bottom of the article interesting.Moore states it is a blow to comics as a serious artform: “As far as I know,” he said, “there weren’t that many prequels or sequels to ‘Moby-Dick.’ ” NYTimes, 1st Feb 2012,This I disagree with. I inherited a collection of books from a

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