Wednesday 29 August 2012

Getting success as a new writer...what worked for me

So perhaps my previous post was a little optimistic. At the end of the day,  the key to selling well is going to rest with whatever you write being "good" and managing to find an audience. But even if you have something great, it is hard to cut through the clutter as a new writer and that's what I think I can speak to, with a few straightforward tips...

As I mentioned in previous comment, I think that the key to using the electronic publishing platform to your advantage as a new writer is to "serialize" your work to build up an audience. As a new writer, people won't trust you enough to download and read through 400 pages, where it only gets interesting after page 100. You need to find a way to grab their ears and make them care.

So, whatever your idea is, make it in a serial work. Figure out some way to create a compelling sub-story from your bigger work in 30-40 pages, almost what would have been the first chapter in the previous world of paper publishing. Make it "punchy" and surprising, draw the reader in somehow, and then put it up on Amazon and promote using the "Kindle Select" program where you can make free for a few days.

There are at least 40 websites that promote Kindle Select free days, and by going and manually entering your info into all of these, you can often get 4000+ downloads of a free story over a weekend. Keep it short and punchy, and that's one way you can start to find an audience.

(and then do this 3 or 4 times with progressive shorts of your full work!)

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