Attention Bloggers Who Will Not Review Self-Published Books...

ATTENTION ALL BLOGGERS WHO WILL NOT REVIEW SELF-PUBLISHED BOOKS

I have mind-blowing information that may shock you, so hold onto your seats because this might get ugly.

YOU... YES, YOU... ARE SELF-FREAKIN' PUBLISHED!!!

That's right.  Every time you press that "Publish" button, guess what?  You have just self-published!  You have just committed the crime that all of us self-published authors have done which cause you to refuse to review our books!

Okay, for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, here's what I've witnessed online.

So I was looking for people to review my independently published books.  The traditional media largely ignored me because they're all in bed with the big corporate publishers.  Fair enough.  They're all part of the same family.  So I figure I'll go to my family, the community of people who are interested in independent publishing, i.e. the blogging community.  They're all self-publishers, so why wouldn't they give a chance to self-published books.

Now I expected many of them to not have the time to read my book.  There are a lot of independent authors and publishers out there, so if they're already full, I completely understand.  What I wasn't prepared for is this:

"No self-published books."

That's right.  BLOGGERS sticking their noses up to self-published books.  The hypocrisy here is amazing.  They want you to overlook every traditionally written newspaper, magazine, large format business, etc. to read their blogs, but they won't lower themselves to read your self-published writing.

So I have made a basic determination.  Any blog which says it will not read self-published material is not worth my time.  I even look for that policy first.  Because if they don't have time to help their fellow independent artists, then I have no time for them.

My KDP Select Free Promotion Blogs

I promised to write about my experience with the KDP Select program as I did it, but, as often happens, I wound up being so busy doing it that I didn’t have time to write about it. I’m glad I did, as I feel that I stretched as far as I could with the information I had, and if I had taken time to write about it, I wouldn’t have done everything I hoped.

I’m now going to write about each part of the KDP Select free promotion as a separate blog entry.  The first one will be about selecting and preparing for the days of the promotion.  Each subsequent entry will then be about the promotion itself.  I’ll put the first few up today, then the rest will go up after the promotion is over.

In the meantime, the promotion itself is still going on through the weekend, and my book The American Game is available for free on Amazon at:  http://www.amazon.com/American-Game-Jeff-McArthur-ebook/dp/B00LJII7GG/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=8-1&qid=1435946633

Self-Publishing Promotion - Phase 1 (6 - 3 Months Before Release)

I'm going to use the publishing of my Book, Two Gun Hart, as an example of the promotional methods I used, along with my suggestions on how to promote your independently published book.

You should have your book mostly done six months before the books release.  I did not have all of Two Gun done, but I had enough to send out as an advanced readers copy, also called a galley.  I clearly marked these as such so anyone who saw grammatical errors and such would know this was an unfinished copy.  However, I've found that this might not have been such a good idea as I suspect that a few places bypassed doing stories about this because they ignored the "advanced" part and judged it as though it was done.  I now believe it's best to have the book almost done with only a polish left to it six months out.  (You still want to be flexible all the way to close to release as good ideas and suggestions might come up in time.

Most of this phase is spent sending the ARC to reviewers, or the story out to news sources that will need time to go over it, such as magazines which have long lead times.  This is also a time to have friends go over it as well to find issues you may not have noticed, or to make last minute suggestions.  It is also a great time to slowly start to build the buzz.

For Two Gun, I got it out to reviewers, and because it was such a huge news story, I started sending it to news sources that would require some time to look over it.  I did not send it out a mass press release yet as I wanted that to be closer to the actual release time.  Also, bear in mind, the book is not available for pre-order until three months from release, so anyone who reads about it during this time cannot order it.  So everything I did was intended for future results.

The one thing I largely ignored were magazines, which was more or less a mistake.  I didn't intend to ignore them altogether, but I put them as the lowest priority as magazines don't have as large a readership as other sources.  This still holds true, however, a large number of people who read about history get magazines, so this is something I should have made a larger priority.

Also during this phase I did a lot of my research.  I started an Excel sheet that had all the different types of media color coded along with the names of the various stations, newspapers, magazines, blogs, etc.  So, for instance, all the radio stations were color coded blue, and they had the station's name, any contacts I might have, their email address, their phone number, etc.  Newspapers, the same thing, but I color coded them white.  Blogs had just the web address and email address and was color coded yellow, and so on.  These will be used in the next couple phases.

#selfpublishingpromotion

Huffington Post Talks About the Shifting Landscape of Book Reviews

My mother sent me this wonderful article from the Huffington Post talking about the changing landscape not only of publishing, but of spreading the word regarding books; primarily through reviews.  They even bring up a topic I spoke on earlier; that of the need for bloggers not to ignore their own kind and review other self-published authors.

See it here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/19/self-published-book-reviews_n_3467890.html

Bloggers Who Have Forgotten Their Roots

As I’ve tried to get my books spoken about and reviewed by bloggers, I’ve come across the same problem so many times:  Signs on the blogging websites that say they will not take any self-published books.  They review or write only about traditionally published books.

I’ve got a little piece of news for all you bloggers who say that.  YOU ARE SELF PUBLISHED!!!!

Yes, that’s right.  As you’re sitting there behind your keyboard all holier than thou, taking only the “legitimately” published books, you are forgetting that one basic fact.  You are not in a magazine, a periodical, or any other “legitimate,” or “traditionally” published manuscript.  You are SELF-FUCKING-PUBLISHED!!!

I have been rejected by magazines, radio stations, and television stations.  While I’m disappointed, I’m not surprised and I don’t hold it against them.  They have a world of their own, and they want to stick to it.  I hope they’ll open themselves up to us independents, (and some of them have,) but if they don’t, they’re merely sticking to their kind.

You bloggers who won’t talk about or review self-published works are downright hypocrites.

If we have to be traditionally published to be good enough for you, why shouldn't you have to be traditionally published in a magazine in order to be good enough for us?

I have made a determination, and I call on everyone to do the same.  Whenever I look at blogs, even if I’m not in any way considering sending my books to them, I take a look at their submission policy.  If the blogger refuses to have anything to do with self-published works, either for stories, reviews, or whatever, I tag that blog and never return.  I also make it a point to tell people not to go to that blog.

Now, to be clear, this is not the same as being personally rejected by a blog.  If there’s a blog which rejects me, but they take independently published works, I’ll strive to rise to their level and hope they’ll accept me in the future.  I’ll even recommend the site.

But if you reject self-published, independently published books and you’re a blogger, then I’m sorry, but I only read traditionally published magazines.

A Big Decision to Make

After a couple weeks of not posting, this week I’m going to post something similar to what I wrote a while ago.  The reason for this is less laziness, (though I am a bit lazy right now,) and more because it’s a very serious decision I need to make.

After approaching more than 50 agents to try to get an upcoming book published through a traditional publisher, I had finally given up and was willing to accept that this book would be published independently as well.  I had been wanting to do this one traditionally so that I could connect with a lot of places that I couldn’t connect with on my own.  But now it was looking like it would be added to my collection of independently published books, and was making plans.

Then one single agent wrote to me and showed some interest.  I’m not sure how interested they are, as their emails have seemed pretty indifferent, but they’ve at least been wanting to take a look at more and more of the book.  So I’ve been sending it to them bit by bit.  I have meanwhile been making plans to independently publish it, so now I’m left with a dilemma.  If they say they want to represent me, should I accept it and go with them, or should I go independently anyway.  Here are the pluses and minuses of each.

Traditional Publishing:

Positives – There are two basic positives to publishing traditionally.  First, the publishers provide promotions.  Second, they get your book into places you can’t get them; namely bookstores.  They have connections at all of these places and send out regular catalogues from which materials are ordered.  These are too numerous for us to do on our own, and when we do contact them, they usually turns us down because we’re not traditional publishers.  This is true both of bookstores and promotional places, such as television and radio stations.

Negatives – To get to a publisher, you have to first sign with an agent.  While you do research on an agent and try to get one you can trust, it’s difficult to know for certain until you’ve already signed with them whether they’re going to do right by you, and by that time it’s too late to turn around and do it yourself.  There’s also no guarantee they’ll actually send it to publishers.  They could just sit on your book because it competed with one of their other books, and they didn’t want it out there in the market, or they might change their mind and not do anything with it for whatever reason.  Then there’s the possibility that even though they do pitch it to publishers, the publishers decide they don’t want it, and then you’re completely stuck, because the agent still has exclusive rights of the book, but it’s not getting published.  And in the end, either the agent or the publisher could decide that you need to revise it in ways you don’t want to revise it, and if you don’t, they still have the rights to it, and you’re not getting published.  And then, even if it is published, it could take two years or more to actually get onto the shelves.

Independent Publishing:

                Positives – Full control.  This is especially important with this piece because it’s about a family that really wants to make sure their ancestor is well represented.  Also, there are multiple places that might want to make this into a movie, and if I get it published soon, they might be serious about that.  If I wait too long, they might lose interest.

                Negatives – A lot of people close their doors to independent publishing.  It’s not right, but they do it.  Many bookstores won’t carry it; even independent bookstores, (go figure.)  As for promotions, many, many radio and TV stations won’t cover you.  Even many blogs, which are independently published themselves, won’t cover your book.  And even those radio and TV stations that criticize corporations and claim to support independent artists, (like the Colbert Report,) won’t even consider independently published books.

So there you go.  That’s my dilemma.  I don’t know which direction I’m going to go.

But I hope it helps some of you out there.