The First Ten Steps
- Ten proven steps to build a solid foundation for your ebook using free social networking
by International Bestselling Independent Fantasy Author M. R. Mathias
©2011 by Michael Robb Mathias Jr.
Smashwords Edition
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Step One
A Good Book
This is an obvious step, and it is first because this is part of the free preview. It is the most important step though. No amount of advertising or promotion will make a bad book good. A perfect edit and an awesome cover will not make a bad book good. Reviews from ten of your best friends, or ten complete strangers will not make a bad book good, either. Those things might make a book sell, but a bad story will remain a bad story, and that means at some point things will fizzle away. However, a good, solid book will grow steadily with these steps, and a great book might grow exponentially into a huge bestseller.
Readers are your best friend. Please the readers, and the critics will follow.
That means you must know who your readers are, and what other books are doing well in your genre. Judge your book’s look and content by its peers, and be honest with yourself. If you don’t tell yourself the truth, who will? However, do not judge your books sales by its peers. Time and genre have a lot to do with early sales. Watching others at this stage is pointless, save for observing what is working for them.
Your book doesn’t have to be a great book, just a good, solid book, with a good plot and an interesting story line. Oh, and a good edit.
I didn’t say a perfect edit; I said a good edit.
There are hundreds of thousands of readers out there. If your book is good, some will love it, some will hate it, and over time a bunch of people will buy it. The trick is getting it out there so that people will see it and know that it’s there.
The rest of the steps in this book will tell you ways I have used and observed as “working well” to generate attention and sales of eBooks from new authors.
Some books of this type are out there, but they were published by well-known authors who didn’t start from scratch. These Ten Steps are for the unknown self publisher with their first or second indie book. Most of these methods are FREE.
If you want to succeed as an author without big money publishing behind you, laying the foundation for yourself and your first book is one of the most important things you can do. Lay the groundwork properly, and you can build a rock solid platform.
My credentials can be found on the sell pages for my M. R. Mathias fantasy books at Amazon, where several of them reside in the top 100 bestseller lists for their genre. Starting with no name recognition and less computer skills than money, I sold over 50k ebooks my very first year. If you follow my steps and devote a few hours a week to promotion, you too can become a known author and make steady money selling your ebooks, but only if the books are good.
Step Two
Look at your Book Cover
I am the first to say “don’t judge a book by its cover.” I paid a small fortune for my most recent cover because I learned that it does help sales, and in ways you are not aware of yet. Ignoring the cover is stupid. Again, the cover doesn’t have to be great, just a good, traditional looking book cover.
- GVTgrafix.com is one resource (that’s an email, not a website.) GVT is a cover designer for hire. He is reasonable. There are sites like deviantart.com and the clipart sites like iStockphoto where you can find the image you want. Look at other books and use your best judgment. A solid colored rectangle with some off colored text will work for a “How To” book, but it won’t draw people in as well as some good art and graphics will. That’s just the way it is.
Part of the job you have just taken on as promoter/publisher of your own book is generating content for posts, such as tweets, and Facebook promotions. Using good cover art generates a lot of profile visits. You can post your cover on Facebook and/or a blog post and ask for input about it. You can then tweet the link to that post a few times a week on Twitter. Using Twitter will be covered in later steps. The point is that a good digital book cover helps in more than just the obvious way. It can be a conversation piece, and it can draw the eye of a potential reader that might look over a plain cover.