The first step in starting an Authors' Choice Short Story Writers' Contest is to find five authors. If I find five authors who agree to do this, we will have a contest.
Here's how it works: Each author will contribute three books; they can be all the same. Mine are all short story collections, but valued at only about $6 each, so these don't have to be huge books. They can all (3) be the same, because they will go to first, second, and third place winners. Each winner will receive a set of five books from different authors as part of their prize.
So let's say 100 people enter, each paying $1 to enter. First place winner gets $50 + five books. Hopefully the five books will be worthwhile enough for them as a prize. The way I figure, I can't lose.
The authors have to do one more thing: Participate in the grading. You may read 100, or you may read 50, or you may read only a few. You will distribute points according to how you think they deserve them. If the deadline is in November, you will have about a month to read and grade. It should be possible. All this stuff is negotiable.
I take it back about not being able to lose. Two ways we could lose are: Receive thousands of entries, and receive only seven entries. If I receive a thousand, I'll distribute them in batches, and make each grader read 50. Then I'll take the top ones from each batch, and make the graders read those top ones. So it's like they'll read two batches of 50, with the second batch being the top ones from each group. And people can have the time they need to grade.
In the case of only seven entries though, it's a little trickier. We may have to come up with $100 minimum pot, or, I guess, if response was so bad, we could just cancel the whole thing. I'm thinking, I can probably just come up with that myself.
Ideally, though, I have five writers at least. And we share these decisions, share the risk, share the joy, share the grading. Any takers? Let me know. If I find five, we're on, and I'll tell you where to send the books. Use my e-mail leverett @ siu.edu, with no spaces.
Monday, May 29, 2017
Friday, May 26, 2017
Promotional Ideas
Recently I have finished my first semester and been able to turn my attention to my weak promotional efforts. Up to now, I've been concentrating on cranking out things I like to write: collections of short stories (just finished my sixth), Quaker plays (I finally collated 15 years worth of them), gigantic haiku efforts (I wrote 1000 in a year, and just finished), and various other ideas. I have two other irons in the fire: A book on language theory, and an autobiography - a book of true travel stories mixed in with the true account of my life.
But on the publishing end, I've become dissatisfied that, basically, I drop all this hard work on a vast sea of self-published drek, and nobody can tell whether it has any quality or not, because so few of them ever pick any of it up or read it. Now I've been mostly focused on the book sales, when in fact, I've done better on audiobook, but I've pretty much ignored Kindle completely. I've come to the conclusion that Kindle is an unexplored and lucrative market, and that in fact it's possible that more people read Kindle than I thought, and that I should study ways of marketing myself on Kindle.
Given all this background, I've been mulling over several ways to jump-start the promotion engine. I am fortunate that, as a public school teacher, I don't have to live off this meager income. But I'm a little aggrieved that my strategy of giving it away cheap, hoping that it will catch on and be popular world-wide, hasn't exactly panned out. So, I've raised prices to a level that I'm a little more comfortable giving it away at. And then, I'm trying a number of different ways to pick up awareness of my "brand":
Possible advertising on LinkedIn and Google: This would be free for the first $50 on LinkedIn, and $25 for the first $100 worth of advertising on Google. I have never spent a penny on promotion; it's kind of like I'm dipping my feet into a pool.
Making ESL/EFL textbooks out of some of the work: this is easier than it looks; it's actually fun. I made ESL reading materials for years. I kind of miss it. An ESL/EFL reader would probably be popular. And I have a friend who might help me publish it.
Sponsoring a short story contest. Some publications do this and do it successfully. The idea in my case would be simple. Charge $1 per story. Get five short-story authors to underwrite it by providing books. Make the winning pot half of the take, plus books from all five authors. Read everything that comes in, thus becoming a better short-story writer.
Making a separate Facebook Author's page, so that I don't constantly harp on my friends to buy my books. Last time I did this (about a week ago), out of almost 800 friends, I got a miserable amount of sales. It seems my friends shouldn't be my primary market, though I don't know if, maybe come gift-giving time, their awareness of my work may kick in. I will probably keep hocking my friends, who in most cases I want them to know what I'm doing anyway, but I will put the majority of this information on a Facebook author's page, so it's open to everyone, and it pretty much tells them what I'm up to as an author.
Going Live on Facebook. This would be experimental, but it would involve getting in front of a camera with my banjo and fiddle, playing a number of songs, and pushing my books in between them. The attraction of this, to me, is that I need to keep playing music anyway. My opportunities in the music area have dwindled here - I could be in a country band, but I'm not; I could play in Mayhill with an old gospel fellow, but I haven't; and, I'm not doing much about that, so, as a result, I'm left with my banjo on weekends. If I got in front of a camera, regularly, I'd solve two problems at once. AND have fun.
There are more, and I will experiment with them as I'm moved to try them. Stay tuned and you'll see the picture evolving.
But on the publishing end, I've become dissatisfied that, basically, I drop all this hard work on a vast sea of self-published drek, and nobody can tell whether it has any quality or not, because so few of them ever pick any of it up or read it. Now I've been mostly focused on the book sales, when in fact, I've done better on audiobook, but I've pretty much ignored Kindle completely. I've come to the conclusion that Kindle is an unexplored and lucrative market, and that in fact it's possible that more people read Kindle than I thought, and that I should study ways of marketing myself on Kindle.
Given all this background, I've been mulling over several ways to jump-start the promotion engine. I am fortunate that, as a public school teacher, I don't have to live off this meager income. But I'm a little aggrieved that my strategy of giving it away cheap, hoping that it will catch on and be popular world-wide, hasn't exactly panned out. So, I've raised prices to a level that I'm a little more comfortable giving it away at. And then, I'm trying a number of different ways to pick up awareness of my "brand":
Possible advertising on LinkedIn and Google: This would be free for the first $50 on LinkedIn, and $25 for the first $100 worth of advertising on Google. I have never spent a penny on promotion; it's kind of like I'm dipping my feet into a pool.
Making ESL/EFL textbooks out of some of the work: this is easier than it looks; it's actually fun. I made ESL reading materials for years. I kind of miss it. An ESL/EFL reader would probably be popular. And I have a friend who might help me publish it.
Sponsoring a short story contest. Some publications do this and do it successfully. The idea in my case would be simple. Charge $1 per story. Get five short-story authors to underwrite it by providing books. Make the winning pot half of the take, plus books from all five authors. Read everything that comes in, thus becoming a better short-story writer.
Making a separate Facebook Author's page, so that I don't constantly harp on my friends to buy my books. Last time I did this (about a week ago), out of almost 800 friends, I got a miserable amount of sales. It seems my friends shouldn't be my primary market, though I don't know if, maybe come gift-giving time, their awareness of my work may kick in. I will probably keep hocking my friends, who in most cases I want them to know what I'm doing anyway, but I will put the majority of this information on a Facebook author's page, so it's open to everyone, and it pretty much tells them what I'm up to as an author.
Going Live on Facebook. This would be experimental, but it would involve getting in front of a camera with my banjo and fiddle, playing a number of songs, and pushing my books in between them. The attraction of this, to me, is that I need to keep playing music anyway. My opportunities in the music area have dwindled here - I could be in a country band, but I'm not; I could play in Mayhill with an old gospel fellow, but I haven't; and, I'm not doing much about that, so, as a result, I'm left with my banjo on weekends. If I got in front of a camera, regularly, I'd solve two problems at once. AND have fun.
There are more, and I will experiment with them as I'm moved to try them. Stay tuned and you'll see the picture evolving.
Sunday, May 21, 2017
Mannequin Challenge
& 20 short stories you can't put down
Available on Amazon
$5.50 + shipping
Available at the Createspace store
$5.50 + shipping
Available on Kindle
$2.99, also on Kindle Select
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