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Ha!

Ann makes an excellent point about the URL telling Amazon what it doesn't need to know. I find the shortened URL more convenient - I can remember it! Rather than copy and pasting the long Amazon one. And it gives me feedback on the number of clicks I get when I post on Twitter or Facebook.

There's more than an inch of dust on me, but I heard that for the first time today. What's old is new again ((for me).

Well, that would be Poe of me to do.

Way to go, Randy!

The big-time publishing houses often require their big-time authors to go on book tours around the country (which they'll arrange) to hawk the books. You've probably noticed that celebrities do book-signings at B&N stores in NYC and other big cities. It's the publicity they're after, not really the sales, since selling a few hundred copies (at the most!) is a drop in the publisher's bucket. I, myself, have pretty much given up on book-signings as not worth the effort. (The number of books I've sold at these events is a tiny fraction of my sales on Amazon.) I would rather promote to a vaster audience on Amazon, FB, and Twitter.

And here's a tip: Once your book is on Amazon, shorten the often ridiculously long URL so that you can give the link on a Twitter promo and keep it within the 140 characters. I've used Bitly for that, but there are other sites that will do it for you, too - for free.

Norm, feel free to ask me about my experience in the publishing jungle anytime. I look at TNBW as a community of like minds when it comes to putting our creative energy out there. Sharing tips and bewares is a benefit of membership, in my view.

Norm, a little dose of reality here. If you're John Grisham or Harlan Coben, you don't pay for any promos. You might have to spend time on the talk circuit, though. Schmoozing with Oprah. What a drag, right? The vast majority of published authors (and I'm not talking self-published here) have publishers who will help in the promotion, but the onus is still on the author to sell his book. I've had a publisher who paid for a blog tour, a NetGalley promo, and a BookBub promo (expensive!). But the rest was up to me. I've had another publisher who did absolutely nothing to publicize the book. In between, I've had a publisher who greased the wheels, so to speak, with FB and Twitter mentions and lowered the price temporarily so I could do promos (on my own). Most small and medium-size publishers use print-on-demand for their paperbacks (often through CreateSpace), so their investment consists essentially of paid editorial services, cover art, and reputation (don't want to have their name on a dud). And they don't give you an advance against royalties. Your book doesn't have to sell that many copies before they've recouped that investment. So there isn't much incentive for them to put out money for promotion. Actually, some big-name authors have chosen to leave their major publishing houses to publish their own books and have total control of the product. But hey, they've already got the rep, and who really looks at who published the book anyway?   Jack

Congrats, Dags!

If the groups were all listed in one place, then clicking on one would bring you to the group description that we have now. That's how I envision a more efficient system.

Alphabetical or not, a single sidebar/page listing all the groups at once would help, rather than having to scroll through four pages.