On Numbers & 'Reach'

The Adventures of Hank Fenn spent 14 of its 720 hour campaign “Hot & Trending”—the last 14 hours. After 24 views on the first day, it rarely exceeded 10 views—often zero—until 53 people stopped by to take a peek on the last day.

Three people shared my final Facebook post on the matter which helped greatly. Many thanks there. I have a “Will Tinkham – Fictionist” FB page as well as my Will Tinkham goof-off page. Long ago I discovered the increased “reach” of my posts when I shared them from Fictionist to goof-off. Through the Scout experience I realized just how valuable other peoples' shares can be, along with the increased “reach” simply from attracting new people to the pages. If I only knew what “reach” actually refers to in the FB world...

I also made a few new connections through the process, which can never hurt.

Kindle Scout sent me an email saying that my submission is in review. I'm sure books that were Hot through the entire process will get a longer look than one that sneaked in at the end. We'll see...

Will probably try Scout again with my next book. Should get myself on Twitter, too, I suppose. Or write a book phenomenal enough to breeze through all these hoops...

Eight days left for HANK FENN

So my Kindle Scout campaign winds down. Only 8 days left to nominate The Adventures of Hank Fenn. Click here to do so.

 

They say: “The more nominations your book receives the more likely it will get the attention of our Kindle Scout team and be selected for publication.” This gives me hope that it's not strictly a matter of popularity, that merit might come into play. If not, I haven't lost anything. Did I mention there's a $1,500 advance hanging in the balance?

How It Works

Thanks for lending a hand. In any case, The Adventures of Hank Fenn (Americana Book 4) should be out early January of '16.

On Kindle Scout

So my Kindle Scout* campaign for The Adventures of Hank Fenn has launched. I have 26 days left to receive 'nominations'—I've lost the New tag but have yet to achieve Hot status. Check it out here.

Obviously everyone starts out New; not everyone becomes Hot. We'll see how it goes...

*See November 4 post for more detail or click this.

On whoring

UPDATE: I "launch" in 2 days (Nov 6). Already have the preview and all, just hours after submitting the thing.

As a self-published author I must whore myself from time to time and, well, 'tis the season. Minutes ago I sent my newest novel, The Adventures of Hank Fenn, off to Kindle Scout—an arm of Amazon (Kindle Press) for self-publishers, where they actually pay an advance ($1,500) and do some advertising for the book as they now have a stake in it, too.

It's a bit of a popularity contest, though they contend that the books are also judged on merit. Works something like this: Kindle Scout sets you up with a “campaign” package that includes your cover, bio, quick “interview” and an excerpt from the book. Readers nominate (one-click button) books that they find interesting. More nominations, I guess, means a better chance of them checking your book out for its merit and hopefully publishing it.

I'll post links—you can count on that.

Also answered a list of questions yesterday for Emily Reads Everything's “Awesome Indies.” (See Sept 6, 2015 post.) They may do a feature—at my request—on my third novel, Bonus Man.

I'll post links. Oh, yeah...

Bad omen: The first chapter of the newest book hinges on the reader's familiarity with Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and his short story, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”—also known by other names. Anyhow, on Jeopardy! yesterday an answer came up about Twain and a frog and not one of the geniuses playing the game could even come up with a guess.

Anyway, I'll keep you posted. And how...

Disappointing

Had an Almanac reading at Gingko last night. Disappointing. I've mentioned here about the Essential Tremors I deal with; they're not conducive to holding a book up before a roomful of people. It's hard to read a moving target.

At last years' Almanac reading at the Amsterdam, I immediately noticed that there was no podium and panicked. They were able to scrounge a solid music stand and everything went fine. This spring I did a Fairy Tale reading in a garage and asked beforehand if there'd be a similar stand. They said maybe, so I memorized the whole piece—just to be safe—and everything went fine.

The same guy who ran the Fairy Tale reading—a great man who's done great things for the local writing community—was running last night's reading as well. I emailed him two weeks ago, saying: “...you may recall from last spring's garage reading, I have a problem with tremors and need to be sure they have a podium or a stand of some sort at Ginkgos.” He responded: “We'll definitely have a music stand will that be enough?”

I arrived early and we chatted and I mentioned again my need for a stand of some sort. He said: “Yeah, I think there's one behind the piano.” Later I watched him look behind the piano. At 7:30 he introduced me as the first reader. No stand to rest the book on and hide my tremors with. And no apology.

Honestly, if not for a couple friends having come to watch, I'd have walked right out the door. Instead I stood there awkwardly explaining my condition to the few in attendance, asking them not to be alarmed if my hands went haywire. Getting the crowd's sympathy is not usually a goal. In the end, I was able to keep the book in my hands, though a moving target is difficult to read.

 

It's normally fun to do a reading—that's why I do 'em—but I was far too self-conscious to put on a decent show last night. My apologies, but I just wanted to get it over.

A Carnival

Attended and enjoyed the hell out of Lizz Winstead's Lady Parts Justice carnival Saturday afternoon. Games, prizes, laughs—and a great cause. Lost two games of DILdO—a hilariously perverted game of Bingo—and had my fortune told by a not-funny-at-all psychic who left me pondering my fate and very existence for several seconds... After three tries I finally won the Douchebag Toss—couldn't have been prouder.

Thus I embark on an unprecedented stretch of activity: Next Friday I head for the Landmark Center to see William Studor in The Bootleggers Terror. Saturday (Oct 3) finds me reading at another Saint Paul Almanac event (all are welcome to attend) at Gingko Coffeehouse. In a couple weeks I have tickets for Annapurna (Jungle Theater) and my Douchebag Toss winnings included free passes to Dudley Riggs.

I may loose my Reclusive Writer status if I'm not careful...

FREE!

In the past weeks I conducted a bit of an experiment. Periodically I give away Kindle copies of my books. I think early on I once gave away thirty-some books over a two-day period; a couple months ago only three books were given away in a one-day promotion for Bonus Man. Three stinkin' books. For free.

Then I stumbled into a list of sites that'll promote your freebies for free. I signed up for eight of them. I also promoted the free dates on Facebook and two writers' forums, like I always do. One freebie site sent me an email that they had tweeted my free promo to 42,900 of its followers. Others sent emails and/or flooded my Facebook with their ads. With all this help I gave away 21 copies of Alice and Her Grand Bell. Five days later, using the same marketing plan, I gave away 15 copies of Bonus Man.

Unimpressed, I had another promo a week later, this time I used only Facebook—ignoring all the freebie sites and the writers' forums—and gave away 16 copies of No Happier State. Hardly worth the effort of dealing with all those freebie sites, though their ads are still all over my email and Facebook. Thanks. (Maybe I need to be on Twitter...)

On a related note, the good people at Cracked Walnut shared a review site called Emily Reads Everything. Seems she has a regular feature called “Awesome Indies.” Signed up, hopefully to get a review. Not sure about the term indie. It used to pertain to small, independent presses but lately has been taken over by self-published authors who don't wanna be called self-published. As a self-published author I hope I qualify. Seems like a great site. We'll see how it works out...