Monthly Archives: March 2011

pimpage

Self Promotion

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I often worry that I try too hard or am completely bollocksing my attempts at promoting my stories. I have no formal education when it comes to marketing or promotion. The things I do know come from watching other, savvier people and even trying to do the opposite of people who have turned me off with their attempts.

So when a friend of mine took the risk (and dispensing advice, solicited or not, to a friend is always risky) of telling me what he thought of my efforts, I listened. He made the caveat to me that he’s not a marketing pro, but he does have at least a decade on me in age and experience and has done enough different things in his life to achieve some wisdom in my eyes. Some of what he had to say also came from people in his life that are/were pros.

This is what he told me (and I’m paraphrasing a little):

When I talk about the stuff I’m throwing out there, make it “Scott Roche’s thrilling novel, blah blah blah”.. third person only. It’s okay to say how great it is, IF it’s in the third person and nobody knows (except me, haha) that you wrote the ad. And when I talk about a review that a book/story I wrote got, say “X got a good review.”, not “I got a good review.”

When I post to Twitter or Facebook, don’t say “buy this now” or “my story is for sale here”. He believes that that’s off putting and it would be better to say “Download ‘Fetch’ here.” and provide the link for Amazon/Smashwords. People will know I’m selling as if it were free I’d probably say so.

He was also of the opinion that reviews don’t work so well, if they’re reviews done by someone that is a complete or relative unknown. His belief is that a good bit of cover copy goes a lot further in terms of enticing a reader to read.

He also said that I should probably never talk about sales numbers. I’d been talking some in the public stream about how low they’ve been and my efforts to improve them. I did that to endeavor to share with my fellow writers the reality of my own self publishing experience. In doing so though, it may make people think “if he’s not selling well, then maybe it’s because it’s no good”.

That’s the jist of what he said. He did go on to say that if he didn’t know me, if he weren’t close friends with me, that he would likely have blocked my feed because of what I’ve been throwing out there. I respect that. I have a higher tolerance for people pitching their stuff, but if that’s all they’re doing then I’d do the same thing. Hopefully there’s enough other stuff in my feeds that the promotion doesn’t overwhelm. For people like him, and maybe like you, even a little is too much.

I think what my buddy gave me was good, concise, commonsensical advice and maybe there’s more where that came from. Now it’s time to ask you folks, what do you think of this? What has worked for you in marketing your stuff using social media? Is he way off base? Have I annoyed you to the point where you’re ready to unfollow/block/put me in the corner? If I haven’t, has someone you follow managed to get under your skin and why? Whether you’re a self promoter or not I know a lot of people would benefit from talking about this.

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pimpage, writing

Contest Update!

So here’s where we’re at contest-wise. Thanks to a couple of generous (and lovely) young ladies (and some other folks I don’t know) I have crossed the halfway point and am at fourteen sales. Only one of those ladies has sent her receipts in. So, if we do cross the twenty-seven sales line by the end of the month, she’s a dead lock to get the paperback proof of Through a Glass, Darkly

I’ve Tweeted and Facebooked and blogged about it. I’ve had people share and RT my contest. I’ve put the word on on MobileRead.com’s Forums as well as the Kindleboards. I’ve also shared it on the Kindle Facebook fan page. I’ll continue to use these methods and any others I can come up with. I’m still running into people that don’t know I’ve put stuff on Amazon and that I have a print anthology available, so I’m not reaching everyone I can. Thanks to Amazon’s limited reporting tools, I don’t know if people are downloading the samples (you can get samples of most any Amazon Kindle books delivered right to your device) or not. If you haven’t taken advantage of the samples at least, please do so. If you have and you’re just not compelled, I’d actually like to hear that.

There are still ten days left in the month. This has only gone for seven days, so there’s plenty of time. You don’t have to buy all six stories to be entered. If you’d just like to send me the money for a signed copy of the print book I can arrange that. Any help you lovely people can give me in this effort is appreciated. Blog, Tweet, and Facebook about it. Tell your friends. And for those that have done that, a great big thanks!

writing

Bobby and His Dragon

I’m trying out some direct sales through this site in preparation for Ginnie Dare and some other projects. So in order to test this I’ll be offering a cute little middle grades level story I’ve written that’s available nowhere else. It’s only $.49 for a story that clocks in at 3400 words. Well worth it in my opinion.

I also made the e-pub myself so I’m a bit proud of that.

A preview for those who’d like one:
Continue reading Bobby and His Dragon →

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Searching For Bill Hatcher

I’m taking a tip from my good buddy Rhodester. He was looking for his wife’s Dad and thanks to a blog post and some SEO-fu, they found him.

I don’t know much about SEO. That may explain why I’m still somewhat obscure on the internets. I do know that I’ve been looking for one of my best mates from High School off and on for years, ever since I first stepped foot on the electronic highways. William Hubert Hatcher, Billy to his friends and likely just plain Bill now, was one of the terrible trio that was made up of him, myself and John “Bear” Payne aka Pinakidion. We play D&D long into the night as often as we could and we were geeks to the core.

Bill, like me, moved around quite a bit as a lad. I think as an adult he was probably in the military. I’ve searched the usual places; websites dedicated to alumni, Facebook, twitter, and I’ve Googled and emailed a number of men. It doesn’t help that there’s apparently a famous photog named Bill Hatcher (that ain’t him) and someone who owns a vineyard named Bill Hatcher (that also ain’t him). I’ve no idea what he’s doing these days, obviously, but if I had to guess I’d say it involves computers, guns, or attractive wimmens. It might also involve music as Billy had the voice of an angel.

So if you know a William Huber Hatcher that attended Manteo Middle and High School in the 80’s, point him this way. If you are him, then what are you doing, EMAIL ME!

writing

Contest!

I really want to triple my sales from last month. I also want to know who’s out there buying my stories. So let’s see if I can kill two birds with one stone, shall we?

I’m getting a proof copy of this anthology in a few days. For every story you buy from here between now and the end of March, you will get one entry. Just email me at scott at scottroche.com and attach an electronic copy of your receipt from Amazon. All entries will go into a hat (possibly a real hat, possibly an electronic one) and I will draw a name. That person will receive a signed, personalized copy of the proof copy. This will be the only one of its kind in existence and will be worth at least as much as the paper it’s printed on for generations to come. The only catch? If I don’t sell at least twenty seven stories, I keep the book. There needs to be some incentive to stop my Mom from being the only winner. 😉

Simple enough? Now go forth and buy!

pimpage, writing

E-book Week Results

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This past week I gave away over two hundred stories as a part of Smashwords celebrating Read An E-book Week. I figured I’d share the results with you guys since that was pretty phenomenal in my mind. There are now two hundred copies of my stories in the wild and I hope that will lead to people coming back for more.

“Fetch” and “The Behemoth” were certainly the most popular. Only two copies of “The Battle of Wildspitze” were sold but it didn’t come out until late in the week and was not part of the giveaway. I guess people were attracted to the cover, blurb, and/or genre of those two big movers most. The reviews may have also been significant. That’s hard to say.

I do hope that if you were one of the folks who took advantage that you’ll remember to drop a review. They do help people to make the decision to buy. That’s part of the reason I did this, to see if it would generate some feedback and drive future sales. Sales haven’t been phenomenal there or at Amazon. I tweeted last night, tongue in cheek, that I tripled my January sales in February (moving from three sales to nine sales) and that I’d like to do that again in March. That would mean twenty seven sales and given that I’ve sold one this month that would mean needing to sell almost two a day for the rest of the month. That would be unprecedented, but it’s not out of the ball park.

I’ve got four stories and two collections up there right now. “Through A Glass, Darkly” combines “Fetch“, “Power in the Blood“, “The Good Doctor“, and a new one “The Good Samaritan” into one file for $2.99. If I could sell fifteen to twenty of those this month that would be awesome. It’s not a bad deal either considering “Fetch” and “Power” together would be $3.50. Those are two of my most well received stories and the other two would be icing on the cake. “The Good Samaritan” is the lead off story and if you download the sample from Amazon you’d get a good taste of that one.

So, please spread the word and help me meet this goal. Two a day for the next two weeks! If you’ve already read any of these stories it would help my goal to get a review on any of the ones on Amazon.

pimpage, writing

Read An E-book Week

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In celebration of “Read An E-book Week” if you go to Smashwords you can get any of my e-pubs for free. Don’t have an e-reader? You can read them all online or download them as PDFs. Coupon codes are available on each story’s page.

This is a promotional effort by Smashwords to encourage people to embrace the format and let people know about the awesome content out there. This promotion only lasts til the end of the week so don’t wait!

fiction

Holiday Spirits

I found this little short in my files and dusted it off. I though you might enjoy it.

Joe sat in Barren Grounds, Lumiere’s premiere coffee roaster and cafĂ©, and stared at the reflection in his Mocha Java. “Why do I stay here? Year in and year out I’m here, despite the fact that I resolve to leave every year about this time.” His faraway gaze switched to the fitful snow outside the cozy shop’s windows. He continued to mutter to himself, not an uncommon thing among the patrons of this odd little place. “I mean I do like my job but I could write just about anywhere.”The ghostly reflection of a young man in the window glass startled him out of his reverie.

He turned around and looked at the lanky straight-backed youth. The almost-man wore a denim jacket covered in road dust over a baggy University sweatshirt. The once blue jacket had been used as a drawing board for all manner of anti-war graffiti and anti-capitalism sloganeering, still as popular on the campuses now as it had been when Joe was his age. The hems of his baggy blue jeans scraped the ground and covered battered Chucks. A huge cobalt watch cap covered his tangled ashen locks completing the ensemble. He clutched a cup of steaming brew in his hands. “Mind if I sit with you sir?”

Continue reading Holiday Spirits →

writing

Archangel Reboot

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You may have heard of this podcast novel I wrote called Archangel? It’s got a list of supporters long enough to please me, but I’ve gotten some feedback on it and as any first novel does it’s not without it’s problems. I basically “pantsed” the whole thing and now that I’ve got some experience I know that it shows in the work’s structure. I’ve gotten some very good feedback and have decided to take a whack at rewriting it. I’ll be using the snowflake method as I did with Ginnie Dare, but with this as with Liquid Diet I will be doing a more full blown version of it.

I want to finish both rough drafts by the end of the summer and have finished novels by years end. Will snowflaking let me write like a meth cranked ninja? Is that a good thing? Well I guess we’ll find out.

Anyway, here are steps one and two of the snowflake for Archangel’s reboot:

1) Former soldier defends his city from supernatural evil at the cost of all he holds dear.

2) A former army sniper, discharged after a particularly odd final mission, tries to enjoy his retirement in peace. All of that changes when he meets a local business man whose activities have a dark and supernatural edge to them. When going to the police doesn’t help, he decides to use his skills to track the man and ultimately take him down whatever the consequences. Unfortunately the consequences involve an escalation that threatens the lives of everyone he loves and the very fabric of reality. His friends and family join him in the fight, but will it be enough to quench the fires of Hell?

writing

Part-time Vampire

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I plan on building two “snowflakes” this month in an effort to finish three novels by year’s end. It’s ambitious, but I already have one “in the can”. It’s still being edited, but I must continue writing, even while that one is cooling and being beta read.

This is made somewhat easier by my choice of topics. One of them will be a ground up rewrite of the first two Archangel novels. I’m shooting to make that one solid novel and rather than edit it, I really feel it would be easier/better to reboot it. The other choice was what I thought was going to be a short story I started on thanks to “News From Poughkeepsie”. Called “A Liquid Diet”, it involves a slightly different take on vampires, at least I hope so.

Here are steps one and two of the snowflake method for “Liquid Diet”:

1) Police detective and part time vampire, tries to track down a serial killer who may be targeting her.

2) A small portion of humanity, called “Schrecks”, are able to ingest human blood and gain strength, health, and nearly superhuman abilities. A Schreck police detective, one of the few that hates her “gift”, inherits a series of cases involving women who look just like her. Every one of them is found dead apparently at the hands of one of her “kind”. Finally a solid lead materializes, only to have the first real suspect turn up missing. The evidence in this missing person’s case points to a “real” vampire and it’s up to Sam to find out if such a thing is even possible and catch it. If she can’t everyone like her is liable to find themselves on the point of a stake, if the killer doesn’t get to her first.

Let me know what you think and keep kicking my butt if you want to see this written!