As an indie author, I’ve increasingly found Goodreads to be one of the best places to reach readers but–maybe even better–I’ve found it to be a great place to relax and just be a reader, as well. But since the focus of this blog is writing and the indie life, I’d like to share three Goodreads tips for writers (I may do a blog someday about being a great Goodreads reader).
Friends –
Pardon the light post today. I’m in a race to finish my third Marty Singer mystery, Signs, before next week when one of my redoubtable beta-readers has asked for it. But I’ve recently stumbled across three interesting links and services that deserve a gander.
After participating on a panel with three other authors (Karen Cantwell, Scott Nicholson, and Michael J. Sullivan) recently, the topic of profanity came up. We’d just finished lunch at a family restaurant and it was only later that I wondered what the teenage waiters and nearby patrons thought when one of us said, “The chapter of my first book ended with ‘Fuck!’ and it really turned a lot of people off, so I took it out in the next edition.”
And that was the tame stuff.
This past weekend, I was lucky enough to both organize and participate on an amazing self-publishing panel (though it’s over, see my original announcement for more details). For those of you who couldn’t make it, you missed a 90-minute, crash course on self-publishing success, failure, resilience, and prediction.
This is less of a deeply informative post than a quick observation, really. I’m off for Southern France–I’ve always wanted to say that!–for two weeks and things are hectic here.
Thanks to a KDP Select “free” bump, I’ve sold almost 600 copies of A Reason to Live since August 6. Besides making me giddy and a little delirious, it’s also demonstrated some interesting things about that little-known self-pubbed writer’s friend, the Amazon sub-list.