Just as a little reminder to myself, I'm going to reprint Joe Konrath's 7 Rules for e.book success.
1. Write a damn good book.
2. Make sure it has professional cover art.
3. Keep the price under $4.
4. Make sure the formatting is flawless.
5. Write a good product description.
6. Upload to Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords.
7. Repeat. Over and over, until the world can no longer ignore your work.
Right. Now I can refer back to this.
===== Feel free to comment on this or any other post.
There's another important element: Have many books, build your audience in the real world and online for many many years before seeing success like his.
ReplyDeleteI'm becoming a bit jaded to his message, especially as it seems all the latest stuff I've read on there is about money money money. I think reading it too much takes the joy out of other aspects of the process, such as making the effort to go and meet readers and build relationships. But what do I know?
In a follow up sentence, he refers to the #7 rule as "more is better", which I think dovetails well with your "many books" comment.
ReplyDeleteThis advice is all quite sound, but at its core is what we all know - have lots of products that are both creatively and structurally high quality, package them well, price them attractively and make them easily available. That's solid and applicable advice for any product line in any market in any age, from books to bras to bear traps.
I think he assumes that we write for the love of it, but his main intent in bringing these e.book case studies to light is to analyze the business side of writing.
Moliere said writing is like sex - first you do it for love, then for a few close friends, then finally for money. I'm trying to get to that last stage. 8-)
I'd love it to like this. Then the only worry would be stringent self-editing and finding a good artist. But all seven are working towards discovery, connections and promotion, which are what actually connect readers with most books. Waiting for it to happen is a dangerous attitude, even if you are piling up quality work on Page 39 of a website's inventory. Gosh, I'd like it to just be about doing good work, though.
ReplyDeleteLather, rinse, repeat. I'm trying my damnedest. ;)
ReplyDelete