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I wrote The Kubic Kat as a standalone SciFi novella, and decide that it would be best to give this way free, in the hope that it would garner traffic to my star

I wrote The Kubic Kat as a standalone SciFi novella, and decide that it would be best to give this way free, in the hope that it would garner traffic to my start-up website, and interest in escaping surveillance. (http://www.tribalcontact.com http://www.tribalcontact.com) I put it on Hacker news, but it sank without a trace, and yielded 0 comments, and very few downloads. Facebook, twitter, and Google+ have made up 30% of downloads, and Smashwords (https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/392425 https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/392425) most of the remainder. As long as you are on the front page you get good traction, but discoverability is poor. Indeed, this is the biggest issue I know of. If you can put the book in front of people you can get good metrics (30% of all views led to downloads). But finding a way to get those views is very hard.

thirdtruck 13y ago
A large proportion of backers to my sci-fi novel (http://planetoz.net/kickstarter http://planetoz.net/kickstarter) came from personal connections, and I forged most of those in person. While that may have "only" yielded several hundred dollars for this particular project, I anticipate a far greater chance of future backing from them than from impersonal advertising captures. (And I use the term "capture" here with all its connotations.) I also found potential future editors, artists, beta readers, and the like in the process. Even better, I made some awesome new friends. This all applies to a book that I haven't yet finished editing (23% progress), never mind put up for free. The insanely successful indie author, J. A. Konrath, explains how he paid his dues with hundreds of hours spent on book tours, convention floors, and the like, all sans publisher compensation. He now brings in six figures or more. tl;dr - A focus on selling (_selling_) your work to just one person at a time will pay forward in spades, even if it takes a while. @liamcarton - Feel free to hit me up. We can trade author notes. My email's in my profile. :)

thirdtruck 13y ago

A large proportion of backers to my sci-fi novel (http://planetoz.net/kickstarter http://planetoz.net/kickstarter) came from personal connections, and I forged most of those in person. While that may have "only" yielded several hundred dollars for this particular project, I anticipate a far greater chance of future backing from them than from impersonal advertising captures. (And I use the term "capture" here with all its connotations.) I also found potential future editors, artists, beta readers, and the like in the process. Even better, I made some awesome new friends. This all applies to a book that I haven't yet finished editing (23% progress), never mind put up for free. The insanely successful indie author, J. A. Konrath, explains how he paid his dues with hundreds of hours spent on book tours, convention floors, and the like, all sans publisher compensation. He now brings in six figures or more. tl;dr - A focus on selling (_selling_) your work to just one person at a time will pay forward in spades, even if it takes a while. @liamcarton - Feel free to hit me up. We can trade author notes. My email's in my profile. :)