Categories
about me art opinion writing

Cara de la Reina

After three days of discussions, I was floored when this influencer insisted, today, that the book be published to Amazon first. He also asked me, “But how will you benefit from people reading it?” I am confused. Isn’t the point of publishing a novel to have people read it?!

The mural "Cara de la Reina" is featured in my novel, The Quarter Percent. This graffiti style illustration was created for me by Emanuel Malu at Saita Studio.
The mural “Cara de la Reina” is featured in my novel, The Quarter Percent. This graffiti style illustration was created for me by Emanuel Malu at Saita Studio.

As I have discussed before, my amazing book promotion campaign fell flat because everyone I approached wanted me to be a popular author before agreeing to help me promote my book. Gah!

Over the weekend, I decided to beta test the promotion of a promotional copy of my novel, The Quarter Percent. After receiving a copy formatted for Kindle from the book designer, I wanted to see how a free PDF copy would be received by an influencer who has a large audience of avid e-book readers. This person’s audience only wants fiction books that are FREE or which cost $0.99. Perfect for a beta test? Or so I thought.

After three days of discussions, I was floored when this influencer insisted, today, that the book be published to Amazon first. He also asked me, “But how will you benefit from people reading it?” I am confused. Isn’t the point of publishing a novel to have people read it?

In other words, his audience is not interested in books that are cheap or free. They want popular releases for free or at a super discount. Yet, the advice I have received is to give away promotional copies of my novel to generate buzz. That makes no sense, you say? Large film studios deal with this nonsense, too. That is why they leak promotional copies of new releases to torrent sites.

My confusion arises from the fact that official publication on Amazon defeats the purpose of beta testing the novel with readers in different locations, and watching how they respond to it. I need this information so I can know how and where to promote the story. What I don’t want is readers who are not the intended audience to write reviews on the Amazon page complaining that the novel has words and that the themes are ‘difficult’.

I used to joke that I am an alien from outer space. But I am beginning to believe that either I stepped into a wormhole and this is the underverse, or the inhabitants of this planet are insane.

By ΠιCΘLΞ

Life is short, so let’s be decent.

45 replies on “Cara de la Reina”

I hope you resolved your issue. It’s been confusing for me. I am still reading your book A Quarter Percent via kindle. It’s taking me longer than usual due to work and studies but am enjoying it and believe fiction writer’s imaginations are amazing. Good luck with this book! ☺️

Liked by 1 person

Thank you very much. I wanted to create some artwork that reflected the aesthetic of the novel. I am pleased to inform you that this will be the cover of the book. You’ve already seen it in the trailer post. Thank you so much for your support.

Liked by 1 person

By Post Author

If worse comes to worse and hope for sales declines… and one wants their stuff read by someone interested in a particular genre– then release the book on a blog site such as this one. That way an author can tell if their efforts are really worth trying to sell. If readers won’t read it for free– then their interest states that they probably wouldn’t buy it.
Art

Liked by 2 people

Thanks, Art. I’m releasing it for free on this blog, definitely. Not all my readers are interested in reading books. Which is why I’m looking for readers’ markets. Checking interest first before caring about sales.

Like

By Post Author

Thank you so much. I agree that the market is saturated. Putting it up in the general space and praying for the best won’t work. It’s not a comic novel, so not on brand for your genre of writing I’m afraid. If you stay tuned, readers of my blog will receive a free copy.

Liked by 1 person

By Post Author

Thank you so much for asking. As for Oscar, it is amazing that you have your own genre because you get to define it. It’s very difficult to classify my own writing. Normally, I focus on themes and allow the medium to find me. My novel is both a satire and a drama written in prose form. It captures moments in short story form and then links them together through the scenes that we witness.

Liked by 1 person

By Post Author

I guess it is finding the publisher that chooses to believe in you and your work. It is all about dollars and cents to them. I pray for a good publisher to believe in you and who knows you might be the next Dean Koontz!

Liked by 2 people

This is so, so strange. Whatever happened to actually looking at the quality of a written work? This sounds like a complicate shell game which has nothing to do with writing itself. Ugh…I don’t even want to get involved with the publishing world.

Liked by 3 people

Please, get involved in the publishing world, Eurobrat. I need to read your very entertaining remarks. He only read the description and told me, “It is a nice futuristic story. Even I had an idea like that.” Like, okay.

Liked by 1 person

By Post Author

Wowwwwww…gotta love that patronizing response. Yes, if I ever decide I need a particularly snarky and sarcastic series of blog posts, I will work on attempting to publish something 🙂

Liked by 2 people

Thank you so much, Ogden. I am still proofreading and editing the story. The formatting, redrafting and major rewrites are complete. When it looks decent, I will publish a link here for you.

Liked by 1 person

By Post Author

I never know how one publish book anywhere. This story just tells there are something that does not follow common sense in the process of publishing books. I have read free or $0.99 e-book on Amazon but that to get me hooked on the story or to follow other books from the same author and I did (for those that I like to read on). This makes sense to me and I assume it benefits the authors too. But your story here is strange.

Liked by 2 people

Thank you so much for your remarks. I want to attract readers like you, as I am a big fan of cheap and free book downloads (iBooks reader here). I was so shocked when the influencer started asking me silly questions. He probably read the blurb for the book and changed his mind or there is some other reason I am failing to see. This has been encouraging, to hear that my idea makes sense. xoxo

Liked by 1 person

By Post Author

The publishing word baffles and infuriates me — it’s like graduating from college, trying to get that first job, but all jobs insist on previous job experience. I’ve got two novels written and am in the middle of a third — none of which I expect will ever be read! I commend your continued efforts and wish you best of luck — your success will hearten me!

Liked by 5 people

Carrie, your books deserve to get read. Thank you for adding your thoughts here. I’m putting my thoughts out here because I feel like there might be other people in my position. We have to talk about how ridiculous it is that a film called 365 days romanticises kidnapping and assault sets back human civilisation about 150,000 years, is number one ranked on Netflix. Those same people who watched that film complain that there are no good stories to be found anywhere. None of it makes any sense.

Like

By Post Author

Exactly! Thank you, Rob. That is the benefit of having people read a free copy. It pays to test ideas before implementing them. This past exercise was informative.

Liked by 1 person

By Post Author

Comments are closed.