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deborahjrossElsewhere, there was a question about offering ebooks free on Amazon and whether that "drives sales." Here's what I said:
I'm probably an old fogie here, but I think the best way to sell books is to write damned good ones. The second best thing is to support the word-of-mouth process. To a certain extent, this means offering review copies in strategically appropriate places, and creating a responsive internet presence. That means, if you are so moved, to blog about interesting things and participate/generate interesting communities. Receiving positive, thoughtful reviews never hurts, but ragging on people to do that is imho counterproductive.
It could be just me, but I find the sales-numbers game not only frustrating but detrimental to my creative flow. Of course, I want to know if my books do well (and so do my publishers!) but I will drive myself nuts trying to out-game the game, if you know what I mean.
I know writers who obsessively check their amazon.com rankings and I think how many stories -- books! -- I could get written in the same time. YMMV.
I'm probably an old fogie here, but I think the best way to sell books is to write damned good ones. The second best thing is to support the word-of-mouth process. To a certain extent, this means offering review copies in strategically appropriate places, and creating a responsive internet presence. That means, if you are so moved, to blog about interesting things and participate/generate interesting communities. Receiving positive, thoughtful reviews never hurts, but ragging on people to do that is imho counterproductive.
It could be just me, but I find the sales-numbers game not only frustrating but detrimental to my creative flow. Of course, I want to know if my books do well (and so do my publishers!) but I will drive myself nuts trying to out-game the game, if you know what I mean.
I know writers who obsessively check their amazon.com rankings and I think how many stories -- books! -- I could get written in the same time. YMMV.
