Blogs, Books or Both?

For the last couple of years, I have had both books and blogs available for the Kindle.

My original fiction hasn't sold - at all. It's not that nobody knows about it - a percentage of folks do. I have a book called The Lady and the Tiger...Moth about a girl pilot. I announced that at various aviation forums. No one cared.

I've got two original science fiction books - one a full-length book, the other an introductory novella that I had hoped to offer for free on the Kindle as a way to get people to want to buy the other book. No dice. If you're an established publisher you have the option to offer a book for free - if you are an indy publisher, you do not have that option. So damn infuriating.

In any event, I'd announced the book on various science fiction message boards - no interest.

The only book of mine that is selling is my annotation of Dorothy Sayers Whose Body. But that's because people do a search on Dorothy Sayers, and find my book. The Dorothy Sayers name is what does it.

What's the solution? Well...have your website, and I'll go into that more in future entries. Try to get book reviews. (My sci fi novels are in the queue to be read by the popular Red Adept blog... unfortunately she's swamped for several more months!!)

Try Create Space - Amazon's printing arm that allows you to have your books printed on demand. There's no cost to you up front - Amazon takes their cut from the cost of the book. But at least you can get some books printed, and introduce them into your local bookstores - offering to do readings - and point your audience toward the Kindle as well as Create Space editions.

For me...blogs are where I make my money. I've got a blog about the controversial talk show host Rush Limbaugh - and people love to read about him. My other successful blog is a BLog Review Blog. The rest of my blogs - and I have several - have a handful of subscribers, so it all ads up over time.