MENSA REVIEWED MY BOOK

Pardon me if I share some good news this week. My romantic suspense novel, FINDING AMY, has been a slow starter, but I’m in hopes sales will pick up. As a matter of fact, I’m not the only author who found this past summer to be less than stellar.

Joe Konrath, whose blog I follow, has experienced the same thing and, last week, his blog post was about things a writer can do to try to move the needle up the chart. Such as:

1. Write more books. You can inform your newsletter, Facebook or Twitter friends about your latest effort, which is probably the best way to generate more interest in your work.

2. Advertise. I can’t give you any tips on where, but the usual suspects are BookBub, E-bookSoda, E-BookBooster and FussyLibrarian. Some are more expensive than others, so check them out first.

3. Have a sale or use Amazon’s Countdown to lower your book price temporarily to generate some interest.

4. Try a new genre. This is a lot like Write Another Book, but, in case you were thinking about expanding your niche anyway, this might be a good time to try that. It’s even possible you’d have more readers in, for example, New Adult, than your present genre.

5. Use the Pre-order option. Recently Amazon announced it allows KDP authors to use Pre-Order for self-published books, so give it a try. Hachette can’t, but you can.

6. Send a copy of your book to a new reviewer. That’s what I did and the MENSA BULLETIN posted a blurb and cover picture. All Mensa members are allowed to submit books for their monthly column, and fellow members are probably more likely to want to sample your work than the average Joe or Jane.

The above is a tip as well as my “good news” report. Remember too, that every industry has its up and down moments and this slowdown might blow over sooner than you think. Just do what you can and be grateful your career path lets you do what you love every day. As Joe says, “The world doesn’t owe you a living.”