Joseph Rhea

Two years ago, I remember a period during a 99c sale (which was rare back then) when my book was selling something like one book every hour, and I was elated. 20-30 books a day was spectacular, but I spent all of my time watching the sales rank, worrying about every little change. Then six months ago I stopped having sales, stopped most social networking, and tried to concentrate on my writing. As expected, my sales eventually died off, down to something like a book every few days, but I was actually content, because I had sold something like 4,000 books and thought maybe that was it. Time to let the other Indies have the spotlight and get my next book out. Then, just as an experiment, I decided to join Amazon Select last week and try a 2-day giveaway. After an astounding (to me) 11,000 free downloads in 48 hours, I assumed my book--now priced at $3.99--would return to never-never land like so many others. But it was not to be. Since then my book has been selling 5-10 copies every h...

When it comes to giving your novel a title and a cover, sometime what you, the author, envision is not what your publisher's marketing people come up with. For Indies, the job is both simpler and more difficult. Simpler, in that you have full control of every aspect of the book, including cover art and title. More difficult, in that what you think is "perfect" might not actually draw in that many people. Or worse, potential readers are actually driven away by either the title or artwork. I bring this up because a few days ago I tweaked the title of the Kindle version of my book as a test, and already I am seeing increased sales, especially overseas. Basically all I did was change my one-word title, "Cyberdrome" to "Cyberdrome (a science fiction thriller)." I don't know if this change helps it show up in searches, or what, but it does seem to be boosting sales right now. I probably should have done this originally with the paperback because ...