Neal Kristopher

Selling Myself For Fame And Profit

III - Foreground

So what are my ideas for selling myself, you ask? Continuing to write, for one. If I have any hope of making any real, long lasting income from my novels, I have to have a lot of them out. It's not outside the realm of possibility for a previously unpublished author self-E-Pubbing to sell a hundred or so books a month. That's not a lot of dough at $2 in profit a sale, but if you have seven other novels that reader can pick up if they like it, you stand a chance of making enough to pay a bill or two. 

Obviously, I'd love to make it big and sell thousands of books a month, rather than tens, but to be frank, it probably wont happen. So I've made myself content with the idea of writing because I love to write. Which is good, I suppose. But I need to write MORE.

The other plan is to take the dozens and dozens of sites online that I peruse randomly and making a series of organized bookmarks. Every Monday, I open that folder of bookmarks and every site that is in there - I comment on the blogs. It's a little cynical, but there's virtually no better way to get people to know you exist than by commenting on other people's blogs in the hopes they like your comment and click through to see what your blog is like, then buy your book. Ugh. The trick is to actually enjoy the blogs you're commenting on and make meaningful comments. 

Sure, other ways exist - I have a Twitter account for being a twit and a Facebook account for "Liking" things, but no one really seems to click through on those. They might follow you, or friend you, but so few find you.

I do think a Goodreads account is important too.

The real trick when commenting on blogs is to make it easy for people to follow you back down the rabbit hole to your wonderland. Sure, sure, they could click on your picture, then find your profile, then click on the blog link, if you've remembered to make your profile public and linked your accounts properly. Who does that? Or you could write something at the bottom of your post - "Mr. Pale Rides Again - Out NOW! Follow my blog and look for me on twitter to order! www.nealkristopher.com" but the easiest way, and the least "Jerky" way I've found is to put a simple hyperlink at the bottom of your comment.

I usually just sign it My Writing Blog or, simply Neal Kristopher.

You'll notice that both of those are clickable and lead right back here to my site. (Though the code below isn't how you actually make links in the blogs themselves, just comments and places like message boards) The links are easy to do with a little code and adaptable too. Say there is a legitimate reason to mention your book in a comment, and not just that you've shoehorned it in to get in a plug. Then when the comment includes the words "My Book" or what have you, make it link to your Amazon page. Easy peasy!

The code is as follows - <a href="thenameofyourwebsite"> The Words You Want To Appear In The Comment </a> simply copy that and paste it at the end of your comment. When it posts on the page, it shows as a clickable link to your page. This is what mine looks like - <a href="http://nealkristopher.blogspot.com/">My Writing Blog</a>  I have an email saved with my assorted links in this form and when I comment on something, I just open that email and copy and paste the code.

Beyond that, for now... that's all. Eventually, I may ask some bloggers/reviewers to review a copy, but I want to try letting Mr. Pale breathe on his own for a little while.