Category Archives: Writing Market

August 7, 2014 · 11:24 pm

How a Goodreads juggernaut chooses her books

I just posted something about “jungle-search.com”.  Sorry for the back-to-back posts, but I just got permission to post Tammy K’s wonderful breakdown on how she chooses her ebooks.  It’s sort of fascinating:

[link to the original discussion]

Tammy K, of Pro-Active Destruction says…

Yesterday, while on Facebook, I came across an author asking about her book’s blurb and cover. She was looking for ways to increase her downloads/sales.
I offered her some advice on her cover. Today I seen that she had ideas to improve her books blur (description).
The more that I thought about this conversation the more I pondered the ‘reasons’ that I download one book over another.
When I browse titles at any website, a couple of things are running through my mind before I even click on the books.
• I have X amount of time to shop.
• I have x amount of room on my kindle/cloud
• I have an interesting in reading w, x, y and z genres
• I have X amount of money left on my monthly eBook allowance.

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August 7, 2014 · 11:15 pm

Jungle-search.com — who knew?

A mighty reviewer over on Goodreads uses this search engine to find kindle books. I had no idea there was a tool like this out there.  I post it here for your happiness:

http://www.jungle-search.com/US/kindle.php

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July 24, 2014 · 1:49 pm

Rocking Self-publishing podcast episode 57

I wrote Simon Whistler and jokingly told him this episode was so good I almost didn’t want to tell anyone about it.  It covered: pen names, word counts, price points, writing in multiple genres, writing rules by various great authors, the future, the past, the kitchen sink, the bathroom sink, you name it.  If you’re an indie author and want to listen to something both inspiring and informative, Here It Is.

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May 31, 2014 · 10:04 pm

Johanna Rae’s Rafflecopter Giveaway

The lovely/mysterious paranormal author Johanna Rae is doing a rafflecopter giveaway and has chosen “Kick” as one of the possible prizes. I’m honored. She was the very first person to interview me and she’s been very supportive of “Kick”, as well as incredibly nice in general.

Link to Johanna Rae’s Facebook page, to see the various books (and a link to the giveaway):
https://www.facebook.com/johannamrae/timeline

Link to the giveaway:
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Link to Johanna Rae’s blog:
http://www.johannamrae.blogspot.co.nz/

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April 2, 2014 · 9:54 am

Win my eBook (if you dare…)

P.T. Hylton, author of “Regulation 19”, is doing a promo where you can win a copy of my book by answering a weird question. Neat idea for a promo. He does it for other books too, but this month he chose me. Very cool.

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March 31, 2014 · 4:41 pm

Permafree — Fogland: House Call on Queasy Street

A minor miracle: Amazon now has “Queasy Street” up for free.  This should help me reach readers who would like to sample my writing before paying full price for “Kick”.

It’s ranked #6 in the free store in one of the categories 🙂

john_l_monk_fogland

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March 26, 2014 · 10:57 am

Reading “Write. Publish. Repeat.” now

I’m finally reading “Write. Publish. Repeat.”

It’s a book by the makers of the Self-publishing Podcast, and it’s pretty darn good so far (about 1/2 the way through). I can already tell it’s worth the purchase price of $5.99, and potentially worth much, much more in terms of my success as an indie author.  What’s funny (sort of) is that these guys are too successful to qualify for the “Awesome Indies” list.

But it doesn’t stop me from saying good job, now does it?

 

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March 21, 2014 · 11:18 am

Excellent podcast episode with Russell Blake on self-publishing

This guy works at it, he’s successful, and he talks about why and how.  Anyone who’s serious and has time to listen, I recommend you do so:

http://rockingselfpublishing.com/episode-39-writing-entrepreneurial-venture-russell-blake-2/#listen

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March 20, 2014 · 9:59 am

Fogland Episode 3: House Call on Queasy Street

Mark Capell, an author I learned about through Lindy Moone, has produced a podcast of a story I submitted for his Fogland project.  You can listen to it for free at the Fogland website. It’ll also be available on iTunes.

Ladies: if listening to Mark Capell’s sexy British accent doesn’t do it for you (it did for me), you can download the ebook for 99 cents on Amazon.

Anyway, what else?  Oh yeah, here are the links:

Podcast on Fogland Website (free/sexy)

eBook on Amazon (99 cents)

Amazon UK (.77 in pieces of eight)

john_l_monk_fogland

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March 18, 2014 · 3:35 pm

Made it to the next round in the “Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award” contest

abnaI was hesitant to post this on the blog because getting to round 2 has nothing to do with the actual book part of the book.  What you do is pitch the story as if you were pitching it to a publisher. Apparently, out of the 10,000 entrants, they liked mine and 1999 other pitches.  I can’t help but feel bad for the other 8,000 people who didn’t get picked.

Still, it’s pretty cool.

From now until April 14, I can still enjoy that feeling you get when you play the lottery on Monday: like I’m walking around with THE winning ticket.  I still get to dream of all the things I’ll buy with the $50,000 Grand Prize.

Things I can buy with $50,000:

  • 50,000 cheeseburgers off McDonald’s $1 menu.
  • An awesome, tricked-out gaming computer for $5,000, and 45,000 cheeseburgers off McDonald’s $1 menu.
  • A gallon of gas in 2025.
  • I could quit my job and write full time for a year, see how that goes (wife won’t let me).
  • New car? Naa…
  • European vacation?  Definitely, though with a side-trip to Malta for a week.
  • Charity…uh…sure…(whistle).
  • Or instead of the European vacation, a camper for road trips.

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