How Many Licks, um Books, Does It Take to Get to the Top of the Best-Seller List?

Reblogged from Kristen Lamb's Blog:

Click to visit the original post

Most of us, especially when we're new, want our first short story to be a major contest winner or our first novel to be a runaway success. That's natural. Of course, this is not reality for us mere mortals.

Just like most of us never picked up a violin and magically busted out a flawless rendition of Flight of the Bumblebee…

Read more… 720 more words

I just love love love this blog of Kristen Lamb's. If you're interested in ebooks and marketing as well as branding, a bit of really tongue-in-cheek humor, you gotta go look up this Texaschick.

Monday Mashup: Marketing 101

Monday Mashup

I used to do a mashup…but I got sidetracked as I usually do by reading and clicking around blogs instead of recording them and passing them on.

I can be so selfish sometimes.

So I’m going to try to rectify that by offering you a few of the interesting things I’ve read on that there Internet during the previous week. Bear in mind, some of these posts might actually be a little…old in terms of date published…but new to me.

If I found it interesting, I’ll pass it along.

  •  Jane Friedman put together  a list of 4 things to help authors with marketing.
  • Catherine Howard is offering her ebook of blog postings free for 2 more days (And nope. She’s not the reincarnation of the ill-fated third wife of Henry VIII…I didn’t actually check, of course, but I doubt she’d have come back with the same name.)
  • Al Boudreau is one heck of a supportive writer. Follow him on twitter and he doesn’t forget you. Like him on Facebook, and he doesn’t forget to engage you. This post is from his archives, but still a goodie.

Well, that’s it. I come across lots of great stuff in my internet travels, and it’s hard to pick favs. But this is my first attempt this week. Enjoy!

Have you come across some great posts this week about marketing? I’d love for you to share. Enter the link in the comments.

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Thea is the author of several novels that she considers left of mainstream. You can find her on Smashwords, BN, Kobo, Sony, Apple

Anomaly by Thea Atkinson

 

Thea Atkinson’s Friday Mashup @bookrepublik

Thea’s Three This Week

July 8, 2011

OK. Sometimes I peek at blogs from Twitter. Sometimes I’m annoyed at what I find; sometimes I’m intrigued; sometimes I learn something. And then….sometimes, I’m just damned amused. This week’s mashup is about the blogs I find on Twitter.

I clicked into the first blog this week because of the phrase: “Remember, “y’all” is singular, “all y’all” is plural, and “all y’all’s” is plural possessive” That ran across my feed. Huh? Wha? I HAD to click on the profile to see the weblink of whoever had that great a sense of humor.

Turns out the whole blog is like that. Love the bug post, the donut post, and oh, yes, the Southernisms.

  •  You really gotta check said blog, A Yankee’s Southern Exposure out. I subscribed. No foolin’
  •  Kai’s Kindle Reads is a review blog and it looks so durn pretty, I just had to include it. Besides, she’s going to eventually review Secret Language of Crows for me. (Which is on sale at Smashwords right now. )
  • I met Andy when I put a tweet out that my goal for the month of July was to sell a book in Germany. He thought it was an odd goal and we got to chatting. I thought I’d try to send some traffic his way (not that he needs it–it’s a neat blog)

Epiracy and ebooks. Have you been hacked?

Thea’s Three Mashup

June 24

There was a lot of rumbling early this week about ebook piracy. Most notably, a good colleague and friend Mel Comley mentioned it in a group I belong to and started a frenzy of great discussion. It put me to thinking: Would I be upset if someone stole my work? Would I think, hey, now I’ve made it? Epiracy hasn’t much hurt JK Rowling, has it? If I get pirated, that must mean I’m popular.

I can afford to think these things because so far, I’ve not been pirated enmasse, and I’m quite sure I’d be furious if I found out I was…especially since my sales are not stellar. I’d REALLY be ticked if folks were d/ling my work in droves and I was getting 70% of 2.99 once a day. Grrr. Ok. Now my blood is sufficiently boiling. Grin.

The Mashup has some links on epiracy info. I thought it prudent to at least keep a tab in case I needed to research more in the future. (hope not.)

So: Thea’s Three (plus a bonus track today) are:

So: what are your thoughts on stealing ebooks? Reader to reader? Writer to Writer? Writer to Reader? Reader to Writer?

Thea’s 3 Mashup. :It’s all about me, baby @guineapig66 @booksandpals @siblehodge

June 17, 2011

First of all, I woke up in a frenzy this morning. Had a heap of things to do before I had to run off to work and do all those Friday errands that have spilled over from the last Friday when I didn’t get the errands done. So. I forgot the mashup.

But:

Ha Ha! Joke’s on me cause I ended up finding 2 really great reviews today! Yippee! So In honor of the really generous folks who review us poor dejected indies, this one’s for you! (and me of course; it’s all about me.)

I really want you to go over and comment if you can, if you find the time, if you care at all about indies and their support system cause reviewers are part of it, baby. I don’t care if you read the review, but as writers, it’s nice to show any reviewer support. So without fanfare and excitement, here are my three:

  • Sibel Hodge is a stunning writer and she reviews too. She posted a review today for One Insular Tahiti. Thanks so much Sibel
  • Big Al is probably the best known and I really love his site. It’s full of great, insightful reviews of tons of books. You could drown in the reading list. He reviewed Anomaly a month or so ago

happy reading!

Thea’s 3 Mashup. :Take advice from Kristen Lamb and get er done

June 10, 2011

In honor of finishing Kristen Lamb’s book We are Not Alone I’m using her as a theme for my mashup this week. If you haven’t visited her blog and you are a writer trying to find ways to make sense of this whole social media thang, you really should subscribe. You should buy the book, in fact. (Just don’t take the advice of creating a MYSpace profile. She will tell you that after the book released MYSpace went ballistic.)

Speaking of Kristen Lamb, I’ve been working on advice from her blog to create posts that invite comment. Not working for me yet as I haven’t managed it successfully, but Vivienne Tuffnell’s blog is rich with comments. Each post she writes is full of people writing back to her and to each other. How does she do it? It’s worth the visit for investigation.

Mark Williams and Saffina desForges admittedly used Kristen’s (hope the first name’s ok, hun) advice to move into the top 10 – and one of them will correct me on the numbers I’m sure if it’s higher, and I think it is. They read Kristen’s book and applied the advice. They took off. I’m sure it has something to do with the writing, but readers have to find a writer first before it can become a sensation. These two even received mention on Kristen’s advice blog. I’m sending you to Mark Williams International because it’s wonderfully picture heavy and comment laden.

So how many of you have read and employed the advice in the book? Tell us about your successes and your failures. I’m listening.

Thea’s Three Mashup: @melcom1 @dailycheapreads

Thea’s Three Mashup

June 3, 2011

This week, I decided to Stumble my picks and guess what? Two personal favorites came up , so I immediately assumed it was Karma kicking my tires. I get to pass it on, you get to check em out:

1. OK. I’m a sucker for a cheap read. One day, I’ll manage to get featured here, but for those of you who don’t know it exists: Daily Cheap Reads is a fab place to pick up some freebies and great deals.

2. Having a hard time picking just the right name for a character? When I was writing Anomaly, Molly started out as three other names before I found the one that fit. Take a peek at this online name generator. cool idea.

3.Mel Comley has become quite a force with her two thriller novels, Impeding Justice and Final Justice. She has a blog where she does everything she can to support indie authors: even has guest posting. She’s one of my favorites this week just because she is always a doll on twitter. (@melcom1) in case you’re wondering

There you have it. Please feel comfortable to comment on my mashup and let me know if I’m linking you to anything interesting. I’m happy to hear. Or if you’d like to add a favorite for me to check out, let me know in the comments box thingie.

Thea’s Three Mashup: #epublishing stuff you gotta see

Thea’s Three Mashup

May 27, 2011

In my visits this week I’ve found a lot of posts that I really enjoyed for some reason or another. This week all seemed to have the theme of epublishing. so, without further ado, this week’s mashup:

1. When I found Abigail’s blog:  Abbielog, it was about the 99cent ebook model and i so enjoyed her post, I pasted her link right in my mashup. But she went one better and posted steps to publishing on Smashwords. You gotta go visit.

2. I’ve been trying to do this for months! namely, putting an amazon affiliate link on my WordPress blog. arggh. I still couldn’t get it to work, but some WordPressers have said yay! I thought it might help y’all out. I’m not really sure what the blog name is:

3. This was just a real fun lookieloo! If you like cover art, I promise you will not be disappointed.

There you have it. Please feel comfortable to comment on my mashup and let me know if I’m linking you to anything interesting. I’m happy to hear.

Thea’s Three Mashup on reading #amblogging

Thea’s Three Mashup

May 20, 2011

This week is all about reading and reader reaction.

1. Mariyta’s Musings: Why She’ll only buy indie authors

2. Big Al’s Books and Pals is a review site. (Big Al gave Anomaly 5 stars) and Big Al has a very active forum thread on Amazon.com. I really enjoy how he puts reviews together. You might want to check him out and see what he’s read lately.

3. I’m pretty sure i fail still at the tips on this posting, but it talks about creating great content that readers can read with ease. I just kind of happened upon it, so I’m not sure of the blog name (I think it’s 1st web design). but you see the linkie thingie, right? click, read, and learn.

That’s it for this week. I’m having fun doing these mashups. If you’ve found a place you liked this week, feel free to add the link below in the comments section.

Thea’s Three Mashup: all about the reader #amreading

Thea’s Three Mashup

May 20, 2011

This week is all about reading and reader reaction.

1. Mariyta’s Musings: Why She’ll only buy indie authors

2. Big Al’s Books and Pals is a review site. (Big Al gave Anomaly 5 stars) and Big Al has a very active forum thread on Amazon.com. I really enjoy how he puts reviews together. You might want to check him out and see what he’s read lately.

3. I’m pretty sure i fail still at the tips on this posting, but it talks about creating great content that readers can read with ease. I just kind of happened upon it, so I’m not sure of the blog name (I think it’s 1st web design). but you see the linkie thingie, right? click, read, and learn.

That’s it for this week. I’m having fun doing these mashups. If you’ve found a place you liked this week, feel free to add the link below in the comments section.

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