Invest in your business, but avoid scammers

If you have a small business, you should invest in it. Nothing is for free, and the flower will not grow from the invisible seed.

This is the area I am still learning about. Where to promote your books and how much pay for them?

Let's start with free services. If you ask a friend to review your book, he will do it, but is it objective?

The more important question is, do you owe him a service for this? When you argue with a friend, will he delete his review and try to sabotage your work?

Don't shit where you eat, so it is not smart to involve emotions in business. You never know if your friend really likes a book or it is just a friendship benefit.

While you are still thinking about promoting your books, scammers will surround you like parasites and sharks.

I have this problem daily. Different services and admins of promotional pages come to my social media and emails to offer their services and guarantee success for me.

I have a common answer for all of them: If you were successful and profitable, you would not ask your customers desperately and spam them with emails. So, back off.

I promote my books by recommendations of my friend's authors. Nobody can predict how many books you will sell, but you can try.

I started this year with variable results.

What I wish:

To increase the visibility of my books.

To get more reviews.

I want to increase my audience, a reader's circle.

If my books are not good, say it in the review. A bad review is better than ignorance. Just, avoid abuse, personal reasons (if you don't like me), and don't brag too much about why you did not like it. Your opinion doesn't have to be a general opinion about my books.

Comments

Should we respond to negative reviews?

Recently I had a discussion in my social media about negative ratings. There was a situation in Goodreads, where I got two negative reviews on my two books. The point was in the way how the ratings were set up. First rating for my book "Body in the waves" was placed under 5-star review from another reviewer. While the reviewer praising my book, the troll came under to say "This is really bad book." Second rating was described as " Poor author needs writing lessons." Both reviews broke standards of reviewing, because there is no visible evidence that book was downloaded in Kindle unlimited or purchased. It was a clear troll act from a new page, without a profile photo and with a nickname. I reported this to Goodreads and they responded me they are processing this. Meanwhile, I heard from other authors that Goodreads failed to do anything about trolling. In these terms, Goodreads should delete such profiles and forbid the access because of breaking rules. T...

Swapping books - a devil's deal

"I will read your book if you read and review mine." This is an example of author's deal when it comes time for reviews. Reviews is hard to get. If you sell books, it is still not guarantee you will get reviews. If I could get a review for every book I sold, it would be great. People will buy book to collect it on the shelves and leave it un-read. Or, they will read but not rate it. Many reasons are for not getting reviews, but some people don't know where and how to write reviews or are not eligible. That is the reason why authors will turn to other authors, with a proposition for review. The danger of such review is on Amazon rules: author can't review other's author books on request. I love to read indie authors and they inspire me, but I have my circle and I never accept offers to read someone I never heard about. Once I got a proposition :" Hey, I saw your review for XX author, can you write it for me, too?" I ignored it. When you have a deal ...

Why is refund damaging indie authors?

I understand someone can be disappointed with a book. It is like I was disapointed with my trousers online and returned it. What makes a difference, my trousers were 40 euros. The book was 2.49 cents. This makes return funny, because what can you do with this money? Some readers don't understand story behind the refund. The author will get minus royalties. - 0.13 c in my Kindle report, that will vanish when someone else buy the book. The situation happens. Someone accidentaly clicked and bought a book. A random customer wants a refund. Maybe it was not a random move. Maybe the customer clicked, bought and did not like the book. When you don't like the book choose another options, instead of damaging authors. Write a negative review. Write negative one star rating. Don't purchase another books from this author. Or, maybe to reconsider and read it, again? If you write negative reviews or rate it with 1 or 2 stars, you are making a favor to authors. You are moving algorithms i...

Rebelious rules by Kristina Gallo

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