personal news

Moi is interviewed today at the Kindle Author blog, a spot that features a lot of authors who publish at Kindle and elsewhere, both indie and traditional. (Their main focus is indie, but these days the lines are really blurring. Many traditionally published folk, like yours truly, have a second—or maybe third—foot planted in the indie category, too.)

Anyway, I won’t repeat here what I said there, so why don’t you take a look at the interview? Here’s the permanent link, but if you go to the main page (at least today), you can read my interview and then scroll down and read some other interviews, as well. A fair number of my fellow Backlist Ebooks authors have been sighted there in recent days.

(In other news, tax time is still right around the corner, and I’m now immersed in the Quicken Sargasso, bringing a year’s worth of business records up to date. I’m a walking example of the assertion that some people never learn.)

I wonder if you folks would be willing to help me out a little. Many of you have been remarkably supportive, and have even gone so far as to buy my books. (Thanks!) What I’m asking now is not that you buy my books, but that you help other people buy my books.

Common wisdom has it that word of mouth is the best way to sell. I always love it if you tell your friends and relatives and near-relatives about my work. Now I’d love it even more if you’d help tell some strangers. Here’s how: by posting reviews, and by tagging.

I’m going to talk now of Amazon, but I’m sure there are variations of this in a hundred places. If you know them—please, by all means. Anyway, here’s Amazon, and here’s what I’d love you to do: go to my Amazon Kindle page. From there, you can click each of my ebook titles, which will take you to the product pages.

Once you’re on each book’s page, you have the option of posting a review. Please don’t do anything that you’re uncomfortable with, or that isn’t honest. But if you’ve read the book in question, and you liked it, and feel moved to post even a very brief review, that would be wonderful. Still, reviews are just one way to help.

Amazon has a tagging feature for each book. Those tags help select books shown to browsing customers. There’s no value judgment. The tags simply characterize the books: this one’s about alien contact, or artificial intelligence, or rutabagas in Spain—whatever’s appropriate. My books already have these tags. What I’d like you to do is agree with them. The more people agree with tags, the more weight the tags carry in searches. Here’s how:

When you get to the page, type “tt” quickly—just the letter T twice. (Edit: Click on the page first. You can also just scroll down, but you have to scroll quite a ways.) That’ll take you right to the tags, and open up a little dialogue with the existing tags. (You might have to be logged in as a customer.) If you just check all those tags, or copy and paste them into the little box, then click Save, you’ll register another vote for the tags. It might offer you a chance to Agree with them, or to See All the tags. That’s a good thing to do, too. If a lot of you do that for me, it should bring my books to more people’s attention. You don’t have to say it’s a great book, or lie about how you stayed up all night reading it, or anything like that. Just agree that I know what the books are about. Add more tags, if you like. (Edit: If you feel comfortable clicking the “Like” button, that’s helpful, too.  You can also do this in the Nook store.)

This is a big favor to ask. But if you have a little spare time and would be willing to do it, I’d be eternally grateful. You might not be literally saving my life, but you sure could help me push this writing business one step closer to actually earning a living! Big thanks!