Folks, I promise I’ll try to keep my sales pitches to a minimum, but as many self-published authors have discovered, we really are our own best cheerleaders. And who knows? I get new followers on WordPress almost daily and perhaps they have yet to hear about my book. Honestly, it’s a public service I’m performing here.
You see my debut novel, Mayhem at the Happy Valley Motor Inn and Resort, is my baby, and I’m proud of her. Oh, I’m well aware that she has a few flaws, but those just make her more adorable. And everyone knows that only grandchildren can attain perfection.
If you have a moment today, I’d love for you to visit Amazon, look up Mayhem at the Happy Valley Motor Inn and Resort and take a moment to read the reviews. Yes, some of them were written by personal friends, but most are from innocent bystanders. Innocent. Bystanders. Who genuinely seem to have liked my story and my characters.
I know eventually there’ll be less than stellar reviews. I’m trying to prepare myself mentally for those. An author in one of my groups said her favorite bad review was along the lines of, “This story seems to have been written by a constipated rock. Just let it GO!”
Oh, if you have read Mayhem, THANK YOU! Please leave a review. A few words mean so much and reviews are the key to keeping one’s book in the spotlight on Amazon.
End of sales pitch. Carry on (to Amazon). And peace, people.
Praying for Eyebrowz 
That’s interesting
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Listen you are your own selling tool. So never apologise. Also mind re reviews the ones where you are the worst author I ahve ever heard of…to quote Jack Sparrow, ‘ at least you havc heard of me.’
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That’s so true!
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Reblogged this on Our Eyes Open and commented:
Mayhem at the Happy Valley Motor Inn and Resort is a new book written by my friend Leslie. It was a real page turner with great character development. You will feel the sadness and happiness through their own self discovery. I highly recommend this book and please visit her blog.
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Thank you!!!
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You are welcome. Hope it helps. 🙂
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Me, too! Sales had been steady until this week, then nothing. I asked my husband if he’d buy a copy. 😉
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The ups and downs of sales. My Etsy shop is at its lowest this month since last July. Not sure what’s going on but it is a bit unsettling. Could be the pandemic is catching up to more people. I know unemployment hit an all time high two weeks ago in Florida and other states. 🙂 The book is real good so don’t let that let that get you down to where you can’t write. It will pick back up…I’m sure of it!
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Thank you! I’m going to try a using a Facebook page in addition to WordPress.
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I think that is a great idea. 🙂
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I’m sure there is nothing constipated about your book
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Lol!!! I know I never once used the word “constipated”!
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🙂
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I really struggle with the self-promotion part of all of this. I absolutely hate doing it and I’m REALLY not very good at it. I love that it sits easier with you.
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Trust me, I struggle, too. I did finally create an author page on Facebook. I’d been relying on my own page and the blog to spread the word. Remind me of the title of your book. I was going to recommend it to a friend the other day and couldn’t remember the title. It’s in my kindle library, but there are so many books in there that I gave up after a few minutes of searching.
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It’s “An Unexpected Turn”. Sadly, I think you have to include the author name (TJ Fox) in Amazon searches anymore for it to show up. Thank you for the recommendation! Those are ALWAYS more than welcome. When I have more than 5 minutes to sit down, I’m hoping to get to yours.
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I’ll let her know that.
Did you do any Facebook and/or Amazon ads for your book?
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I’ve done Amazon ads (there are a few posts on my blog about the experience) and had both good and bad experiences. I’d say if you are going to do an ad, definitely do it while it was new and still showing as a new release. It can drastically improve your rankings and help get eyes on it. I tried the FB ad and didn’t get a thing out of it. You might want to look into Book Sirens as a potential resource for getting some reviews. Almost all of the ones I got were posted only on Goodreads, but maybe a little over a third made it to Amazon as well. You do have to pay Book Sirens for the service, but the reviews are not paid for themselves. It was a pretty inexpensive option and I got the number of reviewers I asked for picking it up and probably a 90% return on actual reviews. Another possibility is trying to do a virtual book tour via blogs (there are services that do this), but those can be expensive and I never went that route so cannot say one way or the other how much they’d help.
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Thanks! I’m about to publish a romance, and hope to have a sequel to the first book out this summer. My editor, who’s published several books, says that I should wait to post ads until I have the sequel. Honestly, I knew going into this that I’d never make any money. Heck, I’ve been surprised at the number and tone of the reviews I’ve gotten. Everything I do I seem to approach backwards and sideways. Why should this be any different???
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I so did all my stuff backwards, so I’m kind of coming from behind on a lot of it. Do look into the blog tours if you are planning on doing additional books. That is such a huge thing for authors of multiple books.
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I will. Shehanne Moore interviewed me on her blog. Actually, she sent me some questions and I sent her some answers and her hamsters “interviewed” me. It was fun.
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That’s awesome!
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It’s been a while since I read your book, but I’d love to interview you on my blog.
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Oh, goodness! I feel so boring and the whole “imposter syndrome” really applies here. I’ll be glad to try and THANK YOU for think of me. I do so appreciate it.
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I loved your book. It was beautifully written. Your plot was solid and the dialogue was terrific.
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Aw! Thank you so much!
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You are welcome.
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You’re hardly boring. Why don’t you send me the things you want people to know about your novel—how you came up with the idea, how long it took you to write it (that’s an incredible tale in itself). Include a sample of the story from a chapter and a photo of the cover. My email address is nananoyz@icloud.com.
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Dang! You don’t ask for much, do you! lol! Those are all the questions I struggle so hard to answer. It’s so funny, but I really stink at actually talking about my book. I’ll see what I can come up with and you can see if you can work with it.
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I know exactly what you mean!
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I’ve sent you an email. Hopefully it is what you were looking for. Again, thank you!
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Glad to do it. Honestly don’t know why I didn’t think of it long ago.
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I have a preview ready for you. Just sent it to your email.
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