KOBO Ups Royalties for The Self-Published

Kobo, the Japanese counterpart to Amazon, is running a limited time promotion. Between September 1 and November 30 all ebooks priced between $1.99 and $12.99 will earn their authors 80 percent royalty (vs. Amazon’s 70%).

If the book is priced outside of this range, the author will earn 45% royalties (vs. Amazon’s 35%).

Kobo, anyone? kobobooks.com/KoboWritingLife

Goodreads Giveaway: shipping the world over

I’m giving away 3 paperback copies of my novel, Tell A Thousand Lies, no matter where you live in the world. Stop by at Goodreads to join the 515 people currently vying for the book (as of July 14, 2012, 9:30 pm IST).

It has garnered good reviews on Amazon (link here) as well as Goodreads.

Promotion ends July 25, 2012.  Click here for the link.

Importance of Marketing Your Books

In the good old days (does anyone even remember them?) it was enough to let your words speak for you. Not anymore, unfortunately. Because a gazillion books get published annually (esp. with the advent of ebooks and self-publishing) it is vital that one peddle one’s self, distasteful as it sounds. As an author (esp. if you write fiction), your brand is your name. If you write non-fiction, it is a tad bit easier because you can create a platform. With fiction how do you even do it?

The trigger for my completed novel Tell A Thousand Lies [coming soon]  was India’s obsession with fairness and fairness creams (hence my twitter tagline:    My novel in brief – Fairness Creams: Finding Solutions to Life’s Vexing Problems, One Application at a time.)

Having cute taglines doesn’t suffice however. You still have to be all over the internet, though I find that it’s emptying my brain of its creativity.

Check out Kelly Kathleen Ferguson’s blog post on internet promotion and what she’s been up to.