A thought on Inkshares pre-orders.
It occurs to me that I should not be asking "would you buy my book", but rather "do you think my book will sell, and would you put $5 on it?"
"Murder at the Veterans' Club" is a detective story, but I get the sense that nearly all of the people around me prefer the science-fiction and fantasy genres. There does exist a substantial body of mystery fans out there, but I am barely connected to them.
$5 isn't a lot, right? It's what it would cost to back the book at the lowest level, after having received the $5 credit for signing into Inkshares. And Inkshares doesn't count the *amount* of money, but rather the number of books sold. A $10 e-book ($5 after applying the credit) counts for exactly as much as a $20 printed book with author's signature ($15 after applying the credit). I get the feeling that asking people straight out for money might actually be more successful than trying to sell them something they may not even want.
But always: "do you think my book will sell". Because that's what this pre-order business is all about. And if I can't get the judgement of mystery fans, maybe I can get a lot of fantasy/sci-fi fans to take a guess.
"Murder at the Veterans' Club" is a detective story, but I get the sense that nearly all of the people around me prefer the science-fiction and fantasy genres. There does exist a substantial body of mystery fans out there, but I am barely connected to them.
$5 isn't a lot, right? It's what it would cost to back the book at the lowest level, after having received the $5 credit for signing into Inkshares. And Inkshares doesn't count the *amount* of money, but rather the number of books sold. A $10 e-book ($5 after applying the credit) counts for exactly as much as a $20 printed book with author's signature ($15 after applying the credit). I get the feeling that asking people straight out for money might actually be more successful than trying to sell them something they may not even want.
But always: "do you think my book will sell". Because that's what this pre-order business is all about. And if I can't get the judgement of mystery fans, maybe I can get a lot of fantasy/sci-fi fans to take a guess.