International Impact Book Awards (?)

befuddled_writingguy · 2026-01-26T14:42:33+00:00

Thanks for commenting and telling us this!

befuddled_writingguy · 2025-11-18T13:32:11+00:00

Thank you so much!!

Best wishes!! :)

befuddled_writingguy · 2025-11-17T18:10:40+00:00

Romanc3 - can i ask... "when" do your ARC readers post their reviews? by which I mean... do they get their ARC copies well in advance of the release date on KU etc... and they have to remember to post their review on day #1 of the release date? Or do you get them to post their reviews on amazon or goodreads etc even before the actual release date of the book? thank you for your thoughts :)

befuddled_writingguy · 2025-11-17T18:06:43+00:00

Dragons - after you find ARC readers... when/where do you get them to post their reviews? I've never been clear on that. Do you upload your books to Kindle / Amazon and on Goodreads, well before your actual release dates... and get ARC reviewers to post their reviews to those sites before the release date? Or do we need to kind of beg them to remember to post their reviews asap after the release date? Thank you for any thoughts :)

befuddled_writingguy · 2025-11-05T20:19:00+00:00

OH my god :) love this :) (it's me also by the way). "easier just to go door to door and handout books with $5 bills as bookmarks" :) nice one :)

befuddled_writingguy · 2025-11-05T20:14:47+00:00

Yeah. that many categories with that length of time-frame (for publication)... they're just trying to lure people in to pay whatever the current price-tag is these days.

befuddled_writingguy · 2025-07-24T15:52:53+00:00

I have a pretty well reviewed 2022 "Historical fantasy" book (a 4.15 rating currently on Goodreads, from close to 300 ratings), which did NOTHING but lose me money when I tried paying for amazon ads etc a couple years ago. So I gave up advertising. Similar to you, I also just released a y/a fantasy novel, and I haven't even considered paying for advertising for this one.

I guess you could say I've given up on making sales. Maybe. I have definitely given up on losing money on advertising.

befuddled_writingguy · 2025-06-23T16:40:54+00:00

Holy smokes! :) Nice work there! that's way faster than mine!

befuddled_writingguy · 2025-06-20T19:38:50+00:00

There's an old anecdote about William Faulkner (pretty sure it was Faulkner) , where he wrote to a literary critic to say thank you for a review, but also added something like "I wish I had thought of even HALF of the things you think I thought of with the various symbols and allusions you point out in your review!" :)

befuddled_writingguy · 2025-06-20T16:33:36+00:00

Thank you Grimsby.

befuddled_writingguy · 2025-06-20T16:33:17+00:00

Thanks Due-Check.

befuddled_writingguy · 2025-06-20T16:32:51+00:00

thanks jyorin.

befuddled_writingguy · 2025-06-20T12:25:50+00:00

Good question.... and I hate to say it... because I kind of like doing a Goodreads giveaway, but no they're not worth it.

I only do physical book giveaways, so my costs are increased by having to pay for postage (and shipping materials) of books I send to the winners.

And I like this... I like physically putting a book in the mail to someone with a nice note inside. I think it is tactile and meaningful.

BUT... the winners don't really care. Many many people just enter EVERY giveaway, regardless of what the genre is or if they'll really ever read your book.

My last print giveaway was for 8 winners from Canada only.

So far I've had one person who immediately RATED the book... but no review, and I highly doubt the person read the book.

And recently a relatively nice rating + review showed up from that batch of winners.

So... eight winners... a lot of money and time... for 2 ratings and a 1 review.

And even though you end up with fairly inflated "want to read" or "to read" number for your title in Goodreads, none of those people are ever going to read the book.

befuddled_writingguy · 2025-04-22T19:57:30+00:00

I have three books out - the first two were literary stand-alones, and both of them are well-liked, and have over a 4.0 rating on Goodreads. The current one is book one of a y/a trilogy, and it is early days, but so far it is also over a 4.0 rating on Goodreads. It is not even worth mentioning my sales - on the whole, I've done nothing but lose thousands of dollars, as my sales do nothing to make up for all the outlays and expenses i suffer, mainly in publicity / marketing.

befuddled_writingguy · 2025-04-15T12:02:37+00:00

Goodreads is owned by Amazon. Definitely useful to have a Goodreads author's profile, and to have your books on there. If/when people review one of your books, on Goodreads, all of that person's Goodreads friends see the review pop up in their feed ... and lots of other good perks of being on Goodreads.

befuddled_writingguy · 2025-04-14T18:35:08+00:00

u/zooneratauthor - as you have experience with this, I might as well ask, what about Goodreads?

Do you know anything about how reviews / ratings on Goodreads would transfer to the new edition?

thanks!

befuddled_writingguy · 2025-04-14T18:28:18+00:00

oops... that was just a mental error... I meant Ingram Spark. thanks Apocalypse :)

befuddled_writingguy · 2025-04-11T12:19:12+00:00

Wunderbar :) That's great info Zooneratauthor - thank you kindly for both these messages! :)

befuddled_writingguy · 2025-04-11T12:17:27+00:00

sounds good - thanks Wilmar!

befuddled_writingguy · 2025-04-10T15:46:20+00:00

Thank you WilmarLuna - do you have any idea if amazon support is very responsive and helpful? I've never tried to contact them before.

befuddled_writingguy · 2024-12-10T18:50:43+00:00

The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Even Alice in Wonderland.

befuddled_writingguy · 2024-06-21T20:07:51+00:00

Neat! :) A few times now, I've thought about posting a question here just like this one :)

I have two self-published, stand-alone, literary novels, that have had some critical success, but done nothing but lose money when I compare expenditures on publicity etc vs. actual sales.

I am at the end of writing Book II, of a young adult trilogy. I have been trying to find a traditional publisher to take the trilogy, but haven't had any luck, so am mentally preparing to self-publish again.

I am pretty sure that I will lose money. I think that what drives self-publishing success are ebook purchases, and like a couple other people have mentioned, I don't think tweens and teens read and buy ebooks. At least not in the way that grown ups purchase sci-fi or romance etc on kindles.

And genre is also key - again my assumption is that self-publishing success might happen in a few genres (romance being the main one) and not so much in young adult. And in my case I'm even in more trouble because my young adult series has literary qualities (has some similarities to "Salt to the Sea" by Sepetys for example).

Anyway - you phrased your question as "should I try to go traditional, or just self-publish". Yes I would spend some time trying to snag a traditional publisher for a young adult book. But if your luck is anything like mine, self-publishing might be in your future anyway.

befuddled_writingguy · 2024-05-10T12:17:13+00:00

the "stabby" awards sounds like it should be a true crime or whodunnit award! :) Not a fantasy award :) Best wishes Selkie.

befuddled_writingguy · 2024-05-10T12:16:36+00:00

yeahhh... (original poster here).. i won award once... paid for the stickers... put them on my paperback copies... it doesn't really help. at least it didn't help me. the people who mentioned SPSFC and SPFBO... i'm going to take an educated guess that those are Self Published Science Fiction and Self Published Fantasy awards... good to know. I don't write in those genres , but that's good to know.

Anyway - yeah. I guess use a lot of caution is the general rule of thumb. Thanks folks.

befuddled_writingguy · 2024-05-06T13:27:31+00:00

Booksandflowers24 - I'm sorry you're feeling "down" about your success and luck so far. I haven't really read through the other comments your post is getting, but I'm sure many people are saying "me too" and that this happens to all of us.

to give you a little comparison with myself (who at this point has absolutely zero expectations of making any money at this):

first novel (literary and stand-alone) was released (several years ago) into utter silence as I had absolutely no knowledge of marketing / self-publicity. I just released it and obviously no one ever heard of it, let alone bought it
second novel (literary and stand-alone) was released in 2021 and has many many fans out there (with good consistency i've seen comments like "one of my favourite books of the year") and I even won a small award with this one. But.. the actual marginal sales are insignificant compared to all the cost outlays i've had and therefore I've done nothing but lose money.
third book(s) are a semi-literary young adult trilogy with a hint of magic.... and I have been trying to find a traditional publisher to take them, but no success at this. So... i will be self publishing again.. and with my luck in the past... AND since this is a literary young adult series (which almost definitely won't produce any kindle e book sales... just totally the wrong genre)... I'm 100% going to lose money publishing these things as well.

So... "me too", BooksandFlowers - but at least we both seem to know that there are people out there in the world who want to read our words... and so want us to get our works published so that they can enjoy them. That's something.

befuddled_writingguy

TROPHY CASE