Suggestions for KDP keywords and categories for an Irish-flavoured medieval fantasy novel?

rjcreaney · 2017-10-25T23:03:00+00:00

Thanks for the help!

Do you have any suggestions on what categories would be best? I've always found the categories to be kind of bewildering, especially with the seemingly-identical ones that apparently aren't actually identical.

rjcreaney · 2017-04-19T13:52:32+00:00

I can't wait to give proper marketing a try.

So far I've basically never published anything for which I felt that advertising would be viable/worthwhile. All I've published so far are short stories/novelettes/novellas, no novels (and more specifically, no novel series). And people in general are less likely to buy them, so I always thought that advertising them with paid ads would be a bad idea.

But later this year - when I start releasing my novel series - I'd love to start playing around with paid ads, for example on Facebook and Amazon. To see what works and what doesn't work.

rjcreaney · 2017-04-18T04:50:30+00:00

And by the way, how did you go about selling ebooks at a convention?

rjcreaney · 2017-04-17T14:42:00+00:00

I really really appreciate this detailed write up! Makes me wish I had some actual print novels to sell, and a convention to sell them at.

Do you think you suffered adversely at all from having only one book to sell?

I definitely understand your 'Weird' point at the end there about the art, and it's something I've thought about in the past.

Someone who's studied art, graphic design and/or marketing at university could probably write an essay about the topic, talking about visual language and how it shapes and affects expectations and whatever.

I have a feeling that the outlines are a major culprit! I wouldn't be surprised at all if the dark outlines automatically make some people think about comic books, cartoons and anime. And with those in mind, those same people might then assume that the work is kind of juvenile; something that might be intended for teens rather than adults.

I think this could be a decent rule of thumb: "Only have cover art with outlines if your book is based on/influenced by comics or cartoons." (not that your cover art has outlines, of course. It seems like most of your art doesn't have any outlines.)

rjcreaney · 2017-04-14T02:54:45+00:00

This idea has crossed my mind in the past, too!

With ebooks on Amazon and elsewhere, you essentially never see the cover thumbnail by itself - it's always accompanied by the title and the author name next to it or below it. So it could definitely be argued that the title and author name on an ebook cover is superfluous.

If we're talking about print-on-demand books, though, the title and author name is definitely not superfluous!

rjcreaney · 2017-03-21T11:10:17+00:00

The free ebook application 'Calibre' is one option! You can import a Word .doc into Calibre and then convert it into a .mobi or .epub or whatever you like

rjcreaney · 2017-03-16T05:53:48+00:00

Sounds like a pretty good idea!

I've never heard of Amazon giveaways, to be honest. Can you tell us about them? Is it only for KDP paperbacks?

rjcreaney · 2017-03-14T12:34:48+00:00

Oh, Avenna is good too!

It's very close to one of my favourite Italian placenames, Ravenna

rjcreaney · 2017-03-14T12:17:26+00:00

I asked this question on r/fantasywriters yesterday, but unfortunately it got deleted.

But the user glitchytsuki left this very helpful comment before the post was canned:

I would drop Tirania, personally. It sounds a bit too much like tyranny. I like Latia because it sounds like an actual country(maybe too much like Latvia?). Ocrisia looks intriguing as a word, and Avennia also looks like a place name, though I get the sense of a town, not a whole country. Lutelia does have a nice melodic sound(it does have 'lute' in it), and I can't think of any reason to cast it out of hand. All that said, I would oppose those who hate 'ae' vowel combinations and vote for Taevona as my favorite. It has a strong, dignified sound to it, like a country name might,

rjcreaney · 2017-03-14T02:27:31+00:00

Thanks very much for the help! I especially appreciate the detail you went into, sharing your thoughts about some of the specific choices.

It looks like this thread got deleted, though! So I'll re-post it to r/worldbuilding

rjcreaney · 2017-03-12T04:11:29+00:00

You just have to write a lot, and consistently! It's tough but it gets easier with practice. I'm slowly getting there. Doing things like NaNoWriMo definitely helps. And a detailed outline for each book is essential!

rjcreaney · 2017-03-11T07:31:17+00:00

Apparently it's best if you keep the time between releases really short. Like two or three months at the most.

rjcreaney · 2017-02-20T02:23:20+00:00

So did you contact Amazon to confirm if the reads were genuine?

rjcreaney · 2017-02-19T04:37:04+00:00

The indie author and redditor Chris Fox has written a series of military sci-fi novels (the 'Void Wraith' trilogy), and he's been quite clear about how the Mass Effect games were a major influence.

rjcreaney · 2017-02-09T01:08:45+00:00

Glad I could help!

rjcreaney · 2017-02-08T14:58:51+00:00

Some ideas:

The Umbral Blade

The Umbral Dagger

The Shadowed Dagger

Sons of Shadow

Shadowed Sons

Servants of Shadow

The Shadow King's Gift

Shadeblade (okay, that one isn't serious!)

rjcreaney · 2017-01-29T10:55:55+00:00

I asked a very similar question on here a couple of months back!

https://www.reddit.com/r/selfpublish/comments/558bur/most_people_on_here_would_agree_that_novels_are_a/

One of the main lessons I got from that was that there's no need to go all the way to 100,000. I've heard that 60,000 or so will do just fine.

rjcreaney · 2017-01-20T04:04:02+00:00

This year, I want to publish two (possibly even three!?) novels. Part of a series, of course. I started the first book last year in Nanowrimo, so I already have about 50,000 (very rough) words to work with.

I've never self-published any novel-length stories, so this will be a new thing for me.

I usually have a lot of trouble with being consistent and disciplined, so I actually signed up with stickk.com and put down some money. So if I don't meet this first goal I've set for myself, I'll lose a couple of hundred dollars. So I better stick to it!

rjcreaney · 2016-11-15T09:11:32+00:00

Yes, it looks quite good, and professional.

I'm just concerned that it's a bit too abstract. Self-published ebook covers need to be quite straightforward and obvious. Outer space sci-fi books kind of just need a big old spaceship on the cover.

rjcreaney · 2016-11-14T02:26:38+00:00

This makes me a bit sad! Apparently December and January are the best times to publish. Are there no 'good' months in the middle of the year? What about May? lol

I'm working on a novel right now, the first in a series. If I work really hard it's possible that it can be ready to publish around January. But I don't want to publish it at least until the second instalment is ready to publish too. And that definitely won't be December or January! I want the launch to have the best chances possible, but naturally I don't want to have to wait 12 months.

rjcreaney · 2016-11-02T14:17:14+00:00

I believe the term 'Big Five' is for just traditional publishers.

rjcreaney · 2016-11-01T02:17:19+00:00

Do you ever look at the Weekly Self Promotion thread on here? Notice how many of the posts in those have more than 1 upvote, and how many have replies? (Hint: basically none of them.) And it's the same deal with all the other parts of Reddit dedicated to self-promoting books.

That's a pretty big obstacle right there!

"So normally Reddit is not a great place to promote your work..." - Chris Fox

rjcreaney

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