Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Raking in the dough?

I've spent far too much of the last day looking for ways to promote my e books. 

All we keep hearing is that ebooks are exploding, and instead of people reading less, because of Kindle/Nook, etc., people are reading more.  The hard part is getting people to find one's books.

In a bookstore, you can peruse the shelves.  Like that cover?  Intrigued by that back cover blurb?  Buy the book.  But how do readers find books on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.com?

That's got my knickers in a twist.

You might be asking yourself "Why does she care?  Isn't she raking in the dough from her New York Times Bestselling Booktown Mystery series?"

How do I know?  I only get paid twice a year.  That's six months between checks.  But somehow the dentist has to be paid RIGHT NOW.  (It used to be you could pay on time...not any more!)  Oops--the brakes went bad on my car.  I can stall for a month until the VISA bill comes in.  Holy smoke!  The quarterly health care bill is due on September 1st!  (Ain't no employer contributing to that bill for Hubby and me -- and it's a killer.)

Authors need a steady cash flow just like the rest of society. But, we aren't paid on a weekly, biweekly or even monthly basis.  Amazon does pay on a monthly basis -- albeit 60 days after the end of the month the sales occurred.

I, and many other authors, need to find steady cash flow just so we can live and write.

So, any ideas on how to promote my e book backlist?  (And in case you're wondering what my backlist, you can find it here.)