[UPDATE 8/28/2013: I’ve decided not to work too hard at this Libboo thing. I just don’t want to ask people to go push my books for me unless they really feel the urge. And if they do, they know it already. So I’ll leave Shiver on Libboo’s site for a while and see what happens–but I don’t intend to tweet or blog about it again. Pretty much the same thing I’m doing on Wattpad and Goodreads: I put stuff up, people don’t find it, and I go do something else instead of getting involved…only so many hours in the day! {8′> ]
Hi everybody!
If you came looking for a story, click here for the latest. Otherwise, I’d like to run an idea by you and find out what you think.
The fine folks at Libboo reached out to me a few days ago suggesting I list Shiver on the Sky with them.
I don’t see a lot of downside to this. They’re a startup, and I like startups. Essentially they have a setup that lets you:
- Find books you like (or follow a link to one…more on that in a minute),
- “Buzz” that book, meaning you share links on social media or elsewhere,
- Profit! Meaning that a certain number of “buzz hits” earns you rewards. Buzz hits are clicks on the links you share.
I like the idea in principle. I didn’t like that they asked me for a list of email addresses, because that’s way spammy. Anyway, I didn’t do go along there–but I did tweet about it and I’m doing this blog post.
The rewards? Libboo does a watermarked freebie by default, but I’m not a big fan of watermarked books unless people specifically want them. Also, Shiver is already free at Smashwords and will be free in a lot more places soon.
So I came up with the following instead, with the reward to be selected by you:
- Any ebook of mine, in any format, optionally including an author signature and/or the buzzer’s name;
- A guest blog post on the buzzer’s topic of choice, as long as it passes my internal content filters, which are sometimes admittedly lax (meaning you write one for my blog, or I write one for yours);
- A character named for the buzzer in an upcoming story or novel. Note: other names are okay too, but if they’re truly weird I may not be able to do it. Also, I never know what will happen when I start writing, so the character may die horribly in a totally embarrassing way. Possibly without even getting off a good line. You have been warned.
At this point, to get the reward you’d need to get 20 people to click on your links. That was the default, and I left it alone. It could end up being a ton of work for me, and I might have to tweak stuff. Or it could just flop, and I could quietly slink away. I have no idea which.
I’m really not sure about all this. Is this a reasonable thing to try? Is it too impersonal and annoying? Is it, maybe, fun?
Let me know, please. I could either run with this or just remove all references to it. If you’d like to give it a shot yourself, here’s the link: Shiver on the Sky
You can post comments and reviews on their site, too.
Have fun out there!
Well this certainly sounds exciting! I’m going to the site now and see if I can help out. Gotta spread the word on my new-found author !
Thanks for helping me with this!
I like the idea of people sharing info about books. I mean…I’m a reader too, and I have trouble finding good stuff. But I don’t really like the idea of people (not you, obviously!) who game the system on Libboo and start “buzzing” about books they haven’t read. I’m not sure why they’d do it, but it does appear to happen. Of course it does little harm, as I imagine people don’t pay a lot of attention to those who indiscriminately recommend books.
Then there’s the issue that I don’t like tweeting and blogging “buy my stuff!” messages all the time, so I’m not sure I want to ask other people to do it either.
I like the idea of Libboo in principle. Still waiting to see what I think of it in practice…with high hopes but a willingness to decide against it if it looks like I end up encouraging spam.