In reply to Heather Lovatt.

I tried Wattpad. I got almost no eyeballs over there, and decided it wasn’t worth investigating to find out why. Maybe I was wrong to quit, and maybe I wasn’t. If I were really going to try to push my stuff now I’d probably try advertising directly with Amazon. Though that’s not as simple as it appears either.

I don’t know how you feel about Wattpad these days. I’ve spoken to a few users who enjoy having readers read their stuff for free even though they done the indie publishing route to limited success. (But define success, yes? Everyone has their own personal parameter and we all don’t need to sell like Stephen King to succeed, is my personal belief.)

But recently, I also encountered a user who posted a tenth of his ‘completed’ book on Wattpad, marked it complete due to the issue with Amazon exclusivity and I think I found him cos he was being ‘twittered’ about by one of the official WP employees. I got the sense he was not a WP regular but simply a drop in ringer, being ‘featured’ by WP. Oh yes, he comes from a ‘group-world’ too. Paid a membership to join a writing society and won a contest. Wee.

Take of that what you like. There is STILL this ‘eyeball getting’ function of being ‘featured’ mechanically, on WP.

I think you heard about Anna Todd of “After” WP fame getting a Simon and Shuster deal? A few users I’ve spoken to are still citing the silliness of Simon and Shuster’s claims to the outside of WP world, how After got billions of reads. Sorta like a clash of the real business world and the social media one. Likes DO NOT equal dollar signs.

Which, still, in some ways, WP is.

But you might take a look at this.

All the best.

Heather

In reply to Rebecca.

You know what? I use Amazon for book-buying too, and almost daily. I’d love to spread my business around, but the other sites I’ve tried just don’t do it for me. I’ve heard of people shopping on Amazon and buying elsewhere…but nah. Doesn’t seem fair. Though sometimes I do shop in actual physical stores and then buy online–not solely because of the price; also the e-Ink reader experience is so much nicer than lugging around physical books, and searching for good-enough reading light, that I haven’t managed to read one of those clunky things in over a year. This, from a guy who used to spend absurd amounts of time scouring the world for first-edition copies of anything he liked…

I make sure I have my books backed up somewhere besides Amazon, though, just in case they get persnickety with me somehow. You never know. Facebook refused to let me log in without sending them a copy of my driver’s license a few weeks ago–possibly because I use stuff like Tor to hide my physical location, and my browser tells many sorts of creative lies to web servers all the time, and I never gave the site the kind of personal-profile answers people who already know me don’t have to read online?–so I decided that meant I was finally done with ’em. Which felt good. For all I know Amazon might develop an anti-privacy stance too at any moment, in which case the heck with ’em. {8’>

Anyway, thanks for answering about the donkey parts! Believe it or not, I always worry a little bit when I…er…stick stuff like that in. What if, this time, it’s more offensive than funny? Could happen!

And now I hope the rest of The Secret lives up to your expectations. Either way, though, getting it off my hard drive and into the world feels pretty good. Or the anticipation does. Something like that. {8’>

I’m a reader, not a writer and I use Amazon to get my reading material. Your plan works for me. The Secret is still at the top of my wish list, your teaser chapter hooked me well.

Donkey-parts….hahaha. Yeah, I laughed.