So How Is It All Going So Far?

Well, yesterday I joined Goodreads.com and managed to spend half a day filling in a profile, setting up a Giveaway and communicating with a very nice lady about reviewing my book for me. So how the hell could that take half a day, right?

Don’t get me wrong. Everything I read about Goodreads.com on Joe Konrath’s blog and David Gaughran’s blog tells me that it is a place to interact with your readers and everything I saw gave me no reason to doubt this.

So I applied to join as a member, then as an author (I’m still waiting for that part as it can take up to two days I think), then to enter the self publishing authors forum (yeh – they let me in), and then I set up a Giveaway meaning that five people who enter a draw will get a free copy of my book ‘The Mystical Wood’ at my expense (again I need to wait to see if this is approved, fingers crossed).

Then I noticed that a lady, Magda, was offering to review illustrated children’s books. So after taking two hours to reduce the size of my book’s pdf file from 50mb to 1mb, I eventually sent it off to her and she promised to review it by the 2nd November. I also reviewed hers which was a free e-book.

So there goes half of yesterday and I don’t feel much closer to getting my first sale. Amazon has no reviews; they haven’t even got my book cover image on the search results. You just see ‘picture not available’ until you click on the book itself where I put up an image of my own temporarily.

My family are being supportive though. My parents didn’t know how to order one so I ordered one for them at cost price – to me!! My brother has done his bit and ordered a copy but it takes three or four days for CreateSpace to update their sales figures. Meanwhile my in-laws have mislaid the order link my wife sent them but they’ll get a copy soon I hope!

As far as I know there are no other sales as yet and definitely no reviews. But I believe in the book and I’m going to keep on marketing. Today, after sharing with you guys, I’m checking out some other avenues such as LibraryThing.com, LinkedIn.com and Shelfari.com. If any of you have experiences of these already please let me know. Until the next time……