I’m feeling so excited and nervous. My ARC is going out tomorrow. I've got it loaded up on BookFunnel.com
BookFunnel, Booksprout, and others, are online book delivery systems for eBooks. On BookSprout you pay a fee for having an ARC campaign, I think $10. Then every time someone downloads your book, from a link BookSprout advertised they charge you $2. Your own links for downloads, like for ARCs are free. On BookFunnel you choose a plan that will work for your needs. They have free or almost free up to “call us for an estimate” for big publishers. You can pay monthly or annually. I chose a plan on the lower side cost wise. It allows me 500 codes. You can upload your book and get a link to share to distribute your book. Or you can get a bunch or “batch” of individual codes that are each good for one download. With a batch of codes, you can print them onto mailing labels and then stick those onto your business cards. This is a great way to hand out free copies of your book if the need should arise. Or if you want to do some kind of promo. You can limit the amount of time allowed for each code before it expires and the number of codes available. They have security measures in place called watermarking. They embed the email address of the person who downloads the book on every page.Theoretically this will prevent theft.
I’m using a single code I will give to everyone who signed up for an ARC copy of Force of Corruption. They will click on the link; it will take them right to my book on Bookfunnel. They will need to enter their email address and that will enable them to get the free copy of the book. The email address collection BookFunnel does is for the author. BookFunnel doesn’t keep or sell them. It was all pretty user friendly. I’m tech challenged and I got the hang of it pretty quickly. They have “landing pages” so when a person types in a code that goes to your book, they will arrive on your landing page. You have to fill out some information to make the landing page nice. I put my blurb and brief trigger warnings on there. Along with information I would want an ARC reader to know and my contact information on social media and my website.
A quick word on websites. They are important. They help with legitimacy and earn your reader’s trust. It gives them a snapshot of you and your work, it helps readers find your books. I’ve used GoDaddy for years. It’s super easy for me, (tech challenged remember), and I think they have great services. I clicked on a few things on the template to set up different pages on the site. I also have buttons that go right to my book listing on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Another button is for subscribers, I get to collect their email address and they will get access to updates, news, future releases, discounts and giveaways. Win-win is always the way to go, give them something for collecting their email. It makes it worth it for your subscribers.
Tomorrow I will send out an email with information about how they retrieve their book. I will send one email to each of the thirty people who signed up so far to read my ARC. I will have written instructions on this same email. It explains that I want constructive criticism and how important reviews are for the online health of my book. I also give specific instructions like “No Spoilers Please, in your review.” I ask for each reader to contact me with a page number if they find any mistakes.
I will be sending a follow-up email in a couple weeks. There will be a link to a Google Form containing an Exit Interview. I will ask questions about what they thought of my story. Additionally, which character was their favorite and who did they hate. I will also be asking them to join my future ARC teams, or if they are interested in beta reading future stories. I think I’m going to send them a cover reveal for my next story in this series as a reward for answering the exit questions.
I had some inquiries for paperback copies for them to ARC read. I decided to agree to send out a maximum of ten paperback copies to readers. I get why they want them, it’s a much more exciting social media video to unbox an actual physical book. They can film and judge the cover and many people enjoy highlighting and tabbing their favorite parts of the story. I have about five spoken for so far. It’s not cheap to mail out physical copies so I’m not able to do more than ten. One person lives in a country in Africa and really wants a physical copy. I told her I would see how much it will cost and if it’s not unreasonable, I will send her one.
Another thing that has been happening is that I get a lot of DMs from strangers wanting to sell me their services. Apparently, paid reviews are a thing. They guarantee they will review your book and put it on all of their social media. Some of these book bloggers have huge followings. Several of the groups I belong to on FB do not allow any paid reviews, saying it’s unethical. I understand paying for a ‘positive' review would be unethical, but I don’t think paying for an honest review that will put your book in front of potentially tens of thousands of readers is a bad thing. I am trying one paid book blogger to see how it goes. I’m looking at it just like if I paid for advertising on Facebook or Amazon. She has like seventy-thousand followers, charges very little, and won’t agree to anything but giving her honest opinion. I only want honesty, from all reviewers. Again, she wants a paperback copy, it will be a while until those are ready to go out. I have also become quite popular with Nigerian marketing experts who LOVE my most beautiful writing, in the book that they haven’t read, because it’s not out yet…
You won’t believe this, yep, I made another mistake! Shocking, I know. I told my cover designer that when the proofreader finished, they did some preliminary formatting. It was still going to be a few days before the actual formatting was done. I couldn’t imagine the page count would be different from there so I gave her the final page count. I did mention it hadn’t been formatted yet, but I totally gave her that count with confidence. If you remember, I adjusted my price because it was only 157 pages. My amazing and fast cover designer sent me the the final print cover for the paperback with a spine for 157 pages. After formatting with the expert, Force of Corruption is 238 pages. When I tried to upload the cover for KDP and Barnes and Noble, they spit it back at me as the wrong size. The image doesn’t line up correctly because there are too many pages for the current design. I am rolling my eyes at myself. My designer is fixing it tomorrow. She’s the best!
I continue to crunch away at my second book in the series. I’m working on the final scene now. It’s starting on Halloween; the characters are getting ready for a party. I have been trying to keep up with posting online to all of the social media platforms I use. It’s so much more work than I expected, I need an assistant. Unfortunately, my current budget won’t allow for one but hopefully that will happen in the future. I think social media is the hardest part of being an author. I have to make lots of posts and videos. Hello, tech challenged here. I can’t imagine any of my posts are very interesting, but someone must enjoy them. I’m almost at 1,000 Instagram followers. 400+ on Facebook and still flirting with 100 on TikTok. I’m sloooowly building a following. Thankfully some of those followers enthusiastically signed up for my ARC copies. If I can find a few to buy my book, it would be astounding.
I think you are caught up with my latest stumbles. Sometimes I feel like I’ve been locked in a dark room filled with small boulders and I have to navigate with my hands tied behind my back. I trip and fall a lot. But I don’t know how to give up, so me and my bruised shins, toes, and ego will keep moving forward on this journey. I will be sure to update you on how my ARC distribution goes, keep your fingers crossed!
Have a joyful week and a Happy Thanksgiving! Thank you so much for reading!