ebooks – Geoff Wakeling

It’s hard enough getting your name out as an author, let alone if you choose to go down the route of becoming an indie author. There’s A LOT of us out there, and whilst we compete for shelf space, we rarely spare a thought for readers. As much as we’re trying to promote our books, readers are desperately trying to sift through the self-published masses and find great reads that really grab their attention. This is why Indie Scene has launched; a new place for readers to find free short stories, interesting articles and some of the best indie books around.

You might think this magazine is just another chance for us indie authors to be seen, and, in many ways, it is. But the real emphasis here has been put on readers, and giving our fans something back. There are articles on writers and the craft of telling a story, but there are also six free short stories in the debut edition. In addition, there’s an article on the many ways to read Kindle ebooks even if you don’t have a Kindle yourself, a selection of new releases and all manner of other goodies for people to enjoy.

Indie Scene is completely free to download as a PDF (or read in your browser if you choose), so feel free to take a look. If you love the magazine, then let us know, give us your feedback. We’d love to keep creating a publication that has a reader focus and offers something new to the community, so download, have a read and if you like it, tell us!

I’ve not had a huge amount of success on Goodreads. I don’t like the interface, I find the forums troublesome and I really don’t read enough to be actively participating in book discussions. Mostly, I find that you have to use passive promotion on Goodreads; that is, instead of going around saying ‘Here’s my book‘, ‘Read my book‘, ‘Look at my book‘, you have to participate in forums about other subjects and let users find your work by themselves. Of course, a few plugs here and there in the appropriate forum threads never hurt, but overall, Goodreads is a place for readers to discover books, not have them thrust upon them.

A new area of passive promotion which I hadn’t even realised was available until last week is the listopia option. This Goodreads area is a place where people can add their favourite books to current lists, or start their own lists to organise great reads into easily found categories. It also offers an ideal place for you to add your book, utilising lists that you book falls into to spread your novel across as many pages as possible and, therefore, in front of as many eyes as possible.

Listopia is easy to find, and easy to add your book to. One word of warning, it’s probably best not to start adding your books to the ‘Best books Ever written‘ or ‘Best Indie Books‘ categories. In fact, it’s probably best to stay clear of any ‘BEST’ lists because this is for the readers to decide upon, not you. However, you can add your book to any other list that is appropriate. For example, I’ve put Inside Evil into ‘British Fantasy Authors‘, ‘Fantasy Books Set in Two Worlds‘, and ‘Science Fiction & Fantasy Titles for 2012!’ I’m not making assumptions by adding my book to these categories, I’m just telling readers what they can expect to find.

Whether or not this process will help Inside Evil get added to many more shelves I have to find out. But, placing it in as many places as possible surely can’t help gain more exposure.