Little Free Libraries

Since I got to Illinois, I have become fascinated by little free libraries. These are free-standing boxes that people fill with books; they have two or three shelves in them, and maybe a see-through door; people are encouraged to bring books and take them at will. The question is: do people use them? It's an interesting question.

I have very weak paperback ratings; nobody buys my paperbacks except my own family, and not even them usually (excuse my casual syntax). So I was thinking, maybe I should make more of an effort to get my books out to the market by putting some in little free libraries. An aggressive campaign to get them out there. But it wouldn't much do to put them out there if in fact nobody's reading them. I need to study the market, obviously.

A few years back, maybe ten, the Rotary took up the cause in this town (Galesburg, Illinois), and put up a number of them. Of those, I have found three or four. Only one appears on the LFL guide; that one is just up the street. One a street over is in disrepair; its door is hard to open. I found one in a park about four blocks away and I read about one in a park downtown. Finally, I saw one way over on the east side on my way out to the interstate, going to Peoria. So, five altogether that I know of, only one on the official register.

They also have them in Monmouth, a small town near here, where, while I lived there, I found about five. Small towns I would think would be better because that's where people have time and get bored, and kids grow up reading in the absence of trouble to get into. Most of the spare books I have sitting around are haiku; I was never able to get anyone to buy them either, and I think if I scatter them in these libraries they will most likely just sit there. But that's ok; I'm getting more story books to distribute as time goes by, and all my books get new covers, so my plan is to systematically get books out into the LFL's, and in return bring home some books to study. I also have a houseful of books that I've never thrown away, and even moved this far, yet nobody reads; these are not by me, but might be useful in some LFL or another.

I know they had them in New Mexico; I know they were a national phenomenon. What I don't know is how much of an active system they represent. Do people actually notice or see what's in them? I actually saw someone using the one on my street the other day; they had a subaru-type vehicle, they walked up to it with a few books, and walked back with a few more. When I walked past it today, my own book was in a visible place (I had tucked it in among other books, but somebody had apparently at least looked at it). I'm not sure what to think of this.

The point I think would be to be well-equipped when I travel, and willing to take the time to find them and stock them wherever I go. I have always been a bit shy about giving them away. But having new covers on some of them actually gives me others that I won't sell anymore, won't even try. I am experimenting with covers and therefore rendering lots of the books in my possession obsolete.

Some authors would never stoop to giving books away when they intend to make money on the whole deal, and need to keep up an image of being of high value. I have the opposite approach, more like Andy Warhol. I figure, on some level, many people have to know who you are before you get anywhere at all. You have to blanket the world, if only by starting in this little corner of western Illinois. If this system of little libraries scattered around towns like Galesburg or Monmouth is any indication, people still read books enough to have them out in their front yards in little house-shaped boxes. I'm not sure it really means anything at all; lots of them are in poor repair; some don't seem to have any books anymore. But some, I think, are being used and used well.

People I think enjoyed the no-due-date aspect of it. You could read part of a book and just sit on it for a while. Has this been going on for years? I'd like to meet people who are into actively transfering books. I'm also curious about the quality of books in them. I found stories by Kafka in one here in Galesburg - is that because of the college? Are there people who are trading Kafka for steamier fare?

What you see here is me developing hypotheses about ways to market. Any progress is real progress, no matter how incremental. I left my book on the top of its little stack - and will check on it in a day or two, maybe add some stories to that one. I have books of stories, that are just sitting there, making my moving harder. There was no reason to hang on to the books I did hang on to, and even less reason as time goes by.

Out of a total of thousands of readers, only a fraction will read, then finish, then like your books - and only a fraction of those will pick up another one you wrote. I'm not sure if it's ok to drop off older, outdated, or even imperfect (older version) books when that would just decrease, presumably, my odds. But this is a town where I can at least observe LFL customer behavior and see whether it's worth my time at all. My strategy (small towns are better) may or may not be misguided. But my travel plans will not be based on it anyway. I'll only be hitting the LFL's in the towns where I'm going anyway.

The theory of separate markets

This theory is just that: My explanation of how things work. The primary division of markets for indie book-writers is kindle, kindle unlimited, paperback, wide, acx/audible. Wide means you sell in all indie markets, Barnes & Noble, etc., everywhere you can, whereas sticking with ku means promising not to do that. But the theory of separate markets means that if you don't appear at Barnes & Noble, for example, you lose some people altogether. People are less likely to shop for books in various places, and mostly go to the same places over and over again.

This is especially true of the ACX/audible people, who have decided that it's worth their while to get books they can listen to, while driving or whenever, and now they always read their books that way. Being known in that world does not transfer over into another world. They are not more likely to buy your hardcover or paperback because they heard your book. We think they might be more likely, but I have no proof that they are.

So I carry on with what I've got. At first I was so discouraged at having no paperback sales, that I almost gave up. But when I found out I could increase kindle sales by heavily marketing online I got hope again. As a result I have some books that do pretty well on kindle, and still barely sell at all out on the open market for paperbacks; my paperback ratings have been dismal since forever. So I have to say, on an absolute level, there are very few of my actual paperbacks out there because nobody buys my paperbacks. Yet on kindle I sometimes break the top five hundred.

The online kindle/ku community is the one I know best. The reason I consider them separate is that if someone has ku, that's how they get their books, and they don't go buying books other places because they've already put $10/mo. down on having enough to read. If they are kindle but not ku they might be checking the free and half-price deals on Amazon, and I do sometimes go after that crowd but am not sure I've made any real inroads with them. I know that if you only get 1/3 cent for a page someone reads you have to have more than a ku audience to get anything going financially.

But even these markets are fractured into independent, separate markets. So of the people who have ku and use it primarily for their source of reading, some check the amazon ads, some check other places to find good ku reads, and sometimes they get bored because whatever their source, they've dried it up. If you look at it entirely from the reader's perspective you have a strategy that goes like this: Use the usual source, over and over, do whatever is easiest, as long as you keep getting acceptable results, and then when it starts drying up, start looking for other sources. But in this process do you find people who say, "Maybe it's available on ACX/Audible?" My theory is no, they're not going to switch over. Because reading in a car is so fundamentally different from the other kinds, that they don't really consider it in the range of possibility. Now they might have switched altogether over to Audible/ACX, but that's more because they got a job driving a truck, or uber, or spend hours in the kitchen needing something to think about.

I'm curious what others think about it. I just put this out there because it's worth learning more about it. You heard it first here.

New covers

e pluribus haiku 2016
https://www.amazon.com/pluribus-haiku-2016-thomas-leverett-ebook/dp/B01FOLGWCE

e pluribus haiku 2017
https://www.amazon.com/pluribus-haiku-2017-thousand-moments-ebook/dp/B071WNYXTK

e pluribus haiku 2018
https://www.amazon.com/pluribus-haiku-2018-thousand-moments-ebook/dp/B07DCJD3KP

Jumping Trains

I must say that there has been an explosion of Facebook author/reader train sites - sites where authors basically read each other's work, give it honest reviews, and in return gain a single reader - someone who will presumably do the same. It is a laborious way to pick up a reader but this method has been invaluable to me for several reasons. One is that I need to see what indie authors are producing out there, and see what the norm is for various genres. Another is that I literally have found no other way to pick up an audience of any kind as an unknown indie author. What audience I have, is basically other writers who have found me on the reader/author train sites doing what I call read marketing.

Here are the nine sites I've found: Book Trains for Indie Authors, Self-publishing Book Club, Book review train, Book review swaps for free, Indie Author/Reader Subway, Authors/Readers United Book Trains, Author Reading Trains, Independent Book Reviews, Authors, Readers & Books Unite, and Book Review Group and Trains. They are in flux: a couple of them are on break, or in and out of the trains business. I can tell you which of them were the first and who runs them in some cases. I have respect for the moderators because I know it's a lot of work and I can also tell that many authors are unscrupulous: willing to reap the reward without necessarily doing the reading, or doing as shallow a job as possible. Moderators are getting better at stating and enforcing the rules clearly, and also identifying the trains clearly with cool train pictures at the top. Many of the sites are now running smoothly whereas they used to be plagued by fly-by-night hucksters who were basically very inconsiderate to their fellow indie authors.

I have twenty-six books on the market but only about a dozen that I am actively hustling; I have given up on the haiku pretty much, in terms of marketing, as I don't believe I can even get a fair number of people to read it, much less leave a review. But I care a lot about my reputation as a short-story writer; I have nine volumes out there, and I really want people to read them. I care more about them, perhaps, than even the biographies, which I wrote for family but which prove to be unusually popular with other writers. I refuse to push my autobiography but it kind of sells on its own and does ok. My perception of myself on the market is colored by the fact that most of my audience is other writers. And fortunately they respect the fact that I have very thin skin and learn best inductively - seeing what works and what doesn't, seeing what their reviews don't say, that kind of thing. You need to have your work read in order to learn anything about the way you are seen on the market.

I have a number of theories which I will lay out on this blog if you are patient and can wait until I put them on the table. First is that the various markets don't overlap. I can do well on kindle but that won't affect how well I'm doing on paperback or ACX sales, because people who read on kindle keep reading on kindle, and don't tend to cross over and read in two or three different ways. Second, even within kindle, different audiences (like other authors, readers-only, ku-only, amazon deals customers) don't tend to cross over. People use single sources to buy from and shop from, and if they used that source yesterday they'll use that source today.

Another is that we are dealing with very small percentages. If three out of a hundred people who read your book like it, and only one out of ten of those like it enough to go out and buy another one, you have to cast a wide net to get a lot of people to read that first book in order to get the ball rolling in any way. And even writers like Steven King, though his percentage may be five out of a hundred and two out of ten, is still dealing with low percentages. So whoever you are, you have to cast that wide net and get started hauling in what you can. It's not going to be an easy road. And those percentages won't really change unless you become a better or different writer. Your experience will help you become better but won't raise your percentages significantly right away; it's going to be a long and steady process. So you have to dig in for the long game.

These sites, to me, have been a godsend. I now know some of my readers; I know them by their work. I now have some information about what works and what doesn't. It's like fishing, and keeping track of what you can dangle that will get some bites. Eventually, you dangle the right thing. Many thanks to the moderators who make it all possible. More about the other markets: paperback, acx, ku, etc., later. I can't say I'm an expert. But I've lifted myself out of the basement, and am scrambling up into contention, all without digging into a precarious family budget.

Report from the Midwest

It was a long move - from southern New Mexico, to the town of Monmouth, Illinois, and from there to nearby Galesburg. The last leg of it, from a storage shed outside of Galesburg to our new house more or less in the center of Galesburg's north side historic district, is almost over. We love our house, with its wood floors and huge attic. The four dogs are getting settled and not barking at every postman or ambulance. We're getting into the rhythm of things.

Back to my routine of marketing and trying to write. I sometimes find them at odds - can't do one without neglecting the other - and neglecting them both makes me realize how to some degree I'm spinning my wheels. I've had some success - written a few books in the last year, improved my ratings significantly - but also some frustration. I have six or seven unfinished projects. From looking at the sea of authors out there, self-published and otherwise, I have higher standards and want to revise almost everything I've done. But even in making covers, I feel like a rank amateur.

I have my chair set up facing the fireplace, looking out a side window at the peaceful Galesburg neighborhood. Galesburg is a train town. You get out into the streets, going across town for example to the storage shed, and trains can cross your path at any of several places and often do. I like to look at the graffitti on the cars as they pass. I feel like you should always have time to watch a train but some of these are quite long. Apparently the building of three separate bridges over the tracks was a huge relief to the old timers in the town, many of whom remind me that they've been here forever. I kind of like that. I've been here a week. I'd never really been here before.

I did, however, spend thirty years of my life in the Mississippi Valley, eleven in Iowa City (area) and eighteen in Carbondale (southern Illinois). Galesburg is roughly between them, so I know what I'm getting into.

In this brief respite, I take stock. I have twenty-six books out. I'm proud of them all. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and have sold none overnight. But it doesn't matter; I'm still proud of them all. All that means is that my marketing needs work. Eventually it will pick up steam and I'll get back on my feet; it's my new life mission.

Marketing for cheapskates

I have decided to be the ultimate cheapskate and spend as lttle as possible, if not nothing, on marketing. But I have 26 books on the market, at the moment, and it's urgent that I get them all out there. And, I find, the more I get people to read them, the more I learn about their general value and quality. I'm like any new writer - there is a lot I could improve.
But this post is not about what I could improve in making covers, doing better proofreading of my own work, or even picking topics that sell like hotcakes. Instead, it is about various ways of getting whatever I have, however marginal, out there in front of people's eyes until I find the ones who like it.

After all, I have come to subscribe to the theory that it takes 100 readers to find one that really likes your genre, your style, and your messages. It takes 100 views of your book & blurb to get one who will even download it for free on KU, much less plunk down five or six bucks to have a copy. And it takes a lot of luck and persistent motivation just to get that blurb in front of them.

Knowing that, I still make kindle promotions where I know nobody will even buy it half-price, or for ninety nine cents, but they will still see it and know it's out there. There are quite a few people who may like your book, once they try it, and may even know that as they are cruising through browsing books, but who still pass it by because in their mind they are seeking something slightly different. I generally have no success with kindle promotions. Anyone who is willing to plunk down 99 cents, was probably also willing to plunk down 2.99, and already did, or already chose not to. These are easiest to do, however. Just now I reached over and made two of them, one a free giveaway. I can do this in a couple of minutes.

I'm about to put a book on ACX and get someone to read it on a free, profit-share enterprise. I hate to do this in one sense, because ACX is its own world, with its own huge market, and I don't advertise in that market much, so I don't think our chances, put together, amount to much. But it's valuable to have it out there, if only because not every book makes it out there and at least now it's available to a wider market. People do watch the ACX listings. Some people snap up stuff that's good. People read from it. I don't make a whole lot of money; neither does my narrator. But some narrators are happy just to have the experience. This is a market I want to develop a lot more. They give you free promotion codes, giveaways, and I don't even use those effectively. I could, I just don't.

Amazon ads: The secret of these is that I think, and I may be wrong, that you can get a lot of exposure without spending actual money. People will see your book even if they don't click on it. If they click on it, you pay. If they buy something based on what they click, you find out. All their actions are recorded in the great online-activity-monitor. But it seems to me that if your book is participating in any situation where it comes under people's eyes, whether they click or not, that kind of exposure is inherently useful. Maybe the average is more like 1000 exposures, one click. My new philosophy is, if I need a thousand, let's get started, the sooner the better.

Instagram and LinkedIn: The thing to remember about these is, participation is free. If I post every day people are going to see me more than if I just jump in there every five months. Actually my pattern is more like every five months, with plans to develop further but no regular action based on those plans. Both, though, have their own unique audiences and in Linked In I have a number of old friends and students from my teaching days who might actually buy my books if I reminded them I was there.

Twitter I put in its own category because it's like a major sound canyon with millions of voices at once and almost everything you say gets drowned out in a huge river of noise. Ideally I'll get the right hashtags (#womenshistory for my present book) and just the right people will see it, and click and buy; I've gotten a few bites this way. For a while I dropped my books in all the writer's lifts, etc. This seemed to be fruitless. Another strategy would be to put your life out there for your audience, so they get to know you, and thus come to want to buy your books as a friend. But sound bites of a few words don't seem to do it for me; I can't put my life into tiny chunks. I carry on; I get on there often; I figure my 1200 followers (it was fairly easy to get 1200) will tolerate my incessant self-promotion. I'm not into fans (someone who follows you but you don't follow, or, someone who you follow but doesn't follow back); I'm into friends. If you can't be friends, it doesn't seem right. But that's the way I am.

There's a lot to say about read marketing, which I've been doing extensively for a while now. Most of my new readers are from read marketing. In short, I read someone's, someone reads mine. One by one, you get new readers. And you read a wide range of what's out there. You give a lot of fives to keep relations up. Slowly your ratings reflect the fact that people are reading your books. Authors that do this know there are a lot of scammers out there, authors who pretend to read your book, etc. But it's the same principle. Get a thousand to look at the possibility; get ten to actually download it and read it; maybe four out of ten like it but maybe one out of a couple hundred like it enough to go download another just like it. This has actually happened to me so I know it works though I have no clue about the actual numbers involved. On a wide scale I know that I'm spending time reading when I could be writing; I'm spending time reading junk sometimes which is aggravating; the good ratings go away pretty quickly, etc. But I have readers now when I didn't used to. And a side benefit is that authors seem to like my family non-fiction - a surprising number of them will choose to read it.

Here are the blogs. By that I mean, you are looking at one of them. There are thirty or forty, and they've been around for a long time, but haven't been commercial, and, even when they're commercial, they'll be blunt and fresh. I intend to just use them as I always have, to make my mind clear about what I'm doing so I can do it better. But I have various interests: linguistics, chat, music, haiku, etc., and I use the blogs to discuss those. Hopefully the same principle will apply: a hundred will look at them; one out of a hundred will read them; one out of a hundred of those will like what they read and want to read more; one out a hundred of those will actually click and buy something. If I need a thousand, let's get started now. This site gets what, about twenty or thirty a month. I hope you'll link to it and maybe it'll get more.

There's always the print market. It was always the biggest, the first, to many the only, market. I never did well on it. How are people to know who I am and how I write? I have this friend who gives her books to libraries around the southwest. Does it work? Do some kids straggle in and read up a whole library? Well, you have to start somewhere, and I respect her for it, but her husband is exasperated at the expense. It seems you have to buy a book just to wait twenty years for some kid to read it somewhere. I've looked in to giving books to libraries, coffee shops, doctor's offices, little free libraries, etc. I'm just getting started on that, and that's because I'm just now getting a few I can scatter around, being outdated a little anyway (since I have others with new covers) and since I'm becoming more aware of the possibilities. Lots of people still look at your paperback ratings as your primary rating; I have books that are so high (>15 million) that Amazon no longer even lists it. It's getting so I'll buy my own book to keep that from happening, because I can't just go out there and get someone else to buy it. But every author has their own way.

There was a book signing at the book shop during railroad days involving a friend of mine, a local author. I wanted to go. I have to be more comfortable with these. One aspect is that you have to buy ten or twenty of your own before you even set up, and then you have to dress nice and be friendly to everyone. I'm basically ok with all of this, just reluctant. How else are you going to be known? I somehow have to convert my identity over into a small-town Illinois identity (from a wild end-of-the-road mountain man) but that too is just a matter of work. The fact is that I have to do All guns firing, so to speak, to get my name out there and rustle up some attention. b<

Authors - want a #betareader?

I've been doing read marketing for a while and know that it's good - I see a wide range of work of different genres, and in return I get readers. All my readers are authors, ok, but I'm not in a position to be picky. I've been an indie writer for about ten years but only serious about promotion for about one and a half.

Here's my offer: I will betaread your book for either reads or for money. If you choose money you will send me an Amazon gift card - it's all going back into the business.

If you choose reads all you have to do is read some of mine, slightly more than I'm reading of yours. I don't ask you to make any comments or judgments. All that is optional. Same with review. You don't have to. All you have to do is read.

For my part, there are all kinds of comments I can make. I taught grammar for thirty years, though I'm not in the habit of being critical about it. I know my grammar though, I want you to know that. I am not great at knowing what sells in any given market although I'm catching on to that pretty quickly. And I'm versatile - I read in every genre.

I expect you to come up with any specific questions you want answered, and also to tell me if there's something you don't want me to chime in on.

The best way to reach me is through e-mail. I will respond to all offers.

And don't worry about this "Best of Indie" thing. I'm not the best of indie. I just like the sound of it, and like talking about all things indie, as I myself am 100% indie, and find myself paying the price every once in a while. Overall though it's a good life. We have to support each other and can't pass up the offer of a hand once in a while.