ianprobertbooks: October 2014

Hello there,

Thanks for looking at my blog.

I feel a little awkward about asking for help from strangers on the internet but I hope that my request won’t annoy you too much. All too often the internet is used by people trying to get into your wallet or purse. I sincerely hope that you won’t place me into that category.

I am a journalist and writer. Over the years I’ve written a number of books that have been published by the likes of Headline and Penguin. One of these books sold a lot of copies, another sold not many copies at all but received glowing reviews from everyone who read it. This year I thought I would give self-publishing a try.

Naturally, I did all the relevant searches pertaining to what one is supposed to do with a self-published book. There’s a lot of helpful advice out there. That’s for sure.

Having done so I spent weeks and weeks contacting reviewers. I must have contacted over a thousand potential reviews and managed to get 26 reviews in total. I contacted newspapers who knocked me back because I wasn’t with a recognised publisher (the long letter I wrote to the editor of The Guardian questioning this archaic attitude never received a reply). I contacted TV and appeared on radio. I contacted bloggers. I dramatically increased my Twitter followers. In other words, I did everything one is supposed to do to promote a self-published book. It’s hard work. If you, too, are a writer or indeed any kind of artist I’m sure you understand exactly what I’m talking about.

Now I want to try one more thing and I need your help…

To celebrate the launch of my kids books Johnny Nothing in paperback (via Createspace) I am currently running a Kindle Countdown Deal. If you’re not familiar with this a Kindle Countdown Deal is basically a heavy price reduction that goes to its original price after a period of a week.

What I would like you to do, my fellow, is buy the book in Kindle format.

At the moment the book is 99p in the UK and around 1$ in the US.

I think you’ll agree that it isn’t going to cost you an arm and a leg. Furthermore, if you buy it and don’t like it simply drop me a line and I will Paypal you back your money. I’m not asking you to do this to make a huge profit for me.

So why am I doing this?

I’m doing this because – and you will accuse me of being self-deluded – I genuinely believe that Johnny Nothing is good. If I can get only a small proportion of my followers on Twitter and WordPress to buy the book it will enter the bestseller charts in Amazon (Like you, I’m amazed at how few copies of a book you need to sell in order to do this).

Once Johnny Nothing is in the bestseller charts then other people may start to buy it. From that point on the book will sink or swim depending on its quality. If people like it they will encourage others to buy it. If they don’t like it I might end up looking like a prat.

There’s another reason why fellow writers might want to support me in this idea: If it works for me it could work for you. And I would be more than willing to help other writers who need a push.

Thanks for reading.

Ian

Here are links to the UK and American version of Johnny Nothing