-Are the gods not just?- -Oh no, child. What would become of us if they were?-

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A.C. Weston liked the forum thread, How I got to 250 orders in 10 days

So I’ve gotten a ton of messages about how I got The Punch Escrow to "Quill" in 10 days. Hopefully this is useful to some of you. I think it basically boils down to: Treat it like a job. It’s your job to get your book sold. If you believe in what you’ve got, if you think you know the audience you wrote it for will love it, then invest your time, energy, and money in your project.

1. Get lucky. Luck is something you need to succeed. Luck is something you can actually control. If you don’t believe me, do the research. Having a lucky attitude makes a huge difference.

2. Move quickly! I learned this through a couple decades in marketing. When it comes to contests, creating a distance between you and anyone behind you pays back huge dividends. Once you’ve established yourself as the frontrunner, you gain the benefit of being perceived as the favored incumbent. It pays to burn through all of your promotional energy early. If you manage to grasp first place, trust me, you will find a second wind. If you don’t, then you’ll have a pretty good perspective of your likelihood of winning and you can make the call on how much energy to reinvest based on that analysis.

3. I steadfastly followed the advice given by previous Inkshares contests winners. I hustled really really hard and harassed everyone I knew through multiple channels: Texts, twitter, FB, WhatsApp, Snapchat, even LinkedIn. I would say personal contacts accounted for over 50% of the pre-ordered books. I injected a sense of urgency by explaining the contest, the timeline, and the ask: "I’m in a contest to publish my first book. If sci fi is your thing, you’re going to love it. Especially if you like hard sci fi, like The Martian. I need to get 250 pre-orders to get it published. Please click here to pre-order it."

4. Engage engage engage! Every single time someone bought my book I acknowledge and thank them. It makes them feel good and it encourages them to engage back with you and help promote the project. They’re part of the team now.

5. Get to know your fellow authors. Inkshares is an AMAZING community of readers and authors. I have yet to have a negative interaction with anyone here. I’ve joined three Syndicates and have interacted with countless authors. Everyone here has something valuable to pass on to you. It’s worth listening.

6. Promote and Invest! Remember when I said treat your book like your job? Well, you should also treat is like an investment. There’s a flywheel effect when people see you investing in your own work. It makes them feel like you really believe in it. I’ve been creating a ton of world-building content, videos, as well as taking advantage of every interview opportunity, promoted tweets, Facebook boosts, and such. If publishing this book is your dream, invest in making your dream come true.

So, these are the six steps I followed. Hopefully it’s useful to you. If you have more specific questions about those or the book itself, I’m at your service.

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A.C. Weston commented on Transilience

Congratulations, Kevin! I want to read your book!

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A.C. Weston liked an update for Transilience

I feel a tad strange writing this here, but....

Transilience has been picked up by Unbound as an eBook. Unbound is a crowd-funding site like this one; however, goals are based on money raised and not number of books sold. All funding books (regardless of format) are professionally edited, designed and typset. No half-measures there.

With that said, take a look at my site. It’s pretty cool. I even have a video this time! A lot of funding options especially if you live in the London area or what a reason to go there. Yes, I believe I am a reason to travel to one of the great epicenters of modern civilization.

Here is the link:

https://unbound.co.uk/books/transilience

Thanks for being an amazing community!

You can also follow me here where I plan to be, henceforth, much more active.

Cheers!

Kevin

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A.C. Weston liked an update for Dax Harrison

All right, Dax fans, LISTEN UP! This is Commander Dax Harrison himself speaking.

What happened to Tony? Well, he’s cooling his jets in the brig as we speak. His crime? Not getting his Inkshares Reader Updates out in a timely fashion. No worries, though. He’s learned his lesson, and he extends his humble apologies for keeping you fine folks waiting for his book.

Speaking of which, when Tony approached me to write my official tell-all story, I thought "Sure! Go ahead! Be sure to make me look good, we’ll slap my face on the cover, and badda-bing! We’ll have it out by next Friday!" What he didn’t tell me was that he was actually going to be writing his first book ever and that it was going to be a bit of a process.

So now I’m here to help convince you fine folks that our mutual friend isn’t some kinda Old West snake oil salesman who rode off out of town with your business. Though, I did find this old photo of him on his Facebook. Judging from the intensity of that mustache, I’m really starting to wonder...

But never mind that now. Impressive facial hair histories aside, I’ve come to tell you that Tony has in fact COMPLETED my story! Yes, the book is written. So what happens now?

Well, if anything is going to have Commander Dax Harrison’s stamp of approval, you better believe it’s going to be my life story. So we’re not quite done yet. Now, Tony will be sending the book out to a select group of trusted beta readers. These folks will review the book for him, and advise him on the stronger parts, the weaker parts, what works, what doesn’t work, what’s great, what’s not so great, what’s downright terrible, and so on. If my story is going to be told, it’s going to be told right!

So hang tight, cadets. This is where the real fun begins. The polish. The spit-shine. Whatever your preference. And I’ll see to it personally that Tony sends you out some regular updates. If he doesn’t, I’ll get some Verdasian moonshine in him, strap him to the hull of my ship and zip around Neptune a couple hundred times.

Yours truly,

(The Legendary) Lt Cdr. Dax Harrison

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A.C. Weston liked an update for Disintegration

Hey, all. We made 400!

Thanks in particular to the generosity of Seamus Scanlon. Check out his book As Close as You’ll Ever Be, published by Cairn Press, which is run by the great Joshua Cochran. Seamus is a playwright and a poet ... and an author well worth getting to know. And so is Josh.

400 means we’ve got 350 orders left to go to reach fully funded status. There are 37 days left in my campaign. That means I need a huge effort on the part of you, and those you know, to chip in and support Disintegration.

I know it’s not the easiest thing to visualize, but Inkshares is just like Kickstarter ... except it’s only for books. Ordering a copy isn’t just ordering a copy, it’s a donation to the success of the project.

As with all donations, the more you can donate, the greater the help. Please consider pushing me further along by encouraging friends and family to contribute ... and yourself, if you’ve got anything else to give.

Speaking of final pushes, J-F. Dubeau’s book A God in the Shed is in its final eight days and he is so close to being fully funded!

He’s made amazing progress in the past few weeks because people have rallied around him, including the amazingly magnanimous writer’s champion John Robin, author of his own staggering work: Blood Dawn. John’s is yet another title deserving of publication, like so many of our works on Inkshares. A few of my other favorite titles are She is the End, Ghosts of War, Single Version, Louisiana Blood, Tears of the Assassin ... and too many to list, here, though I’ll try in subsequent updates.

There are so. Many. Great. Books!

Help J-F. Help John Robin. Help the other authors I’ve mentioned. Help me.

Help fledgling authors get their first works published. Give a damn about creativity. We are the future, but we can’t do it without you.

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