Face it; we all like freebies and many Flores Girl fans feel the same way about getting the Flores Girl Trilogy for free. Unfortunately, like a lot of self-publishing authors, I have struggled with my efforts to monetize my writing efforts. I made a few dollars selling the novel on Amazon but not nearly enough to cover my costs to keep the web site going and never mind being rewarded for the time I put in writing the novel. However; having a fan base that numbers in the tens of thousands is far more important to me than the dollars so how do I reconcile the two conflicting needs?

That’s where BookIM comes in and their various advertising programs for publishers and the self-published. Flores Girl has had over 275,000 downloads to date and we expect that number to more than double with the near term arrival of the sequel “The Sacred and the Profane”. BookIM has advertising programs that allow sponsors – okay let’s call then what they really are: advertisers- to insert quality, non-offensive ads inside ebooks without offending readers and distracting from the flow of the novel. All ads are subject to the approval of the author and can support a number of ebook publishing platforms. The fans get their novel for free, the author gets some much needed revenue and the advertisers get a wide distribution among some very dedicated consumers with a product that has a long shelf-life. Plus depending on the platform the ads can interactive with hyper-links to their site so their ads can remain fresh and interactive!

The new BookIM program is called ADAAP (Advertising for Authors, Advertisers and Publishers) and is the next step to revolutionizing the self-publishing and publishing industry. It’s a program that manages the often conflicting needs of authors, advertisers and readers.  Also, if readers want their eBooks free of ads, they can always buy the ebook novel at Amazon.

If you are a Flores Girl fan let me know what you think of this proposal.  Your opinion does count. I know most of you are wondering just where is the sequel?  I completed writing the sequel this summer and I’m still editing the novel.  The delay is because I must work full-time to support my pesky family, they insist on food and shelter, so the editing has been delayed and is done as time permits. ADAAP will give self-publishing authors new opportunities to create revenue from their hard work.

Overstock in Google Sandbox

Being a marketing SEO type this article caught my eye:

From SearchEngineWatch.com: Overstock.com Lands in Google’s Penalty Box Over Links-for-Discounts Deal

Wow, Overstock.com was enjoying some great rankings earlier this year and you need not wonder why. How was totally blackhat. Webmaster World began examining why they were seeing such great rankings for numerous common terms and led to another mainstream news organization “outing” a major retailer for linking practices.

Last night, the Wall Street Journal revealed that Overstock was boosting their rankings by “encouraging websites of colleges and universities to post links to Overstock pages so that students and faculty could receive discounts on the shopping site. Overstock said it discontinued the program on Feb. 10, before hearing from Google, but said some university webmasters have been slow to remove the links.” These are called backlinks and to the Google spiders this is some pretty impressive spider food that leads to great SERPs!

In Overstock’s case, there a pay to play scheme whereas the retailer offered discounts of 10% on some merchandise to students and faculty. In exchange, it asked college and university websites to embed links for certain keywords like “bunk beds” or “gift baskets” to Overstock product pages.

Once outed and after ranking in the top three of Google’s organic search results, Overstock has now dropped to the fifth or sixth pages on searches for terms such as [vacuum cleaners] and [laptop computers], much like JCPenney suffered after being outed by a New York Times article less than two weeks ago. Forbes was also penalized this month for selling links.  Folks we call this the Google sandbox!

Links from .edu (and .gov) sites are viewed as the most trusted and authoritative by Google’s algorithm. Overstock.com would highlight URLs and desired anchor text for the people to use.

LOL and people ask is Blackhat SEO unethical?

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/110224-093044

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Part 2:  My interest in the iPad is for the eBook technology, of course. The present eBook readers so far just replicate a paper book electronically. Plus most readers don’t take advantage of images and other playback formats. The Kindle is particularly guilty of this and partly this is a function of price point. The iPad is far more satisfactory in terms of a multimedia experience; the iPad can add sounds and beautiful color graphics that put the Kindle to shame. If I wanted a dedicated eBook reader I want the iPad, not the Kindle. However, at $499 I really don’t want the iPad eBook reader nor is there an overwhelming reason to want to one to replace a good old-fashioned books that could be had for all of $20. Give me a reason and a damn good one! Oh, I know it can do more than the average reader but still not more than a laptop. Make me want an iPad to pay that amount and want to lug it around!
First and foremost, we need to take advantage of the hardware and the technology. In others words, do not replicate thousand-year old technology such as paper books. Books are tactile and so is the touch screen on the iPad. Okay, I get it but I want more! I want to rethink how we read. More importantly, we have to rethink the novel experience and become less serial in our approach to the entire reading experience.

Pluses:

  • Nice, sleek design
  • Beautiful screen
  • It’s all touch baby!
  • It’s from Apple

Minuses:

  • It’s Unfortunate Name (ouch!)
  • Limited storage
  • Expensive
  • Size
  • No new functionality
  • No new eBook features

Bottom line: I still don’t have an overwhelming urge to say “Oh my Gawd, I got to have it!”

Try these sites for the free Flores Girl novel download for the iPad, Kindle, Sony, BlackBerry, iPhone ebook Readers:

WWW.iPADeBOOK.ORG
WWW.A-FREE-EBOOK.COM

WWW.SCIENCE-FICTION.MOBI
WWW.iPhone-Novel.com
Technorati Profile

wattpadlogo

http://www.wattpad.com/125445-Flores-Girl-The-Children-God-Forgot-Part-1

Flores Girl Wattpad Press Release
Flores Girl:The Chil..

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This is my first blog of the year and I find myself once again returning to the issue of the future of publishing. I watched the Apple iPad announcement today in its entirety with great interest as an author of Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot.  Is the iPad a game changer? No, I’m not a Mac fanboy, so to me the iPad is too expensive and there is not enough new functionality to get me really excited. I just keep thinking about how the entire concept of eBooks needs to evolve. The problem with most PC’s including Apples is that most computers are basically digital replacements for an analog world including the iPad. Keyboards and monitors in essence replace paper. I am old enough to remember when my job was entirely paper based; I didn’t have a personal computer during my first job from college. We moved paper from one desk to another and we had secretaries to type our important reports using dedicated word processors. Calculations were done on calculators. PC’s were to be a revolution but PC’s just allow us to create more paper faster but metaphorically it’s still paper!

My interest in the iPad is for the eBook technology, of course. The present eBook readers so far just replicate a paper book electronically. Plus most readers don’t take advantage of images and other playback formats. The Kindle is particularly guilty of this and partly this is a function of price point. The iPad is far more satisfactory in terms of a multimedia experience; the iPad can add sounds and beautiful color graphics that put the Kindle to shame. If I wanted a dedicated eBook reader I want the iPad, not the Kindle. However, at $499 I really don’t want the iPad eBook reader nor is there an overwhelming reason to want to one to replace a good old-fashioned books that could be had for all of $20. Give me a reason and a damn good one! Oh, I know it can do more than the average reader but still not more than a laptop. Make me want an iPad to pay that amount and want to lug it around!
First and foremost, we need to take advantage of the hardware and the technology. In others words, do not replicate thousand-year old technology such as paper books. Books are tactile and so is the touch screen on the iPad. Okay, I get it but I want more! I want to rethink how we read. More importantly, we have to rethink the novel experience and become less serial in our approach to the entire reading experience. I’ll have more on this in a later blog.

Bottom line:  I don’t have the overwhelming urge to say “Oh my Gawd, I got to have it!”

PS:  I want to extend my condolences to Tee Morris and his family regarding their recent loss.  Tee is one of the podcasting pioneers involved with Podiobooks and is truly one of the good guys in the industry.  I have to say when it comes to a loss of this magnitude words do fail me.

Try these sites for the free Flores Girl novel download for the iPad, Kindle, Sony, BlackBerry, iPhone ebook Readers:

WWW.iPADeBOOK.ORG
WWW.A-FREE-EBOOK.COM

WWW.SCIENCE-FICTION.MOBI
WWW.iPhone-Novel.com
Technorati Profile

wattpadlogo

http://www.wattpad.com/125445-Flores-Girl-The-Children-God-Forgot-Part-1

Flores Girl Wattpad Press Release
Flores Girl:The Chil..

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"Who's there she asked in a small voice..."
Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot, a Featured Work eBook on Wattpad.com is now over 20,00 reads at Wattpad. Well, the original pdocast is up to 100,000 downloads at Podiobooks.com. Flores Girl is a prehistoric science fiction novel combining elements of adventure and speculative fiction, oh before I forget romance eBook that is available for free on Wattpad, the World’s Most Popular EBook Sharing Community. Wattpad delivers free eBook novels to your iPhone, BlackBerry, SmartPhones and other mobile devices. Join the thousands of readers that are following the adventures of Sarah and Richard as they unwittingly introduce a small tribe of prehistoric people living in isolation for a half million years to the ultimate modern predator: humanity.  And you can do so right from your iPhone, BlackBerry or other SmartPhone! Flores Girl:The Children God Forgot is now available as a free ebook novel on the iPhone!

http://www.wattpad.com/125445-Flores-Girl-The-Children-God-Forgot-Part-1

Or try these sites for the free novel download:

WWW.A-FREE-EBOOK.COM

WWW.SCIENCE-FICTION.MOBI

WWW.iPhone-Novel.com

"Who's there she asked in a small voice..."

If you like the free Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot novel there’s a new contest. Just give me a Digg or a Stumble by using the button on the side on the www.floresgirl.com site and you’ll get the sequel for free when it becomes available later this year! You can use this form and just add your Digg name: Submit here! And yes this is a limited time offer because when the Digg counter hits a 100 the contest is over! No purchase is required.

Thanks for your support and keep Digging!

Cheers Erik John Bertel

Try these sites for the free Flores Girl novel download:

WWW.A-FREE-EBOOK.COM

WWW.SCIENCE-FICTION.MOBI

WWW.iPhone-Novel.com

Technorati Profile

wattpadlogo

http://www.wattpad.com/125445-Flores-Girl-The-Children-God-Forgot-Part-1

Flores Girl Wattpad Press Release

Flores Girl:The Chil..

Entertainment Blogs

Contest Rules: You must be 18 years of age or older to participate. Contest ends September 1st, 2009.  No purchase is necessary and no online subscription is necessary. First 100 contest entrants providing a Digg or Stumble Upon will receive a free copy of the sequel in an eBook format when the novel becomes available. We will notify the winners by email and winners of all contests will be contacted at the “sender” email address used to enter the contest, and the person receiving and replying to the winner announcement email will be considered the winner unless they specify another person within the reply email as the winner. No print copies are available, only eBook formats will be awarded, no exceptions! If the specified prize becomes unavailable due to unforeseen circumstances, Flores Girl may substitute a prize of like or equal value.

You understand and intend that any photo or information submitted by you to Flores Girl may be available for viewing, rating, review and comment on by the public, and understand that comments or ratings with which you disagree or are unhappy about may be published or otherwise become associated with any photo or information you submit to Flores Girl.

Open to U.S. Residents Only. Winners are solely responsible for all taxes and/or fees that may be incurred. Void where prohibited by law.

sarah_alone_in_jungleIn my alerts messages I came across a two year old article Kathryn Lively wrote titled “Can Book Giveaways Hurt Sales?”
(http://www.articlesbase.com/publishing-articles/can-book-giveaways-hurt-sales-86384.html) how about giveaways can hurt sales. It was a fairly amusing, almost quaint read and here are a few excerpts:

“That said, incentives are usually offered to fill the chat rooms with readers. Authors may give away a prize to one lucky reader, like a small gift or a free book. The question of whether or not it is prudent to distribute complimentary books as prizes has long been argued among authors, particularly in the eBook industry….Some authors condone the practice on the premise that a book in the hands of a reader may encourage that reader to buy more books.”

This is the amusing part…

“On the other hand, such generosity may backfire, according to other authors who condemn the practice. When you consider the tightly knit readership of eBooks, particularly in the romance genre, authors may tend to see the same Internet nicknames populating chats. If word gets around enough that free books are the prizes, an author might soon discover that he or she is giving away her entire catalog to the same readers without seeing any profits. An author can feel frustrated with the practice, and wonder if such regular contest winners will ever buy his/her book. …Should an author feel trapped, however? The answer is an emphatic no.”

“There are ways to successfully offer giveaways without giving away everything. While gifts like soaps, teas, and other trinkets can add up over time (though they are tax-deductible, authors, make notes!), there is one giveaway trick that can help stimulate sales. The next time you participate in a chat, write a one to two-thousand word story that reads as a supplement to your novel. It could be a sequel, a prequel, or a side story with supporting characters. Have it formatted as in eBook in HTML or PDF and offer it as an exclusive prize to one winner. Give it a try, and watch your readership grow.”

Not a bad idea but let’s be honest authors are a dime a dozen and we are more than willing to work as scabs to garner a reasonable readers base. It’s either that or go unread.  The article was only two years old but seemed like it was from another era. I replied to her with the following comment:

“I don’t know but with so many new electronic formats and delivery systems being created new authors kind of take it for granted that a giveaway is necessary to build a reader base. Basically, it is marketing 101 for the Internet. Of course, the same electronic revolution has created a flood of words that tends to overwhelm the limited pool of readers. The old self-publishing model is giving way to innovative sites such as Podiobooks.com that allow authors to give their work away as recorded audio podcasts while other sites such as Wattpad, Stanza and Scribd allow authors to giveaway select ebook works, all in hope of building a faithful audience. How authors can monetize their efforts is going to be an interesting challenge that I find myself wrestling with. My own novel, Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot became the inaugural featured novel at Wattpad and thousands are busily reading the novel on their iPhones. But to be honest with you reading novels on their iPhones, I mean who would have thunk it? It’s a brave new world in publishing and a giveaway is the least of the author’s and publisher’s problems!”

Cheers,
Erik John Bertel, Author Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot
floresgirl.com

Kathy wasn’t amused with my observations nor with my obvious efforts at self-promotion and she promptly deleted my comment. Still the point is valid; if you are worried about the couple of bucks you are going to miss with a giveaway then you have no clue about marketing in today’s Web 2.0. That’s why most books sell just a few thousand copies and why most authors go unread and unnoticed. If you are a new author, get the audience first and then worry about monetizing your writings. The days of the big advance and the old publishing machine are in the distant past. I’m not saying today is better and sure you will have to work two jobs for a while but hey, welcome to the machine. Nowadays, the Web 2.0 eats dinosaurs like the publishing and newspaper industry for breakfast!

Cheers Erik John Bertel

Speaking of Web 2.0 try these sites for the free Flores Girl novel download:
WWW.A-FREE-EBOOK.COM
WWW.SCIENCE-FICTION.MOBI
WWW.iPhone-Novel.com
Technorati Profile

wattpadlogo

http://www.wattpad.com/125445-Flores-Girl-The-Children-God-Forgot-Part-1

Flores Girl Wattpad Press Release
Flores Girl:The Chil..

Sarah AloneSpeculative fiction is not fantasy fiction, as it rules out the use of anything as material which violates established scientific fact, laws of nature, call it what you will, i.e., it must [be] possible to the universe as we know it. – Robert A. Heinlein

A little while back I wrote:

One of the worst aspects of publishing work in a Web 2.0 world is the myriad tasks the author must undertake. Besides writing the novel the writer must undertake numerous sleazy marketing efforts. In the past that been relegated to the obligatory series of interviews and book signing, assuming that is if the author was lucky enough in his career or her to get to that point.

Today the challenges are different and far more varied. Most of the work still revolves around the writing, editing and marketing of the work. However the marketing piece of the puzzle is a bit of a quandary and requires the greatest flexibility on the part of the fledgling writer. Worse, it is also damn time consuming.

If you go the route of podcasting, which has its myriad appeals and challenges, it requires the author to do production work and possibly the biggest challenge of all: narrating the actual work. The web work can involve a site or minimally a blog for the author’s various fans to turn into. Besides words, structures these endeavors typically require some type of graphics, Search engine optimization and knowledge of key words; all daunting challenges for the uninitiated. If you have money you could have somebody else do it but you still must manage the ongoing mess.

The biggest marketing challenge could be the designation of your work into one of the existing genres. Why? That’s because the genre designation ultimately determines your readers and finally your choices among agents and publishers.

My problem was what the hell do you call Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot? Scif-Fi? Adventure? Romance?  It has all of those elements but what is best for marketing?  An adventure story sort of describes it but there were some science fiction elements as well to the story. After all the core of the story is about the survival of Homo floresiensis on a small tropical island and that is speculative at best. In actuality these small three-foot tall hominids died out 12,000 years ago or maybe as recently as 400 years ago based on some early historical accounts. In any case, nobody expects them to be found alive and well today, at least not with the way China is clear cutting the forests of Southeast Asia. To call it science fiction would really disappoint the hardcore science fiction fans; you know not enough hardware and overall fantasy elements to keep them enthralled to be quite honest with you. I mean if you can’t have sex with an alien then why bother calling it science fiction?

Then I came across the term speculative fiction and the Robert Heinlein definition. The definition seems appropriate for my book but its usage and acceptance as part of the vernacular is no where near as universally accepted as science fiction. As a measure of popularity I did a search fro speculative fiction and turned up only a couple of million hits in Google. Compare that with science fiction with nearly 140 million hits and you have yourself a huge disparity in overall acceptance. So which sandbox do you want to play in, the larger one where you won’t get noticed or the smaller one with a much smaller audience? As I found out perhaps the genre designation is a bit old school and my recent experience with the good folks at Wattpad has drastically changed my perception of the marektplace. I’ll tell you more tomorrow.

Sarah hears strange voices

Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot is now a Featured Work on Wattpad.com. Flores Girl is a prehistoric science fiction-adventure-speculative fiction, oh before I forget romance eBook that is available for free on Wattpad, the World’s Most Popular EBook Sharing Community. Wattpad delivers free eBook novels to your iPhone, BlackBerry, SmartPhones and other mobile devices. Join the thousands of readers that are following the adventures of Sarah and Richard as they unwittingly introduce a small tribe of prehistoric people living in isolation for a half million years to the ultimate modern predator: humanity.  And you can do so right from your iPhone, BlackBerry or other SmartPhone! Flores Girl:The Children God Forgot is now available as a free ebook novel on the iPhone!

Wattpad

http://www.wattpad.com/125445-Flores-Girl-The-Children-God-Forgot-Part-1

Or try these sites for the free novel download:

WWW.A-FREE-EBOOK.COM

WWW.SCIENCE-FICTION.MOBI

WWW.iPhone-Novel.com

Get Flores Girl at Wattpadd

2009-04-27 07:55:48 -

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wattpad’s Got Talent!

Wattpad Launches Featured Work Section In Its Redesigned Website

Toronto, Canada, April 27, 2009 — Wattpad, the world’s most popular ebook community, today announced that it is introducing a new “Featured Work” section in its redesigned website. Each month the “Featured Work” section will feature a writer whose work the Wattpad editorial team find interesting. In addition, Wattpad editorial team takes suggestions from members at takes suggestions from members at editor@wattpad.com and is always on the lookout for works of interest.

Writer Erik John Bertel’s new ebook “Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot” has been selected as Wattpad’s inaugural “Featured Work”. “Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot” is about two scientists who unwittingly introduce a small tribe of prehistoric people living in isolation for a million years to the ultimate modern predator: humanity. The novel is about their adventure, combining a clash of cultures, religious ardor with the oldest stories of all: the meaning of friendship and true love.

“Wattpad is an innovative platform that eliminates traditional entry barriers to publishing,” said Erik John Bertel. “The worse fate that can befall an author is to go unnoticed and to never find an appropriate audience for their work. Wattpad enables writers like me to bring my work directly to millions of readers in a click of a button. ”

More information about Wattpad is available online at www.wattpad.com.

About Wattpad

Founded in 2006, Wattpad’s mission is to revolutionize the way people publish and read written works. The material on Wattpad is created by the community of users. Anyone can upload whatever they want to read – a romantic story, a fan fiction, poetry, an essay, a joke, a novel or their own work – and share with the community. All the content can be easily accessed on Wattpad’s website (www.wattpad.com), mobile site (m.wattpad.com) or through the Wattpad application on virtually all feature phones, such as Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, LG, Sharp, Sanyo, Panasonic, as well as smartphones such as Symbian, Blackberry and Apple iPhone / iPod Touch.

Wattpad has experienced explosive growth since its inception. Wattpad is now the world’s most popular destination to publish, read and share books. Wattpad has delivered billions of pages from its library of over 100,000 ebooks created by the community. With over 3 million downloads, Wattpad is the most popular mobile ebook application of all time.

For more information, please visit www.wattpad.com.
###

Press Contact
www.wattpad.com
press@wattpad.com

Wattpad

http://www.wattpad.com/125445-Flores-Girl-The-Children-God-Forgot-Part-1

In USA Today:

http://content.usatoday.com/topics/article/Places,+Geography/Towns,+Cities,+Counties/Toronto/0dUJeQLcW8bcs/1

Flores Girl:The Children God Forgot is now available as a free ebook novel on the iPhone

Sarah Alone

Rave reviews from the readers about Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot, which is now a Featured eBook at Wattpad!

From Rachelle: “I just read your Flores Girl eBook and I really loved the story very much. I just want to ask when you will release its sequel?”

From Dustin: “I really enjoyed reading your book and cant wait till the sequel is finished.”

From Freelancer79:  The Flores Girl is a very well written book that captures the imagination of its reader with current events and plausible outcomes. I have already recommended this book to all my family and friends. You will find it hard to put this one down or wait for the sequel!!!

From Leanne: I absolutely loved your novel and finished in a day and am now stuck with an emptiness within myself as I wonder when the sequel will be out?

From Rich: Very gripping adventure with Sarah and Richard on the tropical island. I am very much looking forward to reading the sequel when it comes out!

From Nidhi:  An amazing Book , Real Addictive & Wonderfully written!!   Absolute Masterpiece !!! Waiting anxiously for the sequel.. Keep the good work going!! Kudos..

From Arkie51: Really great free Ebook, can’t wait for the sequel!

Wattpad works on most phones from Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Apple, LG, BlackBerry, HTC, O2, Sagem, Alcatel, Sharp, Toshiba, BenQ-Siemens, Panasonic, Pantech, VK Mobile and others. Over 1,000 phone models supported.


Wattpad

http://www.wattpad.com/125445-Flores-Girl-The-Children-God-Forgot-Part-1

Or try these sites for the free ebook download:

Check out: www.IPHONE-NOVEL.COM