How do you handle bad reviews?

With a smile and a grain of salt. It's not the end of the world. In fact, getting a bad review may lead to good things, like more sales. I'm serious. Reviews are not the be all and end all of your writing career. Everyone who's been in the business long enough will have gotten bad reviews. It's inevitable that unflattering things will be said about your work so you might as well get used to it. 

Is there anything you can do to make yourself feel better after getting a bad review? 

Of course there is. You forget all about it and keep on doing what you're doing. How you forget about it is up to you. Alcohol might help. Going for a run might help. Writing a story about it might work too. It's up to you what action you take except for one.

Do NOT under any circumstances respond to a bad review with a diatribe of venom, how dare yous or explanations about what you meant to convey in your work and how misunderstood you are. I completely get how, in this here world of instant cyber connections, this strategy might be tempting, but don't do it. You can't win. You will only inflame the situation. 

Your replies to disgruntled readers (a well-constructed, meaningful argument that in your mind is meant to counteract somebody's poor opinion of your work) will not do you any good. If you defend yourself by replying to comments or in forums at the point of sale channel (Amazon, Barnes & Noble etc) in a misguided attempt to 'set the record straight' on your book, you will attract more haters and they will post more bad reviews in places you've never even thought of, as these folks will stand by their opinion and will get more invested in getting it heard. So if you cannot handle more criticism (deserved or otherwise) of your work, do not go there. Remember, you don't have to defend your creativity, you only need to grow thicker skin. 

But it's not all bad news. Let's put bad reviews in perspective. Funnily enough, bad reviews will often bring more traffic to your book and maybe even generate some sales. People (meaning me) love reading one star reviews, especially if they're witty. I haven't been that lucky; my one star reviews are all gripes about the books not having an ending in a freebie... Well, dah. Forgive me for not giving my work away. How silly of me. I do ask for a few bucks per download for my work. It's a well-trodden path I'm taking here; it's been done before (by many a greedy and ungrateful writer) and it's not as if I'm keeping it a secret. I want to be paid for my work. I would have thought by now folks have cottoned onto this strategy so many writers employ nowadays - you give book number one away for free, with the story continuing in subsequent books which are for sale - it's the only way a self-published writer (this one anyway) can sell books these days, if they're lucky which, just for the record, I haven't been. Must be the lack of reviews, good or bad. Or maybe I'm writing dead boring stuff. You be the judge. (Yes, this is a link to Amazon right here).

So, back to bad reviews. Embrace them, folks. They're just somebody's opinion. It's not the end of the world. Have a laugh. Love you, xxoo, Ivana

Amazon Australia open for business

Amazon Australia is now open for business. All these here wonderful stories written by Yours Truly are now available to download for very, very reasonable price directly from Oz. That's so neat, isn't it? ;)

Click here to go to Amazon Australia.

Free download A Decent Ransom: the Kidnapping

is now available to download for free from Smashwords and other online stores for free for a limited time. Click here to download A Decent Ransom: the Kidnapping from Smashwords.

Selling Books on Amazon – Is KDP Select for you?

What is KDP Select?

In a nutshell, KDP Select is a self-publishing program available to authors to promote, lend and sell their ebooks at no cost on Amazon.com. For a period of 90 days, authors give Amazon exclusive rights to their books; during this period, you cannot sell your book enrolled in the program elsewhere on the net in the digital format and you will have to put up your book for a free download for 5 days during the 90 day period. You can choose single days or use this promotional opportunity in blocks, or the entire 5 day period as one long promotion.

You might be thinking that the point of this promotion is for authors to gain visibility on the site and to drive up sales of their books, making money for themselves and Amazon. Not so. Amazon is a retailer, not a publisher. The point of this free download promotion is to supply Amazon customers who have bought Amazon’s Kindle e-reader with unlimited free ebooks, thus making the Kindle device a very attractive choice for the consumer. You can buy the Kindle e-reader and never have to buy a single ebook as you have unlimited access to a vast number of ebooks, on tap. Would you pay for a book if you could have it for free? — Exactly.

What are you gaining by enrolling your ebooks in KDP Select?

That’s the million dollar question. You might gain some exposure and gain readers, but what does this mean in practical terms? Your initial free downloads will be high; plenty of people will be downloading your free books but unfortunately the most likely post-promotion outcome is that this reader interest will not translate to paid sales in any significant volume, if at all. People will download anything for free, and your book will be valued accordingly, as a big fat NOTHING.

You might get some word-of-mouth and gain some residual sales, but the odds are stacked against you.
First of all, you are not harnessing an audience who is prepared to pay to be entertained; you are catering to people who are prepared to be entertained for free. These people are there for the free downloads only.
Second of all, Amazon is not actively promoting you as an author; the moment your free ebook promotion is over, so is your visibility on the site.
Thirdly, as a self-published author you probably don’t have a following or else you wouldn’t have to do free promotions; therefore, after your free promotion is over, you’re basically back to square one – no visibility and no incentive for Amazon customers to buy your product. Your book is buried under a mountain of other books on offer; unless someone specifically searches for your title by name and your author name, your book has no chance of being sold.

Will free downloads give you reader reviews?

If you are lucky, you might get a few. But the current market is saturated with free books so readers are getting lazy. Why give a review when you don’t have to? Like anything else, people are mostly moved to action when something goes wrong; for example, readers will post bad reviews on your book’s page if their free download had issues or they weren’t happy with some technical aspect of the transaction, which, of course, has nothing to do with your work, but it will get you a bad review, which BTW, you will find Amazon will be slow to remove. If they remove it at all.

This looks bleak, I get it and I’m sure by now you get it too. Given this state of affairs, is there anything you can do to help sell your ebooks through KDP Select?

Yes, there is. Promoting your kindle ebooks on Amazon need not be the soul-destroying, frustrating experience that it is for many authors who, given enough passage of time, begin to resent giving their creativity, knowledge, skill and hard work away for free, for no good returns.

You have to start valuing your work yourself. If you don’t, your readers certainly won’t. Put a price on your book, and charge it, at all times. To gain visibility and hopefully interested readers, publish short stories or only a few chapters from your books or the first book in a series in the KDP Select program and allow these to circulate for free, with a link to your book where readers can purchase it. You simply use the KDP Select to advertise your work, not to give the whole book away. Alternately, split your book into parts and give only the first one for free. End on a cliff-hanger so readers are motivated to purchase the rest of the story. After all, at some point, Amazon will want to convert this free download only audience to a paying one. So why not help them along? And if your 'giving it away' strategy isn't working, why not try not giving it away? This strategy isn’t a guarantee, of course, of a surge in sales, but if you’re not having many or any at all, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Remember, building an audience takes time, and very little sustainable success will happen overnight.

It goes without saying that you should have a Facebook page and Twitter account (for what it's worth, which may not be much but at least you'll feel like you're doing something) where you can promote your work, as well as a Goodreads account where you can blog about your books, and join reader-based groups. There’s not much point in joining groups of fellow writers; they’re all trying to do the same as you – promote their books. On the other hand, you might find that joining a writer forum to discuss promotional tips and strategies is just what you need to keep going.

The main thing is not to have high expectations or take the lack of sales or reader engagement personally. Just do your thing, do it well, and enjoy the journey.