As a new indie author, I'm personally of the opinion that my greatest enemy is obscurity. This is one of the many reasons why my book is distributed with a Creative Commons license that allows (and encourages) sharing the book freely with friends, neighbors, and complete strangers on the internet.
However, this is not always an easy position to take because "distributed for free!" and "distributed widely!" takes a tremendous amount of time. At last count, my novel "Pulchritude" is currently distributed at almost 20 different links:
• Amazon (US) (eBook)
• Amazon (US) (Print)
• Amazon (UK)
• Amazon (DE)
• Amazon (FR)
• Amazon (IT)
• Amazon (ES)
• Apple (via Smashwords)
• B&N
• CreateSpace (Print)
• Diesel (via Smashwords)
• GoodReads
• Google Play
• IvaNovella
• Kobo (via Smashwords)
• Lulu
• Smashwords
• Sony (via Smashwords)
The Amazon and Smashwords links can be consolidated into a single process, but that's still a lot of uploads and managing. And thus there is a natural tension between Distributing The Old Book and Writing The New Book, since the aspiring indie author is frequently strapped for time.
With that in mind, I'm going to swallow my pride and as for help. I love this post at Slacktivist which gathers up online archival sites that distribute free literature. However! I simply do not have the time or spoons to research each one, determine if they accept Creative Commons books or only Public Domain books (there is a difference and my book is not Public Domain), create accounts at each one, and upload as needed.
So! If you are an archivist, and particularly if you are involved with Open Library or Project Gutenberg, and if you're at all willing to help me distribute "Pulchritude" for free through any of these sites (and/or through any torrents you may have access to), I'd greatly appreciate any uploading that you would do on my behalf.
Here are things that you will need:
Title: Pulchritude
Author: Ana Mardoll
Publisher: Acacia Moon Publishing
Publish Date: 2012
ISBN: 978-0-9849822-0-2 (eBook edition)
Cover Art
ePUB edition
mobi edition
PDF edition
Asking for help is hard, but I figure that if there's someone out there with a passion for archiving and a few minutes willing to help me, it's worth the pain of asking. Thanks in advance.
9 comments:
Ana! I somehow missed that you'd written a book! And I like your blogging lots and am curious about what your fiction would be like. Sounds like I am your target audience. :D
Have snagged an epub version, to read on the handy-dandy e-reader app I have on my cell phone. <3
Have you seen Autharium? They seem to do a lot of these things for you.
http://www.autharium.com/
I met the people behind it and they seemed really nice, so I might be worth a look.
Well, they don't seem to be distributing the book for free; they upload your book to retailers for a pretty high cut, but I already have that covered. Thank you, though. :)
Woo-hoo!! ;)
Ah, OK, sorry Ana. My trying to be helpful is not that helpful!
I did read this article today : http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jul/30/tweet-about-cats-just-write
It occured to me that you may be a counter example of what he was writing about - what do you think?
Thank you. :)
The article made me LOL. Anyone who thinks that either "ePublishing" (I think zie means "self publishing", but it's hard to tell) OR social media is a bubble that is going to burst soon and go away forever is dreaming.
It wouldn't surprise me if we see the slow-down of people like Amanda Hocking rocketing to the top like she did, since at least part of that rapid ascent was newness and filling a market niche, but that's true for everything.
We don't all have to be rockstar millionaires to make it as indie authors.
As I remember explaining before somewhere on Slactkivist, but cannot now find, I can't buy books (or anything too big to fit through a letterbox) online. I buy them from my local bookshop instead. And that can order anything with an ISBN.
Does the print copy of the book have an ISBN?
TRiG.
Does the print copy of the book have an ISBN?
Yes.
ISBN: 978-0-9849822-1-9
(My source.)
(Thank you! I've had some kind of weird sleeping sickness today, and linking requires getting out of bed.)
TRiG, that is a POD version, so I've no idea if your store can order it, but it has an ISBN and barcode.
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