Tag Archives: potter

Publishers charge you but is anyone paying you?

earn money with affiliate marketing

earn money with affiliate marketing

Does Bantam pay you to sell books? No. Does Penguin Random House pay you to sell books? No. They certainly charge you to buy books, though.

Does George Martin pay you if you blog about A Song of Ice and Fire? No, but he sure benefits when you talk about A Song of Ice and Fire, and people buy the books because you praised A Song of Ice and Fire on your blog or website.

Does J.K. Rowling pay you if you blog about Harry Potter? No, but she sure benefits when you talk about Harry Potter, and people buy the books because you praised Harry Potter on your blog or website.

What about all the writers out there now who are crowdfunding in order to publish their books. Writers are crowdfunding, accepting money, for something that doesn’t cost much, and then they turn around and sell their product to consumers, so there you are, paying a writer to write, and then they turn around and sell the product, making money again.

What happens if they have money left over from the crowdfunding campaign? Where does it go? Do they pay you? No. Most often, they can’t even be bothered to hire competent editors. They just pocket your money and claim they need to eat, too.

Let me turn you on to a new wave of thinking, a new wave of earning money, a new wave of affiliate marketing.

I have big news for readers. I know you love to read, and I know you’d like to make some money, and indirectly, there is a way for readers to make money by reading. I’m going to introduce you to affiliate marketing, but not the way you’ve seen it before.
You do want to make money, right? You like to read good stories? You can make money selling stories you’ve read. Well, you can make money even without reading stories, but what I want is for my readers to sell my stories because I know you guys have not only read my stories, you’ve loved them and want to share them with everyone, and I want to pay you to do it. It’s easy.
You’ve heard of affiliate marketing, right? Well, here’s the deal; Smashwords allows their writers to set the amount of money affiliate marketers can earn.

Starting on 03/01/2017, I am offering everyone 25% of my sales. All you have to do is make a Smaswhords account, you should already have one anyway, and down at the bottom of my books’ pages is an affiliate link.
All you do is copy and paste that link on your site, or blog, or whatever, and whenever people buy my book through your site, with your link, you earn 25% of the sale. You’ll have to add your Paypal address to your Smashwords account to earn the money, but it’s super simple, and you earn money immediately.
Yeah, I’m taking a cut so that people the world over can earn money by selling my books, and it should be pretty easy because my books practically sell themselves.

Look at this title, cover, and blurb; wouldn’t you buy this book for $5.99?

The Dragon of Time Two, Dragon Slayer By Aaron Dennis
The Dragon of Time Two, Dragon Slayer
By Aaron Dennis

Scar, the Dragon Slayer, was fashioned to purge the Dragons from Tiamhaal, yet such a thing is not so simple. Kings and queens yet war amongst one another. They, too, lie, connive, and coerce, and so, Scar and his friends must find a way to persuade men to stand together against the machinations of evil forces. Join Scar on an adventure, which will test his mettle as man and warrior.
Well, here’s the deal. If you sell this book, you’ll get to keep over a dollar of the sale.

It’s easy, right?

You should start today. Just keep in mind that extra income won’t be available until March. You can still sell my books for 11% of the profit starting today, which isn’t bad, but from March 2017 and on, I’ll make sure all you guys can earn 25%. You won’t find a better deal anywhere else by any other author.

Here’s the link to each book that actually has a price.

Apollo

Apollo, a Lokians short story By Aaron Dennis
Apollo, a Lokians short story By Aaron Dennis

Cayneian

Cayneian: A Man From Blood By Aaron Dennis
Cayneian: A Man From Blood
By Aaron Dennis

Short Stories from the Mind of Aaron Dennis

Short Stories from the Mind of Aaron Dennis By Aaron Dennis
Short Stories from the Mind of Aaron Dennis
By Aaron Dennis

Gods and Dragons

The Dragon of Time, Gods and Dragons By Aaron Dennis
The Dragon of Time, Gods and Dragons By Aaron Dennis

Dragon Slayer

The Dragon of Time Two, Dragon Slayer By Aaron Dennis
The Dragon of Time Two, Dragon Slayer
By Aaron Dennis

Kink Erotica – if you’re feelin’ nasty

Kink Erotica, A Collection of Sexy Stories By Aaron Dennis
Kink Erotica, A Collection of Sexy Stories
By Aaron Dennis

Otherside

Otherside By Aaron Dennis
Otherside
By Aaron Dennis

The rest of my books are free, so there can’t be any profit earned.

If you have a Smashwords account then the bottom of each book’s page will present a special referral link that you use to generate sales and earn income directly from selling my books.

If this opportunity sounds too good to pass up then don’t pass it up. Start a Smashwords affiliate marketing site today, and reap the rewards of selling my books. Then, when your Smashwords affiliate marketing site is up and running, leave a comment with your name and a link to your site. I’ll add your site to my Backlinks tab and promote your site on Twitter.
I told you it was easy, didn’t I?
Think about it. You already read. You already know my stories rock. You already know people buy my stories. Why shouldn’t you get a cut? You already tell everybody, your friends, family, coworkers, and your blog or website fans which books you enjoy reading, and then your friends, family, coworkers, and blog and website fans go out and buy those books. Why shouldn’t you get a cut?

I’m telling you; Bantam, Penguin, the writers, the crowdfunding abusers, they’re all making money off of you! Why shouldn’t you start making money?!

You should! That’s why I’m giving you 25% of the sales from March of 2017 on out. You guys are great. Without my fans, I wouldn’t have anything, and I want you to have some extra cash in your pocket. You can certainly sell anyone’s books, but is anyone else giving you 25% from each sale? I don’t think so. The standard affiliate referral from Smashwords is only 11%, and other sites like Amazon make affiliate marketing a pain and a convoluted mess.

Save yourself the headache, and share with the world what you already love: my stories. Earn a cut of the pie while you’re at it.
Apart from the books listed above, three more books will be released this year, so now’s a great time to hop aboard this money train because with each new title I release, more and people are going to be buying my books, and you want to make sure to be among the first to earn a fat cut of my profits. Thank you for being loyal fans.

This guy’s already started selling my books and other books! Affiliate Market Smashwords Best Sellers

So you want to be a writer part 5

 

Part 5 – The early social media presence

Welcome back to this series of posts about becoming a successful writer. As always, the most important concept to consider is the consistent and continuous release of quality content, and we’ll talk about how to improve the quality of content as we progress, or if you prefer, you can just hire an editor.

The last post discussed building and selling your brand, something you do regardless of which publishing route you take. The question then becomes, how does one get people to notice a brand?

Remember, your brand is you; you are selling yourself, so go out and be yourself. The world today has opened the door for all of us to do just that. We can do live videos on FaceBook. We can upload YouTube videos. We can tweet, share content and comments on Google+ and LinkedIn, we can blog on our own sites, on Quora, Medium, write stories to Wattpad, Fanfcition, and Quotev. I mean, c’mon, the opportunities are endless, but as has been mentioned, it’s important to connect with readers. If all you’re doing is following, retweeting, and sharing with other writers, you are not connecting with readers.

This brings us to another big, big, mega, huge misconception. Just about every writer out there, who is not published by a mainstream publisher, thinks they can pool their resources with other writers. They think that they can give their fans to their fellow writers, and get fans from their fellow writers.

Wrong. Man, is that ever wrong.

Does Burger King share consumers with McDonald’s? No. They compete. Does Citgo share their consumers with Shell? No, they compete. Does George Martin hold a blog tour with J.K. Rowling? No! Not even their publishers set up such things. Why? It doesn’t work.

Don’t believe it? Go and follow the mainstream authors and publishers, and look at their tweets, posts, and updates. Go look at their websites. Regardless of whether or not you think their published content is any good, it is an undeniable fact that the mainstream publishers and writers sell, at least on average, better than indie or self published writers, which means that their business model works, and their business model does not involve banding together.

They compete, and they promote competition. Perhaps no quite so intensely as Nintendo and Sega did in the past, but Simon and Schuster is not trying to give fans to or get fans from Penguin Random House.

Here’s the deal; before you are published, you do want to work with other writers, not to try and share fans—thinking that if that writer sells books, you can get their fans to buy your books—you engage with other writers just to view writing from a different perspective. Look at their brand, read their voice, check out their book covers, blog formats, etc. There’s a ton of stuff you can get from other writers, but you are not trying to get their fans, or pool fans between one another. The consumer world just doesn’t work that way, and as a writer, you are also a businessman, and you have to understand business.

Another factor of business is social media. As was stated earlier, the world has opened itself up to social connections, but you have to be…wait for it…sociable.

Retweeting, and setting up auto tweets, and auto posts is the wrong approach. It is certainly a time saver, but you should not be spending the bulk of your time on social media, or even promoting your work, anyway; you should be spending the bulk of your time reading, writing, editing, and discussing topics—connecting with humans as a human.

Be sociable. Engage with other readers. Right now, before writing your novel, make an account on Goodreads, FaceBook, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter, Quora, Reddit, Medium, and have your own blog. Go to where the people are discussing topics you like.

Maybe, you like The Elder Scrolls. I do. I went and conversed with people who enjoyed The Elder Scrolls, and I just talked about the video games. I did not immediately try to monopolize the posts by telling everyone to drop what they were doing and come read my Skyrim fanfiction. I acted like a human being, and I discussed whatever the particular topic was. Then, when the opportunity presented itself, I let people know that I enjoyed Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim so much, I went and wrote a fanfiction. I added that if anyone was interested, the link to the free book was available, and it worked; people came to read my story.

Maybe you like HarryPotter. Believe it; plenty of people are talking HarryPotter. Join groups dedicated to HarryPotter and discuss. Then, when the opportunity presents itself, you let people know you are also working on a HarryPotter fanfcition and would love some feedback.

This is how you benefit from social media. People think that they should use social media to send out an update from their blog, or send out a link to a buy page for a book. There are times to do that, but releasing those kinds of posts on a regular basis is not what sells books. It just doesn’t work that way.

Think about it. If a new, mainstream author emerged today, and you are on Twitter, and you see a retweet from someone you follow, which states: @JohnPWriter visit http://www.jpwriter.com for my new book: Mars Raiders, are you going to run out and buy the book? Why would you? Are you even going to click the link to see what the book is about?

Here’s the bigger question; what are the odds of you even seeing that tweet?

If you start your social media presence now, before writing your debut novel, you’re selling yourself, that’s all you’re trying to do. You are creating an online presence, and people will take you seriously because you are a real person who is interacting with other, likeminded people. Then, as you write your short stories or fanfiction, you can kindly, kindly, ask people to come look at your work, but only if the opportunity is there.

The great thing about a lot of social media sites is that you can ask the question. Something along the lines of the following makes for a great opener: I want to write a Harry Potter fanfiction, can someone provide me some feedback? Don’t expect everyone who likes HarryPotter to rush on over to your question and answer it, but don’t be surprised if people are interested either; everyone likes to talk about themselves and what they enjoy.

A great tweet might also read: @JohnPWriter I’m trying to finish my #HarryPotter #Fanfiction, all comments welcome visit http://www.jpwriter.com Thanks

Social media is extremely important, but 90% of writers are using it incorrectly. These posts, however, have not been designed to teach you the intricacies of using each social platform. There are numerous books written by numerous people, and everyone has their own take on how to optimize a Twitter presence, or a FaceBook author page, or a Google+ brand page. Feel free to buy those books, just be sure to check out the one and two star reviews, not only the five star reviews.

What needs to be considered is that, empirically speaking, if you send out a tweet, which has a shelf life of about six seconds, and that tweet states: http://www.jpwriter.com come check out my new #HarryPotter #fanfiction. No one is going to pay attention.

I can prove it.

Find your favorite, indie author who is claiming they’re earning a five figure income per month, and look at their tweets. Then, look at how many followers they have. They may have a million followers, but then look at the number of likes and retweets each tweet gets. For FaceBook and other platforms, look at how many likes, shares, and comments they have. In all likelihood, it’s very few.

On the rarest of occasion, you may come across the one person who is getting mass likes, retweets, shares, and comments, and if that’s the case, they have built their brand correctly, and in that case, you should scrutinize their tweets because the working formula is in there somewhere. Most people are trying to use social media to get people to view their book or website, when they should be using their book or website to get more followers. Most writers have it backwards.

I’ll be totally honest, I have few followers on Twitter, and I don’t use FaceBook; in the end, the numbers matter very little. Don’t believe that either? Go look at Penguin Random House’s Twitter account. Look at their tweets, and see how many likes and retweets they have. Look also at how many tweets they send out per day. Read their tweets carefully. You won’t see what you expect. They certainly sell books, though, don’t they? Social media numbers mean very little.

Here’s the math: if you send out a tweet with a shelf life of six seconds, very few people will see it unless it is consistently retweeted regardless of how many followers you have, but let’s assume that one million people see this magic tweet over the course of a day. Out of one million views, if no one retweets it—or even if it is the retweeting which garners this magic tweet one million views—out of those views, maybe 1% of people will be interested enough to click on the link. That means that only ten thousand people will view the linked page. If that page is a buy page on, say, Barnes and Noble, how many of those people, those ten thousand, will be readers, people looking to buy a book? How many will be people looking to buy a book of that genre, by you, a virtually unknown author?

How many people will be interested enough to look at the title, cover, and blurb? Maybe one percent? That means that of that ten thousand, one hundred people are likely to buy the book.

Hey, one hundred sales isn’t too bad, though, right?

Let me tell you; unless your tweet is magic, your tweet isn’t going to get a million views. Think about it. When you’re on Twitter, or which ever social media outlet you prefer, how many posts do you scrutinize? How many have links to pages? How many of those do you actually click? Where do you usually wind up? A website? A blog? How much scrutiny do you give then? Have you ever actually bought a book explicitly due to a Tweet? A mention on FaceBook? A post on LinkedIn?

Are you with me?

Social media is not used to sell books or even drive traffic to your site. Social media is used to engage, sociably, with likeminded people. King and Martin have a mess of followers on Twitter because people already know those guys exist. People—fans—will follow you after visiting your site, downloading your free, short story, reading your fanfiction, or purchasing your novel, not the other way around, so you have to understand what social media does; it gives people a chance to talk, to talk about what they enjoy, and if people enjoy reading the fantasy genre then talk to those people about the fantasy genre.

Yes, you do want to Tweet and post updates, which you have made to your blog or website, but if that’s all you do with social media, it won’t get you the results you’re expecting. Why would anyone want to retweet such a thing? What is there to entice someone to click on the link? Who cares that John P. Writer just released a new, blog post entitled: fat cash for fast cats?

Also, if other writers are consistently retweeting your tweets, won’t they be missing out on potential fans or sales? If you’re constantly retweeting other writers, won’t you be suffering the same? Well, yes and no; as was discussed, you aren’t getting sales from tweets anyway, but you’re definitely losing out on attention, so there will come a time to distance yourself from other writers, and we’ll dive into that a little bit more later on.

What is important to understand is that social media does not sell products, but it can certainly sell a brand. That brand is you, so be cute, be funny, be accessible, be present. You like cats? I love cats! Post cat memes, pictures, gifs, and videos to your social media accounts. Then, find a way to relate cats to your writing, book, blog, or site.

You can easily make a cat meme with your website on it. No, it won’t be a clickable hyperlink, but people will still see your website, or perhaps, the title of your book. Make a cat meme that says: Grumpy catwuvs Mars Raiders. Don’t you wuv grumpy cat?

Yes, it’s absolutely stupid, but it creates a mental link, a connection. People will associate something they know and love with something unfamiliar. After someone sees grumpy cat wuvving the title of your book or website a half a dozen times, they’re going to get curious.

Own a cat? Sweet! Snap a pic of your cat sleeping on your laptop, and make claims that Mrs. Whiskers if feeling left out because you’ve been writing so much.

Feel me?

This is business. This is marketing, and you can use social media to market your brand, but you cannot use social media to get new readers and sell books by simply auto tweeting: come check out my new #fantasy #adventure The Ring of Lords.

Yes, as with everything else, this is time consuming, and there are numerous variables, which you must calculate specifically for your title, audience, genre, etc. Social media is a powerful tool, but even the best Phillip’s head screwdriver is useless if all your screws are flatheads head, right? You have to use the proper tools properly, and I promise you, the number of followers you have on Twitter or any social media site does not equate to the number of visitors who will spend time on your site and subsequently buy your books.

So what sell books? Quality content and people. If people like you then they like your brand. If they like your brand they will discuss it with others through their social media accounts. This is why you haven’t written your novel yet. You are writing short stories and giving them away, so that you can learn what your audience likes. Then, you will write your fanfiction, and give that away, too. Then, when it’s time to write your novel, people will already be waiting for it. You will already have a better understanding on how to improve the quality of your writing, too.

It sounds like a great deal of effort. It is! It will pay off, though. Engage people who already enjoy what you enjoy. Build connections. Build your brand. Release quality content, and then people will sell your content for you.

You can’t possibly sell thousands of copies of your own books, but if you sell ten copies, and your fans talk about them, thus selling more copies, and then everyone is selling tens of copies of your books then suddenly everyone is buying your books. People, consumers, fans sell products, not social media.

Thanks, you guys have been great. I’m going to be releasing one more post in this series, so stay tuned. If you’re interested in learning how to improve your content, read any of my “Editing” posts. Also visit the Editing Services tab.

What did Tolkien add to the fantasy genre that weren’t already elements of mythology?

Since Quora likes to collapse my answers in an effort to keep me quiet, I’m copying and pasting some of the Quora Q and A’s in which I’ve participated. Here’s a question from Quora.

Question: What did Tolkien add to the fantasy genre that weren’t already elements of mythology?

Addendum: It seems that preexisting mythologies such as Norse mythology had a lot of the same elements as modern fantasy and inspired Tolkien.  What were Tolkien’s contributions that made him the father of modern fantasy?

Answer: I agree with the whole premise.

Tolkien just mished-mashed it all together, and the readers made it a success.

Frankly, I think Tolkien is a crappy writer and Martin, too, for that matter.

They added no elements that weren’t a part of the Arthurian Tales or tales of Vikings. I think both writers suck, but until now, no one has offered anything of value. That’s the problem. Readers need a new writer to rally behind.

Now, after my seething answer, allow me to elucidate.

There are no original ideas. There are only original presentations. I’ve said it before, and I won’t tire of saying it.

No writer out there today, be it Tolkien, Martin, King, or anyone else has new ideas, original concepts never before presented in stories of any genre. Yes, there can be new elements.

If, for instance, someone writes a new novel today, a sci fantasy along the lines of Final Fantasy, but in novel form, and they include something like social media, yes, that’s a new element you won’t find in Germanic Folklore, or even most current novels, but it’s a new presentation of an existing idea–communications.

See what I mean? A writer needs to find something new, but it’s a new presentation, not a new idea.

What makes a writer great, or a story great, is the presentation of the correlated ideas, not the ideas themselves.

Yes, there are readers of fantasy who consider Tolkien and Martin great writers, but compared to whom?

What other writers are there of that genre for average readers? Le Guin? She’s actually underrated, and many die hard fantasy fans prefer Le Guin to Martin or Tolkien when it comes to fantasy books. Then, there’s Jordan, who is also widely underrated.

Also, don’t forget that before the Harry Potter movies, The Lord of the Rings movies, and The Game of Thrones T.V. series, none of those writers were as popular as they are now.

There was time when only nerds and dorks read The Lord of the Rings, but after the movies came out, everyone went back and read the books.

There was a time when only children read Harry Potter, but after the movies came out, everyone went back and read the books.

There was a time when only nerds and dorks read A Song of Ice and Fire, but after Game of Thrones came out, everyone went back and read the books.

Unfortunately, the Earthsea miniseries ran Le Guin into the ground, and now she’s begging people for a kickstarter campaign to help her fund her documentary.

Are you kidding me? Is she not a successful writer?!

There are two things to take away from this post.

  1. There really are no new ideas.
  2. People will only be able to enjoy that which they find.

It has become increasingly difficult to find material worth reading, especially in the fantasy genre. Truthfully, there are numerous unknown writers like Barnitz who are far and away better than Tolkien and Martin, but if no one is making movies or shows out of their short stories, novels, and series then few people will find those great books without a great deal of leg work.

Sure, everyone thinks Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and A Song of Ice and Fire are the best of the best, but are they? Or are they just the most popular?