Take my book--please! (a.k.a., the review conundrum)

There's a distinct Catch-22 when it comes to promoting a new book. You need reviews in order to run most promotions, but you can't get reviews if you haven't promoted the book. This leads many desperate authors to harangue their family and friends into reviewing their latest release, and some unscrupulous ones into buying reviews, a practice that Amazon has banned, though it's practically impossible to stamp out.

For those who want to play it straight, the options are limited. It would be great to have a big enough mailing list to shoot an email to your followers and simply offer review copies to anyone willing to write an honest review. At the pace I'm building mine, I might get there by 2050. (This is the part where I include a link so you can join my mailing list. Please.) Failing that, you're left to try some of the sites that offer ARCs (Advance Review Copes) to willing readers. The largest of these is probably NetGalley, though there's another called Hidden Gems that may rival or exceed it.

I only recently learned of Hidden Gems, and while I'd love to try giving away review copies there, they're booked through December, so I'd need a time machine in order to set something up. NetGalley is easier to get into, at least if you use the side entrance. For an independent author like myself, the way in is through a co-op, which buys up ARC slots in bulk and resells them to individual authors. This actually puts indie authors on even footing with big publishing houses, because reviewers who use NetGalley will see your book listed among the big press titles. I had good success with NetGalley when I released Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed back in 2015. It was reviewed by a number of book bloggers, who had at least enough of a following that their reviews reached people I couldn't myself.

Unfortunately, I had less success with The First World Problems of Jason Van Otterloo when I tried NetGalley last October. I got two reviews on Amazon and a couple more on Goodreads. And that was it. Boo.

Merry Christmas from me to you

My uncle from Connecticut came to visit last month, staying for a week at my dad's house. He's a reader, and having not brought enough reading material to last him the week, he borrowed a couple of books from my dad. My books. My first two, to be specific, The Greatest Show on Dirt and Nine Bucks a Pound.

I spent six years from start to finish on each of them, with some overlap when I put the first aside to attempt to find a publisher. Poured everything I had into them, and then moved on. I read The Greatest Show on Dirt a couple of years ago, just to refresh my memory on what I had written. It will always have a special place in my writer's heart, having been my first, but reading back through it confirmed to me that it's not my best, even though it has sold better than all of my others.

No, my best book, in my opinion, is Nine Bucks a Pound. Though four years after its release, I seemed to have forgotten most of the nitty gritty details and could only answer my uncle's questions to the best my fuzzy memory would allow. Which was made the worse by the humdinger of a cold settling into my head the night I saw him. Later that week, when I finished the book I had been reading, I decided it was time to dust Nine Bucks off and give it another go.

YA fans, meet Jason Van Otterloo

Do you like reading YA? Do you enjoy humor? Are you on a budget? Man, have I got a deal for you.

I'm taking my first step into the YA segment with The First World Problems of Jason Van Otterloo. It's like starting over as far as marketing is concerned. So I'm trying something new this time around. I'm giving away copies. FREE! All I ask in return is a little help spreading the word. If you enjoy the book, tell a friend. Post a review. Share a link on Facebook, Twitter, or whatever social media you use. And if you happen to be in a book club that reads YA, I'll spot you a copy for everyone in the group. (All you have to do is talk them into picking it, which judging by some of the book clubs I've encountered must mean you have a lot of political sway.)

I can see you there thinking, what is this book even about. Well, here's the official "blurb":

Jason Van Otterloo has been waiting for his parents to grow up for nearly 16 years. It doesn’t seem likely to happen any time soon. While his dad loses his paycheck to the neighborhood poker sharks and his mom cruises the happy hour scene, Jason haunts Seattle's coffee joints and indie cinemas with his best friend and fellow intellectual Drew. The tragicomic accounts of his ill-matched odd jobs, summer fling, and the mysterious and exotic new neighbor lady are detailed in emails to Drew and others. This will be one summer Jason will never forget—try as he might. (Ages 14 and up.)

Imagine a cross between Nick Hornby's Slam and The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole (please tell me I'm not the only one who has read and loved both of those) and you'll be on the right track. If that sounds like something you'd be up for, drop me a line, either by email (jamesbailey@rochester.rr.com) or on Twitter, and I'll shoot you a link that will let you download the entire book in your preferred ereader format from Book Funnel (no membership required, though you may need to install their app).

Simple, right? Well, what are you waiting for? Let's do this.