I bought my web domain months ago when I settled on a name I like. It's s cheap investment. Creating the web page is another matter. I've not gotten there yet. As for getting the book's title domain name, it's cheap to get it ahead of time but there are a dozen extensions now so it's not as important to get the name ahead of time. .com .net .org .biz .nom .info .firm .name .ventures And many more open domain extensions. There are hundreds of specialized extensions for organizations, states, provinces, countries and ac & edu, but those are reserved or you need to show you qualify. I just went with a dot com. Trying to buy up all the domains was too expensive. All I want is to be able to have a web page for my novel.
First, there is no law that says that if they give you a free number they own or control the the product. None. Only if you would sign a contract giving them the rights in exchange for a number would that apply, and you would have to be an idiot to do that. And, you don't need an ISBN unless your work is distributed to the bookstores, and like all self published work it won't be, unless you personally talk the local bookstore into letting you slip a few on the shelves. Next, other than friends ana relatives, damn few people buy self-published POD books. Don't believe me? Head over to a POD house like Lulu, one of the better houses. Pick a genre and look at the Amazon sales for the first twenty titles. Most will be worse than a million from the top, with four to six million the most common. The same applies to Createspace's offerings but they may be a bit harder to find. And if you use Kindle or Smashwords to release an e-version the problem you run into is that people read the sample before buying the book, so you damn well better be writing those stories on a level that reader feels fulfills the unspoken contract between reader and writer: In exchange for readable prose they give you of their time. And readers don't lower their expectations because a book is cheap, or free. But of most importance: you're vulnerable. One bad review and sales will plummet. I know this for a fact. On another writing site I made some of the local trolls angry by insisting that one must spend time mastering the skills of the profession. The result was that they both wrote "revenge reviews" for my work. The review clearly showed that they hadn't purchased the work, and they found fault with things that weren't in the novels, but, there is no way of getting such things removed, and as a result of them my sales, which had been modest but constant, plummeted to zero. I mention it because if your writing isn't what the reader views as competent, you'll get negative reviews, and they do kill sales. The lady who did the article writes nonfiction, and that's what she was talking about. She's right, too. If your work will appear in bookstores having an ISBN is necessary. Though who cares who the listed publisher is? The book will stand or fall based on the quality of the writing, not the publisher's name.
That's true, though I don't believe I ever said that. If you use a Createspace / Lulu ISBN they'll be listed as the publisher, and your marketing efforts are essentially limited to driving traffic to whatever listings they put up. At least, that's what I gather from my reading, I could well be wrong. I don't want to be limited to that - I might want to set up my own webstore, I might want to have a crack at getting it into bookshops. Either way, I'll need an ISBN. Oh, I believe you. From about my second post in this thread I've been confidently predicting making a loss However, I don't think no-one buys self-published books because they're self-published. I think no-one buys them because no bugger knows about them. If I'm going to act as the publisher, my job is to make sure as many people notice as possible. Again, agreed, though I do wonder sometimes just how many people actually use the sample feature. God knows I never do. I wouldn't be doing this if I hadn't already had a load of good comments on the stories, though - I don't intend to publish crap. Not everyone's going to like them, and I doubt anyone's going to like all 175 or so, but I think I've had enough positive feedback from people I don't know to consider them of a not-totally-embarrassing standard. Thanks for the advice. Before the review debacle, how were you promoting to achieve your sales? Seems like the kind of thing I should be asking for a project like this
I'd personally get Google Analytics for your blog to track the traffic. Anyway, I just wanted to say, I remember your 100-word flash fiction. I still remember the really creepy one with the guy filling a bowl with water, and the one about the exploding robot spouse, as well as the one about purple. "She wore purple" or something, sneaking coffees with the guy behind the till. And I read these over a year ago. I can confirm, in my opinion at least, that your work is very good. Thinking about your book though - with only 100 words per story, it would be best if you had coloured illustrations to go with each story, or at least a third or half of them, and maybe also include double-spreads of illustrations. It's a collection of short, charming tales - make the book special, and people would be more willing to pay a little extra for it. It's also far easier to impress your audience with a beautiful picture than it is with beautiful writing. I am reminded of a beautiful book of children's poetry my teacher gave me when I was 9 - I still have it. Here's an image of what it looks like inside that I found on google: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-r0kXZ2YtCVY/TXB3Y92jcXI/AAAAAAAAOCU/glt67C1ZAaM/s400/EricKincaid_JohnnyCrowsGarden-1_100.jpg If you're gonna do it well, then make it really special. Now, of course, I haven't a clue if your art skills allow you to do the work yourself because hiring a good enough artist to illustrate 50 short stories might be a little pricey...
Quite good. Quite good. I work in software development so it wasn't difficult to customize with my own custom code. Their support is great and the SEO behind it is good. As with most things you'll find the setup of any new theme a pain in the butt. For next time then. Even if I made more decent money than I do with royalties, I wouldn't give up my day job. Even if I were the next Stephen King. I love technology far too much. In my experience, get the Kindle out, make sure it's great to get good reviews in the dozens. Then release the physical book down the road. In the mean time, take your sweet time with your next book and format the physical book on the side. Don't rush it.
Nonsense. It's your book and you can promote it in any way you see fit, in any place you care to. And the book will appear on Amazon, in the same way that Zebra books with Zebra ISBNs do. The only difference is that the publisher name will change. Given the sales record for the average self published book it matters little what name is listed as publisher. You have no chance of getting it into the bookstores. The chains buy from a central location and you have to sell them on the idea of giving you shelf space by being able to point to significant sales. Most bookstores and chains won't even let people order self-published books unless they pay in advance and accept that it's non refundable. And even were they wiling to carry your offering they take books on consignment and pay only for what actually sells. A month or two later your books come off the shelves and are shipped back to you at your expense. Can you afford to have that many books printed, and then eat more than half of them? As for having sales from your own website that's a waste of time, and you don't even get the advantage of appearing on the new release list for a few days. And you really think no one else came up with that idea? Everyone who self publishes takes steps to promote their work. But what can they do but hang out on the various websites finding excuses to mention their book? A billboard won't work, even if you could afford them. Real reviewers won't even look at your offering. And if you look at most of the self published books they, surprisingly have a half dozen glowing five star reviews, mostly from people who aren't listed as verified purchasers. And you're right. It's not that they're self published. It's that the vast majority of self published books are flat out awful. I've done a study, and out of fifty self published books only one had a sales ranking that was better than one million from the top. Publishers report that out of 100 submissions fully 75% are unreadable by their standards. Of the rest only 3% are written on a professional level. Ad it's that 97% that are self published. And that's wy they sell so poorly, because after you manage to get the customer to the site they'll read the sample. And the reason publishers reject that 97% is because in the bookstore the readers will reject it, making it a waste of money readying it for the market. That doesn't change when you self publish. In fact, it worsens because the offering hasn't seen the hand of a professional editor. You can't really promote ebooks other than trying to get guest blog space and posting blogs that will be reposted. Someone reposted a post I did about a way to stop snoring and I had a spike in sales. The best promotion, though, is word of mouth and reviews (not customer opinions, real reviews). Please a reader and they'll recommend your work. From November through most of January I was running a pretty steady download rate for Water Dance, the first of a romance series I self released, and had about 6,600 downloads. But I shot myself in the foot by not editing well enough, and had several people complain about missing quotation marks, which halved the download rate. I've fixed that problem on all the releases, but you can't undo a bad review.
Put that on there last night, in fact Thank you! I'm in the process of talking to an illustrator at the moment. I can't afford a lot of images like the one you put up (which looked amazing, btw) but I can afford to get 20 or so black-and-white inks, and I think they'll suit the feel of the stories well. In the unlikely event these take off and become a Rowling-esque best-seller maybe I'll be able to put out a really shiny Collector's Edition.
So, let me sum this up to make sure I've got the gist right: Less facetiously: Do you have a link to support that? It doesn't agree with the reading I've done. As noted, I could be wrong but I'd like to know where you got your information from. If bookstores need to see significant sales before ordering them, that's what I'll have to try and generate. I was thinking I might have more luck with the local indie stores, though - the ones that have sections for local authors. At the moment my plan is just 'get sales to show demand, give store owner a copy of book, flutter eyelashes and try to look pretty' which I'm aware will take some refinement but won't cost much to try. I think I can predict the next point: you really think you're going to get enough sales? Well, I don't know. If I knew that, I wouldn't be treating this as an experiment. Why do you think having your own website is a waste of time? See, those first two sentences would carry far more weight if you hadn't followed up with the third. Off the top of my head, you can: Run banner ads on websites (probably to the author blog rather than the sales page to attract an audience); use Google and Facebook ads (likewise); retargeting; use Twitter to contact potential reviewers; get business cards printed and leave them in local cafes and libraries; hell, get books printed and leave them in local cafes and libraries - as you say, word of mouth for the win; guest-post on related blogs; set up a Facebook page and attract an audience through that; use SEO witchcraft to increase organic traffic to the author blog; build an e-mail list to help you contact interested people; persuade other blog owners to e-mail their own lists about your book; find self-publishing sites and get mentioned on them. Likely question: so you really think you can afford all that? Yes, I do. I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't have an advertising budget. There's fucking tons of ways to promote a book online. I don't think they'll all work - as many people on this forum have said, there's just not the data available to know what's a good avenue and what isn't. Half the reason I'm doing this in public is to try and give people some data they can base their own decisions on. Are my stories flat out awful? The pool's on the blog, so you can go have a look: http://neilmurton.co.uk If you think they are, that's cool. I don't mind, they certainly won't please everyone. Frankly there's definitely some on there that I think are a bit rubbish, but I won't be including the ones I don't much like in the book. I'd be interested to know how you think I could make them better. This started out as writing practice, and practice isn't much good if you haven't learnt something when you're done. Point is, since everything I'm going to be publishing is available for viewing already, it seems silly to talk in generalities. The majority of self-published stories may be rubbish, but the only ones I care about are these ones. Your stop snoring post was on your author blog? Possibly I should look at developing some kind of incentive-to-recommend scheme.
I have the published books to support it. Everything I self publish is done on Amazon and Smashwords, which places my work there, in the Apple Store, on Barnes and Noble, and even small vendors like Sony and Diesel. I own the rights to those books, not people who do no more than act as a delivery service. You need to read the contracts and stop depending on rumor and hearsay. You forgot to put the smiley face after that line. Wake up. These are businesspeople. Every pocket in the store must make generate income for the store. The central purchase department is used to talking to professional sales people who represent successful publishers. And those sales people bring in books in genres that are currently selling. They're not enthusiastic about trying out a new writer unless there's advance buzz for the book. Go and try to find the section where flash fiction is displayed in your local bookstores. If you can find it, see how many people are browsing them. Your local bookstores are not going to be any more of an easy sell. They're often approached by the local self published writers, so they know how apt sel published work is to sell. And, they expect your book to sell at a competitive price. But it can't. You're having them printed in small runs at retail price while the publisher is making print runs in the thousands. That means you'll be charging significantly more than the equivalent book written by an award winning author. That, alone, is a deterrent to sales. If only Adblock didn't exist that might be a better ploy. But aside from that, how many books have you bought as a result of such an ad? How many of your friends have? How many people reading this forum have bought a self published book by someone they've not met, or had a speaking relationship, with in the past year? Because if it doesn't work for you and them... And how many people are following you on Twitter, just hoping you'll advertise a book for sale? But unless they've talked you into buying a self published book you're probably dreaming. And bear in mind that we've not talked about the product. That advertising you mentioned generates no sales, only the chance to audition for a reader. No one buys the work of a writer they know nothing about on the basis of a banner ad. At best it gets the reader to look at the sample. Well, bear in mind that you did ask. The one posted on this site is the usual new writer attempt and pretty much hits all the expected checkboxes. I know you said it's old, but given that you haven't looked at it in horror and updated it, I can only guess that the longer pieces would have many of the same problems. Certainly, I'd update it in case that's not true, because people here might look at it as a sample of what the book would be like. And the things you have posted on that site aren't stories. They're in the range of 100 or so words and read like outlines for a story you plan to write. There are facts but no emotional impact points. And it's emotion that sells the reader. Sorry, but you did ask. Bear in mind I'm not judging on the basis if "I like/dislike that particular story."
Createspace handles returns now. So, while the odds of selling books in book stores are low, you just need to enable expanded distribution for the stores to be able to order them, and ensure the price is high enough that they can make a normal profit. I doubt any of my PoD books are in physical book stores, because hardly anyone has ever heard of me, but they're certainly available through the usual suspects of the online world (B&N, etc). I haven't seen a truly awful self-published book in a year or two. Plenty of mediocre ones, but I think most of the 'gold-rush' writers moved to erotica when they realized they couldn't sell poorly-written work in other genres.
I did read the contracts. I think we're arguing different things here - I've never said they'd own the rights. I know that's not true. I said it'd limit my promotional options. You're absolutely right - this might not work. But since I've been saying that since the start, I think you'll need a better argument if you want me to not do this. I want to try it, I want to write about my experiences here, I want people who try the same thing in a year to be able to read this thread and start more informed than me. If Adblock didn't exist it'd be a fucking amazing ploy. Since it does, it's only one that's worth trying out. The key word is 'probably'. Though as you've mentioned in another part, this advertising is largely aimed at being able to audition for a reader. If it makes direct sales, awesome - but at the moment my plan is to use it to build up an e-mail list, which I can then use to send people free stories and offer them the chance to get the collection. Might work, might not. One way to find out. Yeah, that story is ancient. It's not been updated because I don't tend to update stories - I try to take what I learn and write better ones. People here are welcome to look at it, but I'd like to think that if they want an idea of what the book's going to be like they'll have a look at the website. Since I've said all along that's what's going to actually be in the book. Can't get much of a better idea than that. I might include a longer piece with the print collection. Not really sure about that yet. I don't think I will in the electronic versions. Thanks for the review on that story, by the way. There were some useful points in there. They're more exactly 100 words. What with them being 100 word stories. But eh, who's counting No, that's cool - and you absolutely don't have to be sorry for not liking them. Not everyone's going to, I'm fine with that. But I've had enough people say they do like them - and enough people say they did get an emotional impact from them - to think they're worth doing something with.
@JayG - as much as I think you mean to help, and you want to well, help Nigel to not - as the Chinese might say - "bang his head on a nail in the wall" - I think you should stop now. Yes, the chances of success are slim, but c'mon, why are you still writing? Why am I still writing? Why is everyone on this forum still writing even though we know we have about a 0.1% chance of ever getting published, and an even slimmer one of making any decent money off of it even should a publisher take it? Why have you self-published your book when your success rates were slim enough as it was had you gone via the traditional route? Because, at the end of the day, we're all living the dream. Yes, we're all dreaming. Wouldn't still be writing, and self-publishing, if we weren't. Nigel's dreaming too, and daring to put in all this resources and energy into something he knows might fail, will probably fail - just like we all work on our precious novels for years upon years knowing that it might never see the light of day, and even when self-pubbed might get no readers. If the sheer unlikelihood of success were a deterrent for any of us, I'd bet my bottom dollar this forum wouldn't exist. None of us would be here because, heck, what's the frigging point? It's just gonna sink, and sink deep. I think what Nigel needs is some encouragement, as we all would encourage a wannabe writer to study, and write, and read, and research, and finish that damn manuscript - so let's encourage Nigel for being brave enough (or stupid enough, depending on your POV) to give it a go and say to hell with the consequences. Of course, the downside is Nigel might end up wasting a bucketload of money, but that's his choice, his money. And besides, if you didn't believe in the project enough to invest money and risk making a loss - as any entrepreneur faces - then it's never gonna take flight. This might well be why not more self-pub books see the light of day. Every business needs a capital and 99% of businesses sink everyday, with the capital gone down the drains, and we as authors don't even believe in ourselves or our product enough to do what every real businessman would. We have good reasons, but again, a business won't take off without any capital, and without some faith against all the odds. Sometimes you've got to dare to dream.
It's really interesting to see how other people self publish. I have SP'd two books in the last two years and if I am honest, I have done it as cheaply as possible due to financial restrictions. (i.e. having a family!) Although I have 'played with writing' for 25 years, I only got serious about it between 2007 and 2012 when I put together a true life book which was rejected by 20+ agents/publishers, which pushed me into the SP market. In July 2012, my first book hit the Amazon Kindle. The cover was something I'd designed myself (I've studied photography and have a little bit of Digital Image/photoshop knowledge). Then I had this crazy a**ed idea about resurrecting the fiction story that had been sat in my head for years. In July 2013, my fiction book hit the Amazon Kindle, again, with a cover designed and taken from a photograph that I took myself (see my silk avatar?) ... I did all this through msword which in all the 470 odd pages of the book, cause one tiny problem (a space on the original didn't appear on the kindle) but it was one I could live with. Then a friend (well, a few actually) said they wanted to read my book but wanted a paperback version. So off I went to createspace. Three days of intense learning with regards to converting docs to PDF's etc and I was on my way - into a bog wall when I realised that I didn't have a back cover or spine cover. Luckily for me (any anyone else) when you upload to creatspace, there are on-line proofing tools to pick up on all these things before you approve for sale. So, another few days messing with measurements, photographs, digital imaging, converting to PDF's, adding a blurb on the back cover (how did I forget that one?) and then re-upload ... $18.00 and three days later, I had a proof copy in my hand. Cue major excitement. Then I realised that one blank page in a word document does not mean one blank front and backside of the page in a book and how could I make it a little cheaper? Two more days rejigging the line spacing, adding a few extra blank pages and I had got the page count down from 600 to 470-odd and the price lower too. Re-upload, check the digital proof and order a paperback proof. More excitement as it drops through the door and I leave garbled answerphone messages for my nearest and dearest. Then it took me a further three days to pluck up the courage to hit the approve button ... but I did. Then I ordered ten copies for myself (gift for my dad, some for giveaways, some just to keep because I can). Even the postman knew what was in the amazon box when it arrived, he's as excited as me about the book! So, no sooner had I opened the box I was racing off to my photographer friend's studio where we got some great shots of the books piled in all different poses for my website/facebook/twitter page. Incidentally, facebook and twitter - free, unless you boosts your posts, sometimes I do but I prefer interaction with my followers/likers/friends. Twitter free, my website is a wix site - again, free. And sales? Yes, It's selling both on ebook and paperback, I won't be giving up my day job anytime soon but hey, I published a book, the girl who was told by her parents "you are too thick for university, get a job and pay your way ..." has published a book which people are reading and enjoying. And, I have copies of it that make me smile whenever I look at them. Now, on with the next fiction book ... and thanks for listening. xxx
Who would drive to their local bookstore to order a book from someone they've never heard of and who has nothing else published, pay for it in advance, then drive back to pick it up? They'll look online, where they saw the come on, and buy it there if they want it. And the thing you missed is that in this case he's talking POD. In order to allow returns you have to agree to pay for the book, and the shipping costs, if the customer returns it. They allow Kindle returns because no expense is involved on their part. So how many self-published books by people you don't know from sites like this one have you purchased in the last year or two? Personally, I've looked at a lot of self published work, and in one case fifty, from Lulu. I've found none that I would call professionally written.
Without ever saying how. If they have no say over where and how you can advertise it, how can they limit you? I know you said you couldn't have a sales site, but that's not true. Virtually all the pros have a webpage or blog—or both. Do you think anyone would be put off, after reading a pitch and sample on the site, if the "buy this book" link took them to a professional sales venue like Amazon of B&N? Not any more than going to the local bookstore. Why would I care if you do it? My comments were to provide a counterbalance via real-world data, so others who hear your grand plans can make an informed decision. This is, after all, a site devoted to writing, and discussion about it. Surely you don't see presenting both sides of the story as against the purpose of the site? As do I. I just don't want them to have to wait a year. So you left poor writing up in the workshop—still requesting critique—wasting the time of anyone who gave you the time you asked for? Seems rather thoughtless.
Uh, no. Createspace is PoD. Used to be that you did have to handle shipping books and returns yourself if you went that route, but last year Createspace began handling them itself. Any book store in America can now order a Createspace book, get a discount that makes sense financially, and return it if it doesn't sell. Not sure about the rest of the world. Must have downloaded at least a thousand free ones, and read at least the first page or two of 10-20% of those. Now, since they're free on Amazon, that's not a completely representative sample--the writer is competent enough to get it up there, enroll in KDP Select and schedule a free day--but none were as bad as many of the self-published books I looked at a couple of years ago. As I said, most of those were just mediocre, none were awful.
I can't set up a website for direct sales which means I don't have control over the sales process. Frankly I don't even know if that'll be useful yet, I just want to keep my options open. Linking to Amazon or B&N isn't likely to put many people off, but it's still another link in the chain. It's possible that in a few months from now I'll look at this and say 'y'know what, @JayG was absolutely right. I didn't need to bother buying an ISBN'. And if that happens, then I promise I'll put up a post saying so. Been asking myself the same question... Your comments so far have come across as 'you shouldn't even bother'. And if I was after making money then I'd agree with you. I'm not even publishing erotica, ferchrissakes. But I'm not after making money - I'm after getting figures I can share. There's not been any real-world data yet, though. There's been a lot of opinions. There's a dozen arguments just like this one across every writing forum. In this thread, I want people to be able to see real numbers. I spent $X doing Y and got $Z in return - that's real-world data. If you've got figures like that, please share them - they'll no doubt save me some time and money. But I don't think saying 'all your ideas will obviously never work' adds much. If you've got any ideas for promotion you think I should try, I'd be interested to hear them. Yes, I did. Buried on page 37 of the workshop, so hardly easily found by idle browsers, but I did leave it there. I don't see how it's a waste of time, though - just because I'm not going to update that story, comments on it are still useful. Your comments were useful, I've learned things from them. Generally on this site, I think your comments are useful - your talk about setting up scene goals helped me formalise how I think about structuring stories. In this thread, not so much.
While I really appreciate JayG's replies, this is why I keep checking back with this thread. I wish all authors here who have published, either by themselves or not, would provide numbers about sales. I once contacted an author I heard on a radio interview show about what effect her book's going from a six-figure to a low three-figure Amazon sales rank number as a result of her appearance had on sales. Very nice woman, but she said she didn't know. Can Amazon's system be so complicated that authors don't know what they're selling ?
Amazon's reports section for ebooks (as far as the one I've used) is quite easy to follow. It offers three different reporting tables for up to date sales, weekly, monthly and previous six weeks'. it also has an option where you can download a monthly sales and royalties report that shows you all sales across all the different countries' platforms, depending through which countries you have decided to sell, which itemises each set of sales to the penny/cent/whatever. So maybe she just didn't want you to know ...
@NigeTheHat - what about setting up PayPal on your own website, thereby allowing customers to pay you directly? I don't know how much commission PayPal takes but I don't think it's so much, right? It's not difficult to set up your own online store at all. My brother-in-law has several online stores that he created himself, although I'm not sure how payments are done on his sites. As for promotions - if you're just looking for ideas and not necessarily how feasible each idea might be, you might want to think about doing readings in cafes, bookstores and perhaps schools. Get into school assemblies and share one or two of your stories. If you could round up friends who would act it out with props to put on a show for your audience, all the better. Your stories are short - I'd think they lend themselves well to sketches, mimes and dramatic dances. Now the only question is if you have enough willing volunteers who's also talented enough.
my phone cut off "up self publishing" from the title...i was slightly shocked, im glad its PG by the way, in my opinion a book should have better illustrations than that. Good luck with the adventure, i hope your successful with it mate.
@Mckk - PayPal fees are 5% + 5p for micropayments, which works out nicely against even Amazon's fees. And yeah, it's pretty trivial to set up for electronic products. I'm not sure how I'd deal with physical books without manually managing the shipping, but I'm sure it's possible. The downside to running sales off my own website is that I won't have Amazon's built-in customer base, or the 'safe' feeling you get from buying from somewhere familiar. Even with the massive noise-to-signal ratio I'm going to need to get very good at driving traffic for it to work well. That's absolutely no reason not to have a go, though I could maybe have the Kindle versions for sale through Amazon, Smashwords etc, and PDF versions available directly through my website. Thoughts? Would you read a story collection as a PDF on a screen? I'm grateful for all promotional ideas, feasible or not. Cafe readings is definitely a good idea - I think there's an occasional spoken word night near where I live as well, so that's worth looking up. Persuading schools to let me in would be rather trickier, but it's a good thought. @Lae - no, this isn't an R-rated thread. Bit of a shame, really - if I was publishing erotica I'd stand far more chance of making my money back. The sketch I put up wasn't something The Archaeologist drew for publication, it's just to show her style. I'll put up some of the actual illustrations when I've got them for comments and criticism. And thank you!
Unfortunately, you lose most of the benefits of an e-reader that way. I have the Zinio app on my Android tablet for reading PDF magazines, and, even though the screen is over 300dpi, I often have to zoom in to make the text large enough to read. But there's no reason you can't sell files of all types on your own site using Paypal or some other processor to handle the sales. I just wouldn't expect to sell many (any?) if you're an unknown.
But the author pays for it. Amazon isn't going to go to the expense of printing and shipping your book then eat that cost because the reader thinks it stinks. That wasn't the question. How many self published books did you buy and enjoy after reading a pitch from someone you didn't know? This matters because if the writing doesn't entice you to spend money you had to earn it's just another amateur effort. And since you're a potential customer for the OP your reading habits should be of interest.
