This article from the Daily Express Books page is encouraging for anyone thinking of publishing their books digitally (like me!)
Adam Croft may not be a household name, but his crime novels have been bought by more than a million people as e-books. He has a background in internet marketing, and it shows on his website, which is a model of clarity.
I’ve just joined his VIP Club for free, which gives me two e-books and a 40% discount on the first three titles in his bestselling series; these tactics are often recommended by writing gurus for self-published authors to encourage loyalty. Normally, I’ve very suspicious about newspaper stories hyping authors who’ve miraculously made it on their own, but Adam Croft’s tale looks genuine.
Adam Croft engages with his readers via social media, including asking for advice on what should happen next to his regular characters. It doesn’t surprise me, that he reckons 80% of his readers are female, which is something I’ve paid attention to in how I write my crime novels.
At the moment, I’ve been planning to upload my 45 titles to Draft2Digital, who I found out about recently. I’ve been bogged down for the last week in stripping my formatted books down to the basic text D2D’s automated software prefers, which has been as much fun as sweeping a carpet with a toothbrush. D2D will republish my titles on Amazon, after I unpublished them, along with distributing them to Kobo, B & N and Apple.
After reading about Adam Croft’s success with Amazon, I’m wondering about postponing D2D and signing onto Amazon’s Select publishing option. I’ve always been doubtful about doing this.
One thing that surprises me a bit, is that Adam Croft’s titles don’t appear as ebooks on my local library system catalogue. I wonder if it’s a pricing issue, for while uploading a book to D2D, to learn how they operate, I was shocked to see them recommend charging libraries two to three times whatever price I’d put for readers. Is it any wonder that libraries are closing down?
What do you make of Adam Croft and how he does things?
