After contemplating becoming a transvestite in another posting today ‘Self-Publishing And The Sexes’, I’m also pondering the advice given by Fay Weldon.
Fay Weldon
She reckons that we should write two different versions of our book – one for traditional publishing, which is literary in tone, and another dumbed-down racy version for readers who use Kindles and other e-reading devices. This means “abandoning one’s dignity.”
After five years of trying to sell my books, I’m not sure that I’ve got any dignity left – and if I have, it’s probably slipped down the back of the sofa and is beyond retrieval. Fay Weldon has a history of making tongue-in-cheek provocative statements, but I think that she may have a point.
I’ve mentioned in other blog postings that I’ve been giving my ebooks on Smashwords away for free. I started this at Christmas, 2014, as a promotional tactic to help launch my novel. It’s also a basic form of market research, to see what draws readers. I’ve tried changing tags and book covers, to see if this increased the downloads of a title that was being ignored.
The only conclusions that I’ve made, are that people like sad titles, rather than happy (who’d have guessed that?), as well as titles with a name in or that’s in the form of a question. Unsurprisingly, any mention of sex or erotica helps to shift copies – so bear that in mind when choosing your descriptive tags and book title.
This is proved by the success of my first volume of erotic verse, which is called ‘What Do You Like ?’, with the subtitle ‘9 Erotic Poems’. This has been downloaded 2,250 times, as of today, which makes it the most popular of my forty-four free titles.
Fay Weldon’s advice may impel me towards a career writing torrid romances featuring villainous lovers with smouldering eyes, heroines with heaving bosoms + of course, the obligatory randy vampire and a horny werewolf!