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I tried to post here earlier and somehow my delete key got stuck while making a correction and erased everything I'd written. Hoping a visit to the Apple store is not in my future.
Anyway, I think I'll stick to two topics for now and then post again about media consumption (maybe tomorrow after the new POI ep). It's raining off and on; usually I'd be at the demo garden now, but the workday is canceled and I'll go later to take care of necessary tasks.
First, the Ebooks Tree thing. They grabbed five works of mine off AO3 (four totally random fics and "The Opposite of an Epitaph") and also the free 15% samples of Time Goes By and (again) "The Opposite of an Epitaph" from Smashwords. I downloaded the TGB out of momentary panic (you can download files without signing up with the site, and yes I did run a virus check afterwards), and it's chapters 1-5 with a link to my Smashwords page and an exhortation to support the author, which if it wasn't unauthorized and the third book in the series I'd just laugh at and consider free advertising. Can't say for sure that everyone who's had original work nabbed is in the same situation, but I'd check before getting hysterical. In any case, I suppose I will get around to sending the DMCA takedown notice, but I'm busy this week and not inclined to add another to-do list item until I see how it all shakes out. Site might be gone in a few days, after all. And it's very much a "principle of the thing" feeling for me, not a sense that it's likely anyone's being made vulnerable (I assume gathering info is the intent) by downloading my stuff among all the thousands of possibilities. *yawn*
Second, just wanted to relate a couple of book sales stories from the last couple of weeks, with a This Is How It Works In The Real World theme, I guess. Did a talk (on edible landscaping) to a garden club last week, and though I don't come out and advertise I ended up handing out lots of business cards; the hostess of the meeting said she'd already bought Time for Tea on the strength of my sig file in the organizational emails; the club president amused me greatly by saying that they'd had [well-known person in local gardening world] for a talk last year, who had written a mystery novel along with her gardening books, and it wasn't very good, badly needing editing, and she hoped mine were better, and was glad that I had those free samples up so she could check. I suspect I made a sale there, though, and probably a few others (I also managed to plug Naomi Novik in the post-talk dessert chat). (Also, for someone who is not sure she ever wants to read more Outlander books, I market well to those fans by being vaguely enthusiastic. I think I should probably watch the TV series at least.)
And yesterday, I ended up giving another Master Gardener (met that day in person for the first time) a ride home, and she (another email recipient) had already been to my website, quizzed me for a while about the possibilities of self-publishing for a relative who writes poetry in Spanish, and sent me a thank-you email afterwards saying she was going to buy my books.
This process continues to compare interestingly to the fandom world parallel, where... I guess there is more sense of investment and fear of commitment, or something? (Or just "not gonna buy it if there's no explicit gay sex," but I can't do anything about that. I mean, we might get a little Rinaldo/Pasha in the new book.) Gardening is a fandom, too, of course, but it doesn't work on the same rules and I'm not writing about gardening, except for the occasional tulip and bouquets of metaphor. And I do see these folks on a regular basis, some of them, though I always let them introduce the subject of whether they liked what they've read.
Anyway, sig files = reasonably successful marketing.
Anyway, I think I'll stick to two topics for now and then post again about media consumption (maybe tomorrow after the new POI ep). It's raining off and on; usually I'd be at the demo garden now, but the workday is canceled and I'll go later to take care of necessary tasks.
First, the Ebooks Tree thing. They grabbed five works of mine off AO3 (four totally random fics and "The Opposite of an Epitaph") and also the free 15% samples of Time Goes By and (again) "The Opposite of an Epitaph" from Smashwords. I downloaded the TGB out of momentary panic (you can download files without signing up with the site, and yes I did run a virus check afterwards), and it's chapters 1-5 with a link to my Smashwords page and an exhortation to support the author, which if it wasn't unauthorized and the third book in the series I'd just laugh at and consider free advertising. Can't say for sure that everyone who's had original work nabbed is in the same situation, but I'd check before getting hysterical. In any case, I suppose I will get around to sending the DMCA takedown notice, but I'm busy this week and not inclined to add another to-do list item until I see how it all shakes out. Site might be gone in a few days, after all. And it's very much a "principle of the thing" feeling for me, not a sense that it's likely anyone's being made vulnerable (I assume gathering info is the intent) by downloading my stuff among all the thousands of possibilities. *yawn*
Second, just wanted to relate a couple of book sales stories from the last couple of weeks, with a This Is How It Works In The Real World theme, I guess. Did a talk (on edible landscaping) to a garden club last week, and though I don't come out and advertise I ended up handing out lots of business cards; the hostess of the meeting said she'd already bought Time for Tea on the strength of my sig file in the organizational emails; the club president amused me greatly by saying that they'd had [well-known person in local gardening world] for a talk last year, who had written a mystery novel along with her gardening books, and it wasn't very good, badly needing editing, and she hoped mine were better, and was glad that I had those free samples up so she could check. I suspect I made a sale there, though, and probably a few others (I also managed to plug Naomi Novik in the post-talk dessert chat). (Also, for someone who is not sure she ever wants to read more Outlander books, I market well to those fans by being vaguely enthusiastic. I think I should probably watch the TV series at least.)
And yesterday, I ended up giving another Master Gardener (met that day in person for the first time) a ride home, and she (another email recipient) had already been to my website, quizzed me for a while about the possibilities of self-publishing for a relative who writes poetry in Spanish, and sent me a thank-you email afterwards saying she was going to buy my books.
This process continues to compare interestingly to the fandom world parallel, where... I guess there is more sense of investment and fear of commitment, or something? (Or just "not gonna buy it if there's no explicit gay sex," but I can't do anything about that. I mean, we might get a little Rinaldo/Pasha in the new book.) Gardening is a fandom, too, of course, but it doesn't work on the same rules and I'm not writing about gardening, except for the occasional tulip and bouquets of metaphor. And I do see these folks on a regular basis, some of them, though I always let them introduce the subject of whether they liked what they've read.
Anyway, sig files = reasonably successful marketing.
