This is by no means a complete list of those I follow (or list), but if you’re on Twitter, they’re good people to know.

New (to me) People, each with their own brand of Awesome Sauce:

• kilconor
• MacabrePhotog
• Daniel4is
• fstop23
• omewan
• Bonkina
• shadowsinstone
• Nightwolfwriter
• weaponizer
• pafford
• mamakatslosinit
• luminary2000
• twae
• nick_hayden
• jolantru
• heidicautrell
• icpchad
• PaulaatAME
• SonjaFoust
• vashtan
• SlowburnDarkly
• tenaciousN
• zoetewey
• janoda
• mattsingley
• JustheLibrarian

I personally think everyone I follow, or list, is full of the awesome in some fashion.

Happy Follow Friday!

Being an independent author and small publisher is a daunting prospect in this day and age.

The internet has made it ridiculously easy for every frustrated writer to self-publish, either digitally or by using print on demand services.

There are thousands of us. Maybe hundreds of thousands, with new names popping up every day.

Each and every one of us faces the same difficulties in finding an audience/building a readership that will justify all of this time we spend writing to our families, friends and selves.

I’m pretty open about what goes on behind the scenes with my own efforts, and intend to continue being so.

Now I’m asking you to consider taking a few minutes to help this particular independent author out.

If you’ve read one of my titles, or enjoying reading my blog entries, I would deeply, sincerely appreciate it if you would do one or more of the following:

• Comment on my blog.
• Link to it, or to Shadow Connor and/or KKP. I’m happy to trade links.
• Leave a review at wherever you may have purchased one or more of my titles at (such as Amazon or Smashwords). FYI, constructive criticism is a useful tool for a writer!
• If you belong to a readers’ site like GoodReads, WeRead, Shelfari or ManicReaders, mention the title you’ve read and review it there.
• Recommend me and/or my titles to people you know that enjoy the genres I write in.
• Check out the affiliate program I mentioned here.
• Mention me/or one of my titles on places like Twitter and Facebook. Become a fan!
• Use the social networking buttons at the bottom of my blog posts.

Word of mouth by readers is the best form of promotion an author (or anyone) could hope to have. I, and every other independent author or small publisher, would appreciate having it from you.

It’s not just a matter of hoping to build sales; reader feedback is pure gold to the writer striving to write well.

Though you know, a few more sales certainly wouldn’t hurt our feelings any.

Thanks for your time reading this!

The writers I follow, you should follow too!

• wilw
• warrenellis
• BiblioBrat
• Seriphyn
• kippras
• SoCalVillaGuy
• mathewferguson
• RebeccaHasWrote
• wordsbyme
• TravisErwin
• Kessbird
• heiningerhl
• melissaoyler
• JennaIsWriting
• Welshprj
• GabrielGadfly
• unfocusedme
• David_N_Wilson
• kenwheaton
• _Fable_
• danielrixy
• Chris_Robbins
• JasonThibault
• sirensgate
• flicmanning
• anthonysantoro
• micknugent
• jboitnott
• PersiaWalker
• whoshang
• drakonsaga
• rathacat
• DirkManning
• Dhympna
• EddieVukovic
• RebeccaEaston
• reddywriting
• glenchen
• lamcdonald
• AnnaWalls
• kuromafi
• RKCharron
• virtuejofern
• maureennaisbitt
• KMWeiland
• ashleyladd
• DakotaBlue69
• MssJenn
• veronicapurcell
• LKHamilton
• crymsynhart

Consumers who read and are embracing e-books and digital readers in order to go green or to stop turning their homes into fire hazards because of the continually growing size of their personal libraries KNOW that publishing expenses for e-books aren’t anywhere near the publishing costs for print titles.

That would be why those titles you’ve released in digitized format aren’t selling too well with prices over $9.99 at Amazon.

Many Kindle owners purchased Kindles based partially on the fact that Amazon advertised ‘thousands of titles for $9.99 or less’ including new releases. Upon beginning to purchase for their new reading devices, they discovered quite a few of the traditionally published titles available for Kindle were priced higher than $9.99 and in some cases, only a couple of dollars less than a hardcover version of the same title.

Which is when Kindle owners organized the 9.99 boycott, hoping to drive the costs of content for their expensive reading devices down to something more affordable and more in line with Amazon’s advertising.

E-books aren’t another way to recoup your publishing expenses.

Purchasers KNOW that publishing costs range from non-existent to relatively minor, with the biggest ‘expense’ being the author’s time and effort in writing the story.
You aren’t dealing with uninformed any longer.

The costs of producing e-books is as follows:

• 1. Author’s time and effort producing the story
• 2. Professional editing
• 3. Formatting services
•  4. Cover design
•  5. Marketing/advertising

The first can’t be side stepped in any way. Serious authors spend hours writing, re-writing and polishing their work.

The second isn’t side stepped by your serious author, and can run into a few hundred dollars out of said author’s pocket.

The third is only necessary if the author is unable to figure out how to format their e-book themselves.

The fourth is only necessary if the author lacks a creative visual bent.

The fifth doesn’t have to cost them a dime more than whatever their yearly domain registration fee might be, not with free to join social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

I’ve personally seen it stated that people will pay higher prices for non-fiction titles, such as textbooks, that they know they’ll use on a regular basis but they won’t for fiction titles, which are entertainment and may or may not be re-read.

Since e-books aren’t print books, and the purchaser can’t ‘give’ them away or ‘loan’ them to a friend without committing copyright infringement, illegally distributing them or interfering with the author’s/publisher’s ability to earn a livelihood, purchasers just don’t want to pay high prices for them.

I’ve also seen it stated that since e-book production doesn’t involve a printer, book binder, etc. that readers feel the authors should receive higher percentages of the sales of them.

E-books are a totally different market than print books. You can’t handle them the same. You can’t expect great sales if you price them the same or only a few dollars different.

Not that I have an e-reader (yet!), but I already know I won’t pay over $7.99 for an e-book, except in special circumstances (such as anthologies or bundled series collections). I just won’t do it.

Print books have become so expensive that I hit dollar stores to look for interesting paperbacks and haunt the clearance shelves at Barnes & Noble rather than pay regular price for new additions to my library. Or I check out books from my local library to feed the ‘gotta read’ urge.

What I will do, once I have an e-reader, is pay .99 to $7.99 and discover some of those independent authors who are taking to e-books like ducks to water at places like Smashwords.com (who, by the way, offers 82% to authors/publishers and your title is made available in 8 different formats…including a DRM free .mobi that Kindle owners might be interested in).

Traditional publishers need to consider only the costs actually involved with production of e-books when setting their prices. It’s not that difficult of a concept. They might also consider not using only the big names like Amazon as sales venues.

BTW, readers: Amazon, etc. doesn’t set the prices for e-books. The author or publisher does, so blaming Amazon, etc. for the higher prices on some titles is a waste of time.

P.S. I totally list my titles at Amazon too. Why miss out on a good sales venue?

If there’s one pet peeve I have concerning Twitter (aside from the lack of pagination), it’s people who follow me, then unfollow once I decide to follow them back.

I’m not on Twitter to be one of your anonymous followers and boost your count, people. I think that’s a really crappy way of gaining followers and have zero problem with not only unfollowing you, but blocking you as well. I abhor that old bait and switch tactic, people.

For my personal account there, which is @Scath, I use Twitter for the following reasons:

• To stay in contact with my friends who use it
• To meet new and interesting people to ‘talk’ to, and who may become friends
• To tweet about things I find interesting, etc.
• To have some fun and to support some good causes
• And yes, to hopefully drive traffic to my various blogs and do a little marketing of my books (and those of others’!)

If you follow me, I not only won’t follow you back, but will block you if all you post are:

• Links to your nude pics or porn
• Links to how to gain 10,000 followers in 24 hrs
• Links to products you’re selling that I have zero interest in
• Nothing but political or religious stuff

I won’t return a follow, but I also won’t block you if you tweet links to things I do have some interest in. The reason I won’t follow you back is because I don’t want to have to weed through 1,400 tweets about products while trying to keep up with what’s going on with the people I follow who actually ‘talk’.

Exceptions to that are usually publishing presses or writers’ resources.

I will also unfollow and block accounts that appear to have been abandoned (i.e. haven’t had a tweet in 3 months’ time).

Now, for my business account @KatarrKanticles, I’ll usually follow those who follow it unless they appear to be ‘twammers’. I will actively search for people who read e-books to follow; after a month or so, if they haven’t followed back, I’ll unfollow them since it’s obvious they have no interest in our titles.

That account is purely for informative purposes: new releases, news pertaining to Katarr Kanticles Press and special offers. I will very seldom ‘talk’ through it.