www.webs.com discovery

14 secretaries wouldn't be enough! I have just joined a golf club. I haven't quite worked out how I've got the time ... but my husband has! Joint membership, of course (pun intended!).

Abe F. March wrote:

You are right Shelagh. I've done lots of promotion on the web but haven't seen any increase in sales. I'm of the opinion that the people viewing those sites are those promoting their own books. Finding a site that promotes to the general public is what we all want. Other than Amazon, there doesn't appear to be many choices. Getting Google hits hasn't done much either.

I agree with you Abe. What is the point of advertising our books on sites only visited by writers who just want to advertise their books?

My book is not the sort of book that would interest most of these folk so I would not expect any of them to buy it. I guess it's a little like trying to sell meat at a vegetarian convention.

My day job takes me into a lot of Borders book stores, every day I see shelves of books I never knew existed by authors I never heard of.
My point being that even in an established book store a book needs to be promoted to be seen, not left on a shelf camouflaged by all the others on the shelf. I doubt for instance that my book on Amazon is even looked at although the page is on the site. Most browsing internet shoppers are looking for something in particular, they most likely are there for only one thing and go elseware when they find it.

Nobody searches the entire site just browsing. I guess we the authors will have to do something unusual to get our work in the public eye.
How about a published authors naked ramble. A sponsored naked hike through the cactus fields in Mexico.

Sorry my medication wore off for a moment there.