In my own situation, I have 3 novels online–two juveniles and one adult eBook mystery–and am trying to get noticed.  I’ve placed a free eBook (a short story) to try and get people over to my website or peruse my novels. Also, I have the ability to give people free downloads of any of my novels and will be having a giveaway in a month or so of Old Flames.  I don’t really like doing it as I’ve spent an incredible amount of time writing and editing this book.  John Locke has been very successful starting off doing the freebie thing.

What I’ve discovered via the short story is there are people out there who are voracious readers and probably have downloaded a ton of free eBooks.  Trying to make my eBooks stand out among popular books is not easy, as last time I looked I was ranked 403,000 on Amazon.  Getting people to review my books is like getting the Pope to swear.  At the end of my stories I ask readers to take some time and post a review.  Some eBooks I see have dozens of reviews yet the book is not familiar in any way.  How do the authors cajole people into doing this?

It all makes me wonder how it’d go if a tight-fisted traditional publisher had placed my book with little or no marketing budget.