Ted Oswald Signs With Amazon Publishing, Haiti NGOs To Benefit
Some of you have seen David’s prior posts about my book and its background: Because We Are: A Novel of Haiti is a murder mystery set in the slums of Port-au-Prince with two remarkable children in the lead. It also happens to be a “nonprofit novel,” so that all net proceeds are donated to advocacy and development organizations in Haiti.
I crowdfunded the book on Indiegogo, and did a few KDP Select giveaways to modest results. David found Because We Are during one of those promotions, and he’s proved a huge help both directly (through giving advice about putting together a “Big Push”) and indirectly (through my poring over Let’s Get Visible).
I set everything in motion for the Big Push, a promotion that would try to jump start sales across retailers. I let the book slide out of KDP Select and distributed it to B&N, Kobo, and Apple via Draft2Digital; I pushed the price up to $3.99, readying 99c promotions through BookBub, Book Blast, and Ereader News Today; I prepped tweets and posts via Hootsuite during the promotion period; David featured the book on his blog. Everything was set. Read More…
The 20-Year Overnight Success
You might assume that Michael Wallace has led a charmed existence as an author: his first book hit the Top 100 right from launch, and the hits just kept coming, especially when Amazon Publishing picked him up and gave him a real push; he has now sold over a million ebooks and seemed to do it without breaking a sweat.
But like many “overnight” author successes, Michael Wallace’s story is one of hard work, persistence, and making the most of an opportunity when one finally came his way.
Michael Wallace took the time over several days in September 2013 to answer my questions about writing, marketing, and the book business, and the dialogue is presented in full below and is still hugely relevant to being an author in 2021.
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