Help SRD market Fatal Revenant and boost sales!

[burgs]

We know that SRD is getting royally screwed by his publisher. They did a fair amount of marketing for ROTE (not enough), and as far as I can tell, haven't done any with FR. Then there's the cover art. Switching artists "mid-epic" is a terrible sign, and is often off-putting to casual shoppers. Then there's how absolutely HORRID the art for the second book is...it's a fine drawing, and there's more to it than meets the eye, but a guy in white holding a staff? With a long white beard? Gandalf, anyone? (Or Saruman, if you're thinking of the movie.) Crap. just crap.

Believe it or not, little insignificant folks like you and me can influence the sales of a book, especially the second book in a long-awaited fantasy series, where the first book was disappointing to some (not me).

What do you do? Two simple things.

Write a positive review on Amazon and on Barnes & Noble. (Buying decisions are more heavily influenced on Amazon by customer reviews than B&N).

VOTE for all the positive reviews that currently exist.

Both of these serve the same purpose. If a book has, say, twenty reviews written for it and has an average 4-star rating, and another, similar book has two hundred reviews with an average 4-star rating, customer's are more likely to buy the book with more reviews.

If two books have the same amount of reviews, and they both have the same rating, people would be more drawn to the book that has more votes cast for the reviews (assuming the votes are positive).

I want SRD to get the credit he deserves for raising the bar with this book, and for being such a strong voice in the genre. When I see that pre-orders for Terry Goodkind's latest garbage is outselling FR, it sickens me.

So - when you've finished reading the book, post a review. Even if all it says is: "WOW! Awesome book! I love SRD!" If you haven't finished, head over to Amazon and vote for the reviews that are already posted.

As a matter of disclosure, I should state that my review is one of the reviews on Amazon. But I don't need the votes. My ranking is high enough (307 currently), and I don't believe that more votes for FR will do anything to help my ranking because I've been told that Amazon's algorithm ignores helpful votes when they've passed 15 per product. But FR needs the votes, so don't ignore my review. Unless you think I'm a jerk, and then you may ignore me all you want.

[Stutty]

It's interesting, burg, that I've been considering a thread on this topic myself. And I have a couple of other suggestions.

1st - It may be possible to manipulate Amazon's system such that FR appears on someone's screen when they are browsing for other books. For example, if we en masse all browse to Goodkind's latest masterpiece, and then browse over to Fatal Revenant, later browsers could see FR when they are looking at Goodkind in the "others who viewed this item looked at..." part of the page. I don't know how many people it takes to register as significant, but it's a possibility.

2nd - Amazon also has Listmania, and "So you'd like to..." I did a "So you'd like to read a series better than Wheel of Time that will actually be completed" featuring TC. The cool thing here is you can specify "tags" thereby targeting your "So you'd like to..." to certain categories. Mine for example has "Wheel of Time" and "Robert Jordan" tags. Someone then will check to see if Jordon has released a new one, and COULD see that TC is out there waiting to be read as well.

3rd (and probably most important) - If we assume that the sales problem is marketing, then what we really need to do is break out of the little social system we have here and infiltrate others. This is time consuming, tricky, and takes away from our already limited watch time. But, if each of us found a different fiction forum, joined it, participated long enough to not be considered a troll, and gently pushed Donaldson and TC, at the very least awareness of the Final Chronicles release would be raised.

Other than that, FBH must return!

stutt

[burgs]

It's interesting:

#1 - if dozens of Watch members did this in unison (assuming there are hundreds of Watch members willing to), Fatal Revenant *might* be shown in the "Others who viewed this item..." it might work. If hundreds did it (and we know that we have the numbers!!!!!), it's a go. So, Watch members, what are you waiting for? GO!!!

#2 - Great idea with the Listmania, but I wouldn't touch The Wheel of Time with a seven thousand foot pole right now. I'm one of those readers of WoT that loved and was in awe of what Jordan did in the first four, maybe five books, but HATED what he did with the rest, and now feel nothing but sympathy and compassion. Possibly more than most, given that my anger at his seeming refusal to finish the series led me to sell all of my copies of WoT on Amazon. And let me say, until I read that he was truly dying, I was furious with him for the pacing of the story. After the fifth book.

Still, Watch members could create lists of Covenant books that have nothing to do with Jordan. Or Martin.

Martin is really pissing me off right now. Yeah, it's great that your success has allowed you to do dozens of other things, but your success is in A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, so get about writing it! Reading his blog drives me insane. SRD takes time during novels, but reading the GI we understand what he's up against. I think Martin's too busy painting his medieval figurines and setting up jousts and tournaments with his knights. COME ON. Act your age, for Christ's sake. (Granted, I think he's neck and neck with any of the best right now...doesn't mean I don't want to step on his fat hobbit ass and get him off the graphic novels and onto the REAL novels that allowed him to pursue this extra nonsense.)

#3 - Yes, the most difficult. I *had* friends that read fantasy when I was younger. That is no longer true, unless you count an instructor's boyfriend. Whom I haven't met. I guess that means nobody. I can't even convince my roommate to read Harry Potter. He's stuck in the middle of book 4, and has been since April of this year. I can't say a friggn' thing about the books around him.

[burgs]

Oh yeah. Terry Goodkind is a freakin' loon. Amazon hosts a video interview of him for his latest book, and he's the closest thing to Vlad Dracul that I've ever seen. Listen to how he thinks stories should be told. He should be writing for Mother Goose.

[Vain]

He should consider getting Oprah to push his books.....

Whilst I am all for promoting SRD's work, I suppose that what I don't know is just how many new readers will start reading the series from the beginning - considering that they started in the 70's

Is the required market all those people who read it way back when and to get them to realise that a new series is out?

Has SRD considered his own marketing? Such as internet ads...banners etc on high traffic sites?

Other ways of doing this is to link to SRD's site, KW etc etc from whatever sites we all have out there - bebo, facebook etc etc

Just me rambling

[Stutty]

Not just rambling, good points.

Target audience? Affluent whites males 35 to 55 years old?

What are the demos for when TC was hot shit? Add 30 years to that and make some assumptions about what they are doing today.

Where does one do grassroots Internet marketing? MySpace?

stutt

[iQuestor]

On Day one, when I went to get Fatal Revenant, which I had pre-ordered in B&N, they couldnt find them for 20 minutes, but finally they did IN A BOX UNDER THE NEW RELEASE TABLE. UNOPENED!!!

Putnam and Sons oughtta be publically whipped with a dead fish for their gross neglect of this book. Whatever we can do to get the word out is fine by me. I will post a review today on Amazon.

Also, we need some hot booth babes. not for public appearances or signings, I just need them here at the house. for a few minutes.

[Menolly]

Also, we need some hot booth babes. not for public appearances or signings, I just need them here at the house. for a few minutes.

*uncontrollable giggling*

[emotional leper]

Also, we need some hot booth babes. not for public appearances or signings, I just need them here at the house. for a few minutes.

Let me know when you're done with them.

I'll come pick them up before they get too cold.

[iQuestor]

Also, we need some hot booth babes. not for public appearances or signings, I just need them here at the house. for a few minutes.

Let me know when you're done with them.

I'll come pick them up before they get too cold.

I have one dress up like Linden for ya!

[Seareach]

In my honest opinion, if the book is good enough it will eventually sell itself. It just might take a while longer than anyone would like.

[wayfriend]

He should consider getting Oprah to push his books.....

Colbert is a big Donaldson fan ... That I'd like to see, Donaldson on the Colbert Report.

[iQuestor]

He should consider getting Oprah to push his books.....

Colbert is a big Donaldson fan ... That I'd like to see, Donaldson on the Colbert Report.

Is he really? How do you know that?

[emotional leper]

Also, we need some hot booth babes. not for public appearances or signings, I just need them here at the house. for a few minutes.

Let me know when you're done with them.

I'll come pick them up before they get too cold.

I have one dress up like Linden for ya!

Spoiler

Complete with a bullet wound?!

[Mortice Root]

I was actually pleasantly surpirsed when I picked up FR. It was on 10/5 (yes, before the release date) in the airport in Minneaoplis. They have at least 6-7 book stores through the airport, and each one had lots (lots!) of very prominently diplayed (right in the entrance) copies of FR. So at least it was well marketed to the air-traveling-through-Minneaoplis portion of the popluation.....

[emotional leper]

I was actually pleasantly surpirsed when I picked up FR. It was on 10/5 (yes, before the release date) in the airport in Minneaoplis. They have at least 6-7 book stores through the airport, and each one had lots (lots!) of very prominently diplayed (right in the entrance) copies of FR. So at least it was well marketed to the air-traveling-through-Minneaoplis portion of the popluation.....

A very important demographic.

[Mortice Root]

Hey, I thought so at the time.

[iQuestor]

Let me know when you're done with them.

I'll come pick them up before they get too cold.

I have one dress up like Linden for ya!

Spoiler

Complete with a bullet wound?!

Yes, but

Spoiler

she said she was expecting you to provide the Staff of Law!

[Stutty]

In my honest opinion, if the book is good enough it will eventually sell itself. It just might take a while longer than anyone would like.

Not true. GAP sales never even came close to the quality of the books. IMNTBHO.

stutt

[Stutty]

Yay me!

I added FR to this site

https://www.sffworld.com

Which did not have all Donaldson books listed. It could use some reviews I bet...

(I feel like a pimp... where's my hat?)

stutt