E-ink and flexiscreens still aren't with us in any meaningful way though Amazon's Kindle is clearly a good start. Pretty soon it's clear people will be downloading books the way they take music and movies today. In the meantime Print on Demand has meant that for an author the usual publishing set-up can be neatly skipped. One book can be printed up at a time and still be listed on Amazon.
But the challenge now is getting the word out. I've set up an attractive website with extra funny illustrations, extra stories about side characters, I've commissioned a 40 second animation as a 'movie style' trailer for the book and I plan to run competitions for fans to send in artwork and story submissions based on the story, as well as running my own chatty blog about the book and the art of writing in general.
Promotion-wise, I need to identify which book bloggers out there count who will be willing to review my book, hit up all the radio shows i can with an interesting pitch, try to think up a stimulating press release that features my book and submit stories to other fiction sites for free in return for a link back.
What do people think about the existing market for ebooks? I'm less interested in making a profit right now than in getting the book read as far and wide as possible. The money will come later.
Is there anything else I can be doing to get the word out there?
