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I received a letter from a reader named Jo, a novelist who recently self-published her first book. She said she was looking for places to sell her book, and wondered if I might have some suggestions.
Jo's letter ties in nicely with an interview I did this week with Steve Gordon from Allreaders.com. Steve's site was developed for fiction in a way that allows people to search for books by plot, character, and overall points.
Steve, a former lawyer and author, wanted to find a way to bypass the mass market push for a certain few books, a push that is intended to deliberately drive sales forward. You know those books, they're the ones shoved in your face in the front of most new bookstores. While you're having them stuffed down your throat, you will be missing the tons of books produced every year that you may enjoy just as well.
Allreaders.com is set up to let you find these titles. "This gives people a tool for finding more of what they want. It's the great equalizer," Gordon said, citing the search process on Amazon.com as an example of what he finds frustrating. "I like Navy thrillers, but if I search Amazon's keywords, I get non-fiction navy books."
Gordon uses the services of thousands of volunteers who read books and willingly break them down into very specific bits of information on a 7-page form Allreaders generates. This allows visitors to the site to begin a process of filtering data in order to generate a list of books that fit a "favorite" category. For example, if I want to read murder mysteries that include middle-aged bookshop owners, I can include those salient points into my search.
By selecting mystery/thriller on Allreaders, I get a list of topics to begin my search. I chose main character and entered female, small-business owner, 40s - 50's, uses the right amount of violence, white American with a middling sensitivity to other people's feelings, and possessing a cynical sense of humor (note: I did not check mentally impaired or possessing special powers). I also did not select genius intellectual level but smarter than most and an average physique. I did check an ordinary person caught up in events.
Fifty books made up my final list, including the best-seller Mystic River.
Gordon asserts that Allreaders.com took three weeks from inception to launch. The site has been around for three years and has site traffic of over 1 million visitors each month. "Barnes & Noble gets under 7 million per month," he added, "but I never spent a cent on promotion." When asked how people know how to find this site, he attributes word of mouth and Google searches as the leading path.
How does it work? Unlike a keyword process, Gordon employs a text search to sift through the reviews submitted by his volunteers. He personally reviews each review, approximately 80 to 100 per day, before loading them into the site.
The downside of the volunteer process is that the categories are lopsided, with an emphasis on sci-fi, mystery/thriller, and romance.
Gordon's background is Harvard Law with a stint on Wall Street but, "I wanted to be a writer," he readily admits. When approaching the world of book publishing, however, he quickly learned an important lesson. "The problem is not in the writing; not in publishing; it's getting attention for your book."
For a writer who self-publishes, a venue like Allreaders.com levels the playing field. If you have the criteria a reader wants in a good book, you'll come up on the final list.
My suggestion to our writer Jo is to get the book into the hands of Allreaders.com and let them do some of the legwork for you.
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