How To Get A Novel Published For The First Time
How To Get Traffic To Your Website!
By Matt Bacak
Today, the biggest problem that new website owners have is: “How they can get traffic to their website?” Significant amount of time and energy is spent today on this single task. You or your webmaster needs to commonly focus on:
– Get ranked well on the most important search engines (Google, Yahoo, Msn, Ask.com, etc.)
– Pay Per Click (PPC) programs
– Cost Per Click (CPC) programs
– Link Exchanges
– Directory Submissions
– And more…
All of these methods are valuable for getting traffic to your website. If you are not competent enough to rank well your keywords, you can obviously hire a SEO (Search Engine Optimizer) for this work. From search engines you can get a very large portion of traffic to your website.
Today, everyone wants to know the big secret to driving traffic to their website. Every day I see an article or an ad talking about driving people to your website; driving traffic to a website has become the “holy grail” on the Internet. People are realizing that if you build it, they won’t come… unless you give them a reason. Website traffic just doesn’t happen by itself. Your website is just one of many millions on the web and people rarely just stumble upon your site by accident.
There are many ways to drive traffic to your website. You can buy traffic from vendors that will pummel your website with hits from automated programs. This will increase your hits but will it increase your bottom line? Probably not. You can set up blogs that spider (connect to) your website increasing your traffic count. Does this drive users to your website? Only if your blog is so interesting that people are reading it. There are thousands of blogs posted on the internet and your blog is just a needle in the internet haystack.
Another trick is to create RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds for your website and subscribe to other RSS feeds. This again will increase your hit count but will do very little to drive potential customers to your website unless you’re providing valuable information. Tricks will increase your hit count but do very little todrive potential customers to your website.
People often turn to traffic exchanges. Quite simply, a traffic exchange is a program where you sign up and agree to surf sites in exchange for some credits. These credits are then used when other members of the exchange surf to your site. This traffic is not highly targeted traffic. In fact, if this were your only method of advertising your website, you’d probably fail. BUT it is a great method of getting traffic to your site in addition to the other methods listed above.
So, why do people use traffic exchanges? Here are a few of the benefits:
– Increase your Alexa rating! Did you know that some search engines factor your Alexa rating into their algorithms? More traffic means higher search engine placement!
– Increase your branding awareness. Any marketing expert worth his salt will tell you that branding is extremely important to stand out amongst the billions of websites out there. More traffic equals more sales. A percentage of people surfing will be enticed by your ads and click on them to find out more information. Another source of revenue. Many traffic exchanges will actually pay you money to surf. More importantly, as you refer other people to the network, you’ll earn a percentage of the money that they earn! It may be small amounts but if you work the system it could amount to a lot of money.
Now, before you head over to Google and search for Traffic Exchange, I’d recommend knowing a few facts:
– Some traffic exchanges are simply out to get money from you and will refer very little traffic to you.
– Some traffic exchanges have poor systems in place to stop cheaters from running programs to increase their credits faster.
Finally, some traffic exchanges will allow popup, active x controls, site rotators, etc. in their network. Any of these can stop your auto surfing from working, or even worse, allow your computer to be infected with a virus.
The best part about Traffic Exchanges is that you really have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The worst thing that could happen to you is you get a little bit of traffic which increases your Alexa rankings and you don’t get any money.
Of course, for the system to work, you’ve got to make sure that you do some surfing yourself. The makers of the exchange programs realize this and some of them even have an auto surf feature where you get a reduced number of credits while your browser happily loads page after page every 10 seconds or so.
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This is why it is important to have a legitimate agent who can negotiate your contract for you– all of this is something that is on an individual basis. You will not be making the exact amount as the next guy.
Authors royalties tend to run about 8 to 12 percent, although it depends on things like if it’s a hardcover or paperback print run. Advances (against royalties) are what varies temendously based on previous writing. You should be getting paid with this system on your very first novel if you are dealing with a legitimate publisher, although your advance will probably be very small.
It seems like you have a lot to learn about the business of publishing. You should take a look at the book “Writer’s Market”. It is the current authority on places to publish, and is a very helpful first step in researching the process. Also, here is my collection of websites that can help. Read them thoroughly (especially Miss Snark– love her!) and research, research, research! These can help you determine if the publisher or agent is legit or not, as well as how the process of finding the right ones works:
http://misssnark.blogspot.com/
http://www.agentquery.com/
http://www.anotherealm.com/prededitors/
http://www.publishersmarketplace.com
http://hollylisle.com/fm/
http://www.fmwriters.com/
http://www.absolutewrite.com
Hi there. The biggest hurdle for a first time author is finding a bona fide agent to represent you. Most agencies have thousands of manuscripts sent to them every year and typically, they only select a few works that are worthy to represent. Submitting your work directly to publishers is almost a waste of time, as the slush pile for publishers is ten times what it is for most agencies.
DO NOT submit to anyone that requires up front money or “reading” fees. Most agencies will read your book for nothing if it’s well presented and if they think it has merit. Reading fees are a rip off. You can check on legitimate agencies at the “Preditors & Editors” website. They keep an up to date list of current agents and any problems writers have had with them.
Now, once you find an agency, you need a great query letter to get their attention. Search the web for examples. If your query letter is sloppy or has misspelled words, you’re TOAST. Get a qualified copy editor to help you, if you can afford one. Then, once the agency reads your query and agrees to look at your manuscript, MAKE SURE IT IS PERFECT before you send it off. Again, bad formatting, grammar problems or poor spelling will doom you from the start. Pay an editor to proof your work–it’s worth a few hundred bucks to get your foot in the door with an agent.
After that, be prepared to wait up to 3 months for an answer from the agency. DO NOT submit to more than one agency at a time. If your work is good and the agency sees potential in it, they will offer you a contract. From there, it can be another 3 month wait for them to find you a publisher. Once you get a publisher, it takes about a year to actually see your book in print.
You can also go the eBook route, which is becoming more popular every day now that eBook readers and publishers are more readily available. I did that and it worked out very well for me. I went from a very small online eBook publisher to a major hard cover print publisher, but it took several years. These days, it’s much more acceptable to start out with an electronic version and move into print. However, you should think about doing your own eBook instead of paying some company to throw it together for a fee. Most of those services could care less if your book looks good, has typos or whatever. They also OWN the ISBN’s for their titles–you do not–so keep that in mind.
I hope this helps. If you’re serious about getting published, you can make it happen. It takes time, patience and a lot of luck. And as a note of reality, of all the fiction books published in a given year, only about 13% ever sell more than 1,000 copies. Most (75%) sell fewer than 500. Contrary to popular belief, most authors don’t get rich.
Jon Baxley, author, editor, proofreader and ghostwriter
THE SCYTHIAN STONE (a medieval fantasy eBook)
THE BLACKGLOOM BOUNTY (a medieval fantasy epic in hard cover from Thomson Gale)
publishing a novel for the first time?
if someone publishes their work for the first time and it appears on a bestseller list, how much would they be making per copy or from the total amount (app.)? thanx
ps) when do you get to be paid the way you deserve – per every copy? how many times do you have to publish something before this happens?
Any suggestions on how to get a novel published?
I believe it is good enough to be published, but I am a first-time writer and do not have connections in the industry. I want to avoid the on-line publishing services that you have to sign up for. Has anyone used one of these services? (i.e. “anyone can get published, just sign up for our $50/month networking service”, etc.)
dunno check web sites
Look, these questions are just ridiculous. You don’t need to know any of these things.
You want to write a book? Then sit down and write it. Come back and ask about publishing it in a year or so, when you’ve completed your first draft, had it critiqued, rewritten it, edited it, proofread it and polished it.
This is what I wrote to you when you posted the question in books. I wanted to repeat it here so that others stumbing across the question could have my references as well:
This is why it is important to have a legitimate agent who can negotiate your contract for you– all of this is something that is on an individual basis. You will not be making the exact amount as the next guy.
Authors royalties tend to run about 8 to 12 percent, although it depends on things like if it’s a hardcover or paperback print run. Advances (against royalties) are what varies temendously based on previous writing. You should be getting paid with this system on your very first novel if you are dealing with a legitimate publisher, although your advance will probably be very small.
It seems like you have a lot to learn about the business of publishing. You should take a look at the book “Writer’s Market”. It is the current authority on places to publish, and is a very helpful first step in researching the process. Also, here is my collection of websites that can help. Read them thoroughly (especially Miss Snark– love her!) and research, research, research! These can help you determine if the publisher or agent is legit or not, as well as how the process of finding the right ones works:
http://misssnark.blogspot.com/
http://www.agentquery.com/
http://www.anotherealm.com/prededitors/
http://www.publishersmarketplace.com
http://hollylisle.com/fm/
http://www.fmwriters.com/
http://www.absolutewrite.com
publishing a novel for the forst time?
if someone publishes their work for the first time and it appears on a bestseller list, how much would they be making per copy or from the total amount (app.)? thanx
ps) when do you get to be paid the way you deserve – per every copy? how many times do you have to publish something before this happens?
How can a first time author get his first book published?
I have written an novel and have limited resource to get it self-published. How can I get a publisher to look at the manuscript and possilby sponser it for the least amount of money or even for free.
What could be the remuneration for a published novel?
What could be the remuneration for a published novel?
How many copies publisher shall print first?
Is it flat rate or commision per a copy?
How much time it would take to get reply from a publisher?