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There is a not so secret brotherhood of writers called INDIES. We are a strange group of people with at least one thing in common; we love to write.
There are those of us who gather together on various social sites and discuss, promote, and offer help to others. As with any social gathering you find an enormous collection of people. I find this good and not so good.
The Good: The trend seems to be helping each other. People who are good at blogging are offering to help promote those that aren't. We tweet each other's accomplishments. Members offer reviews, likes, and suggestions on tags. There are docs, or lists that are created that offer services to barter such as editing in exchange for making a video trailer, some of the docs are just as simple as adding the links to your books, author page, etc. We have even bought books from each other! Unfortunately, some of these groups are private; you have to know someone to get in. Normally I would say that's a bad thing, however, this is what brings me to ...
The Bad: There is a small fraction of people, who you will find in almost any situation, who will take advantage of people's good nature. When some of these groups began they were open to everyone. There were a few people identified as "Takers Only" these people asked for help and never gave anything in return. There were disagreements and turmoil on a daily basis. Nobody needs that. Takers, you don't know what you are missing.
Bottom Line: The consumer decides what they will buy. It's up to us to put our hard work into the prettiest package to get that "curb appeal". The best book on the planet will go overlooked and undiscovered without a great package. Now help is available! Here is a group I can recommend on FaceBook : Blogs4U. If you see me or the owner of the group, Al Place, in other FaceBook groups, ask for an invite and be prepared to jump in and help.
In the true spirit of helping others I will add the link to Al's page on FaceBook to get you started:
http://www.facebook.com/awplace
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Great de'but article, Yez
Welcome to a friendly place called Angie's Diary! I need to be back more - got to figure out to have my time stay totally productive or learn to operate on two hours sleep..p;]
Like your style lady...
Carol x
So true Ms. Yez...
Well said Yezall. It's taken me a few years, but finally I've found a group of nice folk, not only here at Angie's, but at Writers Like Writers and Blogs4U, populated by people like Alan, Carol, Rick, yourself and many more.