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Post by adrianallan on Apr 8, 2020 7:07:35 GMT
adrianallen I think your site is very good. I belong to the Frank Sinatra era, but I think McCartney fans will love your books and learn a great deal about his music. I had no idea McCartney couldn't read or write music until I read it on your site. I looked him up and read his interview on 60 minutes where he said “I don’t see music as dots on a page. It’s something in my head that goes on.” He certainly was a great musician and composer. I too will post your site on my facebook page. thanks for the share I do read the dots on the page, so it is fascinating to understand how those who cannot can still produce great work. There is even a school of thought that believes that too much knowledge of music theory can be a bad thing for songwriters, as it limits the potential to "break the rules" of composition and to do the things that conventional text-books say "should not be done". I attempt to grapple with some of these themes in my book.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 8, 2020 10:33:06 GMT
There is even a school of thought that believes that too much knowledge of music theory can be a bad thing for songwritersadrianallen. apart from his books my son is a songwriter, music composer and piano/keyboard player. Also he arranges his songs as well. He hires professional singers to sing his compositions, has an agent but still awaits a hit. However my husband thinks he focuses on the theory too much. You might be interested in his site it's garykmusic.com/
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Post by adrianallan on Apr 8, 2020 18:57:05 GMT
There is even a school of thought that believes that too much knowledge of music theory can be a bad thing for songwritersadrianallen. apart from his books my son is a songwriter, music composer and piano/keyboard player. Also he arranges his songs as well. He hires professional singers to sing his compositions, has an agent but still awaits a hit. However my husband thinks he focuses on the theory too much. You might be interested in his site it's garykmusic.com/ I had a listen to his songs. They are pretty good. I really think Gary would enjoy my books and I'm not just saying that to sell it, but because they are aimed at the craft of song-writing rather than being focussed on one individual.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2020 4:02:12 GMT
Thanks adrianallan, I'll send him your site. He lives in California with his wife and daughter. He left England about 3 years ago and really likes it on the sunny west coast.
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Post by adrianallan on Apr 10, 2020 20:42:04 GMT
I thought that I would give an update on the blog a few days after its launch. It has given me a lot of satisfaction to do the blog and I have spread the post far and wide on social media. One great feature is the statistics plugin, which provides a summary of activity. (clck above to view) It has been nice to contact all of the people who helped with the books and all of them were pleased to be credited on the page paulmccartneyafterthebeatles.com/the-contributors/ However, none of this has translated into sales - yet. I have sold a handful of copies of the books to people, but I know that one was through ebay, where I also list, and also through personal contact. Maybe people who use blogs are looking for increased sales in the long term, but I will keep you updated here. I am not sure if such a blog would be as useful for fiction books, but no doubt one could be adapted for such a purpose.
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Post by benziger on Apr 17, 2020 17:48:11 GMT
Will a blog help? The answer is probably not very easy and also not very clear. If the blog has a broad readership, it can certainly help. But how do I get to the readers?
I've thought about the following - for a very narrowly defined niche: a blog with which I promote not only my own books, but all those from the niche. As far as I know, there are still four or five competitors. If each of these competitors (editors) can introduce themselves, their authors and their books, it will give me content on the topic that I don't have to write myself. Content attracts readers. And every fourth or fifth contribution is for me.
Whether it works, I can't say yet, because I'm just setting up the blog. There are many blogs where the author writes only for himself. But this much I know about blogs: It's a long-term commitment. Purchases come at some point. Readers come to the blog a couple of times first. Regularly. If they like that and they are convinced of your competence, it can turn into sales.
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Post by adrianallan on Apr 18, 2020 20:15:59 GMT
Will a blog help? The answer is probably not very easy and also not very clear. If the blog has a broad readership, it can certainly help. But how do I get to the readers? I've thought about the following - for a very narrowly defined niche: a blog with which I promote not only my own books, but all those from the niche. As far as I know, there are still four or five competitors. If each of these competitors (editors) can introduce themselves, their authors and their books, it will give me content on the topic that I don't have to write myself. Content attracts readers. And every fourth or fifth contribution is for me. Whether it works, I can't say yet, because I'm just setting up the blog. There are many blogs where the author writes only for himself. But this much I know about blogs: It's a long-term commitment. Purchases come at some point. Readers come to the blog a couple of times first. Regularly. If they like that and they are convinced of your competence, it can turn into sales. In fact, I am still in the process of deciding if blogs are worthwhile. This is what I can report so far, after almost two weeks after first posting: I have a had a lot of interest in terms of clicks as the following graph will show. Yesterday I had an order for around £60 and then another similar order today - but what happens is that I collect the money on paypal, order my books for the customer and keep the price difference. I couldn't believe it the other day when I found that one single post had been shared 59 times and generated 6,000 views - I was almost going viral! Even though the sales have already paid for the blog/website - of those thousands of views I might have expected more sales. My son and myself have spent a lot of time customising this blog and adding new features over the past week - of course all of the blog posts are mine. If anybody has the chance to have another look at my blog and make any suggestions or comments, it would be much appreciated - for example - do you think the blogs are about the right length, not too technical and does the website strike a balance between friendliness and information and "hard sell" - too much hard sell makes people close tabs. paulmccartneyafterthebeatles.com/Many thanks - if anybody needs advice for doing something similar, please let me know
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Post by And Kevin 2024 on Apr 19, 2020 23:22:07 GMT
"I have a had a lot of interest in terms of clicks as the following graph will show. Yesterday I had an order for around £60 and then another similar order today - but what happens is that I collect the money on paypal, order my books for the customer and keep the price difference."
I don't know how and where you publish your books, but would you not make more money by allowing buyers to buy them direct from wherever? Lulu, for example, will take the order via your Storefront there, have it printed and mailed out, at the buyer's direct cost. Lulu take their cut and you get the rest. That way you are at least not having to pay to have the books delivered to you, then you forward onwards. The same applies to Amazon also. With both you don't need an ISBN (some books on Lulu cannot have one) Of course that does not apply to e-books. There is no postage!
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Post by And Kevin 2024 on Apr 19, 2020 23:37:13 GMT
Anyway. Music. Once upon a time people made a living selling actual sheet music, so they had to learn music. Few singers wrote their own stuff, and often could not read music, they often had to sit with someone at a piano to learn what the tune actually was. Slowly over time, the ability to understand how to write actual notes etc., became less important. One can, and have been able to for a long time, compose one note at a time on a PC app with the ability to print off the finished music if need be, for those who can read it, such as session musicians. But just as with art, there does need to be a talent there to know how to make something that sounds like music! To understand how it functions. There's also those like Moby and Fatboy Slim who create music from bits of other music. It can take a long time to become proficient on an instrument, but there's often not always any need to, even though it must be very satisfying to do so, says I who owns 3 guitars and two synths with the intention of learning how to play them one day! This is one such digital music creation app anvilstudio.com/
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Post by And Kevin 2024 on Apr 19, 2020 23:38:55 GMT
Blogs? Like anything else on line, they only work if enough people know they exist. Many things are not like amusing vids of cats that millions seem to share.
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Post by benziger on Apr 21, 2020 23:15:45 GMT
but would you not make more money by allowing buyers to buy them direct from wherever? Lulu, for example, will take the order via your Storefront there, have it printed and mailed out, at the buyer's direct cost. Lulu take their cut and
A book sold for 14.95: benefit sold in bookshop/amazon: 1.58, direct on lulu: 7.53.
A possibilty is a discount on lulu. If it is well calculated, this is a win win situation for both reader and author. Lets say, the 14.95 book has a discount of 5$, the reader has to pay only 9.95, but the author earns a lot more than 1.58.
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Post by adrianallan on Apr 22, 2020 6:43:49 GMT
What I do is take the orders from my website and then order the books from Lulu directly to the postal address of the customer. If they want me to sign the book I obviously pay twice for the postage costs, but then pass the difference on to the customer.
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Post by And Kevin 2024 on Apr 28, 2020 13:57:48 GMT
"A possibilty is a discount on lulu. If it is well calculated, this is a win win situation for both reader and author. Lets say, the 14.95 book has a discount of 5$, the reader has to pay only 9.95, but the author earns a lot more than 1.58."
Be careful when using those Lulu discount tools because if you have an ISBN the discounts don't carry across to other sites. It's not uncommon for people to bloat the price they really want, just to offer a discount on Lulu, so on other sites it can make the book look unreasonably expensive.
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Post by And Kevin 2024 on Apr 28, 2020 14:01:25 GMT
"What I do is take the orders from my website and then order the books from Lulu directly to the postal address of the customer." Just put a link from your site to your Lulu Storefront. Each item has its own page address where oft to be seen is also a Preview. Don't use the Buy now buttons, they can be a bit annoying. "If they want me to sign the book I obviously pay twice for the postage costs, but then pass the difference on to the customer." That's a different matter.
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Post by adrianallan on Apr 28, 2020 18:37:52 GMT
"What I do is take the orders from my website and then order the books from Lulu directly to the postal address of the customer." Just put a link from your site to your Lulu Storefront. Each item has its own page address where oft to be seen is also a Preview. Don't use the Buy now buttons, they can be a bit annoying. "If they want me to sign the book I obviously pay twice for the postage costs, but then pass the difference on to the customer." That's a different matter. I did think of doing that. But with my method, payment is immediate to my paypal, but with the other method you have to wait until the end of each month.
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