Why I Quit the Indiegogo Campaign

Egon Spengler could be right. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So you may have noticed that I cancelled the Indiegogo campaign.  It was an experiment anyway, and since I hadn’t heard a peep from anyone wanting to fund the print edition of my book I decided to not be embarrassed at the end of the 45 day run to find that no one had funded me.

Somehow the voice of Egon Spengler from Ghostbusters rings in my head: “Print is dead.”

It may be.  I’m not writing here about the medium of novels and short stories or poetry, but of the fact that in the past three years print books have been on the decline and e-books have been on the rise.  Industry analysts are quick to call it a passing fad or that it will eventually normalize, but what if it doesn’t?

This is why I have decided to focus completely on e-books and give up on trying to produce print editions of my novels.  During the Indiegogo campaign I was e-mailing, talking to friends I knew, chatting it up at every opportunity, but people were just not buying it.  I even offered to give copies of my novel away for $15 each and with shipping I wouldn’t see a dime, but people were not really interested, and most of them asked if I had an e-version of the book…which they promptly purchased.

So here is the strategy I am working on at the moment:

I have pulled all but the Kindle edition of This Broken Earth, and as soon as they are down, I will sign the Kindle edition up for Kindle Select, offering the book on Kindle for free for five days.  I will then list it on every free Kindle book site known to man for those 5 days, getting it in front of at least a million readers.  After this time, it will be sold for $2.99 and I’ll send This Broken Earth off to the sea that is the internet.

The book has already been downloaded over 1000 times since its release last year, and with the exposure I can get from Kindle Select and the free Kindle listing sites, I should see some happy returns.

After the 90 day obligation to Kindle Select, I’ll list the book on the other sites again, namely iTunes and Nook.

Wish me luck.

Roger Colby is an English teacher by trade, making the lives of teens in his class difficult and yet rewarding even if they cannot see the use for the important skills he is teaching them (for the most part).  He is a father of four rambunctious children and is husband to a wonderful, understanding wife who gives him space to write about weird places and even weirder happenstances.  He has many dogs, cats, chickens, birds, a turtle, a gecko and a hamster.  It is a noisy house.

 

 

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