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  • Writer's pictureMatthew B Berg

Why Every Indie Author Needs a Reader Magnet

People like to label things. Some take this human habit more seriously than others. For the latter, if I were to call my latest story, A Monk’s Tale, a novella, they might call me out on it—feeling that term should be reserved for stories that are between roughly ~15,000 and 40,000 words (sources vary in opinion, but let’s just go with those numbers for our purposes here). My story is 12,000. Apparently that makes it too long for the labelers to call it a short story (not to exceed roughly 8,000 words), and not quite long enough to be a novella. Hence: novelette!


Anyway, now that we’ve addressed what a novelette is exactly, why am I giving one away? I mean, I put time into writing A Monk’s Tale. Not as much time as I put into my first novel, The Crafter’s Son, and not as much time as I will put into books two and three of The Crafter Chronicles, either (which time will measure in the hundreds and hundreds of hours—or more—before I’m done). But the bottom line is that my time is valuable to me. So why wouldn’t I reserve that time writing books that people are willing to buy?


It’s pretty simple: People like free stuff. And even people who don’t mind spending money for a quality product are willing to give free stuff a try more readily than buying a book from an unknown author. Therefore, the plan is that I will give the book away to as many people as I possibly can in the hopes that, a) they like it, and b) they will decide they want to read more of my stories—even ones they might need to pay for. This practice is called a “reader magnet”. That’s it. The End.


Just kidding. Sort of. I mean, it really is that simple. But I suppose there is something of both art and science to the whole process, as well. So I’ll cover some of that detail here to help flesh things out a bit. But first . . . a sample!

Cedric looked around the mostly empty room. Almost everything had been carefully bundled up in crates. He’d let his aide take charge of most of the items in his study—predominantly books, scrolls, and other loose writings. But he’d asked him to leave the packing of his trophy shelf to him. He couldn’t bear the thought that those items might get damaged or lost, so he would see to them personally.


The shelf was more cluttered than he liked. But the items it contained were ones with which he would have a hard time parting.

  • A troll’s tooth. A bit gruesome, but there could be no better reminder of what he had undergone.

  • A smooth grey adder stone on a simple twine lanyard.

  • A delicate wand of wenge wood. The elf who’d passed it on to Cedric claimed it had been a gift from the tree itself.

  • A raw chunk of silver ore from the dwarven king.

  • A fearsome talon he had found in the mountains of Ath. The Krigares were convinced it was a dragon’s claw, though, strangely, it seemed to be made of stone.

And of course, there were his journals. He’d started writing them when he was campaigning with the king so many years ago. And for the most part, he’d done a fair job of keeping up with the habit.


He grabbed an empty crate and set it at his feet. And then he plucked his oldest journal from the shelf. It was smaller than the others. More weathered and tatty. He brought the journal up to his nose and inhaled. The earthy smells of leather, ink, and vellum relaxed him. And he leaned back in his chair and stared idly out the window. Dawn would be breaking soon.


He raised the book to his nose a second time and took an even deeper breath. Still calming and familiar, though not quite as transporting as the first whiff. On a whim, he uncoiled the leather cord that held the pages together from around the button on the journal’s cover. And he flipped to the first entry.

- Excerpt taken from A Monk's Tale (my first reader magnet!)


So there's a taste of that! But how can I get as many people as possible to download this reader magnet?


As an Indie Author I am, fortunately or unfortunately, reliant upon my own means to get the word out about my writing. I've tried Amazon Ads (did NOT go well/proved to be a horrible return on investment). I've found Twitter, as a platform to drive awareness and yes, ultimately, the sale of books . . . has been an abject failure. And Instagram is, as yet, an uncertain entity for me—though I’m working on re-branding myself on there right now. So hopefully that helps!


On the other hand, I've had what I would consider some steady success with Facebook Ads. To a small, but measurable extent, when I open the spigot on the Facebook Ad Machine, I can generate a few more book sales and Kindle Unlimited reads. But it's a finite correlation. And it doesn't appear to scale if I spend any more than $20-30/day to advertise my book(s). Not sure why. But that's been my experience. So I could try to run Facebook Ads where I'm telling people about my reader magnet. But I would need to pay for those ads. And I'm not making any money (right away) when people download a free book. So, a loss leader then, in the hopes they will spend actual money to buy the rest of my books . . . of which I currently only have one! Not exactly a strong formula for profit! How else can I get the word out? Other Indie Authors tell me that, besides growing a newsletter like The Crafter’s Guild, the most affordable ways to get the word out about my writing are cross-author promotions--using a reader magnet as "bait". And there are two prominent vehicles* that Indie Authors in my sphere talk about the most to assist with these efforts. One is called BookFunnel, and the other is called StoryOrigin. Essentially, they are both sites that help you share free or discounted copies of your books to as wide an audience as possible. The theory is that you can leverage the fact that, while each author on his own may have a fairly limited reach, when you combine the collective newsletters of a pool of authors—who write similar books—there is an opportunity for everyone to benefit to a greater extent than possible if we were all on our own.

So . . . I’m signing up for both of these services. And I have decided to use my latest story, A Monk’s Tale, in these promotions. I checked with Nightscribe on this, and we agree that it makes sense for me to check back in at some point down the road and let you know how the plan works out!


So . . . look for me 30, 60, or 90 days out. I should have more to report then!

Thanks for reading!


P.S. - If you want to check out A Monk's Tale for yourself . . .


Sign-up to claim your free electronic copy!


Or you can pick up the paperback for $3.99!


*There are other sites out there providing similar services, like MyBookCave, and ProlificWorks, but I can't possible get up to speed on so many different options out the gate! Maybe I'll have the head space to check them out down the road!


About the Author

Matt Berg is a Director of IT by day, a dad and husband by night and weekend, and an epic fantasy writer by commute. He compares his long-form story approach to Robert Jordan, and his characters to those he’s enjoyed all these years from Terry Brooks. He also acknowledges being influenced by David Eddings, Brandon Sanderson—and likely many of your favorites, as well!

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