feitelberg

Well, I'm not an expert, but I'll be in the same boat in the near future (I hope).

Attracting an audience is not always easy. The best is, of course, word of mouth. But a writer has no control over that. You do have control over how often a potential reader sees your work or your name. And all those things you mentioned, help and are relatively inexpensive (or can be).

One thing you might want to consider is getting your work in front of reviewers. Again, you have no control over what sort of review you'll get, but it will expose your work.

I'm on twitter though don't know how useful it is- my highest follower numbers was 26 though it fluctuates, I find blogging... time consuming. I do a little on my website and have a whole 12 followers...

The most effective thing I've found so far is going through reviewer lists, emailing them my 'spiel' with a cover image and free coupon to download my novel and hope for the best... I get about 1 in 8 who accept to review my novel so it's a start. Even doing that is time consuming as you need to go to their website, read their review policy, find their email and email them... sounds easy but it's amazing how much time it consumes!

Anyway, I've resigned myself to emailing a few every time I'm online for a time... slowly getting there (have about 8 blogger reviews now and have another 8 or 9 ready to go and am already building a list to send out my arc for book 2...)

It's all a work in progress...

If I had a group of reviewers to go to, then I don't think I would have written this post. I have some reviews on Smashwords and on my web site, but that's hardly much.

Finding reviewers has been the biggest challenge? Is it acceptable to query the followers of my blog (not this one, the one with 80+ followers) and ask them if they would review for me. I tried that one my Facebook Fan Page and got no respond for my second book which is due out by the end of the year (or there about).

Sawyer and I mean "professional" reviewers.

Folks whose blogs, magazines, whatever specifically cater to reviewing fantasy and/or sci-fi titles. They often have a huge following and if they review your book, you get major exposure.

Again, doesn't guarantee a favorable review or even a review, but you will be getting a chance to put your work it in front of a larger audience.

Just a suggestion. Good luck with whatever you go with. Here are a few links to threads where some folks have gathered review sites:
http://www.sffworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8326
http://www.sffworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=177
http://www.sffworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30900

This is the list I'm currently running through;
http://yabookblogdirectory.blogspot....gger-list.html

I've been contacting bloggers for months now and I'm still only up to M... time consuming but for better or worse, i'm getting out there