The Kobo Writing Life team is excited to announce our latest Facebook takeover on October 26th 2018. From 12:00 PM-1:00 PM EST, our takeover host, Damon Courtney from Bookfunnel will be answering all your questions on the Kobo Writing Life Facebook page.
Each person who comments with a question and “likes” the Kobo Writing Life page will be automatically entered to win one of two $25 gift cards to the Kobo store.
If you can’t make the takeover, feel free to comment on this post and we can ask them for you!
Keep reading to learn more about Damon and his experience in the indie world, and get your questions ready!
Hello, authors!
I know that this is supposed to be an “author takeover”, but I’m afraid I can’t call myself one of those anymore. Long ago, in the so-called salad days (ooh, he knows Shakespeare, he must be an author!) of publishing (2015), I was an author like you. I wasn’t MUCH of an author, but I did manage to publish a fantasy trilogy that I was pretty proud of. But, I had a problem.
You see, I had published this series, and I was following the advice of the gurus at the time who were all saying that you really needed to build up your mailing list.
How do I do that? I would ask.
Give them a free book! they would say.
Fantastic! I would say, in this made-up conversation. How do I do that?
You just send them the EPUB file, and they have the book! they would crow.
And I would frown. A deep, deep frown that leaves furrows in your forehead like folded towels on a bathroom shelf . . . See, this is why I quit writing. I can’t even come up with a decent simile! They all end up sounding lame. They just lie there, molding like . . . like a wet towel on a bathroom floor.
Never mind. The point is, attaching a file to an email sounded like a terrible, terrible idea. There’s NO WAY someone like my mother (hi, Mom!) was going to figure something like that out.
But, this was a problem I could solve. For, you see, I . . . am a programmer. Just like an author, I can make magical things (like love) out of nothing at all! All you over 40’s, try getting that ear worm out of your head.
So, I set out to solve the problem of delivering ebooks directly to readers. Which became BookFunnel, the company I founded and now run with my wife. And now I get to do cool things like this, and I get to meet wonderful authors from all over and help them build their careers.
At BookFunnel, we love indie authors. I still consider myself one, even though I haven’t published in a few years. Indies are the craftiest, wiliest, coyote-ist (is that even a word? my spellchecker says no) people in the business. You guys are doing all kinds of amazing things with your careers. Things that weren’t even possible a decade ago are now standard because you guys blazed the trail.
We see all the amazing things authors are doing, and we hear from hundreds of readers a day. That gives us an insider perspective on what’s going on in the world of reading, writing, and rublishing (that’s not a typo; go with it), and we love to share with authors. I can tell you what readers love and what they hate. I can tell you what authors are doing to really find their super fans. I can unlock the secrets of the universe. Ok, maybe not that last part.
So, ask me anything, Kobo Authors! I can take it.
Damon Courtney is the creator and CEO of BookFunnel, an ebook delivery service for authors and publishers. Though he would like to be a highly successful indie author, he can only lay claim to publishing a single fantasy trilogy that he does really like, despite its lack of sales. But, self-publishing three novels did lead to the creation of BookFunnel, so he’s got that going for him.
As a lifelong software engineer, Damon is an expert in just about everything technical and can offer unique insight on publishing as it relates to software and technology.
When he’s not writing code for BookFunnel, Damon is probably writing code for some other crackpot idea he has. That, or spending time with his wife and kids and polishing his SuperDad trophies. But, seeing as he’s been writing code since he was 7 years old, he plans to keep doing that for a long, long time. More and more of it as it relates to ebooks and publishing, which are his other passion now.
