Survey Says....

In the last post, I put up the 'First 500 Words' for three reasons.  First, I really wanted to see if strangers might consider reading it.  The results - I can live with.  About 1 out of 3 polled that they would read on.  As for the rest, I guess their fingernails were getting too long.  But that's OK!  In fact, it might be more than okay.  My market is very specific, which I've read can be a positive thing when self publishing.  If you're not someone interested in teaching overseas or hearing about people's experiences abroad, then the book probably isn't for you.  I'm trying to appeal to a niche market, the question is whether or not I'll be able to reach these people.      

Second, I wanted to see how I'd feel about getting negative feedback.  I posted threads in different forums asking people to a have a look.  The comments I got back were overwhelmingly critical.  But as someone had cautioned me in one of their posts, when you ask people to judge your writing you're primarily going to receive negative feedback.  People will only try to find stuff that's wrong.  Most of the criticism was constructive, and a few people were a bit nitpicky.  But it gave me something to think about.  I plan on doing the same, and taking another interactive poll when I finish the COVER.  Can't wait to hear what people say about that! 

Finally, the reason why I put up this post was to generate traffic on the blog.  It was just an idea, and I think it worked to some extent.  When I asked people to rate something they became more interested.  I got a lot of traffic off the Kindle Forum's page, though they were my biggest critics.  And most of those people are already self published.  I'm trying to find people like me, those that are considering self publishing or are in the initial stages.  Will have to think about posting elsewhere.

Lessons Learned:

• 1/3 of strangers might wait to cut their fingernails until after they finish the book.
• Having people rate stuff gets them to come to your blog.
• Whenever you post work to be reviewed, people may likely tell you it SUCKS!