Last week I shared a self-publishing experience with one of our authors in regard to our Custom Cover option and how she received two fantastic concepts to choose from. She ended upon wanting them both (one for her first book and the other for her next one). But, since she loved them both, she wasn’t sure which cover to use first. Well, at Outskirts Press, we like offering solutions to problems like that, and in this case, our Social Media Market Research option was ideal. With this option, we present a number of different choices to our social media community (comprised of nearly 6,000 Facebook friends and over 5,000 blog followers on our blog at http://blog.outskirtspress.com), and we ask those active community members their opinions.
Authors not only get a chance to promote their books, but they also receive very good feedback from other writers and readers and book buyers. Win-win. Sometimes the decision is very close, and other times, there is a clear “winner” as in this case, where the “green” cover appears to be clearly in the lead (as of my writing this), with over 80% of the votes. While choosing between the two custom cover concepts we present to authors is the most popular use of this Market Research Option, other uses include title selection and pricing scenarios.
President of Outskirts Press 