FIND, READ, LOVE and THE FUSSY LIBRARIAN: two new Promotional Tools for Indie Writers

Two new startup websites aim to help promote indie authors by allowing writers to promote their work to each sites’ users.

Find, Read, Love is basically a blog that uses Wordpress functionality to promote books in a variety of genres. When new books are listed, the site automatically updates its Facebook and Twitter feeds to announce the additions, and all of the new additions are created manually after the site administrator vets them. The genre pages show the covers of the books which display a blurb when the curser hovers over. Users can then click through for more information before finally clicking through to Amazon to make a purchase.

The Fussy Librarian is a website designed to alert readers via email when a new entry fitting their pre-described genre and other preferences is added to the database. Readers sign up, list their preferred media (including audiobooks,) which genres they fancy, preferred language, and whether or not they want titles with excessive violence or sexual content in their recommendations. Titles are then submitted by authors, vetted, and the emails go out.

FRL allows authors to include up to three reviews their books have received, while TFL requires that a book have ten reviews. FRL is free and intends to remain free by generating revenue through Amazon’s affiliate program. TFL, on the other hand, is free while still in beta, but eventually intends to charge writers to be included. FRL is limited to books available on the Kindle only, while TFL accepts Kindle and Nook as well as books listed with Apple and Smashwords, but will not accept books over $5.99 in price. Both FRL and TFL offer a variety of fiction genres to select from, but TFL also offers a few non-fiction genres as well. As best I can determine, neither site is available for markets outside of the US.

Ironically, while TFL is the site that intends to charge writers and is the one professionally designed by somebody called Global Reach Web Development; the free site, FRL, is much slicker and professional looking in terms of site design and usability.

Both sites are geared to indie pubbed writers, though TFL will accept trad pubbed titles down the line. I can’t really recommend one over the other as far as value to the writer or end user goes, although clearly Find, Read, Love is more accessible and immediate as it does not rely on readers accessing their emails.