# The Reddit Experiment



## derekneville (Jun 18, 2014)

Hi everyone!

I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays. I wanted to pass along the results of my experiment using Reddit to promote my Free Book days this week.

I'm very happy to report that it's been successful -- and not from the number of books sold, but that I've meet a lot of new readers and we've been chatting on Reddit for most of the morning and afternoon. The conversations have ranged from great feedback on my novella, our favorite books, stories we like, giving books as gifts, etc. 

It's been really cool and very unexpected to be engaging with people who like what you're doing. I've also been blown away by just some of the in depth conversations I've had this morning around the craft of writing and even getting feedback from what readers look for when seeing free book promos and what draws them to download something. 

I had never considered Reddit as an outlet before, but I'll definitely be looking to use it again. If anyone has any questions feel free to ask. 

Happy Holidays!  

-Derek-


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## derekneville (Jun 18, 2014)

7seasonsgirl said:


> Hi Derek and Merry Christmas.
> Thank you for this post. I have some questions if you don't mind.
> How can you promote your free days in Reddit? Do they have specific promotions that someone can purchase? I'm not familiar at all with this site and when I tried to understand how it works I didn't manage to do it.
> Did you have any downloads or not at all?
> ...


Merry Christmas to you as well!

I'm more than happy to answer your questions. First, if you go to reddit.com and search Free Ebooks it'll show you what's known as a sub-reddit -- think of it as a subcategory like when searching for books. The sub-reedit that you're looking for is FreeEbooks.

You do need a Reddit account to post, and takes about 2-3 mins to get that setup.

You'll want to follow the posting rules listed in the left hand column of that sub-reddit page. They're very precise on what you can and can not do. It is free to post there.

People who have seen my posting have been PM'ing me or leaving comments on my thread, but most of the conversation has been through PM. It's been really cool! It's definitely helped with some downloads for sure.

I hope this helps! Let me know how it works out for you or if you have any further questions.


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## Nigel Mitchell (Jan 21, 2013)

7seasonsgirl said:


> How can you promote your free days in Reddit? Do they have specific promotions that someone can purchase? I'm not familiar at all with this site and when I tried to understand how it works I didn't manage to do it.
> How can you chat with people? Do you have to be in a particular group?


Reddit is more like a forum (like KBoards) than a promotional website. Reddit is divided into different categories called "Subreddits." It's all free, so there's no cost to submit content. Only people who subscribe to a subreddit can see the posts, so it's important to find a subreddit that's most popular.

Some useful subreddits for promoting books:
http://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonFreebies
http://www.reddit.com/r/wroteabook
http://www.reddit.com/r/FreeEBOOKS

FreeEBooks is probably the one to go to, since it's the most popular.

To add a post, go to that subreddit and click "Submit New Link" on the right hand side. Here are the posting guidelines right from the sidebar:

Please use the following template for the titles of your posts:

First: [File Format] (Usually, PDF, mobi, and epub) (If all three, then write [many formats] <-- like that) NOTE: Kindle/Nook or Amazon/B&N completely fine!

Second: Title

Third: Author

Fourth: [Free until: date] if you dont know dates just leave this off.

So for example, you would create a post with your Amazon book's link, and the title:

[Kindle] Awesome Novel by A. Author [Free until 12/27/2014]


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## HappyToHelp (Sep 27, 2014)

I don't get reddit either. At. All. Many have tried to explain it to me; I've gone over there and messed around a bit, and I still don't get it. Arg.


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## Sever Bronny (May 13, 2013)

I've been a redditor for three years. Never promoted my book, not even once, and I don't recommend it unless you've done your homework. Redditors can be a very finicky crowd, and can easily turn against you. It's a forum, and typically you have to spend some time there and get to know your local genre community using your real name before they accept you. But sometimes a new author can come in there and have a successful post; all depends on creativity and insight. Great for engagement though, so well done Derek!


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## derekneville (Jun 18, 2014)

Sever Bronny said:


> I've been a redditor for three years. Never promoted my book, not even once, and I don't recommend it unless you've done your homework. Redditors can be a very finicky crowd, and can easily turn against you. It's a forum, and typically you have to spend some time there and get to know your local genre community using your real name before they accept you. But sometimes a new author can come in there and have a successful post; all depends on creativity and insight. Great for engagement though, so well done Derek!


I couldn't agree more. They can be very finicky indeed. I've just been trying to be super polite and answer all questions thrown my way.


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## BillSmithBooksDotCom (Nov 4, 2012)

I am a long-time Reddit lurker and find it to be one of my favorite sites in the Internet.

To be successful on Reddit, get to know the community. Nobody likes drive-by spamming.

But the subreddits (/r/freebooks, /r/wroteabook, /r/shamelessplug) are all open to self-promo. 

Since you can be pretty anonymous on Reddit, sometimes people will really give you a hard time -- don't let it get under your skin.

If you become an active participant in the subreddits and communities where people who would like your books would hang out (say, you write for a certain genre), you can meet an awful lot of cool people. Meaningfully contribute to the community with good comments, link to good content as a post, etc. and you will gain respect and credibility in the community and then people will be much more likely to consider looking at your books.


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

I've been aware of Reddit for years but have never used it. Is it like a social network in terms of building a following and "friending" people? I'm curious if the visibility of your posts increases if you have more friends or if every post has an equal opportunity to be seen. 

Thanks!


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## Jake Kerr (Aug 6, 2014)

Been a Redditor since it was jealously looking up at the giant that was Digg.

My thoughts:

If you can catch the Reddit tiger by the tail, it will make Bookbub look like nothing. The trouble is, I don't think anyone has figured that out yet. 

Being a long term Redditor will give you some cred, but a straight promotional posting still would be frowned on. My feeling is that you need a unique message or hook to get Redditors intrigued. 

You can still post things like essays and blog posts, and that will be embraced. This can be a great way to push people to your website. 

Reddit advertising is a joke. Targeting is kind of rudimentary, and the response is generally weak.


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## Sever Bronny (May 13, 2013)

jakedfw said:


> Been a Redditor since it was jealously looking up at the giant that was Digg.
> 
> My thoughts:
> 
> ...


The problem with being a long-term redditor is your post history can be scrutinized, misrepresented, analyzed in-depth, and just flat-out used against you, no matter how benign. Totally agreed the advertising is worthless too.

Hey and Merry Christmas Jake


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## RyanAndrewKinder (Dec 14, 2014)

As a longtime Redditor and probably the biggest fan of Reddit, I can write a sort of introduction and include tips and tricks if people would like. (I created the largest writing community there.)


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## derekneville (Jun 18, 2014)

I definitely agree with some of the above statements. There can be a great deal of snark and your local internet trolls when posting or commenting on Reddit.

Fortunately -- _knocks on wood five times_ -- everyone I've engaged with today has been polite, insightful, respectful and encouraging. And I've only been part of the writing community there for a brief time, but have found everyone there to be supportive and great to bounce ideas off.


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## Hudson Owen (May 18, 2012)

My drive-by analysis of Reddit was that it was complex and involving, and that I would be chatting about irrelevant (to me) subjects to keep the book promotion ball moving forward.  How would you compare it to Goodreads?  It has taken me awhile to gain come fluency at GR, and I'm wondering if it's worth the time to learn a new community so as to promote my publications.


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## Secret Pen Pal (Dec 27, 2013)

Derek -- 

Congrats on your successful promo! Cool that you got into some real discussions that gave you more info for future marketing on top of being fun. 

I've been checking it out, so your post was timely. Good points about getting familiar with it first, that's good advice with all venues -- I've been tentative with Reddit because I've heard negative reports for years. Happy you posted such a good experience. Best with your work and have a great 2015.


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## RyanAndrewKinder (Dec 14, 2014)

Nobody asked for it, but I'll write a little about it anyway:

First things first: I've been a Redditor for seven years. That's with my first account. My current account is about two and a half years old. My current account is also my author name. There are a few success stories with Redditors who have been able to translate posting to sales. Michael J Sullivan is one of them. He's a frequent commenter on http://reddit.com/r/writing. The largest general writing community on reddit is WritingPrompts (which I founded 2 1/2 years ago when I made the account I founded it with.) We currently have 1,700,000+ subscribers. I never use the subreddit for sales, however. When I give my book away for free I do mention it sometimes and it definitely helps me go up the charts a little.

Reddit is really easy to understand. Think of it like a giant forum. There are over half a million different "subforums" or, as they are known on Reddit, "subreddits." When you sign up for Reddit for the first time you are subscribed to 50 default subreddits. Unsubscribe from any of the ones you don't like from that default subset and subscribe to the ones you do like. Examples of subreddits every writer should be subbed to are:

- /r/writing
- /r/books
- /r/selfpublish
- /r/freeebooks
- /r/bookdownloads
- /r/eFreebies

In fact, there's even a fuller list here: http://www.reddit.com/r/writing/wiki/hub

What do you do once you've subscribed to everything that fits with what you like? You interact. You post links to stuff you dig. Vary it up a bit. Links live and die by the voting system reddit employs. A lot of your stuff might not be seen by some people. Sometimes the effect is incredibly powerful like someone said. A good example of this is, well something I posted: About three weeks ago I saw a video that had about 200 views on youtube. It was this magician who got pulled over by the police for speeding. They saw he had magic type stuff in his backseat. He said he did a lot of Rubik's cube magic. They filmed him performing his Rubik's cube magic. He subsequently got out of the speeding ticket. What did Reddit do for his video? 2 million views, he appeared on Good Morning America and a ton of other shows. That's just a random example of the power of Reddit.

How would you capitalize on this? You become an active contributing member of the site. You post helpful links, as I mentioned. If you "lurk" on the different subreddits you will begin to learn the culture. Comment where you feel your comments can help. Pay attention to the age of the thread though. Posted a day ago? Nobody is going to read your comment, most likely. Posted two hours ago? You're good to go.

The reason I say to post links to things you think the community will like is because reddit has a 9:1 spam rule. If you post five links to your book across a short duration of time - you'll get autoflagged and shadowbanned by the system. If you actively contribute over the course of a bit of time, linking to a variety of places, you won't get flagged as a spammer. Essentially: for every one link of something you're promoting you had better be sure that 9 others are to different sites. From the Redditquette manual: Feel free to post links to your own content (within reason). But if that's all you ever post, or it always seems to get voted down, take a good hard look in the mirror - you just might be a spammer. A widely used rule of thumb is the 9:1 ratio, i.e. only 1 out of every 10 of your submissions should be your own content.

This is just a small sliver about Reddit and how it works. I can go on and give more details if it interests people. Just this past year because of Reddit I've: donated bone marrow, got an ipad air, started a collection of staples, saw a bunch of short films created spawned from stories in the subreddit I created (including one starring the guy who voices Archer and Bob of Bob's Burgers) and so many other things. It really kicks ass.


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## Hudson Owen (May 18, 2012)

RyanAndrewKinder said:


> Nobody asked for it, but I'll write a little about it anyway:
> 
> First things first: I've been a Redditor for seven years. That's with my first account. My current account is about two and a half years old. My current account is also my author name. There are a few success stories with Redditors who have been able to translate posting to sales. Michael J Sullivan is one of them. He's a frequent commenter on http://reddit.com/r/writing. The largest general writing community on reddit is WritingPrompts (which I founded 2 1/2 years ago when I made the account I founded it with.) We currently have 1,700,000+ subscribers. I never use the subreddit for sales, however. When I give my book away for free I do mention it sometimes and it definitely helps me go up the charts a little.
> 
> ...


I clicked on the self-publish subset. The responses resembled what I read here on the WC. Most of the replies were on topic, for a request for reviews. One negative response: THAT IS CRAP! Oh, well. I write about many topics on my blog. I suppose I could transfer some of that energy to Reddit. It would seem to help you as an author if you come across as a generally interesting person. Thanks for posting.


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## Sever Bronny (May 13, 2013)

Wow, Ryan, you've been a redditor for 7 years? That's seriously impressive. And amazing post man, a spot-on analasys and introduction 

By the way, guys, his subreddit, r/writingprompts, is very well known on reddit and constantly referenced.


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## AnonWriter (Dec 12, 2013)

Thanks Ryan! 

Like most people, I'd heard of Reddit but it always seemed like a place for internet Jedis only.


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## sharjo (May 14, 2014)

I strongly recommend not being openly female on Reddit. Unless you enjoy rape threats. 

I concur with those who say that it requires a lot of time to get the lay of the land. It's not like any other forum, and if you piss people off, they have all the time in the world to make your life hell.


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## Claire Frank (Jul 28, 2014)

Thanks for sharing your experience!

Ryan - thanks for the lowdown. 

Reddit seems crazy to me too, but often social sites seem that way until you see how they operate. Another author (I don't think he is on kboards, but I'm not certain) recently told me he had success posting to the r/fantasy subreddit (I think I typed that correctly). They have a "fantasy writer of the day" slot you can sign up for, so it's an organized way of doing a self promo type post. I checked it out and the whole site sort of freaks me out, but I'm curious enough to at least lurk a bit and maybe participate in the r/fantasy subreddit. There's a fantasywriters subreddit as well.

Ryan and/or Sever, is it the type of site you should use your real name as your user name, or do people tend to have nicknames/aliases? Sharjo's comment is a little unnerving - do you think it can be a hostile environment for women? I wonder if that varies based on the subreddit?

And, probably a dumb question, but does "redditor" mean someone who uses reddit, or does that refer to being something more like a mod? Just curious.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Claire Frank said:


> Sharjo's comment is a little unnerving - do you think it can be a hostile environment for women? I wonder if that varies based on the subreddit?


I've tiptoed around the edges of Reddit for a couple of years, now, although I find it fairly intimidating (like many well-established social sites, where there are a lot of in-jokes and unwritten rules). It is a powerful site, though; once or twice a blog I post to gets mentioned and hits go through the roof.

I've never encountered any hostility against women, and I've received nothing but friendly reactions. I generally only hang around the fantasy subreddit, using my real name (as I do everywhere), but there does seem to be an overwhelmingly masculine membership. They have a self-promotion thread there every two weeks, which quite a few recognisable names use. I've tried it once or twice, but I try to limit it to when I've got something new going on - a promotion, new book, whatever.

To be honest, I think all these social sites (Reddit, Goodreads, Facebook, whatever) are great if you enjoy that kind of social interaction. If it's fun, fine and you'll sell a few books on the side. But if it's a chore, don't bother to do it just for promotion, because the number of sales you'd achieve is out of proportion to the time you spend on it.


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## Chris Fox (Oct 3, 2014)

I've sold a little over 100 copies as a direct result of posting on Reddit. My AMA (ask me anything) on the /r/fantasy board will happen in late January, which is likely to garner further sales. That said I post over there (and have for almost five years) because I enjoy it. Reddit is not a great place to promote yourself, but you do get some free attention if you're a well known part of the community.

There are subreddits for just about anything you can think of, so you can really tailor the experience to be anything you'd like. I subscribe to everything from fitness to Star Wars and have met a number of friends over the years.

It can also be an ENORMOUS time waster, far more so than Kboards, so approach with care =)


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## Antara Mann (Nov 24, 2014)

Chris Fox said:


> I've sold a little over 100 copies as a direct result of posting on Reddit. My AMA (ask me anything) on the /r/fantasy board will happen in late January, which is likely to garner further sales. That said I post over there (and have for almost five years) because I enjoy it. Reddit is not a great place to promote yourself, but you do get some free attention if you're a well known part of the community.
> 
> There are subreddits for just about anything you can think of, so you can really tailor the experience to be anything you'd like. I subscribe to everything from fitness to Star Wars and have met a number of friends over the years.
> 
> It can also be an ENORMOUS time waster, far more so than Kboards, so approach with care =)


I was thinking about AMA too! I heard a lot of successful stories too. So, being well known part of the community, one has to be polite, write awesome messages, right? Any guidelines how to use it better?


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## Chris Fox (Oct 3, 2014)

Being polite always helps. I try to contribute to the subs I frequent, so I often create useful or informative posts. I'm careful never to spam about my book, as that can go south REALLY quickly. I did post a picture of me holding my first novel, which is where most of the sales came from. That happened on the /r/fantasy board, which is enormously supportive of their members turning authors. 

I don't post as much on /r/writing (at least about my own work), because there is a heavy traditional publishing bias there. I do answer questions on craft, but if I want to talk anything indie related I do it over on /r/selfpublish. It's a smaller community, but reminiscent of Kboards.

I found Ryan's writing prompts sub to be handy while practicing them daily, but because it has so many users you will see a LOT of traffic and it started taking over my feed so I left. Still a huge proponent of what he's created there though.

I'll probably report back here after my AMA to let folks know how it goes. I read a lot of previous ones and it seems both fun and worth while.


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## derekneville (Jun 18, 2014)

Chris Fox said:


> Being polite always helps. I try to contribute to the subs I frequent, so I often create useful or informative posts. I'm careful never to spam about my book, as that can go south REALLY quickly. I did post a picture of me holding my first novel, which is where most of the sales came from. That happened on the /r/fantasy board, which is enormously supportive of their members turning authors.


Definitely being a contributor to conversation or posts goes a long way. I've found in my time on Reddit that whatever door you open on there -- much like life -- you kind of get what you pay for. If you're on a thread for crazy youtube videos, well, expect the snark to be in full effect. The internet trolls will be out from under their bridges. If you're on a sub-reddit that has a lot of helpful or intelligent conversation, usually the thread will stay the course. But to add onto Chris's point, don't spam your book or make it sound like a late night informercial. Which I've seen a lot of.

In the last two days since I posted my book promo the response has been nothing but positive (outside of one guy on there who kept trying to down vote my post for some reason). It's definitely helped with my free book giveaway, but perhaps the coolest result is the PMs and comments I got on the thread for my promo with people reading my novella in real time and letting me know what their response was for it. That was pretty rad! I even had a few people _asking_ if they could leave a review or tell more people about.

It's been very humbling and a cool experience for me, especially considering I was averaging 1 sale and 1 borrow every couple days haha.


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## bethrevis (Jul 30, 2014)

Any YA writers out there, I am one of the moderators at reddit.com/r/UYAWriters. We are a no promo-sub (in other words, you can't just post a link and walk away), but we host weekly moderated discussions and weekly AMAs that we're always scheduling. We also offer newbies a bit of a guideline, so don't be afraid to jump in with us! We're a heavily moderated sub--no trolls, only good conversation about writing YA--and we're friendly to traditional and self published authors, as well as aspiring authors.


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## Antara Mann (Nov 24, 2014)

Derek, can you provide please your tread in Reddit to take a look at it? Thanks a lot. 
I saw your book goes very well currently on Amazon.


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## AnonWriter (Dec 12, 2013)

Thanks, Beth!

I'm gonna dip my toe in...


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

I've just started hanging around on Reddit -- mainly because there is a moderately active community of podcasters and audio folks there.  I posted my perma-free on the FreeEBOOKS subreddit today (after reading this thread) and was pleased with the result. (Being a long time permafree, it wasn't seeing any particular action at the moment, so 60 downloads was a nice bump.) I don't expect it to be a well one can go back to again and again, even if the rules do permit monthly posts.

However, it does seem to be a place to build relationships.

Camille


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## Sever Bronny (May 13, 2013)

I've signed up for an AMA on Reddit in r/fantasy for late Feb. But I'm doing it under my real name; not going to use my real name for anything but author stuff, keeping my other reddit account (the three-year-old one) private.


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## Nomadwoman (Aug 25, 2011)

This kind of scares me like Twitter used to but it was great reading the Reddit101 post and I might go over and dip in except how much more time can, should, we waste foruming? 
Love twitter now-oh, and just followed the guy who wrote the reddit post - are you not fond of Twitter as a sort of fast reddit?


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## sharjo (May 14, 2014)

Anyone looking to do an AMA on the main /r/IAMA sub needs to have a hook beyond "I wrote a book." If you want people to just ask you about writing, hold your AMA on a smaller, more relevant sub (with the mod's blessing).

My coauthor and I opted to do ours on the main sub, and it went well. She's a Penn State student and cross-posted to that sub, hence a few in-jokes throughout. I have a 4 year old account, I wanted to use a throwaway for this -- but I deliberately mentioned I'm a longtime Redditor. The "one of us" mentality is very important.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2oacmv/were_hardcore_colbert_report_nerds_who_just_wrote/


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## J.B. (Aug 15, 2014)

RyanAndrewKinder said:


> Nobody asked for it, but I'll write a little about it anyway:
> 
> First things first: I've been a Redditor for seven years. That's with my first account. My current account is about two and a half years old. My current account is also my author name. There are a few success stories with Redditors who have been able to translate posting to sales. Michael J Sullivan is one of them. He's a frequent commenter on http://reddit.com/r/writing. The largest general writing community on reddit is WritingPrompts (which I founded 2 1/2 years ago when I made the account I founded it with.) We currently have 1,700,000+ subscribers. I never use the subreddit for sales, however. When I give my book away for free I do mention it sometimes and it definitely helps me go up the charts a little.
> 
> ...


Thank you for writing this. Very helpful. Seriously!


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## Nigel Mitchell (Jan 21, 2013)

vlmain said:


> I've been aware of Reddit for years but have never used it. Is it like a social network in terms of building a following and "friending" people? I'm curious if the visibility of your posts increases if you have more friends or if every post has an equal opportunity to be seen.
> 
> Thanks!


Not really. There's a point system called Karma, but it has nothing to do with your visibility there. You can post for years on Reddit and never build up any Karma or post for the first time, and get tons of Karma points. Everything you post is judged on its own merits, with all the good and bad that implies.

Honestly, I don't think Reddit is for everyone. If you just want to promote work, you can post something on the free book subreddits, but don't expect that to be a marketing strategy on its own. It's just something to add to the toolbox like posting on Facebook and Twitter. If you can post something like a blog post that catches on like Pauline said, it can really send your traffic through the roof. I posted my article on the 8 best steampunk novels on http://www.reddit.com/r/books, and got over six thousand hits (I usually get maybe 20 hits to my blog posts). But only one sale. You don't have to use Reddit if it's not your thing. I know a lot of people on Kboards love Facebook, but I hate it.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

One thing I've had a a problem with on Reddit -- when you click the links, often the redirects seem broken.  (Like this morning, I had to go manually find all the books people were linking to.)  I'm not sure if it has something to do with Firefox, or their system, but it does make it an annoyance.

Camille


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

Nigel Mitchell said:


> Not really. There's a point system called Karma, but it has nothing to do with your visibility there. You can post for years on Reddit and never build up any Karma or post for the first time, and get tons of Karma points. Everything you post is judged on its own merits, with all the good and bad that implies.
> 
> Honestly, I don't think Reddit is for everyone. If you just want to promote work, you can post something on the free book subreddits, but don't expect that to be a marketing strategy on its own. It's just something to add to the toolbox like posting on Facebook and Twitter. If you can post something like a blog post that catches on like Pauline said, it can really send your traffic through the roof. I posted my article on the 8 best steampunk novels on http://www.reddit.com/r/books, and got over six thousand hits (I usually get maybe 20 hits to my blog posts). But only one sale. You don't have to use Reddit if it's not your thing. I know a lot of people on Kboards love Facebook, but I hate it.


Thanks, Nigel. I appreciate the information. I'm poking around Reddit, trying to learn my way around. I think I'm starting to "get it." I really like the way it's set up, overall.

That said, is there a way to unsubscribe to multiple subreddits at one time? When I created an account, they automatically subscribed me to lots of subreddits, most of which I am not interested in, and it will take me forever to unsubscribe to each one, individually.

I can see how it can become addicting.


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## RyanAndrewKinder (Dec 14, 2014)

I wrote a really long response that got lost, using quotes and addressing people specifically. Soooooo I'm gunna be less fancy and more brief because I'm annoyed at my ipad.

First to vlmain: You are automatically subscribed to 50 subreddits. Unfortunately you need to unsubscribe one by one. I'll try to find the link to make that easier though.



daringnovelist said:


> One thing I've had a a problem with on Reddit -- when you click the links, often the redirects seem broken. (Like this morning, I had to go manually find all the books people were linking to.) I'm not sure if it has something to do with Firefox, or their system, but it does make it an annoyance.
> 
> Camille


Reddit doesn't allow redirects. So I've no idea what you were clicking on. Can you tell us what subreddits and some of the links that were broken? I've never experienced broken links there.



sharjo said:


> Anyone looking to do an AMA on the main /r/IAMA sub needs to have a hook beyond "I wrote a book." If you want people to just ask you about writing, hold your AMA on a smaller, more relevant sub (with the mod's blessing).
> 
> My coauthor and I opted to do ours on the main sub, and it went well. She's a Penn State student and cross-posted to that sub, hence a few in-jokes throughout. I have a 4 year old account, I wanted to use a throwaway for this -- but I deliberately mentioned I'm a longtime Redditor. The "one of us" mentality is very important.
> 
> http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2oacmv/were_hardcore_colbert_report_nerds_who_just_wrote/


So people can have further context:

AMA = Ask Me Anything
IAMA = I Am A (fill in the blank.)

Most threads will be titled something like IAMA producer on Game of Thrones AMA. The IAMA subreddit is great but most of the threads get removed within an hour or two if you aren't someone of note or if your AMA doesn't stand out with some unique thing. The reason that sharjo's AMA wasn't removed is because of the uniqueness of getting to go to the Colbert report and even taking a class run by the Colbert report, etc. -- that's an experience that is wholly unique. So they don't need to rely on the being famous/being a person of note part.

However, there are subreddits that also host AMA's as was mentioned. The most lenient of which is called "Casual IAMA" which you can find here: /r/casualiama. They are very laid back and allow just about anyone to do an AMA. However, the smaller the subreddit the less visibility the posts there have overall. (As mentioned before - Reddit has an upvote and downvote system. The more people that upvote your post, the more visible it is to others.)

It really is one of the types of sites where if you use it and are there for a few weeks or a month you just start to "get it." Like I said, it has changed my life. Two and a half years ago I saw a post on how to register to donate bone marrow. Then earlier this year I wound up matching with someone in need that had leukemia. They took two liters out of me! I won't know until the middle of next year how that person is doing - but that's just one of the many ways Reddit has randomly had an impact on my life.

I've got to run but I have more to add to this, I'll do it in another post.


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## RyanAndrewKinder (Dec 14, 2014)

Here you go vlmain: This is a "multireddit" of the 50 default subreddits. Just click unsubscribe from the ones you don't want to follow.


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

RyanAndrewKinder said:


> Here you go vlmain: This is a "multireddit" of the 50 default subreddits. Just click unsubscribe from the ones you don't want to follow.


Thank you! You're my hero for the day!


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

RyanAndrewKinder said:


> Reddit doesn't allow redirects. So I've no idea what you were clicking on. Can you tell us what subreddits and some of the links that were broken? I've never experienced broken links there.


I meant Reddit's OWN redirects. They use an underlying redirect to put a frame on the page you go to. I figured out that if you go into your preferences and tell them NOT to include their little bar at the top of the page, then the link doesn't get stuck.

It's a PITA, and it shouldn't be a default.

Camille


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## BillSmithBooksDotCom (Nov 4, 2012)

Ryan:

You were one of the founders of /r/writingprompts? 

Wow! Awesome sub-reddit! Incredibly cool, hats off to you!

It has just exploded in popularity. A ton of great prompts and responses there.

Reddit is one of those sites where it really is what you make of it. It has amazing potential -- anyone can create a subreddit and if they can get the attention of other like-minded Redditors, they can create an amazing community. (Alternately, most subreddits get lost in deluge and a few get taken over by don't-dare-call-them-trolls)


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## AnonWriter (Dec 12, 2013)

OK, so you subscribe to feeds and then they appear on your feed when you click "FRONT"?


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Went there.

Flayed around in the underbrush feeling like I was crawling blindfolded through totally unfamiliar, slightly-intimidating terrain.

And gave up.

I may well be too old for this kind of thing.


Philip


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Emily Wibberley said:


> OK, so you subscribe to feeds and then they appear on your feed when you click "FRONT"?


Yeah, although I find it works better if you treat it like a forum -- just go to directly the subjects you are most interested in. I found almost nothing on the main page that was interesting. I unsubscribed to most of the feeds that they gave me by default.

It isn't really like Twitter at all, in that you don't follow people, so when you subscribe to something, you are still vulnerable to boring posts or spam from anyone who wants to post there. (Yeah, I know, people vote spam down, but it's not nearly as effective as the Twitter model for that. Where you just don't follow spammers.)

On the other hand, like a forum, you get more open and lively discussions, etc., which include people you haven't intentionally followed. Each subreddit has it's own personality (just like KB has it's own) and so you follow the community.

Camille


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## AnonWriter (Dec 12, 2013)

Thanks, Camille. I just unsubscribed to a bunch of auto-subscriptions. That really helps.


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## RyanAndrewKinder (Dec 14, 2014)

BillSmithBooksDotCom said:


> Ryan:
> 
> You were one of the founders of /r/writingprompts?
> 
> ...


The singular founder, to be precise! We moderate with a heavy hand where applicable. Fortunately trolls tend to get downvoted into invisibility.  (and thank you for the compliment!)



Philip Gibson said:


> Went there.
> 
> Flayed around in the underbrush feeling like I was crawling blindfolded through totally unfamiliar, slightly-intimidating terrain.
> 
> ...


It's not much different from the BBS's of old, just slightly upgraded. It's a very textual site. So even "old people" should be able to get the hang of it. The oldest regular Redditor is 94, if I recall correctly. You've no excuse!


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## TheGapBetweenMerlons (Jun 2, 2011)

Chris Fox said:


> It can also be an ENORMOUS time waster, far more so than Kboards, so approach with care =)


I tell my kids this, but they don't really listen.  Then again, my oldest got me to finally sign up this year -- specifically for /r/WritingPrompts/ -- and without that I'd have done less writing in 2014 and would have one fewer title on Amazon. I still don't use it much, too many other demands on my time, but (as with many things) I _intend_ to spend more time there. I dabbled with paid advertising but had zero results and thus zero motivation to keep trying, at least for now. I've been hesitant regarding any kind of self-promo posts since I feel like it would still be too easy to approach it wrong, i.e., too early in the learning/community-orientation process.


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## AnonWriter (Dec 12, 2013)

I posted in the reddit wrote a book thread once before when I first released my debut YA fantasy back in February. I didn't get much response.

So I don't know why I tried posting there again. Maybe because I thought I had a new angle (my book was recently named a finalist in a YA book contest). I didn't think it would matter, but I got several clicks out of this reddit post (and a couple borrows, I think).

So it's a reminder to post there if you have a new book to announce:

https://www.reddit.com/r/wroteabook


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## katetanner (Mar 8, 2015)

Chris Fox said:


> It can also be an ENORMOUS time waster, far more so than Kboards, so approach with care =)


That's how i feel about social media in general, mainly facebook. I've been on this forum for approximately a month but im not on here to sell my books, i dont need to be on here for hours trying to interact with readers or promote my books.

I've just discovered Reddit and i read a few AMA's and i was a bit shocked to see some bestselling erotic and erotic romance authors getting some negative and very rude responses from readers/reddit members who were not pleased with their lack of communication, their simple answers or whatever. 
I don't have time for that.


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## AnonWriter (Dec 12, 2013)

Yeah, Reddit is a rough place for newbies, especially ones trying to sell something.

But--

The /wroteabook sub-thread is meant for exactly that so you won't get flamed there.


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## katetanner (Mar 8, 2015)

Emily Wibberley said:


> Yeah, Reddit is a rough place for newbies, especially ones trying to sell something.
> 
> But--
> 
> The /wroteabook sub-thread is meant for exactly that so you won't get flamed there.


yeah that looks like a good way to get some eyes on your book without having to chat and get involved in unpleasant conversations. Thank you


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## TheGapBetweenMerlons (Jun 2, 2011)

Emily Wibberley said:


> The /wroteabook sub-thread is meant for exactly that so you won't get flamed there.


Thanks for pointing out that subreddit. I listed my new release there -- can't hurt.

I still struggle to wrap my head around some Reddit concepts and I'm probably too concerned about down-votes (and was surprised to see that my post about my new novel got an up-vote), but I know there's a lot of value on the site too.


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## Kevin Lee Swaim (May 30, 2014)

Wonder if I could post on Reddit, and then mention I belonged to Reddit pet TEST alliance before joining the CFC....

Hah, wonder if anyone else will get that....


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## Antara Mann (Nov 24, 2014)

The problem with Reddit is that for new users (though I am nearly one year Reddit user) is that you can submit limited links, like one per day and I usually mess them.
It works for the longer term and networking, commenting is all great but not exactly hard marketing...


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## Paul K (Jan 11, 2014)

Kevin Lee Swaim said:


> Wonder if I could post on Reddit, and then mention I belonged to Reddit pet TEST alliance before joining the CFC....
> 
> Hah, wonder if anyone else will get that....


How do you get anything written while playing Eve? While mining?


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