Secret to Succes?

[meg_evonne]

One thing hasn't been mentioned. Jim says that you don't have to be the best writer out there; you just have to out last the guy beside you. It takes time.

Don't overlook that every author struggles with this question. You are not alone. Go to conferences. Many of the writing sessions are designed to offer solutions to this very question. While you are there, you'll learn other stuff for your tool box. Your writing will improve. You'll meet people. You'll find a sharing community.

Perhaps you don't know that Jim's twitter handle and nickname is Longshot? There's a reason! He knew getting his work published was a longshot.

[djerf]

When considering to buy a book there's math, if Price + Time =< Quality then you might buy the book, otherwise you won't. When trying out a new author the quality is unknown and so there's a risk that the book will be so bad that you end up reading it for no more then five minutes before you have to stop, this risk is even greater with books that are self published
What I do when I'm bored is that I go into the free section of Google Play Books and pick something at random and if I like what I'm reading I'll buy the sequel.
That's my advice, If you write good stuff give the first one for free, charge 0.99 for the second and once you get good reviews on things people have to pay for I think you will see a solid increase in readers. For this a short story might work well.

This is actually how I found out about and started reading Sanderson, him giving away Warbreaker for free, which led me to Rothfuss which in turn led me to Butcher, funny how things work out huh?