Dids and Didn'ts

Now that we are well into the latter part of 2018 (seriously, where did it all go?!), it's time to take stock of all the things that have been accomplished, and those that are yet to see the finish line.

I DID get what I think is my final Kindle Worlds payment. I'm actually not sure it's the last payment because it's a strange amount per book, and the actual royalty statement is not available because KW royalty statements were always considered in beta and therefore rarely show up.

When these titles were still available on Amazon, I would earn paid a whopping $0.69 per ebook sold. If it was fully read during the very short time it was available as a Kindle Unlimited title, I would earn just over $1. This royalty payment? It was $0.49 for each of the three titles. Seems to me that this was what they were saying was going to be the final estimated KU pages read after the titles were no longer available. So they considered that the last person that purchased the KU titles and hadn't read them would only read half of all three of them. Okay. That's a weird way to read a series.

I DIDN'T complete my goal for Camp NaNoWriMo in July. No surprise there. I rarely do. However, I DID come out of July with 21 pages written, so it's still a win in--and for--my book.

I DIDN'T complete a reading challenge I gave myself last year. I was going to read the entire Baby-sitters Club series mostly just for kicks, but also for YA research. I had also planned to come full circle by writing an article or essay about the experience. Unfortunately, I've read only seven so far. It was a combination of not being able to justify the cost (totally tax deductible expense as research for a writer, I just didn't have the Amazon money on hand) and not being able to stay away from all of the places where I get free books. Those had to be top priority to continue getting free books, so those took up a lot of my reading/reviewing time.

I'm still going to finish the series, but I might only get around to reading a few books per year. I hope I can manage a little more this time around because I really would like to move on to Sweet Valley--if the publishers ever decide to include all the spinoffs on ebook. 

Now I just have to check my list and see what more I can get in the DID column by the end of August.

Some Literary Waves

Quite a lot has been going on in the indie publishing world as of late, with a couple of these things personally affecting my titles. First, the good news: Kindle Worlds is now making its titles available through Kindle Unlimited. Now if you are a KU subscriber, you can read Melody of Love and Haunting Melody for free! Just make sure to read at least 10% of the book so everyone gets paid. ;-)

Second, the not so good news: Inktera is temporarily suspending distribution of titles coming from Draft2Digital, so my books won't be listed there for awhile. Actually no one's books will--Inktera is revamping the whole brand, so until that's complete, their catalog is not available. Full disclosure: I never had any sales from this channel anyway, so it's not really going to affect my bottom line when it comes to royalties.

NaNoWriMo: If you're following my progress on the site, you know that it's kicking my butt this year, for real. I should be sailing closing to 30k right now, and I haven't even hit 20k. But I'm not giving up. I just have to pour some extra fuel on the fire and see how far it goes. No matter what, I'll still post an exclusive excerpt of the novel at the end of November on Patreon.

I hope your weekend will be filled with writing. I know mine will be!

Are You Getting Ready for #PrimeDay?

It's that time again! Amazon's going to be crazy over the next couple of days because they are offering some amazing deals to Prime members. Not a member yet? You can sign up now so you won't miss a thing:



And here are just some of the deals that you'll find for this year's Prime Day. Which of these are most appealing to you?

Prime Day 2017 - 30 Hours of Deals



Kindle - Up to 40% Off Kindle Unlimited

Get 4 months of Amazon Music Unlimited for $0.99

Save 20% on Select Home Services Leading Up to Prime Day

Goodreads, Ebooks, and an Unexpected Price to Pay

If you are an author on Goodreads (or an extremely voracious reader like myself) you may have notice over the past couple days that ebook giveaways are starting to roll out. Goodreads giveaways have always been close to my heart--it's what got me started on the road to semi-pro book reviews (not totally pro--I still only get paid in free books). And I own a Kindle, so ebook giveaways just seem to fit perfectly.

Until it doesn't.

There are a lot of people that benefit from the new arrangement, most importantly the readers. The person that gets the short end of the bookmark? Writers. Specifically, independent writers who may have a small or nonexistent marketing budget for their book. Why am I talking about marketing budgets? Because Goodreads charges a flat $119 fee for listing an ebook giveaway for up to 100 copies (print giveaways are still free because the giveaway host has to purchase and ship the books themselves).

What do you get for this fee? The convenience of not having to deal with the whole giveaway thing once you pay up. You don't have to go into Amazon and gift the books, you don't have to do anything but flash the cash. Sounds like a sweet deal... if you have never bothered to do any marketing for your book before. What independent authors know is that this is just another exploitative fee: "Pay us and we'll do it all for you!" When in fact it would probably be easier to gift ebooks myself, if I chose to host a giveaway--and I wouldn't have to give away 100 copies just to get my money's worth.

But surely you get something more for $119, right? These 100 copies will show up as sales!
Uh... nope. Not going to happen.

Okay. Then at least if the giveaway winner reviews the book on Amazon, it will be marked as a verified review!
Again, probably not. If KOLL/KU reviews aren't marked as verified, these won't be either (and reviewers can turn this label off if they choose).

Normally I wouldn't be this outspoken about something like this, because if it isn't for me, I just wouldn't use it. But I want independent authors to be aware of what they are really getting for this fee. Take the case of my haiku collection Unfolding Life. I published it on Amazon and within the first 90 days hosted free days through Kindle Unlimited. Those first free days yielded around 90 downloads, and they counted as sales (only in the free store, but still...). I didn't have to spend time contacting each person to give them a copy, I didn't have to pay any money to promote it, and I was working only with social media promotion as a completely unknown writer. I'll tell you that subsequent free days for this book and my other works have not yielded this high of download numbers, but my point is that you don't need to, nor should you, pay someone to give away your work. Because let's be honest, how many of those 100 giveaway winners are really going to review your book on Goodreads and Amazon? I know I make an effort to read and review all the free books I get, but I am probably in the minority.

This new rollout isn't entirely without merit. It does give authors and readers another option for participating in book giveaways. But it's comparable to traditional publishing deals where authors get cents on the dollar in royalties for ebook sales when it costs the publisher practically nothing to produce and sell. It can get your book exposure, but it's not going to do any favors for your wallet.

These last couple weeks have sucked in general. And when I saw this, I thought I could have another tool to happily add to my marketing bag. Sadly, this news just sucks too. 

Amazon's New Kindle Unlimited Program

While I may have had a rant about cover letters scheduled for today, I decided to scrap that and talk about the new program from Amazon called Kindle Unlimited. You get to learn about this new program, and I get to spend more time crafting really good cover letters for my next career adventure, so everyone wins.

I received an email from Amazon on Friday introducing me to this new program. While on the surface it may look like just another way for Amazon to get your money, for the savvy reader it can be an affordable option to read like crazy without paying $25.99 for a new hardcover.

The program lets you pay a monthly fee of $9.99 to download and read an unlimited number of books onto your Kindle device. Amazon says that you have a choice from more than 600,00 titles. The Kindle Unlimited Page lists quite a few bestsellers and current popular titles, most of which are price between $8-$15. Not a bad deal, right?

Those who will see the best benefit from this program are the readers that are exclusively or almost exclusively using a reading device. It is also beneficial to readers who can devour at least 3-5 books a month. At just $9.99, the Kindle price of many popular titles will pay for themselves even if you just read a single book a month. However, if you are like me and don't necessarily want to be forced into reading a specific amount a month to justify the cost, you may want to skip this program for now.

The program is also great for Kindle authors. If an author chooses to enroll in KDP Select, their book is automatically enrolled in Kindle Unlimited. The benefits for writers include being paid a royalty for the download, but the catch for this is unlike the royalty from the Amazon Prime Lending program, to get paid the Unlimited royalty the reader must read at least 10% of the title, otherwise the download does not constitute a payment.

Good news: my book is part of KDP Select, so you can take advantage of reading it if you sign up for Kindle Unlimited. But please, for every independent author's sake, read at least 10%. It costs you nothing but a few minutes of your time and you may discover a great read.