From Where I Sit

The world is still full of unease. All of last week, that steady stream of unease was impacting my ability to write. Yes, I was able to complete all of my day job work--content writing/marketing is muscle memory now. But when it came to anything else, including just journaling for myself, I couldn't find the words. I've adjusted my outlook and pushed through to get back to writing, but the unease will stick around for a while no matter what.

I couldn't help but add to my own general unease. I took a look back at some of the content I've written, and I realized that it has a long way to go before it sells. I've been creating content for businesses such a gyms, event venues, and trade show display companies in the past few weeks. Since I write on spec, I'm pretty sure these now-closed businesses are going to need some time before they need this content. I've focused on picking up assignments for businesses that are still going strong content-wise, which has led to a good amount of content writing on the topic of content writing itself. The good news is that I can work all day long if I want. The not-so-good news is businesses may not need it. That's the situation, and it's out of my hands. I know eventually it will change, but it's the not knowing when this will end that makes a lot of what I do seem futile. But I've got good news anyway:

Entire Catalog on Sale

Since there aren't many things I can control these days, I decided I would work with what I did have control over. From now until April 30, my entire catalog of ebooks will be on sale for $0.99 each. That includes Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and other retailers. At Smashwords, I'm participating in the Authors Give Back sitewide promotion, which discounts the book 30%, but if you still want to get it for $0.99, use the code QJ78B at checkout. My universal book links will get you where you need to go:

If It Was New York, Summer 2009: https://books2read.com/u/mBro0O
Seeing What Develops: https://books2read.com/u/3k0WzL
Unfolding Life: A Book of Haiku: https://books2read.com/u/4DAAvQ

The Life and Times of a House Detective -- Episode 1 Now Available

In addition to the $0.99 sale, I've also released the first episode of my detective serial. It is available for free in a handful of formats including epub and PDF. You can download it from my Patreon post, or you can download it from Prolific Works. If you like it, let me know and I might get writing on episode 2 a little faster.

That's what I have for this week. What are you doing to stay writing and stay sane through these strange days?

Goals and Such

It's nearing the end of January, which means I get to check some things off of my 2020 list. I've been working to get a better draft of my TV pilot, but most of that time has been spent working up the show bible, not writing those extra scenes that I need. For coverage, I don't need the show bible, but it does help me see where it could go if the project had a future.

I can also check off the first contest entry of the year. I took a chance on a story I've never sent out before, so I hope I didn't waste the entry fee. Now I'm prepping an application for a residency. The work I'm sending is poetry, but for this particular contest, I have to have a good cover letter to go along with it. Although I think I write a good cover letter, I know how rarely they are read, so I find going through the motions a bit pointless. Maybe that's why all my job applications go unnoticed...

Coming Up in February

I'm dedicated the shortest month of the year for the most frustrating part of my professional life--meeting goals that depend on the actions of others. What does that include? Getting more book sales, acquiring more patrons on Patreon, getting more paid views on Medium, having more reviews on Amazon and elsewhere. I know I haven't tried every possible way to boost these numbers yet, but I do think I'm running out of the most cost-effective (=free) options.

The only other goal for February is to get my Book Spotlight gig back up on Fiverr. Since the posts will now appear here, I need to craft two or three samples before I relaunch. I've been putting it off because I thought I would have moved this blog to its own domain by now, but that's not the case. I'll revisit the idea of moving to a new domain in June. For now, I'm staying put on Blogger.

Amazon Charts--What's It Doing for You?

Amazon has a new feature that they rolled out recently--Amazon Charts. The charts published weekly include the most read books on the site and the most sold. The question here is who benefits from this information, and is it enough?



Let's start with who I think doesn't get any benefit from these charts: readers. I just don't think that readers can gain much from this list (I also really don't think they get anything from NYT or USA Today bestseller lists either). At most, it encourages a reader to buy a book based on the popularity of it rather than the substance. Not all popular books are good, and not all good books are popular. It simply feeds a reader's ego: "Oh, I've read all those books that are popular this week. I must be an astute reader!" Nah.

Okay writers--it's your turn now. Amazon Charts can be beneficial to you, but only to a point. Knowing the difference between what's selling the most and what's being read can clue you into what genres are getting the most movement. However, because these charts take into consideration different formats (paperbacks sold can be tracked; paperbacks read cannot), it's not a full picture of what's going on. For example, my personal preference is to get a nice hardback copy of a book if I know I'll enjoy it. If I can get a great deal on an ebook ($2.99 or less) I'll take the risk to try something new. For Amazon Charts, one of these purchases would count, one would not. Writers can't really distinguish a reader's motive from the charts alone.

And while the charts can tell you something, it won't tell you everything. Specifically, it won't give you numbers. It doesn't include how many have been sold, downloaded, or how many pages read for any title. Those would be like gold to a writer. That would give a much better perspective on how these titles end up on the charts any given week.

So, reader or writer--will Amazon Charts have any impact on how you buy and read books? 

Amazon's Powered by Indie: The Power to Pretend You Care

Anyone who had a book published through Amazon through CreateSpace or KDP probably received an email or two last month about Amazon's Powered by Indie campaign. I was one of the authors that received the first email in which Amazon was congratulating me for having one or more of my books included in the promotion. Can you understand how exciting this was?

Well, at least for a few minutes.

I immediately headed over to the special page featuring all these great independent authors. And what I saw was not surprising--a small range of top-selling indie authors. I went directly to the author filter list because I wanted to see which of my books had been chosen to be featured. The email hadn't been specific. I searched for my name, my titles and everything I could think of. I wasn't listed anywhere.

This should have discouraged me, but it didn't. I reread the email, thinking I was stupid or something. It made a plea to promote this great thing Amazon is doing by talking about your own indie publishing experience on blogs and social media, because your story may be featured.

Huh. So that's what's up. I get it. I immediately wrote a blog post (which was genuine in sentiment) and posted it all over social media. I thought I was catching on. Maybe my book wouldn't show up on the featured page unless I promoted the Powered by Indie page.

Wrong again. I also had the idea in my head that this would be a rotating feature, changing the books daily or weekly throughout October. There were only a couple of thousand books (if that) promoted by an even smaller number of authors, because most had multiple books featured. I will admit that I checked every day all month long for my book to show up, but not because I actually thought it would. I just wanted to make sure that I was in fact being duped into giving the online sales giant free advertising. Which, if you think about it, was useless because most authors end up only promoting their work to other authors, who probably don't buy as much of it as you think (though we do support each other in different ways).

I checked the wide expanse of the web for author chatter about this since I didn't know if the original email was a mistake or a ploy. Some authors admitted to not getting the email at all, while others were in my position, searching for their own featured book that wasn't really featured. About ten days after the initial email, everyone on KDP received an email about doing your part to promote it, but it didn't contain the promise that your book had been featured.

To be honest, I have enough problems getting my books in front of the right people. I don't need Amazon distracting me from that. And keeping me from improving my book sales does the company no favors (though a boost in books sales from me probably wouldn't be noticed at all). 

And just to add to your knowledge about indie sales in general and the all-time sales slump that's happening right now, I ran across this post that provided all I needed to know about why Amazon is nothing more than a necessary evil, not in any way a helpful entity for those selling less than a few thousand copies per month.

So much for Amazon creating an indie renaissance. They have the power to do it, but it's not as quick and easy as working with the publishing powerhouses. That leaves the indie author to keep doing it on their own. The renaissance will come. Just maybe not tomorrow.

Fantastic Deals for Your Holiday Weekend

First of all, Happy Canada Day! If you want to pick up Unfolding Life this weekend for just $0.99, it's available at Kobo (you can also purchase the Kindle edition or paperback edition from Amazon for $2.49 and $9.99, respectively). This Kobo deal is available starting today through July 5th.

You know what else is coming up? That's right, Amazon's Prime Day! Yeah, I know everyone thought it sucked last year. But there are a lot of people saying that this year's deals are going to be A LOT better, so if you aren't already a Prime member, sign up today for your membership.





And since it's the first day of Camp NaNo, I just have to do a little bit of bragging. This word count total for Day 1 deserves a mic drop, doesn't it? :-D

Have a great holiday weekend!!

Publishing Year One: The Dimming Spark

Now it’s time to get to the deep, painful truth about publishing. You’re not special. I’m not special. So if you think that you can get thousands of sales on Day One with your first published work, you have an overactive imagination. Or you forced your church group/college dorm-mates/professional organization to buy copies. Then maybe you can attain that goal. 

I didn’t expect more than ten or fifteen sales on the launch day of Unfolding Life. Heck, I wasn’t even expecting much more than that in the first week. I did, however, expect to see a steady one or two sales a week throughout the year. Didn’t quite work out that way. I did have a one-year sales goal and I’m so far off from it that I’m simply too embarrassed to give you the number. But we can totally talk in percentages to help me save face. 

The truth is that 22% of my yearly sales happened in the first five days after the book launch. And of the 22%, I bought 6% of the books sold (promotional giveaways). Unfortunately, after the first week of sales, they slacked off. Oh… who are we kidding? They stopped altogether. I kept up my promotional efforts, but I just couldn’t close the deal. 

If At First You Don’t Succeed, Give it Away

So I decided to utilize the tools provided to me by Kindle Select. About a month after publishing, I created a free day to get some book sales, even if they didn’t make any money. For most authors, this tactic is used to boost after-promotion sales. This is the day where I sold the bulk of my yearly sales. The upside of this is that for at least a few hours, my book was listed as the #1 selling book in the haiku category. Three days later, the book slid back into ranking obscurity. 

The downside, aside from the lack of money coming in, was that I used this promotion to boost the number of ever-important book reviews. When I give books away for free, whether through a promotion like this or individually to reviewers, I don’t expect to get 100% of the reviews. I really only aim for a 20% review rate. At this point in the process, I still only have about an 8% review rate—and I’m really lucky to have that. 

Tsk, Tsk Amazon

Although I would rather forget about it, we have to talk about Amazon’s horrible return policy when it comes to ebooks. Amazon has the nerve to let someone return an ebook for a full refund up to seven days after purchase. Um, what? No, Amazon! My book is only 60 pages long cover to cover and the fact that anyone can buy it, consume it, then say they didn’t like and get their money back is just plain stupid. Restaurants may have to do that when you hate your food, but something like a book shouldn’t be given that much time to say, “Oh, nevermind.” Anyone heard of buyer’s remorse? You bought a book you didn’t like. Just suck it up and move on! I have a closet full of terrible books that I purchased. I don’t whine to get my money back. 

This whole thing may make me a little angry, but in reality self-published authors deal with this all the time. My only post-promotion sale ended up being a return. Not only that, it was a return from the person who decided to leave the less-than-stellar review. Now, I think you should be kind enough to choose one or the other. You didn’t like the book? Fine. Either take the $2.99 hit and leave a bad review, or return the book and keep your mouth shut. It’s just plain mean to do both, especially since your review is one of the factors contributing to lack of sales from then on. (*Note: I was a good little author and didn’t engage in a spat over a negative review, especially since it was well written and made valid points. But I did do my research on the reviewer. This person was both a chronic returner AND hated everything they ever read. So there.)

Summer Slump

Then summer came and went. I distracted myself with other projects and didn’t promote Unfolding Life very much. After the free day and the return, I didn’t sell another book all summer. I was a little disappointed because I knew it meant I would never meet my yearly sales goal, even if a miracle occurred. And let’s not waste a good miracle on book sales when I’m still single. ;-)

The only thing I could do was to keep getting the word out. Around Christmas, the opportunity to include the book (as a $0.99 countdown deal) in the Read Tuesday catalog seemed like the perfect way to get holiday sales. I did the countdown deal for the maximum time allowed.  

Not. One. Sale. 

At this point, I was not surprised. Not one bit. Unfolding Life had unfolded, and it lived a very short life.

Absent Stacks of Paperbacks

The one aspect of this process I still haven’t mentioned is the paperback version of the book. I was first confused about KDP Select’s exclusivity rules and thought I couldn’t publish another version for 90 days (turns out it only pertains to ebook versions with other retailers). So I did create a paperback version and put it up for sale on Createspace and through Amazon. I didn’t promote it as hard as the ebook version, and because I didn’t want to have a bunch of copies coming to my door where my family would find out I published something, I didn’t buy any copies to give out or create a Goodreads giveaway with. Yes, they know I’m a writer—but there’s no need for them to read anything I write! I have issues, I know. I still haven’t sold a single paperback copy. Not even to myself.

(*Note: Since originally writing this post at the beginning of March, I have made paperback sales--a nice surprise!)

This was certainly an eye-opener. Tomorrow I’m going to talk about those pesky things I should have done, but didn’t.