Why I don’t worry when people read my books for free: No DRM, Free Promotions, and Free Returns
Sometimes it just feels like several strands of conversations in cyberspace all come together to force me to write about certain topics. This happened to me this weekend when I read a post on SheWrites bemoaning Amazon’s liberal return policy for ebooks and then saw this same issue, along with a rehashing benefits of the KDP Select program, being discussed on the Yahoo group site, MurderMustAdvertise. And finally I read a post by Alan Baxter on Publetariat about DRM, entitled “I’m an author, take my stuff for free.” In all three cases, the arguments seemed to revolve around whether or not it is good for authors when people can get their books for free. So, enough is enough, universe, guess it’s time for me to come out squarely on the side of Free. When I think about DRM, using free Read more…
Victorian San Francisco Short Story
My short story, set in 1879 San Francisco, features two elderly dressmakers, Miss Minnie and Miss Millie Moffet, who face a moral dilemma of no small dimensions. They turn for advice to Annie Fuller, a widowed boardinghouse owner who supplements her income as a clairvoyant, Madam Sibyl. For those who have read Locke’s two full-length Victorian San Francisco mysteries, Maids of Misfortune and Uneasy Spirits, this is an amusing glimpse into the lives of Annie Fuller’s two most eccentric boarders. For those unfamiliar with Locke’s mysteries and the late nineteenth century world they portray, this is just a taste of things to come. This short story is now available on Kindle, or through a Kindle Ap, for only 99 cents. Check it out.
KDP Select Free Promotion — Discoverability Experiment: One Month Later and Feeling Fine!
As stated in Part One, my goal in joining the KDP Select program had been simple, to get my two Victorian San Francisco historical mysteries, Maids of Misfortune and Uneasy Spirits back up to the top of the Kindle historical mystery bestseller category. And, as I wrote in Part Two, not only did I achieve this goal, but I also had fantastic success in selling my books immediately after the free promotion was over. In addition, I was now selling a significant number of books in Kindle, UK, and I had started to have a large number of borrows of Maids of Misfortune, all unexpected but delightful consequences of enrolling a book in the KDP Select program. While not everyone has had the same kind of success using KDP Select, a number of authors have reported large numbers of downloads, Read more…
KDP Select Free Promotion: Discoverability Experiment, Part Two
As stated in Part One, my goal in joining the KDP Select program had been simple, to get my two Victorian San Francisco historical mysteries, Maids of Misfortune and Uneasy Spirits, back up to the top 5 rank in the Kindle historical mystery bestseller category. Their ranks had dropped to between 18 and 24 after Amazon added hundreds of titles to that category just before Christmas. The experiment in light of this goal was an unqualified success. I used KDP Select to offer the Kindle edition of Maids for free for two days, December 30th and 31st. When the free promotion ended, Maids of Misfortune was at #1 in the historical mystery bestseller category, and it has stayed there. In addition, Uneasy Spirits, a sequel to Maids, rose to #8 during the promotion of Maids, and by the end of Read more…
KDP Select Free Promotion: Discoverability Experiment, Part One
Ok, I confess I stuck the term discoverability into the title since it seems to be the new marketing buzz word. As a professional historian who has spent most of her life in the past, I am getting rather a kick out of riding the wave of change within publishing — even using new words for old concepts like marketing, promotion, and publicity. In this blog I have frequently posted about these issues, the importance of branding, the possibilities of blog tours, and the use of tags and categories, all describing what I have learned about how to sell books as an indie author. The bottom line of all those posts has been about how an author can get potential readers to discover their books, when they don’t have the same opportunities available to traditionally published authors (publishing house book Read more…
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