Ebook Publishing and the Great Price Debate: My numbers tell an interesting story
Before Christmas and the great Amanda Hocking success story hit the blogosphere, the general wisdom among ebook self-publishers tended to be that $2.99 was the sweet spot for selling and profiting from sales. Particularly after Amazon instituted its new 70% royalty offering (which didn’t apply for books priced at under $2.99), anything lower than that was seen as reserved for short stories or novella’s or at the most a brief promotional launch. However, the success of Amanda Hocking and a growing number of self-published authors selling their books at 99 cents changed the debate. They proved that you could sell so many books at that rate that it would more than make up for the loss of the 70% revenue. An additional upside to the 99 cent approach was that the sheer volume of sales at 99 cents would put Read more…
Why Do I Procrastinate?
I ran across an online discussion today addressing why we procrastinate as writers. My comment went on so long a realized that this was something I should address on my blog. So here goes. I spent 20 years procrastinating in regards to my writing. Hell, I spent nearly 50 years procrastinating if you start counting from when I determined that I wanted to write historical fiction until the time I successfully published my first novel, Maids of Misfortune: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery. What I find interesting is that in general I am not a procrastinator. I learned in 4th grade (best grade school teacher ever) that the students who buckled down and did their work first thing ended up with plenty of guilt free time to goof off, and I have pretty much applied that concept through the rest Read more…
Managing Expectations: Patience and Perspective in Indie Publishing
The last few weeks, because I have not been able to maintain the terrific sales numbers I achieved over the Christmas holidays for my historical mystery, Maids of Misfortune, I have noticed a growing sense of disappointment. In addition, two of my friends who have recently self-published books, encouraged to do so by my solid sales, have sold very few of their books. Naturally I feel partly responsible for their frustration. Finally, the author facebook site I started last month only has 74 “likes,” most of them other authors who “liked” my site in exchange for me “liking” their sites, instead of the fans of the book I hoped to attract. I confess these three things were beginning to undermine my generally enthusiastic state of mind towards self-publishing. A few days ago, however, I experienced an interesting “attitude adjustment.”
Getting Past the Sally Field Moment: Personal Reflections on selling over 10,000 copies of Maids of Misfortune
You see, I had planned to make a big deal of it when I passed the 10,000 mark, you know, balloons, go out to dinner, celebrate. Then today, when I needed a break from writing, that thing writers do to procrastinate, I added up my sales to date and discovered I had passed the mark some days ago. I confess I had my sixty seconds when I thought, OMG, 10,000 people like me/ahem I mean 10,000 people like my book, but pretty quickly I realized this number had a much deeper meaning to me, as an indie author and as an educator. Not to say that what I call the Sally Field moment isn’t a natural one. I doubt there is an author out there that doesn’t react with joy and relief when they get proof the precious part of Read more…
Marketing or Selling: What’s the difference and why do I like to do one and not the other?
To sell: “to influence or induce to make a purchase” Merriam-webster.com To market: “to expose for sale in a market.” Merriam-webster.com People commenting on the new trends in publishing frequently say that for self-published authors to be successful they need to be entrepreneurs. In fact they often say any author who wants to be successful needs to participate fully in the selling of their own books. I heard stories for years from my traditionally published friends about going to conventions to network with book sellers, arranging book tours, book signings, and speaking engagements at local libraries, and how much they dreaded this aspect of being a published author. Author Forums and groups like Murder Must Advertise are still dominated by similar discussions of the ins and outs of selling books, including these traditional methods. As I prepared my historical mystery, Read more…
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