Goals - Publishing

I just finished a blog on Icy Road, it's an announcement of taking K. A. Jordan e-books 'wide' to as many outlets and vendors as I can.

In addition, I've taken steps to publish as many of my mother's short stories as I can in the next two years. I've enlisted some people to help me. I've pulled out the fourth volume and started reading. I've sent packets of short stories to a Beta Reader for evaluation.

Because, it will be 10 years since I started publishing e-books in 2020. And in ten years, I should know if this hobby of mine will ever become a business, or if it will continue to be a drop in the bucket. The best way for me to figure it out is to make a big push to see what happens.

After all, the Hoard is gone, my parent's farm is gone, the estate is settled and I have my life back. Two of my horses are over 30 years old, I'm looking to re-home the young mare so I don't have to put her down when the other two cross the bridge. The alpacas are slated for a new home this fall. We can sell the geese and the ducks without any problem. I can bring my chickens with me, just not the roosters.

Honestly, by the time 2020 rolls around, I'll have a better idea of the political climate. Right now, the news concerns me greatly. As does the report I get from Google on my blog readership.

In 2020 I'll reach a personal milestone - and I've been asking myself if I want to spend the rest of my life working on this farm, or do I want to retire to the City? There are a lot of nice cities out there. And I want what the millennial generation wants, a place with public transportation. I'd like to be part of an artists colony, but those are very hard to find.

The long list includes: Cleveland (it has RTA and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame), Erie PA, Buffalo NY, Panesville OH, Fairport Harbor, Madison on the Lake and Ashtabula Harbor.

So I'm going to work it out in the next two years.

DIY Publishing 2017, Part 2

Mechanics Rule

Final Cover

If you're a writer, you've seen the writer's getaway cabin in the woods, tucked in the most romantic isolation. Or you've heard the story of J. K. Rowling writing Harry Potter in the coffee shop down the street. But the nuts and bolts of writing are FAR less romantic.

Most of us have a less than romantic space to write, maybe in bed with our laptop, at the kitchen table or on Notepad at work. We might spend years working on a manuscript, and in the end what counts the most isn't our lovely scenes, exciting characters or lofty plots.

Here's the dirty little secret few professional writers want to talk about: the most important thing a writer needs is a superior grasp of grammar and sentence structure.

Now, a whole lot of new writers are going to roll their eyes and spout a cliche right now: "That's what editors are for."

But can you afford to pay that editor?

That level of editing is very time consuming and expensive. Editing at that level can cost upwards of $5 per page (500 words). Even if you find an independent editor who will edit your grammar for $1 per page, it will take 2 or 3 passes to get all the corrections done.

Some editors charge $1 per error found.

At a certain skill level that's a bargain. Until then it's a nightmare.

A traditional publisher, or (perish the thought) an agent, will read your manuscript up to the first grammatical error and stop. If that's in the first sentence, all your work after that is for nothing. If your lucky, they won't tweet your name and some disparaging remark to their colleagues. (Yes, this has happened.)

"Well, I'll self-publish my book," a budding author might reply.

Most readers (I'm one) will sample an e-book and not buy it if there are grammatical errors in the sample. Readers with a trollish bent will leave you a nasty 1 star "OMG, this writer sucks!" review. (I know, I've got some.) Many a writer has been shocked to get so many 1 star reviews on sites like Amazon or Goodreads by reader-trolls that they've snapped and lashed out at their tormentors. Flame wars have resulted, people get their feelings deeply hurt, and sometimes things spill over into the real world. (This is a subject for another post.)

So it's in every writer's best interest to work on this skill set, until they have it honed as sharp as a razor. Until then, use your grammar checker until it becomes your best friend. It won't find all the errors in a manuscript, but I learned a heck of a lot from mine.

If nothing else it will keep you from getting remarks like I got from Amazon Vine Reviewers: "Unfortunately, there are several spelling errors and grammatical mistakes that detract from my enjoyment. It's just easier to read an error-free story - you don't get pulled out of the plot and back to reality if the writing is pristine." 

Ouch!

No one is ever perfect, and as many times as I've revised this short post, I know there are still errors in it.

Warning: This blog (but not, I hope, this series of posts) contains subject matter that other's might find offensive as well as blog posts that have snarky language. Feel free to roll your eyes and click away from posts that offend you. The opinions expressed here were only valid on the day of posting, after that I've probably forgotten what I posted. I think the eye-roll emoji is either ::-( or 88-(, I no doubt deserve it if you leave one in the comments.

Do It Yourself Publishing - 2017 Part 1

2009 Cover

My Road to DIY Publication

I often talk to Independent authors with newly-launched books. They all have the same questions, and I’m always glad to offer up my experience to help them on their way. I’ve been DIY publishing e-books and paperbacks since 2009 and I can tell you that this business changes every few months. I did well for a short time, a mere 10 weeks, but now I struggle like most other authors.

I’ve decided to put what I’ve learned into a short series of blog posts for my Kentuckiana Authors Association friends. I’ll try to keep these short, feel free to comment, by all means ask questions. I’ll put in links as I go. I might rearrange the links on my website to make it easier to find stuff.

I think it was in 2007 that I joined a local writer’s group called the Bard’s Corner. I learned how to outline, which made a big difference in my writing, but my work schedule kept me too busy to attend regularly. It was my first exposure to writing groups and peer review; it changed my paradigm on writing forever by opening my eyes to a larger world.

Once I learned to outline, I was able to finish my first novel “Let’s Do Lunch.” At that point (2008) I joined a couple of websites for writers so I could learn more. “Forward Motion” was the best of the writer’s websites – I don’t know if it is still around, I hope so, because it offered the first ever open peer review that I’d ever experienced. I got feedback by people who had skill-sets superior to mine and I learned a whole lot in a short period of time. I edited the manuscript using every bit of feedback that I could get.

2009 I entered Amazon’s Breakout Novel Award – I uploaded the manuscript during a horrendous ice storm via dial up because we had no electricity here at the house, but the phone still worked. My novel made two of three cuts, and garnered some feedback that has me rolling my eyes to this day. It was during that contest that I learned of a website run by Harper-Collins called Authonomy. I spent the next 4 years on that site, learning a lot, but none of my books ever got any traction on the contest to the Editor’s Desk.

I spent 2009 and most of 2010 watching the phenomena of the Amazon Kindle shake up the publishing industry and allow authors to upload their books to the new e-book format and get some readers, and get paid. I uploaded my e-books to Barnes & Noble’s Nook Press platform, Kobo Writing Life and Smashwords as well.

Those were heady days indeed.

My brief appearance on the Amazon best sellers list was 10 glorious weeks on the romantic suspense chart in the UK where Let’s Do Lunch hit #3 for a few hours and settled to #8 for several days. It then slid off the Top ten list into the top 25, then the Top 100 and then down into the mulch layer with about 50 million other e-books.

After that the sales trickled in, a handful a quarter but not enough to pay for the endless hours I spent marketing my e-books. I was obsessed, always a bad sign, and getting nowhere but discouraged. When ’50 Shades of Gray’ came out, my sales evaporated completely and I’ve struggled just to stay somewhat in the game ever since.

I hope this series of blogs will serve to open a dialog with my fellow writers.

Warning: This blog contains subject matter that other's might find offensive as well as blog posts that have snarky language. Feel free to roll you eyes and click away from posts that offend you. The opinions expressed here were only valid on the day of posting, after that I've probably forgotten what I posted. I think the eye-roll emoji is either ::-( or 88-(, I no doubt deserve it.

Progress on 'Collision Course'

Well, there's been a goodly amount of progress on the new book. The Fourth of July holiday falling on a Tuesday this year made things a bit hectic on the farm.

The horses HATE fireworks. I have a redneck neighbor who goes completely crazy on the fireworks every year. Sparks and other debris fall into my pastures and scare my horses nearly to death every year.

The first year we lived at the house we had sparks land on the roof. (We now have a metal roof. I sleep better.) My neighbor is a 'great guy' when it comes to just about everything else -- it's just the typical redneck desire to blow things up.

This year, the fireworks started on June 30th and ran every freaking night until the 4th. I had to go outside with a flashlight and call for the old black gelding. He's the only one who will come to me during the fireworks. And for some reason, I didn't find them even after 2 rounds of the fields.

I think they were avoiding me, they were that spooked. The last time I went out with grain an a bucket.

I even got the alpacas that time!

By the time Tuesday rolled around, the horses and the alpacas knew to come to the barn when the fireworks started. The alpacas refused to come in early, but they were waiting at the barn door when I got home from work.

I'm hoping this weekend we don't have any more fireworks. I want to write and I can't when I know my animals are in distress.

So I'll get back to the adventures of Leo and Wendy next week. I've got at least another 25k words to hit the target, it's wrapping up fast.

Back to the Business of Writing

The old bull has been ridden to a standstill by the sheer bloated weight of Uncle Sam, broken to harness and hitched to the huge wagon that is Congress. I’ve allowed myself to be distracted by the shrill voices of the political Henny Penny types cackling “The Sky Is Falling!” long enough.

The world is not a China Shop, Skylab fell decades ago. Kentucky is just as safe as it has always been. If I don’t stop looking at the sky for falling debris, I’m never going to get anything finished in time for the next Reading Season.

The Hoard is gone. My parent’s little farm was sold on last August. I took time to mourn for those I loved and lost. For the first time in years, I can take care of my farm without feeling pulled in a dozen different directions.

The porch is breezy, the trees have leafed out, and the lawn is mowed by a lawn service. It’s time I got back to the business of writing.

So, here’s what’s been going on with my books:

I goofed up and lost the URLs of KAJordan.net and IcyRoadPublishing.com. The Chinese have squatted on the two names and it would cost me $3k to get either one back. So I’ve dropped those names and will get back to that silliness later.

There are 18 I. C. Talbot short stories published. After over two years of zero sales on the other vendor sites, I started moving all the Talbot short stories into Kindle Unlimited.

They got a just few pages read, mostly for “Turned Out”until March when I released “The Hide Out” which got picked up and reviewed on Goodreads. That started a surprising burst of interest in I. C. Talbot short stories that has lasted all of March and April. Today on May 1^st, “The Hide Out” was read again, kicking off the month on a positive note.

The halo sales and reads increased as I set up free dates for the other short stories. In March there were a couple thousand pages read and hundreds of e-books given away for free. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that Amazon pays less per page read this year than last year. More like $0.004 per page instead of $0.005. So a couple thousand pages read is less than $20. Since I have to pay for the pictures that make up the covers and I have someone else run an editing pass, I’m still in the hole for the short stories published before “The Hide Out” and “Ill Wind.”

This doesn’t count my own e-books, with 3 brand new covers, which were lackluster as freebies. “Let’s Do Lunch” has caught on, with respectable freebie numbers and almost $2 in pages read. I hope

 that "Swallow the Moon" and "Impressive Bravado" will follow suit.

It’s a good thing that I didn’t get into this to get rich, isn’t it?

There is something that I’d like to point out – I published the first of the I. C. Talbot short stories in 2009, when I published my own. We had respectable runs which peaked 2011 and fell off to nothing thereafter. The market changed then and apparently it has changed again. 

This time it appears to have changed in my favor. 

Catching Up -- A Quick Note

This has been a busy month, busier now than ever.

While I'm tackling The Hoard for the (hopefully) final time, I'm going to post this brand new book cover for you to drool over.

Horsewomen of the Zombie Apocalypse Book 1

This cover is by the man who did my cover for Swallow the Moon.

Athanasois Galanis the link goes to his website, see his cover art for yourself.

A Tale of Two Subscriptions - Kindle Unlimited and Scribd

There's been a pretty big shake up at Scribd. They've cut an estimated 90% of their best-selling Romance titles, according to this post on the Smashwords blog.

Mark of Smashwords had this to say: "It's ugly. The problem for Scribd is that romance readers are heavy readers, and Scribd pays publishers retailer-level margins for the books."

There's been a good bit of screaming going on, none of it screams of pleasure. (Sorry, couldn't help it.) Here's Selena Kitt's take on the subject:

"Look, if we don’t stop this ride now, we may never be able to get off. And this particular ride ends at welfare-ville. So let’s not go there. There are plenty of erotica authors who have made a nice living from writing. And we are satisfying a very voracious readership. Why shouldn’t they have books they want to read, too? And why shouldn’t we get paid for them?"

Selena points out that the Erotic Romance genre has taking a hell of a hit in the wallet.

What has just rung a big bell for me is this: the average Erotic Romance author is female. Their readers are also female. This means there are hundreds of women (readers and writers) who've just been cut off at the knees. And having been sliced and diced from two different directions in the same week, these women are truly reeling.

I could, but that's not what I think it really is. Both programs are suffering from too much success. Women are reading the erotic shorts as fast as the writers can churn them out. There's money changing hands at a faster rate than either Kindle or Scribd can handle.

In all honesty, I think erotica is going to go full circle, back to sites exclusive to the genre. We're gonna see a new book vendor, or two, or three pop up and the erotica writers are going to thumb their noses at Amazon and Scribd. Their going to take their lucrative business elsewhere, and both Amazon and Scribd are going to notice.

Both of them might heave sighs of relief. (rolling eyes)

I know that Smashwords and Mark Coker are ready, willing and able to pick up the slack. The site will handle the traffic. It will need a nicer interface. Readers need to know the site exists and will cater to their reading habits.
Fortunately, none of this has any impact on my e-books.

My e-books are still up on Scribd, and haven't been in Select in two years, or Unlimited ever. Three of Mom's short stories are in both programs on Amazon. 'The Secret of Aleworthy Acres' is free today and tomorrow on Select. 'Character Flaw' was supposed to come out, not sure how I missed that. 'Shelter from the Storm' was free two weeks ago. It had a pathetic free run of 12 downloads in two days.

'The Secret of Aleworthy Acres' had 11 d/ls already today. So it's doing a bit better than the other two.

I'm not sure where I'm going to release the next short story. I've put a lot of time and effort into it. It's a sweet, senior romance, and I've been toying with the idea of putting it up on Smashwords as a pre-order.

Ninety days is too long when my main markets are somewhere else.

PS - Please buy my Mom's e-books. 

Scribd Shoots Off Own Foot?

This just came off the Smashwords blog:

Scribd, the fast-growing ebook subscription service, today announced dramatic cuts to their catalog of romance and erotica titles.

Effective immediately, I (Mark Coker) estimate 80-90 percent of Smashwords romance and erotica titles will be dropped by Scribd, including nearly all of our most popular romance titles.  Books priced at free are safe and will remain in their catalog.

Based on what I've been able to glean, the lower the price and the higher the word count, the better the odds the book will remain.  Few books priced $3.99 and above will remain.  Scribd is not publicly revealing the formulas for what stays and what goes, probably because much of this is still in flux. They're cutting all publishers and distributors with the same blunt knife.

It's ugly.  The problem for Scribd is that romance readers are heavy readers, and Scribd pays publishers retailer-level margins for the books.  In a letter to publishers and distributors delivered earlier today, Scribd said:

Dear Publisher

As you know, in starting Scribd, we bore the majority of the risk when establishing a business model that paid publishers the same amount as the retail model for each book read by a Scribd subscriber. Now, nearly two years later, the Scribd catalog has grown from 100,000 titles to more than one million. We’re proud of the service we’ve built and we’re constantly working to expand the selection across genres to give our readers the broadest possible list of books for $8.99 per month.

We’ve grown to a point where we are beginning to adjust the proportion of titles across genres to ensure that we can continue to expand the overall size and variety of our service. We will be making some adjustments, particularly to romance, and as a result some previously available titles may no longer be available.

We look forward to continuing to grow subscribers, increase overall reading, and increase total publisher payouts in a way that works for everyone over the long term. We of course want to keep as many of your authors and titles on Scribd as we can, so we’d love to discuss our plans and how we can best work with you going forward.

Thank you for your business.

Bottom line, romance readers - readers we love dearly at Smashwords - are reading Scribd out of house and home.  Scribd's business model, as it's set up now, simply can't sustain the high readership of romance readers.  They're not facing the same problem with readers of other genres.

WoW! Read the rest HERE

Never thought I would see this.

Okay, I admit I've never been a fan of Erotica. I've slammed them as pornographers and rolled my eyes when Erotic authors brag about their earnings.

I've already noted that B&N weighs the rank of Smashwords titles by about 100k points. They've done that for years now.

But I never, ever thought I was going to see this.

I don't know if Swallow The Moon and Let's Do Lunch will be affected. Both are short and under $3.99. Neither of them is going to Scribd via Smashwords. (*Which doesn't matter, D2D sent out a similar notice. The difference is they aren't looking at 90% of their catalog.)

I'm going to test the links. Yes, the books are still up.

Perhaps I will get a few more sales because of this. But I'm not going to hold my breath. This is a very, very strange thing to watch happen.

****

There have been rumors that the purge is aimed at the content, but I've also been told that Erotica has never been part of the subscription service. So I raise an eyebrow at Mark's assertion that the Erotica titles are going too.

Perhaps we will never know why this is happening.

The Sky Is Falling! Kindle Select Pays By The Page

First of all, I need a Puppy Break.

Aren't they cute? That's Trouble (with the slipper in his mouth) and Mocha the Great Watch'em Dog.

Now that my breathing has returned to normal - let's talk about Amazon's newest program in Kindle unlimited. The Blogosphere would have us think it was designed to make us Indie Writers insane.

Remember, these changes only apply to e-books enrolled in Kindle Unlimited.

Look at the puppies, and breath. (Make sure Carole isn't around.)

My mother's Short Stories are released in Kindle Select. Usually I put them in Select, wait a week, crank out all the free days and when the 90 days are up, I go ahead and release them from captivity.

I do that to give them a boost. I might get 1 or 2 halo sales, but not too many.

So I understand why ANY changes are making other people crazy. The whole WORLD is in chaos! The economy stinks, mad-men with guns are walking into churches and killing middle-class citizens, Steven Colbert has vanished and Jon Stewart is quitting. (Ulp, back to the puppies.)

The fact that Publishing Bloggers, like The Little Red Hen, are screaming "THE SKY IS FALLING!" doesn't help me a bit.

It's okay, really, it's all click-bait.

Look at the puppies. (Carole isn't around, it's safe.)

Maybe Amazon is trying to lure the Novelists back to Select/Unlimited. If that's true, then it's going to pay to be a Novelist again. At $0.60 a borrow, Select and Unlimited don't pay a lot, so longer works shouldn't be trapped in the system.

I used Select when it first came out, hit the Amazon UK Best Seller's List and rode that pony for 10 long and lovely weeks. Then the algorithm changed, and that pony didn't go as fast or as far after that. My work settled deep in the mulch layer, and has never been able to dig it's way out. Yikes!

Here's another pretty face:

That's Grumpy, in full length fur. Ain't he squee-worthy?

We work hard for our sales. Some people have success, others don't. It really sucks to go from Best Seller to micro-seller. But that's what happened to me. When Amazon changed over to Kindle Unlimited, my sales tanked. I went six months without one damn sale on Amazon.

Publishing is a craps-shoot. It's worse than D-n-D. You roll the dice, pay the price and there's nothing in the world that will give you a +1 bonus.

The Honeymoon is long gone.

For me, the advantage, when there was one, of releasing Mom's short stories to Select/Unlimited is pretty much gone. Amazon's lowest price, $0.99 yields $0.35, which is better than $0.01 or $0.10. With an average of 12 d/ls for 2 free days, no halo sales and no lift in sale's rank, why wait 90 days to hit a dozen more markets?

I can get a better run on Apple's iBook with either Smashwords or D2D, WITH halo sales and a bump in sales rank.

The playing field levels out.

For a rational examination of Amazon's new policy, I recommend this post The Great Amazon Hysterian...Part 31 by David Gaughran. 

For a gentle scolding if you've already become hysterical Elizabeth Hunter posted this gem: For Indie Writers: You Have The Control. Own it!

PS - Please buy my books.*

* (They say Barry Eisler ends his posts with 'Buy my crap.' I figured 'what the hell?')

Dawns The Light

Last night a some of our local authors gathered together for a Meet-&-Greet, it was a small gathering, like the Reading on Saturday.

The wonderful thing was we got to put our heads together and share information.

It freaks me out when someone says they can't afford to publish a book because it costs thousands of dollars. I realize that communication, between writers, isn't as lightening fast as email.

It is easy to forget that I'm plugged into the World of Indie Publishing in ways that other people aren't. The hundred or so hours I've spent every week since 2009, learning all I can, is stuck in my head. (It wants out.) I want to pay it forward, and haven't had a clue on how to do it.

My books rode the cutting edge for a few sweet, fleeting, weeks, and dropped into the mulch layer, like thousands of books before and after mine.

I see myself as a micro-publisher, on the fringes of a vast industry that doesn't know that my itty-bitty company exists.

I live in a region full of talented writers. The more I hear and see the work of others, the more in awe I become.

These books are incredible.

On Saturday I heard four authors who wrote completely different genre, in different styles, and they all touched me with the quality and craftsmanship of their books.

Craftswomanship is a better term for Saturday, but yesterday there were two guys there, and they were craftsmen, too.*

These authors and their books don't belong in the Mulch Layer. The bookstore that was kind enough to host us should get recognition as well as the gallery/pub who hosted us last night. There are supporting craftswomen and craftsmen, editors, proofreaders, cover artists toiling in obscurity who deserve some kind of recognition.

Together, we can achieve, or ascend, to heights we can't reach alone.

It's a matter of finding the way to dig ourselves out of the mulch layer.

This blog might make a good starting point.

* Gender is such a sticking point. Using either pronoun leaves out half the population. Using both sounds stilted. (sigh) I'm gonna use both.

Draft 2 Digital - Update

I'm pleased to say that I'm getting some results from Draft 2 Digital.

I've had books on the site for two years now, and had ZERO sales. But I'm a bit more than frustrated with Smashwords. Half of my frustration is their content, every pornographer in the world uses them, the other half is the fact they hold earnings for 3 months before they pay.

So I switched over to D2D. They post faster, and the books appear to have better visibility. (They aren't being filtered for content, which helps.)

The results are encouraging.

My B&N downloads of free books are double what they were from Smashwords. Or at least the reporting is twice as fast. On Smashwords I get one or two d/l of Impressive Bravado a day, but The Emissary might as well be invisible.

On D2D, I've already had 20 d/l of The Emissary this month.

Why the difference?

Content filtering, is my guess. As Smashwords panders to the pornographic, B&N is forced to blanket filter their content - it all goes into the mulch layer and stays there. They don't have time to sort it, so it all gets about 10k 'points' added to the rank to keep it from dominating the charts.

Since D2D doesn't carry that content, the files have an even chance of being seen, which is a BIG boost to a small-fry like myself.

Why do I say this? Impressive Bravado (via Smashwords) has been a steady give-away on B&N for 3 years, it has a rank of 113k. The Emissary, Smashwords version, is invisible. I can't find it with a simple search. However, the D2D version is sitting pretty with a rank of 101k.

My work has always sold better on B&N than on Amazon. Smaller venue, better chance to be seen. But the NookPress website offers no advantage, and is being curated by Author Solutions; of all the drek vanity publishers in the world, Author Solutions, under all it's aliases, is the worst.

Unfortunately, I can't close the NookPress account, just like with KoboWritingLife, there's no way to close the account as an author and no way to get your money out if you have them do it. (Both sites have owed me $9 for years, I'll never see that money.)

In case you are curious, I'll clarify my methods. I uploaded all my short fiction to D2D two years ago, where it did nothing. I've been getting a smattering of d/ls of freebies on Smashwords, but only about $10 of sales per year. (Most of those were Sony Sales.) This February I uploaded Mom's short stories to D2D, made a couple of hers free and one of mine (Impressive Bravado) her's started to get some action when I re-did the covers.

The Emissary started getting hits on B&N via D2D with the new cover. I couldn't even FIND the Smashwords version on B&N, so I pulled it. They report 2 months in arrears on Smashwords, while D2D has promised to report daily starting yesterday.

Oh, what a difference a day made.

I'm showing 11 d/ls of The Emissary in May and 10 for June. The Emissary has FINALLY been discovered on B&N!

I'm handling the switch-over very carefully. First, I've raised all Smashwords prices to $.99. I'm handling all the freebies via D2D. Then I started pulling all the Smashwords files from vendors who have hooked up with both companies.

The wild card is Apple, currently my best vendor for Impressive Bravado. Switching over to Apple has proven trickier. First off, they require ISBNs from Smashwords. However, they do not appear to require ISBNs from D2D.

I may not switch over on Apple. Upsetting the Apple-cart is not in my best interest. We'll see what happens with freebies vs dollar-dreadful on Apple.

If I can start making money on Apple, I'll leave Smashwords alone.

IMO Kobo is a black-hole. Kobo is a black-hole even if you have an account in Writing Life. I've found it impossible to get any ACCURATE sales information out of them since Day 1. (Shrug) They never update covers, or files, or prices and they never pay.

Meanwhile, I earn a dollar or two from Amazon each month.

I suppose this is as good a time as any to make this announcement: I'm pulling out of the e-book business at the end of 2015. 

I had two books hit the Best Seller's List - it was fantastic - but it didn't last. Since 2012 my best month was $14 last year. I can't justify all the time I spend online for zero return.

I'm going to finish up all the current projects in time for the Winter Reading Season, in my spare time. I'm pulling e-books from every market that has zero return at the end of 2015.

I intend to get rid of The Hoard, get Talbot Hill sold and get a Real Life.

Two New I. C. Talbot Stories on Amazon

I've just finished posting two new short stories by I. C. Talbot to Amazon.com

The Secret of Aleworthy Acres, by I. C. Talbot
Cara Novotny gets a letter from Amy Aleworthy, an elderly relation that takes her on a journey to the old family farm. But someting isn't quite right, Amy isn't what she seems. This short story is 5.5k words.

Shelter From The Storm, by I. C. Talbot
Hurricane Georges is coming to the little Florida farm belonging to a loney widow. Amy knows her house and barn can handle the storm. Meanwhile two cars break down on the road, a mother and her children are trapped in a ditch. Short story 3k words

I'm glad to be back on track with releasing these short stories. I've been working on the Estate since April, and gotten behind in my publishing.

If you click the link on the first line, it will take you to the Amazon US, I. C. Talbot Author Page. 

If you would like to know when new e-books are released and when they will come on sale or free, sign up for the Icy Road Publishing Newsletter. The link is on this page.

Also, I would like to announce that 'Tales From The Leeward Lounge II' is in the works, as are 8 more short stories. 

I would like to credit my friend Karlin at The Country Clerk for her help in getting the short stories ready to publish. The stories needed to be formatted and proofread because they've gone through at least 10 different word processing updates and 6 operating systems. There were strange little glitches in all the files, so she had to seek them out for me. 

If you are an author and need a hand proofreading, I recommend her highly.

Using Scrivener To Manage A Series

An ongoing series is a massive creature that takes on a life of it's own. It requires an expanding cast, villages, farmers, mad men, villains and more supporting cast than this aging brain can hold.

So I'm using Scrivener's Research folder to hold and track the expanding cast.

I started with a single folder of notes. Names, ages and a few details of the inhabitants of Fort Chatten and Dunvegan. That was enough for the first two books.

But Homebound presented a problem: The people squatting in StoreMore, a 3 acre storage yard. I needed names, ages and a few words of description.

Then a series of fires burned people from their homes. They needed shelter...and names, ages and a few details.

This is what I'm going to do -- the details are going to change with the books. I'm going to need to expand my universe, but until I do, the individual book files can contain what I need for that book. Which character are where and what they are doing, for that book. Then, since I rename a file when I'm starting a new book and remove the old information, I have all the information I need for the next book.

So far, I've expanded from a single file to a folder under "Manuscripts" named "Horse Women" that contains a folder for the new manuscripts. I've got "McLeod 1 - 2" "McLeod 3" "McLeod 4 - The Healer" and "McLeod 5" each file has it's own copy of the world to that date.

Under 'Research' in each Scrivener file, there is a folder for 'People,' the characters most used in that book, 'Places,' the fort, the castle and the villages,  and 'Things' my general information on the Zombies, rate of travel for horses, food requirements and links to information that I need most.

Zack and Hector are at Fort Chatten in book 2. All their character information for that time and place are listed under Fort Chatten.

They are on the road in Book 3. Their information is stored under "People" in that file. I have a list of what gear they are carrying while on the road.

In Book 4, they are in Dunvegan and so is their information. But I've got the active characters in the 'People' folder.

It becomes easier for me to track characters.

I just need a similar system for dates.

Is this ideal? No - eventually I'll need a separate Scrivener file for the world. It will have to be on one monitor while the main story I'm working on is on another monitor.

Did I ever post that I use two monitors while I'm writing? 

My laptop monitor has a browser open so I can research, and the secondary monitor has my current story up. If this series and it's system expands any more, I'll need to have the World file open on the laptop at all times. 

I wonder how George R. R. Martin tracks the Game of Thrones? That feels like a nightmare task to me.

Author Earnings 1st Quarter 2015

Huge Howey is not only a best-selling author, he is also a prominent figure in the Great Publishing Market Disruption. He came to prominence via the Author Earnings Report published quarterly.

I've been silent on this subject for several reasons, most of them are family issues. But also because others have said it better. I enjoy blogging, and I enjoy charts, so I'm going to say a few words about the chart at the top of the page.

There is a trend, a very interesting trend, as shown in this chart. The purple line is the money earned by authors published by the Trade Publishing Industry, or the Big Five. The blue line under it is the earnings of Indie Authors. Notice where the two lines cross? That shows the extent of the (continuing) loss of earnings for authors who are Trade Published.

The marketing techniques that worked in 2010 with little effort are now an 80 hour a week, soul-sucking black hole. I gave it up and refuse to go back to it. But that doesn't mean I don't care what happens to others.

In brief: The Big Five fought with Amazon last year in order to stop Amazon from discounting the prices on their e-books. Amazon wants e-book prices to hover in the $2.99 to $9.99 sweet spot, so they discounted e-book prices at their own expense. The Big Five want to raise prices on e-books to discourage sales, with the idea that it's better to sell paper at brick-and-mortar stores, like they always have. This is known as 'the agency pricing model.'

As the Big Five raise prices under the "agency model" they have suppressed sales, their sales. So they trumpet that e-book sales (as a whole) have fallen by 8% and it's no longer The Growing Market.

Which is true, they've lost 8% of their market $ share to Indie Authors, plus their gross unit sales have slid a whopping 17%. I think a some of this is the fact that everyone who wants a copy of '50 Shades of Twilight' has one.

Now, if the gold diggers continue to drop out of the Indie Book Biz, micro-selling authors like myself might see a few more dollars come our way. We aren't going to see  big bucks, because the Tsunami of Mommy Porn isn't going away any time soon.

Mommy Porn sells. '50 Shades of Twilight' made enough money to give the janitors of the Randy Penguin a $5k Christmas Bonus. But the Next Hot Book (of any genre) has yet to be found.

If there is to be any hope for micro-sellers, this is it. We need to get our Works In Progress finished and ready to go by fall. January is peak of the Reading Season, if your e-book is to have more than a snow-flake's chance in Hell, get it published in the fall of 2015.

I'm going to spend this summer selling paperbacks at every book-signing I can get to. My personal best month is August, which is the best time for me to launch a new book. This year, I hope to have 'The Emissary' trilogy finished and in paperback by October's Zombie Walk, here in E'town.

Wish me luck!

Spotlight on Local Authors

Had a lovely day in Radcliff during the Spotlight on Local Authors. It was warm and very breezy.

Learned something I want to share.

My friend had just purchased two signs on foamboard. She set them up on easels.

The wind had it's way with them. We tried securing them with tape, which only worked for a short time. Then we switched to string, which worked to keep them on the easels, but the easels blew over.

I keep an assortment of small bungy cords. We used the bungies to secure the easel legs to the tent poles, then used the twine to secure the foam board to the tent pole. This worked, only had to adjust the signs after big gusts.

However, the canvas banner I bought via Vistaprint moved with the wind. I merely secured the top grommets to the frame of the tent. Once it was up, I only noticed it when it hit the back of my chair.

My suggestion is to spend a bit more for the canvas banners and signage. When I purchased my banner, I was a bit worried that I'd spent too much. However, after chasing the foamboard signs all afternoon, I think the extra money was well spent. You can see the two different signs above.

Notice the curtains in the background. They provide shade, make the booth more visible and cut the breeze back. When the sun comes around the booth, I move the curtains to block it. That way I stay cooler and my sunblock works better. I still wear a hat to keep the sun off my face. They just don't make a sunblock that will keep my face from swelling up after a day in the sun.

Guess I'm half vampire.

The white curtains in the background are shower curtains, so they are waterproof. If we get a light shower, they block the rain from sneaking in. I put grommets in the corners so I can tie them down. I need to get a set of weights to hold the center down. My book bag wasn't heavy enough.

I want to buy a four-sided tent. When I do, I'll put the shower curtains on the inside, to jazz it up. My sister has a large tent, and she decorates hers extensively.

I also have a stand to bring my books up off the table.

It's all about being visible, and being different, to attract attention.

I'll post more as I learn more.

Covers, Covers and More Covers

 

 

Here are six of the new covers.

I've found a photo site I can afford, so I've redone all the old covers and am uploading them to Amazon, Draft2Digital and Smashwords.

I have to say, this is the first time that Smashwords has allowed me to upload new covers without having to upload the entire work.

I'm very pleased with the new covers.

I should thank Bradley Wind for chiding me about the old covers. (He's a cover artist and author I met during my days at Authonomy.)

Daniel Roberts for posting a website with photos that I can afford.

And Andre Jute for his lesson's in cover creation that I was finally able to put to use.

Shouting In A Crowd II

Yesterday there was a post "Please Shut Up" by Delilah S. Dawson on The Passive Voice.

There was this rebuttal from S. J. Pajonas Stop Being A Robot and Start Being You she makes good points. She stresses that using time-saving short-cuts turns out white noise and 'buy my book' tweets and posts. Her solution is 'be yourself' which means interacting with friends and tweet-followers.

But how many hours are there in a day? Hundreds of tweets cross my twitter feed every day. Someone with thousands of followers...reply to them all? Be 'yourself' to them all? Seriously?

Face Book -- imagine trying to read and reply to every post that crosses your feed. All the time spent 'connecting' to hundreds or thousands of followers.

The only way to do that is to be glued to your phone, one of those dazed and disconnected souls who never look up from their phones to see the world. I've seen them at author fairs...glued to their phones or tablets, never looking up from the device to connect to the living humans around them.

They never sell any books. They never speak to readers. They spent good money and time to be at a fair, but stay online selling books to people selling books. They missed the opportunity to connect with real readers.

Isn't connecting with readers the whole point?

I spend enough time at my laptop already. Blogging and reading...I'm already getting frustrated with Real Life left un-lived. I've done this since 2009, during that time, my mother passed and my step-father broke his hip and his leg. Each time I turned from my laptop to 'Real Life' I felt guilty because I was neglecting my 'marketing on social media.'

Then the question arises: If I'm not living life on life's terms, how will I write about other people living life? Won't I be stuck in my office, typing away and leaving my own life un-lived, except through the glowing screen in front of me?

Haven't I done enough of that, working in Tech Support for the last 30 years?

I'm not buying the Kool-Aid. I'm getting more frustrated every day because Real Life is calling and I've put my life on hold to "market my books on social media."

Shouting In A Crowd

I'm a great fan of The Passive Voice.

This post "Please Shut Up: Why Self-promotion on social media doesn't work." is not the first time that someone has made this point. But Delilah S. Dawson said it this way:

“How do I build a platform and make money with my blog?” a woman asks.

“Build a time machine and go back to 2005 and start your blog then,” I say. 

This is it -- the time when the internet was SHORT on content is over. The time when there were only a few thousand kindle books on Amazon is over. The day when you could tweet "Just released a new book." and get thousands of sales is over.

This is NOT A BAD THING!

Should I repeat that in larger, darker letters?

Maybe not. I think you get the point.

We can stop spending all our time trying to sell our books on Twitter and Face Book, Tumbler and whatever else is out there. It just keeps us from having 'Real Life' time with family and friends.

I, for one, have spent every waking moment either writing, or marketing or planning the next book or next marketing move. For the most part, it's been wasted time and effort.

I like going to fairs and festivals. I like talking face-to-face with people who like to read. I'll talk to them all day and go home feeling refreshed. Unlike most days when I feel obligated to compose tweets, messages, like and friend and follow from dawn to dusk.

My books have always sold more in the summer -- because I'm out and about, handing out cards and enjoying being an author.

Guess what I'm going to do more of -- social media or socializing?

I like Kentuckiana Authors, I'm going to continue going to their book fairs.

I'm going to be at the Spotlight on Local Authors on Saturday.

I haven't stopped upgrading covers, blurbs and uploading ebooks. I'm not going to take my books down and slink off into the sunset. To prove that I'm not giving up, here's the cover I created today for my first collection of I. C. Talbot short stories.

But I think my twitter days are over.

Marketing At Fairs and Festivals - Summer Time

Authors must do their own marketing. The easiest way is to sell books at fairs and festivals. If you are about to go to a festival, or a big flea market, what are you going to want to have with you? This is a fairly comprehensive list of the things I have packed in my truck.

1. A banner (or sign) - I bought a vinyl banner at Vista Print for less than $10 with shipping. It has enough information on it to catch the eye. Put in at people's eye level, make it colorful.
2. A table, with a tablecloth - It makes a big impact to have the table covered. Also in the fall and winter, you can put a tea-light heater under the table to keep your feet from freezing. 
3. Display items – business card holder, book display, signage. Up off the table is better than flat.
4. Business cards - book marks, post cards something with your name and website or Face Book page on it. Sites where your books can be purchased.
5. A comfortable chair or two – folding sling chairs may not work if you have a bad back. I've got a very old folding wooden chair that weighs more, but it supports my back, which means less pain.
6. Canopy with sides and weights - Yes, invest in sides and weights. The canopy makes you MUCH more visible. The sides will protect you (and your books!) from the sun, the wind and the rain. The weights can be made for the tent, or cement blocks, or bags filled with sand.
7. Hand-washing supplies. Wet wipes work great and can be bought in small quantities. I use one of those laundry soap containers with the spout, filled with water, a dash of soap and an old towel. For all day events this is perfect.
8. Water – thirst becomes a problem when you’re talking all day. Soda is great, but there’s as much sugar in the average soda as there is in a candy bar.
9. Sunscreen – a full day the sun and wind will leave your skin sun and wind burnt.
10. Hat & Sunglasses – The hat protects your face and shades your eyes. Sunglasses prevent headaches.
11. Little stuff in baggies - Twine, tape and scissors. Trash bags, Kleenex, wet-wipes, index cards, magic marker to sign books. Aspirin, band-aids,
12. Shower curtains rings and clips. If your tent didn't come with sides, a shower curtain will work to shade you from the sun or the rain.
13. Money supplies - Apron, money clip, cash box with lock and receipt book. I keep my cash in a money clip so the wind doesn't blow it away. I have the cash box for change, the receipt book, the magic marker and extra business cards.
14. Food supplies - Napkins, plastic silverware, coffee cups, and drink cups.
15. Credit Card reader - I use Square on my phone. It works either with, or without phone reception. There are other companies, find what you like. They work on phones, laptops and tablets.
16. Heater - The 3 tea-light terracotta pot heaters are good enough for the average spring/fall day. Make sure it's sturdy enough to take a nudge from your feet if you forget it's there. I don't recommend the ones that use metal to hold two or more pots together. The metal gets too hot for a busy place.
17. Small cooler – cold drinks taste better. And it can be used as a side table or just a place to stash things so you aren’t tripping over clutter. Snacks help to keep fatigue at bay.
18. Comfort items - chap stick, bathroom tissue, sun screen(!) sun hats or extra shoes. Temperatures vary over the course of a day. An extra shirt or sweater, a pair of sandals for a day that starts chilly and heats up. Or if the day cools down, or it rains.

This sounds like a lot of stuff. But the devil is in the details - as my grandmother used to say. Kleenx and napkins can double as toilet paper. Twine, well, 'a world without string is chaos.' I use twine every time I go out for something.

Everyone has different requirements. But after 4 years of weekly markets and festivals this is what I carry.

Care to add anything?

Changes In The Background

I am changing distributors. I've gone through several. When I was direct to Kobo, B&N and Sony my sales started good, but soon I had outstanding balances that I had no hope of collecting.

By using Smashwords, instead of going direct, I thought it would make everything easier. But, alas, The Meatgrinder kept chucking my files back at me, and I was unable to find the errors in their FAQ database. Any changes to the files, new covers, new back matter, new ebooks, anything at all and it became a Help Desk issue to get my files approved. Even switching to epub files didn't stop the errors and the delays.

Meatgrinder has become rightfully infamous, once you've run an ebook through it, there isn't any way around it. Anything once run through the Meatgrinder lives forever, untouchable, in formats that can't be updated, corrected or deleted. Worst of all, all potential customers will see the dozens of corrupt files, and could down load any of them at any time.

Then there was the lag on getting these changes published; on getting new ebooks approved; the lag in price changes. Testing and tweaking becomes agony when there are logistical problems. Yet, with falling sales, testing and tweaking is necessary, even critical, for any writer.

Then there was the reporting oddities - a week long 'glitch' that showed I had another $50 in sales last year. Sales and money that mysteriously vanished one day. I got frustrated.

I have nothing personal against Smashwords. Marc's made a huge contribution to Indie Publishing. It's just the software glitches in the site drive me nuts.

So I went back to testing and tweaking once again. First I opted out of Kobo and Scribd in mid-February, and didn't check on the status of the files until this week. They are down, they are all down.

I started tweaking covers in mid March, and updated quite a few of them. But I have yet to fight with the Smashwords site. Instead, I switched some ebooks over to D2D. Every one of the files I loaded went through without a hitch, the same day.

That's right, they shipped the same day.

Now we'll see what will happen with the new ebooks. I will, of course, have to take them down at Apple, via Smashwords. It will take a very long time.

Eventually I'll get my mother's ebooks switched over. Eventually, I'll get all the Smashwords ebook covers updated. Hopefully, there will be improved sales because of the new covers.