Something's happening about shrinks.

Hi
I found this article and thought it would be of interest to authors. Do we jump to an easy label for our characters? Some TV dramas do, as it fits into the time slot. 

Is it better not to label the people with disorders in your story, but let the reader come to a conclusion as to what's wrong with the person?
What do you think?

Jumping to conclusions for a diagnosis.

Marketing your books - BookBot

Hi

There are exciting things happening with Facebook. Recently, they've launched a new product called a Chatbot. It's eary days yet, but the results people are getting are very positive.

What Is a Bot?

"Bot" is a generalized term used to describe any software that automates a task. Chatbots, which anyone can now build into Facebook Messenger, automate conversation -- at least the beginning stages of it."  

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/facebook-bots-guide

Authors are getting great results from BookBot Bob.

Enter Bookbot Bob and Bookbot Bill.

How does it work?

Bob is a new promo tool with a difference. It does not ask subscribers for an email address. Bob sends readers info about free blurbs + links, and Bookbot Bill sends info about discounted book blurbs + links, both right in Facebook Messenger. Readers decide which genres they want and the boys send them a book in each category. As simple as that. To sign up and check out Bob and Bill’s titles, go to the Bookbot Bob home page and click on the red rectangle that says “Hi Bob!”

FYI, Bob just added an email function for readers who wish to receive discounted pre-order books.

https://www.bookbotbob.com/bobpromo

You fill in the form and pay the small amount to book your slot or alternatively, you can support the crowdfunding campaign and get free promos forever.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-book-bots#/

BOOK BOT IS NOW CLOSED.

Smashwords 2017 analysis on book sales

Hi
I've just read the Mark Coker annual report on what's happening in the book sales world....

What categories are selling best, what you can do to get those sales happening and what price points work best. 

Surprise, surprise... it's not always the $0.99c price point that drags readers in to become buyers. He has the figures to back up the $4.99, $3.99 and $2.99 price points. 


http://blog.smashwords.com/2017/06/smashwords-survey-2017.html

how to self publish your book and sell it

Hi

I'm not going to rewrite this article because I think it's that good. Take heed. Too many writers think their book is great after the first draft. Most books need loads of editing to make them great. 

Study the best selling writers in your genre. Take note of when they introduce the first conflict, introduce the players, how they introduce them, is there a mix of long and short chapters, how much dialogue there is on each page, and so forth. 

Also, take note of how many people they acknowledge as having helped in their journey to getting published. Some authors have dozens. Being an author is a group effort from yourself writing the book, to the editor/s, copy editors, proofreaders, beta readers, cover designers and the many social media sites where you advertise your book.

http://www.writersworkshop.co.uk/blog/self-publish-book-amazon-kindle-kdp/

Saying goodbye to permafree or 70% royalty.

Hi All

I've just read this blog and though some of you may be interested in this post.

https://anaspoke.com/2016/10/31/saying-goodbye-to-permafree-or-the-70-royalty-or-both/

Saying goodbye to permafree. Or the 70% royalty. Or both.

Sometimes I feel like Sisyphus

Promoting and marketing

Only to see my sales tumble

The watched pot may never boil, but whenever I take my eyes off the sales charts for a few weeks, the algorithms bury my books in the bottomless pit of the millions of unknown titles. Even worse, when I run back to the kitchen and fan the flames with marketing, the download peaks last only a day or two. Just look at the Exhibit A:

Fyi, the companies responsible for the peaks you’re seeing are as follows:

5 October – I don’t know whom to thank for the 367 downloads as I’d applied for a number of free services and apparently got picked up by somebody without confirmation.

24 October – BookHippo featured author, 102 downloads for FREE.

25 October – BKNights with 226 downloads for $11.

29 October – My Book Cave with 117 downloads for FREE.

As you can see, the “normal” downloads between promotions are just 3-5 books per day. What makes this even more frustrating is that I’m trying to give the first book away FOR FREE. Not only that, the permafree strategy has been in place since May, and yet instead of the snowball effect, what I have is that proverbial boulder, freefalling back to zero the moment I stop pushing. Wait, it gets worse. I jumped into permafree hoping for 2% “buy-through” of the second book, but so far it’s been less than 1% with the second book priced at $2.99. And for whatever reason, my KENP pages for Indiot have completely disappeared. Here is the Exhibit B for the same time period:

This sucks big time, which means that I need to do something about it. Considering that I don’t want to “write to the market” or go on yet another cover redesign go-round, I’ve decided to change my pricing strategy. Radically. Like, smash it into pieces. Here are the two strategies I’m considering:

1. Make both books $0.99 and available only through Kindle Select. Promote both with paid ads.
2. Keep Shizzle, Inc as permafree and make Indiot $0.99 and promote only Shizzle, Inc as a freebie.
3. Make both books free. Well, not really, but what the hell, how do I get Isa to go viral? She is destined for the big screen. I’m even more convinced of that having just suffered through “No Stranger Than Love.”

I’m thinking of trying both strategies 1&2 in stages. For starters, I am about to run a Countdown Deal on Indiot, before I make it perma-$0.99. Then after a month or so, make Shizzle, Inc $0.99 as well. Wait another month. Finish the third book. Send it to a hundred literary agents. Give up on Isa and write something along the lines of “How To Sell A Ton Of Books Without Really Trying.” That has worked for some.

If anyone has any better ideas, I’m all ears. Thank you in advance.

I don't feel making your book free on Zon Select really does anything for your overall sales. Sure you get a surge in downloads but afterwards your book goes back to "normal" - you plummet to where your were before.

I'm trying Instafreebie and seeing some results in subscribers. I'll let you know if it makes any long term difference in sales when I launch my next thriller.

What are your thoughts on this?

Penguin Random House HarperCollins Simon & Schuster Hachette Macmillan

Thought this link was great to find out what's happening in the publishers world.

http://thefutureofpublishing.com/2016/08/what-do-the-big-five-financial-reports-tell-us/?utm_content=buffer583ac&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Pre-orders on Smashwords and Amazon

Some of you may wonder what the hype is all about with Pre-orders. 

To put it simply. It's one of the best marketing tools an author has. 

Smashwords - you can list a pre-order up to one year in advance. Then market the hell out of it. One out of eight books on Smashwords is a pre-order and these books do far better in sales than the others.

With Smashwords you don't need to have even written the book. All you need is the basic metadata: title, description, price and categorization. 

On Amazon you can list a pre-order up to up to 90 days prior to the book's launch. On Amazon you need to upload a draft version of your book that is similar to the final version but may need more editing and proofreading. 

Amazon - You can upload a draft version of your cover and update both the cover and interior no less than 10 days prior to launch date. 

Amazon doesn't credit your accumulated pre-orders toward your first day's sales rank. But you already have a sales rank with pre-orders which is a head start on any other book launches on said day.

What you can do when you have listed a pre-order on your retailer of choice: 

1. Share direct hyperlinks to your book on social media. 
2. List your pre-order in your existing e-books.
3. Run price promotions on your other e-books  so you can drive more  readers to your pre-order. 
4. Organize a marketing campaign to create a buzz around your launch.
5. Offer your pre-order at a lower price before launch date. Urge consumers to buy now before the launch date when the price will go up.

All the best with your launch.

How to format your Word Document for Createspace.

Here are some Microsoft Word formatting tips I learned when producing my manuscript for CreateSpace that you should consider when getting ready to publish your novel.

Font Size

Most people use 12 point font. I thought this was a very readable font size, but I learned later that the average font size for paperback book size 11 or 10.

To reduce your font size, select only the text in your manuscript you want to change. If it's too bothersome, you can select all Ctrl + A and go back and change your headings and title page later. Go to the Home tab, and click the drop-down-box with the number in it to select 10 or 11.

Font Type

Next, choose a suitable font style. You do not want a fancy font for the reading font of your novel. Fancy fonts are only appropriate for the book title, and maybe chapter headings.

You’ll need a serif font. Sans-serif fonts are suitable for websites, but serif fonts are more suitable for printed media, like books. Serif fonts have more curves in them, and tend to have little embellishments, like curvy “y”s.

I use Garamond. Use a common font that every computer can read.

To choose a font from Word, click on the Home tab and chose the font drop-down selector next to the font size. See image above.

Margins

You want your novel to take up less space on the inside margin, where the book folds, and more space on the outside margin to reduce pages. To avoid making some silly mistake, I recommend downloading this free template from CreateSpace.
 https://forums.createspace.com/en/community/docs/DOC-1323:

  

Of course, you may already have a book file ready and formatted with images and fonts. You can easily edit your current Word file. To edit margins, to to Home > Margins > Custom Margins.

Paper Size

Novels come in all shapes and sizes. To make your book’s printing costs cheaper, I recommend using CreateSpace's default paper size–6″ 9″. This will give you a good sized paperback. I do not think it is too big. You can also try 5″ 8″, which will produce a smaller book in the hand, but this will increase the page size of your novel and increase the cost price.

From the same dialogue box, choose the “Paper Size” tab and change the size, as below:

Spacing

Here is where you will make your greatest gains in reducing the page count of your book. Most authors will be to use double spacing, or at least 1.5 spacing. Instead, choose 1.15 spacing. This will still make your book readable and easy to scan, but it will save you many pages to print.

Go to the Home tab. You’ll see a little icon in the lower right-hand corner of the Paragraph pane. Click it to open the Paragraph dialogue box. On the first tab–Indents and Spacing–go to the Spacing pane and manually type in 1.15 in the “At:” section, like so:

Tabs 

Finally, you can condense it even more by reducing the size of your tabs. The default tab (or paragraph indent, as it is called), of Word is about 1 inch. You can reduce this to 1/4 of an inch by dragging the top arrow in the ruler. (If you do not see the ruler in your document, enable it by going to View from the primary document tabs and checking the Ruler check-box.)

Inserting section breaks. 

Before you can number your pages you will need to ensure your title page and the acknowledgements are sectioned from the body of your manuscript so that your page numbers will NOT start at the first page. 

This you can do one of two ways. See screen shots below. 

• Click at the end of the sentence at the end of your first page/chapter. Or wherever you want a section break.
• On the Page Layout tab, in the Page Setup group, click Breaks.
• In the Section Breaks group, click the section break type you need. For a new chapter select Section break after this page. 

 NOTE: 
For title page: Ensure you are on the title page or the page that you want to section from the rest of the manuscript.For title page also select from the drop down box Select 'Apply to.' And select, 'From this point forward.'

OR

Inserting page numbers and or Headers
No need to get too fancy with these so keep the font at Garmond or New Times Roman.
Page numbering is done in Headers & Footers

• First you will need to be on the first page you want numbered which is not the title page.
• Click on Page numbering, which can also be found in the Insert tab for an older version of Word. 
• Click on page numbering and select where you wanted the numbering to appear. Usually at the bottom right. You can also change the font type if you need to. 
• Select continuous page numbering.

For odd and even numbering.

• Click an odd-numbered page, such as the first page of your document that you want to contain a page number.
• On the Insert tab, click Footer.
• In the Built-in format list, pick Austere (Odd Page).
• Under Header & Footer Tools, on the Design tab, check the Different Odd & Even Pages box.

 Headers are at the top and are centered.

Paper type:

I won't go into weight of paper as that's too complex topic for here and with Createspace you don't need to know this.

For a fiction book the usual choice is matt for the cover and cream for the internal part of the book.

And that’s all for now! Good luck with your publishing!

My journey to publication and sales of Sleep then my Princess

Hi

My journey with my first thriller, being a complete novice at marketing and kindle: I uploaded The Deadly Caress and it didn't sell a single copy for about five weeks and then sold about  6 copies each time I had used the Amazon facility to reduce the book from $2.99 to 99c. I no longer use the Kindle Countdown Deal as I've found it to restricting as you have to have the book listed at or above $2.99 for 3 months prior to your sale date. And I've opted out of Kindle Select but still have the book listed for borrows but I never get any borrows anymore. Update: Just found out that Kindle changed their policy and don't allow borrows now if you're not in Kindle Select.

www.getBook.at/B00I0DI0MY

With my second thriller Sleep then my Princess, I was prepared. 

www.getbook.at/B016G5T7AG

I took advantage of the pre-order facility on Kindle and uploaded my thriller about 6 weeks before launch. Changed the cover a few times till I was happy with it. I had a guy on Fiverr do a cover but no one that I asked in my FB buddy groups really liked it. So I got another cover made with a different cover designer. Put that cover up for comment on my FB buddy groups and played with the font till it seemed okay and asked my FB groups again. The font I would have gone with was voted second best so I opted with the font which everyone thought was best. I figured, who am I to know what will draw the public eye to buy the book. I got six beta readers to read through the manuscript and they offered their suggestions which I diligently worked through. I had two editors go through the manuscript as I'm not good at picking up all the typos and over used words. 

A month prior to launch I started marketing it via FB groups (free) and my twitter page listed at 99c for pre-launch. I have to say that I'm in so many FB groups now where you can post your promo that I've lost count (maybe about 50-60).  However, FB won't let you post more than 10 promos in a certain time frame any more. They freeze your account for 14 days if you do. They want you to take up their paid promos instead.

I lined up two paid promotions for the launch date (total cost was $80). Pre-sales were at 19 units (due to FB groups) on launch day Oct 30th, Nov 2nd 19 units,  Nov 14th 90 units, Nov 23rd 89 units, and then it started dropping a little with some highs on Nov 30th 56 units, Dec 12th 50 units, Jan 4th 47, and now Jan 9th 23 units. Update: March 2016 it's at around 40 units most days.

I also did a Fiverr promo for $5.50 two weeks ago and a blog listing via Fiverr a week ago again $5.50. I might do a FB promo shortly to raise the momentum in sales. I initially intended to raise the price from 99c a week after launch but since Sleep then my Princess was selling so well, I was too scared to do this. So it's still at 99c for now.

I didn't get into the top #100 sold in the Kindle store but was in the top #12 in my category for about 7 weeks in the USA. I have now slipped to #23 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers & Suspense > Medical, USA. I even got into the top #35 in my category in the UK store and Au as well at one point.

I have to point out that I have got 3 awful one star reviews which haven't seemed to have stopped my sales, thank goodness. One of the reviewers couldn't even construct a sentence nor spell.

Amazon removes titles due to key words.

Amazon removed many (unsure how many) books from their kindle site. The books that were removed were due to three keywords on the title's information page. "Free, Bestseller and Kindle. It didn't matter if you book was free, an Amazon bestseller, or a Kindle ebook. Authors were notified and given five days to remove these words. If they didn't comply, their book was removed.

The author's could upload a new version if they chose to and use different key words.

Amazon sues reviewers for hire.

I've just read an article about Amazon suing reviewers for hire on Fiverr.com. It can be tempting to go that path when it only costs a fiver to hire someone to post a review when you are struggling to get some reviews on your ebook. 

Don't do it. Amazon will pull your paid positive reviews and may unlist your book and you can't do a thing about it.

These Fiverr reviewers don't even write the review. You are asked to provide a review for them to post. This starts to make all reviews suspect and people will start to disregard reviews. 

Amazon doesn't want that to happen as a certain percentage of books sold are because of the number of positive reviews that book has.

Amazon is the biggest book market on the web so keep anything you do on the web: keep it clean and keep it legal.

However, the big boys in publishing have been providing free books for reviews for a very long time. 

The question is will Amazon dare remove any reviews from authors the big boys represent?

Here's the link to the article:

http://consumerist.com/2015/10/16/amazon-sues-1114-individual-reviewers-for-hire/

New subscription models for Kindle Unlimited

Hi

I've just come across the interesting post by Hugh Howey.

http://www.hughhowey.com/subscription-models-literature/

The below is copied and pasted from his blog.

"

KU 1.0 Compared to KU 2.0

Here’s some math from the brilliant author Susan Kaye Quinn. It compares the old payment system to the new system.

Under KU 1.0:

98k novel = 414 pages* = $1.34 per borrow = 0.0033 pennies/pg
15k novella = 51 pages* = $1.34 per borrow = 2.6 pennies/pg
*the number on the product description pg

Under KU 2.0 (Assuming 100% page read):

98k novel = 553 pages** = 0.6 pennies-per-pg*** = $3.32 per 100% read
15k novella = 85 pages** = 0.6 pennies-per-pg*** = $0.51 per 100% read
**KENPC page count
***estimate from June

Under KU 1.0, most indies were making more for a borrow of a short story than for a sale (the exceptions are those able to charge $2.99 or higher for the sale of a 15k story). I haven’t seen a good argument to defend this part of the old system, or the fact that KU 1.0 was paying a third of a penny per KENPC page (which would be more like .0017 per print page).

Under KU 2.0, we can see what Amazon is trying to do with their per-page calculation. They’re trying to reward KDP Select authors for a borrow by paying the same amount as a sale. Holy crap. Really? Actually, the prices on my works are lower than average, and these borrow rates would pay me more than I currently make for a sale. But as someone else pointed out, these borrow payout rates are very close to what Amazon’s pricing tool recommends for works of this length.

That is, Amazon is funding their KU payout pool to simulate a paid sale for every borrow.

This is what it appeared they were doing under KU 1.0. The first borrow rates were coming in close to $2.00. That number slid over time, even as Amazon piled on more money. Why? Because authors realized they could maximize their income by splitting up novels and by concentrating on short stories. Kris Rusch and others (myself among them) have referred to this as “gaming the system.” That creates outrage among those who game the system. Guess, what? I game Amazon’s system every day. I do it with permafree, which exploits Amazon’s price-matching policy to get more free days than they want to hand out (only 5 per 90 day KDP Select period). And I’ve been serializing novels since before it was a thing. I’ve also been putting short stories into KU and profiting from it.

I guess the difference is that I’ve expected from the beginning that KU was broken and would be fixed. Someone dug up an interview I did ten months ago, when KU was only two months old, and I predicted Amazon would move to a per-page remuneration system. The old model was broken. The people who profited from that should be glad Amazon waited so long to fix it. Those who love to write short stories still should. May I suggest a bit of back matter? Or some constructive ways for us to help authors without screwing consumers?"

Why is my book not selling?

What You Are Selling is Never as Important as THE REASON SOMEONE IS BUYING IT.

Let's look at how people choose a book?
a) Cover
b) blurb
c) reviews
d) Preview
e) Sympathy & friendship
f) Cheap/free



a) Cover:
Is your cover enticing?
Does it whisper at what's inside?
Does it create a feeling for the prospective reader?
Is your title easy to read?
Unless you're a graphic designer, book designer, I would suggest that you don't spend your time doing what will take time away from editing your book. Let an expert do what they do best. Give them a brief of what you like in covers which will cut down their time and cost you less.

Cover these points and you have passed the first hurdle.

b) Blurb:
Next hurdle:
Have your told your story in a nutshell without giving away the ending?
Have you made it sound thrilling?
Its a good idea to ask your writing friends to read your blurb and suggest any changes to make it better.
Also, look at key words in your blurb. This helps when readers are searching certain key words such as #thriller, #crime, #fantasy, #romance #ScienceFiction.

c) Reviews:
Gaining reviews is the bane of every author.
Gift your book to people and ask for an honest review (and I mean honest).
If you get an honest review from someone you gifted your book to. Take note and make any changes to make your book better.
There is no limit to the number of times you can tweek your book on Amazon.
If it's a substantial edit, then you can notify Amazon and they'll notify all customers who have previously purchased your book about an update.
If you have no reviews, then buyers are hesitant to take a risk on your book unless it's on sale. Therefore, do not price it too high. Usually, $2.99 is a good price point.

d) Preview:
I took out the Table of Contents in my book because it meant that in my book preview on Amazon I got a couple of extra pages when a reader clicked on the preview of my book. However, for non-fiction you will need that TOC so this won't work for you.
Post a longer preview on your blog or web site. Tweet that they can find the longer preview there.

e) Sympathy & friendship.
Now some people may wonder about this point.
Put simply, it means that someone you know will buy your book because they don't like to offend you or feel sorry for you.
But a sale is a sale and helps lift your rating on Amazon.

Those of you who constantly post buy my book in the writers Facebook groups? Does it really work? For the most part, this only gets annoying and turns people away. So initially these authors gain sales, then people turn off every time they see the post or start deleting it.

f) Cheap/free
Your book is on sale or free your rating goes up.
Some readers buy a cheap book because it's on sale but they don't read it and don't leave a review. Amazon knows if said book has been read and what percentage it's read with is reflected in its rating.
This works for the short term but long term you want reviews and word of mouth recommendations.

How do you get these?
Writing the best book you can.
Having said book edited and getting a great cover made. If you're unsure about your blurb, ask your writing friends to look it over and suggest what you can do to make it better.

Some authors will say that cheap/free works or free for them. However, you can't put money in the bank with free.

Once you have a small amount of reviews (say 10), you can experiment with pricing and put you book at a higher price and see if your sales fall. If they do, you can lower the price. Or you can lower your price on certain days and see what happens. Make it fun and make it work for you.


Promote your book on as many sites you can. No one knows of your book and your book is but a drop in the ocean of books.
Use social media to do this.
If you don't know how to do this. Just start with twitter and start following people.
Remember, your twitter profile is your public face. Likewise your web page, blog, etc.
Have pictures of your book there. Include links to your book on twitter,  your website and anywhere else readers can buy your book.
P.S. Don't forget to tweet regularly. Also, follow those that follow you. You ignore followers at your peril. 

Is censoring holding you back?

Do you spend time worrying what your friends will think about your writing? Does that fear paralyze  what you really want to write? When you told a friend, did they look at you as if you'd grown another head.

Don't take any criticism personally or it will cripple you.

To be a great writer you need to write whatever it takes to make the story work. Let it all hang out. Its got to be real, its got to be passionate, its got to move your reader and connect with them.

Don't imagine that your first draft will do this but each draft will come closer. It needs to resonate with you and the reader. You need to own this shit. It's your story and you need to tell it your way.

So many writers worry that their mother or father will pick up their book and be shocked. Stop destroying your creativity and stop that voice in your head telling you that you can't write this or that. This is life as you imagine it, warts and all. Be honest, be genuine and readers will love that.

Sure there are risks you can't please all readers all of the time. Sometimes you will get negative comments from strangers or friends. You'll need to grow a tough outer skin and brush these off.

Enjoy what you do. When you create it's an exhilarating experience which is hard to beat.

The Game of Thrones - A song of fire and ice REVIEW

REVIEW

The Game of Thrones – A Song of Ice and Fire

If you love fantasy that is not formulatic then this is the book for you with the sheer brilliance of a multi layered plot that weaves so many seemingly unrelated stories together to form a plausible alternate universe in which not only politics, intrigue, war, adventure and romance can coexist plausibly, but magic as well. However, the magic is low key so it’s not an easy out for the characters in a jam. 

In the story we follow the lives of a number of characters via allocated point of view chapters through the story. The characters are interesting with some totally good or totally evil and others are shades of both. 

For the MEDIEVAL HISTORY BUFFS: this story was influenced by the WARS OF THE ROSES and THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR.

Once you start reading this epic, don’t expect to be able to tear yourself away. It will have you in its grip ‘till the end. Then you just have to buy, borrow or steal the following book in the series to find out what happens next.

One negative I could find was that if you don’t like to read about gore and blood, then this is not the book for you. 

Review by: O. N. Stefan Author of The Deadly Caress on Kindle:www.getBook.at/B00I0DI0MY