I didn't exactly waste the day. Yesterday, I mean. I might have wasted today. Eh, actually, I made a bunch of possible covers for Ghosts, signed up for CreateSpace, submitted my files -- okay, I didn't waste today either.
But yesterday, the day I might have wasted by making Ghosts free on Amazon without doing anything to tell anyone that it was free? Not wasted.
12,286.
That's how many people downloaded Ghosts yesterday.
I have no idea why. Perhaps a $4.99 book looks like a better value and more worth downloading than a less expensive book? (That was part of my theory.) Perhaps my reviews have hit some point of critical mass where people actually believe them? Perhaps my blurb -- which is a little more typical although still not exactly revealing -- gives enough information to make readers feel safe in what they're getting? Honestly, I have no idea.
But twelve thousand people will get to meet Akira and Zane in the next few weeks, if they remember and if they feel so inclined and if they actually are readers and not just downloaders of every free text out there, and that's...well, exciting and scary and exciting again. It's sort of like having twelve thousand potential English teachers grading your work and it's also sort of like having twelve thousand potential new friends. I'm quite sure that if I ever do have a legitimately best-selling book, not just a temporarily best-giving-away book, chatting with readers will become my drug of choice.
Anyway, I got my first one-star review today, which was initially anguishing and then almost a relief. Whew, I got that over with. But the reviewer was just mad about the price changing at the moment between reading the Look Inside (free) and hitting download (4.99) and I totally sympathize with that. I think actually that made it even better -- she didn't actually hate the book, she was just mad. I hope that the experience will make me a little tougher for when the next one-star review shows up.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Friday, March 2, 2012
Today is the free day
I was not terribly specific on my last post: today, March 2nd, is the final free day for A Gift of Ghosts. If you haven't reviewed it, today would be a great day to post a review. Or if there are people you'd recommend it to, again, today would be a good day. I'm at school all day, with two presentations, treatment plans, clients -- it's going to be a long day. It'd be nice to come home to a successful book giveaway!
I admit, though, I have low expectations. The problem with needing to use the day before my time ran out is that this week was/is midterms. I spent my time much more focused on school than on making sure the free book sites knew there was one more free book in the daily thousands of freebies. C'est la vie. It seems to me -- anecdotally, at least -- that people who get the book for free are much less likely to ever read it. It just sits on their Kindles, invisible amongst the multitude of other freebies. So I'm not going to feel badly about my own laziness, even if I have wasted the day.
I admit, though, I have low expectations. The problem with needing to use the day before my time ran out is that this week was/is midterms. I spent my time much more focused on school than on making sure the free book sites knew there was one more free book in the daily thousands of freebies. C'est la vie. It seems to me -- anecdotally, at least -- that people who get the book for free are much less likely to ever read it. It just sits on their Kindles, invisible amongst the multitude of other freebies. So I'm not going to feel badly about my own laziness, even if I have wasted the day.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Last free day for Ghosts
I'd always planned to publish Ghosts on other platforms once the 90 days of KDP Select were up and it turns out that they conveniently finish right in the middle of spring break next week. Handy, since it means I'll have time to work on the formatting and on creating a print-ready cover.
I'm going to use Create Space for the print version and Smashwords for the other e-versions. I think I'm probably competent enough to publish on all platforms by myself, but the Smashwords contract lets you stop publishing with them when you feel like it. If I reach a place where I'm making so much money (ha, ha, ha) that I feel badly about the 10% that's going to Smashwords, I can pull the book off that service, make my own editions, and publish them individually. But at the moment the 10% royalties they'll get seems as if it'll be a reasonably good deal.
Unfortunately, I've discovered why people all use the annoying 99 cent prices: Apple requires it. You'd think if they were going to be such control freaks, they could be control freaks with round numbers, but no. So I need to change my price to a 99 cent number if I want to be in the Apple bookstore. If I hadn't already been debating whether an unusual price forces potential buyers to think and potentially loses them, I'd be more annoyed than I am. But so it goes. I will join the ranks of the 99 cent pricers.
In fact, I already did. Since my time in KDP Select is coming to an end, I need to use my last free day. I wanted to experiment with the blurb again, but I decided I'd experiment with pricing, too. Unfortunately, it sort of messes up the experiment -- I'll never know whether the changes were the result of the blurb or the price -- but unless I keep Ghosts in KDP for another 90 days, this is my last chance to try these out. Well, last chance with a free book. Anyway, I wrote a "traditional" blurb -- the kind that most people use, no quotes, no parentheses, no authorial chatting, and more or less a summary of the plot. A little more less than more. And I changed the price to $4.99. The $4.99 price is mostly because of the free day: I'm curious to see whether I get more downloads with a higher price, because it will look like a better deal.
Immediate result: a dead stop to sales. I'd like to blame it on the blurb, but it's probably a result of the price change. But it will be interesting to see what happens next week, after the free day. That'll be the true test. The last time I changed the blurb I added details but also made it very first person -- me, the author, chatting with an imaginary reader. That time the post-free day results were terrific, averaging 19 sales a day for the week after, before steadily dropping off. If instead sales stay steady at nothing for a couple of weeks, I'll change the blurb back to quirky. With much happiness, I admit. I'll feel like my quirkiness is being validated!
Alas, however, the $3.50 price point is probably gone for good.
I'm going to use Create Space for the print version and Smashwords for the other e-versions. I think I'm probably competent enough to publish on all platforms by myself, but the Smashwords contract lets you stop publishing with them when you feel like it. If I reach a place where I'm making so much money (ha, ha, ha) that I feel badly about the 10% that's going to Smashwords, I can pull the book off that service, make my own editions, and publish them individually. But at the moment the 10% royalties they'll get seems as if it'll be a reasonably good deal.
Unfortunately, I've discovered why people all use the annoying 99 cent prices: Apple requires it. You'd think if they were going to be such control freaks, they could be control freaks with round numbers, but no. So I need to change my price to a 99 cent number if I want to be in the Apple bookstore. If I hadn't already been debating whether an unusual price forces potential buyers to think and potentially loses them, I'd be more annoyed than I am. But so it goes. I will join the ranks of the 99 cent pricers.
In fact, I already did. Since my time in KDP Select is coming to an end, I need to use my last free day. I wanted to experiment with the blurb again, but I decided I'd experiment with pricing, too. Unfortunately, it sort of messes up the experiment -- I'll never know whether the changes were the result of the blurb or the price -- but unless I keep Ghosts in KDP for another 90 days, this is my last chance to try these out. Well, last chance with a free book. Anyway, I wrote a "traditional" blurb -- the kind that most people use, no quotes, no parentheses, no authorial chatting, and more or less a summary of the plot. A little more less than more. And I changed the price to $4.99. The $4.99 price is mostly because of the free day: I'm curious to see whether I get more downloads with a higher price, because it will look like a better deal.
Immediate result: a dead stop to sales. I'd like to blame it on the blurb, but it's probably a result of the price change. But it will be interesting to see what happens next week, after the free day. That'll be the true test. The last time I changed the blurb I added details but also made it very first person -- me, the author, chatting with an imaginary reader. That time the post-free day results were terrific, averaging 19 sales a day for the week after, before steadily dropping off. If instead sales stay steady at nothing for a couple of weeks, I'll change the blurb back to quirky. With much happiness, I admit. I'll feel like my quirkiness is being validated!
Alas, however, the $3.50 price point is probably gone for good.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Thought
A Gift of Thought is going to be the weirdest book ever. I kind of love it. Even right now, when it's in its first draft stage and scenes wander and I get repetitive, it's...different. It's not young adult, but Dillon and Rachel are sure important. It's not really a romance. It's only partly a thriller. I have no idea what it is, really. But it is ever so fun.
I'm biased, of course. But still, I'm loving all my characters madly and that's really fun. And Sylvie--she just rocks. I'm so excited for her to get an HEA.
I'm biased, of course. But still, I'm loving all my characters madly and that's really fun. And Sylvie--she just rocks. I'm so excited for her to get an HEA.
Friday, February 17, 2012
OhLife
The strangest part of having started OhLife when I did (last April) is that my reminders wind up being all about grief. Or almost all about grief. Today's OhLife message:
"Spent the day hanging out with Mom at the hospice. It's almost the end. And the whole thing is surreal. You want the last moment to be right -- to be reading a psalm or saying I love you or being focused on her face (most beautiful as it happens, she is lovely in her last moments). And yet -- what the hell, eventually listening to Britney Spears is just a fucking relief."
Eventually, a decade from now, the days could all merge together. Maybe in ten years worth of February 17ths, there will be some good, some bad, some uncertain. Instead, though, I have a year that's almost all about dying. But hey, listening to Britney Spears is still a relief.
"Spent the day hanging out with Mom at the hospice. It's almost the end. And the whole thing is surreal. You want the last moment to be right -- to be reading a psalm or saying I love you or being focused on her face (most beautiful as it happens, she is lovely in her last moments). And yet -- what the hell, eventually listening to Britney Spears is just a fucking relief."
Eventually, a decade from now, the days could all merge together. Maybe in ten years worth of February 17ths, there will be some good, some bad, some uncertain. Instead, though, I have a year that's almost all about dying. But hey, listening to Britney Spears is still a relief.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
William Carlos Williams
Loved this: http://tumblr.austinkleon.com/post/17609287179
In his Autobiography, William Carlos Williams recounts what led him to pursue medicine as a career:
No one was ever going to be in a position to tell me what to write, and you can say that again. No one, and I meant no one (for money) was ever (never) going to tell me how or what I was going to write. That was number one…
I wasn’t going to make any money by writing. Therefore I had to have a means to support myself…for I didn’t intend to die for art nor to be bedbug food for it…
I feel the same way about it, although I don't aspire to write great works. But I spent my time as a freelance writer and being dependent on an audience is so much less fun than writing what you love and hoping someone else will find something in it to love as well.
Found here: http://amygarvey.tumblr.com/post/17655192147/austin-kleon-william-carlos-williams-on-the-freedom-of
In his Autobiography, William Carlos Williams recounts what led him to pursue medicine as a career:
No one was ever going to be in a position to tell me what to write, and you can say that again. No one, and I meant no one (for money) was ever (never) going to tell me how or what I was going to write. That was number one…
I wasn’t going to make any money by writing. Therefore I had to have a means to support myself…for I didn’t intend to die for art nor to be bedbug food for it…
I feel the same way about it, although I don't aspire to write great works. But I spent my time as a freelance writer and being dependent on an audience is so much less fun than writing what you love and hoping someone else will find something in it to love as well.
Found here: http://amygarvey.tumblr.com/post/17655192147/austin-kleon-william-carlos-williams-on-the-freedom-of
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Grief
Grief is such a weird emotion. It underlies everything I do. I can't say hello to the checkout person at the grocery store without knowing that it's there.
And then sometimes it comes in waves, huge sweeping waves that just wash over me until I feel like I might drown in it if I don't scream. I never do and it passes anyway.
Yesterday, I said about journaling that maybe it always reveals something, but if the writer can't handle the pain, maybe it's not the right time. I was talking about clients, but for me, writing is sometimes a spiral downward into depths I don't want to reach. Sometimes it's just easier to not be thinking.
And then sometimes it comes in waves, huge sweeping waves that just wash over me until I feel like I might drown in it if I don't scream. I never do and it passes anyway.
Yesterday, I said about journaling that maybe it always reveals something, but if the writer can't handle the pain, maybe it's not the right time. I was talking about clients, but for me, writing is sometimes a spiral downward into depths I don't want to reach. Sometimes it's just easier to not be thinking.
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