This month's results

It amazes me that my sales keep improving. I'm very grateful to all my readers. Thank you!

Here is this month's ending sales report (still a couple of hours left in the day, but there is unlikely to be any major change):


As you can see, I sold over 1600 books this month, for a grand total of almost 3800 (if I continue at this rate I should hit 5000 books sold next month, wow!). I've heard of several indie writers selling around 1000 downloads of a single book this month, so this hardly puts me at the top of the class, but it's not bad. It's a decided improvement over last month's total of 1272. Something to note is that this is the first month when I didn't get some sort of a big external boost. Books on the Knob featured me in March; the Galaxy Express featured me in April. Galaxy Express did kindly mention my newest this month, but it was just a cover and a mention, not a big interview. So these sales presumably simply reflect the fact that readers are beginning to recognize my name and titles.

Worth noting is that I've now sold over a thousand copies each of In the Mood and All I Ever Wanted (one is a 24,000-word novella and one is a full 104,000-word novel, for those of you who wonder if novels sell better than novellas or vice versa). Isn't It Romantic? has had over 800 sales, and will likely be my next book to hit a thousand in sales. Note that it became my bestseller this month... I still credit the new cover for that.

Never Love a Stranger did very well this month, I think. Farthest Space looks fairly pathetic compared to the rest, but my books usually start slow (NLaS was an exception due to the fact that it was featured on Galaxy Express last month), and Farthest Space is doing a lot better than Isn't It Romantic? did its first month. I'm hoping it will take off next month.

Also worth mentioning is that my slightly more expensive Samhain books are also showing signs of regular sales on Amazon (judging from sales rank movement). They aren't selling as well as my indie books, clearly, but I'd guess I've sold forty or fifty overall this month. Not bad for old books.

Coming in June: Love Remembered, a colonial Virginia romance. We'll see how it does!

Out-stubborning a five-year-old

This afternoon, we went to the YMCA we just joined, and swam in the pool (along with half the local population). It's a nice hot day, and a good time was had by all concerned. Oddly, my kids often fight like banshees at home, but at the pool they get along just fine, and tow each other around the pool for hours on end. I'm not sure why, but hey, whatever works.

When it came time to leave, however, the five-year-old decided he needed a snack from the vending machine. Mommy wasn't in the mood to dawdle, so the kid started screaming like the world was coming to an end. If my experience as a mom has taught me anything, it's that you can't make a kid behave in public (what am I going to do, flog him? Stuff a sock in his mouth?), so we all walked back to the car, the kid screaming and strangers giving me you-are-a-bad-mother looks. I gave him a couple of warnings to behave, but he didn't. When we got in the car, I informed him we were going through a drive-through window and getting soft drinks, but that because he'd misbehaved in public, he wouldn't get one.

Unsurprisingly, more screaming ensued. I WANT A DRINK!!!!! was howled all the way home. After a few more warnings, I gave up, turned up the radio, and sang along-- which of course annoyed him into howling even more loudly. The other kids winced, but grasped what I was doing and ignored him. We got our drinks, then drove the few remaining moments home.

I took him out of the car and informed him that because he'd been behaving like a two-year-old, he'd be taking a nap like a two-year-old. He hasn't taken a nap in years, and he instantly went into angry pride mode-- I can't take a nap, I'm a big boy! I took him upstairs and put him into bed, and informed him that he'd be there for an hour after he stopped screaming.

He quit screaming, but in a few minutes I was called back upstairs: "I need more water, and I need a different stuffed animal, Mommy."

I went back into his room. "Fine," I said, giving him water and letting him pick out a different bear. "But the hour starts over again every time I have to come in here."

He sighed, lay down, and cuddled up with his bear, and I haven't heard a peep out of him since. He's a hard-headed little guy... but he knows when he's beaten.

Posting on Amazon threads

I've said before that the best way to promote on Amazon is NOT to promote, ie, to enter the conversation on various threads and contribute to topics in a friendly way. But if you're getting negged (being rated unhelpful) multiple times on almost every post you make, and even having your posts hidden as "unhelpful," then you're doing something wrong. Step back for a bit and give it a rest, or don't post your siggy so much, or something. If people are negging you that much, you're alienating too many readers.

The "vast sea"

Libby Hellmann worries about whether authors with backlists will be able to be found amidst the coming flood of indies:

"The floodgates are about to open, and the ebook market is going to be a vast sea of self-published work.

"Theoretically, we midlist authors who have been previously published should have an advantage. We have been vetted. We have been edited. Publishers stand behind us. But how are we going to get that message out?"

Personally, I think that in general (not always, mind you, but in general) the best products, whether previously pubbed or "pure" indie, will rise to the top. I would agree that previously published authors in general have something of an advantage. J.A. Konrath's dismissals of the relevance of "platform" notwithstanding, name recognition should give the previously pubbed a bit of a leg up. And if you have name recognition, do you need to get that message out? Won't at least some readers already know your work and its quality?

"What kind of filters will be in place to differentiate our work from work that hasn’t been vetted?"

Do we need filters? Really? I think it's kind of cool for everyone to have to get in there and scramble, personally. If an indie outwrites or outpromotes or out-graphics a previously pubbed author, well, they deserve the sales, don't they? And again, if you're previously pubbed you already have something of an advantage, especially if you still have well-known books on the market. I don't know why any differentiation is necessary.

"...it seems to me that a significant chunk of Kindlers and ebookers are younger, hipper, i-Phone-ish readers whose attention spans are –um— just a tad imperfect."

I disagree with that. Most Kindle readers are pretty heavy-duty readers. That may change as the iPad gains a bigger market share, since the iPad is designed to be used for a lot of things other than reading. But right now, if you own a Kindle, it's because you really, really like to read, I think.

"You’ve no doubt heard the six-figure income Joe’s on tap to reap from publishing his books on Kindle. But Joe is an anomaly."

Granted. If anyone else is positioned to make six figures from Kindling in a year, I haven't heard about it. I hope more indie authors will get there, but yes, it's a mistake to get into indie publishing thinking it's guaranteed money. But for your backlist, it does make a lot of sense. It's not making any money sitting there on your hard drive, is it? And now is a good time to do it, I think, before those "floodgates" are all the way open. Indie publishing is clearly becoming a more popular option, and it is going to get harder for any of us to get noticed, I suspect.

Bye-bye to that website of mine

My old gnarly website is finally gone with the wind. This means that when people Google me, the first site they come across will no longer be a terribly out-of-date, ugly website that was last updated in 2006, but rather my current website. This should help people find me, I figure.

Thoughts on covers

I mentioned a while back that Bella Andre had released a couple of her backlist books onto Kindle. She obviously understood the power of the bare male torso (over the years, many of her books have featured one!), but her first indie covers weren't particularly striking otherwise. Here's the only (dinky) version I could find:
Not bad, but not especially eyecatching. Today I chanced to glimpse the same book, and look at the new and vastly improved cover:

Very nice. Same stock photo, but the lettering is much, much better. I like the big name (big author names tell readers that they need to buy the book just because you're you!), and the overall look of it. She's also redone her other re-release in a similar style, so that the books have a branded look:

I haven't been following her sales rankings, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if they'd gone up quite a bit since she redid her covers. The new ones are really nice.

And as a side note, note that on her site she's got both books on the front page. I've said before that you don't get the greatest benefit from putting books on Kindle and then treating them like redheaded stepchildren. It's best to treat them like you would any other release and put them right up front on your site. Ms. Andre seems to be doing that, and I bet her sales will reflect it.

Royalties

I got my first "real" royalty check from Amazon this week. (You may recall that in my first month on Amazon, I sold around 26 copies, so you can see why I didn't consider that one to be "real.") It's not huge, of course, but it's nevertheless nice to be making some amount of money again. Makes me feel like a professional writer again!

It's Amazon's fault

This article on a panel at the BEA articulates the publishers' perspective about as clearly as I've seen it: "It was a mistake to let Amazon put out e-books simultaneously and charge the price it did. It will have a negative effect on the paperback." An agent agreed that the paperback may well "go bye-bye." (I swear, this professional terminology is a quote from the article.) The publisher added, "Something’s radically wrong about the way the market has determined the value of the book. I don’t think there’s going to be a pick-up in volume to make up the difference."

Harry Potter ebooks?

The Bookseller indicates J.K. Rowling may finally be ready to consider digital editions of the Harry Potter books:

J K Rowling looks set allow Harry Potter fans to read her novels as e-books at last.

Neil Blair, partner at the Christopher Little Agency (CLA) which represents Rowling, said the agency was “currently considering all the options and opportunities that this evolving space provides”. The agency was “actively” looking, whereas previously it had just been “monitoring the developing area”, he said.

Thinner Kindle

Businessweek says that a thinner Kindle is coming in August: "The device will be thinner and have a more responsive screen with a sharper picture, the people said, who didn’t want to be identified because the plans aren’t public. The new Kindle won’t include a touch screen or color, they said."

Of Shrek and websites

I went to see Shrek 4 with my oldest. Loved it. It was as good as the first two (both of which I loved), and the 3D animation is just awesome. I'm the only person in the world to have not seen Avatar, so the new improved 3D animation is a marvel to me. It's not cheap, though *pats bruised MasterCard comfortingly*.

I emailed RCN/Erols three separate times to ask them to take down my old website, and never heard back from them. Today I sighed, picked up the phone, and talked to an actual human being. It took almost half an hour of being put on hold and listening to elevator music, but she assures me that the site will be down in three days or thereabouts. We shall see.

Which one?

Opinions, please. Which is better?:

Stats again

All I Ever Wanted is now my second indie book to sell more than a thousand downloads:-). Woot!

New TV

I've had a satellite hookup in my room since we moved in, but haven't bothered to get a TV up there. I don't watch a ton of TV, so it was never a priority. But yesterday I was in Best Buy and found a 26" LCD TV/DVD combo for $320. (I'm old enough to remember when 19" TVs were the standard, heh.) I'll set it up this weekend. It will be nice to have a place where I can watch TV with the door closed, so I can watch the occasional Sex and the City or shows along those lines without having to worry about five-year-olds wandering past!

Jean Auel

It was announced at BEA that Jean Auel's sixth and final volume of Earth's Children will be released in March, 2011, and that all her books will be put into e-format. I didn't like the fifth book (it was repetitive and could have used a lot of editing), but I'll still be thrilled to read the sixth and see what happens. I'll gladly buy them all in e-format and reread, too; the print's kind of small even in the hardback editions!

NYT on BEA

An article here talks about various publishing stuff, including ebooks:

"Several large publishers said that e-books now make up about 8 percent of their total sales of trade books, a small but growing number. One publisher suggested that in five years e-books will make up more than half of the book market, a figure that some industry experts dismissed as far-fetched."...

"'The hype never matches up with reality,' Mr. Norris [a senior analyst at Simba Information, which provides research to publishers] said. 'There’s money to be made in e-books. There’s money to be made in print books too. There’s no reason why publishers shouldn’t pursue both and just not let the hyperbole get out of control.'”

Dismissing 8% of book sales as a "small number" seems odd to me. That's closing on ten percent. Yes, that's small, but nevertheless a significant figure, I would think. And perhaps the projection of 50% is farfetched, perhaps not. Regardless, the point is that ebook sales are rising rapidly. Can the print industry cope?

I have no problem believing there is and will continue to be a market for print books. My concern is more what others have pointed out-- at what point does the current system of print books collapse? As ebooks take up more of the market, the print market tends to shrink (Mr. Norris' figures seem to show that wasn't true in 2009, but generally speaking, it should be). Right now, publishers send lots and lots of books to bookstores, and get a whole lot of them returned unsold. How many returns can the print industry handle before the current model doesn't work? Can the print industry correct the problem by using smaller print runs? Will they?

Hmmmm

I love this image, but I'm still not loving the cover I've made with it so far. Also, I'm wondering if I should put "A historical romance" under the title, since this is a departure for me, as far as my Kindle readers are concerned?

Yay

I think I've found the image I want for Love Remembered. I'll see if I can't create a cover tonight and get it up on my website, because I know you'll all on the edge of your seats with anticipation *grins*.

Amazon and Penguin...

seem to have resolved their issues. An Amazon customer quotes the WSJ:

Amazon.com Inc. and Pearson PLC's Penguin Group (USA) have resolved their differences over the book-pricing model that enables publishers to set their own retail prices.

As a result, Penguin is once again making its new titles available to Amazon in the digital format. Penguin had halted the delivery of new titles in the digital format as of April 1. An estimated 150 titles were affected.

"Our differences have been resolved, and a full selection of Penguin books will be available on the Kindle," Amazon's electronic-book reader, said David Shanks, CEO of Penguin Group (USA.)

Stats

I now have three books that have sold 300 or more copies this month. One of those has sold over 400 copies. That's good.

Farthest Space, on the other hand, has only sold 36 copies. That's not good:-).

Garrison Keillor...

disses self-publishing here. "...if you want to write a book, you just write it, send it to Lulu.com or BookSurge at Amazon or PubIt or ExLibris and you've got yourself an e-book. No problem. And that is the future of publishing: 18 million authors in America, each with an average of 14 readers, eight of whom are blood relatives. Average annual earnings: $1.75."

Some of us are making more than that. That's really the point. If you write good stuff, it will sell. If you write crap, it won't. I kind of like that concept.

"The upside of self-publishing is that you can write whatever you wish, utter freedom, and that also is the downside. You can write whatever you wish, and everyone in the world can exercise their right to read the first three sentences and delete the rest."

Right, and if it's good, they can exercise their right to spend 99 cents and buy my books. Pretty cool, huh?

"But in the New Era, writers will be self-anointed. No passing of the torch. Just sit down and write the book....And editors will vanish."

Um, why, exactly? Is there some sort of law I'm not aware of that editors all must work for publishers?

"Self-publishing will destroy the aura of martyrdom that writers have enjoyed for centuries. Tortured geniuses, rejected by publishers, etc., etc. If you publish yourself, this doesn't work anymore, alas."

I'm not sure those of who write genre fiction ever even got the respect of being thought of as tortured geniuses (romance novelists are typically presumed to be sexually frustrated housewives, which doesn't have quite the same ring to it), so I'm happy enough to pass on that:-).

A new color e-reader

Sorry to post so much; things keep popping up. It appears B&N has a new color reader in the works. This article states it will retail for $199.99. It's Android based with an LCD display and will be available "soon."

J.A. Konrath and PW

In this article, PW talks (in a rather condescending way) about J.A. Konrath's deal with Amazon. What's interesting to me is that Konrath says in his blog response that all PW asked him about was his royalty: "I was contacted repeatedly by PW, but the only question they asked was about the royalty rate of the Amazon deal. I explained I signed a non disclosure agreement and couldn't reveal it. The reporter persisted, asking several times..."

It appears that what concerns the big boys most is the possibility that this sort of deal might eventually force royalty percentages up. I think once again they're missing (or deliberately ignoring) a big part of what makes this deal interesting-- the fact that Konrath convinced Amazon to sell the ebook for such a low price, which is likely to result in the ebook edition outselling a lot of New York ebooks. Such low prices would be a smart thing for NY to emulate as best they can, but I think it's already quite clear that they have no intentions of doing so.

Hard writing

I'm working on finishing off my memoir about my husband's struggle with cancer. It's hard work. I've already gotten past his death, and now I'm writing about the funeral and the aftermath of his death. It's difficult writing this in such a way that it's interesting to the reader, and it's also difficult because it's just not easy writing about this stuff. But I've only got a couple of chapters to go. As I said before, I hardly expect it to be a major seller on Amazon, but it will be good to have it out of my head.

Yay for sales

I just passed the amount I made last month-- and we still have a week left in the month. I'm very pleased that my sales numbers are continuing to go up! Also, I notice that I'm selling quite a few of my Samhain titles now, so I'm earning some income that isn't reflected on my Amazon statement. Not much, mind you, but definitely more than my Samhain titles were earning before I started indie publishing.

Surprise! Ebook sales are up

The American Association of Publishers reports here that "E-book sales jumped up 184.8 percent for the month ($28.5 million), reflecting an increase of 251.9 percent for the year." Note that this is only for the "sales tracked by the Association of American Publishers," which certainly does not include indie sales, and may not include most small presses either, for all I can tell. But the point is that overall, people are buying more ebooks. Surprise!

The power of price

One of the biggest reasons to go indie, IMHO, is the ability to set your own prices. You would think small e-presses would get the need for low prices, but they don't always. I took a look at my single erotic romance the other day (written under a pen name, and I'm trying to get the rights back) and saw that the Kindle edition is down around #280,000 in the Amazon store. The reason? The publisher is asking over $8.00. For a novella. It's an older book now, and it's simply not going to move priced that high. I can guarantee I could be selling a lot more copies if I were able to Kindle it myself.

Interview...

with Boyd Morrison here.

Kobo

Books on the Knob has an entry detailing Border's relatively cheap upcoming e-reader, the Kobo. There are also details here on Borders' site. Two features I like are the organization (to be fair, Kindle will supposedly offer folders as of their upcoming update) and this: "The cover image of the book you're reading displays on the screen even when the eReader's off—it's just like closing a printed book."

Oh, yeah, and it's cheap. Wonder if that will make Amazon lower the price on the Kindle?

Dog society

I can't quite figure out what's going on in my little dog society. Ordinarily Hero is the alpha-- not strongly so, but typically he is the boss, and Impy accepts that. If Hero growls a little, Impy lowers himself to show he recognizes Hero's authority. They spend most of their outside time in the back yard (my invisible fence is configured so that the front and back are separate). However, I took to putting them out in the front yard for their last piddle after dark, because Hero goes nuts about the deer he believes are in the back yard, races around barking frantically, and won't come in no matter how much I call (he believes guarding the premises is more important than obedience, unfortunately). But he comes in just fine from the front yard.

Anyway, last night I put out Impy first (and that's a violation of doggy protocol; the alpha should go out first), and when Hero stepped out onto the front porch, Impy uttered a little growl and jumped on him. I took it as normal play, but Hero jolted in surprise and cringed a bit. Tonight I did the same thing, letting Impy out first, and when Hero got to the door he flatly refused to go through it-- I had to grab his furry butt and shove him out the door. Impy growled again, and Hero didn't just cringe; he dropped right to the ground and flattened himself in an attitude of submission. Which is totally not what the alpha dog should do, and I have never, ever seen him do that before.

I'm not sure what's going on with them. Maybe Impy has crowned himself King of the Front Porch, and because he startled Hero last night, his self-declared crown carries authority of a sort. Maybe my breach of doggy protocol in putting out the beta first has caused an instability in their society. Or maybe Impy's simply learning to assert himself, although since the behavior seems to be confined to the front yard, I don't think that's the issue. Whatever is going on with them, I hope they work it out peacefully. I've never had problems with them fighting, and I don't want to start now.

At any rate, I think I'll put out Hero first tomorrow night, per correct doggy protocol, and see what happens.

Difficult characters

The most frequent comment I see about myself is that I write geeky heroes. True, up to a point. A lot of my more recent heroes have been of the nerdy beta variety. But my first hero, Edward Greyson (Grey) of The Light in the Darkness, was quite different. One reviewer called him "the most alpha hero I've ever come across" (and she didn't mean it as a compliment!), but really, he wasn't so much alpha as he was a tortured hero. His pain made him a selfish bastard who could be outright cruel to the people around him.

Aside from writing beta heroes, my other oddity is that I enjoy writing bitchy or bastardy (is that a word? and if not, why not?) characters. Drew from All I Ever Wanted is frequently criticized for being too big a snob, and kind of bitchy to boot. Cordelia Ashton of Love Remembered is also snobbish (to be fair, she lived in a time when people were much more conscious of class distinctions), and deliberately bitchy-- that one was my "taming of the shrew" story, and she is indeed pretty shrewish. And Grey still stands as my all-time most obnoxious character. I wrote him as he came into my head, but I didn't particularly like him, and I think every geeky male character that came after is a subconscious response to him.

Still, I do like writing difficult characters, and I may try another hardcore alpha, tortured male at some point.

Wow I'm amazing! Ooops, not so much...

I took the kids out for pizza. While we were out I checked my sales rankings on my Kindle (and yeah, I know that's pitiful, I'm working on it, K?) and saw that three of my books were ranked in the top thousand. Wow!!! Such a thing had never, ever happened before. I was pretty darn impressed with myself.

When I got home, I looked and saw that my books' rankings were now marked PAID. In other words, my rankings have improved because Amazon has split the rankings and taken all those annoying free books out of the picture. So it isn't my sales that have changed; it's the list.

Still, I'll take it. It's nice to have higher rankings, even if they ARE only due to an accounting change:-).

More on the probable decline of bookstores

An interesting article in the WSJ about the pressure ebooks are putting on brick-and-mortar bookstores. The implication of the article is that traditional publishers weren't paying attention even when the Kindle debuted, and that it took the advent of the iPad to worry them. I'm not sure I agree with that, but the basic point is that print publishers really didn't think ebooks were a threat until very recently. The article points out that even with agency pricing, bookstores don't make nearly as much on an ebook as they do on full-priced hardbacks, and as ebooks get more prevalent, revenues will plunge. (And this doesn't even address the problem that ebooks from traditional publishers aren't priced to move.)

The article also points out that the once-ubiquitous mall bookstores have all but disappeared-- Borders' Waldenbooks are down from 1200 stores to 175, and B&N's B. Dalton Booksellers have faded from 797 to a mere four. The article suggests that B&Ns are likely to survive only by selling more general merchandise, perhaps even consumer electronics, in addition to books.

Ebooks=illiteracy

The Huffington Post reprinted J.A. Konrath's humorous blog post on the (presumed and eventual) death of the print industry. I'm amused by the comments, many of which seem to assume that if you're not reading paper books, you're illiterate and a victim of the educational system-- as if there were somehow something innately less literate about reading words on a screen. There are also the usual comments about the (supposed) superiority of the print-reading experience. For example:

"I tried to use Kindle, and it's crap. To the extent that 'print is dead,' it's because of the dwindling population of people who are willing to invest the time in reading, and who need so much more stimulation than their own semi-literate imaginations can provide."

"videogaming has replaced reading for this generation.

combined with the current education budget slashing policy
we are producing a generation of illiterate incompetents" (The Kindle doesn't play videogames, dude.)

"I have no use for an e-reader. I love books too much." (Psssttt. Ebooks are books.)

"I'll never get a kindle. To me there is just something about holding a book and reading it. I love the feel, the look and even the smell :-) Yep, I'm a hardcore reader." (I'm a hardcore reader too. That's why I got a Kindle.)

"Print books won't become obsolete until your e-reader can charge itself after a few minutes in the sun. Until then, the need for no electricity will remain a strong advantage print books hold." (Someone apparently never heard that the Kindle's charge lasts for up to two weeks.)

Also, this little exchange cracked me up. Reader, extolling the virtues of print: "Print doesn't have commercials & pop ups & links & batteries & recharging & other distractions."

Konrath's response: "Which is why you're reading this article on a newspaper."

LOL

Even a sample of J.A. Konrath outsells me, and, yeah, pretty much everyone else too. His sample chapters are already #531 in the Kindle store (of course, they ARE free!). I downloaded this and am going to read it over lunch. If I like it, I'll go ahead and and start reading the Jack Daniels series so I can enjoy this one when it comes out. I like what I've read of Konrath so far.

Ebook piracy

Here's a short article on ebook piracy. In it, the deputy chief executive of Penguin is quoted as saying, “The only way to fight piracy is to publish digital content across as many formats as possible, through as many channels, at a fair price. If we go for exclusive or proprietary formats, we’re completely screwed.”

My issue with this quote is that I think what the big pubs see as a "fair price" isn't likely to be seen as a fair price (or, more accurately, a price worth paying) by a lot of readers. When you price ebooks at or above paperback prices, people tend not to like it. And if they've gotten used to reading on their Kindle or iPad, and actively prefer ebooks to paperbacks (as quite a few of us do now), then they might just turn to pirated versions. You might be better off pricing your ebooks a bit lower and seeing if that helps discourage pirates.

Also, a quote from the CEO of Random House Group: At current levels, Dame Gail said, the industry could cope with the pirates’ challenge, but when e-books reached a significantly higher level of overall sales, “that is going to be a huge cost for the publisher”.

Yep. And ebooks will be reaching a significantly higher level of overall sales. That is fairly clear at this point. You might want to figure out a solution to the problem now rather than later. Hint: Raising ebook prices to $14.99 probably isn't going to help discourage piracy.

A Proper Seduction

I finished HelenKay Dimon's latest:
Short, but enjoyable. I recommend it.

iPad

I went to a distant Best Buy to see what the iPad is like today. I like it (I was mostly looking at it as an ebook reader). The books on iBooks look great (Winnie-the-Pooh with color pictures!). They didn't have the Kindle app loaded, so I didn't get to check that out, but I hear it's really nice. It is a trifle heavy, even compared to the DX, and I think one would generally want to read it lying down, or with the iPad on a tabletop.

If I buy one, it would be the cheapest model, with wi-fi, and I'd just buy my books at home. I'm not getting yet another device with a monthly charge. But I really am tempted to buy the cheapest model (when it's available; right now they don't have any in stock). I'll let you know if I buy one!

Love Remembered

I'm still beating my head against the wall trying to figure out how to do the cover for Love Remembered. It's a colonial Virginia romance, and I'm trying to find something that says "historical." This was my first effort, but I don't like it all that much:

Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble opens the doors to indie publishing. "The PubIt! service consists of what seems like three simple steps: uploading content, conversion to the ePub format and then displayed with other digital content at BN.com and B&N’s eBookstore. Interested readers can then download the content with the BN eReader software or apps available for a variety of devices (iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry devices and, naturally, the Nook)." This will be available "Summer 2010," and details (royalties, and whether there is some sort of vetting process) are not yet available.

Indie publishing stifles talent, y'all

An article written by Jason Pinter for the Huffington Post hits all the usual objections to indie publishing.

"I wonder, with the incredible ease in which authors can now publish their rejected manuscripts online, whether fewer authors are going to take the time to hone their craft, get good at what they do, and achieve their full potential. Will new technology stifle budding talent?"

Why would it,exactly? Why do we assume that writers will keep writing poorly? Are people going to buy thousands of copies of crap? If not, the writers will presumably either 1. learn to write better and sell more copies; 2. give up; or 3. keep writing crap in obscurity. Which isn't that different from what happens to ANY writer, really. What if we acknowledged self-pubbed writers might learn and grow in their craft just like other writers do?

He then goes on to say that rejection often makes writers dig in and turn out a better second book. But again, why does publishing the first crappy book on Amazon short-circuit that learning process, exactly? The first book sucks, no one buys it, and they write that "terrific second book" anyway. Now I'll grant you, this may make readers approach the second book with caution. But if it's good enough, people will eventually buy it. And the smart author will then pull that first book and rewrite it till it sparkles.

"But there is a reason Konrath is making waves--he has a platform and he has talent. He also suffered hundreds of rejections until he found a traditional publisher."

Yes, and several of those books that were rejected are now paying his mortgage every month. I don't get why it's a desirable thing for an author to have perfectly marketable books rejected by New York, but maybe that's just me. If they reject crap, that's good. But they certainly do reject perfectly good books simply because the genre isn't hot right now, or because they just bought two other books in that vein, or...

"I feel that the example of Konrath will inspire other, less successful and even less talented authors to publish their works online. They might see the Kindle as a bypass, a way to showcase their works that the Evil, Stupid Publishing Overlords in New York were too blind to realize are, in fact, literary masterpieces."

Could happen. Also, some of the actual literary masterpieces overlooked by the ESPO-NY might get published. And again, what if people publish more crap than ever? Does any reasonable person think crap is going to be take over the market somehow? That readers will lose all powers of discernment and taste? That crap will become the new literary paradigm?

Let's get serious. If you publish crap, all that's going to happen is that your crap will sit there stinking up an obscure corner of Amazon, and readers will avoid the stench. That's all. Not the best move for your career, and I wouldn't advise it, but it doesn't mean the ultimate ruination of the book industry, either.

"There are still myriad ways a traditional publisher can help a new author that would be lost by simply throwing a book up on Amazon. You lose the benefit of a real editor. You lose any money spent on advertising, promotion, co-op to get the book in front of readers. And unless you already have a platform--something most newbies do not--your books have no way of getting noticed."

You can hire an editor-- perhaps you've heard? And indie books have no way of getting noticed? Tell that to Boyd Morrison. Zoe Winters. Karen McQuestion. And so forth and so on.

"It's safe to say that without his exposure due to the series published by Hyperion (which helped spur the popularity of his blog, etc...) Konrath would not be selling as many ebooks as he is right now."

Did I say "Karen McQuestion" already? 30,000 books sold on Amazon, no previous books published with Hyperion... or any other publisher.

He assumes all indie authors are looking to make it in New York: "Sure, if you sell enough ebooks there is a chance you'll get noticed, make some money, get a traditional deal."

Maybe. Or I might just make enough money not to care. I'm not saying I'd never take a New York deal, personally. I'd like to keep all my options open. But plenty of indie authors seem pretty happy "throwing books up on Amazon."

This I agree with: "...just because you 'can' self-publish does not mean that you 'should' self-publish." But I don't really know anyone who's advising authors to toss all their badly written garbage up on Amazon. Certainly Konrath isn't saying that. In fact he's been saying the exact opposite-- that your work needs to be somehow vetted first.

I do understand the basic point Pinter is driving at. I have seen some horrifically bad books self-pubbed on Amazon. They're out there, for sure. So what? People aren't going to waste their money on books with no redeeming qualities. The books won't sell much, and the writers will learn the same lesson they would have learned from New York: "Thank you for this submission, but your manuscript does not meet our needs at this time." Or in blunter terms, "Go learn to write better."

At that point, they can either take up the challenge and hone their craft, keep pounding their head against the wall and turning out crap no one reads, or quit. Which is pretty much what they would have done if they'd been rejected by New York.

Electronic rights

Here's an interesting post from Agent Kristin. She says, "Most authors, at this point in time, are not interested in walking away from a publishing contract over electronic book rights. The numbers are growing certainly (as we can see that statement to statement) but the numbers, in general, are still very small in comparison to traditional print sales."

She then goes on to talk about J.A. Konrath, and concludes that if an author doesn't want to walk away from a publishing contract over ebook rights (and most, she says, don't), "We find another way to protect the author. One method is to include language in the publishing contract that dictates that if industry standard changes in regards to electronic book royalty rates, then the rate can be amended or renegotiated in the future to adhere to new industry standard."

That seems like a good plan-- the best an agent is likely to be able to accomplish for an author. What this fails to address, however, is that the problem with letting a publisher have your e-rights is not so much about royalty rates as it is about the way pubs sell ebooks. Major pubs tend to price ebooks at unattractively high figures. Whether publishers do this to protect paperback sales, to cover overhead, or both, isn't really the issue. The simple fact of the matter is that readers don't like to pay as much or more for an ebook than they do for a paperback.

What Konrath has been saying isn't that he doesn't get adequate royalty rates from his major publishers, but that he can sell more copies and make more money on his own, due mostly to his ability to price his books to move. Major publishers can't or won't price ebooks cheaply, and making sure an author has a good royalty rate for e-published books isn't going to change the basic issue. That underlying problem is that authors can price their own books to sell on Amazon, and move them substantially faster than publishers can.

Now that Konrath and others have shown that authors can in fact sell a lot of ebooks, signing away your e-rights becomes increasingly problematical.

My library

I'm tired of the disorganization in my library. In my old house, I had all my books organized so we could find stuff. The fiction was even alphabetized (this was the ONE area of my life that was organized!). But when we moved, the books were thrown randomly into boxes, then tossed randomly onto shelves. The kids' stuff is mostly in one spot, and the adult stuff in another, but otherwise, it's a mess.

Last night I started pulling down the nonfiction and stacking it into categories. Today I'll put it all back on the shelves. The fiction is going to take a lot longer, since it's supposed to be alphabetized. My adult fiction isn't too extensive (the romance is all upstairs anyway, to make room for stuff that everyone reads), but the kids' picture books and novels are going to take me a month of Sundays to get in order. Still, it would be really nice if we could find everything...

Julie Ortolon on e-publishing

Julie Ortolon talks about her changing views on e-publishing and self-publishing here.

"As recently as a year ago, I and others had the same prejudice against self publishing and ebooks that I had ten years ago... Self publishing and ebooks were an inferior path taken only by those writers who couldn’t get a contract with a major publisher. If you wanted to make it in mainstream fiction, traditional print publishers were the golden ring on the carousel...Well, my friends, the wave of the future has crashed over our heads. The world of publishing is changing even as I type this."

E-publishing vs. traditional publishing

An interesting article here. It's from Daily Finance, so its focus is on investing in the publishing industry. Thus the focus is on how shifts in publishing affect companies, not individual authors.

"...the battles are not really between Amazon's Kindle, Apple's iPad, Barnes & Noble's Nook, and Sony's Digital Reader -- as most of the press will lead us to believe -- but between traditional publishers weighted down by 19th century printing, warehousing and distribution assets and an emerging generation of nimble e-publishers who will supply content to the reading tablets that will be ubiquitous within ten years." The article also says that "Apple and Amazon are frenemies."

HelenKay Dimon...

has out her first short story. It's on Kindle for a mere two dollars, here. HelenKay is an awesome writer, and this looks like a terrific story. Everyone go buy it and enjoy!

Excerpt

This morning I got up an excerpt for Farthest Space: The Pleasure of a Man, which will be the sequel to Farthest Space: The Wrath of Jan. It stars Fred the computer:-). The excerpt can be found here.

It annoys me...

when I mention one of my books (making clear that I am the author) in an Amazon thread asking specifically for books with that theme, and people neg me (vote my post down as not contributing to the discussion). There is a difference between spamming threads with a book ("you're looking for vampire romance? Read my colonial Virginia historical!") and mentioning it where it's appropriate. And it was entirely appropriate for the thread.

But hey, it's Amazon. Most readers are okay with reasonable promo, but a few folks there are deeply opposed to any sort of author promotion. I figure that as long as most readers don't mind my promotion, I'm doing well. An author just has to take her negs and keep on plugging away:-).

If your indie book is underperforming

What do you do if your indie book is underperforming?

First of all, what's your definition of "underperforming"? If you already have books on Amazon, you probably have a rough idea of what sales numbers you've achieved in the past. If it's your first book on Amazon, don't expect to be outselling J.A. Konrath right away.

In my case, most of my books seem to stay in the same range of sales rankings once they get rolling, so when one of them doesn't match up with the others, I figure that one might be able to be improved. Don't compare apples and oranges, though; if you have an erotic vampire romance and a sweet Western romance, it's highly likely the first will outperform the second. That's not something that needs fixing; it's just a normal pattern of sales.

Secondly, how long has the book been live? If it's been a month or less, don't stress. My experience, at least, has been that books need a bit of time to find their legs and get into the race. (If your book was a bestseller from its very first day on Amazon, I really don't want to know about it:-). If it hasn't been very long, wait and see what happens. But if your book has been up for several months and still isn't selling very well, it might be time to tweak. So what do you tweak?

1. First, and most obvious, is the cover. Take a long, objective look at it and see if anything looks wrong about it. I know, I know-- you made it and it's your baby, just like the book, and you think it looks awesome. Maybe it does look awesome. If so, then consider whether it's right for your genre, and what it conveys about your book. (In an earlier post, I discussed my redo of my Isn't It Romantic? cover and how I thought readers might be thinking it was a sweet romance. With its new, nude cover, it's my best seller this month.)

If you write romance, do consider something sexier if you write sexy. If you write another genre, be sure that your cover is clearly saying thriller or horror or whatever it is you write. And look at it as a thumbnail (as most of your readers will) and see what it looks like. Does it have a strong central element that jumps out at you? Can you read the text? Can you even see what the picture is of when it's tiny?

It's also possible your cover doesn't look as awesome as you think. Few of us can turn out professional-quality covers, but look at it with an objective eye and ask yourself if it looks like the serious effort your readers deserve. If not, go back to the drawing board and try again.

2. Your description. Read over your descriptions. Are they pithy and to the point, while still describing the main conflict of your plot? If not, rewrite them and post the new descriptions. If your books are backlist and you have previous glowing review quotes, consider adding a couple of those, too (excerpts only, please; not only is it a violation of copyright to post a whole review, but you want to keep it short and punchy).

3. Your promo. Consider promoting a bit more on the Amazon threads and Kindleboards. Yes, I know, some people worry that the promo threads on Amazon are just authors talking to each other. Maybe so, but my sales are coming from somewhere, and I'm really not doing much to promote besides chatting on the Amazon boards. Also, try to step out of the "read my book!" mentality and try entering the conversation on various boards.

Conversely, if you're promoting every day and your sales aren't doing well, then cut back. Too much promotion can be as bad as too little. Try promoting only once every few days. It's weirdly easy to get addicted to promoting yourself-- sometimes it feels like the only control you have over your sales, and so naturally you want to do it all the time. That's not the way to do it, unfortunately. Remember that sales on Amazon are a long-term thing, and tend to build with time. If you tick off people, you risk losing readers who might buy your books down the road.

And make sure you keep your public posts unrelentingly positive and friendly. There are trolls on any board who will try to engage you in battle. Don't let them. You're too professional to quarrel with readers, or even other authors.

Otherwise, check your other promo and make sure it's adequate. Do you have a blog? Twitter? Facebook? And how does your website look? You don't have to spend a boatload of money on a professionally designed website, but do make sure yours looks decent and hits the high points. Real life example: There was a new writer on Amazon the other day trying to sell his $18 AuthorHouse book, with no excerpt on either his website or on Amazon. No one is going to buy a new writer's book if they can't sample the writing. If your book is on Kindle, there's a sample already on Amazon, but another one on your website won't hurt. And don't forget to add some information about you and your upcoming books!

If you have more thoughts, feel free to comment.

J.A. Konrath

I'm sure everyone's already seen this, but J.A. Konrath has a new book coming out with AmazonEncore (part of his Jack Daniels series). It will be released in a low-priced Kindle edition first-- another example of "reverse windowing."

Yay!

I just hit a nice big milestone-- 3000 books sold (over all my titles) in two and a half months. (I'm ignoring my first month on Amazon because it sucked, saleswise:-). This seems like a rather substantial number to me (especially considering my books are not "hot" genres, and are re-releases to boot), but I see plenty of other indie authors whose sales rankings are higher than mine, so I know I am not unique or special in my Amazon sales numbers. Indie books are selling, people. If you have a backlist to get onto Kindle, what are you waiting for?

Hero, mighty protector

Because Hero is a sheepdog, he tries his utmost to protect the kids, whom he perceives as his sheep. This sometimes leads to problems. Today he somehow decided the new slide was a danger, and started herding the kids away from the swingset, and generally trying his utmost to keep them off it. I had to stand out there with him for a long time, rewarding him every time the kids went down the slide, so that he got it through his thick canine brain that they were in no real danger. I think he's got it now; he seems to be leaving them alone. I'm relieved, because I'd hate to have to shut him up in the house any time they were outside. One of the great joys of his life is being outside with his kids!

Yay for Kindling

The lovely and talented Charlene Teglia says she will have two books being Kindled this summer. She says, "I will have 2 projects coming straight to Kindle/iPad, hopefully this summer. I've been around ebooks for too long to think this is a magic wand, but I do think it's a viable option to the writer willing and able to do a lot for themselves. And it will allow me to release ebooks in a very visible way while retaining the rights to them." She does add that for her, this is part of an approach that includes traditional publishing-- and I think that as time goes by, we'll see a lot more of authors publishing traditionally and Kindling all at once. And that's very, very cool. It's nice to see more authors giving Kindling a shot!

Garage cleaning, part 2

I got a giant pile of boxes out of the garage and on my driveway, awaiting a trip to the recycling bin later this afternoon. (This does not include all my moving boxes, sadly, but my next-door neighbors will be moving this fall and will be taking my moving boxes sometime this summer. I'll be glad to get rid of them too!) I have a big pile in the middle of the garage awaiting a trip to the dump on Monday. And I set up my tool rack and corralled all my tools in it. Once I make that trip to the dump, you might actually be able to walk through the garage. The thought boggles my mind:-).

Busy, busy

I finished the next phase of my mulching project-- both sides of the house are neatly weeded and mulched. Looks good. And it only took 32 bags of mulch! *groans*

Today we're cleaning out the garage. I'm making two piles-- one to go to the dump, one to be recycled (we don't have curbside recycling here, alas). There are a ton of boxes that need recycling, but there is also a lot of junk that made the trip from our last house, but that on further consideration we've found we don't need. So early next week I'll be getting all this stuff out of the garage, which should help.

It's hot (ridiculously so considering that two days ago I had to send the kids off to school in jackets), so we're taking lots of breaks inside, during which I am looking through hundreds of pictures of bare male torsos to try to find one I like for my historical romance. It's not a bad way to spend a Saturday:-).

A missed opportunity

Ouch. I tend not to use a signature on Amazon too often if I'm posting about something unrelated to my writing, because I figure it irritates readers if you post a siggy too much. But this thread I started was mentioned and linked to in an article about Amazon's new bestseller list on Daily Finance, an AOL money and finance blog. There's my name at the very top, being glanced at by God only knows how many readers... and I didn't put a siggy with a link to my book. Tsk. There's a missed opportunity for you!

Amazon splits the bestseller list

Pointed out to me by Meankitty: Amazon plans to split the bestseller list into free and not free categories. I assume "paid" means ANY amount, and that 99 cent books will still be on the main list. Otherwise I'm in trouble:-).

Smile!

I took Impulse to the vet today to get weighed. He walked in, put two paws up on the counter, and wrinkled up his nose, showing every one of his teeth to the woman seated there. Fortunately she remembered him, and knows that this is his way of saying "Hi, I'm thrilled to see you." People who don't know him sometimes take it to mean, "Hi, I'm going to remove the nearest portion of your anatomy now."

Smiling isn't a natural doggy expression; it's something some of them pick up from observing humans. And once you're sure that it IS a smile and not a snarl, Impy's smile is extremely cute. The problem for other people is that they often aren't quite sure which it is!

I haz fans

Yesterday my books were suggested as good reads on two different threads on Amazon by various people. I'm seeing this happen more often now, and it makes me happy that people are liking my books enough to recommend them. It's worth noting, however, that although people are suggesting my books, they're usually describing them as "fun" (rather than "the most incredible romances ever!"), and often placing them in the 3.5-4 star range. They also don't hesitate to mention any issues they have with the plotting and characterization.

Due to the way Amazon works, this is a good thing. On Amazon, glowing 5-star reviews tend to be looked upon with suspicion. If you get a hardcore fan who adores you and starts threads about how amazingly awesome your books are, someone is almost certain to suggest they're a sock or a friend of the author. Reviewers sometimes comment that the other reviewers must all be the writer's friends and family. And in a way I can understand this, because I've seen books with samples that were just unbelievably bad, yet which had somehow garnered five or ten five-star reviews. It's not hard to see where the suspicion comes from.

So on Amazon, it seems that the best of all possible worlds is readers who like your work enough to suggest it to others, but who also don't hesitate to mention any problems they see in your writing.

Accomplishments

The guys finished assembling the playset. It's awesome. I think the kids are going to love it. Next I need to get proper mulchy stuff put in beneath it, though we never did get around to that with the old playset. Tsk.In my flowerbeds, I have put down twenty bags of mulch in two days. My legs hurt.

Kindling

Today the Smart Bitches have a review on a romance author, Alexis Harrington, who's Kindled her backlist. She has quite a list of Kindled books available (she's selling them for $4.25, but her sales ranking is pretty good, so yay for her-- wish I could get people to buy me at that price!). Other romance authors I've noticed lately with at least a few Kindled backlist books are Belle Andre and Karen Ranney.

ETA: Julie Ortolon mentions in the comments that she's Kindling her backlist and doing covers for others who are, too. She's blogging about the process here.

The state of the Ellen

My sales are going well. At this rate, I'm on track to sell more books this month than I did last month. Of course something may happen to change that, but right now, I feel very positive. My top seller is still Isn't It Romantic?, followed not too distantly by Never Love a Stranger and In the Mood. All I Ever Wanted continues to lag. I redid the cover again (same guy, just more visible lettering) and added a couple of editorial reviews to the description. We'll see if that helps.

So far, Farthest Space has sold eight copies. My books always start slow, so I'm not bothered by this. And finally, I'm seeing some movement on my contemporary Samhain titles. They're not up there with the other books, sales ranking-wise, but it looks like they're getting a sale every day or two, which is cool.

Last night I looked at royalty statements from the first time my books were released and confirmed that I'm making more in a month now than I did in a quarter then (and selling a whole lot more copies, too). This doesn't reflect on me or the publisher, in my opinion, but rather on the state of ebook publishing then and now. It took a while for it to happen, but it's nice to see ebooks finally taking off.

In real life, I have my oldest back in tae kwon do, and our playset is being put together today. Also, my five-year-old threw up twice last night around midnight. I hope he feels better this morning...

To-do list

My next re-release will be Love Remembered (a historical that needs a good deal of revision). After that I'm out of backlist for a while (unless I can get Bantam to cough up my rights to The Light in the Darkness anytime soon, the blighters). In November and December I will release my two Christmas novellas, but till then I have some months I'll need to fill with new releases.

After Love Remembered will hopefully come Even the Weariest River, a memoir about my husband's losing battle with cancer (assuming my husband's family doesn't object for some reason). I've been wanting to get this completed for a while. I don't expect it to be a huge seller, but I'd like to get it out of my head and out where people can read it. I did a first draft of my cover tonight:

Now I have to figure out what a cover for Love Remembered should look like. The only stock photos I've found with historical dress I didn't like much. Maybe I'll try something exciting and new and try a bare male torso *rolls eyes at self*.

Happy Mother's Day!

I'm on my way out to brunch with the kids and the extended family. I hope everyone has a great Mother's Day!

Milestone

I just realized I've hit a milestone with In the Mood-- it's my first indie book to sell over a thousand downloads. Thanks very much to everyone who's bought it!

Farthest Space

Farthest Space: The Wrath of Jan is now available in Kindle format here. It's a re-release and won the Eppie Award for best sci-fi/futuristic romance in 2006. The gorgeous cover was done by P.L. Nunn:

Don't win friends and influence people

Some indie author on Amazon apparently snagged a bunch of email addresses from Kindleboards and sent random people emails pimping her book. This is not a good way to make yourself popular with readers, and it's particularly likely to backfire on Amazon, where people are fairly cranky about spammers. Already she's gotten three bad reviews out of it. There are ways to promote your indie book, but this isn't one of them. Stuff like this doesn't do the rest of us any favors, either... it just gets readers' backs up about ALL indie authors, even those of us who are professional and courteous on the boards.

Formatting sucks

After sending the document to myself six or seven times, I think I've finally figured out the problem with Farthest Space's formatting. I'm going to give my final effort one more lookover, and then I hope it will be ready to publish. I hate formatting. Why can't someone invent formatting for dummies??

Indie reading

I finished reading Waiting for Spring:


It took me a while to read because this book is really difficult and heartbreaking in spots (much of the second half was truly heartrending). But it's excellently written, and definitely worth your time. It's a strong and thoroughly professional book. Anyone who believes indie authors can't write needs to pick this one up.

My kingdom for a pen

One of my major irritants in working out of the library was that my desk area (such as it was) was not large enough, and I could never find what I needed in the clutter of papers that accumulated. I have two shelves filled with organizers now, and I'm hoping things will be easier to find. But today I made the most important purchase of all-- a holder for pens, and a large package of pens to put in it. I have been driven nuts, over and over again, by the tendency of every pen in the house to suddenly disappear into a black hole the minute I need one, and I promised myself that once I had a decent office, I would buy a bunch of pens and something to keep them corralled in.

So now I have 48 pens sitting on my desk. I figure it'll take at least a week to lose them all *grins*.

Ellen on the internet

The Galaxy Express kindly listed my upcoming sci-fi romance spoof Farthest Space: The Wrath of Jan in their list of new releases for May, and mentioned me in a little "Ellen Fisher report" too. I am very grateful to Heather Massey for giving me this sort of exposure... it's a lot easier to sell books when people have actually heard of you!

Indie vs. e-publishing

The other day I posted something about indie books vs. e-publishing on Twitter, and Zoe Winters responded, "As great as some E-pubs are, I just don't think they offer that much more [than indie publishing] honestly." I answered that I'd started e-publishing in 2003, when things were obviously quite different and no one had even thought of Kindles. I didn't expand upon my comments, since Twitter doesn't allow one to expand much. But here are some additional thoughts on the subject.

Now that indie publishing is a viable alternative, what are the relative benefits of indie publishing vs. small press e-publishing? I'll start a list; feel free to add your thoughts in the comments.

E-publishing:

1. Someone else does your cover. This can be good (if you have absolutely no graphic ability, your self-created cover may turn out looking like crap, or you may have to pay someone to do it for you). It can also be bad. Thank God we've mostly moved away from those hideous Poser covers (you remember the ones I'm talking about) in favor of stock photos, but there are still some small e-pubs out there whose covers don't look any better than mine-- basically they just take a stock photo and slap words over it. No real benefit there. On the flip side, some e-pubs are doing awesome covers-- look at Samhain and Carina. Covers sell books, and a cover like that might well have a big advantage over something I personally turn out.

2. Editing. Again, this can be good or bad. A good editor is worth her weight in gold. A bad editor can be horrible to work with. I've worked with an epub that generally did little to no editing, and there may still be some of those out there too. If I don't get any editing from a publisher, then I really might as well be indie publishing. But this is something you usually get with a good e-publisher. Indie writers need to rely on beta readers, or hire their own editors.

3. An already established customer base. A good epub usually has a loop full of rabid and enthusiastic fans (though in some cases it feels like it's just full of authors trying to sell to each other!). But if an epub is large enough, then there are usually fans waiting to pounce on each release day. That's not true for an indie author, although if you produce a lot of books, you may develop your own following.

4. Promotion. Epubs send out books for review, post about them on blogs, set up Yahoogroups, and so forth.

Indie publishing:

1. Control over the cover. Anyone who's ever had a bad cover (which is most authors, I suspect!) can understand why this might be a positive thing. Also, indie publishing gives you the opportunity to change the cover at will. If a book isn't selling well, an epub is typically not going to go back to the drawing board and change the cover. As an indie, you can do that.

2. No editors to deal with. If you feel your creativity and personal style is stifled by editing, as some authors do, then you'll probably prefer indie writing. If you worry that an epub will pressure you to add more heat or to change things you really like about your manuscript, indie writing may be your cup of tea. I'm a big believer in editing, but poor editing is worse than no editing at all.

3. Instant release. The most annoying thing for me about traditional publishing is the incredibly long time it takes to see your book hit the shelves. Epubs were once much quicker (my first ebook was published within a few months), but now that most of them have so many books stockpiled, your release date can easily be scheduled out a year from now. With indie publishing, once you're done, the book can be released. No waiting, no stressing.

4. You do your own promotion. This means more work, but no one has more invested in your book than you do, so this isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments.

An agent talks about self-pubbing

Jessica at Bookends talks about why self-publishing may not be your best option if you want to break into New York:

"While 7,500 copies sounds impressive, in truth we ran into pushback from publishers because of those numbers. They weren’t big enough... When a publisher looks at a previously published author, whether the author was published with a big house or self-published, the first thing they will look at is the author’s sales. If your numbers are low it doesn’t bode well for orders on your next books."

The original question does ask about Amazon pubbing, specifically, but I'm not clear on whether the agent is talking about indie ebooks or POD books, or both. Certainly many e-pubbed authors have broken into New York-- and I don't know about anyone else, but my e-pubbed numbers never got anywhere near 10,000 copies per book. At any rate, I don't know how a publisher could tell what my previous sales actually were without an ISBN.

And this all may certainly be true, but if so, it makes New York look rather foolishly bound by numbers. If I can sell 7500 copies of a book just by getting out there and working my ass off (and I'm speaking hypothetically; I haven't yet!), doesn't it stand to reason that I could sell a whole lot more copies if I had a big publisher with national distribution behind me? Of course it does. It seems rather absurd to judge a self-pubbed author against big publisher standards. I'm not saying editors don't do this, just saying it seems like a silly way to make decisions.

Wow

Oooh, I got a mention on CoyoteCon's Science Fiction Romance Q&A, thanks to Heather Massey. Is she awesome or what?? I'm happy to see "Kindling" brought up as a positive idea, too. Yay for Heather!

Ellen joins the 21st century

Today I was thinking mournfully about the probable expense of having a new phone line run to my office (after buying a big backyard playset yesterday, I'm feeling kind of broke!) and suddenly I had a brilliant thought: "Hey, my netbook is wireless. Couldn't my computer be wireless too?"

Not only could it be wireless, but it could be wireless for about forty bucks. I got the necessary hardware from Best Buy, installed it, and moved my computer out of my library. I am now coming to you, live and wireless, from my brand new, fully armed and operational battle statio-- er, office. Sorry, got carried away there:-).

Anyway, I'm happy to be moved in. Now I have to clear all my accumulated junk out of the library so the kids can go back to using that as a quiet, pleasant reading room, instead of a room where Mom yells SHUSH I'M WORKING!!! ten times a day.

Well, good for you, kid

The five-year-old, singing cheerfully in the bathroom: "Penis, penis, I have a penis!"

Mom, through the door: "Yeah, kid, and so does fifty percent of the world's population. It's nothing to brag about."

Another cover change

This morning, I redid my All I Ever Wanted cover. It's my second best seller, but lately sales have slacked off. I don't know why. I doubt the cover has a thing to do with it, but I've never been really enamored of it. Although it looks good in large size, the thinner font seems to disappear in a thumbnail. So I redid the lettering. The old cover:



The new cover:


Again, I don't expect this to have any significant impact on sales. I just wanted it to be more readable, more eyecatching (brighter colors), and more "branded" (the same font as my other romantic comedies).

ETA: But having looked at it on Amazon, the green lettering, which looks fine here, fades away as a thumbnail. Grrr, I hate having to design for thumbnails! I guess I'll go back to the tried-and-true white lettering, which is at least visible in a small picture.