Monthly results

Last month on B&N, I sold about 11,500 copies. This month, I sold a little over 6000 there. Fortunately, sales picked up on Amazon, and in total I sold around 11,200 copies. Not bad, but definitely a step back from last month.

A conversation with my son

I am a careful bleeper of my iPod. We have about 1600 songs on it now, and some of them contain inappropriate language for the younger members of my household. So when we're riding in the the car and come to an inappropriate word, I always turn down the volume for a couple of seconds.

Today we were listening to the extended version of "Big Bang Theory," and I bleeped the line about how the dinosaurs "froze their asses off." I heard a sigh from the back seat.

"Mom," the six-year-old said in a weary, moms-are-so-clueless voice, "you don't have to bleep that. I know what it says."

"Oh, yeah?" I answered. "What does it say?"

"It says they all died." Another long-suffering sigh. "And you don't have to bleep that, because I already knowded it."

Does EVERYONE have an e-reader now?

At my visit to Lenscrafters today, I mentioned to the optometrist that I'd been able to put off bifocals due to my Kindle's large font. He commented that he had a Kindle and an iPad with a Kindle app, and that he loved them because he traveled a lot. When I went into Lenscrafters, I made similar comments to the lady who helped me pick out glasses, and she remarked that she had a Nook. And when I went back, I had my Kindle out, and the guy who helped me mentioned that he had a Kindle too.

I don't think I've ever met so many owners of e-readers in one day before. No wonder sales are climbing-- everyone's got one of these things now!

Glasses, yay!

Yesterday, the frames for my glasses gave up entirely. It's been about five years since I got new glasse, and the wire frame completely wore through the bottom yesterday evening, so that the lens was held in on that side by nothing other than my nose. I called Lenscrafters this morning and got an appointment with their affiliated optometrist. Armed with my new prescription (distance vision had hardly changed, but I have progressive lenses now-- and doesn't "progressive" sound cooler than "bifocals"?), I went next door to Lenscrafters and begged them to get my glasses done today. I have very bad astigmatism, and no one's ever actually filled one of my prescriptions in a day, let alone an hour, but they looked at the prescription dubiously and said they'd do what they could. Two hours later, they called and said my glasses were ready.

On the way back over, my lens popped entirely out of my old glasses, so there I was driving down the road lefthanded, able to see out of only one eye, and scrabbling around on the floor with my right hand in an attempt to retrieve the lens. Fortunately I got to a traffic light at that point and was able to get the lens back in my old frames and hold it in till I got there. I'm glad to have said goodbye to that old pair of glasses, though. Not only were the frames beat up, but the lenses were scratched, and one of the nose guards was missing.

My new glasses are nice. The progressive lenses (which are invisible so I don't look like an old lady, yay!) will take a little while for me to adjust to, but so far I like them. There is a midrange for computer work, and a closeup range for reading. I can actually read a comic book for the first time in a long time, which is nice. I think I'm going to enjoy being able to see things close up again:-).

Jean Auel

I see that The Land of Painted Caves will be released tomorrow. I really disliked The Shelters of Stone-- I thought it was absurdly repetitive, and could have been pared down by at least fifty percent. But I'm still going to be buying The Land of Painted Caves, even though I know it won't be fabulous. After all these years of reading and re-reading Auel's first four books, I figure I need to read the series through to the end.

Doubled my sales!

Well, for one book, anyway. Last month Farthest Space sold 13 copies. This month it sold 26! Woot!

(And yeah, it's still my weakest seller by far, and 26 sales is pretty pathetic compared to my other books' sales figures. But I keep hoping that one of these days, it will catch on and start selling. Can't blame a girl for dreaming!)

Amazon vs. B&N

It's a funny thing... my sales on Amazon are more or less evenly split between my regular romances and my hot romances. My sales on B&N are almost entirely my hot romances. I find that interesting-- clearly, what sells on Amazon is not necessarily what sells on B&N.

How Hero drives me crazy

Impy sleeps downstairs in his crate, by choice, but Hero doesn't care for crates (he virtually ripped his apart in an effort to explain this to me a while back), so his nighttime residence is my bathroom. When I'm lying in bed at night, trying to go to sleep, I will often hear the sound of Hero licking his paws. He seems to spend hours cleaning his paws (the backyard is often muddy this time of year, and a dog has to keep his paws nice and white). It's a soft, but very annoying sound.

Later, when I'm just about asleep, he'll apparently get bored with the paw-cleaning thing, and will pick up his ball and start squeaking it. Sq-UUUUEAK! Sq-UUUUUEAKKKK! This is a less soft, and even more annoying sound.

On the up side, my dogs are unusually flexible about going out in the morning. If it's a school morning, they know it, and they insist (noisily) on going out by eight or so. But on a weekend morning, they've been known to let me sleep till ten or eleven. As long as I'm in bed, they'll permit me to sleep. The minute I get out of bed, though, they figure it's my duty to take care of them, so they raise a ruckus and demand to be let outside.

I guess being allowed to sleep in on weekends makes up for all the squeaking and paw cleaning:-).

Connie Brockway...

...is going indie, according to this interview. Interesting quotes:

"Over the last couple years, as print publishers have been facing numerous financial crises, it has felt like they’ve become less likely to buy a book that doesn’t fit snugly within the parameters of last month’s success and since last month’s success was dictated by the previous month’s success (and so forth and so on) there hasn’t been a whole lot of room left in which to play. And I dearly love to play...

"...at a certain point, an author has to ask himself, “What exactly will a publisher be able to for me?” The answer may be quite a lot or it might be not nearly enough and if it’s not enough well, that’s the point where authors start planning for a different sort of future. And let me tell you it’s a helluva a scary future; I’m not going to kid you. I vacillate between being completely stoked and sick to my stomach, afraid that I might write the best book of my entire career and no one will find it to read it. That’s the biggest challenge I see in electronic publication, finding the audience."

Amanda Hocking has signed...

with St. Martin's. (Link snagged off Kindleboards.) "The bidding eventually rose beyond $2 million for world English rights, said one publishing executive familiar with the negotiations. (St. Martin’s declined to comment on how much it agreed to pay.)"

Yay for Amanda!

Nothing gold can stay

This is my favorite time of year. The trees are just starting to unfurl their leaves, and they all have a green-gold shimmer to them. This usually lasts for about a week, and then the leaves turn an ordinary green color. But I love this one week of spring when everything is gold!

Print editions

Konrath has a good interview up with his print book creator. If I were to do print copies, I would definitely hire someone-- that's something I don't think I can do on my own. And I've thought about it a lot. But it looks like it would cost me about $350 per book, according to her website. And alas for me, I can say pretty conclusively I'm unlikely to earn back that much on a print edition. Why? Well, there's still a new copy of Accidentally in Love (the omnibus edition of The Nerd Prince and I'll Be There For You) sitting on Amazon, priced at a pretty reasonable $11.50. That single copy has been sitting there forever, and the current sales rank is a not-so-impressive #4,631,244.

So... yeah. Not worth it for me, I'm afraid. It's an interesting interview to look at if you're interested in print editions of your books, though!

So is B&N removing samples again?

Someone on Kindleboards posted on 3-17 and reported getting this email from B&N: "Unfortunately, eBooks in the Erotica category are not allowed to have a free sample." The top few erotica books on PubIt seem to be missing samples, but others aren't-- are they working from the top and moving down, or are those books just more extreme than others? I guess we'll see what happens, but based on that email, it doesn't sound promising.

Microsoft sues B&N

And yet more interesting news here-- Microsoft is suing B&N over the Android-based Nook, "alleging the devices infringe Microsoft patents."

Also, people on the Amazon boards are reporting that Amazon shut down Lendle because it doesn't "serve the principal purpose of driving sales of products and services on the Amazon site." If true, I'd bet pressure from the publishers is what caused them to do this.

Indie news

As I am sure everyone knows by now, Barry Eisler turned down a $500,000 book deal in favor of self-publishing, saying, "I think I can do better in the long term on my own."

Meanwhile, Publishers Marketplace reports that Amanda Hocking "has been shopping a four-book series to major publishers, attracting bids of well over $1 million for world English rights, two publishing executives said."

The Frugal eReader

I have a sponsorship on the Frugal eReader today for All I Ever Wanted. I still love this book, and hope being featured there might help new readers find it.

Vegetables? Ick, Mom!

Today I cooked a nice Sunday dinner-- chicken (with mushrooms and melted cheese), stuffing, and corn on the cob. The kids all looked dubiously at the stuffing.

"Mom, what is this green and white stuff?"

"Celery and onions," I answered. "You know, vegetables."

"Why'd you put that in there? Usually you just throw the crumbs into the broth and stir it up."

"We had it this way at Christmas, remember? Stuffing is supposed to have celery and onions in it."

More dubious looks around the table. "We don't like it this way. Do we have to eat it? It's yucky."

"Oh, no problem," I said. "I just spent all that time cutting up the vegetables, sauteing them in butter, and then cooked the stuffing for half an hour in the oven. I spent a lot of time and effort making it so yucky. Feel free to skip it."

Smiles all around the table. "Thanks, Mom."

Sarcasm is lost on these kids. I swear.

*Growls*

I just saw a couple of my books on what appears to be a forum for file sharing (I'd have to sign up to see the actual link, and I'm not going to bother). Some enterprising soul kindly uploaded the books there, and four people have thanked them for it already. I know piracy happens, and I generally don't get real stressed about it, but come on, is 99 cents really that much to pay for a book you want? Really?

Oh, well, guys, enjoy the books. Maybe you'll consider paying me 99 cents for the next one you want to read *shrugs*.

Tidewater traffic sucks

I took the kids to see my dad today. We had a nice brunch, then took them to Mt. Trashmore (yes, that really is a place in Virginia Beach, I swear) and let them run around the park for a while while we sat and chatted. Then I dropped my dad back at his house and attempted to go home.

But traffic here can be insane, even on the weekends, due to the very limited routes available to cross the water. The Downtown Tunnel (I-264) is closed for the weekend while they do maintenance. The high-rise bridge (on Interstate 64) was completely blocked due to an accident. And I attempted to go home via the Midtown Tunnel (the only other route), but after forty-five minutes of sitting in traffic and hardly moving, I gave up. I headed back to Virginia Beach, and the kids and I visited the other grandparents for a while. Which was really nice, actually, so I guess I shouldn't complain:-). Anyway, by the time they had to head out for a night on the town, the roads were more or less clear, and we managed to finally make it home, where my dogs were quite indignant at being left alone for so long!

Writing runs in the family

A certain fifteen-year-old I know has her first novella up on Amazon and Nook.

Indie success stories, yet again

Tina Folsom reports that she's sold over 100,000 copies since she began self-publishing.

Scanning doesn't work very well, it seems

I continue to have a childish love for Albert Payson Terhune (Lad: A Dog and a gazillion other collie stories). When I saw that Buff: A Collie was available electronically, I happily ordered it (for my Nook-- it isn't available on Kindle yet). I hadn't read more than a sentence or two before I began laughing uncontrollably. It looks like someone just scanned an old print edition and published the result without bothering to proof it. This created this sort of deathless prose:

At random the kenhelman scooped up five-sixUis of ikt litter...

As a result of tins monopoly the sixth piippy throve apace. When she was eight weeks old, fate intervened cwice more to save her...

Her coat was like a chow^s, except that it was l^adc and white and tan-- as is no chowV between here and the Chinese Wall Her deep chest as as wide as a bulldog^s; her queer little eyes slanted like a coUie's; her forface was like a Great I>ane's, with its barrel muzzle and dewkips. She was as big as amasfiiff.

To clear upj in a handful of words, the mystery of Nina^s breeding, her diaai was Shawe's long-pedigreed and r^stered aad prize-winnki^ tricolour colKe, Shawemere Queen. Her sire was Upstreet Butcherboy, the fiercest and gamest and strongest and most murderous pit-terrier ever loosed ufxm a doomed oppo^iefit.

The roughly affectionate manhaiKIUii^ which had torn the Pom*s hair-trigger nerves aiMil tenous vitality to shreds had no effect at all upon Nina. On tlie contrary, she waxed fat under the dtntl caresses and yankings of her new owners, *Wliidi was lwky.

In short, it's ludicrously unreadable (fortunately it was free, or I'd be hollering to B&N and demanding my money back). It's not easy to decipher the above, but manhaiKIUii^ is meant to be "manhandling," which gives you some idea of how bad this is. If you happen to be one of those publishers who reissues public domain books, my advice is that scanning isn't enough. You have to carefully proof the resulting text, or you can wind up with a really hideous mess.

Victorine Lieske is in the news

Here, with a video and everything!

Ebooks "soar" in January

According to PW, ebooks outsold mass market paperbacks (which had "terrible" sales) and adult hardbacks in January. Trade paperbacks still are selling more than ebooks. Notice that this is based on "reporting companies" from the AAP only and presumably doesn't include indies.

Ellen, Ellen, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

I visited Dad yesterday, as I do twice a week. I brought a shovel and dug out some of his bulbs-- snowbells, which I haven't seen at the garden center, and old-fashioned orange daylilies. They have daylilies at the garden center (I bought a few pretty white ones), but they're all the much smaller, dainty hybrids in various colors. I wanted some of the huge weedy ones for my back yard, and Dad has vast amounts of them-- the way they spread, you won't be able to tell that I did any digging there by the end of the summer.

It's going to be about seventy and sunny today, so I'm going to dedicate the day to planting bulbs:-).

Indie success stories, part umpteen

Here's a great interview with Julianne MacLean on Robin Sullivan's blog. She's a traditionally published, USA Today bestselling author, whose self-published book The Color of Heaven has been selling about 1000 copies a day since the middle of February. She's sold 25,000 copies in four weeks.

Long thoughts on a blog post

Someone on Kindleboards pointed out this post, called Pouring Cold Water on the Kindle-ing. The author is moving some books on Kindle, but he still feels that success on the Kindle is limited to a few outliers, and that it's a bad way for unpublished authors to go:

And yet, I'm writing this blog post to say, if you are an unpublished author thinking of self-publishing your novel to Kindle, my current advice would be: Don't.

Here's his reasoning:

I have a fifth title on Amazon, my short story "Final Flight of the Blue Bee." Last month, I sold 4 copies of this title. And, on average, FFBB has a sales ranking somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000. I think I can safely extrapolate from this that the vast majority of Kindle titles, roughly half a million of them, sell fewer than 4 copies a month.

True, but as Moses Siregar points out in the comments, there is a ton of crap on Amazon that no one ever looks at. Terrible self-pubbed work that wasn't written by a serious writer, badly formatted public domain works, ancient obscure backlist titles... this does not mean that a well-written book with a good cover is necessarily likely to sell fewer than four copies a month. You can improve your odds of selling by creating a good product. (No disrespect meant to this author's short story-- many of us have books that don't sell for some reason. My book Farthest Space regularly sells fewer than ten copies a month, even while most of my others sell hundreds.)

Right now, if you google "kindle success stories," you'll find a dozen authors who kept getting turned away from traditional publishers who self-pubbed to ebooks and are now making thousands of dollars a month. It's easy to want to emulate their path to victory. But, the important thing to remember is that the people who put out books and find themselves unexpected bestsellers are of course going to jump on their blogs to write about it. It's easy to talk about success. But the thousands of writers who self-pub their ebooks and sell less than 4 copies a month... they aren't blogging about their failure.

Possibly. But how many of those "failures" are people who just threw random crap up on Amazon with no real intentions of selling or promoting it? How many of those selling four copies a month are just getting started, and will be selling a thousand books a month in the not-too-distant future? There's really no way of telling. It's comfortable and easy to label those of us doing well as "outliers," but if you'll look at Kindleboards, where people discuss their numbers, you'll see that there are more indie authors selling a thousand or more copies per month all the time.

So, if you've written one novel and want to publish it to Kindle, don't. If you've written three novels and are thinking of publishing to Kindle... maybe.... Also, the revenue of one ebook selling 20 copies a month might not pay your power bill, but if you have ten titles selling in this range, you'll probably have enough income to cover your mortgage.

Talk to Victorine Lieske *shrugs*. But it's true; in general you have a better chance of selling if you have numerous titles (and as he points out, writing many books probably means you've honed your craft and are a better writer). However, assuming your writing is worthy of publication, why not put up your first book on Kindle while you're writing your second book? Maybe it won't pay your mortgage, but it's not going to make less money than it would sitting there on your hard drive, is it?

He acknowledges that the publishing world is changing quickly, but goes on to say:

But, for now, if you are a new novelist, I strongly advise trying to find a traditional publisher.

Does he really think a new novelist has a better chance of finding a traditional publisher than of selling a decent amount of books on Kindle? Because frankly, finding a traditional publisher is hard. I've spent years on the agent and publisher merry-go-round, and that was with a traditionally published book I could mention in my query letters. You can query fifty or a hundred agents without ever finding one who wants to represent you, even if your writing is solid. And now we have the loss of brick-and-mortar stores, and the probable future shrinkage of publishers, to contend with as well. All of this will make it even more difficult to sell to traditional pubs.

Yes, if you can sell to a trad publisher, you may sell more than you would by Kindling your book (though then again, you may not). But that's a mighty big if, IMHO.

Also, he adds:

Maybe ebooks will be all your future revenue, but you at least want that first "real" book to be on paper, something you can show your mom and say, "Look! I'm an author!"...Looking at my sales data on Kindle is pleasant....But gazing at my own bookshelf, with all the various editions of my novels and anthologies I've been in, is a much, much deeper satisfaction.

As someone who's been mostly writing ebooks since 2003, this kind of thinking annoys me (and I'll add that this kind of thinking causes authors to get taken by so-called publishers like PublishAmerica, because they've let themselves be convinced that the only "real" published book is a print book). I've said this a million times, but I'll say it again: Ebooks are real books. If you desperately want a copy for your shelf, then you can make a POD copy. But don't think that an ebook is any less real to your readers than a paper book is.

He concludes:

Don't throw away your shot at this (traditional publishing). The wait is worth it.

Given that numerous indie authors have scooped up agents or publishing contracts lately, you're not throwing away anything by Kindling your book. If anything, you're making it more likely that someone in the publishing industry will take note of you and offer you representation or a traditional publishing contract (assuming that's the way you want to go). Furthermore, you'll be selling books (even if it's only four a month!) and building an audience for your writing.

Where's the down side here?

More backlist shows up on Kindle all the time

I just noticed that Bonnie Vanak has her book The Falcon and the Dove self-pubbed on Kindle (if I recall correctly, it was previously pubbed with Leisure, which probably explains why she has the rights back).It kind of caught my eye, because I thought it looked very vaguely familiar:-).

Past performance is not a guarantee of future results

Today, J.A. Konrath has a guest post from Selena Blake (not to be confused with Selena Kitt!) on his blog. She writes, "At the time of writing this, I’ve sold just over 12,000 copies in less than a month. 12,000 copies. That number truly blows my mind. Actually, I almost fell out of my chair.Now, instead of just paying the car payment, royalties from January’s sales will cover ALL my expense."

Konrath comments: "Joe sez: To date, Blake has sold 23,000 ebooks. Which is impressive. I expect she'll begin to sell as well on Amazon as she is on Nook, and will eventually work her way up to a six figure annual income, selling 99 cent titles."

This all caught my attention because Selena's figures for last month are remarkably similar to my own. I sold about 11,500 copies on B&N last month, and did well on Amazon, too, totalling about $5800 in royalties. Which is undeniably awesome. However, I can't extrapolate from this that I'll eventually be making a six figure annual income, or even $70,000 a year. I wish I could, but my sales have fallen off dramatically this month (around 2300 sales on B&N so far-- and I wouldn't even dare extrapolate from this that I'll sell 7000 copies there this month, because sales have dropped off a lot in the past week).

Furthermore, it's not just me; I've seen people complaining about a big drop in sales on Kindleboards and the PubIt Help board, too. A lot of people suspect the drop in sales is due to the Smashwords Ebook Week promo, and hope sales will recover once it's over. And they may be right. But it goes to show you that all sorts of things can impact sales numbers, and that they aren't all that easy to predict. So you can't really say, "Oh, I made X this month, so I definitely should be earning Y by the end of the year." You might earn more than what you project, but then again, you might earn less. Writing is a fickle bitch, in my experience:-).

Amazon is ticking me off

Just got an email from Amazon to my alter ego:

Many of your recent discussion board posts were found to be repeated posts that make the same point excessively. In order to facilitate customer participation in our discussion boards, we encourage them to discuss the topic and information related to it however, posts which are repeated will be removed.

If this continues, we'll remove your posting privileges from your account in accordance with our Conditions of Use. Please take a look at our guidelines before posting again.

Sometime in February, I posted a short promo for my latest book to three promo threads in different forums (romance, erotica, erotic romance). They've all been deleted as of today. I considered the matter, and then sent back a polite note to Amazon saying essentially that I have no desire to break Amazon's guidelines, but that my behavior is no different from many other authors, and that I needed clarification of exactly what I've done wrong that other authors haven't. I asked for very clear guidelines as to what I'd done wrong-- for example, I asked, may I only post a promo to one thread? Must the wording be changed? Must a certain number of days expire between postings? Is it more or less acceptable to create a separate thread for a book than to post to promo threads? And so forth and so on.

I also suggested, very obliquely, that perhaps they were singling me out either because I am writing erotic romance, or because I have a stalker or two reporting me repeatedly. I inquired as to whether they intended to remove all promotional threads, and if not, why other authors' repeated promos were being allowed to stand. I also assured them I would not post again until I got a clear and detailed explanation of how I should post in the future.

We'll see if I get any kind of coherent response. I think Amazon's policy on promo can be boiled down to, "Ignore it till someone complains, then delete and threaten." And that kind of sucks, and they really need to be called on it. But I don't imagine calling them on it will have any effect, nor make them feel compelled to really explain their policy.

Anonymous reviews

It seems like every time I get an unpleasant review on B&N, it's "anonymous." (You have the option there to leave a review either associated with your pen name, or not, as you prefer, though you do have to sign in to leave a review.) It makes me wonder why people feel like they can't leave their actual name on bad reviews-- I mean, what's the harm in leaving a link to your profile? You can set your B&N profile to private (entirely devoid of information), so why would anyone care if the author knew their screen name? Furthermore, there's no way to reply to a review over there, so who cares what the author or anyone else thinks? It seems like the only logical reason to use "anonymous" is so that no one can notice a pattern of abusive reviews and report it to B&N.

It makes me imagine there might be someone with an agenda over there using the anonymous feature to run down authors-- but I hope that's just paranoia on my part. It probably is... I think anonymous review systems just breed paranoia. Still, it all makes me wonder. I like Amazon's system better, honestly.

Work, work

I was supposed to go see Dad today, but I had a continuing stomach bug (I know it isn't Crohn's because my daughter has it too). I planned to rest all day, but I started feeling better and felt the compulsion to work. So I finished editing a new novella for my alter ego. I'll go over it again tomorrow, but hopefully I'll have it up later in the week.

Indie success stories

Beth Orsoff writes about her "journey from failed mid-lister to successful author," here.

Random cuteness

This is not my dog; it's just a random video I found on YouTube. The Aussie in the video looks a lot like Impulse, though, and she shares his habit of "smiling," though he only does it spontaneously-- I have no idea how to train him to do it on cue. I just thought she was cute (and so are the kitties who demand center stage).

"Traditional" publishing is becoming less so

This article says that Avon is launching a line of e-romances. "Avon Books announced Monday that it has set up a digital romance imprint, Avon Impulse, where books by new and established authors will be released electronically, with paper editions available on demand... The digital market has been especially strong for romance fiction, in part because fans can read e-editions in public without fear of embarrassment. Avon also cited decreased shelf space in physical stores as a reason for starting Avon Impulse."

Um... yeah. We'll just ignore the idea that all romance readers are embarrassed to be romance readers and go on to the next one. Decreased shelf space in physical stores. That's certainly going to be an impetus behind a shift to e-publishing in general.

I'm curious as to whether the writers involved had regular contracts with Avon and are surprised to find themselves released in e-format and POD, or if they knew this was what they were signing up for? The article doesn't specify.

More Apple and Amazon

There seems to be some hope that Apple's new policy on apps won't affect Amazon's Kindle app (link lifted from Camille LaGuire on Twitter).

"Just because I sell a million books self-publishing, it doesn't mean everybody will"

Amanda Hocking, on her sales: "I guess what I'm saying is that just because I sell a million books self-publishing, it doesn't mean everybody will. In fact, more people will sell less than 100 copies of their books self-publishing than will sell 10,000 books. I don't mean that to be mean, and just because a book doesn't sell well doesn't mean it's a bad book. It's just the nature of the business."

True. There may be a tendency amongst indie authors to overgeneralize: Oh, if Amanda Hocking sold a million books, then I can too! But self-publishing is really no different from any other sort of publishing. Does anyone really go into writing seriously thinking they can sell as many books as J.K. Rowling? Of course not. Most of us just want to sell some books, reach some readers, and (ideally, but not usually) make a living at it. We're usually very aware that we aren't likely to sell a million books (even if we have pleasant daydreams along those lines from time to time).

However, I do think that we also need to acknowledge that quite a few people are making a lot of money at indie publishing, and the number seems to be growing all the time. Self-publishing used to be a lightning-in-a-bottle kind of thing-- if you got out there and peddled your book all over creation, you might manage to sell thousands of copies, and if you were super lucky (like that kid who wrote Eragon), you might get a traditional publishing contract.

Those days are gone. Success at indie publishing is no longer an incredibly rare event. Selling a million books? Sure, that's rare-- but then, it's very rare in traditional publishing, too. But making a living as an indie author, or at least making a decent amount, seems more and more feasible all the time. It's also far more likely for an indie with good sales to get a contract with a traditional publisher... if you want one.

So yes, don't be disappointed when you don't sell a million books. But don't be surprised if you manage to pay some of your bills, either.

Two books

Blake Crouch's thriller Run was featured on J.A. Konrath's blog a few days ago. I bought a copy for my Kindle, started reading it, and couldn't put the damn thing down till I was done. (The kids ate frozen pizza that night.). You can find it on Amazon.Also, Heather Massey's Once Upon a Time in Space is now available on the Red Sage site. Heather's blog The Galaxy Express has been very supportive to science fiction romance authors (including yours truly), so buy her book!

VH

Vulcan Husband would have been 44 today. The kids and I are going out to dinner to commemorate, as we do every year for his birthday.

Yay for B&N

I am pleased to report that B&N has returned all samples to their website:-).

More on PubIt

Dear Author has picked up on the PubIt sample situation, here.

A brief rant

Some of the arguments made by other authors about B&N's removal of the samples from erotica amaze me. They include:

1. Erotica writers are just overreacting.

2. It's just business on B&N's part, and clearly erotica writers don't understand business.

3. Erotica writers should have expected something like this to happen, so why are they complaining?

4. B&N doesn't review indie books before they're posted, and so they have to limit their liability this way. (If so, then taking the sample off clearly labeled and marked erotica makes no sense-- shouldn't they just take it off ALL indie books?).

5. Erotica writers aren't worried about the principle of the thing as much as they're worried about their bottom line. (Why is this a problem? Is there something wrong with being worried about one's income?)

In any event, as usual, it's clear that other authors aren't going to get upset about it until it happens to them. But if B&N takes away samples from all PubIt work, you can bet there will be a furious outcry, and that suddenly it will matter.

Writing while driving

Today I went to see Dad. It's about a forty-minute drive, and while I was tooling down the interstate, I suddenly figured out what I wanted my next Ellen Fisher book to be about, who the main characters were, what their conflicts were, and how this book tied into two of my others.

It's amazing how these things always come to me when I am away from the computer!

Now the green blade rises

Here in southern Virginia, the signs of spring are everywhere. The birch and willow trees show a distinct green fuzziness where they're beginning to leaf out, my hyacinths and daffodils are close to opening, and my forsythia is beginning to flower. (On a less poetic note, there are a ton of new weeds in my flowerbeds that need to be yanked.) And yet last night, we had quite a heavy frost. It's funny to see spring and winter co-existing, but I suppose it makes a good metaphor for life... sometimes you get frost along with the flowers:-).

B&N, why do you suck so hard?

As a followup to my last post, compare B&N's Current PubIt Bestsellers list (on the right of the page) to the actual list of bestselling PubIt books. What's missing from the former? You got it-- any and all erotic romance titles.

Boo on B&N

Tina Folsom noted on Kindleboards that B&N has removed the "sample" feature for a lot of erotic romances (but not all of them) without warning or explanation. This will probably adversely impact sales for a lot of us, unfortunately.

I was just about to write a slightly smug and self-congratulatory post about how I'd managed to sell so many books lately, but since I can already see my sales falling off, I'll postpone the self-congratulations for now *smiles wryly*. This just underscores the need for indie authors to have their eggs in a lot of different baskets, as far as I'm concerned. It sometimes seems like every time you really get moving, someone kicks your legs out from under you...

Sales for the month

I sold a lot of books this month-- enough to pay my mortgage twice over, with some money left to pay other bills too. If I could continue to sell at this rate, I'd be a happy camper.

What's interesting is that a lot of these sales are of short stories. I'll post some more later about this.