Indie success stories, part... I lost count

Traditionally published romance author Courtney Milan (first published in 2010) just released her first indie book, Unlocked. And already it's #82 in the Kindle store!

She also blogs about her decision to go indie with her next novel here.

New covers!

Two for upcoming books, one for an older book, all by Terry R. of TERyvisions:

No one is dumb enough to fall for this... right?

PublishAmerica now offers literary agent representation for a mere $199.

Article on indie publishing

An article on indie publishing in the Washington Post features Bella Andre.

"Here’s what her first quarter looked like: 56,008 books sold; income, $116,264."

Come chat with me

I started a chatty thread on the Kindle Meet our Authors forum for authors and readers to discuss romance. Whether it'll catch on or not, I have no idea, but I figured I'd try. Come introduce yourself if you feel so inclined. We could use more chat and less promo over there!

My covers were never this bad...

Via Dean Wesley Smith. DA has a post about Loretta Chase's new cover. It's backlist, packaged by her agent, and apparently she is under the impression they have to use public domain art, and that she can't "micromanage" (a simple "God, that sucks, try again" would have sufficed). The comments indicate the formatting's not good, either. For this she's paying her agent to package her books? For heaven's sake, what for? Anyone who's even slightly familiar with Photoshop could make a better cover than this one.

Intriguing

Barry Eisler, who famously passed up a half million from a publisher in order to self-publish, has now signed with Amazon's new imprint Thomas and Mercer for a similar amount. (Recently on Konrath's blog, he said about passing up the contract with a Big Six publisher, " I know it’ll seem crazy to a lot of people, but based on what’s happening in the industry, and based on the kind of experience writers like you are having in self-publishing, I think I can do better in the long term on my own.") J.A. Konrath also has a book coming from Thomas and Mercer. Both authors felt at one point that they could do better with self-publishing, but apparently now have been convinced that in some cases, at least, they can do better with a publisher. Presumably those nice high royalty rates have a lot to do with it:-).

Choo-choo

Yesterday I took my dad (an old railroad man) to Portsmouth to see an old Norfolk & Western steam engine and passenger train that's been restored. It was locked behind a fence, which meant we had to offroad his wheelchair across a grassy expanse to get a good look, which was not easy work for yours truly. But it was worth it, because he was thrilled.

Here is an article about the engine, with photos showing what it looked like after sixty years of neglect (very, very rusty!) and what it looks like now. This is a big engine, designed for pulling trains up into the mountains-- its coal tender is very nearly as long as the engine, which is unusual.

Here are additional pictures of the engine, tender, cars and caboose (site takes a while to load due to lots of pictures!).

Interesting

Christopher Smith was a huge indie success with his first novel, Fifth Avenue. He's recently released two YA books, both packaged by Trident Media, but neither is selling well right now (one is ranked in the #27,000s and the other in the #49,000s). The sales may well improve, of course, but the books have apparently not been strong out of the gate, the way Fifth Avenue was. I don't know if the relatively low sales are due to his change in genre, or if it has something to do with the book packager, but it's a reminder that even if you have one bestseller, future books are not guaranteed the same success. (And considering I have one book that continues to plod along at a mere fifteen to twenty copies sold a month, I can relate.)

Have some cheese with that whine

Ever since Amazon moved all its author promotion to a single forum, there has been a massive amount of whining and complaining from authors (even on Kindleboards, which is supposed to have a "what happens on Amazon stays on Amazon" rule). While I understand this impulse, at some point it needs to stop. I made a post or two on Amazon stating that I thought it was a bad idea, and that I'd have preferred a single promo thread per genre forum-- but then I quit complaining. There is no point in going on and on and on about it; all that does is drive readers away from the forum and make it an unpleasant place for anyone to hang out.

It's especially bad to blame readers. Sure, some of them have been anti-promo, or at least anti-spam, but that's entirely understandable in a lot of cases. If you ever visited the Erotica or the Kindle Books forum, you could see the effects of unrestrained self-promotion. Also, quite a few authors got out of hand, and made really obnoxious asses of themselves all over Amazon. Thus it's easy to understand why some readers disliked author promos. The problem was the authors who didn't behave, not the readers.

Just as annoying to me are the few writers who keep insisting that this is some sort of Evil Conspiracy on the part of Amazon. They feel that Amazon is pushing indie authors to the side so that they can promote their own publishing imprints. This seems illogical to me (these authors are ignoring the fact that Amazon already had an imprint, AmazonEncore), and in any event, even if it were true, complaining isn't going to change it.

And that's my basic point-- whining here, there and everywhere isn't going to change this. It's Amazon's board, and we have to play by their rules. So quit complaining, put on your friendly, professional face, and do your best to make the Meet the Authors board a place readers want to visit.

Ebooks sell

According to this press release from Amazon, "Today, less than four years after introducing Kindle books, Amazon.com customers are now purchasing more Kindle books than all print books - hardcover and paperback - combined."

Also, the Kindle with ads is now their bestseller. Too bad-- they'll probably conclude from this that people don't mind ads, and who knows where they might turn up next? I hate ads:-(.

Amazon and typos

An author on Kindleboards reports that Amazon rejected her book due to typos. This might be a good thing, except Amazon apparently will not clarify the matter-- they just say there are issues, and leave it to the author to correct. This means that if Amazon is in error, an author might never get the problem fixed to their satisfaction. Also, IMHO it's a bad thing for Amazon to start getting involved in content-- I certainly don't want them rejecting books based on, say, plot content. Amazon is a distributor, not a publisher, and I really don't want to see them acting like a publisher. But I realize that readers who have come across badly formatted, typo-ridden indie books may not agree *shrugs*.

Indie success stories, part whatever

Indie author Theresa Ragan reports selling 10,000 copies in under ten weeks.

My kid is smarter than I am

Her book is now available on Smashwords. I haven't had the nerve to try Smash yet (it looks commmmmplicated, pardon the whiny voice:-), but I guess it's time to ask her to show me how to format for Smashwords. It's a bit embarrassing to have a fifteen-year-old whose book is available in more places than mine are!

A day at the park

We had fun this afternoon. The brother-in-law called and invited us to go to the park. So we all piled into the van (including Impulse, the dog who's less excitable and better behaved in public), met them at the park, and let our collective six children run around for an hour or two. We also shared a bucket of fried chicken (except for Impulse, who gave us sad eyes about it, but who was consoled by a few bites of Golden Oreos). It was a beautiful day, and everyone had fun.

Amazon changes the rules

It appears that Amazon has a new board here for promotion. The rules state, "With the advent of the new community, we will no longer allow self-promotional posts in other communities. Starting on Saturday, May 14th, all 'shameless self promotion' activity will be limited to the `Meet Our Authors' community. Promotional threads outside of these forums will be removed."

While this is a good idea in practice, it probably means that this particular board will be frequented by authors, and very few readers. Since there are no mods, it will be overrun with threads for single books very quickly, making it impossible to navigate. So I suspect posting on Amazon will rapidly become next to useless as far as promotion is concerned. Too bad, but hardly surprising.

Sigh

If English is not your first language, you might want to get your book properly translated before trying to sell it. An indie author has been hitting the Amazon boards fairly hard with promos for this book, and readers are not showing signs of interest, probably due to the summary:

The name of main character is Jim Ryan.
Jim is archeology that suffers from insomnia disease.
One day Jim from the museum went to discover ancient monuments will be sent to Egypt. When Jim goes to that area, an antique caves located within one will find in Egypt.
Jim wanted it that antique take with him to the museum, suddenly, an anonymous person with a stick on tight turns and Jim is anesthetized and goes to sleep.
When Jim goes to sleep the sleep that sees itself finds a glowing sphere. In seeking clues to the strange events of Jim falls, which are forced together to discover the secret of the ball could pass through strange lands, so that!

Sounds like a Mad Lib, doesn't it? This kind of thing does nothing to improve the public image of indie authors, particularly when the author spams the boards and makes himself very, very noticeable. It's frustrating. But once again, I suppose we just have to remember that we have no control over what other authors do. We can only control our own product, and our own behavior.

Tweet, don't twit

If all you ever tweet about is your book(s)-- reviews, links, and so forth-- your Twitter followers are going to get bored. No one wants to see a constant stream of ads. I'm hardly a Twitter expert, but I'm pretty sure ads, ads and more ads are not really what your readers are looking for.

Relaxation the post-surgical way

It's been a crazy week. My apologies for not being around more, and apologies to those who sent emails I haven't responded to yet. I'll try to get back to everyone early next week.

I've had an insanely busy week of running around with kids (minor brag: oldest kid got her next belt in karate, yay!) and cleaning the house, which badly needed it. I also haven't been feeling particularly good, and could have used a lot more sofa time than I've gotten. But tomorrow I have minor surgery, which means that once I get home, I am REQUIRED to lie on the sofa. Imagine! It's gonna be great!

Well, okay, the surgery's not going to be terrific, and getting up at 5:30 in the morning is a pain, and I'm really not looking forward to the anesthesia (I heard the word "spinal" mentioned, ugh). But afterward, I get to lie on the sofa and chill, for at least a whole day... and that sounds like a day in paradise to me:-).

Amazon romance imprint

Amazon launches a new romance imprint, Montlake Romance. The launch author, unsurprisingly, is Connie Brockway.

Work, work

Got a book up for my alter ego today. I'm hoping to get one more edited and posted tomorrow. I have minor surgery later this week, and I'd like to get everything done before then.

I also took two kids to the orthodontist, and this evening I'm going to juggle kids-- one has to go to a play rehearsal, the other to Tae Kwon Do. So that'll be quite a bit of driving crammed into two hours. And tomorrow I get to drive Dad to a doctor appointment. I swear I should just paint my minivan yellow and stick a TAXI sign on it!