The story so far...

The second week in August hasn’t been too cruel in terms of units sold at the Kindle Store. It’s down but only by about a dozen copies, so I guess the downturn predicted by many in the Kindle Boards did not really apply to my title.

Again, there is absolutely no action at Barnes & Noble, just as if the titles did not exist at all. Frankly, I don’t know what to do about it. Since April there have been exactly four sales for different titles, so I know they are listed.

My own theory is that there are far more Kindles than Nooks, but this theory is suspect in that it has no basis in anything other than a quick judgment.

At Smashwords, the action has slowed down, but there are still downloads. The cookbook is up to 1547, the novel has 72 downloads of the sample (and a potential for sales when the readers dig into it). The short story has 37 downloads.

Since the last update none of the titles seem to have shipped to the other retailers and reporting is rather slow in coming. I’m patient, I can wait it out.

Over at the Kindle Boards, I tested a cover that I wasn’t so sure about and apparently my initial misgivings were right on the money. It confused the heck out of some and, generally they disliked some or most elements of it.

That old adage about not judging a book by its cover is silly because the cover is the first thing we see and what compels us, along with the title – if in the right category. We all judge the book by its cover. It conveys what we might find inside, visual clues of where the story might take us. If the cover sucks, many of the readers will quickly bypass it and its description and move on. This is no way to do business in an ebook market.

Ultimately, what I find truly valuable here is a community that is open to offer help and advice. Instant, intelligent panels. Priceless!

The Future is Here. Or a Dream...

There is an interesting piece in The Guardian about the business of publishing, ebooks and Amazon as a factor driving prices down. I don’t particularly agree with all the author’s conclusions, but it is worth a read and further discussion.

The blog piece titled “The true price of publishing,” pretends to have the answer to whether ebooks have reignited the question of what we're really paying publishers for – the physical product, or what's written inside?

Personally, I think Mr. Skidelsky simplifies the matter to an extend that it ignores several market factors – not the least of which is that a good number of writers have shun the traditional publishers and opted for self-publishing, and these have in some respects helped set the prices and expectations of readers.

To say that this alone has served to bring prices down for ebooks is also an oversimplification. It is, however, a factor that must be considered.

I do find it almost comical that Amazon seems to strike the fear of an unforgiving god into the industry, but it remains slow in adapting to this new world that has opened before them and grows stronger by the day. I have often argued that the biggest hurdle the publishing industry must defeat is its own insistence on perpetrating this Victorian model of business that has been increasingly failing them for the last few decades.

Then again, maybe they’ll wish upon a Perseid Shower and this will have been nothing but a trendy phase, a fad…

Kitty's Rolling in It Now!

Reading some of the comments on Kindleboards would make anyone cringe. The summer months tend to mean lean sales for many. As I read the authors’ comments, the idea that everything in life has its cycles danced around my head.

Especially in a day and age of e-readers, it stands to reason that people have stacks of unread offerings waiting. Summer reading then becomes a matter of enjoying your own backlist. I prefer to think that folks would rather spend their time doing that and enjoying what limited good weather they are afforded by nature than searching for new books to buy…

I could be wrong.

Some books have a shelf-life (but these would be vanity pieces by celebutards). My titles aren’t dated and I expect that they’ll sell for quite a bit, if I’m fortunate. Patience is a very real test when self-publishing.

I just got paid my first royalties and it feels awesome! It’s not a fortune but it is all mine. This is only part of the reason I did the work. It is a good foundation to what I wanted to create before I went back to work.

Jobs should start opening up en masse in publishing in the next few weeks and this is when things turn around for me. That’s also very exciting because while there are many jobs out there, the ones for me are somewhat limited right now (and the competition is killer!).

Meanwhile, I have created a nice little niche for myself and can build on it. That was part of the plan, so I am very satisfied with the first benchmark.

I can save this chunk of change or spend it at Trader Joe’s for an end of summer spread. The point is that I accomplished something I can be proud of and that I can expand upon for the rest of my days.

The Family Tree is finally finished and all that remains is editing. The memoir short is ready for editing as well. I’ll share news as it develops. For now, I will allow myself a moment to celebrate; but only a moment, can’t rest on your laurels in this business!

"I ain't gonna eat that!"

Since April, when I began this experiment in self-publishing, I have had relative success at Smashwords.

The short story has 35 downloads. The novel has 66 downloads and 7 units sold. The cookbook has sold 8 copies (since I put it up as a “set-your-your-price”) plus 1,526 free downloads. It has been a slow but relatively steady progress.

At least for the moment, I can conclude that I may not be able to retire on my self-published work, but I can expect modest royalties. Not bad given the effort, but I can up the ante by tweaking my marketing plan.

It all remains very interesting and exciting – especially because the market is still evolving.

I was very excited this afternoon when I got an e-mail notification about a review for the cookbook. My heart sank when the first word was a typo (This can’t end well!).

She hated it. She did not like the way it was written, she did not find one recipe worth a try. You know that proverb about how you can’t please all the people all the time? This reviewer is their leader.

I appreciate her opinion, even if I do not agree with her (obviously). A collector of cookbooks, she especially disliked the structure of the book – I supposed she wanted a more traditional Western format. But what really saddens me is that she couldn’t find a single recipe to inspire her.

With this particular reader I failed. What I wished for more than anything was for someone to read the essays or even the recipes and want to taste, to cook, to experiment with ingredients.

I was hoping that I could take the criticism, when it inevitably came, and be able to use it constructively towards other projects (like I am doing by compiling the Family Tree edition). I’m not sure what to do with this review other than feel bad she couldn’t find one thing to try out. She mentions a 30-year-old book she loved. She knows what she likes. I simply did not wet her palate.

Am I upset she gave the book a bad review? Not really. She tried it and it wasn’t her cup of tea. I can live with that.

I would be upset if someone tried one of my recipes and it killed them.

Folks offering up their opinion are just exercising an inalienable right. And there’s no accounting for taste, is there? 

Excellent Adventure as it Stands

On the creative front, I started writing some scenes that may be a part of the steampunk series, but I am not entirely sure where they fit. I think I found the dark man character that makes a mysterious entrance and remains a shadowy vision for a bit. Again, none of this is clear to me. I do not want to force it because that just never works, but he is not fully formed. I don’t know how he figures in the story, but he insists he belongs…

I seem to be stuck for the last recipe for the cookbook. Originally there was going to be a coconut recipe, but I am not happy with anything I look at and there needs to be a better story to lead it.

The current government standoff regarding the debt ceiling seems to be applying external pressure for me to finish the other project – because in it the US cedes some territory to China to pay its debts but it won’t work if that fact can no longer be called “fiction.”

At the start of summer, I sat back to watch how my titles would do after the Smashwords sale began. The action in the last 2 weeks has been again dominated by the Kindle Store with over 400 copies of the cookbook sold. There is absolutely no action at Barnes & Noble’s Nook Store. It’s almost as if the books are invisible there!

Downloads have increased at Smashwords as well – 1518 for the cookbook, 63 for the novel and 30 for the short.

It’s not enough to retire, but that is with no new marketing. Interesting.

On other news, I lucked out and got in on the Google+ beta. I still believe it has great potential and hope that when we are done tweaking it we’ll have an extraordinary social media tool. I love the circles and the potential for people who want to maintain a private persona but still need a public one…I especially like the potential for video chats (hangouts) for the ebooks.

I edited a first person account of a concert that I wanted to release a short (cover attached) and do an event to launch it. The response was underwhelming (though those who responded were enthusiastic). Perhaps I will not do it for this project, but I think that it puts a lot more tools in the hands of epublishers and ebook writers to take charge of their marketing activities online.

As with everything, details as it all develops in my excellent adventure.

My Summer So Far

The action at Smashwords picked up a little bit in the last week or so. The novel sold one copy and a handful of people picked up the cookbook. There seems to have been a marked slowdown at Smashwords, and apparently Mark has noticed it as well. They’re addressing the issues and books will run through the premium catalogue faster.

There is no action at the independent sellers and apparently my titles are not there, which is a little strange because they were there earlier – but I suppose because I made changes last month and the titles needed to be resubmitted.

Amazon seems to have deleted the bad review for the cookbook, so now I have two five-star reviews. That’s good, but I wish they’d left the bad review in as it was the raison d’etre for the second volume, Family Tree…

Most of the action these last two weeks has occurred over at Amazon with 729 sales of the cookbook and one short. At Barnes & Noble nothing is happening. Nothing at all.

There is a translation of the short still in limbo because I have not received the final word from the editor. (That’s the draft of the cover, a sort of metaphysical call for a resolution…)

Everything else has slowed down at my end. I’ve been toying with a story but it refuses to shine. It keeps suggesting itself but it goes nowhere. The other day, just for fun I gave to a Michael Bay treatment. It still sucked, but the explosions were freaking awesome!

In the meantime, I am reviewing work in the drawers to see if any of it is ready to be published. Sometimes I find this part harder than the actual writing itself, especially because in my role as Publisher I appear to have become hypercritical. I was always a harsh editor, but who knew I’d be such as harsh mistress as a publisher.

Summer Reading Sale at Smashwords!

Over at the Kindleboards, some authors have created a Smashwords Summer Sale and I decided to join them. If any of you would like to take advantage, please be my guest and happy summer reading!

Justified is 50% off with coupon code QN65G. Putting May to Rest is 50% off with coupon code HB99A.  

Happy Independence Day!