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OppositeOfLove
Feb 11, 2009
If I put a :smug: in my post - that means I'm right no matter what.

Azure_Horizon posted:

Well, the hot guy on the cover certainly piques my curiousity.

Good times - I'm sure that kid would be flattered to know you thought so.

Flotilla is a near future sci-fi novel about a teenage boy who raises fish, dodges fish and grows up on the open ocean. With rehab behind him, Jim is exiled to a seasteading colony off the coast of California with his estranged father, Rick. Together, they live by their wits, scamming seafarers until a national disaster rocks the nearby mainland. Rick is forced to assist with rescue operations, leaving Jim behind.

You can read a sample chapter here

All Jim wanted was a chance to put some bad choices behind him and bond with his father. Now, though, he's dodging drug lords, police, and angered colonists while terrorist attacks erupt only a few miles away. Is this the life a fifteen-year-old should lead?

You can check out Flotilla in a few different formats:
Flotilla - Hard Copy - Goons: Use the coupon code W28J3AMB for 10% off
Get Flotilla on your Kindle
Get Flotilla on Your Nook

And we have a very active community on Facebook that discusses the real technology and issues that Flotilla's setting is based on (seasteading, mariculture, piracy) at https://www.facebook.com/FlotillaOnline

OppositeOfLove fucked around with this message at 14:28 on Dec 7, 2011

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clockworkjoe
May 31, 2000

Rolled a 1 on the random encounter table, didn't you?
Saw this blog post and was curious about what you guys thought about raising prices to spur more sales. Do you think this case is right or the exception to the rule?

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2011/12/guest-post-by-elle-lothlorien.html

MattDaddy
Apr 10, 2006

You can do it. Run Mr. Pug, run.

clockworkjoe posted:

Saw this blog post and was curious about what you guys thought about raising prices to spur more sales. Do you think this case is right or the exception to the rule?

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2011/12/guest-post-by-elle-lothlorien.html

That's a tough call. I think for established authors with a fan base, charging $5.99+ for their novels is probably doable and smart. Hell, Stephen King and several others have fuckin' ebooks that they are charging $14.99 for. Ask me if I think it is actually worth paying that much. (no) But for super-popular authors like King, his readers don't care about price (up to a reasonable figure, of course).

For newbies, it's unlikely to generate you a dedicated fan base if no one is actually buying your work.

Then again, the perception that something is worthwhile because it costs more may garner more initial sales, but it's a surefire way to also garner bad reviews unless the readers feel like they got their moneys worth. Of course, you're also more likely to get positive reviews if those same purchasers really liked your work and paid more for it.

Sort of like if I went to an expensive restaurant, paid way too much, but the food was very good, I would probably tell my friends about it. If the food sucked, I would bitch about it. I mean -gently caress- this steak cost $50 and it was like eating a tire!

If the cook at McDonald's made a burger that tasted really good compared to the usual fare, I would probably just nod my head and enjoy it quietly. If the burger sucked rear end, I would probably nod my head and throw it in the trash, but not necessarily feel the need to tell others about it. I'm not lovin' it.

I guess the best way to figure out what works best is to experiment and price your work according to how good you expect the reviews to be. The four 99 cent serial chapters of it have slowly dropped down the ranks and hover between #85 and #125 usually. I can easily notice which days they are within the top 100 - I get about twice as many sales overnight.

MattDaddy fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Jun 22, 2013

Roar
Jul 7, 2007

I got 30 points!

I GOT 30 POINTS!
I think he makes some valid points. I've only published short stories (Less than 10k words) so far and I couldn't imagine anyone paying more than $0.99 for them and as such don't charge any more that. When it comes to full-length works, though...I dunno.

Mortanis
Dec 28, 2005

It's your father's lightsaber. This is the weapon of a Jedi Knight.
College Slice
I bumped my book from 2.99 to 3.99 based on reading that. I haven't had any sales. Of course, I barely had any sales before, so who knows. 3.99 is reasonable for a 90k word novel, I think.

OppositeOfLove
Feb 11, 2009
If I put a :smug: in my post - that means I'm right no matter what.
What I've heard is "It's very easy to go down - it's hard to go up."

I think bumping a novel from x to x + $1 really misses the point. Like somebody told me a while back, in terms of sale price:

"If they're negotiating on price - they don't really want to buy. Negotiate on value, not price."

I've been doing some reading on how to position my novel in different ways - it's been interesting.

FingerbangMisfire
Feb 17, 2007

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, honesty, and decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.

Roar posted:

I think he makes some valid points. I've only published short stories (Less than 10k words) so far and I couldn't imagine anyone paying more than $0.99 for them and as such don't charge any more that. When it comes to full-length works, though...I dunno.

I'm in the same boat. I've only published short stories on Amazon. For a full-length novel, I don't see where $4.99 or $5.99 is too extravagant. Especially when compared to what the traditional publishers are doing (raping the wallets of e-reader owners).

Soulcleaver
Sep 25, 2007

Murderer
I put my e-book (48k words) on Kindle for $4.99 at first but lowered it to $2.99 based on advice from this thread. Not that it's helped sales any, but I think it was the right thing to do.

Mortanis
Dec 28, 2005

It's your father's lightsaber. This is the weapon of a Jedi Knight.
College Slice

OppositeOfLove posted:

What I've heard is "It's very easy to go down - it's hard to go up."

I think bumping a novel from x to x + $1 really misses the point. Like somebody told me a while back, in terms of sale price:

"If they're negotiating on price - they don't really want to buy. Negotiate on value, not price."

I've been doing some reading on how to position my novel in different ways - it's been interesting.

I don't see how this really works, unless potential customers have visited my book on Amazon, saw the 2.99 price, didn't pull the trigger and went back later. The vast majority that find it are going to see the current price, not the historical price.

MattDaddy
Apr 10, 2006

You can do it. Run Mr. Pug, run.
Well as some of you have probably noticed, KDP Select started enrolling today. How many of you are going to check it out? Do you think it is a viable model for making money / gaining new readers?

Personally, I am enrolling two of my shorter stories which have had relatively flat sales to give it a spin. I'll let you know how it turns out.

workingdogv1
Jul 10, 2001

:catdrugs:

Mortanis posted:

I bumped my book from 2.99 to 3.99 based on reading that. I haven't had any sales. Of course, I barely had any sales before, so who knows. 3.99 is reasonable for a 90k word novel, I think.

I did the same thing and actually did pick up a few sales, along with someone showing interest in reviewing the book. Could it have been that, or my ongoing marketing efforts? Hard to say, but I'm going to leave it there for a little while and see what happens.

I'm enrolling an erotica in KDP Select. The whole Amazon exclusivity thing killed my initial enthusiasm for anything more.

Edit: By the way, finding in-person marketing to be the most effective marketing, by far. I sold out my initial shipment of print books in less than 24 hours, and most of my second shipment is already accounted for. It helps that I get a healthy $5 profit on each copy sold, too. I've also been able to push some interest in my digital versions, too, by engaging with people at the office, near where I live, etc. I'm a pretty soft sell, but it seems to work.

workingdogv1 fucked around with this message at 14:55 on Dec 8, 2011

Roar
Jul 7, 2007

I got 30 points!

I GOT 30 POINTS!
I don't want to join KDP Select. Holy poo poo are they trying to get me to, though. The KDP dashboard is covered with links and checkboxes for it.

Mortanis
Dec 28, 2005

It's your father's lightsaber. This is the weapon of a Jedi Knight.
College Slice
The KDP exclusive is interesting, but I'm not sure the benefits outweigh the growing marketshare of the Nook readers and iBookstore. It looks like you get some sort of undefined marketing for 5 days out of every 90 days (I can't see the promotional tools without going exclusive, so I'm not sure how good those are). Plus a share of the lending pool of cash, which is intriguing - it looks like we'd start trying to convince our readers to borrow our book as much as buy.

However, I've sold one non Amazon book. If I lend out just two books in the same time period, exclusive pays off. The flip side is that one non Amazon was a friend that got it from the B&N store for his nook. Without Amazon selling epub format, it is locking out a growing reader base, and I'm reticent to do that. There's also concerns about making Amazon back into a monopoly as well.

I'd love to see some numbers after this has been running a month, to see how many people are in the lending program and how thin the slices of pie wind up being. If there's a huge influx of people scrabbling to go exclusive and the average book gets loaned our 4 times, then it might not be worth anything.

MattDaddy
Apr 10, 2006

You can do it. Run Mr. Pug, run.

Mortanis posted:

It looks like you get some sort of undefined marketing for 5 days out of every 90 days (I can't see the promotional tools without going exclusive, so I'm not sure how good those are).

From what I can tell, KDP Select authors have the option of being able to offer their books for $0 up to 5 days out of every 90 day period. How this is marketed is a mystery for now, but I do know that the titles I chose to add to KPD Select are now offered to Amazon Prime members for free, and openly displayed right on the product page. I am unable to tell if that applies to one title at a time or 5 days of promotion for each title.

There is also some fine print which basically tells you that if you offer your book digitally anywhere else, even giving out free digital copies on your own website, that you will be breaching the non-compete clause of the Select agreement and could have your Select as well as regular KDP titles pulled. Print copies are perfectly fine, though.

A brief writeup is here -> http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2011/12/fine-print-of-amazons-new-kdp-select.html

Mortanis
Dec 28, 2005

It's your father's lightsaber. This is the weapon of a Jedi Knight.
College Slice
Yeah. The $0 thing seems pointless to me, though I know KindleBoards is all nuts about using a free book as a loss leader for other books. I see potential, but not enough to say "exclusive" yet.

The lending thing is super interesting. It seems you get highly rewarded for loaning out a book - potentially much, much more rewarded, depending on the numbers. I'm guessing this is a double plus for Amazon - get people interested in Amazon as THE source for indie books, but also lending is a good way to pimp Prime for them. They win in both scenarios, and take authors with them.

Very, very interesting, but I think it needs a few months to really see the potential. I know there's a few prominent and high-sold KindleBoards authors giving it a try, so we should get some good data eventually.

leb388
Nov 25, 2005

My home planet is far away and long since gone.
I bumped my book's price way up (to $4.79), partly because of that post. I don't expect sales to go up, but $2.99 now seems way too low to me for a novel. I see people pricing novellas at that price. A lot of people have told me they won't even blink at an ebook that's less than $5, but don't want to pay more than that.

As for KDP: The exclusivity deal made me pass, though I might come back to it later with a short story or something (unless it's just for full-length books).

Stupid_Sexy_Flander
Mar 14, 2007

Is a man not entitled to the haw of his maw?
Grimey Drawer
I read the link, but I don't really agree with it much.

Granted, at 99 cents I am way more lenient about a book not being the greatest, but at 5.99 I expect a damned good book and if it seems even the least bit "eh" from the description I don't buy it, or if it sucks I ask for a refund.

2.99 is a nice area for me cause it's basically "gently caress it, it's less than a meal at mcdonalds" so I don't feel the need to really budget out for that. Impulse buying at it's best.

4.99 or 5.99 and up is where it falls into "Ok, do I REALLY want to read this?" and I have to think about it. Most of the time I just add it to my wish list and forget about it.

I know I will buy the next Jeff Strand book at 5$ or whatever it is, but some dude I don't know and might not have the best cover art? (yes I do judge a book by it's cover) That's more of a "lost customer" than a "eh, chance it".

To me, amazon is a lot like steam. I have games I can't play on my steam list cause my pc isn't man enough to handle it, but gently caress, it was only 2$. Why not get it and just play it on a better computer later? Same goes with amazon. It's 2$, gently caress it, I will read it eventually.

Mortanis
Dec 28, 2005

It's your father's lightsaber. This is the weapon of a Jedi Knight.
College Slice
Print version of my book is finally available. I guess I'm done with the creation stuff now, and it's all pure marketing now. I've sold a handful, at least.

Roar
Jul 7, 2007

I got 30 points!

I GOT 30 POINTS!

Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:

Granted, at 99 cents I am way more lenient about a book not being the greatest, but at 5.99 I expect a damned good book and if it seems even the least bit "eh" from the description I don't buy it, or if it sucks I ask for a refund.

A lot of the books on the Kindle store from the 'established' authors aren't much less than the physical copies of the books they sell. $4-6 doesn't seem too outrageous for someone without any street cred who most likely spent the same amount of time working on a book.

Assuming they ARE good, that is. If they're poo poo, all bets are off. v:shobon:v

Roar
Jul 7, 2007

I got 30 points!

I GOT 30 POINTS!
Double-posting all up in this bitch.

http://blog.smashwords.com/2011/12/amazon-shows-predatory-spots-with-kdp.html

Here's Smashwords take on the KDP Select thing. Main point: If you sign up with Select, any books that participate are contractually obligated to be 100% Amazon exclusive.

leb388
Nov 25, 2005

My home planet is far away and long since gone.

Roar posted:

Double-posting all up in this bitch.

http://blog.smashwords.com/2011/12/amazon-shows-predatory-spots-with-kdp.html

Here's Smashwords take on the KDP Select thing. Main point: If you sign up with Select, any books that participate are contractually obligated to be 100% Amazon exclusive.

Thanks for the link. I added it to my blog post about it: http://lauraebradford.blogspot.com/2011/12/amazon-kindles-new-lending-library-and.html

Not surprised at all the backlash; this was a bad move on Amazon's part.

Unbelievably Fat Man
Jun 1, 2000

Innocent people. I could never hurt innocent people.


I could see it being some kind of worthwhile deal if Amazon provided some actual backup but I agree that they'll probably just let you drop the price to zero for a little bit or something. I mean you can do that on Smashwords easily (and it'll migrate to Amazon via that, or sometimes Amazon will just decide your book's free anyway).

FingerbangMisfire
Feb 17, 2007

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, honesty, and decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.

OppositeOfLove posted:

Whole bunch of awesome.

I will add this to the OP as soon as I get to work (after sleeping, of course).

And I apologize for being pretty well absent from the discussion. Life's just been very much life recently.

CARRY ON, WRITERS

Stupid_Sexy_Flander
Mar 14, 2007

Is a man not entitled to the haw of his maw?
Grimey Drawer

Roar posted:

A lot of the books on the Kindle store from the 'established' authors aren't much less than the physical copies of the books they sell. $4-6 doesn't seem too outrageous for someone without any street cred who most likely spent the same amount of time working on a book.

Assuming they ARE good, that is. If they're poo poo, all bets are off. v:shobon:v

True, and for authors I know or have read before, it's not a problem grabbing the newest one at 5 or 6 bucks.

It's the "never heard of this guy" authors that I will end up passing on. A buck or two for a novella or novel, awesome and I will try it out. Might be cool. Hell, that's how I found the Dresden Files and I am a huge fan. Found em at a used book store for 50 cents a pop, and got home and bought the rest after finishing the ones I bought.

I guess a good compromise would be for a new author who hasn't made any real "street cred" to have some examples of their work up for around a buck or two. Their writing ends up being good enough, I don't mind spending the cash for a book.

Finding a good author in the bajillions on amazon though.. THAT'S the trick :haw:

OppositeOfLove
Feb 11, 2009
If I put a :smug: in my post - that means I'm right no matter what.

FingerbangMisfire posted:

I will add this to the OP as soon as I get to work (after sleeping, of course).

And I apologize for being pretty well absent from the discussion. Life's just been very much life recently.

CARRY ON, WRITERS

Why, thank you!

Roshi
Sep 25, 2002

Somebody from CC wasted $10 on a guy who does not give a shit what they think, so I'm re-purposing it because I'm too lazy to come up with another one.
All future novella releases are going to be 2.99, starting with K23 Detectives short story anthology I'm working on called Sandworm Rodeo. Its basically lots and lots of new side stories Unlike the existing ones, you do have to read the novellas for it to make much sense, because most of them tie into the main series, some are "origin stories" to existing characters. Others are what's going on between in the two months between the third and fourth(of which there is a lot of stuff). The non-series stories will introduce the remaining races not already shown and the other three continents in Terrall. It's sort of like the similirion so to speak. The fourth is being delayed until the spring, giving people enough time to read those that exist.

It'll be novella length as on top of the 13 new(maybe more), 6 existing ones are going in.

Roshi fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Dec 9, 2011

workingdogv1
Jul 10, 2001

:catdrugs:

leb388 posted:

Thanks for the link. I added it to my blog post about it: http://lauraebradford.blogspot.com/2011/12/amazon-kindles-new-lending-library-and.html

Not surprised at all the backlash; this was a bad move on Amazon's part.

Oh hey, today I find out I've been following a fellow goon for quite some time.

Agreed about this being a bad PR move, but it's a tremendous coup for them at the same time. I have a feeling that author exclusives are just going to get uglier and uglier in the near future, with Rowling's Sony exclusivity sort of being the first shot. It makes sense that we're going to see it, too; digital gaming has had it for some time, and digital music also offers it.

Why wouldn't it make the most sense in the world to try to throw money at some of the most vulnerable members of the new community and hope you can snag the next Amanda Hocking or John Locke exclusively on your platform? The bad PR will eventually blow over, and in the meantime you've pumped up Prime's profile and, as I said, snagged some potentially great authors for a relative pittance.

Myrddin Emrys
Jul 3, 2003

Ho ho ho, Pac-man!
Well KAS has been submitted to Amazon/B&N so it should launch today or tomorrow.

Azure_Horizon
Mar 27, 2010

by Reene


http://www.amazon.com/Resistance-Front-ebook/dp/B006K37U0Y/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1323464276&sr=1-3

It's up! I wonder if it should be put in the OP considering it has 3 goons inside.

Myrddin Emrys
Jul 3, 2003

Ho ho ho, Pac-man!

Azure_Horizon posted:



http://www.amazon.com/Resistance-Front-ebook/dp/B006K37U0Y/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1323464276&sr=1-3

It's up! I wonder if it should be put in the OP considering it has 3 goons inside.

Normally I'd say it's a grey area, but it's for charity and is $1 so I say why the hell not.

FingerbangMisfire
Feb 17, 2007

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, honesty, and decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.
Yeah, it should. Top one, in fact.

Roar
Jul 7, 2007

I got 30 points!

I GOT 30 POINTS!
Okay, so I'm in the final steps of getting my first full-length book out there on Amazon/Smashwords etc (well, not the first novel, but the first I think is worth publishing). I've never been much of a graphic designer, but I've taught myself some photoshop (sort of) and put together this.


click for full


How badly does it make me look like an indie hack? I really want this book to be my first real venture beyond short stories, so I want to make a good impression. If it's garbage feel free to tell me, I'd rather hear it from you guys than not get any sales thanks to appearance alone.

e: Eesh, the red text in the timg is almost blinding.

FingerbangMisfire
Feb 17, 2007

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, honesty, and decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.
Boy, that red is really bright. And the spaces between letters in the text is a bit too wide. What if you turned the image to greyscale and used white text (or white text with a black outline)?

The photo is very pretty, though.

Myrddin Emrys
Jul 3, 2003

Ho ho ho, Pac-man!
In my opinion there's also too much "whitespace" at the top of the image, before the title. Either move the title up a bit or put something else there.

Humbaba
Aug 4, 2006
That title screams screams screams that an amateur created the cover. Go look at a bunch of covers on Amazon and steal some ideas for the font and shadowing. Other than the title it looks good.

Roar
Jul 7, 2007

I got 30 points!

I GOT 30 POINTS!
Oh, wow, I didn't even realize that there was a way TO change the text spacing. Learn something new every day when it comes to PS.

Take 2!



Better/worse? Greyscale made the picture look flat, in my opinion, but I think the black text works a lot better.

Humbaba posted:

That title screams screams screams that an amateur created the cover. Go look at a bunch of covers on Amazon and steal some ideas for the font and shadowing. Other than the title it looks good.

I am an amateur when it comes to photoshop :( I just don't understand enough about the effects to get that professional look. I really ought to look into some classes for this sort of stuff.

clockworkjoe
May 31, 2000

Rolled a 1 on the random encounter table, didn't you?
its a boring photo to be honest. Nothing about it suggests anything about its plot or theme or anything.

Sundae
Dec 1, 2005

vseslav.botkin posted:

Would you guys be interested in a private forum for sharing and editing between goons? I'm working on setting up a website and it looks like it would be pretty easy to do.

A bit old, but did this ever end up happening? I'm taking a look at Scribophile in the meantime, but a goon group would be pretty awesome.

MattDaddy
Apr 10, 2006

You can do it. Run Mr. Pug, run.

Roar posted:

Oh, wow, I didn't even realize that there was a way TO change the text spacing. Learn something new every day when it comes to PS.

Take 2!



Better/worse? Greyscale made the picture look flat, in my opinion, but I think the black text works a lot better.


I am an amateur when it comes to photoshop :( I just don't understand enough about the effects to get that professional look. I really ought to look into some classes for this sort of stuff.

Honestly, the first thing that came to my mind that that you want to buy a house. Maybe something like a blurred mugshot would be better? Of course, I have no idea what your book is about so that might not work either!

MattDaddy fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Dec 11, 2011

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aMoose
Nov 26, 2005
He who fucks nuns will later join the church.

Roar posted:

Oh, wow, I didn't even realize that there was a way TO change the text spacing. Learn something new every day when it comes to PS.

Take 2!



Better/worse? Greyscale made the picture look flat, in my opinion, but I think the black text works a lot better.


I am an amateur when it comes to photoshop :( I just don't understand enough about the effects to get that professional look. I really ought to look into some classes for this sort of stuff.

I think you should just pick out a handful of book covers that are good (and that you like) and then copy one of them.

The canvas filter looks incredibly cheap. In fact stay away from most filters altogether. Aside from that, it's a somewhat uneasy composition. The type doesn't sit well together (narrow white san-serif with white-outlined black serif), and it's not aligned either. Essentially, you need to learn the very basics of graphic design, otherwise you will end up with a distinctly homemade look.

99% of self-publishers suffer from this, though (text superimposed over filtered photo).


OppositeOfLove posted:





Here's another example from a few posts back. It looks like something that would've been given away free with a magazine in the early 90s. Too many elements and no sense of composition.

aMoose fucked around with this message at 13:56 on Dec 12, 2011

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