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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK.... Wow, thanks for posting this. I entertained the idea for a half-second with the new format, but this pretty much kills any enthusiasm for that or iBooks. Way to shoot yourself in the foot, Apple. Also, Azure_Horizon, hang in there. I had a similar series of circumstances with my first published book - lost two cover artists due to their unprofessional conduct, and gave an editor the boot as well. There are a lot of people hanging around the periphery of the industry right now who smell money but lack the follow-through. I understand how easy it is to get discouraged, at times I thought those problems meant I shouldn't do it, but eventually I realized that the time would pass whether I fought for the book or not - might as well keep on trying to find that right person(s).
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Jan 20, 2012 15:29
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workingdogv1 posted:Wow, thanks for posting this. I entertained the idea for a half-second with the new format, but this pretty much kills any enthusiasm for that or iBooks. Way to shoot yourself in the foot, Apple. Wait, so if I submit my title to iBooks *I can't have it on any other platform??* 
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Jan 20, 2012 16:08
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in my post - that means I'm right no matter what.
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OppositeOfLove posted:Wait, so if I submit my title to iBooks *I can't have it on any other platform??* I think that's assuming you wrote it using their software, but if so, yeah. As the article says, just imagine if you had to pay royalties to MS and could only publish it through their system for using Word. Yeah, no thanks.
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Jan 20, 2012 19:06
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workingdogv1 posted:I think that's assuming you wrote it using their software, but if so, yeah. As the article says, just imagine if you had to pay royalties to MS and could only publish it through their system for using Word. Yeah, no thanks. I didn't write it using their software but since Ibooks requires you use Content Producer to get it uploaded into iTunes I might as well have. I've done a lot of research on this and you *have* to use the mac-based Content Producer tool to submit to iTunes. Wish this wasn't the case ... I don't want to shell out for the OSX upgrade so my powerbook will be compatible with the tool that will make my work un-sellable on other platforms.
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Jan 20, 2012 19:49
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You can't upload the .ibook output anywhere else but that's fun because nobody else uses .ibook. You still own your source files and text, and can compile/upload elsewhere, as long as it's not the .ibook output of the iBook app.
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Jan 20, 2012 21:02
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psychopomp posted:You can't upload the .ibook output anywhere else but that's fun because nobody else uses .ibook. Oh. Is there a way to compile .ibook without Content Producer? I'm happy to provide it in that platform.
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Jan 20, 2012 21:46
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I don't think so? As far as I can tell from the EULA, you can just use your doc (or whatever) file with the free iBook app though. I dunno. Might be less of a hassle than distrib through Smashwords.
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Jan 20, 2012 22:53
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psychopomp posted:I don't think so? As far as I can tell from the EULA, you can just use your doc (or whatever) file with the free iBook app though. Free ibook app ... what might that be? I thought you were supposed to use ITunes Producer and that's only supported in Mac OSX 10.4.6 or above. My powerbook is on 1.4.2.
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Jan 20, 2012 23:03
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http://www.apple.com/ibooks-author/ I assume. I dunno man, I don't have a mac.
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Jan 20, 2012 23:10
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psychopomp posted:http://www.apple.com/ibooks-author/ I assume. I dunno man, I don't have a mac. Yeah - there it is 'Requirements: Mac OS X 10.7.2 or later'
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Jan 20, 2012 23:28
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Mr. Belding posted:If you want, I could give it a look. As far as line editing, I'm not that great, but if there are major hole in the plot or such I'll see those right away, and if you're prose is clunky it will damage my ear to where I'll have to tell you.
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Jan 22, 2012 05:25
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Just uploaded a shortish book [~270 pages] from 1999 to the KindleStore; now it's sitting interminably In Review for at least the next several hours. Meaningless though I know the Review Process really is*, I can't help reloading kdp.amazon.com and thinking ooh; pick me—pick me until it updates to Publishing. *It's probably not truly meaningless; but I'm pretty comfy with the hypertext coding and compilation to .prc; also, the trade paperback has been available at amazon.com for a dozen years. Still: pick me—pick me....
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Jan 22, 2012 14:41
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Damnitologist posted:Just uploaded a shortish book [~270 pages] from 1999 to the KindleStore; now it's sitting interminably In Review for at least the next several hours. I learned an important truth about the publishing process, which is this: "The watched pot never boils." Go do something else, come back and then check. Don't drive yourself crazy.
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Jan 22, 2012 16:26
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OppositeOfLove posted:I learned an important truth about the publishing process, which is this: "The watched pot never boils." Go do something else, come back and then check. Don't drive yourself crazy. Oh yeah. I know. Though there's that cool thing when you reload the stats and watch the number of sales go up by the minute. But, sadly, that's later. For now, maybe I'll put in GrandTheftAuto and run over
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Jan 22, 2012 16:34
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I've learned from recent experience that it usually sits on In Review from 5-6 hours, then it sits on Publishing from 6-8 hours.
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Jan 22, 2012 16:41
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Damnitologist posted:Oh yeah. I know. Though there's that cool thing when you reload the stats and watch the number of sales go up by the minute. Yeah - I have no context for that - my sales don't go by the minute. 
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Jan 22, 2012 19:43
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Roar posted:I've learned from recent experience that it usually sits on In Review from 5-6 hours, then it sits on Publishing from 6-8 hours. Yup. I just went from In Review to Publishing. They like me; they really like me! And now, up to twelve more hours of F5ing kdp.amazon.drat. OppositeOfLove posted:Yeah - I have no context for that - my sales don't go by the minute. It not quite every minute. Though there are a couple of tricks you can pull: set a book to free for one to five days, obviously; or announce in advance that you're dropping the price from $2.99 to 99¢ for a couple days. People who have never heard of you are as likely as not to rush in and grab a KindleBook if they think they're ripping you off. In a related story, the thing currently Publishing is gonna be a dollar through the end of February; I've got a habit of launching things for close to free for the first month, pressuring my regulars to grab them sooner than later.
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Jan 22, 2012 21:30
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Hey, everybody! I just threw up a post in CC for the short story anthology. I hope you all submit something!
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Jan 23, 2012 00:47
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Officially, this thing is still all ghosted and Publishing. But http://www.amazon.com/News-Stoopid-NotS-ebook/dp/B0070OB328 seems to be working, at least on my end.
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Jan 23, 2012 00:59
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Definitely gonna try and get in on the goonthology, assuming my publisher doesn't raise objections (I can't imagine they would, at this point). I confess I sort of abandoned my little experiment in e-pubbing before it quite began; I made the mistake I'm sure a lot of people do, which is, "If I put something on the Kindle store and tell my friends and a couple of forums it will automatically make sales." Well, it didn't. I don't have much of a good way of knowing if people even checked out the free version, I was too lazy to put a counter on it, ha. It also didn't help that Amazon was selling remainders of my print book for a while. This is how it works when Amazon gets remainders: they make any searches for your book default to the remainder, to the cheapo book with an ugly black mark on it, and they _hide_ the existence of the full-price book under a dropdown menu. So to the untrained eye it looks like your book failed and they're trying to get rid of old crap.  This is a book that recently got a fourth printing, mind you! My SalesRank on it sprung back the gently caress up once Amazon ran out of remainders to foist on the bookbuying public!I intend to have something else out next month, a horror story. There is probably more of an audience for horror stories than for charming rambly non-fiction. As I myself have admitted, people who will do well in e-publishing are people who can crank the material out bam-bam-bam. Icon-Cat fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Jan 23, 2012 |
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Jan 23, 2012 01:51
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So, http://www.amazon.com/News-Stoopid-NotS-ebook/dp/B0070OB328 went live, as expected. And, somewhat as expected, that's when I caught a couple of dumb punctuational mistakes. I hate that. I just fixed them, recompiled, and uploaded Version 2012.01.23. If someone wants to grab a copy, it might be a good idea to grab a sample and watch for the version number at the end of the Indicia; you don't want 2012.01.19.
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Jan 23, 2012 10:57
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Thanks to Hef Deezy for the help on this one. One minor change (the quotation marks on the tagline), and this will be the final cover for the next novel.  Edit: Oh, also wanted to share some of my experiences with reviewers. My novel has gotten a few stars taken off on a handful of reviews for grammar issues. I spoke to the reviewers very graciously and thanked them for the reviews, and they were kind enough to provide me with notes on what they had found. Some were valid issues - a few missing quotation marks, but nothing for which I'd string up my editor. Unfortunately, the rest, I'd say 90%, were incorrect on their parts, and I had to explain to them why these were grammatically correct in hopes of sparing some other innocent author. Another author on Twitter made a comment about the rise of the indie author being paralleled by the rise of the indie critic, and it's likely the same underlying issue causing the problems on both sides. Just sharing this in case you get discouraged by reviews slamming grammatical issues and typos; it opened my eyes. workingdogv1 fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Jan 23, 2012 |
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Jan 23, 2012 18:46
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workingdogv1 posted:Thanks to Hef Deezy for the help on this one. One minor change (the quotation marks on the tagline), and this will be the final cover for the next novel. I love the cover! Yeah, I've noticed that everyone has become a critic and calls anything they don't like a "mistake." Then you ask what mistakes they noticed, and they can't cough up an example. Anyone who passed high school English is now an editor, and anyone who signed up for a blog is a reviewer. I'm really glad I have some editors whose feedback I trust. Also: I put my novel up on Amazon Select, but I took it down right before they locked me in for the 90 days, because they refuse to change the pricing to what I want. Amazon and I are not friends right now.
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Jan 24, 2012 00:16
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Do you guys have goodreads profiles? I'm thinking of signing up for a book giveaway - any feedback on how well those work? It seems that it gets advertised without having to pay for advertising . . . all you've gotta pay for is the books you give away. Advertising also: what page did you guys talk about whether facebook/goodreads ads are worth it? Here's my profile if any of you wanna check me out or add me http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/897611.John_Christy It also has a link to my book on there, which it seemed to have added automatically. You guys are probably on goodreads too!
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Jan 24, 2012 01:28
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leb388 posted:I love the cover! Thanks, yeah, I'm pretty happy with it. The artist who did it is pretty great and similarly enamored of the Dark Tower series and other books that I enjoy, so he really gets the vision that I'm striving towards. Hear you on the editors. At first I was a bit angry at mine, then realized she had done just fine.
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Jan 24, 2012 02:31
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Impper posted:Do you guys have goodreads profiles? I'm thinking of signing up for a book giveaway - any feedback on how well those work? It seems that it gets advertised without having to pay for advertising . . . all you've gotta pay for is the books you give away. Advertising also: what page did you guys talk about whether facebook/goodreads ads are worth it? I know you can only submit a printed book for the giveaways, but I plan on using it in the next couple of months to see how it works out. It encourages people who enter to add the book to their To-Read list, which should keep your book in their face even if they don't win (assuming they have any interest in the book at all). But yeah, Goodreads. Here's mine. And Workingdog: I'm about a third of the way through Corridors. Hope I get the time to finish it this week!
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Jan 24, 2012 06:30
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My experience with a Goodreads giveaway: * There are good months and bad months to do it in. December? Bad month. August? Good month. January wasn't TOO bad. * While the giveaway engine recommends people add the book to their To-Read list, only about 1/5th will. * Tons of people will enter every giveaway in a tag that appeals to them (or maybe even every giveaway). Entering the giveaway doesn't mean THAT much in terms of interest. * Some of the people who add your book to their To-Read list will remove it after they don't win. * It seems like roughly 2/3rd of books given away will go to somebody who has no friends and rarely writes reviews. * There will be a surge of people joining your giveaway whenever it's at the top of one of the lists Recently Launched and Ending Soon (and Popular, if you somehow manage to get there). * With that in mind, check out popular ending dates and avoid them. My publisher's giveaway ended on Jan 15th and so did about 3 pages of other books. On the other hand, only about 6 books seemed to end on Jan 17th. * Don't waste space on the blurb you get to write for the giveaway telling people they can win a giveaway. Hook 'em. All that said, if you're getting your print books cheap (like the old Createspace Pro Plan or whatever) it's probably reasonably good advertising since people are willingly looking at the cover of your book and it's not blocked by adblocks. I've also experimented with advertising at Goodreads and it's a mixed bag; I've heard some people complain that it runs through the assigned fund of money too quickly with low ROI and others say that it used up the money slowly and resulted in tons of To-Read adds. In my experience, it's neither using the money quickly nor resulting in much To-Read ads; I'll probably switch ads soon to point at my small-press published book to see if that does any better, since the money is already in the system. (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5049815.Chrysoula_Tzavelas is my profile.) chrysoula fucked around with this message at 08:07 on Jan 24, 2012 |
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Jan 24, 2012 08:05
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Here's mine. Still only sold one copy of my book through Goodreads, but I put all my emphasis on Amazon Kindle anyway, so I'm not too offended.
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Jan 24, 2012 12:35
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I hadn't heard of GoodReads.com before; I guess they've heard of me, a little: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4173891.Gremlin They've got my stuff under my other names too. But those are other names for a reason. Also, they're not real caught up. Nothing I've released this year is in there yet. And they've officially got stuff in versions which are now out of print.
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Jan 24, 2012 12:54
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Speaking of free stuff, I'm testing out a free day with my book. So if you want to spend (no) money, go (not) buy it now!
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Jan 24, 2012 14:04
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chrysoula posted:My experience with a Goodreads giveaway: So basically like just about every other giveaway/contest I've ever experienced. At this point, I really question the long-term wisdom of using giveaways and contests to bump readership. I've participated in quite a few, and while I've seen a short-term bump in people buying or downloading, the follow-on effect has been negligible. I think it's exactly what you said about the people who will participate in just about any giveaway, or the people who only download free books. I've mentioned my few free days on Amazon recently and I regard that as a success just due to the sheer number of downloads and eyes seeing my book given that the cost to me was zero; once it gets into requiring actual money and giving away print copies, so far I've done nothing but lose money. It's a challenge even getting a reviewer who's received a free copy to post a review, much less giving books away to the average reader. I just suspect there's another method that I haven't quite stumbled across yet. Giving it some thought. Oh and that Goodreads thing: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5306110.Jonathan_D_Allen
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Jan 24, 2012 15:49
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Setting myself up on Goodreads.
psychopomp fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Apr 13, 2014 |
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Jan 24, 2012 16:54
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It's amazing what happens to sales when you make something free. 3 sales in two weeks at $2.99...175 downloads in <12 hours at $0.00. I'm the first to admit people will download anything if it's free but drat it's funny to actually experience it.
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Jan 24, 2012 17:53
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Roar posted:It's amazing what happens to sales when you make something free. 3 sales in two weeks at $2.99...175 downloads in <12 hours at $0.00. Yeah. I did that a couple weeks ago with a fairly ignored novel. I didn't tell anyone I was doing it, and it still hit #54 in the Top 100 Free at one point. It held #1 Free in its category for two of the five days. Natch, once it stopped being free, it reverted to its fairly ignored ranking in the high five figures.
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Jan 24, 2012 17:58
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I did a Goodreads giveaway during December. About 300 signups and I mailed out 5 books. I got one review out of it, which amounted to "I won this from a giveaway" I also did a paid aid on Goodreads for a month, which seems to have netted me 0 sales but about 30 people added it to their "to read" shelf. I refuse to pay for people to review a book. It just feels wrong to me. At this point, however, I'm not seeing any positive signs from any form of marketing I've done, so I've given up trying to push my book and moved on to writing the next one.
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Jan 24, 2012 18:23
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Mortanis posted:I did a Goodreads giveaway during December. About 300 signups and I mailed out 5 books. I got one review out of it, which amounted to "I won this from a giveaway" I actually went down that path, sort of - I met a friend of a friend who runs a blog setup where you pay $10 and she recommends it to fellow bloggers to review. Unfortunately it seems most of her blogger friends live in England and India, so I ended up paying more than $60 to send them free review copies. Still too early to tell how that will pay off, but I'm not exactly optimistic and don't plan on doing that again. Oh, I also participated in the WoMen's Literary Cafe's monthly "Read and Review" event for a $25 fee. That netted me exactly one review. I'm rapidly (and cynically) coming to the conclusion that the best marketing really is just to write the best book you can, keep a blog, and maintain a high presence on one social networking site. Everything else seems to have been futile so far.
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Jan 24, 2012 19:09
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Roar posted:It's amazing what happens to sales when you make something free. 3 sales in two weeks at $2.99...175 downloads in <12 hours at $0.00. Did you do anything to promote that your book was made free?
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Jan 24, 2012 20:33
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Impper posted:Did you do anything to promote that your book was made free? Other than posting here and on Facebook, no. Up to 360 now.
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Jan 25, 2012 00:15
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workingdogv1 posted:I'm rapidly (and cynically) coming to the conclusion that the best marketing really is just to write the best book you can, keep a blog, and maintain a high presence on one social networking site. Everything else seems to have been futile so far. I think so. I mean, I think stuff can help. But I think a lot of marketing works better for a second or third book, if you have even a few fans of a first book. I suspect you can also throw money into a hole and if you throw enough into the right hole, magic happens.* But that it's a longer-term strategy, like starting any business is. The free and cheap methods of marketing absolutely require multiple books. Aiming for like '10 fans for the first book, 25 for the second, 50 for the third, 200 for the 4th, 1000 for the 5th' kind of thing. (And that's if the books are connected or very similar in target audience.) Making money off a first book is all about the luck of having the right book at the right time. *My publisher does lots of 'free books to reviewers' and thinks it's definitely worth it but she's able to get books to people who don't review self-published stuff so that might be different somehow.
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Jan 25, 2012 01:12
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chrysoula posted:I think so. I mean, I think stuff can help. But I think a lot of marketing works better for a second or third book, if you have even a few fans of a first book. I suspect you can also throw money into a hole and if you throw enough into the right hole, magic happens.* But that it's a longer-term strategy, like starting any business is. The free and cheap methods of marketing absolutely require multiple books. Aiming for like '10 fans for the first book, 25 for the second, 50 for the third, 200 for the 4th, 1000 for the 5th' kind of thing. (And that's if the books are connected or very similar in target audience.) Making money off a first book is all about the luck of having the right book at the right time. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm thinking. Looking at goals from that perspective, I've already achieved something with the first book. Just have to keep waiting for the luck to roll around.
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Jan 25, 2012 01:32
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