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Maybe I'm not popular enough but I've never gotten that sort of poo poo for my writing errors, I've had mess-ups on my blurbs before for an embarrassingly long amount of time.
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Feb 4, 2016 13:38
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| # ? Apr 16, 2024 23:54 |
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Self-publishing Goons Megathread: The Bra Claps!
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Feb 4, 2016 13:57
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Sundae posted:Self-publishing Goons Megathread: The Bra Claps! This makes total sense. Jalumibnkrayal posted:Hahaha! Here https://www.fiverr.com/bknights . Do the base $5 option, no frills. Depending on your genre it's good for 50-1000 free downloads. magnificent7 fucked around with this message at 15:00 on Feb 4, 2016 |
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Feb 4, 2016 14:58
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magnificent7 posted:Which of the free kindle promotion offers would you suggest? He's got three different ones; post on 15 kindle sites, facebook readers, or post on his own site. The one that mentions his 4800 kindle readers.
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Feb 4, 2016 17:51
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Today Show fluff piece on Calendar Girl series http://www.today.com/popculture/fifty-shades-success-calendar-girl-author-tells-tale-behind-racy-t71206
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Feb 5, 2016 11:49
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EngineerSean posted:Today Show fluff piece on Calendar Girl series Holy crap she must be raking it in, and she's not even in KU
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Feb 5, 2016 12:12
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Bardeh posted:Holy crap she must be raking it in, and she's not even in KU We ran the numbers and estimated that Waterhouse grossed $1.5m in January, no idea of their expenses (they're heavy, it's at least 10% of that) or how much the author's royalty rate is.
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Feb 5, 2016 13:03
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I read she signed a terrible contract and only made like $20k total
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Feb 5, 2016 13:25
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angel opportunity posted:I read she signed a terrible contract and only lol that's not true at all, she made $20k in december which was for september or october sales. can't believe everything you read
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Feb 5, 2016 14:01
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Not saying I believed it...just that I read it 
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Feb 5, 2016 14:06
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Roar posted:Maybe I'm not popular enough but I've never gotten that sort of poo poo for my writing errors, I've had mess-ups on my blurbs before for an embarrassingly long amount of time. Dude even Game of Thrones books have some ridiculous errors, I don't know if anyone's been notified but there are many and they are bad.
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Feb 5, 2016 18:47
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angel opportunity posted:Not saying I believed it...just that I read it Either you believed it or you're just spreading rumors
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Feb 5, 2016 18:50
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Jalumibnkrayal posted:I think as long as the cover meets Amazon's standards, yeah. bknights was getting weird about gay stuff a while back. He blamed it on Amazon policies or something like a turd but I'm pretty sure it was just saturating his list and readers were complaining. Not sure if he's back to accepting m/m or not; haven't tried in a while. Also, for new authors... If you have a sale running for a few days on a new title, and are lining up multiple promos, I recommend doing bknights a day later than the others. His list will often get you some weird-rear end also-boughts on a virgin title. IMO it's way better to have some also-boughts already locked in from more targeted promos before your book hits his list. (Hardcore Xtreme Thread Pros feel free to contradict me if you think I'm talking out of my rear end.) Also I think I have the bra claps, should I see a doctor or will the burning go away on its own? Trustworthy fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Feb 6, 2016 |
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Feb 6, 2016 17:00
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So how exactly does it work? I'm thinking about using him for my next release, but he's got like 250 orders on his list. Do I just give him the :5bux: and tell him when I'm doing the promo or does he tell me when he can or what's the deal? Five part-time years into this poo poo and I've never done any real sort of advertising like this and am weirded out at the though of it.
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Feb 6, 2016 17:57
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BKnights is good because it's cheap and requires no work. You don't have to like submit a shortened blurb, you don't have to deal with backed up calendars, you don't have to have x number of reviews ready, etc. You just pay $5 and link him to the book. $5 is $5, but I don't think it's "worth it" really on a $0.99 book. It's worth it for a free book for a few hundred downloads or so.
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Feb 6, 2016 19:16
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And while bknights isn't great about answering questions, he's pretty solid with timing-related special requests. I'll be, like, "Hey, can you please run this one on Thursday?" And the canned confirmation will almost always come back "Your book is scheduled to run on Thursday!"
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Feb 6, 2016 20:34
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Kindle Unlimited page read question: I don't have as much time in the day as I'd like, but when I see a goon author putting a new book out on KU I try to borrow it and at least flip all the way to the end, if I can't read it outright. Fastest way to do that is Kindle Cloud Reader. Does Amazon notice and/or care if you just slide the location meter to the right until you've "read" all the pages in the book? Would they flag that as, I don't know, "cheating" or something, and not give the author the royalties?
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Feb 9, 2016 23:07
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Blue Scream posted:Kindle Unlimited page read question: I don't have as much time in the day as I'd like, but when I see a goon author putting a new book out on KU I try to borrow it and at least flip all the way to the end, if I can't read it outright. Fastest way to do that is Kindle Cloud Reader. Does Amazon notice and/or care if you just slide the location meter to the right until you've "read" all the pages in the book? Would they flag that as, I don't know, "cheating" or something, and not give the author the royalties? The common consensus is that you get credit for a page that is rendered. So if you just move the slider to the end, the author probably gets credit for the first page and the last page.
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Feb 10, 2016 02:08
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Blue Scream posted:Kindle Unlimited page read question: I don't have as much time in the day as I'd like, but when I see a goon author putting a new book out on KU I try to borrow it and at least flip all the way to the end, if I can't read it outright. Fastest way to do that is Kindle Cloud Reader. Does Amazon notice and/or care if you just slide the location meter to the right until you've "read" all the pages in the book? Would they flag that as, I don't know, "cheating" or something, and not give the author the royalties? I've tested this out with my own books in Kindle Cloud Reader. If I click through page by page, but still too quick to ever actually read, I get credit for the whole book. If I just click through to the last page, I only get credit for the first and last.
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Feb 10, 2016 13:33
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Hey! I'm a full time author now! Just throwing that out there. My only job is to bring the sweet smut to my adoring masses. Feels good.
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Feb 11, 2016 02:09
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congrats man!
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Feb 11, 2016 02:11
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brotherly posted:Hey! I'm a full time author now! Just throwing that out there. Welcome to waking up late and sitting around all day in your underwear.  I mean, maybe some people still retain some semblance of a normal-person routine, but that's my life these days.
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Feb 11, 2016 12:45
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brotherly posted:Hey! I'm a full time author now! Just throwing that out there. Amazing. Well done! 
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Feb 11, 2016 15:17
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My first full romance novel is out now, and it's pinged me a good bit in reads, though sales are slow. This morning, I was yelled at in chat by my friends, who opened their Amazon emails to see my book. I'm very pleased with this. Writing to niche works, guys. You gotta do it like the pros do if you wanna see the money. Thanks so much to all the people dropping advice in the thread. I've been at this since 2012, with long stretches of inactivity because the smut boom was lucrative, but draining. I like romance a whole lot better, and it's a whole lot more profitable. People seem to think it's good, too. Now to write the sequels and churn out a bundle.
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Feb 11, 2016 16:42
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Silvyfox posted:My first full romance novel is out now, and it's pinged me a good bit in reads, though sales are slow. This morning, I was yelled at in chat by my friends, who opened their Amazon emails to see my book. How many words is your novel?
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Feb 11, 2016 22:31
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The Fuzzy Hulk posted:How many words is your novel? I am just shy of 60k, with the back matter I think it puts it at 66k. (I added an excerpt of another novel I wrote last year that didn't quite make it to maybe drum up some interest.)
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Feb 11, 2016 23:35
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Silvyfox posted:I am just shy of 60k, with the back matter I think it puts it at 66k. (I added an excerpt of another novel I wrote last year that didn't quite make it to maybe drum up some interest.) Sweet! I'm doing my longest right now at 50 thousand. It takes way longer than my 8k ones.
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Feb 12, 2016 02:10
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Bardeh posted:Welcome to waking up late and sitting around all day in your underwear. This is pretty much my new work life now that I've also joined the self-employed ranks. Plus a bathrobe.
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Feb 12, 2016 02:14
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All yoga pants, all the time. I love being self-employed. I wore sandals with a heel tonight for dinner, and my feet don't know what to do - they're so used to being in sneakers all the time.
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Feb 12, 2016 04:07
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The Fuzzy Hulk posted:Sweet! I'm doing my longest right now at 50 thousand. It takes way longer than my 8k ones. Yeah, I churned it out, two chapters a day for three weeks, and the last week was for editing. It was pretty satisfying, but it's hard to get on the sequel right now. I think I'm a bit burnt out.
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Feb 12, 2016 04:39
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Being a freelancer for close to a decade now, my stay at home game is strong. However. I really need to buy and wear that lovely, dirty, disgusting robe/cardigan Johnny Depp wears in Secret Window. Help me.
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Feb 12, 2016 14:02
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I have read through the KDP guides, but one thing i'm still unsure about. Is there a better/best option for copyrighting your work?
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Feb 13, 2016 04:55
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Publish it. Boom, you're copyrighted.
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Feb 13, 2016 05:40
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"Publish it" is the easiest way, but the very BEST way would probably be: #1 Be Walt Disney #2 Sink enough cash into Washington lobbyists that legislators scramble over themselves to suck you off, changing copyright laws for your personal benefit until the end of time #3 Profit #4 Cryogenics
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Feb 13, 2016 17:24
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Is anybody willing to talk more about the business aspect? Specifically, small business. My accountant told me it's best to make yourself look as much like a business as possible to claim all those sweet sweet tax deductions without getting boned by the IRS. So I set up a small "press" for a couple of pseudonyms (which I mentioned a few pages back), but I had no idea how much work lay ahead of me. DBA, EIN, business license, all that poo poo. I got a domain. I even got a new phone number through Google Voice that forwards to my cell. When I get my license I'll also sign up for a separate bank account to keep my personal and business expenses separated. I learned most of what I know from The Self-Publisher's Legal Handbook by Helen Sedwick. She focuses a lot on direct distribution and selling print books, though, which isn't something I plan to do much of. I've done a lot of what she advises (see above), but I want to know if anybody bothers with the following: 1. Actually buying your own ISBNs. $300 for ten of them? Ffffff 2. Getting a seller's or resale certificate. What even is that? How does it apply to self-publishing ebooks? 3. Getting a sales tax number if you're only selling on Amazon, B&N, etc. They take the sales tax out for you, iirc, so do you even need to bother with this if you're not selling your books directly to customers? 4. Setting up a P.O. box as your business mailing address. This seems sort of like a good idea to me (I don't know how easy it is for people to find you by looking up your business), but maybe it's not necessary? This stuff is hard 
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Feb 13, 2016 23:37
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A word of warning: Everything I am about to write might be complete poppycock. Please, please, listen to others and do your own research to verify, I'd really hate to lead somebody astray. Also, I know nothing about the self-publishing world so everything I am going to write is just basic business info. I think this is a great question and hope to learn from the responses you will get, but I figured I might be able to clear up some terms and maybe point you in a good direction. A Resales Tax Certificate (or a Sales Certificate, or Tax Exemption Certificate) allows a company to make purchases and not to pay taxes o said purchases, but this means that you are then required to collect the sales tax from the consumer. Since these certificates are issued by the state it is probably best to contact your state's revenue office to find out if you would need one (unless somebody else here has more info.) Not to make things confusing, but I did lump those three certificates together when they are actually different, namely a Sales and Resales certificate, which comes down to how a product which is purchased by a company will be used. If, for example, you were to use a Resales Certificate to purchase something which your company would use and not resale you would be required to pay the appropriate tax on the product. I do not feel I am well enough versed to tell you which is appropriate for your business, sorry! The EIN is only for businesses that will hire employees. At least that is my understanding. My brother runs a family business and at the start he just used his own SSN, but he had to get an EIN when he hired his first employee. In other words I'm not sure if it is required... But it is free, so why not? Just go to the IRS website and fill out the form. Easy! Of course before you do that you have to Register a Business Name, or Doing Business As (DBA). This is done with the state, though it sounds like you've done this already so its kinda silly for me to write anything about it. I just wanted to make mention of it just in case. But what I really wanted to tell you is this: Check out your local universities to see if they have a student lawyer program, sometimes known as a clinical education program. Many law schools, if not all of them, will make student attorneys available for free, and these students tend to be super eager to run someone through the process of setting up a business as it gives them some hands on experience before the step out into the harsh and unforgiving real world. I really cannot stress this enough, if you have any law schools near you, you should give them a ring and setup an appointment. If they don't have an answer for you right then they'll get one, if they are worth their salt.
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Feb 14, 2016 00:37
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Blue Scream posted:1. Actually buying your own ISBNs. $300 for ten of them? Ffffff #1 is unnecessary. #2 is unnecessary #3 is unnecessary. #4 is useful for mailing lists, but for publishing on its own, unnecessary. Unless you are making ridiculous bank, you can do everything under your SSN and just pay self-employment taxes + income tax on the income. Anything beyond that is unnecessary until your accountant tells you otherwise. Seriously -- don't get bogged down on biz bullshit until you're making enough to justify it. I made $100K in royalties last year and the full extent of my enhanced obligations was to pay quarterly taxes. OH NO.
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Feb 14, 2016 00:50
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Blue Scream posted:My accountant told me it's best to make yourself look as much like a business as possible to claim all those sweet sweet tax deductions without getting boned by the IRS. Your accountant is warning you about the IRS's treatment of hobbies that provide some income versus an actual going concern (a business). https://www.irs.gov/uac/Newsroom/Five-Basic-Tax-Tips-about-Hobbies
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Feb 14, 2016 03:34
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You guys are gonna be super happy when you see your KU report today.
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Feb 15, 2016 19:42
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Yeah, I was estimating .0045. whoops.
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Feb 15, 2016 20:36
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