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Yay! I was estimating $.004 so $.00478 is going to mean an extra $500.00 I my pocket. I'm still leaving book report at .004 tho for March.
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Mar 15, 2016 20:00
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brotherly posted:Right, so Amazon capped the kenpc at 3k and pulled that kenpc2.0 poo poo which helped stem the tide of scammers a bit, which is why we think the rate has gone up. People have been up in arms about it on the forums for a few weeks now. It is difficult to get excited about a 15% increase in pay-per-unit when you (and the average author) experienced a 15% decrease in the way units were measured. Now I read that they reduced the pot because that's what made their number work. Amazon really is king of gently caress mountain.
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Mar 15, 2016 20:06
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EngineerSean posted:This "jump" is entirely attributable to them changing the way they count pages. I'll admit that I've been wrapped up in the link scammer poo poo recently. I guess the methodology change is the bigger factor here, you're right.
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Mar 15, 2016 20:07
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EngineerSean posted:Amazon really is king of gently caress mountain. I unclicked the box that enrolled me in KDP Select and submitted my changes. I just got a perky email from Amazon telling me that, congratulations, my book was now enrolled in KDP Select for 90 days. You are correct.
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Mar 16, 2016 00:04
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Blue Scream posted:I unclicked the box that enrolled me in KDP Select and submitted my changes. I just got a perky email from Amazon telling me that, congratulations, my book was now enrolled in KDP Select for 90 days. You are correct. This can be a little misleading , you probably unenrolled successfully. I mean yeah fux scamazon.
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Mar 16, 2016 00:46
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EngineerSean posted:This can be a little misleading , you probably unenrolled successfully. Nope! Turns out when you use one of their promos (free days or Countdown Deals) within the first 3 days of enrollment, you lose the ability to opt out of Select. Cautionary tale, read the drat TOS twice and don't be dumb like me.  Hope this helps somebody.
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Mar 16, 2016 16:43
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Blue Scream posted:Nope! Turns out when you use one of their promos (free days or Countdown Deals) within the first 3 days of enrollment, you lose the ability to opt out of Select. Cautionary tale, read the drat TOS twice and don't be dumb like me. Oh, well yeah, that is kind of the equivalent of eating a couple of doritos before returning the bag :v
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Mar 16, 2016 22:37
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Great thread, thanks to everyone for posting all this useful information. Especially to whoever posted about hemingwayapp. That thing is worth its weight in gold. Feels like cheating. Could I get some blurb advice for this? quote:Warned of Herod's massacre of innocents, Mary and Joseph flee not to Egypt but to China. Growing up in China, Jesus learns Kung Fu from the monk Tang Sifu. KELNOR THE OVERWASP fucked around with this message at 05:34 on Mar 19, 2016 |
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Mar 19, 2016 05:30
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If I read that I'd basically assume that you didn't know how to use a comma, but here's what I would do. Forgive me if I get the original story wrong, I'm not religious and don't know where history ends and your alternate history begins. I also don't know if he taught all the disciples a different form of kung fu. --- Let he who is without sin throw the first punch! Receiving word of Herod's massacre of innocents, Mary and Joseph flee Judea. Instead of going to Egypt, they flee to China. Raised in a sanctuary of monks, Jesus Christ spends his childhood learning the ancient arts of Kung Fu. When an evil eunuch murders his teacher and turns his fellow pupil, Wang She, against him using dark magic, Jesus flees back to the Holy Land to complete God's mission. Along the way, he gathers his twelve disciples, teaching each a different form of Kung Fu. However, Wang She is ready for him at every turn, sending his own disciples and pupils to oppose him at every turn. Turning the other cheek isn't an option for our embattled Savior. Assailed by demons and forbidden to work miracles in combat, Jesus must bring salvation to mankind- one fight at a time!
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Mar 19, 2016 06:23
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Well that's a hell of a lot better! Mind if I go with a tweaked version of that?
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Mar 20, 2016 15:58
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Go ahead E: I put "at every turn" in twice and am too lazy to edit that one on my phone. EngineerSean fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Mar 20, 2016 |
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Mar 20, 2016 16:04
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Scrivener 50% off until March 25th. Windows / Mac
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Mar 22, 2016 11:48
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Do the Windows and Mac versions of Scrivener play nicer together than they did a couple years ago? I bought the Windows version shortly after it came out, so I could write more comfortably at home and not have to be hunched over my MBP every second of the day. But every time I saved a project on Windows, something would inevitably get hosed up when I reopened it in OSX. So I basically never ever use the Windows version anymore, but it sure would be a nice option if the version conversion wasn't janky as poo poo.
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Mar 22, 2016 20:13
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Did anyone else just get a bunch of Amazon money deposited into the account they use for KDP, like four days early? Normally I wouldn't be concerned, but the #s don't quite match up to either of the amounts I'm expecting on my two pen names - it's about half as much as the smaller, second one.
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Mar 26, 2016 16:16
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Popular Human posted:Did anyone else just get a bunch of Amazon money deposited into the account they use for KDP, like four days early? Did you get everything but the US money?
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Mar 26, 2016 19:38
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The Fuzzy Hulk posted:Did you get everything but the US money? Duh, I am stupid. Thank you. I got all my non-US moneys four days early for some reason. Guess I can start paying bills now instead of next week. 
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Mar 26, 2016 19:56
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Many thanks to engineersean for the much better blurb. Finally got the book up: http://www.amazon.com/Kung-Fu-Jesus-Way-Cross-ebook/dp/B01DGK4N2G/ Now to promote the hell out of it! KELNOR THE OVERWASP fucked around with this message at 03:05 on Mar 27, 2016 |
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Mar 27, 2016 02:16
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KELNOR THE OVERWASP posted:Many thanks to engineersean for the much better blurb. Finally got the book up: The look inside isn't working yet, so I can't check...but your blurb makes the book seem like a lighthearted comedy / action sort of thing, and the cover you have doesn't fit with that at all. It's likely going to be quite expensive, but you're going to need some custom artwork (or maybe try and find a picture of a kung-fu Jesus on Deviantart or something and try and get permission to use it) because with the current cover I can't see your book moving many copies, unfortunately. I found this with a cursory search,  http://www.deviantart.com/art/Arkley-Tai-Chi-577333044 and with some very shoddy and slapdash photoshop I came up with this:  Of course there is a lot wrong with it, but it was a quick job (took me literally 5 minutes) to show you that it probably wouldn't be too much effort to improve your branding and sell a lot more copies. I know which cover I would be more likely to click on if I was looking for a story about Jesus doing kung fu. E: I borrowed it and skimmed through it - you also might want to consider breaking the book up into chapters, and look at fixing the formatting. Right now it's just a huge block of unbroken text and it doesn't look very good. A quick and easy fix for the formatting is to go into Word and do this:  and also consider reducing the spacing between paragraphs. It'll create a much better looking book without any effort at all. Bardeh fucked around with this message at 09:03 on Mar 27, 2016 |
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Mar 27, 2016 08:28
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A cross with nunchucks hanging off it, a couple throwing stars stuck in it...
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Mar 27, 2016 17:01
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Yeah that's definitely the cover of an earnest inspirational Jesus book. Browsing Amazon, I'd never even make it to the blurb. A kung-fu action story needs something else entirely.
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Mar 27, 2016 17:19
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The chapters I've done, the cover I'm seeing what I can do about. Thanks for all the advice!
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Mar 28, 2016 14:06
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The Fuzzy Hulk posted:A cross with nunchucks hanging off it, a couple throwing stars stuck in it... That would be Ninjitsu, so it may or may not make a good cover for Kung Fu Jesus 4. We'll see!
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Mar 28, 2016 14:33
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KELNOR THE OVERWASP posted:That would be Ninjitsu, so it may or may not make a good cover for Kung Fu Jesus 4. We'll see! I'm not an expert at any martial arts but sometimes perception of what is correct is more mportant than what is actually correct. I guess this is one of those "know your audience" problems.
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Mar 28, 2016 16:25
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KELNOR THE OVERWASP posted:That would be Ninjitsu, so it may or may not make a good cover for Kung Fu Jesus 4. We'll see! Do you think the average customer on Amazon knows the difference? Do you think that people who otherwise would have aren't going to buy your book because the cover implies ninjitsu when the book is actually about Kung Fu? Your target market is people looking for a fun action story in a wacky setting. They absolutely do not know or care about the subtle differences between various martial arts. This market is probably decently large, and probably under served right now. Look at that goon who wrote the Hard Luck Hank series - he did very well, and made lots of money in a similar niche to yours. The most immediate difference is that he nailed the marketing for that book. Amazing cover and blurb, and he must have paid a pretty penny for that artwork. However, investment like that is practically necessary in your genre/niche. Don't cheap out on your covers, it's the single most important part of a book, IMO. Be willing to spend good money on cover art, because if you get it right it will MORE than pay for itself.
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Mar 28, 2016 17:59
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Yeah, it might be worth remembering that you're not writing a Kung Fu book... you're writing a Kung Fu Jesus book. There is a necessary degree of suspension of disbelief straight from the get-go. If someone is upset that their turn-the-other-cheek lord and savior was using nunchucks, I think they have bigger problems to address. I will totally read your book, by the way. It sounds so goddamned stupid that it's right up my alley, and I mean that in the best of ways.
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Mar 28, 2016 19:22
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Bear in mind though that this is the internet, so you don't want your only reviews to be 1 star diatribes from angry redditors complaining about technicalities.
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Mar 28, 2016 19:39
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Skrill and paypal just decided to refuse all payments on fiverr, but from what you're saying that may be a stroke of luck. While I'm finding an artist does anyone have a suggestion for a quick interim cover? e: since the Hard Luck Hank art is great, where would I be able to contact that artist? Checked on amazon but no dice. KELNOR THE OVERWASP fucked around with this message at 08:29 on Mar 29, 2016 |
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Mar 29, 2016 08:23
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The author occasionally checks into this thread but the story about how the original Hard Luck Hank's cover came into being was long and way more expensive than it needed to be. I don't have a solution here for you but that's not it.
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Mar 29, 2016 08:53
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You could try posting a thread here in CC, or perhaps SA Mart to find an artist. I see lots of threads in SA Mart with people commissioning logos, and a book cover isn't all that different. Set a budget ($100-$200 maybe?), give an outline of what you'd like, and you'll probably find someone decent.
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Mar 29, 2016 10:18
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Things are going well on the finding at artist front, but of course it's not gonna get done overnight. In the meantime, is the current cover bad enough that I'd be better off with an amazon placeholder cover or should I leave it up? Sundae: Thanks for the kind words. If you do read it then please please do a review! KELNOR THE OVERWASP fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Mar 30, 2016 |
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Mar 30, 2016 01:26
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To be honest, if you're going through the effort of making a new cover, I'd probably pull the book for now and wait until you have a better cover to relist it.
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Mar 30, 2016 01:50
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Whoof. Second novel of the year done. I just popped it off to the editor, hope to release it soon if there aren't major problems. Is it still worth it to promote/network on Good Reads? I'm thinking I could do a little interaction with people that way while I wait for the second one. The first one in the series is going to go free to promo the sequel, but I'd like to actually build my mailing list a bit more. I have...uh. Two people, haha.
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Mar 31, 2016 01:15
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Silvyfox posted:Whoof. Second novel of the year done. I just popped it off to the editor, hope to release it soon if there aren't major problems. Any promotion you can do will help with a mailing list of two. What genre is the book? I'm sure there are paid promo sites out there too that could give you a boost on release. I would set book 1 free now and book as much promotion as you can for that too. You might get a few more mailing list sign ups out of it.
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Mar 31, 2016 11:19
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Bardeh posted:Any promotion you can do will help with a mailing list of two. What genre is the book? I'm sure there are paid promo sites out there too that could give you a boost on release. It's your basic shifter romance, like actual romance and not smut. I'm not able to do as much paid promotion as I'd like to, because I'm still starting out. I'm thinking of running them both free for a couple days, to build the 'also bought' on Amazon for the second one, and letting the first one get me some mailing list subs. Once the third one goes like (still in the planning stage on that one), I was planning on making the first one permafree.
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Apr 1, 2016 01:28
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Silvyfox posted:It's your basic shifter romance, like actual romance and not smut. I'm not able to do as much paid promotion as I'd like to, because I'm still starting out. I'm thinking of running them both free for a couple days, to build the 'also bought' on Amazon for the second one, and letting the first one get me some mailing list subs. I'm sure you know about these two already, but they'll give you a nice boost for cheap. https://www.naughtylistbooks.com https://www.excitespice.com Most of Fiverr is poo poo, but this person's service punches well above its weight, and it has always more than paid for itself for me. https://www.fiverr.com/hgromance There are lots of promo services for around $20-25, (bettybookfreak is the first that comes to mind) but I have never really found them to be worthwhile. If you can stretch to $70, https://www.bargainbooksy.com/ is good. Be willing to spend some money on promotion - set aside a couple of hundred dollars for each release, because it's practically necessary these days, especially in a niche as crowded as shifter romance. Here's what I would do if I was in your position: 1. Set book 1 free a week before release. Book a few cheap promos for it, and make sure the backmatter is updated to let readers know that book 2's release is imminent. 2. Release book 2, use a few free days immediately to populate your also-boughts. As soon as the book is live, book all your promo for the day it comes off free (and make sure it's priced at 99 cents) - you want as big of a 1 day push as possible to make the book climb as high as it can, as fast as it can. This is the most effective way to get Amazon's algorithms to work for you. If you had a higher advertising budget, I'd advise booking promo for the free days aswell, but if cash is limited I'd prefer to use it on a 99 cents promotion. It can be tough to get all the promotion booked on the same day, so for those sites that let you I would book it ASAP, before the book is even released. The closer you get to the date, the more likely it is that day will be fully booked on most sites already. 3. Make sure your cover and blurb are as good as they can be. Post them here if you feel comfortable, because there are plenty of romance authors who will be able to immediately let you know if you have anything that needs to be changed. 4. If at all possible, get some reviews on it as soon as it goes live. Send an email to your two mailing list subs and offer them a free copy of the book if they'll review it for you. This is probably a longshot with only two, but even having one good review is so, so important. 5. Cross your fingers and hope for the best.
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Apr 1, 2016 06:31
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---
angel opportunity fucked around with this message at 15:01 on Apr 26, 2016 |
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Apr 1, 2016 13:20
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how the gently caress am I going to periodically harass you if you move to some invite-only chat?
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Apr 1, 2016 13:24
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I can send you an invite, then instead of connecting slowly to IRC to chat, you press a single button and it instantly puts you into the chat without all the goofy IRC /join #### poo poo. We also have cool flavor features like this:  
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Apr 1, 2016 13:27
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angel opportunity posted:Bardeh and Silvyfox please email me at josefjakobus on the google mail service to get a Slack invite!!! I will do this, even though I'm not really sure what Slack is
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Apr 1, 2016 15:03
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I don't know what Slack is either but I think I'll just keep on keepin' on on these here forums.
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Apr 1, 2016 15:59
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