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Another one of my little stories is out today and free through Sunday. Hope y'all enjoy. ---  https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B079KLKH6P/ It's Valentine's Day and Becca can't wait to spend it with her cat. She isn't looking for love. But when duty summons her into a crowd of eager single men, she finds out… that she still isn't looking for love. As she fights her way back home through snow and sentiment, can the spirit of the day work its way into her soul? --- In my last post I mentioned I was working with a freelance editor on a novel. It was a positive experience, she did a great job, grasped my characters and story and tone well, understood what I wanted to do and helped me get there more cleanly and efficiently. I would recommend Andrea Robinson if you're looking for an attentive, insightful edit and if your sort of book is in her wheelhouse. https://www.areditorial.com/
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Feb 15, 2018 04:00
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Any thoughts on Book Report's price hike? I'm almost certainly going to be making less than 1k a month by the time my subscription's up, and I can't really see myself shelling out $190 a year when my monthly income's down to the low hundreds.
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Feb 18, 2018 08:31
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freebooter posted:Any thoughts on Book Report's price hike? I'm almost certainly going to be making less than 1k a month by the time my subscription's up, and I can't really see myself shelling out $190 a year when my monthly income's down to the low hundreds. It's free if you earn less than $1k/month I thought. But I won't pay any more than the $100/year I currently do, especially now that I'm wide and it doesn't work on 4/5s of the platforms I publish to.
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Feb 19, 2018 05:05
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It is, yeah - but I hit 1k a month in June and bought an annual sub assuming I'd continue to keep making that much, when it turned out that month was an outlier. Whoops.
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Feb 19, 2018 10:15
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Icon-Cat posted:Another one of my little stories is out today and free through Sunday. Hope y'all enjoy. reviewed on .co.uk and .com - this is lovely! Anyone spending 99p on this will feel they got value for money :-)
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Feb 20, 2018 01:35
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freebooter posted:Any thoughts on Book Report's price hike? I'm almost certainly going to be making less than 1k a month by the time my subscription's up, and I can't really see myself shelling out $190 a year when my monthly income's down to the low hundreds. I'm exclusive with Amazon, and I like how it gives me a nice, easy to read graph of my daily revenue all the way back to the beginning of my career. I'm cool with $15 a month.
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Feb 20, 2018 18:24
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Also I got a free Bookbub listing in March! This'll be my second Bookbub--the previous listing was last November for my first in series, and the listing in March will be for my second in series. I'm very intrigued to see what the differences will be. I've got the fifth book in this series coming out a few days before the listing, so I imagine it'll get a nice boost.
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Feb 20, 2018 18:26
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How did the November one go? I'm starting to despair of ever getting a Bookbub for the first in my series, probably because it's priced at 99c ordinarily and they want big discounts. I've heard people have good results with box sets, though, so I'll try that after I wrap up the series.
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Feb 20, 2018 22:34
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divabot posted:reviewed on .co.uk and .com - this is lovely! Anyone spending 99p on this will feel they got value for money :-) Wow! Thanks a lot, man — I appreciate it quite a bit. On paper Something Awful may not come off as the target audience for some of my stuff but I've always had a feeling we've got quite a few softies among us.  Ha ha ha!
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Feb 22, 2018 20:15
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Icon-Cat posted:Wow! Thanks a lot, man — I appreciate it quite a bit. On paper Something Awful may not come off as the target audience for some of my stuff but I've always had a feeling we've got quite a few softies among us. Goon compliments are the best. Because if goons think something suck they'll tell you it is bad and you should feel bad. After 10 years here it seems really weird going to facebook or some place like that where everyone tells you everything everyone does is wonderful and beautiful all the time.
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Feb 23, 2018 02:17
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Your Facebook peeps must be on the good stuff. Mine is more like Helldump.
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Feb 23, 2018 02:22
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I apologize if this is the wrong place to ask this, but I've followed the thread off and on over the years and it seems like the closest fit. I've just released my third book, and it's the first that I've self published. I was surprised to find that I actually had auditions to my ACX filing with the book right away. Neither were exactly stellar, but one seemed 'good enough' in that the narrator at least had emotion and timing behind the lines. Most people I asked for opinions on the files seemed to agree with my choice between the files and seemed to think it was acceptable, but when I asked an acquaintance who is an audio professional he basically told me that both of them were utter trash. To be fair he's historically not a very positive person, but I do very much respect his opinion. I was going to make the contract offer (just royalty split, nothing upfront) to the better applicant once I have confirmation that the paperback proofs for the book aren't hosed up in some way, but now I'm kind of unsure. I was hoping one or more of you have had audiobook experience with ACX and could offer some insight. Is there some simple way to tell what the acceptable quality level is for audiobook narration is? ACX estimates that the finished work will be about 6.5 hours, so it'll likely be a 20-25$ product in the end. I'm not a terribly successful author and don't really have money to pay upfront for it but maybe it's worth just waiting until I can scrape up the 600$ to pay a more professional person to do it. I sort of feel like an audio version is a better seller than digital or paperback, but I really don't know. I don't want to post the files directly here but if someone who has experience in the field wants to PM me I'd be happy to share them to get impressions. I'd be grateful for any advice or anecdotes people have. Edit for clarification: I don't want to post the files directly here because it feels impolite/inappropriate to do so, not for any other reason. Blorknorg fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Feb 24, 2018 |
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Feb 24, 2018 02:41
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Are you able to post samples for us to listen to? As far as audio goes, I can tell you that the market is good for them, and getting better because of all the marketing Audible does. However i don't know if that success translates over to self-published books.
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Feb 24, 2018 05:16
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Okay, the first guy got back to me and gave me permission to get outside opinions on it. For reference it's a steampunk spoof book with pugs, literally "Steampug", the three excerpts were for a casual exchange between a male and female character in an apartment as one changes fuses in a box, the second is the protagonist speaking to a butler/assassin who is patterned a bit after Lurch, and the third is meant to be a frustrated exchange between the characters from the first excerpt. I've never linked audio in the forums before, but hopefully this will work. https://thatpug.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/steampug-audition_winter-johnson.mp3?_=1 The question is primarily, would this be acceptable narration/acting/audio quality for a product that will probably be about 22$ us (given that it's 58k words, estimated at 6.5 hours audio)? If/when the second applicant gets back to me I'll add it to this post. His audition was clearer audio but he had odd issues with a flickering accent, and a few other bits. Really the only other option would be to hope that I reach a 1k threshhold in sales and then try to use that to hire a professional, but who knows if I'll even approach numbers like that.
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Feb 25, 2018 01:18
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Sounds fine to me, but you know you can keep it open for auditions for a while, right? I sometimes get 6 or 7 auditions before I get around to picking one. As for you question about “some simple way to tell what the acceptable quality level is for audiobook narration is?” is that ACX will review the book once the narrator finishes it and you approve it. If there is an issue with audible mouse clicks, background noise or whatever, they will kick it back to the narrator to fix it. The Fuzzy Hulk fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Feb 25, 2018 |
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Feb 25, 2018 02:17
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My personal soft rule is that I only want to bother people I know about each of my books once. My previous two books were so large and odd as to be unappealing for ACX submissions, which is why it was kind of a surprise to get two auditions within 24 hours on this one. Because of this I've sort of been holding back on blowing the cover to my contacts and friends for the moment, at least until I was sure that the paperbacks were okay, and as I go on I wonder if it might be better to just hold on for the audio thing as well. I got confirmation earlier today that the paperbacks seem to be fine, though the interior images (simple and tiny black and white line drawings I use for chapter breaks) do have a kind of minor fading grain around the edges. Basically I have very little idea what I'm doing I suppose, just stumbling forward as best I can. Fuzzy Hulk: How long do you wait for auditions? A month or so? More? In any case thank you for giving it a listen, I appreciate the input. It's hard to say exactly what I mean by the acceptable quality level, but I sort of feel like as an extremely low level author I can't really hope for much more than 'acceptable' in terms of 'acting quality' if that makes any sense? I'm not going to get an experienced pro, the best I could really hope for is a promising amateur.
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Feb 25, 2018 02:40
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I find that guy's voice very difficult to listen to. He muddles some of the words, and I lost track of what was happening in the narrative about a minute in.
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Feb 25, 2018 20:43
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Blorknorg posted:The question is primarily, would this be acceptable narration/acting/audio quality for a product that will probably be about 22$ us (given that it's 58k words, estimated at 6.5 hours audio)? Don't get hung up on this. Few people pay full retail price for the audiobooks. Most subscribe to Audible and get one or more credits per month they can spend on anything. The audio quality sounded fine, but the narrator has a nasal/congestion thing going on that is unpleasant. quote:Really the only other option would be to hope that I reach a 1k threshhold in sales and then try to use that to hire a professional, but who knows if I'll even approach numbers like that. You could also be proactive and reach out to narrators who work for Revenue Split (if you haven't already). Just posting your job and waiting for auditions isn't a recipe for success. The auditions pages have thousands of projects and they quickly get tossed from the first page. Your dream narrator who would love to work with you probably hasn't seen your project and never will unless you reach out to them. I'm up to 64 published audiobooks (most are short stories), all revenue split. They still continue to make poo poo money because I don't know how to market a product that I can't create price incentives on.
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Feb 27, 2018 15:43
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freebooter posted:How did the November one go? Really, really well. The Nov BB was a free feature on the first book in a 4 book series. Probably took in $13k because of the BB ad over the following three months. The entire series is in KU, too, so there was a nice bump in page reads, which probably accounted for somewhere around 70% of revenue. BB definitely favors wide box sets right now. It's harder to get in with a single book in KU, but it's possible. You just have to apply every chance you get. Having a multi-book series helps. BB likes long series, and if one book in the series is rejected, you can turn around and apply with the next book. In my case, that means I get 7 chances at a BB every 1-3 months. KrunkMcGrunk fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Feb 27, 2018 |
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Feb 27, 2018 17:07
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KrunkMcGrunk posted:BB definitely favors wide box sets right now. It's harder to get in with a single book in KU, but it's possible. You just have to apply every chance you get. Having a multi-book series helps. BB likes long series, and if one book in the series is rejected, you can turn around and apply with the next book. In my case, that means I get 7 chances at a BB every 1-3 months. My series, alas, is not the kind where people can jump in down the track - you basically have to start at book 1. But I've read elsewhere that a lot of people do just keeping making rolling applications, so maybe I'll have to do that.
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Feb 28, 2018 11:00
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freebooter posted:My series, alas, is not the kind where people can jump in down the track - you basically have to start at book 1. But I've read elsewhere that a lot of people do just keeping making rolling applications, so maybe I'll have to do that. Do it! And you may consider applying with your other books, then making the earlier books in the series free during the BB promo. If you decide to do that, be sure to tell BB when you apply--they'll want to know.
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Mar 3, 2018 20:07
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I think I will, yeah. I'm wrapping up the end of a five day promo period now and I'm again seeing diminishing returns on these things - although looking at my last promos the spike in readership came after the period, not during, so maybe I should wait before judging. I'm looking back at my past giveaway periods since Book Report updated and it's interesting to see the discrepancy, sometimes, between how many free books I offload and how much flow-through in other sales that results in. I haven't been doing this long enough to make any judgements from it though. Are there reading trends throughout the year? In Australia (and I think Europe) my gut instinct would be to say that book sales are traditionally higher in summer when people are taking beach holidays. But maybe in North America there isn't that same tradition, and sales are higher during the colder months.
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Mar 4, 2018 10:51
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While we might see discrepancies in sales throughout the year, I think that has more to do with marketplace dynamics than reader behavior. Some books hit it off, some don't. Some books are amazing but they release alongside stronger competition, some books that are mediocre soar because the competition that week is just weaker.
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Mar 5, 2018 14:49
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New dimensions in self-publishing: Using CreateSpace for money laundering
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Mar 5, 2018 15:18
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divabot posted:New dimensions in self-publishing: Using CreateSpace for money laundering You know, I always wondered why random sellers on Amazon would list new copies of my paperbacks for 200% markup, but I think now I think I know. e: hmmm, actually after reading this article, I'm not sure this is the case. I certainly don't have revenue from 3rd party sellers showing up on my 1099. KrunkMcGrunk fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Mar 6, 2018 |
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Mar 6, 2018 17:58
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Did anybody else get an extra audible payment? I got one today, and they normally don’t pay until the end of the month.
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Mar 10, 2018 00:12
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hello friendos I just bought a cover from GoOnWrite, and I've done a little photoshoppery as a proof of concept for what it'll look like after I'm done tinkering with it:  Lookin' swanky imo but interested in feedback since nothing's locked in yet.
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Mar 18, 2018 08:11
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The Fuzzy Hulk posted:Did anybody else get an extra audible payment? I got one today, and they normally don’t pay until the end of the month. If you enrolled any audiobooks into the Audible Romance program, this was a bonus payment. The program is horrible and no one should put anything else into it.
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Mar 18, 2018 17:07
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Chokes McGee posted:hello friendos I am not a fan. Nothing pops. I don't know what genre this is. It took me too long to see her fangs. I don't know why her white eyelashes droop down until they're vertical. There seems to be a US flag done over her face. No idea why. And in the background we're looking up at a cathedral or castle with some kind of image projected over it.Then the entire upper right quadrant is just black. I also don't like the author name being right under the title at the top and then along the bottom you have "An Astin Fell Novel". I'd prefer title and subtitle at top and author name at the bottom (or vice versa).
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Mar 19, 2018 17:20
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I've had the first book in my series at the hook price of 99c for a while and I'm thinking of pushing it up to $2.99 like the rest in the series - I've got enough out there now that it looks professional, it's in Select anyway, etc. But I'm also going to start rolling submissions to Bookbub from the end of March and I vaguely recall hearing they don't like it if they think you've just put the price up to put it back down... can't find that written down anywhere though, is that true?
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Mar 20, 2018 05:46
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Chokes McGee posted:hello friendos Looks cool to me. Is it a horror story?
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Mar 21, 2018 17:04
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freebooter posted:I've had the first book in my series at the hook price of 99c for a while and I'm thinking of pushing it up to $2.99 like the rest in the series - I've got enough out there now that it looks professional, it's in Select anyway, etc. But I'm also going to start rolling submissions to Bookbub from the end of March and I vaguely recall hearing they don't like it if they think you've just put the price up to put it back down... can't find that written down anywhere though, is that true? By "put the price up" do you mean popping it up to $2.99 for a week while your Bookbub submission is being considered? If so, I can't imagine they'd like that. But, if like you said, you're permanently changing the price from 99 cents to 2.99, I think that's fine. Then again, why not put that 99 cent novel in as a free submission? I had a free Bookbub recently that pushed my mystery into #1 in the free store, and netted me about $400 in single-day sell-through to the rest of my series. If you have a series, free Bookbubs are fantastic.
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Mar 21, 2018 17:09
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Hello everyone, I've got a question to ask. I've recently reached a good point in editing my first novel that I'm starting to look at covers and blurbs for my book. I'll be honest having never published before I really want to get this right. How would I go about testing my blurb to find a version that really captures people? I'm also looking at getting a cover with Damon Za. A large part of this post is I keep finding ways to distract my attention away from this and want to keep progressing. Do y'all have any advice or recommendations?
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Mar 21, 2018 18:14
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Last Thursday I put my MG fantasy novel on Smashwords after a year on Kindle. I also just now dropped the price down from $3.99 to $2.99 to see how that goes for a while. So far I've had two kids tell me they really liked it! Keromaru5 fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Mar 21, 2018 |
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Mar 21, 2018 18:48
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December Octopodes posted:Hello everyone, I've got a question to ask. I've recently reached a good point in editing my first novel that I'm starting to look at covers and blurbs for my book. I'll be honest having never published before I really want to get this right. How would I go about testing my blurb to find a version that really captures people? You could post the blurb here - the thread isn't particularly active these days, but we've got plenty of experienced authors who'll be willing to critique it for you. As for the cover - Damonza covers are awesome, but they are very, very expensive. You get what you pay for, of course, but I would probably say that for a first novel, the money would be better spent on a good editor and a slightly less expensive designer. What genre is your book? Also, once you have the cover, editing, and blurb sorted out, you need to think about marketing. This is gonna be another expense. 1. Try and get a decent sized Advance Reader Copy group arranged. Hidden Gems offer a decent service to find you some https://www.hiddengemsbooks.com/author-services/ Those initial reviews are really important for sales, and you'll get some good feedback on your book too. 2. Try and find other authors on Amazon in the same or similar genre to you. Get in contact with them and see if they might be interested in promoting your book to their newsletters. Expect (and offer) to pay for this. Generally 20c per unique click is the accepted rate in romance, I don't know if that's any different in other genres. This is an awesome way to connect with a pre-built audience who like your genre. 3. Try and find paid newsletters in your genre. This is more difficult outside of romance, but depending on your genre there could be something out there. 4. If you know anything about advertising on Facebook, it's extremely powerful, but it's a lot of work and it can be really difficult to get right. If you're not already experienced, I would probably avoid this for a first book. Bardeh fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Mar 21, 2018 |
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Mar 21, 2018 22:41
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KrunkMcGrunk posted:By "put the price up" do you mean popping it up to $2.99 for a week while your Bookbub submission is being considered? If so, I can't imagine they'd like that. But, if like you said, you're permanently changing the price from 99 cents to 2.99, I think that's fine. Yeah I mean permanently - I just don't want them to THINK I'm gaming the system. Free bookbub is the plan. That's part (not all) of the price hike as well, you're more likely to get one the bigger your discount, and I don't think they're much interested in 99c > free.
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Mar 21, 2018 23:24
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The genre would be fantasy, it's a boy meets sword, fights ridiculous odds kind of story. Umbra, the City of Thieves, is not kind to its visitors, and David has more reason than most to be afraid. In the city of eternal darkness is impossible to see clearly without the special glasses unique to the city. Armed with a magic sword and a sacred mission, he must find an immortal killer: Horvath the Shadow, who stole the daylight from Umbra, who could look like anyone. Faced with bandits at every turn, including the rulers of the city, can David—with the help of some of the wildest thieves in the city—do the impossible? As far as editing goes I've already worked with bookside manner and been really happy about her work. Thanks so much for the advice you have laid out.
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Mar 22, 2018 01:10
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Word repetition "the city of eternal darkness....unique to the city". And "special" and "unique" are both similar words that crowd the description. The last sentence also repeats city. You could say "Umbra's wildest thieves".
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Mar 22, 2018 02:57
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For those of you who publish on Createspace (or any print version really) how do the sales compare to ebooks? Is it worth doing? I've been doing this for more than a year now and am making enough money that I feel like I should try to be taking the marketing/business side more seriously, and it occurred to me that the only reason I never bothered with print versions was because I doubted anyone would buy them. But obviously lots of people do.
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Mar 22, 2018 09:27
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freebooter posted:For those of you who publish on Createspace (or any print version really) how do the sales compare to ebooks? Is it worth doing? I've been doing this for more than a year now and am making enough money that I feel like I should try to be taking the marketing/business side more seriously, and it occurred to me that the only reason I never bothered with print versions was because I doubted anyone would buy them. But obviously lots of people do. yeah, I nearly didn't bother with a paperback 'cos I just don't read paper books any more. But lots of people wanted one, so I thought "this'll be a nice souvenir". It's about a quarter of my sales. Also, I get people who got the ebook but also buy a paper one. (Also, I sold a buttload of copies in December to current readers, so they could give copies to relatives to warn them about Bitcoin :-D ) mine's nonfiction and actually it appeals to people who have money. So YMMV. Fiction author friends report varying percentages of paperback sales, from 10% to 50%. Every book is gonna be different. so: totally do a paperback! And pay an artist to do a good and well designed cover! I also bought a box of 20 copies and am selling these as signed by the author. This is just a tiny bit on top, but it delights me every time. Signing books for people makes you feel like some sorta real author. Kindle Print does proof copies now, and if you're in the UK they actually frickin print here. However, they cover different countries to CreateSpace, because expecting Amazon to have its poo poo together lol. So I haven't moved the books over. If I could do it through both I totally would.
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Mar 22, 2018 09:55
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