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LLCoolJD posted:I was genuinely curious. I've published one book, and even though it hit top 30 in Amazon's (free) horror and (free) dystopian and had four figures of downloads in a short span of time, there were basically no reviews. I thought the book was at least alright, and what reviews I had were gracious. I saw books which looked to be moving fewer copies that had tons of reviews - even with covers that should send most readers running in the opposite direction. I could've been underestimating how many people read those, but it seemed that fake reviews were a pretty common trick to boost appeal and sales numbers (which isn't to say that I'd be lunching with Dean Koontz had I used fake reviews!). Also I wouldn't make your only book free. Free used to get you a big boost in sales rank when you went back to paid, but that's lessened over time. These days you want to use free on book 1 or a book that's had its heyday to drive increased sales of subsequent books.
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Jun 4, 2014 21:55
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Sundae posted:You might want to look at AbsoluteWrite. It's mostly a shithole, but it's a major gathering place for writers, so maybe you'll get something out of it. As far as I can tell, they're EXTREMELY anti-self publishing. my suggestion would be reddit.com/r/selfpublish and /r/writing
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Jul 5, 2014 03:54
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psychopomp posted:They will ban you for having more than one KDP account. More than one Author Central account is fine. I vaguely recall this was for setting up more than one account with the same email address. I've had more than one KDP account for 2+ years now with no problems.
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Aug 11, 2014 15:04
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Yooper posted:But the dogs don’t know, they can’t know, instead they live as savages. Savages bred to be warriors. Grammatically, this should be: "But the dogs don't know; they can't know. Instead, they live as savages. Savages bred to be warriors." I don't like that whole paragraph, though.
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Sep 2, 2014 03:27
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HPanda posted:I guess she could write it in first-person if she has to "be there." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYe_5YSpKu0
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Nov 11, 2014 06:35
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:That just means someone from a country outside of the 70% royalty zone bought it on the US site. Certain countries are always 35% unless you are enrolled in the KDP program. you mean KDP select. "KDP program" is the entire self publishing platform.
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Nov 30, 2014 02:22
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Also regardless of whether your story is written in first person I wouldn't write your blurb as such.
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Jan 14, 2015 16:34
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Sundae posted:I cannot wait to see how badly that movie bombs. I'm predicting a box office flop and miserable reviews, possibly a new cult film for just how bad it'll be. I'm going to go on record and say it will be a massive box office success. the early reviews range from "it's not bad!" to "it's pretty good!" and most complaints are that there's not enough sex in it. Considering the rumors that 20% (25 minutes) of the 125 minute movie are sex scenes, people pretty much want porn. february is huge for romance movies, and this will be the king of those.
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Feb 11, 2015 21:32
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Malloreon posted:I'm going to go on record and say it will be a massive box office success. the early reviews range from "it's not bad!" to "it's pretty good!" and most complaints are that there's not enough sex in it. Considering the rumors that 20% (25 minutes) of the 125 minute movie are sex scenes, people pretty much want porn. With only 2.5 release days under its belt, 50 shades has already grossed $239M worldwide - $81M US, $158M foreign. Even if it drops like a rock after this, it'll be a huge success.
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Feb 15, 2015 20:53
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Sundae posted:That's the total pool of $$$ for KU/KOLL each month since launch. I don't think we're going to see it drop below $1.30 for the foreseeable future. Amazon keeps pumping more and more into this, and it's a drop in the bucket for them compared to everything else they get by keeping readers away from B&N/Apple/actual stores. Just to satisfy my own curiosity I'd love to know if the growth in borrows is coming primarily from new users or are existing users just reading way more. Also I'd like to know how many months the average user subscribes to KU, especially broken down by what genres they primarily read.
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Apr 15, 2015 22:32
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angel opportunity posted:Dr. K, come on IRC is there an SA writers/self publishers IRC?!
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Apr 25, 2015 02:31
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angel opportunity posted:I'm only aware of the Thunderdome IRC and the Long Walk IRC (check for that thread also in CC)...both Dr. K and I are doing self-pub romance/erotica for our Long Walk goals, so I was going to talk to her about it there This sounds like a great opportunity to start IRC for this thread.
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Apr 25, 2015 02:51
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Does anyone know of a handy link to not-legal-advice about setting up an LLC or whatever for publishing income?
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Apr 25, 2015 20:30
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incidentally, The Martian is loving amazing. I read it in 6 hours and I would pay money to be able to read it again for the first time.
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Apr 29, 2015 02:58
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EngineerSean posted:You can publish all this on the same account but amazon will absolutely use that triceratops porn against you if you ever become famous. Is there any way, some way you can structure things, so Amazon won't use dinosaur porn against you if you become famous?
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May 25, 2015 03:33
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Fuego Fish posted:My newest book has been delayed for more than two months because of the artist I commissioned for the cover running into problems in their personal life. Random acts of God have been the major thing loving up my ability to produce for the past year, it's not fair cancel the artist and get a new one. 2 months is unacceptable.
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Jun 8, 2015 16:38
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Jalumibnkrayal posted:Paid per page read. drat. Can't wait to see the new fad of 10-15 pages of front matter for a 20 page short. The help page for the new scheme says they'll start counting at the beginning of the main content, so padding the front matter shouldn't work.
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Jun 15, 2015 18:52
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Bobby Deluxe posted:Amazon are forced to panic revert their stance. There is a zero percent chance this happens. Amazon revenue in 2014: $89.88 billion amazon ebook estimated revenue, 2014: $500M-1B. Even if you add the estimated $4B in kindle hardware revenue (that includes tablets, which aren't just ereaders), you're looking at less than 5% of amazon's revenue. KU is a small piece of this. Fate Accomplice fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Jun 15, 2015 |
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Jun 15, 2015 19:53
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Mat Morris, self published author and host of the "author strong" podcast, aka the guy who twice did NaNoWriMo in 24 hours, is livestreaming his attempt to write 50K words in June. from June 1-28 he wrote 6K words, so he has 44K to do in the next 28 hours. http://www.twitch.tv/matmorrisauthor
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Jun 30, 2015 04:14
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Roar posted:Hey boyos, I'm guessing you're aware of this, but just in case: chromebooks can't install software unless you monkey around in developer mode, so you're limited to using apps you can access through a web browser. Likely that means google docs. That's cool for some, but not for everyone.
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Jul 11, 2015 16:36
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How did people do this month under the new KU? Are you gonna stay in it?
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Aug 15, 2015 18:21
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CommissarMega posted:On the edges of the galactic empire known as the Concord, an elf named Shara Torellon finds herself hobbled by a ramshackle ship and crippled finances. Desperate, she takes up a seemingly harmless offer from Concord Intelligence, only to find herself in far more trouble than even her most paranoid fantasies anticipated. On the edge of Concord space, captain Shara Torellon grapples with a hobbled ship and crippled finances by taking a job that goes all wrong fast. Banished long ago, a horror from the depths of space is back seeking vengeance, armed with lost technologies that boggle the mind. Nothing is as it seems. The only thing standing between it and galactic apocalypse is Shara and her ragtag crew. Says the same thing but way more concise.
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Aug 16, 2015 06:57
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CommissarMega posted:Holy poo poo, this is awesome. May I take this wholesale? Go for it, all yours. It's just a template, though. You know your story best. EDIT: Jalum's advice here is also spot on. Fate Accomplice fucked around with this message at 06:45 on Aug 17, 2015 |
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Aug 17, 2015 04:26
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On a related note, can someone post a summary of good things to do before you publish the first book on a new penname? KU in/out, promos to use, free days all at once to start, etc. This is assuming you have no pre-built list, following, etc.
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Aug 21, 2015 04:35
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Apparently August is .00514, down .00064 from July.
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Sep 15, 2015 17:34
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laxbro posted:Dan Simmons - Hyperion Cantos I wouldn't call that recent. I think I remember reading Hyperion 20 years ago. If you want something that'll break your mind, read Hannu Rajaniemi's Le Flambeur series: The Quantum Thief, The Fractal Prince, and The Causal Angel. Book 1 opens with the main character stuck in a prison in which he's forced to play prisoner's dilemma games with real guns against the other inmates all day long. When you die, they bring you back to life to play again. It only gets more and more complicated from there. The author is a PhD in mathematical physics, and the first chapter of book 1 alone got him a three book deal. Also, unlike lots of scifi, there are zero info-dumps, zero explanations of how anything works. You pick it up as the story goes. Fate Accomplice fucked around with this message at 19:39 on Sep 16, 2015 |
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Sep 16, 2015 19:37
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http://blog.oysterbooks.com/ Oyster books is sunsetting their existing mobile reading service. They say it's because they're focused on the next big thing in mobile reading, but Google's already hired much of their staff. The competition thins!
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Sep 22, 2015 16:24
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magnificent7 posted:The book manager has been helping me a lot, up until about a week ago Please elaborate on what these things are in exhaustive detail.
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Oct 21, 2015 21:23
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magnificent7 posted:Honestly, I don't know the answers, which pretty much proves your point. So why not pull this one and try to start over with it? It could still be salvaged if you do it right. No sense in wasting all the work you put into it, which is what continuing down this path is doing.
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Oct 22, 2015 02:28
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moana posted:I know an erotica author who wrote a thriller novel and hit the top 100 on Amazon, using all the same marketing techniques. It wasn't an unsellable book by any means if he had come here and asked what to do instead of paying someone 30% to take a dump on his book. What marketing techniques might these be? (besides good cover, blurb, and keywords?)
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Oct 25, 2015 04:55
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ravenkult posted:Your cover is bad! Why is your cover bad? I am echoing this. Your cover is at least, if not more important than, the content of your book.
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Nov 15, 2015 23:55
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Axel Serenity posted:Yeah. I'm trying to upload a new version with better typesetting so everything's nice and centered, but apparently I can't make changes while former ones are under review. Do you mean the cover? the typesetting doesn't matter. there's no image on it. The title is "sky thief," show me some loving sky and at least one thief.
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Nov 16, 2015 03:00
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ArchangeI posted:Funny, I checked on some of my boxed sets, and the KENPC count is actually higher than the one shown on the store page, by about 50%. Not complaining. Yeah, what you need to know is what your KENPC (NOT print length) was yesterday and what it was today. My guess is today's number is 20% lower.
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Feb 2, 2016 02:34
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freebooter posted:Is there a rule of thumb for pages = word count? I have a 12-piece serial I want to package and publish but the advice here a while ago was that 20K words (the first instalment) is not enough to stand alone and I should lump some of them together. Just looking at other bestselling books in the genre and they seem to be between 200-300 pages. How do I figure out how many words that is, ballpark? figure 4-5 pages per 1000 words. roughly 200-250 words per page.
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Feb 25, 2016 02:20
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EngineerSean posted:proof that HM Ward didn't actually lose 75% of her income from kindle unlimited please say more about this, first I've heard of it.
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Jun 6, 2016 22:02
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D-Pad posted:stuff you wrote too many pronouns; dunno who you're talking about half the time.
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Oct 6, 2016 19:20
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Heathbourne posted:Virgin account, for the same reasons others have pointed out previously. Plus it's nice to help Lowtax. Your cover is garbage tier. If you came across a book with a cover like it, would you click on that listing?
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Jun 4, 2019 02:21
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I remember hearing, back when vellum came out, that their process resulted in books with more kindle unlimited pages in them for the same number of words, netting authors a bigger slice of the KU pie. Not sure if that’s still true.
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Jul 24, 2019 22:18
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freebooter posted:A Goodreads book club has selected my recent vampire novel release as their book for September which I feel pretty chuffed about The word chuffed, I think cause it reminds me of chafed, sounds like it’s a bad thing, even though it’s clearly not. Congrats!
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Aug 30, 2019 16:32
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Well, what do you want to do?
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Sep 20, 2019 16:08
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