EngineerSean posted:

I should be able to provide you with some tips for your next work.

ArchangeI posted:

Any word if/how they are going to monetize that for the authors?

syscall girl posted:

I'm just doing napkin math here but it looks like $9.99 x n subscribers / infinity.

jazzyjay posted:

The Silent Circus
Ulis' childhood ended the night the planes burnt his city to ashes.

Orphaned, traumatised and mute, his only companion a fellow orphan named Lidyja, he flees Nazi death squads and Soviet partisans and is driven deeper into an ancient, malevolent forest.

Lost in an endless mire, they are rescued by the strange denizens of a circus hiding deep within the forest. For a while, Ulis and Lidyja think they are safe, having found a new family, a strange and peculiar family of Siamese twins and silent ape kings and freaks and mystics.

But the Ringmaster is dead and children soon learn that the war outside holds no monopoly on horror.

A cool person posted:

Hey all, so I finally bit the self publishing bullet. Making my crime/thriller/noir whatever book free on Amazon from now until Monday if any of y'all want to check it out.



http://www.amazon.com/The-Opportunist-Ray-Altman-ebook/dp/B00LP0O03W/ref=cm_cmu_up_thanks_hdr


Any feedback would be killer

A cool person posted:

Thanks for the input. Messed with the settings and I think I fixed it. First time using calibre to convert the source doc and I'm kind of retarded when it comes to that stuff

Yooper posted:

Could I get a blurb check?

Grammaton posted:

Is 2k to 10k the best book to read to improve your writing process? I've gotten a lot of good ideas from it. (I've also found four mistakes in it. Maybe I should become an editor instead of a writer.)

EB Nulshit posted:

Is short romance a thing that sells? My mom is writing short erotica but she'd much prefer to write straight-up romance.

quote:

Dear KDP Author,

Just ahead of World War II, there was a radical invention that shook the foundations of book publishing. It was the paperback book. This was a time when movie tickets cost 10 or 20 cents, and books cost $2.50. The new paperback cost 25 cents -- it was ten times cheaper. Readers loved the paperback and millions of copies were sold in just the first year.

With it being so inexpensive and with so many more people able to afford to buy and read books, you would think the literary establishment of the day would have celebrated the invention of the paperback, yes? Nope. Instead, they dug in and circled the wagons. They believed low cost paperbacks would destroy literary culture and harm the industry (not to mention their own bank accounts). Many bookstores refused to stock them, and the early paperback publishers had to use unconventional methods of distribution -- places like newsstands and drugstores. The famous author George Orwell came out publicly and said about the new paperback format, if "publishers had any sense, they would combine against them and suppress them." Yes, George Orwell was suggesting collusion.

Well... history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

Fast forward to today, and it's the e-book's turn to be opposed by the literary establishment. Amazon and Hachette -- a big US publisher and part of a $10 billion media conglomerate -- are in the middle of a business dispute about e-books. We want lower e-book prices. Hachette does not. Many e-books are being released at $14.99 and even $19.99. That is unjustifiably high for an e-book. With an e-book, there's no printing, no over-printing, no need to forecast, no returns, no lost sales due to out of stock, no warehousing costs, no transportation costs, and there is no secondary market -- e-books cannot be resold as used books. E-books can and should be less expensive.

Perhaps channeling Orwell's decades old suggestion, Hachette has already been caught illegally colluding with its competitors to raise e-book prices. So far those parties have paid $166 million in penalties and restitution. Colluding with its competitors to raise prices wasn't only illegal, it was also highly disrespectful to Hachette's readers.

The fact is many established incumbents in the industry have taken the position that lower e-book prices will "devalue books" and hurt "Arts and Letters." They're wrong. Just as paperbacks did not destroy book culture despite being ten times cheaper, neither will e-books. On the contrary, paperbacks ended up rejuvenating the book industry and making it stronger. The same will happen with e-books.

Many inside the echo-chamber of the industry often draw the box too small. They think books only compete against books. But in reality, books compete against mobile games, television, movies, Facebook, blogs, free news sites and more. If we want a healthy reading culture, we have to work hard to be sure books actually are competitive against these other media types, and a big part of that is working hard to make books less expensive.

Moreover, e-books are highly price elastic. This means that when the price goes down, customers buy much more. We've quantified the price elasticity of e-books from repeated measurements across many titles. For every copy an e-book would sell at $14.99, it would sell 1.74 copies if priced at $9.99. So, for example, if customers would buy 100,000 copies of a particular e-book at $14.99, then customers would buy 174,000 copies of that same e-book at $9.99. Total revenue at $14.99 would be $1,499,000. Total revenue at $9.99 is $1,738,000. The important thing to note here is that the lower price is good for all parties involved: the customer is paying 33% less and the author is getting a royalty check 16% larger and being read by an audience that's 74% larger. The pie is simply bigger.

But when a thing has been done a certain way for a long time, resisting change can be a reflexive instinct, and the powerful interests of the status quo are hard to move. It was never in George Orwell's interest to suppress paperback books -- he was wrong about that.

And despite what some would have you believe, authors are not united on this issue. When the Authors Guild recently wrote on this, they titled their post: "Amazon-Hachette Debate Yields Diverse Opinions Among Authors" (the comments to this post are worth a read). A petition started by another group of authors and aimed at Hachette, titled "Stop Fighting Low Prices and Fair Wages," garnered over 7,600 signatures. And there are myriad articles and posts, by authors and readers alike, supporting us in our effort to keep prices low and build a healthy reading culture. Author David Gaughran's recent interview is another piece worth reading.

We recognize that writers reasonably want to be left out of a dispute between large companies. Some have suggested that we "just talk." We tried that. Hachette spent three months stonewalling and only grudgingly began to even acknowledge our concerns when we took action to reduce sales of their titles in our store. Since then Amazon has made three separate offers to Hachette to take authors out of the middle. We first suggested that we (Amazon and Hachette) jointly make author royalties whole during the term of the dispute. Then we suggested that authors receive 100% of all sales of their titles until this dispute is resolved. Then we suggested that we would return to normal business operations if Amazon and Hachette's normal share of revenue went to a literacy charity. But Hachette, and their parent company Lagardere, have quickly and repeatedly dismissed these offers even though e-books represent 1% of their revenues and they could easily agree to do so. They believe they get leverage from keeping their authors in the middle.

We will never give up our fight for reasonable e-book prices. We know making books more affordable is good for book culture. We'd like your help. Please email Hachette and copy us.

Hachette CEO, Michael Pietsch: Michael.Pietsch@hbgusa.com

Copy us at: readers-united@amazon.com

Please consider including these points:

- We have noted your illegal collusion. Please stop working so hard to overcharge for ebooks. They can and should be less expensive.
- Lowering e-book prices will help -- not hurt -- the reading culture, just like paperbacks did.
- Stop using your authors as leverage and accept one of Amazon's offers to take them out of the middle.
- Especially if you're an author yourself: Remind them that authors are not united on this issue.

Thanks for your support.

The Amazon Books Team

P.S. You can also find this letter at https://www.readersunited.com

Nessus posted:

Has anyone had much success with children's or YA books published through Kindle or similar? I have an idea, which would perhaps best be compared to the early Potter books or Lemony Snicket, and which I think could do rather well. But I don't know if that market actually exists or not for e-publishing. Any experiences?

Nessus posted:

Awesome. Is there any issue, as far as Amazon is concerned anyway, with having works under multiple pen names on one account?

quote:

Hello,

Since you are enrolled in KDP Select, we wanted you to know about some important updates regarding the global fund.

Kindle Unlimited (KU) is off to a great start with a strong early response from customers. Due to this early surge in demand, we are adding a KU "launch bonus" of $500,000 to the KDP Select global fund for July 2014. This is on top of the base fund amount of $2 million in July. This brings the total funds paid on borrows to $2.5 million, which is more than double the size of payments in June.

We also have news about how KU and Kindle Owners' Lending Library (KOLL) borrows appear in your reports. Since KU launched, our reports have been showing KOLL downloads plus all KU books *opened*, instead of books read to 10%. As previously announced, we plan to pay royalties on books read to 10%. We apologize for any confusion this created. In the next few days, we plan to backfill our reporting to reflect borrows in this manner (KOLL downloads + KU books read to 10%).

For July we have decided to extend payment to all KU books downloaded and opened in July, even those not read past 10%. To support this, we will add an additional $285,000 in July payments, making the funds paid to authors in July $2,785,000.

Key points about recent fund activity
- Your July payment report shows your total earnings, including the additional funds paid during July for books opened and borrowed but not read to 10%.
- Next week, we will update all other KDP reporting for July and August to show KOLL downloads plus Kindle Unlimited borrows that have been read past 10%.
- Even after we backfill all other reports, your July Prior Month Royalty report will remain showing all KOLL downloads plus all Kindle Unlimited borrows that were opened in July, including those not read to 10%. All future reports, including future Prior Month Royalty reports, will reflect KOLL downloads plus KU borrows read past 10%.
- If a book was opened but not read to 10% in July but does pass 10% after July, you will also receive credit for the borrow when that happens.

For August, we will pay authors for KOLL borrows upon download and Kindle Unlimited borrows read past 10%.

Best regards,
The Kindle Direct Publishing Team

Nessus posted:

Huh. Well, that makes sense I suppose. What fields are you writing in, moana?

And for that matter, how do you go about setting up a mailing list? I've heard that mentioned a few times, is there some tool or service for it online?

ravenkult posted:

A story of identity and redemption, satanic cults and funny bunny slippers, The Mind is a Razorblade is the deformed lovechild of a lunatic raised on cheesy ‘80’s science fiction movies.

mostkillingest posted:

My wife recently self-published and I need some good ideas on how to help her get the word out. It is a light sci-fi novel.

http://www.amazon.com/Violet-Veterox-A-Crouch-ebook/dp/B00MR4T7E2

Blurb:
Twenty-five years ago, a virulent strain of the influenza virus emerged. It tore across the world, ravaged the population, and viciously killed three-and-a-half billion people. Evangeline’s parent’s survived. Five years after it ended, during society’s ascent back to normalcy, she was born. She’d grown up reading about the plague in books and hearing somber stories from the people surrounding her. She often wondered what it would be like to survive a pandemic or catastrophic event, being forced to watch as all of one’s family and friends died along the way. She never anticipated having to answer the question, but fate would cruelly propel her into responding and the resulting inferno would engulf her entire life.


There is also a sample at smashwords.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/467543

Please let me know how I can help her move her effort to the next level.

Mr. Pumroy posted:

Even before her parents' tumultuous divorce,

quote:

But when her father's insurance company transfers him to the city of Bybridge she must grapple with an entirely new level of culture shock.

quote:

Bybridge, a city on an artificial island off the coast of New Jersey, is home to the world's largest population of superhumans, aliens, and other strange and aberrant folk.

quote:

However, it's Carrie who's declared the anomaly when the city government declares her a security risk.

quote:

Then her father is kidnapped by a rampaging robot. It's a bad start to what was supposed to be a new life. Carrie must save her father from a grisly fate in the forgotten ruins far below the city,

quote:

aided only by the undead, a mad scientist-in-training and a pack of insane chefs.

quote:

After that comes the hard part: having a heart-to-heart talk with her father that doesn't end in a shouting match.

mostkillingest posted:

My wife rewrote her blurb to try to address some of the concerns that were brought up. The cover was already finished in the blue tone and actually looks pretty good on a print on demand cover. She had ordered a proof.

quote:

Evangeline is ordinary. She lives an ordinary life. Her friends and family are ordinary. Only one of these statements turn out to be true. At twenty years old, Evangeline Rolieux has an idyllic life. She understands how lucky she is, being born just five years after a pandemic. Her parents were survivors of the infamous influenza virus that swept through the world and ravaged the population, killing three-and-a-half-billion people. She’s read about it in books and has heard the stories, but a spark, lit from a simple history assignment, sets fire to her curiosity and pushes her to delve deeper. Soon she’s tumbling down a path towards a startling discovery that may destroy everything she cares for. Unbeknownst to her, the currency for this knowledge will be exchanged in blood, and it’s far more than exists in her body.

Yooper posted:

Polishing the draft on my next novel. What do you guys think of the blurb?

Imperfect posted:

Is this even close to a good idea? Oh, and sci-fi - is that just a bad idea from the start?

A1989 Honda Accord posted:

"In the town of Cyprus Grove everyone has a secret. Even the dead. Three children explore a myriad of dark happenings in this first collection of stories. Many towns tried to get back to normal in the years following the civil war. For Cyprus Grove, there is no normal.

quote:

In "Gifts and Nightmares" a sinister snake oil salesman provides a young girl, Rebekah, a music box.

quote:

"Watchers of the Field" has Jacob and his neighbor take an up close look at some scarecrows that are more than they seem.

quote:

They will have to escape the corn field or be lost to the monstrosities. "

TheForgotton posted:

1. 2.

EngineerSean posted:

I'm going to tell you the truth. At this point your best marketing strategy is to wrote more.

Sundae posted:

There are some algorithmic reasons not to use it, if anyone cares for details.

Sundae posted:

I'll certainly give it a shot.

EngineerSean posted:

As I stated in my explanation, this is obviously a pipe dream for your average mere self pub and should not factor into your decision. I'm going to quote the exceptions I had from my post, apologies to Milly Taiden if she ever reads this (I doubt she's a goon though)

quote:

Late last week Amazon started sending out emails to KDP authors, informing them of a new program which Amazon plans to launch soon. According to the email, which was forwarded to me by author Angela Kulig and by Amazon's pr dept, when the new program launches authors will be welcomed to submit their unpublished book to what I would describe as a crowd sourcing program.

Details are still scarce, but the email did say that it will work like this:

Authors will be asked to submit their complete, never-before-published book and cover.
After a few days, we will post the first pages of each book on a new website for readers to preview and nominate their favorites.
Books with the most nominations will be reviewed by our team for potential publication.

quote:

Guaranteed advance & competitive royalties: You will receive a guaranteed $1,500 advance and 50% royalties on net eBook revenue.
Focused formats: We acquire worldwide publication rights for eBook and audio formats in all languages. You retain all other rights, including print.
5-year renewable terms, $5,000 in royalties: If your book doesn't earn $5,000 in royalties during your initial 5-year contract term, and any 5-year renewal term after that, you can choose to stop publishing with us.
Easy reversions: After two years, your rights in any format or language that remains unpublished, or all rights for any book that earns less than $500 in total royalties in the preceding 12-month period, can be reverted upon request -- no questions asked.
Early downloads & reviews: One week prior to release date, everyone who nominated your book will receive a free, early copy to help build momentum and customer reviews.
Featured Amazon marketing: Your book will be enrolled into the Kindle Owners' Lending Library, Kindle Unlimited as well as be eligible for targeted email campaigns and promotions.

EngineerSean posted:

I mean this is more along the lines of "a traditional publishing company can do absolutely nothing for me" which is said sometimes in self publishing circles but is absolutely wrong. Would you pay for cover design even though you can put words on a picture? Would you allow somebody to self publish for you if they were an expert on visibility and kept part of the profit? If no, why not? There is a decent chance (almost 100%) that Amazon handling your publishing would more than double your sales.

Elfforkusu posted:

... this will probably end up being free at some point, so don't buy it! (I am bad at marketing)

Elfforkusu posted:

And... it's free for Kindle Unlimited people?

Kicklighter posted:

DukeRustfield posted:

Well, I guess it depends on what you're shooting for. I will say it works quite well as a business plan in nearly any business. If you apply to a company, let's say Google, and tell them, "I just do what everyone else does," you won't get the job. If you tell your prospective agent, "I just want to make C+ grade work," s/he is likely not going to be interested.

There's a huge gulf between making carbon copy poo poo and being an A#1 blockbuster overlord.