My dear friend, Nadia Riell, has reviewed my book! You can find her review here: http://nadiariell.com/2012/01/18/a-book-review-for-the-disenchanted-pet-by-kate-policani/
Thank you, Nadia! Your feedback, dialogue, and encouragement were an enormous help in writing The Disenchanted Pet, and also in writing The Lustre, coming at the end of February!
I just hit “send” on an email for the last read-through for my Think Tank of The Lustre! Kathleen Firstenberg will be editing in February, and I am hopeful that The Lustre will be out at the end of February or early March! I’m a little drunk with excitement right now! Stay tuned for my trailer video….
I had one of those ideas that hit you right while you are trying to go to sleep, only this time it wasn’t for writing. It was for promotion! What do you think? I hope they’ll be conversation-starters. I may try making them with some other media too because it was so much fun making them!
I found a few interesting posts, but I had to wait a few days because of other things to post that needed the day to themselves.
http://janefriedman.com/2011/12/06/what-good-salespeople-know/ Is a great rundown of the writer/salesperson connection
http://janefriedman.com/2011/12/09/big-mistake-author-blog/ Don’t make these mistakes!
these two I found through http://genelempp.wordpress.com/2011/12/10/blog-treasures-12-10/
http://selfpubauthors.wordpress.com/ is a cool site I need to explore more.
I will say again that the “Tag Surfer” page, found under the “Dashboard” category of the admin page, is designed to be and is one of the best ways to connect with others online through WordPress. WordPress is set up to link your blog to other WordPress blogs through this page and I really enjoy using it. It isn’t very intuitive the way it is set up, like so many other WordPress pages, starting out completely blank and offering no hints on the page.
The way to use it, if you’re stumped, is to type words into the little window and click the “add” button. Your words should be things you want to read about in others’ blogs.
When I put in the tag “Fiction” or “Writing”, I get lots of long, long posts containing people’s writings. “Novel” is a mix of people posting their chapters and people discussing novels–theirs and others’. As someone who is doing the work of making my writing into a book and even charging for my work, I’m kind of baffled by the “post everything online” concept of writing. I don’t really know whether to think of these as brave souls or people squandering their opportunities. Maybe it is a little bit of both.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot for me to link in those kinds of posts on a blog about self-publishing, so I have to “X” them. My best Tags are “Self-publishing”, “Author”, and “Novel”. The list of posts with those tags are usually full of win.
When I search, I am looking for people’s takes on self-publishing, authors who are promoting their books, reviewers who might review my book one day, reviewers in general so I can find books, and any other cool posts that might give me some new insights. These are the blogs I follow. The blogs I don’t follow are ones that don’t fit with the focus of mine. If you are writing a nonfiction book about boat refurbishing, I’m probably not going to follow you unless you are also self-publishing and writing a lot about that. I don’t follow a lot of the “chapter post” blogs because, while I appreciate free fiction, the posts are often really long and have nothing I can share. If the author is posting an excerpt, that is different. You’ll see, though, that the reeeeeaaaaalllllyy long posts are often “chapter posts”.
Normally when I “Tag Surf” I go through the whole list and open the interesting posts in a new tab. Then I go through each tab, follow, and sometimes link in my own post. This is really important because other pages linking to your page makes your page more attractive to search engines!
So, on to the actual links!
http://pigletinapoke.com/2011/12/06/the-first-four-words/ A post that has an interesting point about the first four words of a novel. Also, the first four words of her novel, and then some.
http://selfpublishingadvisor.com/2011/12/06/self-publishing-for-the-eco-conscious/ Here is something I never thought of when getting ready for publishing! Ah! So many details! There were a lot of interesting links on the left side of this page. This one is going to take longer and I might make a post about it all by itself!
http://utterance.com.au/2011/12/06/dymocks-enters-self-publishing-domain-with-launch-tomorrow/ Here is an article for a new self-publisher out of Australia. Normally I wouldn’t link this, but I am meeting so many authors from Down Under on WordPress that I really should. I feel so international!
http://geekycorner.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/its-ok/ Here is your official permission to, as an adult, read YA fiction. I didn’t know that we needed permission, so I’m so glad I have it now. I love to read YA fiction because I know I’m probably not going to have to skip over any uncomfortable sex scenes or read embarrassing descriptions of genitalia.
How did I get my book on that bookstore shelf?
First, I had to identify where my book might be purchased. Third Place Books was ideal because I already knew that they consigned used books. I had done it before through them, so I knew they were all set up to put books on their shelves that weren’t ordered from a proprietary catalog.
Second, I had to count the cost of selling your book through a third party. (hehe) If you buy your own books at $5.26 apiece and pay $4.77 shipping and $1.50 in tax, then selling 3 books will cost you $22.05. If your reseller takes 40% of that and sells your book at $9.99 then you make $17.82 back and that means you are paying $4.23 to have your book available on the shelves.
This is actually my rundown of the three books on that shelf right now, and it’s worth it to me right now. This was an experiment and it was partially successful. I’ll only lose $4.23 if my books all sell, and nothing if they don’t. My plight is not hopeless because there is a “Pro Plan” program through Createspace (where I obtain my print books) that I can pay an extra $39 to upgrade with a $5 annual renewal. Then I would pay only $9.30 for the books, making my cost $15.57(ish) instead and I’d make a $2.25 profit selling them. It’s worth it to leave it right now because I’m not sure my books will sell and the extra $44 for the Pro Plan is only worth it if I can manage to sell more than 22 books this year. Not so sure about that.
There are also other places I can publish my book that would charge me less. But it has to sell. I actually reversed the second and the third steps because I didn’t know how much Third Place would sell them for when I submitted, but it was worth it to pay extra to have them in the store. I had the books already, saved for just such an occasion, so I didn’t have to order them, just drive them over after I dropped the kids off at school.
Sermonizing time. The ninety nine cent ebook is something I am passionate about, and here is why: reading is one of my greatest pleasures. I learned how to follow a story line while being interrupted every few minutes by horrors such as poop, property destruction, interpersonal violence, and unsanctioned nudity (all performed by tiny people). Reading is that important to me.
My beliefs are sometimes conflicting things, though. I believe in free stuff online. I believe that I should not have to fork over $8.99 for a work of fiction by an author I don’t know and which I might not enjoy. I believe that he or she deserves to be compensated for his or her work, BUT he or she is not giving me a physical product. I mean, really! You are selling the physical book for $10 and you want me to pay only two dollars less for it when you don’t actually have to print it?
I know how just how free ebooks are. I published some. The entire cost of the book is what its worth for you to write it and what it cost to edit and maybe make cover art. I’m not asking any more from other authors than I am expected to give myself.
I have paid $8.99 for ebooks–don’t get me wrong. These were books that I knew I’d like, that I’d been waiting for. They were ones I paid for because I was treating myself to the privilege of reading it right away rather than waiting it to be uploaded onto my library website. That doesn’t mean I think that it was a good deal.
Lets be honest, folks. This is fiction. The ideas are real and important, but nobody’s life is depending on my novel. Nobody will die if I write it wrong or misspell a word. If a giant electromagnetic pulse hit the city like in the movies, my entire body of work would be gone, except for the three print volumes on my mantel (one of which has a coffee stain.) It’s better for everyone if my work slips smoothly onto your ereader or hard drive without pain to your wallet.
If you are writing “The Idiot’s Guide to Emergency Heart Surgery With Household Tools” then please, write carefully, spell everything right, and charge however much you like. You spent all that time in medical school and you know how to save lives. We get that and are willing to pay.
If you are writing, “Sexy Vampire Chronicles” then you should be ashamed of yourself for charging more than $0.99 for an ebook. I’m serious! Your brainchild is the equivalent of Dove bars for your brain. Would you pay $8.99 for a Dove bar? I love Dove bars but I wouldn’t pay $8.99 for one.
$0.99 is a beautiful price. You can get two Dove bars for that price and they will live in your fat cells forever.
Low-priced ebooks are good for the environment! Think of all the paper that is not being used, the inks, the power to move the printing machines. Encouraging people to turn to ebooks instead of a pricey print book is good for the economy. Plus, if your ebook is almost as much as your print book it won’t be worth it to a buyer. They will buy the print book, or more likely, skip it and pick a cheaper book. You evil tree killer!
I respect the preferences of the people who love a physical book. Hey! I printed my book didn’t I? I’m just not going to expect my profit margin to be four times as large with an ebook.
You can all rub this blog post in my face one day if my ebook for my seventeenth novel is $8.99 (because I’m very susceptible to ironic life coincidences), but I’m thinking by then that Dove bars will cost $8.99. Inflation, you know. For now I stick by the $0.99 ebook and I appreciate all the authors who agree.
Thanks to Quillweilder http://quillwielder.com for the link to a beautiful chart comparison of all the web-based print-on-demand companies and ebook only companies out there and their policies. I love charts! Click here:
http://www.booksandtales.com/pod/
I also just signed up for Novelpublicity’s Whirlwind Tour. This means I’ll be participating in some more reviews and book publicity! http://www.novelpublicity.com/whirlwind-recruitment/
They should really call it “Tag Fishing” because it is like finding some that are whoppers, some that are minnows, and some old boots.
Here are my faves from today:
http://timzimmermann.com/2011/10/28/the-publishing-revolution-in-one-table/ I love the hard evidence, and I’m encouraged that though I am not making wads of money, the odds are in my favor. This one was short but fat with goodness.
Also there is a long one but interesting http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/2011/10/28/are-successful-writers-just-lucky/ Maybe this one is an eel. I liked her progression through the book writing process to fame.
It’s a small achievement, but I finally tweaked my ebook version to qualify for premium distribution on Smashwords! As I’ve said before, they have a great formatting guide and have a lot of good advice and tips about good ebooks. Lets see if this increases my sales, as they claim it will…
Yes, I finally gave into the pressure to produce a trailer, worked out how I would do a trailer for my book, researched it, and am mostly done (translated “waiting for someone else to email me something”).
Here is my recipe for creating a trailer:
And, really all the rest was tweaking the text and pictures and music and stuff (incredibly easy but time-consuming) with Movie Maker. As soon as it is ready, I’ll put it up here and you’ll see if you want to follow my recipe for a trailer or not…
I’m still figuring out what blog tours are and how to use them. To help jumpstart my education, I’ve signed up for Novel Publishing Group’s Blog Tour hosting program. http://www.novelpublicity.com/tour/apply/ I met one of their authors who also does book PR, Emlyn Chand, on BookBlogs and thought it would be a good idea to jump into this. I can see that my book publicity is lacking and I need to see some well-done book promos to see how I can improve!
So, the real reason I am blogging is to promote my writing, make it pay for itself at least, and help all you guys out there who are in the same position as me or not as far along. The thing is, that all my reasearch and blogging and developing a market for my books is taking time away from…guess what? Writing books. So today I am reminding myself and you to stop putting off your writing with endless blogging and research and WRITE! So there.
I just breezed through the short but sweet ebook Marketing on Amazon by Brian Kittrell. Most of it is stuff I have already read before and posted here, but there were two good nuggets in there I haven’t heard of before.
The first is Tagging on Amazon. Here is the link about that and how to do it. http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=help_search_1-1?ie=UTF8&nodeId=16238571&qid=1318963174&sr=1-1 Writers will want all their friends to tag their books.
The second is yet another place to get your book reviewed, but this one looks like a biggie: http://www.midwestbookreview.com/ “The Midwest Book Review is an organization of volunteers committed to promoting literacy, library usage, and small press publishing.” You can also ask them to add your website to their site network.
If you want to read the book yourself, go to http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/37429
Be like Lorenzo: patronize an artist like me!
Kate Policani 