Bad Publicity, O'Nan, Price Point

By now I'm sure you saw or heard about the article published by The Stanford Daily about how a study proved that bad publicity may boost book sales. Here are some bits from the article:

The overall study consisted of three mini-studies. The first study involved the examination of a 2001-2003 dataset of weekly national sales for 244 fiction titles reviewed by The New York Times. By measuring the size of sale spikes in the week following the release of each book review, the study showed two main points: positive publicity benefited all titles and the bad publicity only helped lesser-known and obscure authors.

So that first study examined books that came out nearly a decade ago. This was all before the "e-book revolution," but does that really mean anything? Probably not.

The second study looked at the effects bad publicity had in well-known and obscure books over time. Some subjects looked at glowing and negative reviews for a well-known book by John Grisham and reviews for an obscure, made-up title.

Subjects who read negative reviews of well-known books were less likely to buy the book. Negative reviews of unknown books, however, did not affect whether or not the subject was likely to purchase it.

In the end, what does this mean for you and me and our next door neighbor? Probably nothing at all, but it's still pretty interesting.

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Stewart O'Nan has a new novel coming out next month called Emily, Alone, which is a sequel to his 2003 novel Wish You Were Here. Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review. I'm very much looking forward to it, and you should be too, but in the meantime, check out this recent interview with the author via Writers At Cornell:

Stewart O'Nan

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For the two or three of you who haven't heard yet about Joe Konrath's latest e-book experiment, he took one of his books that was priced at $2.99 and lowered the price to 99 cents. And, as you can imagine, there was an increase:

At $2.99, I was earning $2.03 per download. And I was selling an average of 43 ebooks a day.

At 99 cents, I only earn 35 cents per download. I'm now averaging 205 sales a day.

At $2.99, I made $87 a day.

At 99 cents, I'm making $71 a day.

But in the last few days, The List has been selling stronger, averaging about 250 sales a day. If it can hold that number, or do even better, that's $87 a day--matching what it made at $2.99.

This is curious. At first glance, it seems like price and profit have found an equilibrium.

But there are obvious certain benefits to the 99 cent price point. Because it is now higher on the bestseller lists, it is seen more often. And 99 cents is more of an impulse purchase.

I like this book, and so do readers, and it's logical that the more people I get to read it, the more potential fans I'll make, and those fans will probably so and buy my other, more expensive ebooks.

What I've done here is the equivalent of putting turkey on sale for 19 cents a pound at the grocery store. The sale brings people in, then they buy other items that aren't on sale.

He isn't the only one finding that the 99 cent price point has helped boost sales. Jeremy Brooks recently lowered the e-book price of his novel Amity to 99 cents, and he saw his sales improve drastically (at least, that's how I read into his most recent tweets). Z. Constance Frost told me her sales weren't doing so hot at $2.99, and has since lowered No Shelter to 99 cents, but this, she said, was literally just yesterday, so it's impossible yet to see whether this will help.

And then of course you have writers who aren't selling hardly anything, even when their e-books are priced at 99 cents. Why? It's impossible to say. But I will admit the 99 cent price point is a great impulse buy, just like Konrath says. Bantam's been doing some smart promotion for Lisa Gardner's new book Love You More -- they priced her novel Alone at just 99 cents and included a sneak preview of her upcoming book. Alone quickly shot up Amazon's e-book Top 100. Since then the price has gone up to $2.99, but even still it's currently ranked at #1. I will admit, I was one of the ones who bought the book when it was 99 cents. Will I read it? Maybe. But at that price, it was a no-brainer.

(SHAMELESS PROMOTION ALERT)

Speaking of 99 cent e-books, have you checked out the Spooky Nook Giveaway Contest yet?

Writers Without Borders

So it happened yesterday. It being Borders finally filing for bankruptcy. If you've been keeping up with publishing news, this shouldn't have been surprising at all. I personally believe they hammered the final nail in the coffin when they decided not to get into the whole e-book game. Yes, they sold the Kobo and Sony readers, but neither of those were a Borders reader, not like how Barnes & Noble has the Nook. Anyway, it's certainly sad, though I know there are some people out there rejoicing. Yes, you know who I'm talking about. Some writers who have been having great success with their self-published e-books. I don't begrudge them anything, though it does get under my skin how some of these writers for years and years claimed to love booksellers, and would do anything for booksellers, but then, once it became clear they no longer needed booksellers, basically gave them all the finger. Yeah, that right there is a real douchebag move.

This PDF gives a list of all the Borders stores that are closing. Is your local Borders on it? My local Borders isn't, though I wonder why. Just the other night my wife and I were in there, and it was pretty deserted. We'd gotten an Olive Garden gift certificate so we had decided to, you know, go to Olive Garden, but the wait was pretty long as is expected on a weekend night. Luckily, there's a Borders right next door. The people who were there, it seemed, were just waiting for their Olive Garden buzzer to go off. I didn't really see anybody intent on buying books. Maybe that's because they didn't have the Hint Fiction anthology in stock, who knows.

The other group of people were the ones occupying the cafe. Yes, you know the group I'm talking about. You might even be one of them. Yesterday Brian Keene posted what he thought was the real reason Borders filed for bankruptcy, and I have to say, it makes a lot of sense. Basically, people going in there to use the free WiFi and drink coffee and look at books but not actually buying any books.

Also yesterday Nick Mamatas posted an interesting anecdote on Facebook about his first novel Move Under Ground (which has just recently become available on Kindle):

Back when MOVE UNDER GROUND came out in paperback, the print run was based on a fairly large, if tentative, buy from Borders. The BGI buyer reversed course and actually bought zero copies, claiming that the book was "more sophisticated" than he was comfortable placing in the horror section.

A long time ago, publishes published the books they wanted to publish and the booksellers sold those books. Then, at some point, a shift began to occur, where the booksellers began to have more and more say over what the publishers published. Now, from what I understand, some publishers sometimes approach major booksellers first about a particular book to see if they would have interest in selling it before they even decide to publish it.

My supernatural thriller The Calling which I announced on Monday has the same sort of backstory. Basically, it's a complex novel in the Peter Straub vein. Peter Straub can get away with writing really complex novels because he's Peter Straub, but newer writers have a tougher time sliding them past publishers. There was a lot of great feedback from publishers on the novel who liked it but had to pass for various reasons, but the best (or worst?) was one editor saying she loved it but felt it was "way too complex for most readers."

And so such is life.

But what, exactly, constitutes "most readers"? It's really fascinating when you think about it. How Hollywood decides what audiences want to see, just as New York publishers decide what readers want to read. They say our culture is getting dumber and dumber, but who's to blame? Hollywood and New Yorker publishers for lowering the bar, or movie audiences and readers for allowing them to lower the bar (or are we really just getting dumber that it wouldn't be beneficial for Hollywood and publishers to try to raise the bar up anymore than what it already is)? Is James Patterson a major success because he writes great novels, or is he a major success because the bookstores make sure his new book is the very first one you see when you walk inside the door, the only option you have in the small airport bookstore while you're waiting for your flight, etc.?

Who knows, and quite frankly, who cares?

What you should care about, if you want to break into traditional publishing, is just what Borders apparently owes publishers:

Publishers are on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars led by Penguin Group (USA) which is owed $41.1 million, followed by Hachette at $36.9 million, Simon & Schuster at $33.8 million, Random House at $33.5 million, and HarperCollins at $25.8 million. Neither major book distributor, Ingram or Baker & Taylor were among the leading creditors, and only one book distributor, National Book Network, which is out $2 million. The filing listed $1.27 billion in assets and $1.29 billion in liabilities. Borders said it expects to be able to pay vendors for merchandise shipped to it after today’s filing 16; those owed money prior to the filing will only be paid with the approval of the bankruptcy court.

That's a lot of moolah there, no? And in the end, who is going to suffer first, the publisher or the writer?

Saturday Stuff: More On E-Book Royalties, TwitLonger, Best Of EDF 3, American Grindhouse

Earlier in the week I talked about e-book royalties and what the Authors Guild had to say. Just yesterday they released a new part of their ongoing series, this one aptly titled "The E-Book Royalty Mess: An Interim Fix":

Negotiating a publishing contract is frequently contentious, but authors have long been able to take comfort in this: once the contract is signed, the interests of the author and the publisher are largely aligned. If the publisher works to maximize its revenues, it will necessarily work to maximize the author's royalties. This is the heart of the traditional bargain, whereby the author licenses the publisher long-term, exclusive book rights in the world's largest book market in exchange for an advance and the promise of diligently working to the joint benefit of author and publisher.

Now, for the first time, publishers have strong incentives to work against the author's interests.

As we discussed in our last alert, authors and publishers have traditionally acted as equal partners, splitting the net proceeds from book sales. Most sublicenses, for example, provide for a fifty-fifty split of proceeds, and the standard hardcover trade book royalty -- 15% of the retail price -- represented half of the net proceeds from selling the book when the standard was established. But trade book publishers currently offer e-book royalties at precisely half what the terms of a traditional proceeds-sharing arrangement would dictate -- paying just 25% of net income on e-book sales. That's why the shift from hardcover to e-book sales is a win for publishers, a loss for authors.

The piece goes on. Definitely worth checking out.

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I love Twitter. I don't know why. If I had to choose between Twitter and Facebook, I would take Twitter in a heartbeat. There's just a simplicity to it that I really like. Also I really dig the fact that each tweet can be no more than 140 characters. And I'm not just saying that because I'm the "Hint Fiction guy." I believe it really can help writers work on their word-choice and self-editing. Of course, a few tweeters out there will run on and on, which sorta defeats the purpose. You know what else defeats the purpose? Services like TwitLonger.

On some level I've always known this service to exist but never bothered with it. Why would I, when the simple point of Twitter is to keep your posts nice and short. But recently a new upgrade with TweetDeck (which I use mostly for my desktop tweeting) has this service enabled. Before when I would tweet and go over the 140 character mark, the numbers would turn red and show a negative. Now, however, it just continues, as if encouraging you to keep typing away and not worry about the limit. This is sad and goes against everything Twitter stands for.

My point? That servies like TwitLonger really suck. And if you use them, shame on you. Shame!

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On a brighter note, the table of contents has been announced for the third edition of The Best of Every Day Fiction. It includes online friends Gay Degani, Aaron Polson, Ben Loory, and many, many more. It also include my story "Multiplicity." A big thanks to Jordan Lapp and Camille Gooderham Campbell and the rest of the EDF team for not only publishing my story in the first place, but for now reprinting it. When the book becomes available, I'll be sure to post about it here.

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Everyone have a nice and safe romantic weekend. Tune in Monday for an exciting announcement (at least, I hope it'll be exciting). In the meantime, American Grindhouse!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AndtsMdk2fc

Progress Of The Spindle

It recently came to my attention that Cynthia Reeser has reconsidered some of her ideas regarding the print edition of her journal Prick of the Spindle. From her blog post:

It may be worth a mention that when I set the submission fees for the print edition, I consulted with a marketing expert with more years of experience in his field than I've been alive. My initial thought was $5 across the board, and he balked at this. He urged us to go for $20, but I knew that was too high.

He offered his reasoning for this, which essentially entailed weeding out not-very-dedicated submitters, where the idea was to encourage a higher quality of submissions, and to let people know the print edition should be taken seriously. His line of reasoning is that people realize they get what they pay for, and having a fee on the higher end would provide the image of a higher quality publication.

That last part there about the line of reasoning being "that people realize they get what they pay for, and having a fee on the higher end would provide the image of a higher quality publication" is just, quite frankly, bullshit. But hey, what do I know? I'm no marketing expert.

Thinking about this, I considered the existing identity of the online journal, with an ackowledgement that any print edition would be associated with the online journal right out of the gate. We've always been free, and the only time a fee has been charged was for a competition for which, yes, there was a prize and print publication, with complimentary copies being awarded in tiers, from the Grand Prize winner through honorable mentions. But competitions are different from a standard print issue and therefore are based on a different model.

This is true. Just look at PANK and Annalemma and Monkeybicycle and Hobart. Those are journals that are both online and print. And they all charge reading fees for the print edition.

Wait -- what was that?

They don't?

Are you sure?

Oh, I see ...

Updates that will be posted to the print submission guidelines are:

* That a complimentary issue is provided for all submitters * Adjustment to the fees * Removal of fees for reviews * That published authors will receive compensation, TBD

This looks much better, yes.

I do take issue with Robert Swartwood saying that the business model is a bad decision. I am far from Narrative's greatest fan, but they are essentially doing the same thing. This doesn't make it right, but it doesn't make it wrong, either. Has it worked for them? Obviously, yes. That is neither to say that it would work for me, nor that our fee structure is based off of theirs. The reason I divulged how I came up with the fee structure in the first place was to show that it was not based off anything anyone else was doing, but by consulting with someone who knows what he's talking about, and by taking into consideration the current incarnations of the journal.

This doesn't make it right, but it doesn't make it wrong, either. What the H-E-double-hockey-sticks does that mean?

Has the reading fee structure worked for Narrative? Well considering that recently they've been begging for donations, how well can they possibly be doing?

The reason I divulged how I came up with the fee structure in the first place was to show that it was not based off anything anyone else was doing, but by consulting with someone who knows what he's talking about, and by taking into consideration the current incarnations of the journal.

I just had to repeat this line. It's so great. I mean, a marketing expert! Out of the back of what van does this guy work?

The bottom line is this: if you don't like the fees, don't submit to the journal. Soon they will look a lot friendlier, and then some other schmuck will likely come along and whine that we don't pay enough to our contributors... and the cycle goes on.

Great advice: if you don't like the fees, don't submit to the journal. It's the only thing in the entire post that makes sense.

Well then, it looks like this schmuck's job here is done. You're welcome.

More Than Just A Sitcom

The word community is thrown around a lot, but just what does it mean? The basic definition can be anything from "a group of people living in a particular local area" or "a group of nations having common interests" to simply "common ownership." But what of a writing community? Obviously it's a broad way of saying a large group of writers. But what does it mean?

Sunday's post ruffled a few feathers, as was to be expected. What wasn't expected -- at least by me -- was the sudden outcry from Cynthia Reeser's friends saying just how lovely and caring and warm she is. I even received a few private e-mails basically saying the same thing. And my reply to each was: What does that have to do with anything?

If you read my post, you can see I did not once attack Cynthia Reeser personally. I simply attacked her business model of the insanely high reading fees and advised writers to stay far away. So the fact that she's such a nice person and blah blah blah has nothing to do with anything. The nicest people in the world sometimes make mistakes; does this mean those mistakes should be automatically forgiven because those people are nice?

I wasn't privy to much of the chatter on the Internet these past two days concerning this most recent development, but I did hear about how a few people were going on and on about how this was a community, and how as a community we all need to stick together and defend our friends and blah blah blah.

And, well, that's nice and all, but again: What does that have to do with anything?

Take Cynthia Reeser out of the equation for the moment and insert any Joe Schmo. He has a lot of friends in this community; he makes a not-so-wise business decision; someone calls him out on that business decision, and then suddenly everyone wants to defend Mr. Joe Schmo because he's a nice guy.

Um, seriously?

I appreciate that there are people out there who want to stick up for Cynthia -- a few of my friends came to my defense, too -- but if this is a true writing community, then don't we ultimately want the best for the community? I know I couldn't have been the only one to see those guidelines; I'm sure a few, if not many, of Cynthia's friends saw them too. And don't you think that those friends would be big enough to say something to her? I mean, come on, those reading fees were a ticking time bomb, just waiting for me to come along and set it off.

My point here is this: as a writing community, we want what's best for the community, and while we do want to encourage and support our friends, we should also be willing to call our friends out on a potential problem, diffusing the bomb before it goes off.