Author Beware

My friend Nick Kaufmann just did a blog post (or LiveJournal post, which is like a blog wannabe, right?) about some shady shit happening in the publishing world. Here's some of the post:

I was recently contacted by the former book review editor of the Rocky Mountain News about working for the new review website she started, where I would review self-published horror, science fiction, and fantasy novels. It sounded like something that could be a bit of an endurance test--how long would I be able to stand each poorly written military science fiction adventure about the best pilot in the fleet who's also a hit with the ladies before contemplating my own death?--but I'd done similar work before as genre judge of the Writers Digest Self-Published Book Contest, and the promised $100-per-book payment was more than a little tempting.

Then I started to wonder how they could afford to pay me $100 a book, seeing as how even Publishers Weekly with its thousands of subscribers can't pay that. Fearing the worst, I checked their website and, sure enough, they charge authors for reviews. A lot. Here's the reply I sent back. Maybe I should have waited until I cooled down a bit, but I was aghast.

Dear [redacted],

Thank you for thinking of me, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to pass on your offer. I cannot get behind, nor associate myself with, any review source that charges authors for reviews. According to your website, you charge a belief-defying $395-$495 per book, as well as a $19.95 handling charge for books sent to you as a PDF instead of hardcopy. Frankly, I find this appalling. Not only does it automatically draw the truthfulness and impartiality of the review into question, it is, in my opinion, just another way of fleecing authors who have already been wildly fleeced by vanity presses.

Again, I thank you for thinking of me, but not only would I not want to be a part of a pay-to-play service like this, it is exactly the kind of thing I have been consistently warning other writers against for years now.

Sincerely, Nick Kaufmann

Kudos to Nick for having strong principles. Some reviewers might feel inclined to take the fast money. Then again, I do have to wonder where the rest of the $395-$495 goes if the reviewer (who is doing pretty much the bulk of the work, no?) only gets $100 per review. Oh, and let us not forget about the $19.95 handling charge for PDF!

But this outfit is professional, right? Well, they certainly think so:

Professional reviews are a critical cog in the book business. While not infallible, they offer informed, reasoned assessments that put the book into the greater context of literature. They are not replaceable with this sort of sophomoric review. They do, however, provide a nice complement and reality check to crowd sourced reviews.

At BlueInk Review, we use professional reviewers who know their genres and offer opinions that are more than thinly supported snap judgments. I am proud of our roster and would never use reviewers who weren’t committed to reading the entire book.

If you're an author looking to get your book reviewed, there are, like, a gazillion websites and blogs dedicated to reviewing books. Seriously, The Dishonored Dead has been reviewed four times on blogs, The Serial Killer's Wife two times so far. I didn't pay a cent, just contacted those website asking if they would be interested in seeing my book. In fact, a few other places even requested to see the books after they were mentioned elsewhere. So just contact them. The worst they can say is no.

Actually, I take that back.

The worst they can say is, "How much is it worth to you?"

Matt Damon Is Awesome

Out of all the movies he's starred in and all the charities he's donated to and all the organizations he helps, Matt Damon is probably best known for his performance in Team America.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWTzyU5MFgM

But this past Saturday he was down in Washington, D.C. speaking on behalf of teachers everywhere. He was the only celebrity who appeared at the rally. Of course, it helps that his mom who is a teacher no doubt helped organize the rally, but still, he flew from a movie shoot in Canada to New York and then from New York to Washington just to give his time. And you know what? He said a lot of great stuff.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7Jh3Z52KV0

I've never been a fan of standardized testing, which (to me at least) relies on the notion that all students are basically the same. Which, of course, they are not. Each student is different and learns at a different pace and has different interests and motivations and so to try to test them all equally is just asinine. When I started my student teaching back in 2004, I was very against state standards. But my cooperating teacher at the time had come up with a way to simplify the standards to use them to our advantage. He too had been very against the idea of being restricted to teaching to a series of standards until he realized that those standards were just a guideline, and that as long as you stuck with that guideline, you were okay. Like teaching parody? As it was a Senior Media Lit class, we watched an episode of The Simpsons and then had the students respond to the different types of satire that occurred. Story setting and characterization and flashbacks and other story devices? We watched a few episodes of Lost (this was during the first season of the show when many people didn't even know what it was yet). Anyway, it goes on and on. Thinking outside the box was what got me through student teaching and which helped the students become more engaged. The standards didn't become a limitation so much as a chance to do something different. Of course, I still think they're asinine, but that's okay, because Matt Damon is awesome.

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

Price Is Everything

At what point is it acceptable to raise the price of your ebooks?

This is the question I'm now struggling with.

As this recent article on ebook pricing shows, there are ten rules as found by Vook:

1 Zero variable cost means it's okay to significantly lower prices to maximize revenue.

2 Optimal pricing is highly content specific.

3 Certain pricing thresholds trigger psychological "automatic" purchases.

4 Categorization plays a large role in optimal pricing and discoverability.

5 Merchandising whole catalogues is more effective than single titles: "a rising tide lifts all boats."

6 Containers are critical to driving upsell in app environment.

7 Lift effects through savvy launch promotions have a profound impact on sales.

8 In general, apps cannot support as high price points as e-books.

9 Real-time sales tracking is necessary to adjust pricing in a dynamic e-book world.

10 For each retailer there are distinct best practices to maximize discoverability and revenues.

A lot of this is basic obvious stuff, but still worth thinking about. When I first started releasing novels back in April, I priced The Calling at 99 cents, seeing as how it was my first novel and I wanted to lure new readers in with what is pretty much an impulse buy. The problem, of course, is that many 99 cent ebooks go unread. Readers just like stocking up on ebooks, and at 99 cents they can squirrel them away like, well, squirrels.

But then the next month I raised the price to $2.99 so I could get that 70% royalty as I wasn't making much on the 99 cents. I thought that sales would decrease some and ... well, here are my numbers for The Calling on Kindle since March, as the e-book did become available within the last two weeks of the month:

March -- 41

April -- 124

May -- 238

June -- 276

July -- 287

So as you can see, there is steady growth. Not a lot of growth, mind you, as I would like to see those numbers advancing by at least fifty if not one hundred every month, but still, the ebook is doing okay, especially considering that some of May and all of June and July it was priced at $2.99 and bringing in a 70% royalty and especially since I do pretty much no promotion for the book at all.

Now why I am thinking about raising the price? Well, why not?

I must admit, I do like the $2.99 price point as it's not that much for your average reader, yet it gives the author a very big percentage. Depending on the file size, an author can earn about $2 for every unit sold.

But should every ebook be priced at $2.99?

Recently I've been thinking of the novel's length.

The Serial Killer's Wife is 80,000 words long, so I think $2.99 is a reasonable price to ask readers to pay for the book.

But The Calling and The Dishonored Dead clock in at 100,000 words each. In printed book length (I know, because I just recently finished designing the interior for both novels) it comes to a little bit over 350 pages, as opposed to The Serial Killer's Wife, which is right around 300.

So I've been thinking, would adding an extra buck for the novels over, say, 100,000 words be too much?

What many readers don't understand, too, is that the larger the file size, the more Amazon takes away. So charging $2.99 for a 200,000 word novel doesn't leave the writer with the same royalty as a 60,000 word novel.

And of course, what about that gray area of novels that fall between the 40,000 and 60,000 area?

It doesn't seem to make sense for me to charge $2.99 for one of those and then charge the same price for a novel that's 120,000 words.

One of the reasons I've been thinking about this is because with my print books that I'm prepping. At first I was going to make them all $13.95, but the truth is The Calling and The Dishonored Dead are fifty more pages than The Serial Killer's Wife. And just like with file size, the more pages you have, the less of a royalty you get. Not that I expect to make a fortune off the print books, but there should be at least a little something coming back in return, right? And making The Calling and The Dishonored Dead $14.95 isn't too much more to ask readers for a thicker book, is it?

Of course, there will be the readers out there who just want to be read no matter what, and while that's great and all, I would actually like to start making money on my writing. In fact, I have been making money and seem to continue to, which is a blessing. And this isn't a question of trying to take advantage of the reader, either. I'm not implying that I plan to jack some of these book prices up. Just a dollar or so, no more than that, at least for the novels that are much lengthier.

But, honestly, I'm scared to do it.

I'm afraid that sales might slow down.

Right now I'm making about $2 for every unit sold of The Calling. If I raised the price to $3.99, I would make a little under $2.80. It might not seem like much, but it does add up. And with more ebooks out there to sell, the more readers finding your books, it's finding that right price that is crucial. Unfortunately, every reader is different, just as every book is different, so trying to find that right price is sometimes very difficult.

So experimenting is a good thing, except for when your sales already seem to be increasing.

By raising the price, the sales might decrease.

Or they might increase.

Or they might stay the same.

But will I do it?

Again, right now I'm just too scared to try.

Being Social

I have to be honest: I'm getting a little sick of social networking. I could handle Twitter and Facebook just fine (well, I mostly ignore Facebook), but now Google+? As I probably mentioned before, social networking can be a double-edged sword for writers. Sure, you can connect with other writers and readers, but it's a massive time-waste that could be better spent, well, writing. If you don't tweet or make a Facebook or Google+ update every day, do you cease to exist to the others wired into the social network? If you let a week pass with no updates, do people just assume you're dead and move on? Does anyone even care?

Personally, out of all the social networks out there now, I like Twitter the best. I don't have to worry about friend requests or event invites or people asking me to like their self-made fan page. I don't have to sift through an ever growing stream of so-and-so is friends with so many new people or so-and-so just scored so many points in such-and-such a game or so-and-so is now in a relationship or so-and-so is now out of a relationship. Because, quite honestly, I don't give a crap about any of that.

Twitter is so much easier. I can follow who I want to follow. I can update when I want to update. I don't have to worry about getting notifications when someone "likes" my tweet or comments (though, yes, I guess @mentions are comments, no?).

There are different ways to use Twitter and Facebook and other social media websites. A lot of writers use it to promote their work. I'd be lying if I said I didn't use Facebook and Twitter to promote my stuff, but I don't do it constantly. When there's news to report (a new story or novel published), I'll mention it once or twice and that's pretty much it. My novels? They continue to sell pretty well every day, and guess what -- I'm not mentioning them on Twitter constantly, just as I'm not posting about them on message boards. I don't really understand the rationalization of writers mentioning their books and stories again and again on Twitter and Facebook and Google+ if their friends or followers don't really increase by much. If your friends or followers aren't interested in buying or reading your stuff the first time, they probably won't be interested in buying or reading your stuff the second or third or fourth or fifth time. In fact, they'll probably just get annoyed and unfollow (or block or unfriend) you.

If that happens, does it mean they don't like you anymore? Who knows. I've unfollowed people in the past on Twitter, and it was never because I didn't like them. It was just because I found myself not really paying attention anymore to their tweets. Or they retweeted like a madperson. Or they didn't tweet at all.

In fact, a long time ago, I unfollowed someone because I found myself not really paying attention to this person's tweets. I didn't not like this person anymore, but the next day I woke up to find a new blog post from this person making a big deal because I stopped unfollowing them. I mean, I have to assume this person meant me, otherwise it would have been way too coincidental to be anyone else. But anyway, this writer took it extremely personal that I would unfollow them. In their mind, I no longer liked them or considered them a friend. As you can imagine, I was embarrassed -- not for myself, of course, but for this writer making a big deal out of nothing.

At least, in my mind it was nothing, while to this writer it was clearly something.

But is that what social interaction is? Do we become virtual friends with everyone we encounter?

I know some writers play the Follow Me Game. They follow you and expect you to follow them back, and if you don't within a day or two, they stop following you. Why? Because I guess they think the more followers they have, the more successful of a writer it makes them. (Also, there are apparently programs you can log into that will automatically follow people and unfollow them after a day or two if the person does not follow you back. And of course there are people who just follow everybody they can because they want to.) I mean, not too long ago I saw a writer bragging how he had over 10,000 followers on Twitter. And it was true: he did have over 10,000 followers on Twitter. Of course, he was following about the same number too, which, if you think about it, sort of minuses the other one out.

Success is not judged by the number of Twitter followers you have or the number of friends on Facebook (or "likes" to your self-made Facebook fan page). At least, I don't think success is judged like that, but to each his own.

But again, I do like Twitter. Am I using it right? Is there a proper way to use these social media platforms?

A few months back, I tweeted some news on the Hint Fiction Twitter account. Someone responding, saying something to the effect of there you are, haven't seen you much, and I responded with something like, well if people talked more about Hint Fiction, I would post more. I was just trying to be friendly, nothing more than that, I was just trying to be "social," but this innocuous tweet was taken way out of context as an invitation to get a lecture on how I was doing the Hint Fiction Twitter account all wrong. How I needed to follow more people, how I needed to become interactive, how I needed blah blah blah.

My response was a simple thanks, but really the account is for updating any and all news about Hint Fiction, and left it at that.

Every person is different. Every person uses Twitter and Facebook and Google+ differently. Some of it can be too much. Some of it can be too little. Can any of it ever be just the right amount of socialness?

Touring Truths

Yesterday GalleyCat posted this video from author ReShonda Tate Billingsley about the "Not-So Glamorous Life of a Touring Author" and it got me thinking about the mini Hint Fiction tour back in November. How I think from the outside book tours seem like the coolest things in the world, but in reality they're a big pain the ass. At least for the majority of writers. The minority of writers are lucky enough to get huge support from their publisher who will fly them all over the country and put them up in hotels and pay for their meals. That is, of course, the book tour dream. But the reality is much different. For the anthology, I wanted to do a mini book tour because, quite honestly, I didn't know if I would ever get an opportunity like this again. And the publisher was happy to set up readings for me, but they weren't going to pay for anything. Not one cent. And in reality that's understandable, as they didn't pay much for the anthology in the first place -- not compared to other books they've no doubt bought -- and so they didn't have to put as much back into their investment. Like, if a publisher pays six figures for a book, you better believe they're sending an author on some kind of tour, even if it's just five or six cities. They want to get that author out there to meet the readers and booksellers so they can earn back on their investment.

But for the majority of writers, it's sort of like throwing ten darts at once at a dartboard and hoping one gets close to the bulls eye. The publisher puts little money in hoping for that at least one of them strikes it big and earns back the money they lost on the other projects.

The bulk of the promotion, ultimately, falls on the writer's shoulders.

This is why I eventually decided to start self-publishing some of my older novels; I had finally made it to the inside and saw the cold reality and knew that, in the long run, doing it myself was the smarter move.

For the Hint Fiction tour, I probably spent a couple thousand dollars of my own money after everything was said and done. For the reading in Los Angeles, Gay Degani was kind enough to let me stay at her place, so that helped save on hotel. But airfare came out of my own pocket. In fact, getting rides to and from the airport is another hassle altogether. To originally fly out to LA, my friend Noah Stoner drove me down to Philly; after I'd arrived in LA, Ben Loory picked me up and drove me to Gay's house; to then fly out of LA, Gay drove me to the airport; after I'd arrived in Philly, my mom picked me up at the airport and drove me home because my wife had to work very early the next morning.

So in that instance, not only was I spending a lot of money, I was putting others out. Of course, they're all family and friends, so it wasn't like they minded, but still.

For the reading in New York City, my wife and I stayed at a hotel for a few nights, and while the hotel wasn't the nicest -- but clearly not the crappiest -- it was still pretty expensive. As was parking and our meals and everything else.

Look, it's not like I'm complaining -- it had been my choice to put those readings together in the first place -- but just explaining the, well, not-so glamorous life of a touring author. And quite honestly, I wasn't even really touring that much.

Then, in December, I was scheduled to speak at the Morgantown Poets meeting in Morgantown, Virginia, which was a several hours drive. Not that I don't mind driving, but this was in December, and of course that day it decided to really snow, and as it turned out the snow got worse and worse the farther west we got, and so by the time my wife and I made it to Morgantown basically nobody had shown up for the meeting. And then, of course, hotel and meals came out of my pocket.

Again, not complaining but just giving another example.

Just like, this past Sunday, I went down to Philadelphia for the Chestnut Hill Book Festival. It was a nice little town with tables and booths set up along the sidewalk for a block or two. The Hint Fiction reading was on the second floor of a restaurant. Contributors Bruce Harris and Minter Krotzer were in attendance with about maybe a dozen other people (Patricia Anderson, whose story was one I picked for SmokeLong's 30-word contest, had also stopped by since she was visiting family, and I asked her to read her story, so that was nice). I had brought maybe twenty books to sell; the majority of those in attendance already had books, so you know how many I sold? One.

Again, I don't want to make it sound like I'm complaining. This is just how it is. I could have easily decided not to go to any of these events (I should also mention AWP, which is quite expensive and ultimately, I don't think, worth the cost), but I don't mind driving a few hours and talking about Hint Fiction. Actually, the main reason I'd originally agreed to speak at the Chestnut Hill Book Festival was because it wasn't that far away, not like many of the other locations. Not so long ago, I had pretty much come to the decision that I'm not going to drive more than an hour or two for something like this again unless I'm being compensated. That's just the simple reality of it; I don't have the extra money, and my time can be better spent on writing.

Which then, of course, makes me come back to the picture I posted the other day. Yes, The Serial Killer's Wife will soon be available as a trade paperback. I hope to make The Dishonored Dead and The Calling available as paperbacks soon, too. Not that I expect to sell that many, but it's nice for readers to have the option between electronic and paper. In fact, when I had initially been sent the proof for TSKW (that's what I'm holding in the picture), I thought that it was nice to hold the book, sure, but if it wasn't for e-books, I wouldn't even have considered self-publishing. Because I remembered the reason that self-publishing never made any sense before: the lack of distribution. Sure, TSKW will be available via Amazon and other online retailers, but it's not like you'll be able to find it in any bookstores. In the past, bookstores were where the readers were. Now e-readers are making it possible for readers to find books practically anywhere.

This past Sunday, I saw a writer standing behind a table set up on the sidewalk. On the table were several print-on-demand books. You could tell by the cover art that they were self-published (and if they weren't self-published, then that publisher should have spent the extra couple of dollars on quality art). And I remember thinking, Thank God for technology, because if it wasn't for e-books, that could be me standing behind the table, smiling at those who walk past avoiding me.

Except, again, I would never have even considered self-publishing if it wasn't for e-books.

Why?

Because this past Sunday at the book fair, I sold one physical copy of the anthology after having driven a couple of hours and speaking for an hour. That same day I sold between 30 and 40 e-books without lifting a finger.

Welcome to the future.