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Hooligans

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The new online issue of Bluestem has gone live. It features a bunch of fiction and poetry and nonfiction, including my story Hooligans. It also contains audio of me reading the story. So you can, you know, read the story or listen to me read the story or read the story while you're listening to me read the story or listen to me read my story while you read another story or, well, the possibilities are endless!

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Hint Cinema

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Hint Fiction contributor and all around cool cat Adam-Troy Castro brought the existence of 5-Second Films to my attention, or, as he put it, Hint Cinema. Here's some background:

5-Second Films was created by Brian “Boss Man” Firenzi in the Spring of 2005, after being disappointed by so many 5,400-second films. The rules are simple: 2 seconds of beginning titles, 5 seconds of film, 1 second of end titles. If you take umbrage with these 5sfs running at an actual length of 8 seconds, we can only assume you’re no fun at dinner parties.

So these guys obviously weren't inspired by Hint Fiction (not like this film was), but as you can see below, the films are definitely an acquired taste, just like HF. Are they silly? Yes. Are they wacky? Yes. Are they films? Yes. Enjoy.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saqO_ZqX6uY

Also, this is your last reminder about the Hint Fiction event at the KGB Bar tomorrow evening at 7 pm. Yes, it's the same night as the Oscars, but not to worry -- I'll be keeping everyone updated about the winners, no matter how inane the category. So if you're in the area, be sure to come out and get Hinted! (That sounds dirty, but it's not.)

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?

Regarding Rejection & Spam

I'm not normally one to blog about the rejection letters I receive, but I got one today that's just too good to pass up:

Dear Author,

We are sorry these poems did not work out for New Ohio Review, but please consider submitting other poems to our contest (deadline March 10) -- the entry fee includes a one-year subscription. See our guidelines at: http://www.ohio.edu/nor/submis.html

Best Wishes, The Editors

Sad, right? Thing is, I didn't send them any poems! What I sent was a short story. Or at least I thought I did. So to make sure I wasn't losing my mind, I went and logged into NOR's submission manager to make sure I hadn't, I don't know, submitted a short story under the poetry category. Nope. I'd submitted a short story under the fiction category, which was a big relief in knowing that I wasn't going crazy. Still, I had always thought these submission managers were automated, so that all an editor needed to do was click a magically button and an e-mail was sent with the author's name and story title and whatever else. But hey, at least I didn't spend $15 for that form rejection faux pas.

Speaking of form faux pas, over the weekend I received this e-mail with the subject line "We carry your work through Smashwords":

Robert,

I'm Scott Redford, owner of Diesel eBooks.  You have  a nice website and we hope you will use it to announce where your ebooks can be found. Please take a moment and paste the below "My latest Diesel eBook" link to your website.  Your readers will be grateful (so will we), for when "clicked", it will take you to your most recent book at our web store. Please see for yourself by clicking on the below link or pasting the URL in your browser:

http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/index.php?page=item&id=SW00000026239

Paste this code on your website to show the above link to your readers:

<a href="http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/index.php?page=item&id=SW00000026239" alt="Diesel eBook Store">My latest Diesel eBook</a>

You can also send your readers to a tailored listing of your eBooks at our store using the below code.

<a href="http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/author/Swartwood,%20Robert/results/10-Default/1.html" alt="Diesel eBook Store">See me at Diesel eBook Store</a>

Also, don't forget to click the "like" button underneath your cover on your diesel book page. Get your friends and fans to click as well. More clicks equals more exposure for you.  It takes just a second and this will automatically put your title on Facebook for everybody to see. Never know - you may go viral.

Our authors tell us that linking to their titles increases their sales so please take a few moments to past the code and start promoting.  If you need help  just let me know.

If you would like a small Diesel logo graphic for your link you can find one here: http://affiliates.diesel-ebooks.com/datafiles/uploaded/promo/1/still_image_small_1_Diesel-eBook-Logo-No-background_124.png

Give me a quick email back on your decision if you can... and keep up the good work.

Scott

Diesel eBook Store 1202 Peachtree Blvd Richmond VA 23226 804-201-4162

And so I thought to myself: Well this is certainly nice of him for sending an e-mail. But, wait a minute, I don't even have any e-books at his store. (Which is true; click that one link and you'll see it takes you nowhere.) So I sent back this reply:

Thanks for form e-mail, Scott. I appreciate it, especially since none of my e-books are available through your website.

Best,

Robert

To which he responded:

is that sarcasm, Robert?

To which I responded:

Yes, it is. I wouldn't mind Diesel carrying my e-books, but why send me an e-mail telling me you do when you don't?

That was two days ago and he hasn't responded since, and I doubt he will. You see, Diesel has some kind of partnership with Smashwords. If you go to Diesel's site and try to find out how to publish your work there, it will direct you to Smashwords. And so if you have a Smashwords account, your e-mail is free game for shenanigans like this. And believe me, I've checked -- it seems the word across the Internet is everyone and his brother was spammed from this guy. I guess he feels it necessary, though, as from what I have also heard is that nobody has sold any e-books through that website. I never even allowed Smashwords to distribute my e-books there (which was how I knew immediately that the guy was full of shit), but just tonight noticed that somehow my e-books had been opted in to be distributed through Diesel. Kind of shady, no? I opted out and left it at that. I don't really care much for Smashwords as it is (and giving out thousands and thousands of e-mail addresses doesn't make me feel any better about them), but it's the only way to get your books into the Kobo and Sony stores, at least for the time being.

Anyway, enough of that. Speaking of e-books, have you entered the Spooky Nook Giveaway Contest yet? If not, get crack-a-lackin.