The Self Publishing Revolution

There is no self-epublishing bubble (but you might not find gold…)

2012-01-30T20:02:00.000-08:00

GuardianBooks announced on twitter “Two epublishing doom-sayers on @guardianbooks today.” I’m not sure I’d trust either with a crystal ball to be honest. In particular, I think Ewan Morrison’s argument that self-epublishing is a bubble is spectacularly off.

At the risk of sounding like a bargain-basement Joe Konrath, ebooks aren’t going away. It’s a technology shift. Ebooks are a bubble in the same way music CD’s, then .mp3 downloads are a bubble, or movies are a bubble, as in they’re not a bubble at all. There are people who still like vinyl records and theatre, but neither has the cultural significance they once had.

I can see why Morrison is trying to make an analogy between bubbles and self-epublishing, but I suspect Gold Rush is a better analogy. Fuelled by the success stories of writers like Amanda Hocking and John Locke, a bunch of folks have decided there’s gold in them thar hills, grabbed a shovel and charged off to make their fortunes. A rare few will strike a motherlode, some will eke out an existence panning dust and a whole lot of folks will return empty handed and disappointed.

This is what we’ll see with self-epublishing. There’s a lot of interest and excitement now, but that will fade once the Get-Rich-Quick merchants realise how much work is involved for little guarantee of success. The current glut of self-published ebooks will subside, but it won’t pop and collapse completely. People have put quill to parchment, or whatever equivalent, for a very long time now, mostly without any promise of riches and rewards, and there’s no reason to think the future is going to be any different.

As always with articles like this I get a slight whiff of Writer vs. writer snobbery. Writers are big, important people who write big, important words. They must receive cheques to support them writing their big, important words otherwise the whole of culture as we know it will collapse into the sewer. writers are hobbyists who scratch words out in their spare time after they’ve finished their shift and popped the kids off to bed. While what they do is nice and commendable, they’re not really important and, besides, they already have the financial support of their day job, or their partner.

When I read articles like this complaining about future hardships for publishing, I tend to substitute writer with Writer, because that’s what they really mean—the few deemed worthy enough to pass through the sanctified gates. Morrison talks about how bad it is when a newly self-epublished writer puts their book out and earns only £99 in a year. Um, the vast majority of writers never make anything, not a single penny. They spend six months, a year, whatever, writing a book and it doesn’t get published. THE END. Oh that’s right, I forget, those folks don’t count because they’re writers not Writers.

And Morrison thinks writers are going to suddenly stop overnight even though a century or more of receiving nothing failed to deter them in the past. Oh wait, my bad, he means those other Writers.

For the majority of writers, the old publishing paradigm was terrible. They couldn’t get published and no one read their work. Yes, this benefitted the reader by protecting them from an awful lot of crap, but it also atrophied choice, especially in marginal areas where publishers were afraid to take risks. Now it’s much better for the majority of writers—they get a chance to be read. These next few years will see more books available to read than at any previous point in human history. If there aren’t a few future classics amongst that lot we should give up as a species and all go and drown ourselves in the Atlantic.

The argument against that is the good books will all drown in the swamp of badly-written dreck. It’s bullcrap. If a book is good it will be found by someone, because it’s out there, to be read, forever. It’s available to be found, as opposed to being locked in a drawer somewhere, never to see the light of day, because it didn’t fit what the publishers of the time thought would make them money.

Morrison’s apocalyptic crash scenario is one where the competition between all the desperate self-pubbers creates a whirlpool of ever-lowering prices, which sucks in the major publishers and leaves no one able to make any money at all apart from Amazon. This could happen. As I mentioned earlier, over a century of receiving—on average—nothing has not deterred writers from writing. This would leave writing as the province of only eager amateurs. Purists would argue it should be done for the ‘art’ rather than money anyway, but they probably haven’t read a book written after 1870 either.

It could happen, but I don’t think it will. There is a bottom. Both Selena Kitt and Joe Konrath have experimented with pricing and come to similar conclusions. The 99c thing was fun for a while, but readers are prepared to pay more for better quality books, although probably not the crazy-high prices set by most mainstream publishers.

More likely, rather than crashing, self-epublishing will stabilise and mature. Readers will get savvier at both avoiding the crap and finding the books they want to read, and will ultimately benefit from greater choice. Despite this, it won’t be that different from traditional publishing in that a few lucky/talented writers will earn huge while the rest won’t make enough income to quit their day jobs.

The majority of writers are still better off. They make some money, whereas before they made none. They’ll find some readers, whereas before it was only friends and family. As for the Writers, they’ll have to prove they are Writers by being popular enough to sell enough books to support themselves, or by being good enough to win the awards/garner the reviews that will generate enough book sales to support themselves. If they can’t do this, then maybe they weren't that different from the rest of us writers in the first place.

If self-epublishing creates a stable ecosystem where writers that wouldn't have been published are able to supply readers whose tastes wouldn't have catered for, and allows those writers to make a profit, then it will be performing its role quite admirably.

M.E. Hydra

A Ghost's Chance in Kindle Land Hell

2012-01-13T05:42:00.000-08:00

I smell the fresh scent of excitement in the air. What is that? Because my stomach is in knots to the point where it feels tingly. Not like a fart or anything.

A Ghost's Chance is here! I had originally titled the book Ghost of a Chance, thinking how very clever I was. Then I found out that a gazillion people have used that same title. If you search it on www.goodreads.com, you will see what I mean.

A few years ago, a friend of mine died unexpectedly. He was a guy who I thought I'd eventually have something more with. We'd had great conversations. The thing was we were always seeing other people. The last time we saw each other he said he missed seeing me (we worked together until I had gotten a better job) and then he said, maybe I'll see you again. Which I'd thought was a weird thing to say. Maybe? He died the following week.

So A Ghost's Chance is kind of my what if. I like to think that my guy is with me. He's there for me like a guardian angel. I've had some very close calls accident-wise and...not that I believe in ghosts or anything. I don't want to sound like a freak. But there are times when I'm alone and I think I hear him talking to me. But why me? I was never his girlfriend.

There you have it. It's autobiographical. Maybe my Jeffrey is really with me, maybe I'm just crazy. I must be crazy to spill my secrets like this!

The ebook will soon be available on all the sites. So far it is here -

http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-aghost039schance-671190-140.html

Thirty-nine-year-old Ellen Murakami is still single. Her success in pharmaceutical sales has allowed her to own her own home in Watertown, New York. However, she’s still a bit of a failure at relationships.

As St. Valentine’s Day approaches this year, Ellen’s luck seems to turn. Will she finally find her soul mate in businessman Paul Webber?

Told through the eyes of eighteen-year-old ghost, Jeffrey Brayden, A Ghost’s Chance chronicles Ellen’s love affair until Jeff finally gets a chance to compete for her affections and fulfill his destiny. Will love conquer all – even if it is completely unconventional?

Follow Jeff as he searches for true love from beyond the grave in this heartwarming Valentine tale.

Then I started thinking about that movie I’d seen when I was eight. Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Could I do that? Could I invade Paul’s body and make it my own? Maybe that was why I was here – but how the hell was I supposed to do that? Maybe I could just concentrate, I thought, and just make it happen. I mean, I am supernatural, right? And anything is possible. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried that concentrating on the positive outcomes thing.
Get inside his body. Get inside Paul Webber’s body!

When I finally opened my eyes, I saw only the mist of the steam room, and my own transparent image as reflected within the glass door, which looked a little like the dead guy on that Stones album cover, Aftermath. I was alone in there. But in movies, like Heaven Can Wait, the body looked like the spirit inside. Hmm. Had it worked? I reached to open the door and my hand slid through. Nope, still me.

Paul had already exited and was now showering. He sang Paparazzi by that Lady Gaga person. Kind of made him sound like a narcissist, thinking that people would want to take pictures of him – naked I mean. Plus, I thought, Ellen’s taste in music is trapped in the ‘80s just like her heart. She likes Duran Duran - stuff like that. Was he really right for her? My instincts said no – unless it was my heart talking. I hated myself just then, because I thought it would hurt Ellen if she ever found out I’d tried to shit on her happiness somehow.

Anyhow, I tried again. I took a running start and leapt half way, kind of like a circus tiger jumping through a hoop of fire. I wondered if my ghostly ass might plop straight down to hell for this. God, I felt so guilty! I sprang through the shower curtain and hit Paul in the chest - thump-thud - and just ricocheted off, landing on the floor near the sinks.

Paul jumped out of the shower stall. “What the hell?” he shouted. “Is someone there?”

He looked scared. Clutching his chest, he started to breathe a little heavier. I could tell that his adrenaline level was rising. Then I watched his cock jump into an erection. Wow, it was a pretty impressive one as hard-ons go.

Hmm. I wasn’t supposed to steal his body, I thought. I guess I felt a little defeated, because it didn’t seem fair. I’d always been taught that love contained the power of the universe – a great love being the strongest of all. It was rock hard clear that I was supposed to remain on the outside and help Ellen find her love. And since it was almost St. Valentine’s Day, I’d settle for being Ellen’s cupid instead, and maybe this whole thing between us would end up making sense.

Numbers from a Newbie Writer's First Year

2011-12-31T14:00:00.000-08:00

I had a nice early Christmas present when my third quarter royalties came through. I was expecting this to be fairly light, but it also included some October sales, which was when my third collection of short stories, A Succubus for Halloween, came out. The amount this quarter was $600, a nice little sum right before Christmas.

That takes my total profits, after taking out initial setup costs, author copies and seller’s/publisher’s cuts, to $1,300 for my first (kind of) year as a writer. Obviously this is nowhere near the same ballpark as self-publishing titans Amanda Hocking and Joe Konrath, but this is all money in the black, with the only outlay being my free time spent in an activity I enjoy doing anyway.

I put out three collections of short stories, with A Succubus for Christmas coming out October 2010, A Succubus for Valentine’s Day coming out February 2011 and A Succubus for Halloween arriving October 2011. Christmas and Valentine’s Day were originally priced at $5.99 and this was dropped to $3.99 about halfway in the year after eXcessica head honcho Selena Kitt did some experimenting on pricing. Christmas and Valentine’s Day sold just under 200 copies and Halloween just over 100, making 500 books (print + ebook) in total for the whole year. It’s a modest amount, but not bad considering collections of short stories rarely sell well and my subject matter is about as far from the mainstream as you can get! :)

More promising is the growth. Christmas and Valentine’s Day sold nearly 200 each over the whole year. Halloween came out at the end of the third week in October and my royalties run up until the end of October, which meant it managed those hundred-and-so sales in the first week. Baby steps, I know, but they’re going in the right direction.

Unsurprisingly, the lion’s share of these sales was through Amazon, but they are not the only game in town. I can understand why some might think Amazon’s current dominance is a cause for concern, but I suspect if Amazon really started to abuse that dominance to the detriment of writers and readers, they’d quickly find themselves outstripped by one of their competitors in the way Nintendo was usurped by Sony in the console wars of the ‘90’s. For the moment they’re fantastic and a budding writer would be foolish not to take advantage of what they have to offer.

Writers shouldn’t restrict themselves to only Amazon. Having their own webpage for direct sales can be very useful once they’ve built up a following. By promoting eXcessica’s coming soon link for A Succubus for Halloween heavily on my personal blog in the month leading up to its release I was able to generate 40 sales, nearly half of the total for that book, directly through eXcessica’s own store (which also took Halloween to the top of their bestsellers list, yay! Now if only I can match Selena’s sales out in the rest of the big bad world. :)).

For people looking to self-publish as a route to fame and riches, these numbers aren’t very exciting. If I was trying to make a living as a full-time professional writer, 500 sales and a return of $1,300 for the year would be horrifying. Thankfully I’m not, so I can feel chuffed about the numbers instead of worrying about what I’m going to live on next year.

Next year I plan to put out my first novel and a fourth collection of short stories. I don’t know where the path is going to take me, but it’s going to be fun to find out!

All the best for 2012!

M.E. Hydra

Words As Art, Amen

2011-12-14T16:21:00.000-08:00

I guest blogged at Whipped Cream - http://wcguest.blogspot.com/2011/12/guest-blog-mia-natasha.html.

This is about the extent of the promotion I have done for Jude's Whore, my latest Excessica publication. It's an erotic novel that contains a scene where the main character has sex with Jesus. Oh, the taboo! (I've been calling it Jesex.) I know. People have no trouble with all sorts of kink and creeper, but draw the line at their savior doing the deed.

I love Jesus. He loves me. IMO, he's fine with it. I don't mean to be offensive. The entire story came to me in a swoosh. A dream or whatever. It started with that scene but Jude's Whore became something else entirely - a love story between two people, a man and a woman and one of them is not Jesus.

I never thought of myself as a self-published author since I publish with Excessica but I realize now that my situation is so vastly different than that of a writer with a traditional publishing house. I feel a hell of a lot more free to express myself - like a true artist, the artist that I am.

I didn't set out to cause controversy at all. I came up with a plot that I considered to be original. I didn't confine myself to a particular fetish. This one has mild bondage, some mind control, erotic romance and time travel. It has a rape scene too. I almost forgot about that.

I also did not set out to write super-duper graphic depictions of sex. It just happens. Thank God I have no one to seriously reign me in. This wouldn't be any fun if I had to conform to 10,000 suggestions by critics, rules and what have you. I'm free to explore sexuality and learn things about myself that I would have never explored and learned had I remained in my stifled world of color and light, happiness and smiles.

I guess the thing I have learned is that I love living in an adults only world. Of the billions of people out there, I'm sure there must be one or two kindred spirits that will get me. And that's what's so great about self-publishing. The novelists who are outside the regular system are the ones thinking outside the box...I mean outside the Kindle, Nook, or paperback box, that is.

Amen, mother-fukka.

http://www.excessica.com/books/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=30&products_id=485

(Not So) Great Expectations

2011-11-26T15:14:00.000-08:00

So you’ve written a book, revised it, revised it some more, had it edited, proofread. You’ve selected a cover, formatted the word file, uploaded it to Amazon. Now it’s up on the internet and available for the whole world to buy. You’ve done it. You’re published. That’s it…right?

Not quite.

In the past, in the legacy world, being published was a finishing post of sorts. A writer picked up the advance cheque and got to say they were Published. The book might flop right on its ass and sell squit all, but the writer could still say they were Published and—more importantly—keep the advance cheque.

In the modern, free-wheeling, self-published world, being published is more like the starting post. A self-published writer might have more freedom and keep a much higher percentage of each sale, but that’s worth nothing if they don’t sell any books.

This is where management of expectations becomes important. That initial euphoria on seeing your work out there in the big wide world can quickly become despair as you watch your Amazon rankings spiral down into seven figures and wonder if anyone out there gives a damn about your book.

Don’t panic!

It happens to most of us. Think of your favourite bands. Most of them started out playing in little pubs with about five people in the audience. This is the same. Unless you’re enormously talented AND lucky, a massive audience followed by bestseller status doesn’t happen overnight. In the meantime stay grounded.

1. Don’t spit in the boss’s eye and quit your day job. You’re likely still going to need it for a while. If my earnings from writing creep past my salary I might consider writing full-time. Until then I’m turning up for work at 9am same as everyone else.

2. Don’t plan to rely on the money coming in. It might not. I don’t factor royalties into my financial planning at all. It’s bonus money. I can use it for savings or splash out on a luxury item, but I don’t want to be in a situation where I’m sweating on whether it will be enough to pay the electric bill.

3. Keep writing.

4. Keep writing! Yeah, I could repeat this one ad infinitum. I have three books out and in each case a new book coming out has boosted the sales of the previous book. Don’t sit back on the first book. Work on the next ones and get them out. Doubts don’t have a chance to take hold if you’re already concentrating on getting the next book out there.

I’m not a massive success story and might never be. Since starting out last October with my first short story collection, A Succubus for Christmas, I’ve seen my Amazon sales creep up from around a book a week to a book a day. That’s still a long way off fame and fortune, but it’s movement in the right direction. It’s encouragement to keep at it and search for more potential readers.

Most of all, I’m enjoying the writing. At the end of the day, does anything else matter?

M.E. Hydra

The Thanks You Get

2011-11-19T15:08:00.000-08:00

Thank you to those of you who have tagged Dr. Cockburn's Medicine on Amazon.com. I really appreciate the help. I don't have an Amazon account so I can't reciprocate the favor. My credit cards are maxed out. So no more buying for me. I really thought that writing was going to be my ticket out. I thought so because everything that was happening happened in a magical sort of way. I wrote a novel. It got published. I wrote four more. I was full of ideas that came to fruition. I mean, it was like a dream come true. I have had nothing but positive feedback and I made some friends along the way.

But it doesn't pay the bills. I remember reading this article about Sheryl Crow and how she quit her job as a music teacher to become a music star but after six months of struggling she hadn't achieved her dream and she fell into a deep depression. But then she bounced back and within a year she had an album out and I think started winning Grammys.

Tom Cruise had a similar story. He'd said that he moved to NYC and gave himself six months to make it in the acting business. Or maybe it was Hollywood? No - I think he got a Broadway show and within months got his first movie and basically achieved success in less than his self proposed time limit.

So when I started writing, I had that same approach - not that Tom Cruise was my role model or anything, but I started seeing a pattern developing. It was something that seemed to come up in interviews with many celebrities. Don't continue if you don't make money.

Writing is another financial dead end.

Art isn't something I will ever give up since I do it because I have a need inside of me to create, which is not motivated by money. And anyhow, there are thousands of success stories out there about artists who struggled their whole lives before making it. Like Louise Nevelson who was in her 80s when she finally made it. And Grandma Moses didn't even begin painting until she was 70 years old.

I hate the fact that I have all sorts of success except the financial kind. It's killing me. No matter how you try to spin it, right now that is the only kind that counts.

Thanksgiving is coming up, so I want to take this opportunity to thank you all so much for your support.

Three other books won't be released until December, March and May so technically it could still happen. But as of now I'm contemplating bankruptcy so no matter the outcome it will be too little too late. It just sucks because this has been fun. I liked being a part of the erotica world and I liked having a secret life.

The end.

Ebook Pricing - Redux

2011-10-31T23:30:00.000-07:00

I’ve always been a proponent of higher ebook prices.

Not the crazy $12.99 more-than-the-paperback prices that legacy publishing is so fond of so they can continue to pay Manhattan rents—but higher than $0.99, certainly. Even for a short story.

That’s right, once upon a time, my short stories were selling for $2.99. And yes, they were selling.

But things changed. The indie market got more crowded. Authors started selling their full-length novels for $0.99 and some even gave them away for free. Blogs popped up everywhere telling Kindle owners where to find free and cheap ebooks.

So I decided to experiment with my prices. I lowered the prices on all my stories to $0.99—that was everything from 3K-15K. Everything else (some of which was priced as high as $5.99) I lowered to $3.99. And I left them that way for three months. A full quarter of ebook sales.

What did I discover?

At first, I found that lowering my price to $0.99 shot me up on a few bestseller lists. That increased my exposure, which was great. And I also found that my sales of those $0.99 titles doubled. Stories that had previously been selling 50 a month were now selling 100.

Sounds good, right?

But, of course, at $0.99 I was getting a 35% instead of the 70% royalty I’d been making when I was selling them at $2.99. I was now making roughly $35 a month on a story that had previously been taking in about $100 a month—a loss of $65 a month in income. Multiply that by twenty-five short stories (which is about what I have out there) and that’s a $1650 a month loss.

Worth it?

At first, I thought it might be, given the exposure. The higher you are in the rankings, the more people see your name, the more sales you make, right? But over time, more and more (and more!) indie authors started selling their stuff at $0.99 too, and those lists became overrun with cheap books.

I’d pretty much decided to quit the experiment when I read a comment from Konrath on his blog confirming my suspicion—that authors don’t make money at anything less than $2.99. Which meant, and I’ll quote Joe here:

“My data also shows that novels outsell short stories, even though I've priced my shorts at 99 cents. It stands to reason that if I switch shorts to $2.99, I'll sell fewer, but I bet I make more money. So the next step is to raise novels to $3.99-$4.99 and short stories to $2.99 and see what happens. Assuming I have the guts to do so...”

I’ve now changed all my short story prices back to $2.99, and raised my novel prices to $4.99. I imagine I’ll run this experiment for another three months and see what happens. If logic prevails, I’ll sell fewer books, but make more money.

But as Joe pointed out, doing this takes guts. Moving beyond the magical $2.99 price-point for novels, pushing those higher, to make room for short stories at that price, is a risky proposition. Will the market bear it?

Honestly, I think it will. And here’s why—Kindle readers are tired of $0.99 cheapies. The shine is off the new toy, people have stopped loading their Kindles up with freebies and cheapies, and have started getting more discerning about what they download. Many Kindle readers are starting to shy away from the $0.99 price point because they’ve read some stinkers and don’t want to travel down that road again. What was once a huge draw for Kindle readers—oooh, look, cheap books for my new toy!—has now become the opposite.

Of course, I could be wrong.

Which is why it’s a scary experiment!

Apropos for Halloween, don’t you think?

So let’s kick off this frightening new price point with a $2.99 story very fitting for the season, shall we?

HUNTING SEASON – A ~~Love~~ Blood Story by Blake Crouch and Selena Kitt

For those of you scratching your heads, wondering how in the heck the pair of us ending up writing together, given that our genres are so vastly different, I’ll explain. Back at the beginning of the year, I’d posted some of my sales numbers on Joe’s blog, which at the time were astronomical (I was making $30,000 a month at Barnes and Noble alone!) and Joe jokingly said, “If you ever want to collaborate, let me know!”

I’d just finished reading and reviewing DRACULAS – and being the huge horror fan that I am, how could I resist? I emailed him to say, “I know you were kidding, but I’d love to collaborate with you guys.” And to my surprise, Joe Konrath and Blake Crouch actually took me up on the offer! They were planning a sequel to DRACULAS called WOLFMEN, and wanted me on board, along with a fourth writer (who has yet to be disclosed).

It made perfect marketing sense to cross-pollinate their audience and mine, which were both large, but vastly different.

Of course, no one knew if this great idea would work in practice…

So Blake Crouch agreed to take me out for a test run, and that’s how this story was born. The collaboration process was, I must say, an amazing success, and I couldn’t be prouder of the result. I really think this story is something special—but I’m probably a little biased!

If you want to know more about how HUNTING SEASON: A ~~Love~~ Blood Story was written, what the process was and how things developed, there’s an interview between myself and Blake included as bonus material at the end.

It’s available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble for… you guessed it.

$2.99.

Is it worth it?

You be the judge!

HUNTING SEASON – A ~~Love~~ Blood Story by Blake Crouch and Selena Kitt

This 8,000 (approx) word collaboration by thriller/suspense/horror writer Blake Crouch and erotic romance author Selena Kitt includes bonus interview material with the authors about the upcoming sequel to the Konrath, Crouch, Strand and Wilson bestseller DRACULAS.

-------------

He’s a butcher.

She’s the trophy wife of a trophy hunter.

They used to be high school sweethearts, but that was two decades ago, and times have changed.

Meet Ariana Plano...40 years old, miserable, stuck in a loveless marriage to the worst mistake of her life.

Meet Ray Koski...40 years old, miserable, a lonely butcher who can do nothing but immerse himself in the drudgery of his work.

Once a week during hunting season, she brings her old teenage flame game meat for processing.

They do not speak. They rarely make eye contact. Some histories are just too painful.

But this week will be different.

This week—a shocking encounter twenty-two years in the making—will change everything.

-SELENA KITT

Erotic Fiction You Won't Forget

Sophomore Effort a Go!

2011-10-29T07:04:00.000-07:00

Dr. Cockburn's Medicine is for sale!

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0060GBTEY/spea06-20#customerReviews

Please help me tag it - BDSM, bondage, married man, erotica, what else? menage? I don't know.

http://www.allromanceebooks.com/storeSearch.html

http://www.excessica.com/books/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=6&products_id=469

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1104318398?ean=2940013225268&itm=1&usri=dr%2bcockburn27s%2bmedicine

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/99869

http://www.bookstrand.com/dr-cockburns-medicine

http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/b128669/Dr-Cockburns-Medicine/Mia-Natasha/?si=0

In paperback - http://www.amazon.com/Dr-Cockburns-Medicine-Mia-Natasha/dp/1466324562/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319896601&sr=1-2

The Tidal Wave of Choice and a Deceptive Cover

2011-10-26T21:38:00.000-07:00

One of the fears about the rise in ebooks and self-publishing is that the world will be buried in a tidal wave of crap writing. It’s a familiar argument—there will be so many bad Twilight knockoffs and other rubbish uploaded to Amazon no one will be able to find anything worth reading amongst the great steaming piles of ordure.

It’s one way of looking at it. Personally, I think it’s just as easy to turn it around and see the positive aspects.

The problem when creativity is commodified is that the bottom line suddenly becomes the number one consideration. It’s not enough to be good; if someone has stumped up cash in advance, they’ll want to see a return on their investment, which means the work needs to be both good and popular (or failing that, just popular, hey, Hollywood ;) ). I suspect more than a few writers have run into, “It’s good, but we don’t think there’s a big enough audience”, before the gate slammed down on their foot. As a result niche, interesting, challenging is often overlooked in favour of safe, bland, reliable (Hey, hello Hollywood! ;) ).

The beauty with ebooks and self-publishing is that the initial outlays are so small. Writers can take risks. Even if they only find a niche audience appreciative of their work, that’s still profit (providing you don’t think too hard about the time spent creating and polishing your work!). It’s also good for readers. Yes, there are going to be a lot of bad books that shouldn’t have seen the light of day (and these too might find fans—taste is subjective), but there are also going to be a lot of quirky, interesting books that might not have made it out of the slush pile under the old system. Personally, I think more choice is better than less choice.

Take short stories. I love short stories, especially horror stories. Mainstream publishing houses seldom publish short story collections. They don’t sell very well. There was even a recent tweetathon to save the short story.

I’ve put out three collections of short stories. They haven’t found a massive audience, but they have been found by readers who’ve enjoyed them a great deal. Publishers have to worry about the cost of print runs and marketing budgets. I don’t. I’m free to write what I want. It doesn’t take many sales to cover the initial costs and everything after that is gravy. That’s good for me, good for the readers who like my writing, and good for short stories, as there are plenty of bloody-minded fools like me that still enjoy writing them.

I suppose this would be the appropriate point for the blatant book plug:

I love the cover Selena and the people at eXcessica came up with. It’s totally inappropriate. This is either the darkest collection of erotica you’re likely to read this Halloween, or the most twisted, sexy-perverse collection of horror tales you’re likely to read this Halloween. Someone is going to pick up this book thinking it’s another cutesy paranormal romance with fashion-conscious demonesses, and get the shock of their lives.

I’m more in love with that idea than I should be. I can’t help it. I’m a horror writer. We want to scare people. It’s in the blood. While marketing-types would be aghast, I’m sitting here and grinning like a Cheshire Cat as I go, “open it… open it…”

It’s Halloween. I’m going to have fun. Bottom line be damned.

Enjoy the book. She’s as cute and adorable as her cover. Honest… ;)

M.E. Hydra

Dead Sensei

2011-10-06T17:40:00.000-07:00

Am gearing up to do promos - on those yahoo sites and wherever else I can. I hope people want to read a Halloween tale on Halloween. It's my favorite holiday. I have two parties to go to so far and I haven't decided what I want to be. Usually I have my costume planned by summer's end. I hope it isn't a cold Halloween. I wish it wouldn't snow at all. I'm not a fan.

When Dr. Cockburn's Medicine comes out on Amazon.com, I hope you will help me tag it. Tags are the keywords that help readers find books in their favorite categories. The more tags a book has, the higher up the search engine it goes. Cinderella Club has about five keywords tagged about three times each, which isn't many at all. People tend to find it because it has six really good reviews.

But poor Doc Cock will be all alone out there in the BDSM world fending for itself without your help. Excessica takes care of sending it out to get reviewed but I am not sure which review sites they use. Am not that worried. I'm confident people will love the story.

I feel like I'm giving birth to my second child and I actually have none of the anxiety as with the first. CC didn't get reviewed for weeks and then the first review was scathing. That was such a bleak time for me. It was actually the only review like that and I'm still wondering if that woman actually read it or skimmed the first chapter. Oh well, I don't really care.

It would be nice to have good reviews right out of the gate, but I will try not to stress about anything. Can only do what I can do. And I have to remember that it's about the fun of writing. I cried this morning listening to that speech that Steve Jobs had given at a college graduation ceremony. Something about feeling more free to live life once he'd discovered that he was going to die from cancer.

I'm not a free spirit - I mean, as much as I'd like to be. If I could be and be able to pay my bills, I would be. But mama just bought another pair of shoes. (I'm not a mother - what the hell is wrong with me?) Help me sell this novel so I can make a dent in paying my debts. Once I become sensible, I'm sure that will free me up to be that person Steve Jobs wants me to be.

Ya Chat-tat-tat-tatty-hoo

2011-09-25T18:42:00.000-07:00

I have a button for http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/ on my blog and if you haven't yet checked it out, it is a fabulous website for readers and writers of romance. In my case erotic romance. They have tons of things going on - discussions, book reviews, friendships, giveaways, contests...and eloop chats.

I've scheduled a chat for Thursday, October 27th, 2011 from 6:00-9:00pm. I'm telling you now because if you want to join the fun, you have to sign up for the yahoo group.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/karendevinkaren/

I think you need to have a yahoo email account. Then you go to the link and ask to become a member. Once you are accepted, make sure you post something. A hello or whatever, just to make sure your posts are received. Then on my chat night, we can have a conversation about stuff, including my new book, Dr. Cockburn's Medicine, which launches the next day - October 28th.

The way a book launch goes - it doesn't happen all at once, because the various ebook sites have different days of the week when they accept uploads. And the print book never coincides with the ebook launch. It's weird. Not with a bang but a whimper.

But it's still very exciting. I think I'll do a couple giveaways during the chat and maybe share some excerpts. Unless, of course, I end up talking to myself. That won't be such a big deal. Been there, done that. I can just post and eventually someone will read it. Coffeetime Romance does have regulars who enjoy the chat group aspect and do it regardless of whether or not they know the author. But it would be nice to chat with people who have read Cinderella Club or may have read an earlier version of Doc Cock before it became a 50,000 word novel.

It's so exciting to finally have another book on the market. But I sort of know what it must feel like when an actor has to do talk shows to promote their movie. Usually the movie was made the year before and they're currently working on something else. And that's what's so strange. It was a while ago since the last time I read Dr. Cockburn's Medicine. So I have a month to brush up on it before the chat.

Oh, I hope you decide to join me. It really will be fun to "meet" you all.

Check out the website then get a yahoo account and click on the link to the yahoo group. It's pretty simple to prepare to chatty-kathyfy yourselves.

Here's the link to my blog, in case you want to follow it - and please do! http://mianatasha-erotica.blogspot.com/

2nd Quarter Royalties: Still Wagging at the Tip of the Long Tail

2011-09-19T17:32:00.000-07:00

Another quarter gone by, another royalty cheque. $180 this time.

It’s a good thing I like my day job. I certainly won’t be handing my notice in with those figures!

Still, it’s $180 and every little dollar (or pound in my case) is welcome in these austere times. While it isn’t a revolutionary amount, I’d guess it’s reality for most self-published writers hanging out in the long tail (and even some legacy published ones as well). For every Locke or Hocking there’s going to be thousands like me and thousands more doing even worse. That’s the nature of these things.

This was the argument behind Ewan Morrison’s recent article for The Guardian as he bemoaned the imminent demise of the author as a professional occupation. It’s all a matter of perspective really. Writers lucky or talented enough to have already made it through the gates, but have failed to find popular appeal and are reliant on ever-dwindling advances, are understandably unhappy with how the publishing world has changed. They face uncertain futures and will probably need to find mundane day jobs to pay the bills, like everyone else.

Then you get folks like me, who now get the opportunity to put our work out there for people to read. I have written two collections of short stories, A Succubus for Christmas and A Succubus for Valentine’s Day. Both have sold nearly 150 copies each and made me around $750 over the last year. That’s not a lot, but it’s more than they’d have made sitting in a slush pile, or on a free website, or locked in a drawer. Something is more than nothing, especially if that something keeps ticking up every month.

As I said, matter of perspective.

(Please feel free to contribute to that ticking up each month ;) )

M.E. Hydra

Deadline Disharmony

2011-08-18T18:10:00.000-07:00

I think I might have a problem with deadlines.

I’ve always been a procrastinator. My approach to deadlines in the past was to put the project off until the last possible moment and then get it done in a frantic blaze of activity. Deadlines were useful to me. They said this thing needs to be finished by this date, and gave me the incentive to get it done.

As I’ve grown older, my idea of what constitutes the last possible minute has been pushed further and further back until any notion of getting something finished in the remaining time is hopelessly optimistic. Cans of Red Bull might keep me awake through the night, but they can’t magically turn one hour into three.

For me, the real problem now is the corresponding loss in productivity. I missed my last monthly post for this blog because I was battling with a tricky story. I’d like to say it was because I was engaged in frenzied writing, but in reality it was more patient hacking at a computer screen, like trying to chisel out a sculpture made of words.

Distraction behaviour is the bane of productivity everywhere, especially nowadays with so many modern distractions. I find the best way to combat it is to have multiple projects on the go at any one time. If a story is proving troublesome, switch to another one and come back to the first with a clearer head. All the stories worth being completed will get completed and with, hopefully, a minimum of head-banging-against-a-wall frustration. It should be fun, after all, otherwise why write at all.

Throw in a deadline and it gets messed up. I can’t justify switching to another project because I need to be writing this specific story for this specific date. But sultry Distraction Behaviour is still lurking and waiting to lure me astray with her glittering temptations of internet, computer games, television, etc. This is the point where my productivity takes a nosedive.

Anyone writing short stories will encounter opportunities and deadlines in the form of anthologies, magazines, competitions and the like. In the past I used to be the kind of writer that dashed from one deadline to the next, hammering out stories to match whatever theme was required. I don’t think this suits me now. I think I need to be the other type: the type that writes what they feel like writing at the time and fires off whatever happens to be most appropriate from their folder of complete and near-complete story ideas.

M.E. Hydra

Game On

2011-08-03T19:32:00.001-07:00

I rewrote the first chapter in Cinderella Ending. It still needs a lot of work. I was a little repetitive but it's not that big a deal. I can fix it or leave it. Thomas was thinking and I felt like he kept vacillating between thoughts coming back to his oiginal theory. I do that all the time, but it is probably redundant in book form. I have to mull it over some more then try to make decisions tomorrow.

I worked for several hours but only managed 1,000 words.

I'm going to try to write tomorrow - get back into the swing of it and get focused.  I know what the ending is but will it really be a Cinderella ending?  I don't have a clue because I really don't know what I'm doing. I don't even know what I'm doing here. For some reason, I always thought that if you were on the right path then your journey would make sense. Everything would sort of fall into place, like love and stuff.

I'm not sure if this is the path or the detour.

The main reason for my existentialism is that I fell asleep to a 2012 doomsday show on the History channel and I got a little freaked. Naturally, I had a nightmare about it. No one seems to think it's a big deal - like maybe it's another Y2K. And maybe it is. But according to the show, they are predicting a tilt to the earth's axis based on its allignment in space. And depending on how much we rotate, it could have dire consequences. This is not Mayan or Ancient Chinese mumbo-jumbo.  It's real - science.

I'm surprised that more people aren't freaking out or at least having a sense of urgency in their relationships. Maybe preparing for the end somehow or in my case maxing out every credit card possible. Are you even remotely thinking about this? Getting affairs in order?  Being nicer to people, etc.? Or am I sounding like an idiot right now?

I had better get this fucking book written so it can have a May 2012 release date.  Otherwise there could be the possibility that I write it and no one gets to read it. How dumb would that be?

Okay doomsday - game on!

House of Shelves

2011-07-07T06:34:00.000-07:00

"House of Shelves" - This innovative "shelf pod" house can hold 10 TONS of books!

Floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall shelving... just for a book collection.

Someone needs to buy this gentleman an ereader.

Selena Kitt

Erotic Fiction You Won't Forget

www.selenakitt.com

I Am My Own Muse

2011-06-23T16:16:00.000-07:00

Ideas are popping up everywhere - for erotic stories that is. They swish into my mind at the strangest times and linger in the corner until I'm ready to tap into them. In a way, they remind me of that creepy I-see-dead-people movie. Like they are all standing in a queue waiting their turn until they see me and suddenly they wave their arms frantically for a chance to be written.

Unfortunately, I'm not the ADD type. I'm a one-thing-at-a-time girl. So they will have to wait. Sometimes I'll write an outline in a journal and go back to it like it's buried treasure or something. For example, the whole story arc for Cinderella Ending is in my head but I haven't written any of it yet. I have plans to start July 1st. Hopefully the thing will flow out of me because there are other things to write.

Does this happen to other writers - that the more you write the more you think of to write? I don't have time to read any more because I am constantly rereading my own stuff, and I rarely watch anything on TV past Days of Our Lives, which, as much as it's annoying me right now with that horrid freak of a girl, Taylor, muscling in on EJ Dimera, will continue to be my rabid guilty pleasure.

I wish I had more time to get this all out of me. I need a giant summer purge, like a brain yard sale. Or maybe I can be like Sharon Stone and be someone else's muse. That sounds like a sexy plan. Hmmm.

A Slightly Fluffier Dose of Reality

2011-06-18T09:15:00.000-07:00

Back here I blogged about receiving my first quarterly royalty cheque. It was for the earth-shattering amount of $84.

Well, everyone’s got to start from somewhere and 84 bucks is still 84 bucks.

A couple of weeks ago I got my quarterly cheque for the first three months of 2011. That was for $575.

Hello. That’s starting to feel like proper money. Okay, it’s beans to most people making a full-time living from writing and atoms (or maybe even sub-atomic particles) to someone like Stephen King. I’m not full-time. I still have a day job. So I don’t have to sweat over whether human beings can actually survive off a diet of hay. It’s a nice bit of extra income to go towards a new TV, trip to see the folks back home, etcetera, etcetera.

The first quarter was when my second collection came out and that definitely bumped sales of both. More books gives more chances for readers to find you. Both have sold about a hundred copies, which is also encouraging. Readers are buying the first and liking it enough to buy the second. Definitely a good sign!

A lot of my sales are for Amazon Kindle, but it isn’t the only game in town with over half of my sales coming from a wide range of other sources such as Smashwords, Barnes & Noble and eXcessica. This will be reassuring for anyone worried about Amazon becoming (more) evil and maybe slamming down the portcullis on this little self-publishing revolution at some point in the future.

Since then my sales have been steadily picking up (on Amazon at least). I guess the message is don’t be too disconcerted if your numbers don’t explode overnight. Sometimes these things take time.

M.E. Hydra

A tidbit of wisdom...

2011-06-13T09:36:00.000-07:00

Actually, two. Literally. Here we go...

I have not learned anything new, I have observed nothing new, there is nothing I feel prompted to share industry-wise. I am about to learn all kinds of new things but haven't yet. I will report any goodness when I have it. So that is tidbit one: Always go forth and learn new things when self-publishing. And even if you are a perfectionist who enjoys beating the crap out of yourself whenever you make an error. Do not. Realize it will take you time and mistakes to master this new thing, accept it, be patient with yourself as if you were someone else and remember to listen to your body/mind/soul. Which leads me to tidbit two...

Slow down if you need to. Work smarter, not harder. Breathe. I am slowing down this week. Giving more focus and better time to less things. Careful selection of time and energy.

That's all I have for you this month, boys and girls. But I must be doing something right because the last December Ink release (Gritty: Rough Erotic Fiction) was #1 on the paid anthos list on ARe this morning. Sometimes paying attention to your pace instead of focusing on the race makes the long haul a little easier.

I ran this morning, can you tell?

Hope your summer's off with a bang. Read an ebook or three this summer. Support indie pubs. :)

XOXO
Sommer

Bringing the Naughty Back to Kindle

2011-06-09T19:53:00.000-07:00

That's right, I'm bringing the naughty back!

All the naughty incest I've written that Amazon banned is back, albeit in a slightly altered form. What's that, you say? Did Amazon start putting these naughty books back on their shelves? No, not exactly.

When they first pulled my books, I put two of them back on Amazon's virtual shelves without any incest in them at all. Naughty Bits reappeared as Foreign Exchange and Under Mr. Nolan's Bed reappeared as Plaid Skirt Confessions for readers' guilt-free reading pleasure. But over the next few months I started noticing a pattern - Amazon was still taking incest off the shelves when it appeared...unless it involved people who weren't biologically related. So step-siblings having sex? That was okay. Stepfathers and stepdaughters? Yep, that was allowed. Step-uncle and step-niece? Step-aunt and step-nephew? Yep and yep.

Of course, Amazon didn't announce this policy. They still haven't officially stated any policy in regards to their banning of books from their site. But Excessica had a book pulled (My Father's Keeper by Parker Ford) that didn't involve any biological incest - just sex between step-relations. When we pointed this out to them, they reinstated the book. So I figured that was the clearest indication we were going to get of Amazon's line in the sand.

So I have now re-released Naughty Bits (revised), and Under Mr. Nolan's Bed (revised), along with my anthology, Back to the Garden (revised) for Amazon. And the best news is that those of you who were looking for print versions of the books? They're baaaaaaack!

Click the links below to check out the naughty!

NAUGHTY BITS (Revised)
David has been brightening up his gray Surrey, England days with the porn collection hidden in his parents' shed, but when he finds that his older stepsister, Dawn, has discovered his magazines, things really begin to heat up.

Their parents insist that their just-graduated son look for a job, but their daughter has the week off and is determined to work on her tan. Distracted David finds himself increasingly tempted by his seductive older stepsister, who makes it very clear what she wants.

Her teasing ways slowly break down the taboo barrier between stepbrother and stepsister until they both give in to their lust, but what are they going to do about the feelings that have developed between them in the meantime?
------
Note: Siblings are step-relations

Warnings: 18+ ONLY This title contains erotic situations, step-sibling incest, graphic language, anal sex, and makes mention of pornography, hammers, interesting uses for rubber bands, dungarees, bikinis, and lots of Britishisms you may or may not have to look up.
------

"Come on, David, you can tell me."

I flushed, staring directly at the sun and then closing my eyes, seeing a bright spot where it had been. "No."

"I didn't think so." She nudged my arm with the bottle.

"Is it that obvious?" I took a swallow, handing it back with my eyes still closed.

Her voice was soft as she said, "No wonder you toss-off so much in the shed."

My eyes flew open, my jaw dropped. My face burned and I couldn't say anything.
Dawn was holding the bottle up. "Crikey! This is almost gone!"

"How long have you known?" I swallowed hard.

"Long enough." She smiled

"Are you gonna tell mum and dad?"

She was grinning now. "Oh, I don't know, that depends."

"On what?" I sat up and turned toward her.

"You know mum will throw a wobbly if she finds out you've got porn."

"Why do you think it's hidden in the shed?" I sighed miserably. "Are you going to tell?"

"I was just teasing." She sat up in her chair and faced me. "What are we, ten? I'm not a grass. So you look at porn. What bloke doesn't, right?"

I sighed, relieved. I looked at her, remembering the words written in the margins. "Say, Dawn... did you... were you looking at it?"

She grinned. "She looks an awful lot like me, doesn't she?"

I nodded, meeting her eyes. "She's my favourite."

She stood, grabbing onto the back of the chair for a moment. She started toward the house. When she got to the door, she looked back at me. "Come on."

I followed her after a moment, finding her standing in the kitchen, leaning against the table. Her bikini top was on the table, too, and I was staring at her breasts. I couldn't move, I couldn't think, I couldn't even breathe.

"You like what you see?" She cupped them and pulled on her nipples. My face was burning, but my cock was stiffening in response. "They look a lot like hers, don't they?"

I nodded in agreement. Blimey, almost exactly like the girl in Naughty Bits! The same little areolas, the dark pinkish nipples. My cock jumped as I watched her rub her hands over them.

"Dawn, what are you doing?" I heard the hoarseness in my own voice.

"Well, I'm a bit pissed," she admitted. "And I'm really randy, especially after watching you wanking in the shed."

"Oh, God," I groaned, putting my hand to my forehead. She was moving toward me, and my eyes fell from her breasts down to her bikini bottoms. Now that I'd seen the top, I wanted to see the rest.

"You wanna suck these?" she purred, pulling on her nipples. "Do you wanna shove your cock in my cunt, baby brother?"

I had backed up to the wall and she was leaning in toward me, not touching me, but close. She slid her hand down into her bikini, and I could see the top edge of her pubic hair.

"You wanna fuck me?" Her hand moved between her legs.

I groaned, closing my eyes against it. "Dawnie," I pleaded. "Please. Stop."

UNDER MR. NOLAN'S BED (Revised)

Leah and Erica have been best friends and have gone to the same Catholic school since just about forever. Leah spends so much time with the Nolans—just Erica and her handsome stepfather now, since Erica’s mother died—that she’s practically part of the family. When the girls find something naughty under Mr. Nolan’s bed, their strict, repressive upbringing makes it all the more exciting as they begin their sexual experimentation. Leah’s exploration presses deeper, and eventually she finds herself in love for the first time, torn between her best friend and her best friend’s stepfather.

---------

This title contains erotic situations, lesbian sex, sex toys, some very naughty stepfather/stepdaughter incest and also makes mention of pornography, salmon, amusement parks, chocolate covered strawberries, brownies (as well as girl scouts), plaid skirts, naughty uses for confessionals and some sacrilegious humor.

---------

EXCERPT:

“I saw you, Mr. Nolan.”

His jaw dropped and he looked at me, incredulous. “Saw me?”

“The night you came into the bathroom. Do you remember that?”

Glancing at him, I saw him nod, his face pale again.

“I watched you,” I admitted, my voice almost a whisper. “Touching yourself.”

“Oh Christ,” he whispered, closing his eyes.

“I can’t stop thinking about it,” I confessed. “Seeing you stroking yourself while you watched that man on the screen fuck those two girls…”

His eyes met mine, and I saw the shock in them at my language, but there was something else too, that wasn’t just shock. I’d seen it before, in the kitchen when he’d looked up my skirt, and a moment ago too, when he’d walked in and caught me masturbating.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” I whispered, moving my hand up his thigh, high enough to feel that he was hard. I was encouraged by that, and the alcohol made me feel more free, like I’d drunk some liquid courage.

“Leah, I know this kind of thing can be confusing.” He took my hand and put it in my lap with a shaky sigh.

“I’m not confused,” I insisted, sliding down to the floor and kneeling between his legs. He shook his head, but I wrapped my arms around his waist, pressing my cheek against his crotch and nuzzling there.

“Oh hell,” he whispered, and I felt his hand moving in my hair, the lightest of touches.

“Please,” I murmured, turning my face, so my mouth moved over the hard length of him in his trousers. “I want to.”

I had him unzipped quickly, reaching in to find him, looking up into his eyes. He was dazed, startled, even a little horrified, but there was something underneath that, and whatever it was kept him from stopping me. He didn’t say no as I freed his cock and took it into my hand.

BACK TO THE GARDEN

Discover the delicious lure of a taboo siren call with four stories bundled into a wickedly hot anthology that's determined to keep it all in the family!

When Patrick's father went off to war in 1944, he told his eighteen-year-old son, You're the "Man of the House" now. Patrick's stepmother has struggled to keep them afloat, and he does what he can to help. He knows she's tired, sad and very lonely, but when circumstance brings a young woman into their lives for a brief time, it alters everything between he and his stepmother forever. Will Patrick become the real "man of the house" before his father returns from the war?

In "The Garden of Eden," Libby has lived her whole life with her stepfather, Ed, in a nudist colony. It's a very open, natural life, and they've never had an issue--until Libby's mother, Kim, re-enters their lives. Kim is appalled by their living and sleeping arrangements and wants to take Libby away from the nudist life. Libby, still devastated by her mother's abandonment, wants to have nothing to do with the shopping trips and material things her mother is offering, but the longer Kim stays, the more everything --everything--becomes a greater temptation.

In "Lassoing the Moon," Leila knows she's always been closer to her stepson, Rich, than most mothers, since Rich's father left when he was just a baby. He's been the man in her life forever--but now he's really a man, and his coming-of-age is a test for both of them.

In "Lost Souls," eighteen-year-old Lily, raised by her fundamentalist preacher stepfather, Adam, isn't allowed to date or do anything against church "law." Asked to the Halloween dance by a boy she really likes, Lily defies Adam. But when they are caught in a compromising position by her stepfather, what will her punishment and repentance be?

-----
NOTE: This is a REVISED edition.

Warnings: This title contains erotic situations, graphic language, and sex, as well as some very naughty mother-son and father-daughter incest.
-----

EXCERPT:

From "Lassoing the Moon"

She was going to hell. There was no getting around it-do not pass go, do not collect $200, she was going straight to hell without any little orange "Get out of hell free" card.

"Your turn."

Leila rolled the dice, moved her little shoe, and bought Baltic Avenue for a song. She could start putting houses on it now, since she owned Mediterranean as well. But she wasn't thinking about Monopoly. She couldn't think about anything, watching her twenty-year-old stepson home from college, sitting out in the living room in his boxers watching The Ultimate Fighting Championships on ESPN.

She was so going to hell.

"Ha! You owe me!"

Leila glanced up at her niece, startled, and forked over the money. Small price to pay for a little bit of freedom. If she just kept rolling the dice, moving around the board, no one would notice that she was watching him out of the corner of her eye, looking at the tight, ridged muscles in his stomach, the dark line of hair that disappeared below his boxers, dreaming about the hard cock she had accidentally caught him stroking in the bathroom that morning...

"Don't you want to put hotels on!?" Chloe nudged her aunt under the table, making a face. "You're not paying attention!"

Damn. Caught. Leila bought four houses, arranging the green plastic pieces on the board, glancing at the clock. Her sister-in-law should be back soon to pick up Chloe, anyway. There was no way they were going to finish this game.

Rich was making fake punches in his seat, watching the fight. "Oh, man, he opened himself up for the leg sweep!"

"Boardwalk!" Chloe squealed, bouncing in her seat and waving an orange five-hundred dollar bill.

Two Cents on Art Crits

2011-05-30T08:42:00.000-07:00

Art criticism is an established style of criticizing works of art. There are three components to it before one judges the work.

Detailed description - The critic must document all the details in the artwork. What is there to see? In a landscape, it wouldn't be just I see trees, it would be I see three trees in the background, in the top left of the painting. They have an assortment of colored leaves including orange, yellow, and green. The middle one looks to be a maple tree by the shape of the leaves.

Actually, more detail than that, but you get the picture.

Analysis - This is a detailed look at how the formal properties of art are utilized in the work of art. How did the artist use the elements to create balance and rhythm, etc?

Interpretation - What was the artist trying to tell you in the work of art? Is it a painting about social injustice or love? What are the clues that establish any kind of emotion and how do you feel when viewing it?

These three criteria for judgement reveal the three components in a work of art - imitationalism, formalism and emotionalism. Some people just like how realistic something looks. Others appreciate a more formal use of color theory and line quality in their art. Then there are the people who think art should have a message. When a piece of art works on all three levels, the result is a good judgement, maybe even a masterpiece.

The truth is, most people don't understand art. Some artists don't even know about these isms, especially if they are self-taught. But once one sees that there are all these things behind the scenes at work, one tends to appreciate the gift of art.

So, now that I'm a writer, (okay, a self-taught writer) I try to utilize this same structure in my own work. Writing is weird in that your finished work isn't actually finished until an editor or series of editors gets their hands on it and makes you second guess your original choices.

I admit that while formalism is my strong suit in painting, it is my weakest area in writing. I am not super-duper well-versed in sentence structure, so it is helpful to have a second or third set of eyes on the work.

It just really bugs me that book critics don't use a standard format to judge the work. They will have an emotional aversion to something and forego the amazing detail and organization of plot. They won't see the brilliant use of literary form (if it's there).

Writing is also weird when trying to peddle to publishers. We like sex, but not anal or whatever. We like this but not that. No this, this and this. And that too.

I'm not used to such seemingly rigid guidelines to my art. I create alone - then spring my finished series of paintings on the guests of my artist reception at a gallery. They are always intrigued by the originality of the work. Other artists always tell me that I'm very brave because I tend to use imagery and ideas that appeal to me personally, which tends to make me more vulnerable to criticism.

If an artist doesn't leave a piece of themselves in the work, then all it is to me is imitationalism. I can't stand that. It just isn't enough. Writing can be an artistic outlet (should be) and I wish places like Amazon would stop treating a writer's art like it should be criticized without a legitimate form of assessment.

Amazon Censorship Alienates Power-Buyers

2011-05-25T07:58:00.000-07:00

I hate to say I told you so, Amazon, but...

Okay, I don't hate to say it.

But I DID tell you so!

According to the numbers being thrown around, Amazon is alienating its ebook "power-buyer" audience by banning erotic fiction.

What!? People are buying PORN on their Kindles? *gasp*

Yes, yes they are. They're buying a LOT of it. And I don't know why this is such a surprise. Porn has driven every major new technology we've released. And this ain't your mama's porn.

Look, I don't know how much the holier-than-thou reading our porn in the closet commentary while spouting morally indignant objections from customers influenced Amazon's decision to ban certain books from their virtual shelves - however, I do know that while those folks are a vocal MINORITY, the Kindle "power-buyers" are a non-vocal MAJORITY - and they're voting with their dollars.

They are taking their business elsewhere, Amazon.

Do you have any idea how much my sales increased at Barnes and Noble because Amazon "banned" my erotic books from their site? ONE HUNDRED TIMES. That's right, I went from making about $1000 a month on Barnes and Noble to... *drumroll people* almost $100,000 in a month. Now, granted, that number has decreased since the whole banning thing also happened to coincide with the Nook's crazy Christmas-buying extravaganza, but I'm still earning three times the amount on Barnes and Noble than I am on Amazon almost six months later.

The polls don't lie. Readers are abandoning their Kindles for Nooks, especially the "power-buyers" that the publishing industry is drooling over. I could have told you months ago - in fact, I did - that the power-buyers were also erotica readers. And that while they might not email Amazon and protest about the book ban (although some did) in the numbers of the morally-objecting vocal minority - that Amazon was going to feel the sting of actual monetary loss when those erotica readers abandoned Kindle and went elsewhere to find their reading material.

Told ya so.

So is it a good payoff for Amazon, do you think? Was my $100,000 month just a drop in the bucket to the mega superstar? (Their cut would have been about $40K... but Barnes and Noble pocketed that money instead...)

Is Amazon too big to fail?

In this ebook game, I wouldn't make assumptions like that, even if you are Amazon.

Selena Kitt
erotic fiction you won't forget

Give It Away Now

2011-05-17T19:25:00.000-07:00

I started out (or rather, restarted out) by posting stories up on amateur writing websites. Those stories (brushed up) feature in my short story collections. The originals can still be found on the internet. I thought about pulling them down, but I didn’t in the end.

For the past two months I’ve been running a little serial on my blog.

So, why am I doing this? Why am I essentially giving my work away for free?

It’s a fair argument. I could just as easily package up the serial I’m working on now as a novella and charge people 99¢ to read it.

And it could just as easily sit there on Amazon, unread, forever, even at 99¢.

I think sometimes people are too attached to the notion they must receive something from their writing for it to have value. The problem is value is determined by the market. If you’re nobody and nobody wants to read you because you’re nobody (and remember 99% of everything is crap), then your writing has no monetary value anyway.

I like try-before-u-buy. I like to give my readers try-before-u-buy. I think this is even more important for self-published work. There are still some deep-rooted prejudices against self-published work. If 99% of everything is crap, then everything with no quality control must be 99.9999% crap. The best way to counter this is to make sure there are plenty of samples of your work up and easily accessible for people to read. That way they can see how good it is for themselves.

It’s a little easier with short stories. People read the stories I have out on the internet, decide they want more and then go on to buy the books (which contain stories that can’t be found anywhere else).

I started the Locked in with a Succubus serial to drive traffic to my blog and find new readers. I don’t know if it’s actually resulted in more book sales, but it has doubled the number of visitors. Hopefully, some of them will like what they read enough to spend money on my books.

If you're unknown, you need to get known. You need to get people to read your work and get interested in what you're writing. I don't mind giving some of my stories away for free to achieve this.

M.E. Hydra

Branding, blogging and a new release...

2011-05-05T01:15:00.000-07:00

Hi folks, it’s been a while since I stopped in here, but I’ve been busy editing my next book and getting more distribution channels for my short stories. That’s an interesting adventure. Uploading to the different sites is a lot of work, much more than I expected it to be and no two sites seem to have a consistent process. Such is the life of the self-published.

Beyond being busy with editing and uploads, I’ve been thinking about branding. I’m hoping the path I’m going down will elevate J.E. Taylor into a recognizable brand. At first, my short stories were put under Taylor Publications – not very original and not something that leaves a lasting impression. I wanted something with more punch. More pizzazz. Why? Because Taylor Publications is just too boring a label for me.

Going back to the image I’ve been building for many years – I decided to leverage JET - my nickname in writing circles which has even been expanded to "JET-powered Jane" by one of my online writing teachers (shout out to Margie Lawson – you rock!). Thus, my own personal imprint ‘tis born: JET-Fueled Fiction.

So now, I’m changing all my e-books and paperbacks to have JET-Fueled Fiction listed on the title page in addition to my name. It’s a fun and tiring exercise – updating documents, reformatting, replacing copies on all the distribution sites that I utilize, updating the paperbacks on CreateSpace, and all in preparation for my official launch of Hunting Season this month.

And this is my first official blog in my blog tour and giveaway that I’m doing in May. If you’re interested in getting in on the giveaway, swing by my blog at http://JETaylor75.blogspot.com and check out the rules.

Happy Cinco De Mayo!

Ciao,

JET

Sell-Sell-Sell!

2011-05-03T17:11:00.000-07:00

When Excessica changed its pricing policy, I was skeptical. I had been steadily selling about twenty books a month on Amazon.com at the $7.99 price point. I didn't think I could sell more than that since I have only one book published and I thought sales tended to go down the longer the book was on the market. (Cinderella Club has been out since August 2010.) Plus I do virtually no advertising - except the occasional pop-in at Literotica.com and Lushstories.com, and Facebook.

So on April 1st, I held my breath - and started selling, and selling. Made the same amount of money with the $3.99 price point! Counting the UK sales and paperbacks, I sold forty-six books. (If that doesn't sound like much to you then sorry to disappoint, because I think it's pretty good for a nobody.) I shouldn't have doubted. I love the fact that twice as many people bought and will read my book this month than last. And hopefully the trend will continue. I'm on my way with five sales for the month of May and it's only the third!

I have two novels in the pipeline. Both made it to 50,000 words. Dr. Cockburn's Medicine will be released by Excessica on October 28, 2011 and Jude's Whore has a December 9, 2011 release date. Picking photos for possible covers is like a bride picking out china patterns. I love this alternate reality, as long as I continue to sell-sell-sell!

Riddles and Validations

2011-04-28T17:27:00.000-07:00

M.E. Hydra

Riddle me this:

What’s the difference between a self-pubbed author who sells X copies and a trad-pubbed author who sells X copies?

(I haven’t, by the way, but if you’d like to help me achieve this goal and have a liking for weird, kinky horror, please feel free to mosey on over here…)

It’s easy to be insecure as a writer. There aren’t finishing lines to cross first, opponents to punch out or teams to score more points than. As with most creative endeavours, where quality is subjective, it’s hard to tell if you’re any good or not.

Acceptance with a publishing house gives validation, or so the argument goes (although Joe Konrath refers to it as an example of Stockholm Syndrome). It’s a stamp of approval. Get that deal—and the advance—and a writer can say with authority, “Yes, I am a real author!”

The problem with self-publishing is the ‘published’ part is always going to come with air quotes. If any old oik can shove their badly written mush up onto Amazon, then ‘being published’ no longer feels like an achievement. For that reason self-publishing is often pushed aside and treated as a special case. If the author had to do it themselves, they probably weren’t good enough to be published in the first place. I think many of us have held this view at some point and some almost certainly still do. Check the membership guidelines of professional writers' organisations like the HWA and SFWA and you’ll see very clear stipulations on what does or doesn’t count as a valid publication for obtaining active membership.

Now that the ebook explosion has burst the dam, how important is the traditional stamp of approval?

As validation goes, that stamp is only a proxy when you think about it. To use a simple fantasy analogy, it’s an entrance exam granting permission to go and slay the dragon. Congratulations! You passed. But you still have to go and kill that dragon…

If someone else decides to skip all those stupid trials, goes straight to the dragon and hacks its head right off, are they any less of a dragonslayer?

In this case the dragon—and true validation—is finding an audience, whether it is small and distinguished or massive and lucrative.

What happens when more and more writers choose to go it alone, not because they aren’t good enough, but because it makes more economic sense than signing away a huge chunk of their royalties? Clauses like this (from HWA’s active membership requirements)

With the sole exception of comic books, self-published work can not be used for qualification purposes. "Self-published work" is defined as written material disseminated by the author (for example, email or electronic publications, publication on the author's Web site, or printed publications sold on consignment or solely by the author), or written material whose basic publication costs are defrayed in whole or in part by the author.

will cease to make any sense. As will references to 5¢/word rates and minimum advances.

Riddle me this:

Person A gets a $5,000 advance from an accredited publisher, but only goes on to sell a couple of hundred copies. Person B makes $10,000 a month selling 99¢ self-published ebooks on Amazon. Which one is the professional author?

(I’m not trying to bash the HWA, by the way. I was a fresh-faced wannabe member a while back and I found them helpful in terms of market information and discovering new writers I hadn’t read before.)

Which leads us back to the original question:

What’s the difference between a self-pubbed author who sells X copies and a trad-pubbed author who sells X copies?

My gut says the answer is this:

Self-Pubbed Cinderella

2011-04-21T15:38:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, I'm erotic author Mia Natasha, and today is my first post here on The Self Publishing Revolution. Apparently the erotica I write is very explicit, more so than the average. Which means that I have few options for publishing the work unless I do it on my own. I was lucky to find a fit with Selena Kitt and Excessica. Cinderella Club is actually doing well on Amazon.com right now because it is in the top 20 bestsellers in the category of rape. I know, I'm not sure if I should be embarrassed about that or not. I don't consider non-consent rape, because in my world the men are handsome and sexy and the women are unwilling at first but only because they feel too guilty to be willing. It's just a fantasy as all fiction is.

There are plenty of women who share the reluctance fantasy. I had read an article in Glamour magazine that said about 65% of the readers polled enjoyed daydreams involving capture-bondage. It's a way for we independant new millenium women to relinquish responsibilty in our heads. Not in real life. The problem is that the book lists under the BDSM spectrum and there are people who actually live that lifestyle who upon reviewing my book for content are all yuck, yuck.

Not everyone, thank god. It was a book that took two years to write - from one scene in a dream to 140,000 words of epic novel. Epic in the sense that I'm not a writer. Not even an English major.  First generation American from an old country foreign family who has an art degree and paints for a living, thank you very much.

I'm living a dream, quite frankly, and self publishing is a big part of that. These reluctance stories have always circled my head. Shamefully, I was only thirteen when I wrote short stories in my room about girls who got kidnapped and boys who rescued them. There was no sex, mind you, but the content was always there.  Is that weird? I always knew I would be a writer one day, even though I never pursued it until now and I had never been encouraged so that obviously made it harder.

My book is doing well.  And so I've caught the bug. I have three other novels finished, two will be published later this year, one of which I have one chapter to go on. I should get back to it now so that I can make the deadline.  Since Excessica is currently closed for submissions, the other one, Cinderella Thyme, Cinderella Club's sequel waits in limbo.

I'm not worried. I believe that everything happens when the timing is right and it will all work out.  If you are the type of person who gets into ruts and doesn't think things will work out, I want you to think of me. Because this dream of mine shouldn't have happened. I wasn't even thinking about writing until I had that daydream of a woman (who looks like me, natch) sitting in a limousine. It came out of nowhere like a magical summons to get back onto the right path.

Now writing is here in addition to everything else I do, not instead of. Knowing that people all over the world are reading my book is such an unbelievable high, it really makes it all worth it. Getting a check every three months for a dream come true is not bad either. It certainly gets me motivated to write more. That and I have a sick work ethic.

Pleased to meet you. I plan to make this a regular gig so I'll pop off my glass slipper now and come back for it later - because that's what independant multitaskers do.

Here is the link to my blog - http://mianatasha-erotica.blogspot.com/?zx=418a7ac0ef1a045b

Selp Publishing For A Cause

2011-04-13T07:16:00.000-07:00

I'm going to blatantly blow my horn (heh) for this lovely book put out by a fabulous and talented self-pubber, Alessia Brio.

I didn't self-publish this one, but it was released through her kick-ass Coming Together series.

So, this would be one of those self publishers working together for the greater good dealios. Working together is rarely a bad thing and in this case it was a great thing. An I wash her back, she washes mine kind of thing. Or vice versa. Either way, close the door on your way out while we finish washing um...each other...or see the below shameless self promotion.

Coming Together: With Sommer

Went live today :) Book benefits LLS. The foreword was written by the amazing William Patrick Tandy, editor extraordinaire (of Smile, Hon fame) and the whole book was made possible by the unstoppable Alessia Brio.

If you go to the book's ARe page, you can read the author's note and see just what this book means to me. Now that's steamy sexy paranormal for a good cause! :)

XOXO
Sommer

A Short, Sharp Dose of Reality

2011-03-16T22:20:00.000-07:00

Last week I got my first real quarterly royalties cheque. At the princely sum of $84 I think the appropriate comment is “ouch!”

Oh well, we can’t all be Joe Konrath or Amanda Hocking.

If I take the perspective of wanting to be a full-time writer, it's fairly terrible. There's no way I'd ever be able to live off that.

Thankfully, I don't have to take to take that perspective. I'm fortunate enough to already have a full-time job, one I enjoy and is relatively well paid. I can take the other perspective. I'm doing something I like (writing stories) and receiving money for it.

$84 is still $84. That's the second half of the kindle I already bought with money from a Literotica contest plus some books to load it up with. It's more than I ever picked up trying to slog through the old fashioned route of submitting to horror/sci fi magazines and certainly $84 more than the manuscript would have got languishing forgotten on a slush pile somewhere.

It's not all. My first book is still out there, still picking up the same trickle of sales. That means in another three months I'm going to get another $84 or so. Actually, there's two months of the second book's sales on top of that, so it's probably going to be more than eighty bucks. And then later in the year I have a third book coming out. It's easy to see how it can start to mount up. I can't live off it, but on top of my regular salary it's a nice extra to put towards a vacation, or a new TV.

One of the points I've seen raised is the current explosion of self publishing and 'race to the bottom' in terms of pricing will kill writing as a viable profession for all but the already wealthy. I don't really see this. A lot of authors had to start off juggling other jobs with their writing until they made enough to leave the day job behind. An advance can help with this sure, but it can backfire horribly if the first book tanks and they aren't picked up for a second. This is even assuming they make it through the gatekeepers. The vast majority don't and won't ever see a single dime for the manuscript they spent a year or two lovingly putting together.

With self publishing a writer can start to see a return as soon as the book is finished and use this to tailor their life accordingly. I go into work every morning and I write on my spare time. I won't need to think about changing this unless my income from book sales starts to outweigh my regular salary, or my spare time suddenly becomes a lot less spare. And of course, even being comparatively unsuccessful in the meantime still generates a bit of extra cash for a few luxuries.

I enjoy writing and it makes me a bit of extra money. Can't really complain about that.

And I even got my post in on the 17th this time.

M.E. Hydra

#6 Do You Play Well with Others?

2011-03-13T07:46:00.000-07:00

Is something you might want to decide when you are self-publishing. I’ve had a few people mention poor sales for anthologies, and I have so say—I don’t see it. The anthologies I’ve put out for December Ink don’t seem to sell any worse (or better for that matter) than anything else. But I digress! The point is, do you want to do an anthology or a “bundle” or a collaboration Do you want to work with other writers? Can you get along?

For the longest time I said no, no, no! I often say no to things that make me nervous. For about two years I said no to writing paranormal, now it is damn near my bread and butter—so go figure. The point is, don’t listen to your fear when it talks. Listen to what you want to try out and be brave enough to do it.

On a whim one day I put out a short call—it started on twitter. What resulted was not one—because I had too many for one—but two short anthologies (Dirtyville: 13 Tales of Small-Town Dirty and Kinkyville: 13 More Tales of Small-Town Dirty). Dirtyville has hung out a great deal on the Kindle Gay/Lesbian Erotica Anthology list. It was just there this week. Almost a year later both are still selling and I still get to pay out writers (though small bits because it’s a 26 way split!). I also still get to see us pop up on random lists here and there. We were even a top seller on All Romance ebooks in the beginning.

Doesn’t that sound exciting?

Now here’s just a few of the things you need to consider when working with others. I learned these along the way and am still putting out fires from time to time.

1. Editor? Yep, that would be you. Unless you go ahead and ‘hire’ someone else. I did the two anthos but once I had done my three million reading run throughs, I sent the pdf’s to the authors and asked them to read their own work. Once in a while you get some really good eagle eyes reading who will send you general errors they spotted in the whole book. And then once you fix all the reported issues—yep, you get to read it again.
2. Paperwork: get their permission in writing to use the author’s work. Even if it is one paragraph that basically says: ______is legally mine to sell, I am the sole author of this work, I agree to let ____________ use it for_____________ amount of time at the pay rate of_________________. And then their signature and date.
3. Pay out with a flat rate out of pocket or pay out a percentage of the work? That is the question. With no one bankrolling you but you, flat rate payouts may be iffy. I go with option number two because it saves me from having to put out money up front and in this instance, I saw the ‘ville books as “our” books. A group effort. So to me, contributors were getting just as much or just as little as me, it seemed only fair.
4. Paperwork is quarterly or however you spell it out in your agreement. I do quarterly because most of the vendors I use (ARe, Smashwords, Bookstrand, 1 Place for Romance…) pay out quarterly. So my antho writers don’t get paid until I do.
5. All the other stuff. Questions, emails, spreadsheets, paypal addresses, juggling. It can be a lot and often I still feel overwhelmed when I sit down to do it. Which is why you see that DI isn’t swimming in multi-author works. However, it is also awesome to share the success of those little books with a group of people and I adore having put something together that included lots of orchestration, time and love.

So what about you? Do you play well with others?

As a final note I’d like to add, take a look at the anthologies in your own possession as models. And follow the direction! Meaning when you put these works up on sites. Smashwords is a prime example of spelling out the copyright page and all that jazz. They put the rules there for a reason, use them. Most of all, have fun!

XOXO
Sommer

Double the fun, double the money

2011-02-28T17:21:00.000-08:00

And the 17th sails by yet again.

In my defence, my second book, “A Succubus for Valentine’s Day and other tales of Perilous Pleasures”, came out on the eleventh of February and most of my attentions have been spent on hyping that. Or rather, quietly whispering it’s out there if any kind soul would be so good as to purchase a copy.

Here’s a simple tip. If you want to boost sales of your first book, write a second. January was largely dead for my first book, which was a little unfortunate as this is the time of year most people load up the shiny new kindles they received as Christmas presents. Then my second book came out and the first suddenly started to pick up sales again.

Actually, the first book started to pick up sales even before the second came out. I think this might have been because I spent the two weeks leading up to the second book’s release putting excerpts from the new stories up on my blog. In building up interest for the second book, I also built up interest in the first book for anyone that missed it first time around. This was very encouraging. I’ll do the same for my third book when that comes out later this year.

Also encouraging was to see both books come up in each other’s ‘Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought’ lists. That means someone liked them enough to go back for the second. Always a good start for anyone hoping to have a lengthy writing career.

Damn, I still have to work harder at the whole making them run away screaming thing.

I’m still in the bits’n’pieces section of Amazon’s rankings. That’s fine. I wasn’t intending on quitting the day job for some time anyway. I’m thinking long term. Maybe it will pan out, maybe it won’t. Doesn’t really matter so long as I still enjoy writing the stories.

M.E. Hydra

Have it the way you want…

2011-01-20T01:00:00.000-08:00

I was doing some writing and banging out all these terrible, filthy, sexy words on screen. And the things the characters were doing to each other? Most interesting. As I wrote I thought back to when I started this writing gig. Then, I was subbing only to one publisher. Why? I was dumb and new. I’m still dumb but older. Anyway that publisher had strict rules about what words could be used to describe sex and other stuff. ‘Dick’ was never to be used to describe a penis. And ‘baby’? That wasn’t a term of endearment to them. They considered it somehow pedophilia to have the characters say something like -“Baby, I love you.”

That publisher was very limited in their views. I believe it was because they were the big fish in a small pond and they had power over the e-book erotica market. A lot of writers feared their wrath and were too scared to do anything but follow rules. Of course now the e-book pond has grown and multiple new publishers have arisen changing the market even more and for the better. How so? Competition. It’s a great thing. There are new genres, more open minds about the everyday reality of language and the use of words and bodies. It also means writers don’t have to agree to blindly follow the management of one mob. They can pick and choose who they send their work to and – more importantly – 99% of the time they can write the way they want without their ‘voice’ being changed to fit some publisher diva’s personal belief. Creativity should never be packaged in a box because someone says so.

Amarinda Jones
Penn Halligan
www.amarindajones.com
www.amarindajones.blogspot.com
Be daring...read an Amarinda book

Reinventing the Publishing House

2011-01-18T19:27:00.001-08:00

It’s the 17th. Oh wait, that was a couple of days ago. I will hit my scheduled slot one day!

My first collection of short stories is still ticking up the odd kindle sale here and there. I’ll get the full breakdown when I get my quarterly statement next month. I anticipate I won’t suddenly be catapulted into the echelon of writers making a killing from ebooks. These things take time, patience and a hefty dollop of luck.

And backlists. I’m certainly not sitting still there. I have a second collection of stories coming out next month and I signed a contract for a third collection last weekend. That’ll arrive to shock and arouse at the appropriate time of Halloween. Hopefully they’ll all bump each other.

Contract? Publishing date some way off in the future? That doesn’t sound like the typical self-pubbed story.

That would be because I’m with eXcessica. Selena Kitt started it out as a co-operative venture for her and other writers to get their ebooks up on fictionwise. Since then it’s morphed into something resembling an indie publishing house. Recently, Joe Konrath talked to Ridan Publishing, who’ve done something similar in the fantasy genre. In future, I think we’re going to see a lot more ventures like this.

A frequent gripe levelled at big publishing is that the relationship between house and writer has become purely parasitical. The talent-scouting has shifted to the agents and the marketing and promotion has been shunted onto the writer. Now that the ebook explosion has blown all the gates down, the big beasts have effectively outsourced themselves to eventual extinction. Whether they adapt or collapse to a whinging death is up to them.

That’s not to say publishers are completely superfluous. Yes, a writer can do everything themself, should they so desire, but it’s a damn sight easier to borrow someone else’s expertise for some of the tasks, especially when taking the first baby steps.

I didn’t do the cover for my first book. I didn’t do any of the fiddling to get the ISBN or bash it into any one of the multiple file formats ebooks sell in. I didn’t put it up on all the other bookselling websites that exist alongside Amazon (many of which I hadn’t even heard of before). I didn’t send the book off to a list of cultivated review sites (hopefully, some will recover enough from the trauma to write nice things about it). I have Selena and the good folks at eXcessica to thank for that.

I think we’ll be seeing a few more ventures starting out this way. Someone will know someone who’s good at creating book covers. Someone else will have researched the markets. Someone will know the techy stuff. Then, bang, they’ll all be pumping out books like crazy and laughing all the way to bank.

Some of them may eventually become the new behemoths of the future...

M.E. Hydra

#5 Self-Editing: Do It and Do It Again...

2011-01-13T04:04:00.000-08:00

This really isn’t a topic that needs a bunch of explanation. Short and sweet covers it.

Edit yourself.

Read your work. Set it aside. Read and edit again. When you are done that, if you want to go balls to the wall (and you should) read your work out loud. Why, you ask? Because your ear will hear the wrong word used when your eye supplies what it knows you meant. Your brain and your eyes are in cahoots and one will stick up for the other to a fault. Your ears are all rebellious and whatnot.

Your brain will show you, quite often, what you meant to type as opposed to what you wrote.

Case in point:

The other morning I typed an email to the man. I had had about three sips of coffee, there were two children arguing over the size of their bacon and who had more juice and a dog who kept standing between my feet because he thought he might also get some bacon.

This is a typical writing situation for me whether it’s an email or a chapter or a whole damn book. And I bet I’m not the only one! So here is what I meant to type:

We had a power issue last night after you went to bed…

I scanned my email and hit send, happy in my knowledge that I had done a good job explaining.

Two minutes later I got an email that said:

Pour issue?

I reread my message and (sadly) I had actually written:

We had a pour issue last night after you went to bed…

Believe it or not, this happens more often than you think. You mean coffin and you sip your coffee and write coffee. You mean your and type you’re or vice versa. Your brain will often show you what you know you meant. So if you read your work aloud you catch those coffees, yours, and pours. Your eyes might tell you it’s fine but your ears are all: “Say what?”

After you do all that reading, what now? Have someone you trust read it if at all possible. And then when they’re done, you read it again.

That’s really not a hard step in the self publishing effort, but it’s one that’s often skimped on. Trust me, I’ve gotten to this point from being told about typos, mistakes and errors that have been missed. On books I was certain were clean!

And no, you probably will not catch them all. Hell, I have found doozies in books put out by huge publishing houses for huge authors. Books you just know had to filter through a dozen or more people. So doo-doo still happens, folks. But if you are vigilant and careful and thoughtful, there will be less doo-doo to deal with.

Which is always a good thing.

XOXO
Sommer

Amazon Book Banning Irony

2011-01-06T14:11:00.000-08:00

Have you heard the latest?

Mark Twain, who once wrote that "the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter” will now have the “N” word replaced with “slave” and the word “injun” replaced with “Indian” in his book, Huckleberry Finn. Oh, the irony.

Amazon, who came out and said, “Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable. Amazon does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts, however, we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions” removed not only the infamous ped0phile book that the statement was made in reference to, but then went on to begin removing books they deemed in violation of their “content guidelines.” Books involving incest disappeared. On December 13, 2010 a search result for Kindle books tagged with “incest” returned 650. As of January 5, 2011, that number had dropped to 511. Books involving bestiality were the next to go. Then they removed two gay male books that simply had “rape” in the title.

Oh the irony.

The L.A. Times did an interview recently with Russ Grandinetti, the “head of content for Amazon.com’s Kindle business,” wherein he reiterated Amazon’s mission statement: “Our vision is [to make] every book ever written, in any language, in print or out of print, all available within 60 seconds.”

Oh, Russ. Do you really expect us to believe that? Oh the irony.

I finally had a non-conversation with an Amazon Executive Customer Service representative in regards to the removal of my three books - Back to the Garden, Under Mr. Nolan’s Bed and Naughty Bits. I call it a non-conversation because we had to talk around their definition of what would or wouldn’t violate their “content guidelines” – she told me that Amazon refused tell me why my books were removed, now or ever.

Okay then. At least I was on the phone with a person, right? I decided to get as much information as I could, hence the talking in circles.

What I did gather is that Amazon has no intention now or in the future of making those horrible vague “content guidelines” any clearer. They will also continue removing material as they see fit, notifying authors and publishers after the fact, and not telling them how or why they violated the aforementioned guidelines. While the Amazon CS rep wouldn't confirm or deny the reason that my titles had been removed, when I asked if "all titles that violated the content guidelines in a similar way" were going to be removed, she confirmed that yes, that was their intention.

When I asked if Amazon had any intention of removing books that violated their content guidelines in other ways, she said that while they would exercise their right to revisit their policy, she thought it was now pretty well set. Of course, that was before the two m/m “rape” titles were removed.

Oh the irony.

I did also point out that in their letter to authors and publishers, they state:

“Please note that if you continue to submit content that violates our content guidelines, we may conduct a general review of your account. Actions resulting from such a review could result in a termination of your account.”

Um, really? How can an author or publisher know if they are submitting content that violates any guidelines if Amazon refuses to specifically state what those guidelines are? Thankfully, the CS rep saw reason when it came to that and she agreed that she would be looking into getting that statement removed from the letters.

Small consolation. It doesn’t really solve the problem.

I have said before and I’ll say it again – I have no problem with a company deciding what they will and will not sell, but I do have a problem with the way Amazon has handled this.

They could have come to the publishers and told them about their new guidelines, given them time to prepare their authors and make other arrangements. Anthologies that contained offending material, for example, could have been reworked and re-uploaded instead of being removed, without any penalty in loss in ranking.

Instead, they’ve clandestinely removed titles, informed authors and publishers days or weeks later, and most importantly, refused to tell anyone what they’re doing or why.

They should, in my opinion, be clear about what is and isn’t acceptable. This “ban as we go” way of doing things is just going to move from one hot button topic to the next. If you’re a business, and you’re going to make a policy, then make one.

Readers and authors have a right to know where Amazon stands. That’s just good business.

Most publishers (and Amazon is a publisher now, whether they like it or not) are clear about what they do and don’t accept. This is even more true for erotic publishers in the ebook world. At Excessica, we’re very clear about what we do and don’t accept:

No sexual situations featuring characters under the age of eighteen

No bestiality (fantastic creatures exempt)

No necrophilia (fantastic creatures exempt)

No incest

Yes, we added that last guideline recently, thanks to Amazon’s ham-handed censorship tactics. We have caved and self-censored in anticipation of Amazon’s rejection of future work. It’s unfortunate – and I’m sure it’s exactly what they intended.

I’ve also personally self-censored my books, releasing a new version of Under Mr. Nolan’s Bed without the father/daughter incest titled, “Plaid Skirt Confessions,” and a different version of Naughty Bits without the sibling incest titled, “Foreign Exchange.” I’ve clearly stated in the descriptions that they are reworked versions of the originals, so readers will know.

Oh the irony.

So now we’re in the business of censoring ourselves. Big Brother has won. But at least we are clear about what we do accept and what we don’t!

See, Amazon, that wasn’t so hard, was it?

There is another ironic twist in this story. Since Amazon banned my books, my sales of one of my banned titles (Under Mr. Nolan’s Bed) is now in Barnes & Noble’s Top 10 Pubit Titles. Should I say, “Thank you, Amazon? May I have another?”

Or perhaps the next twist will be that B&N and other vendors will start banning books from their sites, too. I’m afraid we’ll have to wait and see what the next ironic twist in this censorship story will be.

Selena Kitt
www.selenakitt.com

Thoughts on Self-Publishing

2011-01-05T17:13:00.000-08:00

First of all - Happy New Year!

Lately, I've been reading Joe Konrath's blog on self-publishing as well as all the entries here to get a handle on marketing strategies and I've started to peruse the places where readers are, like the Amazon boards and Goodreads.

In my excursions, I happened to stumble upon some interesting looking blurbs for free self-published
e-books and decided to read some of them. Unfortunately, a couple of the stories I chose weren't up to par, they needed a good editor, one to tell the author that it was NOT ready for publication.

I found a few that were good, but more often than not, the freebies that I pulled up were a mess -loaded with back story, cliches, detailed descriptions in places that slowed down the action and most of all - passive voice. I found myself skimming through these not ready for prime time items and as a writer, that is so not the point.

So the advice that I am laying on the table for those looking to self publish - if you can't find or afford an editor, get a good critique partner or become a member of a writing group - and float your wares there before you slap them out for public consumption.

You want someone that will beat you up for the holes in the story AND tell you where you're doing things right - not someone that will praise your writing without fail and definitely not family or friends, because let's face it, they don't want to hurt your feelings.

It is hard to find a good, honest critique partner - just like it is hard to find a good editor, but it will pay off in the end.

On that note - I'll bid you all farewell till next month.

Until next time,
Ciao
JET

Author Productivity

2011-01-02T21:39:00.000-08:00

My latest obsession is productivity for authors, specifically speed. I know I’ve mentioned this one way or another on my own blog as well as the Indie Reader blog, but right now it’s pretty much the main thing on my mind.

I’m doing another one of those sabbatical/radio silence things because all or nothing works best with me when it comes to staying off the Internet and getting work done. When I’m going all over the Internet making super long posts on people’s blogs, it tends to drain the crap out of me. Then I get cranky and stop getting writing done. If I don’t totally disengage I go to emo-crazy level and it *might* be mildly entertaining to watch, but it’s not fun to experience.

But I won’t slack on the commitments I already made, so... here I am. And now I get to share my obsession some more. Yay.

So this speed thing... it really fascinates me. And I guess it’s because I’ve had many experiences where I had one view and then suddenly I realized my view was completely wrong. And it was like reality just sort of shifted. It’s a surreal moment. So when I figured out I was conflating writing speed with consistency, it really threw me for a second.

I think most writers have a speed of writing that they are comfortable with, and a certain word count they can do in a day and then after that it starts getting a lot more difficult. For me that writing speed is about 1,000 words in a day, though I’ve done more in a day, it’s usually uncomfortable. On a really good day, where everything is just flowing and I know exactly what I want to write that day, I’m done in 30 minutes, and that’s awesome. Most of the time it takes closer to an hour, but it very rarely takes me longer than that.

The problem was that I wasn’t writing every day. Nothing close to it. I would go months at a time where I wasn’t writing anything new at all because I was editing or focusing on some other part of writing/publishing that didn’t involve putting new words on the page. Then this idea sort of crawled into my brain and wouldn’t go away... what if I could be consistent? What if I could write 1k words a day? In a year that would be 365,000 words. For most people that’s 3 or 4 books, depending on what length they write at. For those who write novellas or really short novels, it’s more.

In writer-world, laziness is rewarded in some sense. Writers who are very prolific and turn out a lot of work in a short amount of time are looked on with suspicion. That work must suck. We’re trained to believe that at MOST a writer should be doing one book a year. There was a time when I thought producing one book a year was a “treadmill.” And I think it was less about how long it takes to actually write a book, and more about the fact that most people seemed to think 2 books a year was “cranking it out” and unreasonable.

And for some, it is. I have an indie author friend who has three jobs. I don’t know how the hell she writes anything at all. I don’t think I’d have the energy for it. But I think when you get to the point where writing is your job, and that’s all you’re doing, you should be able to consistently write SOMETHING every day. Or at the very least 5 days a week.

The more you write, the stronger your writing gets. The stronger your writing gets, the less editing you have to do. If you hate editing, that’s a real motivator to write every day. Because the better you get, the less of that you’ll have to do.

When you’re still in the early learning stages of your craft, yes, a book a year seems insane. And it’s because of just how much work it tends to take to get an early book into publishable quality (and sometimes it’s just impossible... it’s like polishing a turd.) You just have to keep practicing and writing and get those million words under your belt.

Once you get those million words written, the concept of writing faster shouldn’t be as scary. If I'm not to a million, I'm pretty close. I'm not saying I don't have a lot of growing to do as a writer. I think we should always be looking to improve. What I'm saying is... I've written enough that I'm no longer a total noob. And I've written many novels I will never publish because they were just too rough.

I don’t think we should look on authors who “crank out” too many books as just churning out crap simply because they’ve got a strong work ethic. This isn’t to say that writers who write slower or less consistently are “lazy” in the larger sense. Many writers work very hard on editing and promo and etc. I think for some reason, though, a lot of writers seem to want to do anything they can to avoid actually writing. But those who have sat down and done the math and know how long various word counts take (though it does vary from person to person, I’ll admit), know that putting out a book a year or two books a year, just isn’t that taxing at all. Exceptions of course for those who have full-time careers in some other area taking up all their energy. Then it's naturally significantly more difficult.

If I can produce 4 books in a year (in rough draft form, not saying they’d be “ready” then), by writing just 1 hour a day consistently... you gotta wonder... what are writers doing with the other 23 hours?

Also, you can write, AND edit something else or plan something else at the same time. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.

I realize some writers will completely balk at that. They either HAVE to be writing OR editing. They can’t do both. I understand, we all have different methods. Each writer’s comfortable working method will vary. Some people can’t bring themselves to work on more than one project simultaneously. Though I think that attitude ends, at least for traditionally published writers, once they get published. Because they have deadlines and have to produce the next book while dealing with edits from their publisher for the currently submitted book, as well as proofreading the galleys.

In traditional publishing, you just can’t wait until one book is totally finished and out the door to start working on the next one. I think for indie authors who would like to eventually have a career doing this, where they’re making a living... it would be a good idea to figure out how to raise productivity and work around these various “I can’t” obstacles. When backlist is king, anything that slows the process down unnecessarily should be eliminated.

How to get Reviews?

2010-12-26T20:27:00.000-08:00

I’d like to say this is going to be a handy post full of tips and tricks, but in reality it’s a question that’s vexed me of late.

To be honest, in my naivety, I thought it was something that just happened. You put the book out, and then crossed your fingers and hoped people would write nice things about it.

Actually, I wasn’t so bothered about hearing the nice things. I was waiting to see the reaction of anyone picking the book up thinking it was another one of those paranormal romances that are so popular at the moment. Juvenile, I know. I think it’s a horror writer thing—that impish desire to shock and catch people off guard. Yeah, the cover might look sweet and innocuous—look, she’s wearing a Santa hat, how cute is that?—but within beats a dark and twisted heart.

I’m very much a traditionalist when it comes to my horror. Anyone expecting sparkly vamps or magical girlfriend succubi is in for a rude shock.

At least there’s plenty of hot sex to enjoy before the shocks show up.

It’s a dumb thought really. Anyone looking for another Twilight or Georgina Kincaid isn’t going to waste time writing reviews on or even reading a book that isn’t what they’re after and written by someone they’ve never heard of. Most likely they’ll read a few pages, decide it’s not for them, put the book down and move onto something else. There are a lot of other books out there after all.

Those plans to terrorize the eXcessica review list—not happening I’m afraid, Mr Hydra.

Which is probably a good thing. Reviews are a double-edged sword. When we say we want reviews, what we mean is we want good reviews. A one star on amazon is likely far far worse than nothing at all.

The silence (not quite complete – thanks Siren Book Reviews!) is a little disconcerting. I guess that’s part and parcel of taking those first toddling steps. I’m not the pushy type when it comes to self promotion, preferring to let my words and stories do the talking, but that’s a luxury that can’t be afforded when the hard part is getting people to read the words in the first place. There’s an art to that and it’s something I need to learn (without pissing people off along the way!). The Draculas experiment was something I watched with interest.

So, anyway, if the ebook whets your interest and you’d like to write nice things about it either on your blog or on amazon, feel free to contact me at manyeyedhydra at googlemail dot com. I’m sure I can probably rustle up a review copy.

(Now is this what I’m supposed be doing or pissing people off...)

M.E. Hydra

Our girl Muriel….

2010-12-20T01:00:00.000-08:00

The woman on this cover I’ve nicknamed. Muriel. She’s been around a bit. I reckon I’ve seen her on a dozen covers already – mine/Penn’s included. Muriel’s picture makes me ask these questions –

1. Are cover artists basically busy/lazy and grab the first image that fits?
2. Are there too many novice e-book cover makers out there with limited to no imagination?
3. Are publishers paying the right people enough to do cover art or are they relying on paying people/authors, who think they have talent, dirt cheap?
4. Is Muriel on special – by that I mean is she cheap – like 0.75 cents a download?
5. Do women want to be tied up?
6. Are we all writing the same story and should we be tied up?
7. Do readers give a crap about the cover?
8. Do publishers give a crap about their readers?
9. Has publishing lost touch with reality or does reality no longer matter with so many small presses out there all trying to make a buck so screw quality?

Yes, yes, I know there are some very good covers artists out there who know what they’re doing and they strive to look beyond the obviousness of Muriel. They are indeed Artists by trade. The other patch-and-paste-four men-and-one-woman-in-a row-to-let-everyone-know-one-heroine-is-going-to-be-lucky-with-multiple-lovers cover people? I can’t stand disjointed covers that look like someone has cut out figures from a magazine for a school project. My opinion? They’re not artists. They’re making money with scissors and glue pots and good luck to them. But that’s not artistic. And yes, e-book romances are not real but can we at least have covers where the characters look like they may actually know each other?

Oh, and don’t get me started on cover hacks who read buxom and overweight on a cover request and see it as thin and emaciated….

Amarinda Jones
Penn Halligan
www.amarindajones.com
www.amarindajones.blogspot.com
Be daring...read an Amarinda book

#4 “I Have Broken Smashwords” or “Yes, You Will Eff Up”

2010-12-13T04:34:00.000-08:00

Good morning, kids. Today we continue in the my own little self publishing saga where I discuss some key points for hocking your wares to (unsuspecting) valued customers. Point number four is rather simple if you ask me. It regards those little sections marked CONTACT US FOR HELP/CONTACT US/or just HELP on the sites where you wish to sell you work.

The average human will jump through flaming hoops before clicking that button. Something about us does not want to admit defeat/lack of comprehension/hardship. Do NOT be that person. If you need help when considering a site to load your work—or if you experience issues while loading—CLICK. THAT. BUTTON.

Yes, yes, I have broken Smashwords more than once (or so I thought). The first time I tried to load a book, that thing that shows progress just went spinspinspinspin (for all eternity) for a very, very long time. Abnormally long. And then it gave me an error. I tried again. Finally, I contacted Smashwords via the handy dandy help link and it turns out that .rtf files can cause a snafu whereas .doc files are much easier for Smashwords’ tummy to digest. Simply switching out one document type for another made for easy going.

I never would have known that handy dandy tidbit had I not bitten the proverbial bullet and asked for help. Something normally very difficult for me. However, this is your business—your self publishing—and as a good business person, you need to explore all avenues to get the job done. So click it. It doesn’t hurt and there is no charge and no, you have not broken Smashwords.

Funnily enough—this seems to be a common phenomena—the ‘breaking’ of Smashwords. I got a phone call from a friend a few months after I first put work up on Smashwords. It was her first go at the site. It went like this:

“Hello”

“I’ve broken Smashworrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrds.”

And it wasn’t just the big meat grinder for words I have thrown a monkey wrench into. I have broken Bookstrand and All Romance Ebooks too. And hunh—who’d have thunk it—they also have very kind and patient folks on the other end of the help link/email link that will help you unbreak their system and get you where you need to go.

I spent hours one time on Bookstrand going back and forth with the help person. I was frustrated, but I imagine he was literally weeping on the other end of the internet (because it is finite like a phone line, dontcha know? Well, at least in my head, it is) as he continued getting my panic stricken, typo riddled emails at rapid fire pace, but in the end we prevailed. And now…I can upload a file to Bookstrand while simultaneously packing a lunch and singing Yankee Doodle Dandee.

My point? Ask for help! Yes, you will eff up. You will make mistakes. This is to be expected. Everyone makes mistakes whilst trying to navigate this self-publishing passage. But go ahead and let someone help you. It’s okay, no one will point or laugh and in the end you’ll have a better understanding of what you need to do. Those folks are there to help you. Let them do their job.

Come back next month when I tackle self-edting...um...self-editing. There. That's better.

XOXO
Sommer
p.s. due to current issues with Amazon, I encourage you to read the posts below this one

Amazon in the Book Banning Business

2010-12-12T22:10:00.000-08:00

On December 9, 2010, I was contacted by CreateSpace (Amazon’s Print on Demand service) who publishes my print books. They informed me that my title, Back to the Garden, had been removed for violating their “content guidelines.” When I consulted their guidelines I found them so vague as to be useless—were they saying my content was illegal? Public domain? Stolen? Offensive? (All of these were on the list). When I inquired as to the specifics of the violation, they were not forthcoming, and sent a form letter response stating that Amazon “may, in its sole discretion, at any time, refuse to list or distribute any content that it deems inappropriate.”

On Sunday, December 12, the print title that had been removed had now disappeared from the Kindle store, as well as two of my other titles, Naughty Bits and Under Mr. Nolan’s Bed. I have over fifty titles selling on Amazon, all of them in erotic fiction categories. The only thing these three singled-out titles had in common, besides being written by me—they were all erotic incest fantasy fiction.

About this time, I heard that two other authors, Jess C. Scott and Esmerelda Green, both had erotic incest-related titles removed from Amazon's site. After some research, I discovered one of Frances Gaines Bennett’s incest-related books had also been removed. As the night wore on, and public outcry about censorship and banned books began on Twitter at #amazonfail and #amazoncensors and on their own Kindle Boards, more and more incest-related erotica titles began to disappear from the Amazon site, so that the “Kindle Incest” search page began to look like swiss cheese. Teleread covered the story soon after.

When some of my readers began checking their Kindle archives for books of mine they’d purchased on Amazon, they found them missing from their archives. When one reader called to get a refund for the book she no longer had access to, she was chastised by the Amazon customer service representative about the “severity” of the book she’d chosen to purchase.

As of this writing, Amazon has refused to respond to my emails or phone calls in regards to this matter and has refused to further clarify what, if any, content guidelines the books in question violate. If Amazon had clear guidelines that were applied to all publishers across every platform and enforced them consistently, this would be a moot issue. By not clearly stating their position and choosing books either arbitrarily or based on searches of top-rated titles which are the most visible titles in the genre, they seem to be deliberately hiding a clear case of discrimination and what amounts to censorship (albeit ipso facto) because of their lack of transparency.

I want to be clear that while the subject of incest may not appeal to some, there is no underage contact in any of my work, and I make that either explicitly clear in all my stories or I state it up front in the book's disclaimer. I don't condone or support actual incest, just as someone who writes mysteries about serial killers wouldn't condone killing. What I write is fiction. It's fantasy, not reality. And I'm not saying what I write isn't controversial, but it's not illegal (at least in some states) or a threat to national security, and seems as undeserving of censorship as... well...

As fellow author, Will Belegon, noted, if Amazon is going to start pulling books with incest in them: "I just re-read Genesis 19: 30-38 and realized that Lot's daughters got him drunk, had sex with him and bore sons. I demand you follow your clear precedent and remove The Bible from Kindle."

Or perhaps Amazon should create a new television ad after they follow their clear precedent and ban the book the woman is reading in the advertisement on her Kindle ("Sleepwalking" by Amy Bloom) which tells the story of a 19-year-old boy who has a sexual encounter with his stepmother, which, in some states, is legally incest.

While it can be said that, for an author or celebrity, any press (including bad press) is good press, for a bookseller and publisher, that does not necessarily hold true. Can Amazon afford the bad press about book removal which may spark outcries from many corners, including self-publishing authors, the fastest-growing segment of their Kindle ebook distribution?

In speculating on the motivations of Amazon’s actions, as they have not been forthcoming with any statement or explanation, I am concerned that they may be acting out of reactionary fear. This may be based on pressure from a small number of vocal and complaining conservative and/or religious right extremists who object to and are afraid of sexual fantasies and erotic printed material (including incest fantasies). It may also be based on threatening governmental pressure related to the recently removed WikiLeaks. More speculation may point to overzealous lawyering as Amazon moves from just-distributor and bookseller to publisher.

While I am not a lawyer, constitutional scholar or legal expert on free speech and intellectual freedom, I am an author and publisher and know that, regardless of the technical legalities of Amazon's actions, buckling to this pressure and the removal of books will hurt their bottom line. It will damage relationships with readers, authors, publishers and organizations such as the American Library Association and the ACLU, among others, who are interested in supporting free speech. I should also note that I am a professional psychologist and, while no longer licensed or working in the field, it’s clear that when individuals and organizations fail to recognize the difference between fantasy and reality, problems such as this result.

After the Starting Gun

2010-12-09T18:41:00.000-08:00

Hmm, one definite piece of advice:

Finish the manuscript for the forthcoming book before your first book comes out and you need to pimp it online like a madman.

I have a personal blog for promoting my own work. Letting it go completely silent the month after my first book goes out because I’m frantically trying to get a third manuscript finished in time for next Halloween is not what you’d call ideal marketing strategy. Self promotion—not my strong point.

Anyway, let’s pretend it’s actually really November 17th, my usual blogging spot, and I’ll continue with my thoughts and experiences on finally getting my first book out there.

For me this is huge. It’s something I’ve wanted to achieve all my life. Then one morning you wake up and your book is available for the world (well, lots of) to buy on Amazon.

I remember some very useful advice from one of eXcessica's experienced authors to another first time author in a similar position to me. “Expect it to be anti-climactic.”

I’d also add: “Be prepared for the silence.”

That’s the scary part, tossing something you’ve laboured lovingly over for the past few months out into the great black void of the internet and then waiting in vain for something, anything, to come back.

This is where Amazon’s little ranking stat is both a curse and a godsend. Watching that value spiral down into the millions doesn’t exactly do wonders for the ego, but that’s balanced out by the nice little ding! I feel every time the number jumps back up and I know that someone somewhere bought a copy of my book.

Obviously, it would be better if the ranking was high enough so that I couldn’t see each sale as it came in, but I’m realistic enough to know it’ll take time and probably a great dollop of good luck before I get there, if at all. In the meantime I’ll smile over my breadcrumbs and keep working on building up the backlist.

M.E. Hydra

E-zines - what editors want...

2010-12-05T08:36:00.000-08:00

Well, I’ll tell you what I look for from an editorial standpoint. When I read Allegory e-zine submissions, I want the television and my children and my husband to fade into the distance. I want to be so engrossed in the story that dinner burns and we have to order out. I want that first line to catch me in the snare and drag me through the story as if you, the writer, have my hand in a death grip and are racing through the streets at mach speed. In essence, I want to be blown away.

Give me emotion, and action, and a plot that isn’t predictable. I want the story to unfold before my eyes. I do not want to be told what’s happening at every turn. I want to know how the characters react to the situation – not just in their heads, but physically – viscerally. I want the flow to make sense, stimulus then response - in that order, because if not, it dilutes the impact.

I want to laugh, or cry, or shiver with anticipation, and I believe this is what every editor wants regardless of the genre.

So how do you as the writer accomplish this?

Well, let’s take a deeper look at a couple items I hit on above. First - Stimulus / Response.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. Think about when someone jumps out of a hiding place to scare you. (Stimulus)

What happens first?

You jump, your heart skips a beat, you yelp in surprise - all visceral reactions / initial responses.

Then your mind registers what’s going on and emotions roll in. Relief or anger or fear depending on whether the situation is a joke or not.

What happens next?

You laugh, or scowl at the joke, or swing at an attacker, or turn tail and run.

All of this happens within seconds, but the order is always the same – it’s a natural progression of emotional response and needs to be in the right order to reach the reader on a subliminal level.

Here’s a couple examples, one that’s out of sequence and the other that’s in the proper order and you tell me which one has more impact:

1. She opened the door and yelped, her heart lurched in her chest. “What are you doing?”She shrieked at the man with the mask who jumped in front of her and she took a step back.

2. She opened the door and a man wearing a mask jumped in front of her. With her heart lurching in her chest, she yelped and took a step back. “What are you doing?”She shrieked.

For me, the second paragraph makes more sense. It still isn’t as powerful as it could be, but it’s better than the first one.

Now let’s take a gander at the second point I want to touch on… Visceral Reactions.

Looking at the example above – when someone jumps out of a hiding place to scare you, what physical reactions happen first?

You jump, your heart skips a beat, stops, or pounds in your chest, your stomach drops like you took a dive off a skyscraper, you might even pee in your pants a little - all visceral reactions – physical reactions to stimulus that can’t be controlled.

Writing visceral reactions in a fresh way and avoiding clichés is a key component in reaching your readers on a subliminal level.

Here’s the better of the two stimulus/response examples above:

3. She opened the door and a man wearing a mask jumped in front of her. With her heart lurching in her chest, she yelped and took a step back. “What are you doing?”She shrieked.

Let’s take this a step further and get some fresh visceral reactions in here to make the read more compelling:

4. She opened the door and a man wearing a mask jumped in front of her. Her heart slammed against her ribcage in a staccato beat that would challenge even Jimmy Sullivan’s drumming skills. She took a step back, distancing herself from the intruder when his laugh cut through the air, sending shivers up her spine to the base of her neck, where they bunched and turned her muscles to liquid. “What are you doing?” She shrieked, her voice breathy and shaking with fear.

I used three visceral reactions in the passage above. For me, the second paragraph has much more impact than the first. Now, let’s see what you can do with the same scenario…

Thanks for hanging with me for a bit.

In the meantime, check out my November releases:

VENGEANCE: After an undercover bust goes to hell, Special Agent Steve Williams becomes the target of an assassin and his wife’s visions escalate, forecasting a brutal assault on their family. Escaping from the city and armed with scant details from Jennifer’s dreams, Steve trudges through a litany of past connections, searching for the key to stop the course of fate. A brother with a grudge, a serial killer and a mafia assassin are all on his trail and the hunt begins . . .

Released November 1, 2010 by FIDO Publishing.

MIND GAMES Chris Ryan doesn’t understand why he’s alive. If it wasn’t for a miracle, he would have died in the prison his step-brother created and five years of nightmares hasn’t erased his passion for Jessica Connor. Haunted by visions of her daughter’s death, he runs to her doorstep, but all his good intentions fall short when they realize he led the vengeful spirit of his step-brother right to her.

Released November 29, 2010 by eXcessica.

Until next time.

Ciao

JET

J.E. Taylor is a writer, an editor, a manuscript formatter, a mother, a wife and a business analyst, not necessarily in that order.

She first sat down to seriously write in February of 2007 after her daughter asked:

"Mom, if you could do anything, what would you do?"

From that moment on, she hasn't looked back and now her writing resume includes five novels either published or targeted for release in early 2011 along with several short stories on the virtual shelves including a few within upcoming eXcessica anthologies.

Ms. Taylor also moonlights as an Assistant Editor of Allegory, an online venue for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror, and as a "slush slasher" for Dark Recesses, an online venue for literary horror. She also lends a hand in formatting manuscripts for eXcessica as well as offering her services judging writing contests for various RWA chapters.

She lives in Connecticut with her husband and two children and during the summer months enjoys her weekends on the shore in southern Maine.

Visit her at www.jetaylor75.com

Are All Self-Published Authors Amateurs?

2010-12-02T22:53:00.000-08:00

In a post on my blog about competition, a commenter made several points about why he felt self-published books were in no way part of anyone's competition. He also had a lot to say about amateurs vs. professionals (self-pub authors, of course, being the amateurs).

Anyway, a fellow indie friend said to me in IM... "Did he just call you an AMATEUR?" And I was like "LOL, I don't know, it was possibly implied."

So, I added a general comment on the issue of amateurs, but, that comment could have been it's own post and it's definitely something I would like to open the floor up to discuss. (Wow, that sounded hoity toity.)

Here was my original comment:

Something else to think about… amateur vs. professional. How are these terms defined?

Why is a self-published author automatically an “amateur”. Exactly how many times do I have to double my husband’s salary before I’m considered a “professional”?

Do these kinds of prejudices exist for other entrepreneurs?

When someone opens a flower shop do you consider them an amateur florist?

When someone opens a restaurant are they an amateur restaurant owner?

Are independent filmmakers who make a living from their craft, amateurs?

From Dictionary.com:

Amateur:

1. a person who engages in a study, sport, or other activity for pleasure rather than for financial benefit or professional reasons. Compare professional.

2. an athlete who has never competed for payment or for a monetary prize.

3. a person inexperienced or unskilled in a particular activity: Hunting lions is not for amateurs.

4. a person who admires something; devotee; fan: an amateur of the cinema.

There are several indies making a living, so definitely definition 1 doesn’t apply to them. Definition 3 could be argued for perhaps, but experience and skill are highly subjective things in artistic endeavors. I’ve been writing seriously since junior high school (in fact, in school I ignored most of my other classes and wrote during lectures.) And surely a certain sales threshold proves at least a competent level of skill.

This wasn't part of the original comment but I felt like adding it now:

Here are the definitions of "Professional" at dictionary.com:

–noun

1. a person who belongs to one of the professions, esp. one of the learned professions.

2. a person who earns a living in a sport or other occupation frequently engaged in by amateurs: a golf professional.

3. an expert player, as of golf or tennis, serving as a teacher, consultant, performer, or contestant; pro.

4. a person who is expert at his or her work: You can tell by her comments that this editor is a real professional.

I suppose we could rehash the expert thing, but expert is SO subjective. Like... raise your hand if you think Stephenie Meyer is an expert at writing? And yet, she makes more money than God right now and I'm pretty sure most people who identify as professional writers consider Meyer a professional writer.

The definition with regards to earning a living... many indies are fulfilling that requirement.

Now in the grand scheme, it doesn't really matter if you or anyone else calls or thinks of me or any other indie as an amateur or a professional. It doesn't change the fact that several of us are making a living doing what we love while maintaining creative control. In much the same way that Stephenie Meyer laughs all the way to the bank despite the people who say she sucks... I laugh to the bank whether or not you think I'm an amateur or a "fake author". Of course Meyer laughs much louder than me. Still, there is much merriment going on.

Thoughts? What makes a writer a "professional", and is it fair to keep indies out of that club by definition of being indie?

The Year of Profits in Ebooks 2010

2010-12-01T11:54:00.000-08:00

2010 was a good year for ebooks. The stats are being thrown around like bibles at a Tea Party rally - but the concensus seems to be something like a 190% increase in the year 2010 over 2009?

Yes, it's been a good year.

Anecdotally, our sales at Excessica show this is true as well - they have increased exponentially every single quarter. We went from selling 16,000 ebooks in Quarter 1 2010 showing $27,000 in royalties to selling 73,000 ebooks in Quarter 4 2010 showing $154,000 in royalties. Talk about a jump - that's no measly almost-200% jump - that's more like an almost-600% leap!

Yowza!

A few months ago, J.A. Konrath challenged me to post my own numbers when I complained that Amazon was setting price points (too low in my opinion) for ebooks. While I would argue that $9.99 is too high and agency pricing does, indeed, suck - $2.99 may just be too low of a value for books.

So I thought I'd put my money where my mouth is (so to speak) now that the numbers for the year are all in. What follows is a basic breakdown.

In 2010, I sold 62,000 books on Amazon Kindle. That worked out to a $120,000 profit from Amazon.

Of those books, my highest sellers are priced as follows (in order, highest selling to lowest):

$5.99 - Babysitting the Baumgartners
$5.99 - Under Mr. Nolan's Bed
$4.99 - The Real Mother Goose
$4.99 - Quickies
$5.99 - A Baumgartner Reunion
$4.99 - Unfolding
$4.99 - Heidi and the Kaiser
$5.99 - Baumgartner Generations: Janie
$5.99 - Naughty Bits
$4.99 - The Sybian Club

In total, I sold approximately 80,000 books this year through various distributors (though a majority of those sales were, as you can see, through Amazon) and made a total of $170,000 in profits from those books.

Now, granted, I'm not complaining about profit here. (Ow, my diamond shoes are too tight!) But I'm just wondering aloud about the price points we set for our books. Would I have sold more books at $2.99? It could be. I've put all my short stories on sale for $0.99 on Amazon for a month and have seen my sales of those titles triple. Of course, my royalty rate went from 70% to 35% for most of those and it's pretty much averaged out, in terms of actual profit for me.

But more books are being downloaded, which means higher rankings and increased visibility. That's always a good thing. And considering I write adult material that isn't ever going to be featured on Amazon Encore or anything like it, I have to market my work a little differently than a mainstream author might.

But what would happen if I dropped the above prices of those top ten bestsellers to $2.99 or even $3.99?

Maybe that will be my 2011 experiment.

Still, I would encourage you, self-publishers, to stop waiting and start publishing, no matter where you decide to set your price. There's nothing to lose, and a lot - a whole lot! - to gain.

And think of this way - you're lucky. You don't need to do what I did. Back when I started out, we didn't have things like Kindle DTP and Barnes and Nobles "PubIt." We had to actually form co-ops to be considered a "publisher" before we could get our work out there to the major distributors. You don't have to do that. The whole self-publishing world is wide open to you!

Not that I'm really complaining. Yes, I've been working my a$$ off for two years publishing authors who might otherwise not have done it on their own. But I've given a lot of new authors a start under the umbrella of Excessica and it's been an amazing journey so far. I'm proud of what I've accomplished, and that I've put my money (and time - lots and lots of time) where my mouth is when it comes to helping other authors. I don't just talk about it. I actually do it.

And what a ride it's been! I've been in the middle of a huge revolution in the industry - one that isn't anywhere close to being finished. Who knows where it may end up?

Let's hope next year's post: "Year of Profits in Ebooks 2011" will grow exponentially as well!

Selena Kitt
www.selenakitt.com

On Becoming Published

2010-11-21T10:11:00.000-08:00

Anyone who is published already will sooner or later be asked by someone else, "How can I get published too?" Sometimes it's a subtle hint (e.g. "I'm a writer of blank genre, as yet unpublished..."). Sometimes it's a blatant ("Hi [fill-in-famous-name], can I send you my unpublished novel so that you can help find a publisher?"). While the request is polite and seems reasonable since the sender is doing their best to allow said famous person to easily decline, yet it is an obligation put on that person just by asking. It becomes something that they have to deal with either through significant personal effort most, or by trying to let the requestor down gently in that they really can't do what is being asked of them. The good news is that – with a little flexibility – getting published is easier now than ever before. That little flexibility that I'm speaking of is in how you decide that you must be viewed as an author.

We tend to have different goals in how we'd like to be seen as a writer. Selena Kitt, for example, of eXcessica Publishing which has published a number of my titles wanted to get her work for sale on Fictionwise (the largest eBook retailer of that time) without having to deal with publishers who didn't see a sufficient market for it to offer to publish it themselves. She believed in the value of her own writing, found out from FW what their requirements were to be able to distribute on their site (a minimum of 25 available titles from at least 5 published authors to start with) and started soliciting friends and contacts to put together the necessary package. She succeeded well and eXcessica Publishing currently has over 100 contributing authors with over 400 titles in print at this time. They release 4 new titles every week and are booked out a year in advance.

My initial goal was to see my work distributed on Amazon.com, The World's Biggest Bookstore. I felt if I had my titles for sale there then I had "made it" by my definition. And this is where you have to decide what your expectations for your writing really are.

Some writers feel that they can't accept anything less than a high-powered agent, a fat advance, and hard cover publication by one of the Big Six publishing houses (Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Group, Random House, and Simon & Schuster). If that is your dream I won't tell you not to go for it because people do succeed at doing exactly this – but success is likely a long and difficult patch to achieve, even for those already with such publishing credentials. To take this route, finish your novel, including rewrites, and get it into acceptable standard manuscript form. Some very good tips on doing this can be found without needing to be a member at the SWFA (Science Fiction Writers of America) website. Start with the information on this page: http://www.sfwa.org/for-authors/information-center/ and continue on with their warnings and further information here: http://www.sfwa.org/for-authors/writer-beware/. Once you have that, start soliciting agents. I'd say start at the top and work your way down because why would you ever want to start at the bottom and possibly be accepted by the first person you send it to?

Then there are writer's groups. Yes some groups that you may wish to join are rather high and mighty about what they feel qualifies as "publication", SFWA among them as evidenced here: http://www.sfwa.org/join-us/sfwa-membership-requirements/#qualify . If you want to be part of that circle you'll need to play by their rules.

Or you can decide that you write to please yourself rather than some elitists (defined as anyone who doesn't think that you’re a real writer yet) and never worry about what "qualifies" you to be a writer in someone else's view. That is a decision each individual person needs to make for themselves.

Your next option for publication is a whole raft of smaller publishing houses with a track record that can be viewed before you try submitting to them. The smaller houses – independent publishers if you prefer – may specialize a single, or a small number of, genres that are overlooked by the Big 6 as not worthy of consideration. If you write in their particular genre that can be a good choice to try. There are all kinds of things that people like to read from high-brow literary through smut and all of it sells when well written. In fact, about the only genre that doesn't sell are badly written books full of grammatical errors that have no discernable plot, or titles that try to rip-off someone else's copyrighted creations. Don't waste your efforts there. An excellent resource of small publishers, including which ones to avoid as outright dishonest, is maintained by author Piers Anthony here: http://www.hipiers.com/publishing.html .

The third way to getting published, if you want to have your books actually distributed from anywhere other than your own personal website and get paid for them, is to go the Self-publishing route. (A fourth way is to set up your own publishing company, however that is a large amount of work for the average person with a steep learning curve. It can be done, however, you may have little writing time leftover afterwards.)

Now Self-publishing is not to be confused with the rightfully reviled Vanity Press of years past. Today advances in technology and imagination will let you publish any book on your own with very little upfront commitment in terms of money – call that risk – on your part, and actually have it out there for sale afterwards.

Now before you jump at this chance with that novel that has been burning to get off of your hard drive be aware that when you take this route you become responsible for every aspect of your manuscript from the quality of your narrative to the cleanness and correctness of your manuscript. If you aren't an English Major graduate you will likely need some help in ensuring that your compelling story and perfect manuscript is really almost as good as you think it is. Just because you didn't see any errors in the last read-through doesn't mean that they aren't lurking there in bunches. We are often our own worst proofreaders. While the many methods of improving your writing to a standard that you shouldn't be ashamed to show the world overall go beyond what I can cover in this particular essay, the value of finding and participating in local writing groups (start your own if you can't find any in your area) and inexpensive junior college writing classes to perfect your craft cannot be overemphasized. The large publishing houses employ professional editors to fix issues in their submissions before publication because the house's reputation is on the line. Without that safety net for self-publishing, you'll need to be beyond scrupulous about this yourself. Remember that each title you make available for sale promotes all of your other titles. A single bad book can keep readers from ever considering buying anything else from you again.

Once you've handled the technical part of writing a proper story, as opposed to just a series of scenes, in correct manuscript form then there are just 2 more steps to know:

1: Publish in eBook form. Let me repeat this: Always publish in eBook form! Electronic books are the future and the cost of publication is virtually nothing since it’s all just bits and bytes in the computer memory. To ignore this market is to cut yourself out of a place that will probably generate the bulk of your initial sales. Price it as you wish (you'll get a percentage of the total sale price) and be aware that many people these days feel that $2.99 is the magic impulse buy price for eBooks in the same way that 99 cents is the magic price for music tracks. And the way you will publish it is through SmashWords (www.smashwords.com). They are the true innovator in this area of opening electronic publishing to the masses. In return for their cut they will get your book out nationally.

2: If you just have to have your book in print as well, check out the POD (Print on Demand) publishers who literally print individual books as they are sold. As a result you don't spend a whole lot of money upfront for a print run and then pray that the books get sold. You only pay for what you sell. Several firms offer this service, but I suggest looking into CreateSpace (www.createspace.com). The reason for this is that CS is tied in with Amazon.com and will not only that get you placement for sale from both the CreateSpace and Amazon sites, but they handle the finicky publishing details such as not requiring you to buy an ISBN number. You may not be able to sell your print books everywhere without that magic (and expensive in small quantities) ISBN number, but if you're on CS and AMAZ and linking from everywhere else to those 2 sites, you'll be able to sell print books to pretty much everyone who really wants a copy.

Publicity after publication is up to your own efforts. Start with social networking sites like this one and look for other opportunities. You do need to know that you will be competing with others to accomplish your sales. Amazon currently lists 725,000 Kindle titles and that's a pretty big pile to throw yours onto as well. Yet you will be published and available for sale far faster than pretty much any other method, after which it's up to you to promote the heck out of your title in-between writing your next one.

In the future now, anyone who asks me this about how can they get published too they will be referred to this boilerplate reply.

Thank you!
-D.B. Story

Since the day dot….

2010-11-20T01:00:00.000-08:00

You know, when you think about it, self publishing is not a new thing. It’s been around since the day dot. Think of cave paintings or the ancient slaves of Egypt writing 'the Pharaoh sucks’ as they toiled on golden tombs or great philosophers like Herodotus or Sophocles who probably had a patron to finance their works but basically they put their observations out there without fear or favour. Look at modern day graffiti – albeit annoying - self publishing or the twitterati who bang out their thoughts in so many letters for their ‘followers’ to read. Or look at this blog or my own blog - we're all out there publishing at a button touch.

Self publishing is not new at all. It’s more that it was hidden or confined to sites like Literotica which people thumbed their noses at but secretly read. Self publishing is literally doing it yourself without the aid of a net or dealing with a hierarchy of people who are so caught up in red tape, pontification and ego that they forget the basics. People want to read a good book regardless who publishes it or how. The ‘revolution’ part is that people have suddenly woken up to the possibilities presented to them.

Amarinda Jones
Penn Halligan
www.amarindajones.com
www.amarindajones.blogspot.com
Be daring...read an Amarinda book

#3 Oh crap, I need a cover...

2010-11-13T07:22:00.000-08:00

If you are anything like me, the very thought of a cover will send you into a panic attack riddled, wine-chugging tailspin. But soldier on! I did. I figured the only way to get it done was to do it. Onward and upward. So, armed with a boy child’s camera and the Paint program (hi-tech baby), I came up with this:
Or as I call it “Blech or What the Fuck is that?” (nods head) However, that is still the current cover because a) I am lazy and b) for whatever reason that story is selling and always has so why screw with it, am I right?

Then I got a bit bolder and armed with my trusty (son’s) camera, a silver foil tree from Christmas, a whip (yes, mine, shut up) and a blind fold (see previous note) I did an hour of photographs to end up with this~~~~~>

Better, but still. Jesus. Help me, someone! But again, selling, so I placated myself with that and said to myself “Self, you will get better” (this turned out to be true).

So theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen, I found a picture in my photos (one of my own) that I had used in a blog. I was getting better at futzing around with my stuff. So I turned my picture into a negative, smoonched it per one sites size requirement (200x300) and accidentally, mind you, made it look cool. So cool! (ironically enough, as an aside, this title does not sell as well as the suck ass cover stories do, but still does okay). I was feeling stoked.

Then I discovered (quite by accident) that I could fuck with photos in Photobucket. Ah…whole. New. World. So I did it (per their free membership requirements) and ended up with more and more stuff that looks like this:

Ahhhhhh. Now that sooths the savage I don’t know what I’m doing with covers soul. I have to say, most of my covers from this point forward are pretty good. I have learned not to get too hung up in nitpicking and pick one inanimate object or scene that fits a story and then play with it. Once I stopped having seizures and panic attacks and requiring medication over the whole thing, I got tons better.

The key is to remember YOU CAN ALWAYS CHANGE IT. I can go back and swap out every damn cover if I suddenly drank a tanker truck full of coffee and couldn’t sleep and decided to do so.

My final recommendation is this: suck up to a friend who is talented! Tada!

I have this nifty cover for an upcoming December Ink release because I have this fantabulous friend named Willsin Rowe who is wickedly talented. We did a little barter and I gave him something (minds out of the gutter please!) and he gave me fabulous sexy cover.

So, to recap. You might suck at first. Do not fear the suckage. Soldier on. Do not panic. Play with it (heh). THEY CAN ALWAYS BE CHANGED, you are not carving them out of granite…or find a very talented friend and beg, trade, weep or threaten until they give you a shiny new cover (or pay them, that is what I call “the duh is implied” moment)

So, why are you still here? There are places like Photobucket and Picnik and Free Stock photo places you can look over. Paint has come very far and guess what! There are programs and fonts and all kinds of places to explore (something yours truly is STILL doing). So go, you have covers to work on. Chop chop!

Come back next month for the next exciting installment titled “I Have Broken Smashwords or You Will Eff Up”

XOXO
Sommer

Self-Pubbed Authors Banned from Kindle?

2010-11-11T06:18:00.000-08:00

No, self-pubbed authors haven't been banned from Kindle. But if you're a self-pubbed author, that title just about gave you a coronary, didn't it? The reality is that it could happen, and it could happen sooner than you might think.

If you haven't heard the controversy about the self-published book The Ped0phile's Guide to Love and Pleasure (that link is no longer active on Amazon, by the way) by Phillip R, Greaves - where have you been? It went on sale, according to Amazon's book page, on October 28, 2010. On November 10, 2010, the link disappeared. Before Amazon pulled the book, they issued this statement:

"Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable. Amazon does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts, however, we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions."

So much for that noble idea. The book went bye-bye.

Now, I'm not going to take a position on the heinous topic of the book or whether it should have been censored. (Or pulled for atrocious spelling alone - the description was in need of serious spellcheck). It's a moot point at this juncture. But what I am interested in is the possible problems for self-pubbed authors that this may cause.

I can see Amazon's legal having a heart attack at this point, telling them that THEY would be seen as the publisher and responsible for any backlash from this book if anyone sues. And someone just might. People were pretty angry about the whole thing - there were over 3000 comments (i.e. "reviews") on the book before it disappeared. And there is precedent for threatening to sue over books like this (see example below).

Remember that article in Slate a few months back about Amazon publishing "porn":

"The Kindle, however, pushes Amazon over the line from mere enabler of erotica to promoter and producer. Many of these e-titles are specifically being published by Amazon..."

Amazon is, essentially, a publisher now. And they're publishing not just erotica (which is fine as far as I'm concerned, obviously) but apparently, guides on how to be a pedophile.

What's even more interesting and indicative of a possible future ban on self-pubbed authors is that in 2002, Amazon had a similar problem with a title called Understanding Loved Boys and Boy Lovers by David L. Riegel, but this book is still available on Amazon - and it was published by SafeHaven Foundation Press. Presumably, the conservative group who threatened to sue over this book would have had to take it up with the publisher, not the retailer.

But in the case of Mr. Greaves books, Amazon is the publisher. As of this writing, his other four listings are still available for Kindle. For how long, I wonder?

I know I've been called an alarmist in the past, but hey, someone's gotta watch for forest fires, and where there's smoke...

I wouldn't be surprised if we heard in the future that Amazon will no longer be accepting self-pubbed works and publishers may have guidelines to prevent them from just incorporating as an LLC and publishing their own books (i.e. Fictionwise has had these requirements for years: each "publishers" must have for sale at least twenty-five non-public-domain works by ten different authors).

Of course, Amazon may decide to tighten their own gatekeeping process in accepting books for Kindle. That's a possible solution. (And another slippery slope). But if they decide to skip that process altogether, in order to avoid being seen as the only gatekeeper and responsible party, self-pubbed authors may find themselves out of a publisher.

-Selena Kitt
www.selenakitt.com

Smashwords Experiment

2010-11-06T11:03:00.000-07:00

Hi folks,

During October, I experimented in a little test of name your price at Smashwords for my short stories.  It made a difference in sales.  I did three times as much during October, than I sold during either August or September.   However, to put some perspective to this - my Kobo and Sony sales were up too and those were paying venues.

I believe the illusion of sales did drive my numbers up a little, however, folks decided to pay on other venues that they trusted more than Smashwords. I don't quite know what to make from this little experiment, so I'm going to try another promotional avenue for my books.   In looking at what eXcessica did for their scavenger hunt, I thought a smaller scale one might just drum up business for both my eXcessica and FIDO titles as well as my shorts.

I'll let you know how that works next time.

Until then, write like a demon!

Happy November.
Ciao.
JETaylor
http://www.jetaylor75.com/

Sabbatical is a Lovely Word

2010-11-03T00:24:00.001-07:00

The last time I spoke with Selena Kitt I was having a meltdown. I was emo and depressed. The moment I realized I was totally coming apart at the seams, I called an immediate partial sabbatical from Internet activity and especially blogging. I called it a partial sabbatical because there were a few interviews I still had hanging out there, as well as my Indie Reader blogs I’m committed to.

But for the past three weeks, with those very few exceptions, I have been radio silent. If you noticed the Internet was quieter and less obnoxious, that was totally me! :P

On Monday I posted my return post on my personal blog. The title of the post was: “I Never Want to Come Back to the Internet” (to give you some idea of how much I loved this!)

Here are some things I learned while I took a break from all the noise:

* I can keep my writing and editing deadlines. (Amazing what you can do when you aren’t on Twitter or arguing with random people on the Internet all day.) Also directly connected to this: I can write fast.

* There is this thing called the sun. It shines outside most days. The sky is often blue.

* Adults should play. Playgrounds are fun. Swinging (at the playground, you pervs!) is a lost art. And many swings are built to accommodate adult human beings.

* There are 3-D people who live out in the 3-D world. You can touch and talk to them. Even for a semi-hermit this is kind of awesome when you’ve been locked behind your computer.

* Everybody has an opinion about you and most of them good or bad are based on partial information. I intellectually knew this, but the time off gave me the opportunity to really reflect on and internalize it. This type of information will prove beneficial to me going forward.

* Working 10 hours a day 7 days a week is insane and doesn’t actually make me a more productive human being. Just a crazier one. In fact a lot of that “working” was social networking. I can save a whole bunch of time and have more “me time” by just disengaging more.

* My platform and sales will not disappear and I will not fall off the planet if I engage in some premeditated anti-social behavior on occasion. It allows me to get more work done, which helps me more in the long run. It also makes a sane Zoe. Everybody loves a sane Zoe. At least more than an insane one.

* I’m a lot more introverted than I thought. This explains so much about me I didn’t know. If not for the sabbatical I might not have truly figured this one out. People who don’t know me that well often see me as an extrovert because I’m not shy, and I do enjoy social situations when I can work myself up to go to one.

BUT it drains the hell out of me. I usually prefer my alone time. You would think I would have figured out that means: “mostly introverted” a long time ago. But several factors which I won’t bore you with, led me to think I was an “extrovert but...” Um. No. I’m not. And figuring that out has completely rewired how I see everything. But most importantly it’s given me permission to be who I am without feeling like a freak, which was taking up too much of my energy. (The feeling like a freak part.)

If you’ve been plugged into the Internet like it’s your umbilical cord, trust me, cut the cord. I know I’m not the only one who has experienced burn out. I’d been going nonstop since June and was so burnt-out that I just wanted to quit writing altogether. I had lost my joy for it. I couldn’t remember why I even liked doing it because all the crap on the Internet and feeling like everybody was pulling on me, was sucking the life and joy out of it. It was certainly sapping my creativity. It’s really hard to focus on writing a novel when you’ve got a stupid argument going on with some random boob online.

I got so much done during the sabbatical that I have a very different approach to interacting with the Internet now. It’s no longer my first priority, and three weeks away proved to me that the world won’t explode if I don’t run on the social marketing treadmill. In fact, probably just the opposite.

I’m going to go outside and play in the leaves now; don’t expect me to report back on Twitter about it.

A Start

2010-10-21T05:58:00.000-07:00

In a few days time I’ll be entering the next phase of my writing adventure. On Friday my first book, “A Succubus for Christmas and other tales of Devilish Delights”, will come out from eXcessica. In one respect it’s the finishing line of a long-cherished dream, in another it’s only the beginning. Now I have to sell it...

This is the hard part. There are a lot of books out there and tons more being published all the time. Somehow I’ve got to get my book noticed amongst all those and then persuade YOU to part with your hard-earned cash to buy a copy. Some writers only get as far as selling to friends and family before drowning in the forgotten 1’s and 0’s of search result page #101. I don’t even have that to fall back on as my friends and family don’t know I write this kind of thing and I’m not about to tell them either!

It’s not all black. There are a couple of things which will work in my favour. I hope!

I’m not a completely unknown first-timer. Okay, I’m an almost completely unknown first-timer, but it’s still a start. For the last three years I’ve been writing and posting stories up on the internet at sites like Literotica. Some of these stories have picked up a lot of views. One of them placed in one of the regular contests. I’ve topped Lit’s All-Time list in the Erotic Horror category for the past year and a half.

Okay. I know, I know. In real life terms this is all small beans, amateur coupons, or whatever you want to call it. No matter, it’s getting my stories read. That’s the important thing—finding readers. I think of it as kind of like a new rock band touring their local pubs and clubs to build up a name. If people like what they read (and I know some have) then maybe they’ll buy the book (and I know some have said they will)

It’s a start.

The other thing going for me is I’m targeting a fairly unexploited niche and I know it fairly well. If you want to write about vampires, zombies or werewolves then you’d better roll up your sleeves and get ready to swing your elbows and bellow your lungs out to get noticed amongst the thousands of other people writing about vamps, brain-munchers and woofs.

I specialise in succubi. They’re familiar enough to be a recognisable horror trope, but they rarely show up in books or films, despite being popular in both computer games and Japanese anime/manga. I have more elbow room. It’s easier to get spotted by the web sites and forums that are interested in this kind of thing. These are the same places that potential new readers will stumble upon during random internet searches. So, getting this kind of write-up from possibly the most comprehensive information repository on succubi in media on the internet is fantastic word-of-mouth (thanks Tera!).

Will it translate to lots of sales?

I don’t know. I’m still a newbie at all this. There might be a very good reason why the niche is unexploited—there isn’t enough interest. I don’t know.

At the moment I’m trying to keep myself grounded. The book might only sell a few copies. Short story collections are traditionally hard sells.

I don’t care. It’s mine. It’s out there. I’m looking forward to the next stage of the adventure.

M.E. Hydra

Who Knew by Amarinda Jones in Romance

2010-10-20T01:00:00.000-07:00

Who Knew by Amarinda Jones in Romance

By way of an experiment, when I couldn’t sleep last night, I ventured into Lulu self publishing territory. Why? Because I could and because Pallavi Agarwal inspired me to do so when she put her book Slow Burn on Lulu. What will be the result into self-pubbing? Not sure but it’s the first step into having my own publishing site and what the hell – life is a risk so why not take a chance on all things unknown? And now I'm hooked. Yes, correct I'm completely out of control with self publishing. I got over my vistaprint addiction and now this is my drug baby....

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/amarinda_jones

Go on - give it a go...

Amarinda Jones
Penn Halligan
www.amarindajones.com
www.amarindajones.blogspot.com
Be daring...read an Amarinda book

#2 Think It Through, Genius...

2010-10-13T03:38:00.000-07:00

Step two of self publishing is to name your site/publishing ‘house’/store/blog what have you. I named mine for a joke in my family. I once had a friend who called me unco or spaz. I am the girl known for tripping, falling, whooping, hollering and dropping stuff. It’s part of who I am and a running joke that I’m the klutzy one.

So I named my press Spastic Girl Press. Um…turns out this wasn’t such a good idea as overseas, it’s not really okay to say that. Or at least to some folks. Even here, it’s iffy, but since the girl being referred to was myself, I never gave it a second thought. When polled when the issue came up, most readers and friends mostly said: The name made me think of Lucille Ball…Stepanie Plum…You…

But the name did come up and some people were put off by it and I had been playing with the idea of changing it for various reasons. The point of this blog is name your site with care. Google it first, ask folks if you suspect it could be iffy. You don’t want to offend potential customers (though you do want to be true to yourself and your vision, so walk that line however you are comfortable). Do your research. Look into names and phrases and then find one that makes you happy.

When the name issue came up I recalled sitting at the dinner table with my family and my son telling me how they had to change a video game cover because the hand gesture on the cover was fine here, but in the UK it was basically the eff you finger. So that stuff does crop up if you want to sell your work across the board (USA, UK and beyond). Try to keep it in mind.

And me? I ended up being December Ink (named by my husband ‘the man’ no less). I ended up being happier with my new name than my original, but it was a PITA (pain in the ass) to do all the changing at vendor sites. So if you think it through right out of the gate you can save yourself a lot of fretting, paperwork and brain cells!

Back next time when we discuss art or as I like to call it: Oh crap! I need a cover!

XOXO
Sommer

Chinese Ebooks

2010-10-11T08:05:00.000-07:00

Is anyone else glad we don't live in China?

"(A)mateurs involved in digital publishing must register with local authorities by the end of September for permission to publish."

Thank you, first amendment.

Piracy Isn't "Truly Criminal" - In What Alternate Universe?

2010-10-10T04:26:00.000-07:00

Whether you believe piracy is a necessary evil or you fight it tooth and nail, I think it's comments like these, from an article about website filtering, that drive me to drink:

True criminal activity means making a profit on the backs of the hard work of others. If file-sharing was “stealing” from these union’ members then why is is that the motion picture industry has enjoyed year after year of record breaking profits?

Wow. Really? If you make an increasing profit over time and someone steals from you, you shouldn't care? That's not stealing? It's not criminal behavior?

So if my local drugstore makes increasing profits over time, I should be able to go in and steal a candy bar occasionally. That's the logic here, isn't it?

No? What do you mean, I'd get arrested for shoplifting? What the heck? I thought, if a business had increasing profits over time, that stealing from them wasn't really "criminal!"

So why is it okay to steal from an author or an actor, but not okay to steal from the drugstore?

This belief stems from our idea that creative endeavors aren't valuable. I was in a graduate program that allowed us to do "art projects" in lieu of a final paper or exam. Many people chose this option, and many professors grumbled about it. Why? Because the perception of creative endeavors is that they aren't "real work." Somehow sitting down and writing a paper was more valuable than doing a painting, or a sculpture, or writing a poem.

The reality is, it's not true. In fact, I'd argue that being creative and imaginative takes MORE discipline and work than not. I know I learned more about myself and my subject doing an art project than I ever learned sitting down and writing an academic paper.

Writing is work. It's hard work. It requires thought and effort. Why is it we believe people who write, or act, or paint, or do anything that involves creativity, shouldn't get paid? I've made an increasing profit over the past two years since I've started publishing my work. So does that mean it's okay for people to pirate my work?

I don't think so.

Censored by Amazon

2010-10-09T16:57:00.001-07:00

I found out today that I've been censored by Amazon.com. No, they didn't remove my book. And no, I wasn't censored because of the content of it according to my publisher. I was censored based solely on the basis of its cover.

Several things to point out here.

This title with this cover had resided happily on Amazon for a year prior to this happening. It continues to reside on other sites at this time without apparent concern.

What Amazon has done is to remove my book from the "All Departments" search. So far, if you search by title in just the Kindle Store, you can find this title -- but who knows when that could change. What has happened is that I have been taken out of the most common search results utilized by visitors to the Amazon.com website.

The irony of this is that no actual woman was involved in the creation of this cover. This is a pencil sketch transformation of an image of a doll.

No official notice of this action by Amazon was ever received. In fact the only way it was discovered was when another author asked why their work had suddenly disappeared from the All Departments search and, after much prodding, was told that the cover would have to be changed without saying exactly how.

No changes of actual content have been requested -- again, so far.

Could Amazon's action have been prompted by this Attack Article that recently appeared in Slate - an article that was, btw to my second-hand knowledge, a trojan horse in the way it was sold to the interviewee who didn't realize that it would be used to attack her largest distributor.

So it looks like I'm coerced into creating a new bookcover just for Amazon to meet unspecified criteria from an unpublished policy. Call that one more item that I can check off of my Bucket List. Shouldn't everyone be censored at least once in their life? After all, you don't know where the line is until after you've crossed over it.

Amazon, you could have just come to me and asked for a new book cover.

D.B. Story

Crime/Mysteries Edge out Romance/Erotica - Really?

2010-10-08T10:39:00.000-07:00

According to a Harris Poll published by Publisher's Weekly, crime and mystery novels have edged out romance, chick lit and erotica. Of course, they only interviewed 2700-ish people.

Personally, I think there are far more people willing to ADMIT they read mysteries, crime novels and sci-fi than there are people willing to ADMIT they read romance and erotica.

In that sense, the study is probably accurate! :P

Selena Kitt
www.selenakitt.com

What Amazon Kindle is Doing Wrong

2010-10-06T17:22:00.000-07:00

I had a conversation today that got me thinking about what Amazon Kindle might be doing wrong.

I think we can all agree that they have done a lot right, in terms of selling ebooks - as their 70-80% of the market share proves. The Kindle is a fantastic e-reader, and as a dedicated device, I wouldn't recommend anything else. They make buying books ridiculously easy with 1-click (i.e. 1-crack). They make publishing books easy, too, for the big six, indie publishers, and self-pubbed authors alike.

Aside from eliminating the agency pricing model, which is a given - for me, there are two things that come to mind that would make the experience at Amazon a better one for readers and authors alike.

First would be allowing self-published authors to offer books for free. I understand that there's bandwidth and delivery issues involved as a cost, but they offer it to the Big Six publishers (and others as well - you'll notice Samhain Publishing offers free titles, and they're an indie) why not to self-pubbed authors? Even if we had to pay a fee for doing so, I think we'd all agree the boost in exposure would be worth it.

The second thing would be to give away a free ebook to everyone who buys a print version. As a reader, I know there are certain books I will always buy in print, as long as print exists, because I'm a fan and collect them. Stephen King books, for example, in my case. But I also want to read that book when I'm sitting at my son's wrestling practice or waiting at my daughter's orthodontist appointment, and I don't want to have to carry a huge hardcover with me. (Have you ever lifted one of the tomes SK has written? They're like doorstops!) I want it in ebook form, too. But if I want it...I have to pay for it. Again. And of course, because of the agency model, I may have to pay just as much (or more!) for the ebook version as I do for the hardcover! That just makes me mad.

I think Amazon Kindle is in a unique position to offer this option. Excessica publishes all our print books through Amazon's CreateSpace, and it would be easy, I would think, to link the systems together and give the reader an ebook version when they buy a print version. And it would also marry the idea of print-and-e together. It would send the message that they're not mutually exclusive, and Amazon isn't trying to "kill print books" with ebooks. (Even if they are... shhh!)

I also think they're setting the bar too low setting the price point at $2.99 for a full-length book, but that's something I've talked about before - and I'm gathering data together to see if my theory that pricing full-length books at $3.99 and $4.99 and even $5.99 doesn't hurt (and may even help) sales. That's something that Amazon doesn't really control, aside from the royalty option they've set up. It's the thrifty Kindle readers who seem to think that, after paying $200 for an e-reading device, content should be "nearly free."

I think Amazon Kindle has done a lot for ebooks - but I also think they need to pay attention to the trends and possibilities. The good news is, I think they are, and they will. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw them offering the "free" option to self-pubbed authors and a complimentary copy of ebooks with a print sale as well. After all, they're now offering their popular 70% royalty rate on books sold in the UK.

The good thing about Amazon is they pay attention and listen to authors. Which is more than can be said, it seems, for big publishing.

Selena Kitt
www.selenakitt.com

October experiment

2010-10-05T06:15:00.000-07:00

I decided to do an experiment with my short story sales during the month of October. I posted them on Smashwords over the last couple of months at a price of .99cents and made 4 sales over that course of time.

On October 1, I reset all the titles to "Pick your own price" and sold three times as many within a couple days as I had within the last two months. Of course, pick your own price also includes free as a price tag - but if people find a writer they like, they tend to continue to read other stuff by that same author. I figured this was the best way I could get these stories into the hands of readers, to get folks to take a chance on me.

I'm not sure if it will translate into real sales when this is all said and done, but my hope is that it will raise awareness and open more doors for my work.

There has been a great debate on what the golden price is for an e-book and I've seen $2.99 thrown out there a fair amount of times. Is that the magic number? I don't know, but from a consumer standpoint, I'd more readily take a chance on an unknown author if the price was $2.99 as opposed to $6.99 or higher. I'd also be more likely to impulse buy at the lower amount too.

Perhaps this theory has creedence. What would happen if a publisher set the price of a new release as $2.99 for a full length novel - even if it only lasted for the first month along with an advertisement of new releases on sale.

After all, it is amazing what the label "sale" does to the purchasing mentality.

Until next time . . .
JET

http://www.jetaylor75.com/

Baby Got Back... List

2010-10-03T23:42:00.000-07:00

Lately I’ve gotten into laser-focus mode. I comment on blogs less frequently than I used to, and when I do, I don’t tend to keep coming back or engaging in debate. I’m spending a bit less time on Twitter and Facebook as well. Why?

Besides being burned out...

Marketing is important, but the most important thing is backlist. Selena Kitt and Joe Konrath are selling like crazy crack-monkeys not only because they can write, but because they have monster backlists. As you start to build a name for yourself as an indie, the best thing you can do is have more work for your fans to consume once they finish whatever they’re reading of yours now.

The more times someone clicks a buy button for a book with your name attached to it, the more buying from you becomes a habit and the lower the wall of resistance for them to buy something from you in the future.

My focus right now is on writing more and putting more work out into the world so I can build my backlist. It may take awhile, but it’s my goal to get to the point where I can release a book every six months without quality suffering. Since I don’t have a job outside of this, it should be doable eventually.

It’s my belief that when you’re starting out you hit a bit of a plateau where, unless you have a huge marketing budget where you can spend actual money to bring readers to you, you’ve exhausted your current reach.

It’s not your total reach. There are probably many people out there who would like your work that you just haven’t reached yet. But, without the marketing dollars, there is no good way for you to reach them.

I did a big Kindle giveaway recently. I had a rush of blog visitors and a lot of contest entries, and several new readers, but it still didn’t broaden my overall platform gigantically. The only way to move forward at this point is to release new work, and then build platform from the momentum of that release. Then do it again. And again.

I know many indies feel sort of adrift because they’ve told me so. And I’ve felt adrift as well at times, not knowing where to put my focus. It seems absolutely necessary to stay plugged-in constantly with people so they don’t forget who you are and you don’t fall off the map. But unless we’re talking about your hardcore uber fans who will pimp your work until their dying day, there is a law of diminishing returns here.

I’m starting to believe that the best strategy is a big marketing push at the beginning of a new release, followed by consistently (but moderately) getting your name out there and focusing most of your effort on building your catalog of work.

The more books you have, the more opportunities people have to find your work, and once hooked, the more chance you have of repeat buyers who become serious fans.

Zoe Winters is an indie author of quirky paranormal romances. Her favorite colors are rainbow and clear.

Viva la revolution baby…

2010-09-20T03:12:00.000-07:00

Okay, so when I first heard of ‘self publishing’ the old quote of “She/he who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client” came to mind. Why? Well it’s all about knowledge and knowing how to apply it in order to succeed. If you have no knowledge you have the amazing ability to bugger stuff up. This is why most writers latch on to a publishing house in order to get their epic saga to print. The idea of having no clue and being unaided in getting a book out there is daunting. But then there’s the flipside. This writing gig can be a minefield. How so? Dodgy publishing houses, suspect royalties and in-house fighting between writers/editors/publishers. Yeesh. Go with that or take a crack at self-pubbing?

Essentially writers are quite mad. No really. Who else is going to sit on their arse for hours talking to themselves as they bang out a stream of vaguely coherent words into a computer? Yet as mad as we are we retain stuff to be used later on…like in stories…or in business. We watch, we gossip, we listen. We look around and think ‘well crap, they suck as a publisher. I can do what they’re doing.’ Let’s face it – most of the e-book publishing companies out there were started by people who took a chance and had a go. So why couldn’t anyone do that? You don’t have to be a genius – just a risk taker.

So – thinking about self-pubbing? Go for it. As for revolutions? I love a good stousch. Put my name down for the next one…

Amarinda Jones
Penn Halligan
www.amarindajones.com
www.amarindajones.blogspot.com
Be daring...read an Amarinda book

Ebook Price War Solution

2010-09-18T09:33:00.001-07:00

I've got a lot of friends in the UK who were very excited to see the addition of Kindle to the UK store. Kindle, I've noticed, has separated out the UK sales from the US sales in our royalties - probably because authors are still getting 35% on their UK sales, while from the US sales, they're getting 70% (as long as the book is priced between $2.99 and $9.99).

In spite of low author royalties in the UK, Amazon is scrambling to deep-discount books before agency pricing starts to take effect in the UK, as it did in the US (much to most consumers' chagrin!) It seems that Amazon wants to brand the consumer's brain with the idea that books should be priced on average at $2.99 - and certainly no higher than $9.99. And while I certainly agree with the latter, I'm not so sure about the former $2.99 price point.

Besides, it looks like Amazon wasn't quite fast enough. Hachette, the UK's largest publisher, is taking the same route the Big Six publishers in the U.S. have taken - they are demanding agency pricing from Amazon on Kindle books sold in the UK.

And the price-wars continue...

Will the investigation into price-fixing by the Texas Attorney General come to anything? Who will win in the end? Who knows?

But we all know consumers and authors both lose if books continue to be over-priced the agency way. Some of the forums on Amazon are eye-opening, with consumers threatening boycotts of overpriced books (and their authors). Granted, I happen to think some Kindle folks are a little extreme about ebook pricing, thinking full-length books should be priced at $2.99.

Because ebooks are such an ethereal sort of thing, people are loathe to pay much for them. I get that. After all, you can't share them with a friend, and there's always the fear your hard drive may crash (or your ebook vendor will go out of business) and your e-library might disappear. Ebooks don't seem quite "real" - even if you're actually getting the same amount/time of entertainment with them that you would with a hardcover.

It's hard to wrap our heads around paying $9.99 for something that doesn't quite seem "real." But think about it - we do that now when we go to the theater to see a movie. (In fact, if you're into buying popcorn, you pay quite a bit more). And you don't get to take that movie home with you, or get to watch it again, the way you get to read an ebook.

Now, granted, if you're a bargain-hunter like me, you can go see a matinee show for $3.75, or the twilight show for $4.75 (your mileage may vary depending on your state - or country - of origin). Or you can wait to buy the DVD and have it to watch over and over (at least until it gets all scratched - am I the only one who misses VHS for that reason?)

So why should a bargain ebook be $0.99 and a full-length novel ebook be priced at $2.99? Could we be down-valuing the medium?

Personally, I think ebooks should be priced based on length. This model has been used by indie ebook publishers for over ten years. (Yes, it's true, there were thriving ebook publishers and distributors before Kindle!)

Our own eXcessica pricing is based on length:

$0.99 Short Shorts: Under 3K
$1.99 Shorts: 3-7K
$2.99 Stories: 7-15K
$3.99 Novelettes: 15-35K
$4.99 Novellas: 35-50K
$5.99 Novels 50-70K
$6.99 Super Novels: 70-140K
$7.99 Super XL Novels: 140-250K
$8.99 Super XXL Novels: 250K +

It's a good, and I think fair system for both authors and consumers. I mean, come on - the average candy bar costs $0.99 - and I think a short little story is probably more nourishing than a Snickers.

Remember what you're paying for - the amount of time you get to be entertained by a book.

In a world where everything has gone Supersize for so little investment - where you can get a Gazillion Ounce Big Gulp Slurpee for $0.99, but "real" food (i.e. an organic apple, for example) costs so much more - we have developed a Wal-Mart mentality where we want everything for nothing.

But the reality is you still get what you pay for - a $0.99 Slurpee is something that took very little energy to produce. The apple, on the other hand, took a long time to grow, and under the loving, watchful eye of an organic farmer.

So with ebooks. A $0.99 book should be a short-short - something it took an author perhaps an afternoon or two to write and polish. A 100,000 word tome that took a writer half of his life to complete, might, perhaps, deserve a little more investment.

There has to be a middle ground between the price-gouging of agency model and the deep discounts of Amazon and Wal-Mart. I think basing ebook price on length might just be the place we're looking for.

-Selena Kitt
www.selenakitt.com

A Second Bite of the Cherry

2010-09-17T22:48:00.000-07:00

Times change and when they change, they often change fast.

I’m M.E. Hydra, writer of twisted succubus tales, and what’s happening for me at the moment is the fulfilment of a dream. I imagine a lot of people have the same dream. They want to write and they want that writing published and out there for people to read. Too often those dreams end up dying alone and forgotten in the slush pile of an uncaring publishing house.

When I first started out I was very sceptical about Self-Publishing. It seemed like...well, cheating. Sure, you could go to a vanity press, dump a wad of cash and then see your words in print, but did it really count? Who would read it? Who would want to buy it? How would you know if you were any good or not?

That was an important distinction for me. I didn’t just want to be published; I wanted to be published because I was good enough to be published. So I did the obvious thing every budding writer does and researched how other writers got to where they were. My genre of choice was Horror. I started out a Sci-Fi and Fantasy junkie, then moved onto Horror and never really left.

A lot of horror writers—Stephen King, HP Lovecraft, etc—all followed the same path. They wrote short stories, shrugged off the inevitable barrage of rejection slips, got their work published in the small press magazines, then the higher profile magazines, before finally landing the book deals and cranking out novels.

I tried the same and at the start it seemed promising. Sure, I picked up a ton of rejection letters to start with, but I’d been warned to expect that. I dutifully filed them away, learned what I could and focused on honing my craft. It paid off and I started to get acceptances from small press magazines, although some of those magazines were so unstable they folded into oblivion before the publication date.

Then I smacked into a wall.

The problem was moving up to the next level. A friend of mine had similar ambitions, but in Sci-Fi. He took out a year’s subscription to one of the premier UK magazines for science fiction short stories. One year later and he’d seen only one story written by a writer not previously published in the magazine.

This is not a fault of the magazine, or any of the anthologies that were floating around at the time. They’re in the business to sell copies, and stories by established and recognised authors are more likely to do this. The flaw in my route became apparent. To get there, you had to already be there.

Even once you got there it didn’t seem so rosy. The horror section in my local bookstore was starting to look a little anaemic. Outside of the big names, who are admittedly massive for good reason, there was little in the way of fresh meat. Where were the new writers?

Then there was no more horror section. King and Koontz departed to the K section of general fiction and I browsed bookstores less and less often.

The message seemed clear enough. If I wanted a future that involved being able to eat and pay bills, then it probably didn’t involve writing horror books.

And that might have been it. I’d given it a shot and it hadn’t panned out. Time to move on to other things.

It was finding online sites like Literotica that rekindled the flames. I went back to basics, wrote some short stories, posted them and—encouraged by the positive feedback—wrote more. That feedback is invaluable, as is knowing there are readers out there enjoying your work. In this respect the internet is a fabulous opportunity for new writers. The old routes don’t work anymore, but writers still need a training ground to hone their art. Online story sites can help with this in a similar way to receiving a good review for a story in a small press magazine. They can also reach a much larger audience. Yes, it does involve giving some of your work away for free, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. After all, if you can’t get people to read your stories when they’re up there for free, you sure as hell aren’t going to get them to pay for them.

And now I’m here, with a collection of my short stories coming out in October, a second collection scheduled for next February and a third collection nearing completion on my hard drive. I’ve held the print versions of the first two books in my hands already, and it’s a wonderful thing I can tell you.

What happens next I don’t know. I’m happy to get a second chance to finally do something I’ve always wanted to do. Not many people get to rescue a dream from the scrapheap. I might sell well enough to consider taking it up full time or I might only sell a few copies. Either way, it’s still more than would have read them had the manuscripts been buried in a slush pile somewhere.

The times are a changing. They barred the gates so now we’re climbing over the walls.

Selling Out

2010-09-13T11:52:00.000-07:00

About a year ago, Fictionwise was acquired by bookseller Barnes and Noble. This is old news. The reaction was mixed, positive and negative. Some thought, well it had to happen some time, as ebooks became a bigger part of the market share, and if Fictionwise was going to be acquired by anyone, at least it was by someone who actually cared about books. Some, though, hated to see the biggest independent ebook retailer sell out to one of the big boys. Up until the surge of Amazon's Kindle (followed by Barnes and Noble's Nook and Apple's iPad) they were the considered THE place to buy ebooks.

But in a free market system, competition is good, right? The consumer never benefits from a monopoly, and in some ways, before the acquisition, Fictionwise was monopolizing the ebook market. Sure, some other distributors (most notably All Romance Ebooks and Omnilit) had come out to challenge them, and were even making some headway, but Fictionwise still had a lion's share of the market.

Then the acquisition happened, Kindle exploded for Amazon, and the world turned upside down.

Fictionwise had already begun to have some major customer service issues. They were getting pretty big for their britches before the acquisition, ignoring customer and publisher complaints, all the hallmarks of a company who thinks it's the biggest bully on the block who can get away with it. (Anyone hear Lily Tomlin's cackle, followed by, "Because we're the PHONE COMPANY!" in their head, or is it just me?) But even big ol' Fictionwise saw the writing on the wall about the future of ebooks and sold out to the highest bidder.

They said selling out wouldn't change anything - Scott Pendergrast, head of Fictionwise, was quoted as saying, "Barnes & Noble (is) fully behind Fictionwise’s philosophy of 'platform neutrality and eReader everywhere.'"

Hm. Really? A big corporation holding the same philosophy as an independent retailer? Who was he trying to convince exactly?

Then came the extinction of Fictionwise's Buywise program, due to agency model pricing. It was a great program for consumers, offering 15% off books for members, along with special “micropay rebate” offers. Of course, it wasn't always so good for the publisher. Fictionwise standard contracts said that royalties to the publisher would be 50% of the sale price, or 25% of the list price, whichever was greater. And the "sale price" was defined as "the price paid by the customer." Of course, Fictionwise stipulated that the price "may be less than the List Price because of coupons, promotions, or other discounts."

Promotions like the Buywise program.

The small independent publishers had always complained about Fictionwise's deep discounts of their books and the smaller percentage of royalties that they received based on those discounts. Unlike Amazon, who only gave a 35% royalty rate to publishers, but always based that rate on the publisher's set list price even when they discounted a book, Fictionwise passed that consumer savings on to the publisher, much to the publisher's chagrin. But at the time, Fictionwise was the biggest dog on the e-book block, and volume of sales helped alleviate some of those consumer incentives. You don't bite the hand that feeds you, and small independent ebook publishers were loathe to complain.

The Big Six, though, weren't having any of it. With the typical arrogance of the "too big to fail" philosophy of most big corporations, they complained. They wanted to sell their books and receive royalties based on the price they listed. And now that Fictionwise had been acquired by Barnes and Noble, they didn't have much say in the matter. And the Buywise program bit the proverbial dust.

But that was just the first indication that the biggest independent online retailer's selling out to one of the big boys might have been a mistake - at least, if they wanted their philosophy about ebooks to continue into the near future, let alone a long-term one.

Then, Fictionwise closed applications to any new publishers wanting to publish directly with them - I was told they were "indefinitely on hold." I was also told to inquire with Barnes and Noble instead. I know of several publishers who applied and had been waiting six months or more without any response from Fictionwise about their applications, in spite of numerous attempts to elicit one.

And now, Fictionwise is closing all of its branded stores. According to Publisher's Weekly, Fictionwise boasted about 500 of these store-fronts that were hosted by Fictionwise and enabled customers to view only a publisher's own titles rather than the entire list of all ebooks sold by Fictionwise. EPIC's (Electronically Published Internet Connection) own bookstore was powered by Fictionwise - but has since been redirected to www.fictionwise.com. All of the branded stores will reportedly be closed by the end of September.

I can say now that I'm glad I followed my instincts in dealing with Fictionwise from the beginning and didn't invest the $1000 (that's right, it cost those who wanted a branded store $1000 for the privilege) to power Excessica 's storefront. Although I feel sorry for those who did make that investment.

I'm also a little sad, in spite of my difficulty in dealing with Fictionwise over the past few years, to see the end of an era. This, to me, more than the explosion of Kindle, the Coming of the iPad, the scrambling of Borders and Barnes and Noble to keep up, marks the true beginning of the end. Fictionwise, once the largest and most profitable ebook retailer, isn't going to survive the ebook boom we're facing, and certainly not in the way they claimed to have hoped.

Perhaps Fictionwise saw the future of ebooks and sold out at just the right time. It was inevitable, wasn't it, that once ebooks reached a certain share of the market, that the "little guys" just wouldn't be able to hold their own anymore? Even the biggest "little guys" were going to take a hit or disappear altogether.

But why all the smoke and mirrors? Why not just admit that you sold out, that the impending change in the market necessitated the sale? Instead, we heard platitudes about things staying the same.

I don't know, but it seems to me the winds of change have taken on the distinct odor of manure.

-Selena Kitt
www.selenakitt.com

#1 Be Not Afraid

2010-09-13T03:45:00.000-07:00

So I’ve decided to do a little fly-by-night, seat-of-my-pants list of stuff I feel people interested in self publishing should know. I’ll do them one at a time and try to keep them short. The point is to illustrate that it’s not as scary as you might think and it can be as complicated or as simple as you want it to be.

First, I’ll do an about me in a nutshell. I write for several publishers, including Excessica. When I found Excessica I wondered how in the hell anyone was making any money if Selena was giving the writers their money. Allllllll their money. But slowly I followed along and saw the genius of what she was doing. Excessica went from that weird little publisher that I wrote for, to that stupendously brilliant publisher run by that phenomenally smart woman. My only question when the company moved to 10% off the top was ‘what took you so long?’

Somewhere in there, I decided to try my hand at self pubbing my own shorts here and there. Mostly reprints from one of my favorite places Ruthie’s Club (now defunct). Then later I got super brave and I tried my hand at a short antho. Now, what was once terrifying to me is not a huge deal.

The most important thing to remember is to not panic. Be not afraid! Yes, you will screw up. Yes, you will have to learn as you go. But if you are in this industry, you can’t jump overboard at one mistake. There will be typos, bad blurbage and questionable covers (dear lordy, yes). There will be things that do not upload properly or missing prices or instructions you do not understand at first. The thought of reading a style guide (a la Smashwords) will seem super daunting. But do. Not. Panic.

The bottom line is this: ask questions. You can Google things, buy short guides to self publishing, follow blogs such as this one. You can ask other writers and you can ask on group lists found on Yahoo! and various chat groups. But the most important of all is you can ask the vendors where you will be listing your work. You see that section labeled Help or Contact us? Click it! Ask them if you don’t understand or something won’t work. Because if you make money on their site, they make money. And it is in their best interest to aide you in getting your work up properly.

Of course, that’s assuming you’ve even gotten to the uploading stage. We haven’t even talked about the other stuff like naming your press, covers, editing, anthologies. But we will. Soon.

For now, start saying it: Om…om…There is nothing to fear. All you need is the willingness to learn and not give up. That’s step one. Intent.

XOXO
Sommer

Short and Sweet (or Naughty)

2010-09-08T18:11:00.000-07:00

Hello fellow authors, artists, and readers! Ava James, your genre whore extraordinaire making my first appearance here.

I concur with my blogging comrades - epublishing is booming and you get what you give when it comes to advertising. That being said, I'll get to the point of my post; epublishing gives those of us with a flare for short stories a real chance to shine.

A little history on me, I'm that child in school that was constantly harassed by teachers to quit doodling. The one who, instead of taking real notes, was writing a story about tigers who turned into people under the full moon. (Yes, I wrote that story when I was 12, but it still holds promise.) I like being able to sit down to my computer the moment a new idea strikes, write until 2a.m., then start editing the next day on the 5,000 words I churned out.

I write for those of us with limited time, the ones who need a quick fix. Think about all of those great short stories that epublihsing brings you. The short, sweet ones that make you smile with their warmth or the blisteringly brief naughty encounters. With epublihsing, you don't have to leave the house to get fantastic short reads at a great price - it's immediate reading gratification. You want something you can read from start to finish in under an hour, we've got it. You want to read a pirate romance now and maybe a shape shifter erotic tale later, go ahead an download each. Who says a story has to be 200 pages to be rewarding? Sometimes all we have is a few minutes to devote to ourselves, so why not spend it in the middle of someone else's tryst?

Okay, my post has turned into the short ramblings of a distracted writer. But then again, isn't that why you looked at this blog today?

See you again on the 9th!
~ Ava
http://avajamesromance.blogspot.com

Some Whys and Hows of E-Publishing

2010-09-06T23:06:00.000-07:00

Those on the following list of authors have something in common: Douglas Adams, Winston Churchill, Lee Child, Carl East, Elizabeth George, Stephen King, Selena Kitt, Stieg Larrson, Carole Lynn, Anne McCaffrey, Brynn Paulin, Oscar Wilde, and P. G. Wodehouse. They are all best-selling authors of e-books. The subset of East, Kitt, Lynn, and Paulin are distinguished from the rest in that they write erotica. Well, there's also Oscar Wilde, I guess.

For more than a decade readers and writers have been hyped by the anticipation and claim of a great wave of e-book sales that was just out there on the horizon. Well, that great wave is crashing on the shore now, and the genres that are benefiting the most from the first wave to land are Romance and erotica. It's not something to be predicted or anticipated or wished for or wished against—it's here.

The British newspaper, The Guardian, reported that Amazon's e-book Christmas-season sales overtook their print sales for the first time in 2009, and in June 2010, Steve Haber, president of Sony's digital reading business division, predicted to the Huffingtonpost that total e-book sales would be overtaking total print book sales within five years. E-book sales subsequently were reported as already having overtaken hardcover sales.

Even a recent Newsweek feature, "Who Needs a Publisher?" by Isia Jasiewicz, focuses on—and celebrates—the droves of authors who are bypassing the frustrating and highly iffy process of submitting to mainstream print publishers and going straight to putting their works out on their own, most of them via e-book publishing. And selling the books. The "and selling the books" is the shocking change that has swept over the world of publishing.

Many authors these days are also bypassing the self-publishing print world (you can almost hear the screams of angst in the halls of such self-publishing packagers as iUniverse and of LightningSource, their main print-on-demand manufacturer) and are seizing the world of e-publishing. And actually making money doing so. Until very recently, it was right to scoff about "cigarette money" in discussing the potential for profits from e-publishing (or POD self-publishing, for that matter), but as thriller author (Whiskey Sour) J. A. Konrath was quoted as noting in the Newsweek feature, there are authors who are now paying their mortgages—and more—with their e-book royalties.

It isn't the purpose of this essay to get into the argument of print versus e-book as desirable or preferable to either the reader or the author—especially when now you don't have to make a choice; via Amazon's CreateSpace program you can cheaply put an e-book into print. You can have both worlds. The purpose of this essay is to help get authors of Romance and erotica—the two "first takeoff" genres of e-booking—to consider whether e-booking is for them—and, if they think it might be, to help get them on the road to getting it done.

Why E-Publish?

The quick and simple (and still true) answer to the question of why e-publish rather than attempt to print publish is that it is quicker, simpler, easier—and, for Romance and erotica, at least—more potentially profitable and enjoys a more larger market in e-books than in print. Beyond that, for many authors it is, realistically, the only option to seeing their work for sale internationally under a book cover.

What is the advantage of e-booking over print submission/why has the "great wave" arrived? The computer and electronic reader have progressively moved into the center of people's lives. And this has been goosed along by faltering economies that favor the cost effectiveness, ease, and convenience of electronic shopping over stocking and operating brick and mortar stores. There will always be people who "just gotta" stand in the store and feel the book in their hands before buying, but natural attrition is doing a job on that subset and, proportionally, there are increasingly more people who are comfortable with—even preferring—to do their browsing and shopping in electronic stores. In responding to this trend, the electronic and publishing worlds are providing e-reader devices that are getting cheaper and more acceptable to use. And (surprise!) the mainstream publishers are branching out to electronic publishing themselves.

Individual readers and authors grouse about this not happening in their lifetime—and certainly not to them. But if they'll take a look around they'll see that mainstream publishers and best-selling print authors have seen and are melding to the trend—and are riding the e-book wave themselves. Name a best-selling author and/or a major print publisher and then go out and check for yourself what they are doing in the realm of electronic publishing.

For readers, e-book devices are getting easier and more acceptable to use—and cheaper. E-books are also convenient; they are mobile and disposable, easier to acquire, and don't take up the space that print books do. And, as noted already, readers increasingly are growing up adapted to centering their life on electronics.

For authors, it's easier, faster, and cheaper to put out an e-book over a print book (even a self-published print-on-demand book). It's also easier and cheaper and more convenient (and takes up less storage space) to market, sell, and distribute a book via the Internet than through traditional marketing. And because of all this, there is a greater per-unit profit margin at a lower reader cost for an e-book over a print book. On top of this, an e-book doesn't go off the shelf like a print book does. The publishing industry-standard of the shelf life of a print book is two weeks. At some point e-books will probably have to be pushed off distributor's Web sites—but there's no indication how many decades down the line that will have to happen. In the meantime, the e-book is on display across the Internet—on equal footing with mainstream publisher books (did I mention that the number of e-book stores is increasing as well?), whereas most print books are gone (although Internet distributors such as Amazon and B&N are now helping to give print books longer shelf lives than in past centuries).

And for those who simply must have a print book in their hands, Amazon's CreateSpace program makes that option more cheaply available than the prior wave of print-on-demand self-publishing does. And you get the Internet marketing and distribution services to go along with it.

For the author (and the reader) there are creative advantages of e-books over print. There are cost-effective limitations with print books—they can't be too short or too long, or there's little or no hope for them to pay for their production, marketing, and distribution costs. In e-publishing, there are no lower or upper limits to the words in a work. The e-book industry might, in fact, be the savior of the novella—which can't be cost-effectively put into print through mainstream publishing processes unless your name is Steve Martin. Also, although it hasn't been fully exploited yet, e-books can be multimedia in content—and they can be constantly updated, corrected, and evolving. It's actually an exciting publishing realm for author and reader alike.

But why is e-booking especially attractive for writers/readers of Romance and erotica? For erotica writers, it's attractive because the e-book market is bigger and more accessible for Romance, and especially erotica, than the print market is. And it's far easier and cheaper either to find a publisher or to publish it yourself (and, if you are publishing it yourself, you encounter far fewer self-publisher barriers in e-publishing than you do in print publishing). It's attractive to the writer, because it's attractive to the reader, which proves out by the simple fact that readers are buying e-book Romance and erotica hand over fist. And the writers who are profiting from that wave are the ones offering new e-book titles to the buyers.

For the reader, buying e-book Romance and erotica is especially attractive, because e-buying and e-reading are more private than book store buying and print reading. You can easily and privately buy e-books on the Internet, you can more privately read them in public on an e-reader, you can store them more privately in a computer than on a book shelf, and you can more easily and privately dispose of them when you are finished. And they were cheaper to buy to boot, so you can buy and read more of them in comparison to print books. (This is especially attractive to Romance buyers, who are voracious readers.)

How to Get Your Erotica E-Published?

In every dimension—time, cost, submission acceptance, marketing, distribution—it's easier to get e-published than published in print. And, luckily for you, if you are writing Romance or erotica, the e-book market for those genres is much, much (much!) larger than the print market is.

First and foremost—and possibly the hardest for a budding writer to swallow—you need to write something readers want to read. At least if you want a second go at it. If you want to start making money at it, you need to invest the time, effort, and storytelling and presentation talent to play in the market. The e-book market is larger and more forgiving, but even it has standards and preferences (although here, too, e-booking makes niche subject publishing far more possible than print publishing does).

The good news is that you have a development platform at Literotica. Write, submit, and seek feedback for works right here on this and at other story sites. As you add to your portfolio, you will develop skills and build confidence—and, if you are or can become a good writer and storyteller—you'll start gathering that all-important fan base that will transfer over to be your buyers/readers in the marketplace. Seek out editors (who, as far as you can determine, know what they're doing) and beta readers. And possibly the best thing you can do is to read stories on the story sites not only to learn from them what to do/what not to do but also to pick out writers who write well and write stories you'd like to be writing. When you identify them, contact them directly to see if they'll read something of yours and give you advice.

Don't worry about giving your "precious babies" away for free on free-read story sites—or having them stolen because you laid them out where it's easy to snatch them. Writing is a renewable resource. The more you do of it and the better you get at it, the more inspiration will open to you for new and fresh stories and approaches to old themes. And the more marketable you'll become for profit sharing from your stories. (I use "sharing" on purpose. Anyone who helps you get a story published becomes part owner of the success of that story and deserves a piece of the profit as well. Thinking of a story as solely yours stops at the point that you need help from anyone else to get it published.)

When you have works you would like to see covers slapped on and competing in the marketplace, it's time to do a little research. Browse through the listings at such Internet distributors of e-books as Amazon, Fictionwise, All Romance E-books, Smashwords, Bookstrand, etc. and so forth, looking for books similar to yours. Take note of the e-publishers for these books (they are easily found in lists at Fictionwise and All Romance E-books with click throughs to the publishers' home pages) and check out their book lists (for compatibility with your works) and their submission guidelines. You could also check how their books do in the marketplace—where they rank in the distributors' best-selling and highest quality rating lists.

Then prioritize the most desirable e-publishers and start submitting to them, following their posted guidelines. Don't be discouraged by initial rejections. If they point out why they don't wish to publish what you sent, learn from those suggestions and adjust. And move on down the line in submissions. Be comforted in the knowledge that it's much easier to find an e-publisher than a mainstream agent or publisher for a print book.

If you want to ease into the process, try out a coop publisher like eXcessica, which flowed out of the large fund of authors right on Literotica and that continues to welcome writers from the Literotica pool.

If you wish to publish yourself—and, especially, if you have talents and abilities in setting up files for publication and designing covers—check out the Kindle and CreateSpace services at Amazon and the programs at distributors like Smashwords and All Romance E-books. With talent, skills, and patience you can publish on a near-equal footing with established e-publishers. When shopping on Internet distribution sites, readers rarely look at who the publisher is. They are looking for an evocative cover, an inviting blurb, an engaging excerpt, a cheap buy, and, ultimately a good reading experience.

The cover design is all important—maybe even more so on the Internet than in a brick and mortar book store. Whether you go with a publisher or are publishing yourself, you can find the same cover designs most others use on such photo service Web sites as 123 Royalty Free or Dreamstime. Peruse and dream about what would look great on your book and help bring it to life—and sell it.

The Bottom Line

The great wave of e-booking, especially for the Romance and erotica genres, has arrived at last. You can catch the wave if you put forward effort and talent. You can either stubbornly say that you won't be any part of anything but writing for print or reading books in print. OR you can do what best-selling authors and mainstream publishers are doing and broaden your potential readership to the extent possible, playing in all markets that are selling what you write well.

This essay isn't meant to be comprehensive in either arguing why the time for e-booking erotica is now or fully instructing writers on how to break into the market. But, if it's gotten writers to consider the possibilities and how these apply to their own writing goals—and given them some idea how to get started on the path—it's done its job.

------------
habu
Barbarian Spy

Welcome to the Revolution!

2010-09-05T10:17:00.000-07:00

Hi folks, my name's J.E. Taylor or JET for short and thanks to eXcessica, I'm now a published author learning a crazy amount of information on how small publishers work thanks to Selena and company.
Before eXcessica, I didn't realize how much goes into publishing e-books. From editing to formatting to uploading to the diffrerent sites and even review coodination and advertising that happens after the fact. Some of this is carried by the publisher, but the marketing efforts land in the lap of the writer these days.

I did a fair amount of research into what works and what doesn't on the marketing front and given my books aren't on the shelves of the big distributors brick and mortar stores, signing stock wasn't an avenue that I had at my disposal, so the greatest incentive - face time with potential readers - was limited.

Of course the networking sites out there are a great tool, but beating someone over the head with your product is a total turn off - at least it is for me, so while I have a decent following, and I occassionally tout my wares, I am usually not talking shop - at least not in the buy me, buy me sort of way.  Even my blog is a soft sell type endeavor, where I focus on other authors, finding out what makes them tick and driving traffic to their sites as well as mine.

So what DID I do to market my debut? I focused on a self produced blog tour with several stops throughout my release month and while it is fun, I'm not sure what the return on time investment was. Of course, the biggest incentive I gave also garnered the biggest blog turn out - a $50 Amazon gift certificate and that brought over a hundred active commentors, but again, I still don't know the turnout to sales ratio.   I'll find out when I get my third quarter royalty statement and then adjust the plan for my November releases.

The one bit of advice I'd give novices out there is find a good support group. I have been blessed with a support group of great writers here at eXcessica as well as over on the Backspace forum and their experiences on both the writing and marketing front have helped shore up my own plans and kept my head together even during the darkest days.

Thanks for swinging in and taking a gander at my post.

See you next month!
Ciao
JET

Live from the Book Blitz Trenches

2010-09-04T16:56:00.001-07:00

Hi, I'm Zoe Winters. Yeah, that sounds like a very support group thing to say, but as it's my debut post here I thought I'd introduce myself. I sell a lot more books as an indie author than many, and a lot less books as an indie than others. Yet, no matter what my numbers are, one thing I've always been, is vocal.

This causes me a lot of stress at times because while I have fans, I also have a few hecklers. And I know the hecklers sit around waiting for me to fail. Any time I try something new I know I might be giving the hecklers more to laugh about. And yet, at the end of the day, I'm still Zoe. So I'm going to say what I have to say.

One of the things I've done is blog and talk not only about my successes but about my failures and mistakes. I think it's easy to see someone doing pretty well and not know the hurdles and obstacles they climbed over to get there. I'm always surprised by the indies who want to throw in the towel after a month or two because they aren't selling big numbers yet.

Making mistakes and having some failures doesn't mean you can't get where you're going. I've done my fair share of stupid things, such as licensing cover art, instead of getting work-for-hire. (With a series I could think of a million ways that could go badly.) I lost a few hundred dollars and found a fantastic new artist. Lesson learned and completely not the original artist's fault. Cost some money and some time.

And I have another stupid error to bring to you today. We might print up some T-shirts later that say: Zoe Winters: She sells books even when she's a moron!

Today I'm coming to you from inside the Book Blitz trenches to talk about my first ever book blitz and what I've learned and am continuing to learn through this week's experience.

I planned my book promotional blitz months in advance. Then as the time got closer, I planned 2 guest blog posts a day for this week. I had an incentive to buy Blood Lust "now" on Kindle by making it 99 cents for the first part of the blitz. I had a BIG prize: A Kindle... with an even bigger incentive attached to buy the book... If Blood Lust gets into the top 25 of the overall Kindle store, I'll give away a second Kindle.

The way I saw it... if I didn't make the top 25, I wouldn't have to buy a 2nd Kindle to give away, and if I did, I wouldn't care that I had to buy another one. :)

The incentives were in place to make it go viral, everything was as it should be... then I made my error.

I published the Kindle edition in the DTP system on Saturday morning before the contest at 6 am. The plan was to announce the upcoming contest on my blog when the book became buyable and run it through today.

In my experience even though it says 48 hours, I've never had it take longer than a day and a half for my book to be totally live and buyable. When I got up late Saturday evening (because I'm on a vampire sleep schedule right now), I went to check progress. The Kindle page for Blood Lust was up! Whoo Hoo!

Time to send out my emails and make my blog post and tweet and get this party started.

But here was my error... the book wasn't buyable yet. I'd forgotten that the page can be up before there is a buy link and pricing information. I was so glad to see it already up there that I didn't really look as hard at the page as I should have.

So I blogged and emailed and tweeted... I opened the Pandora's Box on the contest. Immediately I started to see a much bigger and more enthusiastic response to the contest than I imagined I would get.

But... then I found out nobody could buy it. Suddenly I was losing money because not every single person who saw the offer was going to come back and check things out a second time. I was promoting and having other people promote a book that wasn't there yet... at least not on Kindle... and most people don't want to pay $13.95 to buy a print book of an author they've never tried.

Which is understandable.

Eventually the buy link went live. My sales weren't as great as I'd hoped they would be. Part of it might be that it was 4 days into the contest before people could buy the book. Part of it might be that the book was a compilation release of previously released material. A lot of it was likely timing: school starting back, labor day weekend, major publishers releasing their fall catalog, this is the part of the year my sales start to dip anyway, etc.

I also feel that giving away a Kindle was both distracting (such a big prize it overshadowed what I was actually promoting), as well as not demographic-specific. A Kindle IMO is too broad of a prize because it doesn't narrowly target enough. For my next book blitz I think I'll give away several print paranormal romance books, including signed copies of mine. That should keep the contest more tightly focused toward readers of my genre.

But it's all live and learn. Sometimes failures are what help us to figure out what doesn't work, so we can tweak and hopefully have a more powerful strategy the next time. A lot of people who know me consider me to be a "successful indie author" (I've sold over 23,000 ebooks on my own.) Well, now you know, that even "successful indie authors" don't win every single battle, and you don't have to either!

Zoe Winters is an indie author of quirky paranormal romances. Her favorite colors are rainbow and clear.

The Future of (self) Publishing

2010-08-28T10:20:00.000-07:00

At this moment I have the #1, #6 and #9 bestsellers in erotica on Amazon. That may change in the next moment. They move up and down. But I've been in the top ten for six months and I am making $10,000 a month on Amazon Kindle.

How did that happen?

When I started Excessica in March of 2008, the biggest ebook distributor on the block was a company called "Fictionwise." In order to get into their storefront, you had to be a publisher with 10 or more authors and 25 available (not public domain) titles. I wasn't a publisher, and I didn't have 25 titles, but I did have a lot of online friends who were authors.

So I had an idea...

What if we all got together to form a sort of "co-op" of writers to publish our work on the big ebook distributors? At the time, that was Fictionwise, Mobi, and a newcomer, All Romance Ebooks. That was how Excessica was born, and basically how my career as a real paid writer began.

Granted, at that time, I'd already been "epublished" by a start-up ebook publisher, Stardust Press, who had gone out of business almost as soon as my book hit the virtual shelves. And I'd sort of fallen into that, having entered a contest they sponsored, hoping for the money prize. I didn't win - but they offered me an epublishing contract.

I hesitated. I didn't know anything about epublishing at the time (it's amazing what you can learn in two years) and kind of turned my nose up at it. I didn't want to be "epublished." If I was going to be published at all, I wanted to be published "for real" - to feel the weight of my book in my hands, to see it on shelves in a brick and mortar store.

But as my husband pointed out - why not? A bird in the hand, as they say...

It was that brief foray into epublishing that whet my appetite for more, watching Stardust Press get our books to distributors like Fictionwise. I thought, if they can do it... why can't I?

Nevermind that Stardust had just winked out into nothing in the vast constellation that was epublishing at the time. I wasn't taking on any big time investment - just the cost of creating a domain name and putting in the work of setting up a site for our books. I'd already purchased a hosting package for my own author domain, so that wasn't an issue.

It didn't take long for the authors I knew to climb on board, and we were off and running, applying to Fictionwise, being accepted, and seeing our books find wide distribution. That was exciting, and proved to be lucrative for me personally. I started making enough money per quarter on my books to make it equal to a part time job, which was really my goal when I started: a supplemental income.

The ball rolled along nicely for about a year - and then one day in March 2009, all our titles (about a hundred and fifty of them by then) disappeared from Fictionwise. This was just after Barnes and Noble had acquired Fictionwise. Coincidence? I don't think so.

As I look back on it now, in light of what's happened since with self-publishing, it's almost amusing, but at the time it was devastating. I panicked, emailing the site. I received the response that Fictionwise did not support "author co-ops" and that they were terminating our contract and pulling our books.

Come to find out, after a little digging and back and forth with Fictionwise president, Scott Pendergrast, that a few "support tickets" had been submitted about our "extreme content." Excessica has always been about freedom of speech. We have some boundaries, but I try to let our authors push them as much as possible. We publish things like nonconsent and adult consensual incest - something other erotica publishers wouldn't touch.

Of course, when I inquired about those support tickets, I was told we couldn't get any details about them, even if stripped of identifying information. They wouldn't even tell us the number of support tickets submitted! Finally, we had to give them a list of "possibly offensive titles" after which they would restore our books to the site, minus "the list" - and would only restore those upon review.

Basically, they used our self-publishing status to try to censor our books. Mr. Pendergrast scoffed at the idea of an author having total creative control over their work, creating their own covers, arranging for their own editing, and decided we weren't "a publisher" because of our business model. So what if I was offering 100% payout to my authors? What business of it was his?

Luckily, the first amendment won out. After two months of lost sales, they finally restored the titles on "the list", adding a new "taboo" category to their site.

Then another revolutionary thing happened. Smashwords opened their doors. They looked like another distributor, on the surface of things. The difference was they offered a huge cut to authors (something I was all for - because I didn't take any percentage from Excessica authors' works and only profited from my own). We got to keep 85% of our profits with Smashwords (All Romance Ebooks gave us 60%, Fictionwise gave us 50%, and Mobi gave us a piddly 35%) so I signed up with them immediately. Who knew that they would change the face of self-publishing inside of a year?

Of course, they couldn't have done it without Amazon Kindle's success.

It was like the perfect storm. Smashwords started reaching out and becoming a true distributor, offering individual authors the opportunity to get into places like Fictionwise (and hence Barnes and Noble) where they couldn't tread before. More and more authors jumped on the bandwagon. Kindle themselves opened their own self-publishing platform (although we could, as a publisher, access them through Mobi before that). In places like Sony, and then much later, Apple, the doors were opened wide for individual authors.

Our little co-op had become unnecessary within six months. We didn't need each other to publish books anymore - any single author could go onto Smashwords and reach the same distribution level we had. And they did. Joe Konrath blogged extensively about his success. I watched it all unfold, seeing my own numbers on Amazon start to match his. I was making $10,000 a month on Amazon alone.

Our little venture had, for me, gone far beyond a "supplemental income."

Of course, I was still running Excessica. From the beginning, I'd done the lion's share of the work, formatting everyone's books, putting titles up at distributor sites, sending out royalties. It added a great deal of time to my schedule, but I figured, I was also receiving the lion's share of the profits (even if it was just for my own work) so it seemed, somehow, fair. And I did have some amazing volunteers (the woman who offered to take over the accounting aspect for me saved my life!) But as our roster of authors reached 100+ and our distribution schedule hit four books a week, even I got overwhelmed. And the business model I'd created wasn't quite as self-sustaining as I'd hoped.

I had come up with the idea of releasing quarterly anthologies with donated stories from Excessica authors to pay the basic costs of doing business (web site, postage, etc). But the anthologies weren't coming out fast enough to keep up with costs. Finally, I decided to take 10% of Excessica's proceeds - leaving Excessica authors with 90% profit. And I started "hiring" people to do the work I'd done previously, paying them, as a co-op might, with keeping their 10%, or with free advertising on our site.

So far, this system has worked quite well, and Excessica has kept on rolling. The only other thing I've done is close our doors to submissions from outside authors, except by referral or invitation. We will keep publishing our own authors' work, of course, if they want to stay with us. (Our contracts allow them to leave at any time.)

I knew this was the right decision when My Bookstore and More (Samhain's distribution site) stopped taking outside authors' works. For a while there, ebook publisher storefronts like Ellora's Cave, Samhain, and Bookstrand, opened their doors to not just their own published work, but to outside publishers as well. But as the success of Amazon/Kindle, Apple, Barnes and Noble and Kobo started to appear, they realized where the real money could be found and saw the futility in selling other publisher's books from their own storefronts.

So that's it. That's how I started my journey toward making $10,000 a month on Amazon writing erotic fiction. I don't know how long it will last, of course. This business has proven it can turn on a dime. It's a whole new world in e-publishing. In just a few years, a total shift has taken place. My revolutionary idea has become obsolete. Authors like Joe Konrath can publish their work on their own. He never had to jump through the hoops I did back in 2008.

Makes you wonder what 2012 is going to look like, doesn't it?

-Selena Kitt
(www.selenakitt.com)