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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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