The Beauty of the .99 cent Price Point

Welcome to another Tuesday edition of the Writing Secrets of 7 Scribes. PJ Sharon here with today’s unlocked secret. I’d like to talk about e-book prices. Specifically, ways to use the .99 cent price point strategy to boost sales, gain exposure, and get your books listed on the hottest advertising sites around.

First off, if you are traditionally published, changing the price of your e-books is likely beyond your control. Additionally, publisher prices of e-books in most cases will set you and your books outside the realm of “discounted” or “cheap” reads since all of those folks in the middle (agents, editors, etc.) need to take a piece of your pie. The average traditionally published e-book is priced anywhere from $7.99-$15.99–not exactly an impulse buy kind of price. Being that there are no print costs, storage rates, or delivery fees to pay, I’m not sure what these prices reflect– other than the publishers trying to make up for a declining print book industry. These prices may not discourage rabid fans of Stephen King, Nora Roberts, or James Patterson, but if you are a new author trying to gain a readership, your publisher may be pricing you out of the market. There is simply too much free and reduced price product available to readers. As such, higher priced e-books are likely going to to have difficulty finding an audience as time goes on. Then again, I could be wrong. The benefits of having a publisher with access to a publicist who is willing to help you get exposure through pre-orders and reviews might just balance out the playing field. (I’d love to hear some comments from trad pubbed authors about this topic.)

If however, you have self-published titles that aren’t selling well, or you have a series that you would like to promote, the ability to give your readers a deep discount can open some new doors. For one thing, there are several advertising sites that focus mainly on selling discounted e-books. Kindle Nation Daily, Book Bub and Kindle Fire Department just to name a few. All of these sites can give your discounted e-books the excellent exposure they need to get them into the hands of lots of new readers. The caveat is that because there are so many authors trying to get their books in front of the world, advertisers have the advantage of picking and choosing which books they will feature. Requirements are becoming more stringent. Some expect as many as 18+ reviews with an average 4.5 star rating. To further narrow the field, the books may not be accepted if they have been offered for free within the past few months, causing some issues for authors who have participated in the KDP Select program with Amazon.

Lest you feel you are “giving away the shop” with this .99 cent price point, think of how large retail stores encourage consumers to try a new product. They will often give away samples or significantly reduced price items in order to introduce customers to a new product or product line. It’s known in the industry as a loss leader. Even if you normally price your e-books at the $2.99-$4.99 sweet spot for impulse buyers, a drop to .99 cents can expose you to a whole new readership who ONLY buys .99 cent books or downloads freebies. You might take a cut in royalties (from 70% down to 35%) but if it leads readers to other books in a series or gains you a new following, the increased volume of sales and the boost to your rankings can be a sacrifice well worth making.

Now, there are a few tricks you can try to employ to keep 70% of your dollar. By changing the price of your e-book on Smashwords and BN, for instance, and then waiting for Amazon to price match. If they choose to change the price, they won’t change your royalty rates, but as the TOS (terms of service) agreement states, authors are not supposed to offer the book at a lower price on any other distribution channels,so it may ruffle their feathers. It could also take several days or even weeks before Amazon catches up with the new price (a process that can sometimes be sped up by having friends “report” the lower price), and there is always the risk that they could call you out on the contract breach. So far, Amazon has been amenable to price matching strategies that self-published authors are using. One of the silly benefits of allowing Amazon to match the lower price of their own volition is the neat little slash they put through the old price so that customers know they are getting a deal.(See here for example)

If you decide to try a .99 cent sale on one or more of your books, it can help to boost your exposure if you join with other authors who are doing the same thing. Readers will often look for these “group sales” so that they can stock up on “cheap” reads all at once for their summer reading. Indie Romance Ink, a yahoo group for independently published authors has just such a sale coming up this week from May 1-3, called the Book Lovers Buffet, Bouquet of Books, offering over 150 e-book titles across multiple genres, all priced at a very affordable .99 cents each! There are books for every reader available all in the same place and we have a staggering number of authors promoting the sale. We’ve lined up dozens of book bloggers, FB pages, and advertisers all promoting with us. Hopefully we’ll have a good turn out. Check out our landing page by clicking the icon below, but wait until tomorrow if you want to enter to win great prizes. If you stop by today, you can browse through the books, but the prize page won’t be active until tomorrow and there are no price guarantees until the sale starts. Be sure to spread the word to family and friends. Hope you find exactly what you’re looking for!

As for me, both WANING MOON and HEAVEN IS FOR HEROES will be available for .99 cents during the sale. I’ll also be giving away a $25 Amazon Gift card at my http://www.pjsharonyawriter.blogspot.com site to one lucky vistor who drops by and leaves a comment with a valid e-mail address (not to be used for any other promotions).

Contest ends at midnight on May 3rd. Winners to be announced Sunday, May 5th. Thanks to everyone who organized the sale (Clover Autrey…you know who you are), and a big thanks to everyone for passing along the word on FB, twitter, and Goodreads.

What do you all think about e-book prices and the .99 cent price point strategy?

Blazing a Trail by Frankie Roberston

Welcome to another Friday at the 7 Scribes. Casey here. Today, Frankie Roberston is my returning as my guest and she’s sharing her self-publication journey with her latest book BLAZING A TRAIL.

Take it away, Frankie!

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Thanks for inviting me to guest post, Casey!

When I started thinking about self-publishing way back in 2010, I had a lot of questions.

Should I find an all-in-one author service, or hire separate vendors?

How much would all this cost?

Could I really make any money at this?

Would self-publishing destroy any hope of respect for my writing?

I didn’t know anything about it, but I knew a few people who were convinced that the long predicted transformation from paper to digital books was finally about to become a popular reality, so I started learning. The more I learned, the more I realized I didn’t know, but I finally reached a point where I had to leap in and start swimming. Within a year of publishing a novel with a small press, I had also self-published three novels and a novelette. It was exhilarating, but I was still learning and muddling through as best I could.

I didn’t intend to set myself up as some kind of expert when I began blogging about my self-publishing journey. I was just sharing my experience, and my experience was that I was finding several college courses’ worth of information out on the web, posted by people who had already blazed a trail before me. People who often didn’t agree with each other about the best way to deliver stories to the readers.

I figured there were probably some other people as overwhelmed as I was, so I began posting about how I made my choices between divergent paths. At the urging of various readers, those posts (much revised) became BLAZING A TRAIL: Your Self Publishing Journey. I also included a bunch of interviews with other Indie authors, because I love reading about how other Indies are getting the job done. My way is far from being the only way, and I wanted readers to know that, too.

One thing many of the authors I interviewed agreed on is that one of the primary pleasures of self-publishing is the greater control we have over our careers. We decide about our covers, our editing, our release dates, and our promotions. Self-publishing is a lot of work, and it’s not for everyone, but as several authors said, being an Indie author is a lot of fun, too.

Now that I’ve learned a lot about self-publishing, I’m struck by a powerful truth: there is still so much more to learn. I’ll never feel like I “know it all.” Even the people I’ve learned from have changed their minds about various aspects of the industry as the publishing environment has changed. None of us can afford to stop learning, because the possibilities and opportunities keep changing. New data is coming to light every week. That avalanche of conflicting information can be overwhelming to the beginner. What I tried to do with BLAZING A TRAIL is to offer my experience as a guide for making decisions about the self-publishing process, to draw a rough map and point readers toward the best practices today.

Thanks for letting me share this part of my journey with you! I hope you’ll join me over on FrankieRobertson.com, where I’ll keep writing about what I learn on my self-publishing journey.

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For anyone interested in a copy of BLAZING A TRAIL –  http://www.amazon.com/BLAZING-TRAIL-Publishing-Journey-ebook/dp/B00BVUWONO

Scribesters, if you have questions for Frankie, ask away. Don’t be shy!

The Unlocked Secret of the Niche Market.

So what is Niche Marketing? Wickepedia says, “A niche market is the subset of the market on which a specific product is focusing.” Really, Wickie? Who wrote that? Is that the best you’ve got? Of course they go on to explain further with words like demographics, market shares, and some other marketing terms and examples that didn’t do much to help me figure out how to define where my books might land on the book shelves.

The first question a professional marketer asks is, “Who is your target audience?” Truly understanding this question is probably the number one best marketing tool a writer can have. We’d all like to say, “everyone, of course.” And while that may be sort of true that many different demographics might enjoy your book, it’s more likely and infinitely easier to reach a smaller group of readers specifically interested in your genre, subject matter, and characters. Think “low lying fruit.”

Targeting “your” readers may be easier if your book falls into a specific genre. If you’ve written a cozy mystery about a librarian who is a quilter turned amateur sleuth, you might consider marketing your book to librarians and quilters, a pretty small “niche” market that might be easier than trying to reach “everyone.” This is why agents and editors want to know what “genre” you are writing. So they can determine the marketability of your book based on their experience with that particular readership and their understanding of where the market is currently trending. Women 30-55 years old are the greatest book-buying demographic that marketers are competing for. Publishing houses are trying to meet that supply. So sending a query for your “Sci-fi/ Historical, Inspirational/ Regency might be a tough sell.

The problem for many authors is that our stories don’t always fall into one genre. Diana Gabaldon had difficulty getting OUTLANDER published at first because she couldn’t clearly define it as a romance, a historical, a science fiction/fantasy, or a time travel novel. Of course it’s all of those, but it was so fabulously written that some smarty-pants publisher decided that they would take a chance and market the book to readers across multiple genres, essentially including “everyone,” and the series took off.

It worked out well for her, but most of us aren’t so lucky. In most cases, if your book falls outside of a specific proven market, agents and editors don’t want to touch it. Most of my rejection letters a few years back were because my manuscripts didn’t “fit the market.”

Now that I’m self-publishing, I see their dilemma. When I put my books up on Amazon, BN, and Smashwords, I have to pick categories that best describe them so that they are listed where my target audience would find them (good old search engine optimization-SEO). The frustrating part is that the choices are limited to the old model of publishing and haven’t caught up with new trends. “Teen/YA fiction” refers to books with protagonists ages 14-17 and are a subcategory of “children’s fiction”. But the books coming out these days for teens are arguably for a much more mature audience, and the demographic isn’t so clear-cut. Ideally, they should be much more delineated. There should be choices that would target older teens and adults who enjoy reading about that all-important transition from teen life to adult experiences. I had no idea when I chose my categories that some sites would lump my books into “Children’s fiction” because I labeled it a YA. They aren’t likely to find a readership there!

So what’s a writer to do? Well, you can choose to write for a particular market, ie; cozy mystery, romantic suspense, thriller, or romantic comedy. This is a very viable approach and is the most likely road to becoming traditionally published if you do your research and watch what’s selling and who’s selling it, and target your agent/editor query appropriately. But if you consistently find your stories falling into “genre no-man’s land,” you can join the new age of genre-bending authors who have literally created new markets by taking risks and writing what they want to write, self-publishing, and then finding their readers by focusing on certain niche markets and using that SEO to their advantage.

Whether traditional or indie-published, when it comes time to market your books and find your readership, look at who your target audience really is. Be creative and look at it from all angles and try different approaches. If you aren’t reaching readers by promoting the book to one segment of the population, try another. My book ON THIN ICE could be marketed to ice skaters, teens who become pregnant, sufferers of eating disorders, or teens experiencing the grief of losing a parent. Over time, I can market this book to several different niche markets, keeping it relevant as long as I can keep reaching new readers and targeting new niche audiences who might not otherwise have found the book. That’s why SEO is so important. And why creating whole new genres may be the best way for your target audience to find you.

For instance, I’ve been promoting HEAVEN IS FOR HEROES as a “Contemporary YA Romance.” But the story deals with the tragedies of war, overcoming loss, and the determination of one seventeen year old girl to find the truth—pretty mature themes that 14-17 year-old readers wouldn’t necessarily be looking to read about. Because of the protagonist’s age, the book falls into the YA market, but our hero is a nineteen-year-old Marine Veteran struggling with a difficult recovery, which changes the demographic for this story. Because the focus of the book is a tenuous teen romance with the underlying plot of a family’s search for peace in time of war, HIFH will appeal to adult readers as well as older young adults, but listed as a YA, it may never reach those adults who might enjoy the book.

The hero’s age and the subject matter make it fit more appropriately into the New Adult genre—a relatively new niche market targeting 19-23 year-old readers previously forced to read “teen” novels or jump right into “adult” romances. This segment of readers wants more than the typical high school experience, but they may not be ready for the white-picket-fence-via-total-abandonment-to-love-and-sex that rules the adult romance world. They are looking for relatable characters faced with real life issues that they themselves might be facing; such as leaving home, going off to college, or dealing with friends coming back from war.

Filled with moments of poignant reality, hard lessons, and the angst and sexual tension of first love, HIFH combines family drama and the relationship between childhood sweethearts, Jordie Dunn and Alex Cooper, who must overcome some pretty “grown-up” obstacles to find their way to a hopefully ever after ending.In Savage Cinderella, Brinn is eighteen and Justin is twenty-three. Add the subject matter and this book clearly falls into the New Adult category rather than YA. I might have tried marketing my books as Mainstream fiction and put them up against books from authors like Nicolas Sparks and Jodi Piccoult, but that would again put me in a very large pool with some very big fish, and without publisher backing, it’s tough to swim in that pond. Literary fiction is an even tougher sell than genre fiction.

With many of today’s YA books fitting more appropriately into the New Adult category, this niche market is catching on. Entangled Publishing, St. Martin’s Press and I believe even Harlequin Teen are adding New Adult titles to their acquisitions. Publishers are finally willing to recognize that yes, college students do read for pleasure in their limited time, and that they want more of what the New YA market has to offer. There are loads of twenty-something’s looking for books that go beyond the teen dramas focused on high school but who still want stories that deal with all of those wonderful (and hideous) firsts. Many of my readers fit into this category. If I had to guess, my average reader is between 19 and 33. That’s a pretty big demographic, but by listing my books as YA, I’m potentially focusing on the wrong group of readers. I don’t want to misrepresent the books by having them listed in the “Contemporary Romance” section either, since they definitely have a younger voice and reader expectation is important to consider.

Re-branding my work might take a bit of time and effort, but if it means reaching my target audience, I owe it to my books…and my readers to give it a shot.

Have you thought about who your target audience is, and what niche markets you might be missing?

Fight for Your Goals, Live for Your Dreams

Happy Friday everyone! Casey here.

Now that I’m plotting my next book, I’ve been thinking about my writing career a bit. As a rule, I don’t think too much about where I see myself in the future.

Probably a bad thing, but I’m a worrier by nature and I’m trying to curb the habit by living more in the moment. That means learning to accept the things I can control and letting go of the things that I can’t.

One thing I’ve noticed since I’ve become published is that there is a lot more pressure (often not self-imposed) to promote the heck out of your books and/or yourself. I admit that I have promoted myself through social media, blog tours, paid ads, ect.

And for the most part, I’ve resented all the time it’s taken away from my writing. I am one of those people who subscribes to the belief that the best marketing tool is your next book. Yet, I got sucked into the promotional vortex and paid the price by only completing two books last year (and one of them two days before X-Mas!).

I know writers who would kill to finish two books in a year, but for me, I wanted three. Maybe this year, I will meet that goal.

Before I go further, there is a difference between a goal and a dream. A dream is something out of your hands (like winning the lottery, making the NY Times Bestseller list, going to Mars).

Fake movie theater – Stonington Point, CT

While a goal, is something you can achieve through your own actions. Want to be on the NY Times Bestseller list?  First, realize this is a dream and not in your control. But what you can do, is control yourself by writing the best books you can. You can continue to learn the craft of writing so readers, when they do discover you, want to read more of your books. If you’ve been spinning your wheels on the same book for years, time to think about changing focus.

If you want to be on the NY Times list, you’ll also need to recognize one simple fact – you can’t make anyone buy your book. Remember, dreams are outside your control.

Not sure which is a dream and which is an achievable goal?

Dream: win a RITA (or other award) Goal: learn skill ___ to improve writing. Take a class, read a book on craft, find a mentor (wash, rinse, repeat) Goal: submit published novel (or unpublished manuscript) to contests (again, you can’t control if you win, but you can use it as a learning experience to improve your writing.)

Dream: become rich and/or famous with your writing Goal: complete a novel in 2013 or

Goal: submit polished novel to agent or editor or pursue indie publishing.

Filming – Hope Springs – Stonington Point, CT

Dream: sell X number of books. Goal: schedule an appearance at your local bookstore or library.(Remember, you can’t make people buy your books but you can make a favorable impression.) Goal: write your next novel and stop worrying about sales.

Now before you raise your arm and shout “Blasphemy!”, consider this - Do you let other people tell you what to buy? If I followed you around a store, chanting, “buy my book, buy my book!”, you’d call security. Then you’d probably never buy anything of mine ever again because I was obnoxious and rude. Not to mention, no one likes other people telling them how to think.

Hopefully, you’re sensing a theme: you can control your time, your output, your quality and yourself.

So, no matter how much control we writers have over our work these days, some things haven’t changed. Readers want to discover good books and they will find you eventually. As my fellow Scribe PJ says of a writing career, “it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

In the meantime, here is my goal for 2013: head down, write more, learn more, and be considerate to others. Always!

Share and share alike. What has your experience been? What strategies do you use to fight for your goals?

One Year Indie Published

Tuesday’s Child, PJ Sharon here. Thanks to all of you, I had a fun and successful launch day for Waning Moon last Friday. I can’t believe that it took publishing four books in a year for me to finally FEEL like an author. I think I needed to finally take the time to celebrate my accomplishments before I could really recognize them. Don’t get me wrong, I know I’ve worked hard this past year, but being a goal oriented person, I tend to look at all that’s ahead of me and forget to be in the moment, appreciating all the blessings along the way. As a yoga practitioner, you’d think I would be a pro at remaining present, but it’s no secret that the writer’s life is far from balanced and that none of us can be totally zen about daunting deadlines and promo pressures. So now that I’ve had my celebratory pause, and before I look forward, I thought I’d look back at the past year and see how I did on my goals.

 

In honor of my one year as an Indie-published author, I wanted to share my sales numbers. The following are close estimations as I haven’t counted venues like ARe (All Romance e-reads), Create Space, and the few hardcopies I’ve sold at signings. These are e-book sales only.

 

Heaven is for Heroes:                           On Thin Ice:                    Savage Cinderella:          

Release date: 9/24/11                            12/15/11                                3/24/12                           

Amazon US:       682                                1250                                       1526

Amazon UK:         22                                  361                                           29

Amazon Eu:         10                                       6                                             5

BN:                      116                                    33                                           28

Smashwords:       52                                    25                                           42

Total:                   872                                1675                                       1630

Free downloads: 77                                    30           37,762 (US); 1,120 (UK); 105 (Eu)

Estimated Total e-books sold: 4,177

Taking into account the difficult to decipher reports from Smashwords (which includes e-books sold through Kobo, Sony, Apple et al), and if you include hardcopy sales through Createspace, I think it’s safe to say that I’ve hit the 5,000 books sold mark. Last January when I set my goals for 2012, I stated that I wanted to sell 10,000 books in a year (looking to break into that 10K cake club my indie buddies talk about). There is a possibility I could actually meet that goal if Waning Moon takes off, but even if I don’t hit 10,000 by January, I know I’ll reach it at some point soon. I’m halfway there, right? I see the slow, steady build of readership and sales, and have faith that with diligence, numbers will continue to grow as I reach new readers. 

I’ve learned a lot in this past year—lessons I will take forward with me as I continue on this journey. In no particular order, these are my top five lessons learned this year as an Indie published author.

1) Hire help with cover art, editing, and promotion/marketing. 

2) The buying patterns of readers are changing with the wind. There will be seasonal slumps and missed opportunities. The only thing you CAN control is the quality of your content. (Three nuggets in one).

3) Basically there aren’t enough hours in a day to do all we SHOULD do, so do what you can and let the rest go. 

4) Watching trends, getting involved in networks, and creating a platform in some form of social media makes for invaluable resources. Appreciate those resources.

5) Keep writing and creating new material.

As for observations, the summer months were extremely slow all around. It’s important to note, here, that I had flipped my promotional efforts to 20% of my budgeted time, and spent 80% writing/revising/producing the book instead of the other way around. Sales dropped by 75% in June, July and August. This tells me that clearly, promotion works. But the best advice I’ve gotten from Indie published authors is to work on growing your cyber bookshelf. Most successful self-pubbers hit their stride with book number six or seven, unless they are very luck and catch the wave the first time out. It’s all about creating quality backlist and gaining a readership through social media and visibility. That takes time and consistent effort. 

With the release of Waning Moon and the next month of blog tour visits (you can follow along and find my upcoming appearances at the calendar page of my website or click on the Goddess Fish icon below), I’ll be back in promotion mode while trying to maintain some of that ever elusive balance we writers struggle with. The coming year will be much less aggressive in terms of production, so I think that will help.

I want to add that I’m sharing these numbers only to encourage other writers (or some might say depress them, depending on their expectations). If I compared my numbers with others, I might be a bit underwhelmed –I still can’t look at my hourly rate without cringing. But I also recognize that there are many Indie authors not selling nearly what I did, so I don’t compare. I’m simply grateful to be where I am…satisfied that I am on the right track.

Unlocked secret: We all measure success differently, take our own path to find our bliss, and set our own goals. To set goals, understand what you want and carve out a path to get you there. Just remember; keep your goals realistic, manageable, flexible, and measurable. They are after all, just a guideline.

How did you all do with your goals this year? Do you set ‘em and forget ‘em like the rotisserie? Or are you dogmatically holding onto them and not willing to be flexible? Have you found the balance with goal setting that allows you to reassess often and adjust as needed? I’d love to hear from you!

KDP Select and My Three FREE Days Experiment.

Hello Scribe’s readers. What a crazy week and a wild ride I’ve had. First, let me thank everyone who either downloaded SAVAGE CINDERELLA or helped spread the word that it was available for FREE for three days last week. And if you missed out, I’ll be using my two remaining “FREE” days at the beginning of June just before I pull the book down from the KDP Select program to upload it to Barnes & Noble and Smashwords. What does all of this mean? This post might be a bit long, but bear with me and I’ll explain.

Kindle Direct Publishing Select program is available to authors who upload their books to Amazon and agree to exclusively sell only on Amazon for a ninety day period of time. I won’t get into all the details of KDP Select since I’ll be covering it in depth soon on Market or Die with Jennifer Fusco and I want to focus this post on the results of the promotion. In short, one of the perks of being in the Select program is the ability to offer the book for free for up to five days during that ninety day period. The benefits of this are numerous. Allow me to share my experience with you.

On Thursday, April 19^th, I joined fifteen other children’s, middle grade and YA authors who put all of our books for free for that day only. I used the momentum of that promotion and added two more free days for my book. Thanks to the organizational genius and diligence of our “fearless leader” Stacey Juba, the books were listed on dozens of sites that showcase FREE books. Stacey assigned each of us five sites to contact regarding the promotion. That means at least seventy-five sites potentially carried our free promo. It cost us nothing and was very easy and manageable. I also listed my book on the following FREE Book promotion sites:

E-reader News Today, Indie Book List, Pixel of Ink, Free Kindle Books Today, Your Book Authors.com, and Kindle Nation Daily, most of whom kept my book listed on their front pages for the entire three days. It might interest you to know that I had just come off of a ten-day Blog Hop with seventy-four other authors and had the opportunity to promote the event to the dozens of people who “hopped” by my blog to check it out or leave comments. We implemented a massive tweet and FB campaign as well with our social networks. 

My goals for the FREE promotion were as follows:                                                                                     

1)      Increase visibility/discoverability (Top 100 lists)

2)      Expand my readership/reach new readers

3)      Boost sales

4)      Get more reviews (I had only two reviews, both 5 stars before the promo started. This will become important later.)

I was stunned at the results and I’m still floating on the residual effects. Before I started the FREE days, I was feeling a bit discouraged. January, February, and March sales had climbed steadily and I half expected April to continue to climb since I had just released SAVAGE CINDERELLA (SC) in mid-March, thereby expanding my backlist, which should, theoretically increase the sales of all of my books. Not so much. Truth be told, April brought on a big fat stall in sales and I hadn’t sold a book in three days. As of April 18^th I had sold 11 copies of SC on Amazon for the month. My Amazon ranking was somewhere around 80,000. Pitiful, I know! Sales of ON THIN ICE have consistently been good and I was at 58 sales for April. Not bad, but not nearly as good as the previous three months.

Imagine my surprise when I woke up on April 19^th (three hours into the promotion) to 57 downloads and a ranking of 7,842 in the Kindle  Free Store. I watched throughout the day and was mesmerized as I saw the numbers soar. By midnight that night, I had 4,954 downloads and was #89 on the Free Kindle Books list. I’d broken into the TOP 100 list that would gain me the exposure I was looking for.

I won’t bore you with a blow by blow of the numbers over the next few days, but by the time the promotion was over on Sunday morning, SC had 26,688 US downloads, 1,031 in the UK, 76 in Germany, 6 in France, and 1 in Spain (my first Spanish reader!) My book was #7 in the Kindle Free Store. There are other lists that are important to note here. Books are categorized into many sub genres when you list your book on Amazon. Authors get to pick these categories so it’s important to choose wisely. SC stayed in the #1 slot in my categories for the full three days.

The only downside I discovered is that I’ve gotten a few less than stellar reviews which has lowered my starred ranking from a lovely 5 star average to 3.8 stars. This is not an uncommon occurrence according to many indie authors who believe that this is due to the large cross section of readers who may not, in fact ,enjoy the genre but download anything FREE. There is also the belief that anything FREE is of lesser quality and value. 

The upside is that I met all of my goals and exceeded my expectations. Since the promotion ended on Sunday, I’ve sold 120 copies of SC with 45 borrows (for which I will be paid 2.04 each), and 30 copies of ON THIN ICE. HEAVEN IS FOR HEROES has sadly fallen off the radar with only 13 sales this month, and will have its own promotional resuscitation very soon. These are my current stats in the Kindle Paid Store as well as in my categories:

• ·         Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,088 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • o    #33 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Children’s Fiction > Literature > Love & Romance
  • o    #45 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Genre Fiction > Romance > Romantic Suspense
  • o    #49 in Books > Romance > Romantic Suspense

 Overall, a resounding success! It’s likely that the numbers will settle down again over the next days or weeks, but the boost has been encouraging and I am absolutely thrilled with reaching 28,000 potential readers. You couldn’t buy that kind of exposure and it really cost me nothing but a little time and effort. As always, thanks to all of you who continue to support my efforts and make this crazy ride such a blast to share.

 Questions? Comments? Do you appreciate FREE books as much as books you’ve paid for? I’m curious to know.

 

RT Recap

I’m back from the windy city, and it was…well…windy.

PJ in the Windy City

After a four day whirlwind trip to the Romantic Times Booklover’s Convention in Chicago, I thought I would share the highlights with you. I had the great pleasure of seeing some friendly faces from the CTRWA. My roomy Katy Lee, Jordan K Rose, Doc Jess Andersen, Corrina Lawson, and Sara Humphreys were all on deck to make me feel welcomed and to point me in the right direction when I got lost in the chaos. Thanks so much Ladies! It wouldn’t have been the same without you.

Sara Humphreys

I went to RT with three goals in mind.

 1) Networking

 2) Learning some new marketing strategies

3) Connecting with readers.

To that end, I took several self-publishing and marketing workshops, sat in on author panels, and enjoyed the many parties hosted by fabulous authors and the various publishing houses. I’ll start with the fun stuff first. With kilted men, winged women, and shirtless cover models, I must say the entertainment kept me dancing until the wee hours most nights. Being a YA author, I’ll admit that my favorite party was the YA slumber party, hosted by about a dozen of my YARWA buddies. In spite of the fact that the party started very late at the end of a long day, I had a blast. The highlight of that event was a hilarious game of truth or dare which resulted in Lea Nolan having to perform ten animal noises in twenty seconds and someone running around the room screaming her undying love for her favorite YA hero. We were all teens at heart dressed in our pajamas and funkiest slippers. I still can’t believe the pink flamingos didn’t win the slipper contest! Best of all was putting faces to the names of all the amazing and talented women who have helped me in a hundred ways on our YARWA loop. You gals rock!

On the self-publishing front, Mark Coker, CEO of Smashwords did a workshop analyzing data that revealed some interesting trends in the industry. His data showed that the highest sales occurred with e-books priced between $2.99 and $5.99, FREE promotions work to move sales and drive books up the best sellers lists thereby improving sales once a book is put back up for sale, and that long tale sales are what authors need to focus on. Bottom line–E-books are forever and it takes up to eighteen months for most books to find their audience. He was kind enough to admit that the Smashwords sales reports were not very user friendly and promised that his staff is still working to improve the system. He was very nice, super approachable, and encouraging about the future of indie-publishing.

I also had the privilege of hearing Bob Mayer and JA Konrath give their take on the future of self-publishing, and I found it all extremely interesting. Bob Mayer talked about how to sell your book/product. His advice: Great title, great cover, great content, and then more of it. He suggested linking your product to something else that is already selling and that people are emotional about, networking and relying on other authors for reviews and blurbs to help sell your book, and building community. He believes in multiple streams of distribution, being consistent with whatever form of social media you choose, and using what you know and who you are to create name recognition. Become an expert at something and sell that!

As conservative as Bob Mayer appeared in suit and tie, Joe Konrath came across as being a bit radical. He had similar advice in terms of having a great cover, offering your book at a decent price, creating a killer description, and putting out quality books—lots of them! He sees the future of e-books leading toward interactive content or “user aggregated content.” That includes adding video, music, author commentary, fan fiction, forums, and even live chats, all included inside your e-books. The idea of a book as a destination with Enhanced e-books is already happening with programs such as V-Look. We now have the ability through Autography and Kindlegraph to do virtual signings and further connect to our readers. He also sees advertisement becoming part of our e-books in the very near future. I heard from several panelists in various self-pub workshops that the Global market is opening up and translation is the next big step. Although costly (at $5-8,000) it seems a worthy investment for those with big sales in that market.

 According to Liz Edelstein, trad-turned-indie-author and Senior manager of the St. Martin’s Press website, Heroes and Heartbreakers, there are basically four choices these days. Do it yourself, small press, Digital Imprints, and major houses (NY Big Six). She talked about the acronym TEMP being the criteria that authors needed to explore when deciding their publishing route. Time, Energy, Money, and Patience. Essentially, how hard do you want to work? She also answered the tough question, “Do you think there is a self-publishing bubble?” Her answer was a reluctant “yes.” With the hordes of new indie-authors jumping into the pool, anyone who started this journey over the past six months has probably had marginally less success than the trail blazers that hit the scene two years ago. Her advice was that if you’re going to do it, now is the time. In other words, he who waits to dip their toe may find the waters a bit infested. The good news is that there is always another bubble…those foreign markets again and the great big world of audio books. Technology is likely to keep offering new opportunities for those willing to brave the waters.

My favorite marketing tips from various workshops:

1)      Sell your hook, not your book when talking to media outlets and trying to set up interviews.

2)      Don’t look at numbers; look at who you are reaching.

3)      Don’t go overboard with self-promotion. Instead, focus on creating and promoting your Brand.

I didn’t even mention the craft workshops, amazing author panels, or my first Expo, but let me assure you, it was all informative, fun, and educational.

PJ and Jordan K Rose at the Expo

The long and the short of it is that I met my goals for the conference. But I have to say that the greatest highlight for me was when a teenager who won my book in an online contest recognized me and gushed about how excited she was to meet me.

Of course, I was an even bigger fan girl when I met Ally Carter, author of The Gallagher Girls series. Fun times!

Hopping with Authors in Bloom

Hey gang, PJ Sharon here on this second Tuesday in April. I hope you all had a wonderful Holiday weekend with lots of good food and time with family. After such a “hoppy” weekend, it seems only reasonable to suggest that April is the best time of year for a spring blog hop. For those of you who have only heard the term Blog Hop, and have wondered, ummm…what the heck is a blog hop? Well, I’m here to fill you in.

A blog hop is a way for many authors to join together to cross promote. Some dedicated and organized soul (thank you Dianne Venetta), sets up the main landing page with all of the instructions, rules, and links to all of the participating author’s blogs/websites. There is usually a grand prize, (Kindles, Nooks, and I-pads are popular), with a set of rules as to how to enter for the grand prize. For instance, the Authors in Bloom Blog Hop requires that entrants go to each of the participating author’s sites and “collect” phrases that add up to a complete story. If they collect all the phrases and go to the AIB landing page they can enter to win the grand prize.

Of course, as they stop at each participating site, they can also enter to win prizes from each author as well. I added this Authors in Bloom icon to my home page of my website with a link to my promotional blog where I’m giving away a prize pack that includes signed copies of my books, tee shirt, mug, pen, book marks, World Wildlife Fund water bottle, national Wildlife Fund tote and stuffed polar bear. In other words, SWAG. Since we are trying to draw in the largest crowd of our target audience, who are mostly Romance readers and adult YA readers, we added a favorite recipe (a yummy and super easy Sunny Delight pie) and/or a gardening tip (Manure tea, anyone?) for all of our readers.  As a way to increase my visibility and reach, I gave lots of opportunities to stack up entries by leaving a comment, “liking’ my FaceBook page, following me on Twitter, tweeting about the blog hop, or signing up for my mailing list. For each effort, I add another entry into the drawing for that person. Isn’t it great how everybody wins here?

The general idea is to give folks incentive for visiting each authors site. There are seventy-four authors participating for a ten day blog hop, so there are literally hundreds of prizes to be won and tons of wonderful recipes and gardening tips to be had. There’s lots of interactive fun and  a blog hop is a great way to connect to readers.

The cost to each author was $5.50 which we voluntarily pitched in to buy an e-reader. The winner will have a choice of which type they’d like. The grand prize also comes with a $25 Amazon gift card.

The idea is to get people to visit your website or blog, help you grow your reader base and spread the word via FB, Twitter, or signing up for your mailing list. I’ve hear that increasing your visibility and extending your sphere of influence are the keys to a good marketing plan and this way, you have a whole team of authors working on it together. EVERYBODY WINS! I’m excited to see what the results will be! I’ll keep you posted.

Any questions about Blog Hops?

Blog Burnout

Welcome to Tuesday, Scribe’s readers. PJ Sharon here. In today’s post, I’ll be asking and answering a few questions about blogging—now that I can say without exaggeration that I have ample experience. I’d also like to address a growing problem for authors and bloggers called “Blog Burnout.” For me, this inevitable outcome of overexposure to blogging is defined as the mental, emotional, and physical fatigue that comes from “chronic” blogging. The symptoms are:

 1) An inability to come up with a single new and unique idea if your life depended on it.

2) A mistaken assumption that your life does, indeed, depend on it.

3) And a burning desire to cut ties with FB, Twitter, and Blogger captchas (those squiggly, indecipherable, non-words that you have to enter to leave comments on Blogger sites). 

According to marketing experts, blogging is a surefire way to get your name out there, promote your work, and increase your sales. In theory, blogging is a way to reach potential new readers who will buy your book or shout to the world what a brilliant and interesting writer you are. It has become a standard practice for authors and has been met with varying results (mine of which I will share shortly).

Some of you who haven’t been around long or have been living with your head in a rabbit hole may ask, “What is a blog tour?” That’s when an author sets up “guest appearances” on other authors’ blog sites, review sites, or anywhere that may attract an author’s readership. Guest blogs can be pre-prepared interviews or a 500-800 word “on topic” type of post that might appeal to specific readers.

What are the requirements for a successful blog, you ask?  Blogs need to be interesting, entertaining, informative, and above all, fun. Always end with an engaging question to open the door for comments. Try maintaining that level of creative juice for twenty or thirty posts over a two or three month period of time, especially while maintaining your own personal blog or website, contributing to your regularly scheduled group blogs (known as grogs), and the other million and one tasks that authors are responsible for on a daily basis, and let’s see you keep your hair on. Call me naïve, but I was completely unprepared for the toll that this kind of focused promotional effort would have on me. Don’t get me wrong; it was a valuable experience in many ways, but there are thing that I will do differently next time. Let me explain.

I have met some wonderful authors along the way and have had a great time interacting with readers and giving away books. I’ve also learned a lot about writing. Working to a word count, writing concise and persuasive blogs that hopefully meet the above requirements (interesting, entertaining, informative and fun), and I’ve learned how to talk about myself, my books, and my process—skills that every writer needs to learn.

As for whether my blog tour was successful in helping me to sell books, the jury is still out. My sales stayed pretty steady throughout the tour. It didn’t seem to matter where I blogged or how often per week, I never saw a bump in sales in either direction. Would I have sold the same amount of books without doing any blog appearances? I’ll have to wait a few weeks to see what happens when the dust settles and I am less visible. I do have to get back to…um…finishing that next book, a task made much harder because of this sense that my creative mind has been a bit—shall we say—overtaxed.

My recommendations:

1)      Pace yourself. Although it’s important to be visible in order to gain attention for your work, you and all of the people who have graciously chosen to support you on your journey will be much happier and less saturated…hehem…stressed if you take it slow and steady. Do what’s comfortable and what makes sense to you as an author. Remember that writing your next book is your primary job.

2)      Choose wisely. Do your homework, or pay someone to do it for you. There are Blog Tour companies out there that will design a tour for you for as little as $20-$50. If you want to do it yourself, choose blogs that are specific to your readership and that have a solid following. It takes some research but it’s a worthwhile investment in your time. This is one thing I would do differently next time around. I may even hire a virtual assistant (a college student on summer break) to do this research for me. The reason this is essential information is that I think you are more likely to find readers at review sites than author blogs, and in order to sell books, you need to be focused on finding readers. Although authors are wonderful about hosting other authors, and supporting each other’s book sales, most of the views that author sites get are from other authors, not readers. Unless that author has a large fan following, you aren’t likely to gain a tremendous amount of sales or find the readership you want.

3)      Keep it short and sweet. I am the queen of lengthy posts, LOL (this one included). We writers are not known for our brevity. But effective blogging in this warp-speed world means getting the point across and making it count.

4)      Offer incentives. Offer free books, swag, signed copies or some other creative incentive for readers who take the time to leave a comment. Contests garner attention, but they require a little effort staying organized with your giveaways. Make sure you follow through. Also make sure you use your influence wisely. You may want to ask for “likes” or “tags” (see my post on why these are important), or you may use contests to gain Twitter and FB followers. Don’t ask for too much and make it worth their while, but don’t be afraid to ask. T Harv Ecker says, “People don’t have what they want, because they don’t know what they want.” Be clear about what you want from your blog tour and formulate a plan to get it. Stay focused on your goal for each post and “speak” to your target audience as best you can.

5)      Say thank you. Let’s face it; without readers, authors are nothing. And without this wonderful community of authors who are traveling this rocky road with us, we would all get nowhere. I am so grateful to all of the authors who graciously hosted me, bought the books, tweeted my posts, shared my tour sites on their FB pages, and took the time to leave comments. I appreciate you, your patience, and your support more than you know.

In conclusion, when you start to feel like you’re doing too much, asking too much, and getting sick of answering the question, “What inspired you to write?” it’s probably time for a break. As for what’s next, my ongoing promotional experiment will be in the form of the “Authors in Bloom” Blog Hop and a couple of FREE days in April where SAVAGE CINDERELLA will be up for free in the KDP Select program. I’ll be at the RT Booklovers Convention in Chicago with Katy Lee and I’m hoping to recharge my battery while I’m there signing at the Expo. Ahhh, yes…and I’ll be writing the next book.

Recipe for Success

Happy Holidays everyone! PJ Sharon here, writing to talk with you about recipes. I’m not talking about my recipe for my fabulous homemade cranberry-pear sauce which you can find over on the Scribe’s savory treats page.

Yummy cranberry-pear sauce!

I’m talking about a recipe for success.

I’m a relative newbie to the publishing industry and working hard to figure out the ins and outs of what it takes to succeed in this complex and unpredictable business. What I’ve learned so far I can boil down to this:

 Product + Product Placement + Visibility + Consumer Satisfaction = Success

Let me break this down:

1)      You need a quality Product. That’s easy, right? Write a great book. Okay…easy is a relative term here, but you get the gist. Create a stunning cover, hire a fabulous editor, and put out a professional product. Hard work for sure, but this is a no brainer.

2)      Product Placement refers to getting your work out there in as many sales channels as possible to make it accessible for your readers. As an indie author with little hope of ever seeing my books on a shelf in B&N, I need to have a wide, on-line distribution plan. Heaven Is For Heroes is available on Amazon, B&N, Smashwords, CreateSpace, Books On Board, Good reads, and I’m looking at All Romance e-readers. I have the first chapters of my books available on Wattpad and excerpts on my website as well. Also on the to-do list is to contact libraries and try to get my books distributed to public as well as High School libraries. This is a time consuming endeavor and is on my schedule for the first quarter of 2012 (or when I can eventually afford to hire a personal assistant, hahaha).

Sidebar: There is another school of thought that narrowing your distribution to just Amazon will help to drive your ranking toward the top 100 list faster because all of your sales will be there. I’m of the mind that I want my books to be found wherever readers are, so using multiple distribution channels fits that model.

3)      Visibilty is by far the hardest and probably the most important and laborious ingredient in my recipe. Blogging, tweeting, FB, blog tours, book signings, and generally hoing the book and yourself out to whoever will listen, and doing this without making a nuisance of yourself, seems to be what it takes to sell books. I’m all for working smarter, not harder and I’m trying to gain an understanding of how to not only reach readers but those readers who have purchase power. These are two different animals in the YA world. Teens are reading books, but parents are still the ones buying the books. So although my target audience is teen readers who will say to Mom or Dad, “I’ve got to have PJ Sharon’s latest book or I’ll simply die,” it’s Mom or Dad who is forking over  the cash for said book, and will want to know what they are buying and why they should buy it. Thus, my target audience is also adults, whether they read Contemporary YA or are buying it for the teens in their lives. This is a good thing in that it gives me a broader target market, but not so good in terms of focusing my efforts. I’m still figuring out how a pinch of this and a dash of that will affect my sales in the long run. I’ll keep you posted on what’s working and what’s not.

4)      This leads me to Customer Satisfaction. If the cranberry-pear sauce is too sour or too sweet, or gives you indigestion, you aren’t likely to make it again. Nor will you necessarily trust my next recipe. I think every writer worries that their next book might not be as good as their last book and that with every new effort, they risk ridicule and failure. Artistic angst is like chocolate for the doubt monster. But somewhere along the line, you have to believe that if you work hard and put your best product out into the world, chances are someone will love it. Those are the people who will follow you anywhere and buy all the books you write–your customer who you will work and slave to please, because they are the wonderful people who are supporting your ability to sit down and write another cool story. There will certainly be those people who don’t love your product for various reasons, but as one wise writer once said, “then that isn’t your audience.” Not everyone loves cranberries. However, if I’ve done my job and written a great book, produced a professional product, and made it accessible and visible to readers who want to find it, there should be nothing stopping me from reaching my goal to succeed as a published author.

Join me next week, when I’ll define what those goals are and see if they might be your goals too. Congratulations to Stephanie Queen who won a copy of Heaven Is For Heroes for leaving a comment on last Tuesday’s blog. To further thank my supporters, Heaven Is For Heroes is up for sale for .99 through the end of December. If you haven’t gotten a copy, now’s your chance to get it at a great price! You can order it through Amazon, B&N, or Smashwords.

I’d love for you to share YOUR recipe for success!