Odds and Ends

Spent some time this morning over at Goodreads, reading the reactions of their users to Amazon’s acquisition. The ten or so pages of comments I read broke down mostly 50/50, with many users of non-Kindle devices fearing they’ll be left out in the cold (they will, of course.) Many Kindle users are excited about more Goodreads - Amazon integration, however many reviewers don’t want their reviews cross-posted to Amazon, as apparently Amazon claims copyright to reviews posted to their site, and Goodreads does not.

I'll admit that in an effort to "raise my profile!" (read, sell more books) I joined Goodreads a while back and did my best to navigate my way around. I also began writing reviews and posting them both to this blog and over there. But, because I'm The Worst Social Networker in the World™ I got very little traction over there, and when Publisher's Weekly trashed me and "Applewood," my appetite for writing reviews on other people's work waned completely, because really, who the hell am I to judge?

I do remember joking here that I hadn't made any friends over there, and not long after seeing two of my sisters and a niece had joined Goodreads just to be my friend. Now, that was cool and I appreciated it, but it just showed me how silly the effort was. Finally, Goodreads became a spam machine, flooding my e-mail in-box with junk that I didn't know how to turn off, and I deleted my profile entirely. So much for THAT avenue of "getting my name out there!"

But back to Amazon's acquisition; I made oblique reference in my last post to what Amazon has been doing to folks like me, who choose not to participate in their “KDP Select” program. For the uninitiated, what KDP Select requires the independent author to do is to enroll their books exclusively at Amazon for 90 days. Within those 90 days, you are granted 5 days to offer your book for free. Your books are also available for “borrows” from Amazon Prime members for free. In return, Amazon will pay you a few bucks per borrow, which varies depending how much money Amazon puts into "the pool" for that quarter.

Of course, the end result is an army of independent authors who can’t wait to give their books away in the hope that they’ll get “exposure!” and be “noticed!” (I can’t help but recall Harlan Ellison’s eloquent diatribe against any author who gives away his work for free.)

So, since about last March, when KDP Select got off the ground, there have been somewhere between 30,000 or 40,000 (or more) books available for free at Amazon every day. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that it is around that time frame when my sales at Amazon came to an almost literal halt, as users populate their Kindle with free book after free book, perhaps having a year or more's worth of reading available.

There are also some who believe that Amazon has changed their algorithms, making it more difficult to find non-KDP Select authors. Given my own fall off a cliff, you can put me in that camp too.

(I also love the fact they call it “Select,” as if these books are distinguished somehow or Amazon has “selected” them based on their quality or their writing, when in fact, it has nothing to do with that. P.T. Barnum would be proud.)

Of course, it is all in an effort for Amazon to increase their monopoly power, putting the nook and Sony and other e-readers out of business. Indeed, it was reported last Christmas that Amazon actually loses money on every Kindle sold. In an alternate universe, when a company does such a thing in an effort to put rivals out of business, something would be done about it. Alas, not in this one.

At any rate, I can’t imagine the Goodreads acquisition will be good for anyone but Amazon. Odd too Amazon would acquire a site primarily known for reviews, because lately, Amazon has been deleting reviews left and right for no apparent reason. In fact, they deleted the very first review I ever received on any of my books, on “Sumner Gardens.” The review was by someone I did not know, but she only gave it three stars, so good riddance I say!

/rant off. Let’s end with Harlan, shall we?

On the occasional pleasant surprise

Got curious this morning to see if there is any way to determine how well your books are doing in the iBookstore. Smashwords (who distribute my books there) only reports sales and downloads once a month, so it's hard to say if you have any momentum at all.

I'm mostly curious about it because I've essentially given up on Amazon. In fact, I can't get arrested on Amazon. Like lots of other writers who opted out of their KDP Select program, my once burgeoning Amazon sales essentially stopped last March, and by "stopped" I mean, almost quite literally, no sales at all. Months can go by between a single Amazon sale.

But then, it seems Amazon is more interested now not in selling books, but in giving them away, to sell more Kindles (which is weird, because they lose money on every Kindle sale.) And, if you're a writer who is not giving your books away, Amazon (I suspect) buries you.

(As an aside, Amazon introduced a new "Author Ranking" system which tells you exactly where you fit in the Amazon pecking order. Because I no longer sell books on Amazon, you can find me down in the 400,000's somewhere. I fully expect some day, they are going to use that metric to amputate those of us below 150,000 - 200,000, and my Amazon problems will be solved forever. But I digress . . .)

Another disheartening thing is, when I search for myself on Barnes and Noble, there's a whole lotta 3-stars staring back, mostly on books I've offered for free (whadya WANT for free?) And 3-star reviews aren't going to sell a lot of books, are they?

(Of course, I recognize it's quite possible I'm simply a 3-star writer. Lord knows, Publisher's Weekly thinks that would be an improvement for me . . . but fuck Publisher's Weekly, amirite?)

And yet, I do sell an occasional book at both Barnes and Noble and the iBookstore. In fact, for the past six months or so, I sell more books at the iBookstore than anywhere else.

So anyway, in an effort to determine if I could find any information at all about my books, I finally installed the app on my iPad and went into iTunes and saw . . . this (click to embiggen):

28 people have rated my St. Pete-centric zombie short "Nearly Dead" four out of five stars. 28 people! The most reviews I've ever gotten on anything is on "A Truck Story" with five, and two of those were cajoled by me, and a third (I happen to know, though sans cajoling) was from an old friend.

While we're on the subject, I no longer ask people to leave reviews for my work. But books without reviews tend not to sell too many copies. So if you've ever taken the time to leave an honest review on one of mine, I appreciate it. And if you haven't, I'd appreciate it if you would.

At any rate, thanks for reading my rant. Just needed to share. Maybe I'm a four-star writer after all! And remember, zombie folks are hard to please . . .

21C and Other Sordid Tales

Her badge says, "I'm a People Person!" Don't you believe it . . .

Meet Jill. She'll be your flight attendant today. A word of caution, though. Do NOT irritate her or make her angry in any way, because if you do, you may find your flight turned into a living hell of abuse and intimidation and humiliation . . . that is, if you survive at all.

From the author of APPLEWOOD and ADAMSON'S ROCK comes yet another collection of stories that are bound to leave you double-checking your locks and sleeping with the lights on.

21C and other Sordid Tales, available now from Amazon.Com and Barnes and Noble.Com, and coming soon to iTunes and online bookstores everywhere.

Quick update and thanks

Thanks again to everyone who has stopped by (and liked!) my new Facebook page (and if YOU haven't yet, what are you waiting for?) Still trying to figure out how to use it, but it's certainly been fun seeing old friends again, and interesting to contrast what goes on there compared to the social network I'm more familiar with (and no doubt better at), twitter.

Now, my page is what Facebook calls an "Author Page" so I don't think it has all the bells and whistles of a personal page (friending, etc.) or if it does, I haven't figured it out yet. But I'll get there.

Delighted to report as well that the first draft of the short I spoke about in my last blog post is finished. Still not sure what to make of it. It's far different than anything I've yet written, but it was fun to delve into horror (psychological horror, anyway) again.

Funny, during the writing, I had a few questions that Google might have helped with, but I certainly wasn't going to ask Google "How long does it take for Viagra to work?" and "Can you open the emergency door on a plane mid-flight?" Alas, the way I answered those questions will remain fictional. Even so, I think it came out okay.

Gonna let it sit for a couple of days and then do another round of edits before bundling it with some other unpublished shorts and making it available, maybe even as soon as next week. I currently have a few freebie shorts available over at Smashwords (Ohrwurm, Nearly Dead, and Telegraph Hill) that are being heavily downloaded, so my thinking is to strike while the iron's hot, or at least while people are showing interest in my other work. But if anyone has any interest in taking an early peek at it and providing honest feedback, that is always welcome.

I'm in the habit of beating myself up mercilessly over most everything, but was thinking this morning that there is one thing (I think) that is fairly good about my writing, and that is the endings. It's the hardest place to get to, the ending, because you have to write the whole damn thing to get there; and when you do, you damn well better make it worth your reader's while.

But I sometimes think that even my worst piece of writing has an ending that is at least worth getting to. And until self-doubt about even THAT creeps in (and it will) I'm gonna take solace there.

BRB. Gotta go curate my social networks.