The Party's Over?

As promised, I've been monitoring the chatter from authors who discovered over the past few days that Amazon has been giving away their books for free. Remember, these were books they were already giving away for free over on Smashwords, but had been charging the minimum price (.99 cents) for at Amazon.

It appears within the past few hours that Amazon has put a stop to this, first making these books inexplicably "unavailable" and now putting them back at their .99 cent price point. At least one author has been in communication with Amazon about this, and Amazon says that further information on this issue will be forthcoming. Now THAT should be interesting.

But as a quick perusal of this thread reveals, most authors are delighted that this happened. Authors are reporting downloads of 5400, 5600, 8980, and more free downloads of their books. In many instances, these free downloads propelled them into the Top Ten "Bestseller" lists on Amazon. In some instances, their books are now #1 in their genre.

These authors now have thousands of new readers they might otherwise not have had, and because many of these free books were the first in their series, if a reader becomes intrigued by it, it will no doubt result in more sales. In any event, users searching the bestseller lists are now far more likely to stumble upon their books, all because they were in violation of Amazon's Terms and Conditions.*

I noted in a post a few weeks ago just how much luck seems to figure into an author's success or failure. I probably should have noted that chutzpah too figures in.

So I do congratulate these folks for taking a risk and having it pay off. I further hope Amazon is somehow forced to pay you the thousands and thousands of dollars in royalties you otherwise would have received had Amazon not reduced your price to zero. No doubt, some litigious author will push it, and I wish them luck.

Following the rules is over-rated anyway.

*The assumption being that an Amazon "bot" or spider discovered the book for free elsewhere, and automatically matched the lower price per their Terms and Conditions.

The Easy Part is Over

A recent article on Marketwatch.Com by John Dvorak commented upon a study done by Knowledge Networks, which found basically that online social networks are not a good place to conduct commerce. Among the more humorous lines:

Can you imagine your entire life being tied to commerce?

"Joe! Hi! How's the wife? I have a discount coupon for you for the next time you rent from Dollar. Ten percent off, buddy!"

"Frank! Thanks, but that's nothing. Have you thought about buying your steaks from Omaha Beef? Here's a special code. Fifteen percent off your first order!"

He goes on to say that doesn't mean Indie authors or bands can't maintain a small corner here and there to advertise their wares. Apparently, a certain amount of that is tolerated.

Course, I wouldn't know about that. I'm already on record as one who calls himself a fairly private person, one who does not Facebook or Twitter. (Psst: And just between you and me, blogging is about the last thing I ever imagined myself doing.)

Yet . . . I've got this book, you see. It's called "A Truck Story." It's a delightful tale about an uncle and his two nephews who get trapped in the back of the Red Sox equipment truck just before it leaves Fenway Park on the way to spring training. Guaranteed fun for all ages.

You'll find there's even a pretty picture of it on the right side of your screen. Now, if you click on that pretty picture, it will take you straight to Amazon.Com, where you too can buy your very own copy. In fact, the paperback version just became available today . . .

Now, I don't expect the half-dozen or so fellow writers who stop by this blog every now and then to buy a copy. I wouldn't even dream of asking them, though if any one of my regular commenters were at all curious, I'd of course be delighted to e-mail them a copy. Professional courtesy, you see.

No, that's not where the market is.

But I do have family members stop by here every now and then, and yes, I absolutely do expect you to buy a copy or five. And fair warning, I'll be asking to see your copy -- oh, I'll use the pretense that I just wanna "sign it for you," but I'm really just making sure you've done your part -- when I stop by for graduations or Thanksgiving. Funerals. I'm not proud.

But that's not really where the market is either.

And though I know it's not much different than what confronts any mid-list or small press author these days, here is the dilemma of the self-published author: Getting the word out.

So what have I done so far? I've e-mailed most everyone on my mailing list and asked them to get the word out. Course, most of them were beta readers too, so I don't expect them to necessarily buy a copy (though it would be nice!)

I've asked the folks on my mailing list (because most of them read the story and claimed to like it) if they'd be so kind as to write an Amazon review. If one or two of them do, I'll be delighted.

I've dropped an announcement into a couple of Amazon forums about the Kindle version and sold a few copies. Those folks haven't left inflammatory reviews, so I figure that's a good sign.

I've also joined a wonderful community called Kindleboards.Com, where Kindle authors and readers gather to sell their wares, which has resulted in a few sales. One kind reader even left the following comment:

"I just downloaded and finished A Truck Story in one sitting. I don't watch baseball, but for whatever reason, I love baseball books and movies. I really enjoyed this story. It was a lot of fun."

Now this is why we write, is it not? To have a complete stranger tell us that they liked something we wrote. Love hearing it from friends and family too, don't get me wrong . . . but they have to say that.

My wonderful sister has announced to all her Facebook friends that the book is available and I'm grateful. I also plan to send copies to the Red Sox braintrust (the book is in the form of a letter to John Henry, owner of the Boston Red Sox) and if nothing else, I expect they'll get a kick out of it.

They wanna buy 10,000 copies to give away to the first 10,000 fans at a future game? More the better.

I've also found a few Sox specialty websites where one can post their own Sox merchandise, and I'll be taking advantage of them as well. And there's LOTS of Sox message boards out there . . .

The easy part is over.

The hard part is just beginning.

And I wouldn't change a thing.

Up to my neck in HTML

(Mostly unedited stream-of-consciousness ramble follows. Too lazy to really care.)

A recent confluence of events – Katey's post on Aaron Polson's blog that included a link to J.A. Konrath's thoughts about the Kindle, me being informed that my "niche" novella is now an orphan because the publisher will not be going ahead with the anthology, and me wanting to clear out my backlog of stuff now currently languishing – got me thinking.

Probably too much.

Anyway, I've decided to make the above-mentioned novella available in Kindle format on Amazon.Com, and also to follow up with a hard-copy version of it from Createspace. I'll post an announcement and a link to that within the next few days.

I've also decided to go ahead and self-publish my first novel on Createspace. It probably deserves better, but who knows? Maybe I'll catch lightning in a bottle. But if not, the semi-autobiographical tale will no doubt be a hit with my family. And that's okay with me.

When it is published (should be within the next few weeks) I plan on making a half-dozen or so available for free to my "blog buddies" . . . with the proviso that they'll do their best to both read it and post an Amazon review of it, good or bad. It's up to you. I won't ask anyone to promise to do it, because life is short and people get busy.

But if you do grab a copy when I make them available, I'd appreciate it if you would.

Today's post title refers to the time and effort required to make a Word document format properly for the Kindle. I do alright as an amateur making my way around HTML, but it does require lots of time to get things just right. I won't bore you with the details.

So anyway, keep your eye out for the novella announcement. It's hard enough to place a novella anywhere, but you'll see what I meant about the "niche" interest folks might have in this one. But it's a great story, if I do say so myself. If you've got a Kindle and like young adult fiction and baseball (most particularly the Red Sox) it might be right up your alley!

As always, thanks for reading.