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quote:Dear KDP Author, Apparently tons of authors are getting this sent to them at the email address they registered with KDP.
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# ? Aug 9, 2014 22:00 |
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# ? May 9, 2024 23:20 |
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Yeah, got it too. It's kinda dumb.
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# ? Aug 9, 2014 22:07 |
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Ah, yes. Somewhere between WW2 Propaganda Poster and creepy, drunken late-night email from your co-worker. It's like asking hens to support the fox in its battle against the weasel.
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# ? Aug 9, 2014 23:29 |
Has anyone had much success with children's or YA books published through Kindle or similar? I have an idea, which would perhaps best be compared to the early Potter books or Lemony Snicket, and which I think could do rather well. But I don't know if that market actually exists or not for e-publishing. Any experiences?
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# ? Aug 10, 2014 01:09 |
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Jesus, Amazon, can you at least pretend to keep this relationship professional? Christ.
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# ? Aug 10, 2014 01:48 |
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Nessus posted:Has anyone had much success with children's or YA books published through Kindle or similar? I have an idea, which would perhaps best be compared to the early Potter books or Lemony Snicket, and which I think could do rather well. But I don't know if that market actually exists or not for e-publishing. Any experiences? No personal experience, but YA stuff does very well. Just browse the categories in Amazon. Children's books (ala Dr. Seuss) don't do as well in ebook format because little kids drop them and pour applesauce on them, so physical is better.
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# ? Aug 10, 2014 01:57 |
Jalumibnkrayal posted:No personal experience, but YA stuff does very well. Just browse the categories in Amazon. Children's books (ala Dr. Seuss) don't do as well in ebook format because little kids drop them and pour applesauce on them, so physical is better.
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# ? Aug 10, 2014 02:52 |
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Nessus posted:Awesome. Is there any issue, as far as Amazon is concerned anyway, with having works under multiple pen names on one account? Not that I know of, but I just have the one pen name right now.
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# ? Aug 10, 2014 04:51 |
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You can have as many pen names as you want on your main KDP account. Last I checked Author Central only accepts 3 pen names per account but they don't object to you making more accounts. And that's a useful thing to have but not mission critical.
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# ? Aug 10, 2014 08:34 |
Unbelievably Fat Man posted:You can have as many pen names as you want on your main KDP account. Last I checked Author Central only accepts 3 pen names per account but they don't object to you making more accounts. And that's a useful thing to have but not mission critical.
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# ? Aug 10, 2014 17:28 |
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I'm pretty sure that KDP doesn't like you having more than one account but I don't have any proof offhand and can't be assed to look atm.
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# ? Aug 10, 2014 23:54 |
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KDP and Author Central are different things though.
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# ? Aug 10, 2014 23:58 |
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They will ban you for having more than one KDP account. More than one Author Central account is fine.
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# ? Aug 11, 2014 03:58 |
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psychopomp posted:They will ban you for having more than one KDP account. More than one Author Central account is fine. I vaguely recall this was for setting up more than one account with the same email address. I've had more than one KDP account for 2+ years now with no problems.
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# ? Aug 11, 2014 15:04 |
On launch day do you guys run a reduced price for a few days, or start at full price? I've got a piece coming out next week and am debating how to structure my pricing.
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# ? Aug 14, 2014 19:40 |
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Are you doing Select? If so, free at launch, hit up a ton of freebie promotion sites. If not, 99c at launch, hit up a bunch of 99c promotion sites. Once your rank stalls, raise the price to normal and reap $$$.
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# ? Aug 14, 2014 20:02 |
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moana posted:Are you doing Select? If so, free at launch, hit up a ton of freebie promotion sites. Does that actually work?
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# ? Aug 14, 2014 21:18 |
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Works for me, I've made six figures already this year with that strategy. It's short-sighted to start your book off at full price if you don't have an established fanbase. Readers need to be able to take a chance on your book. You have to remember that you're building a fanbase as well as upping your rank with a low price. And then write the next one super fast to capitalize on the success of the first. I had a book hit the top 100 last month and I'm publishing the sequel next week. When something hits big, you have to move. But it won't hit big if it's your first book and it's at $3.99 or whatever.
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# ? Aug 14, 2014 21:47 |
moana posted:Works for me, I've made six figures already this year with that strategy.
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# ? Aug 14, 2014 22:02 |
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Nessus posted:I guess the psychological block for me is "won't everyone who's interested just get a copy at free/99 cents and then I'm missing out on sales?" Obviously from Amazon's perspective it doesn't matter, they kind of win no matter what. Same. Not doubting you, just trying to figure out the logic behind it.
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# ? Aug 14, 2014 22:17 |
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Nessus posted:Can you elaborate a little here? I guess the psychological block for me is "won't everyone who's interested just get a copy at free/99 cents and then I'm missing out on sales?" Obviously from Amazon's perspective it doesn't matter, they kind of win no matter what. Nobody gives two shits about your book. Nobody knows about your book. The only way people will buy your book is: 1. If they see it (it has to be ranked highly). 2. If it's cheap enough to make them give it a chance. The strategy here is that for everyone you get to read your book for free/cheap, you have a chance at making conversions: 1. They go back and buy books from your back catalog. 2. They sign up for your mailing list and buy your next book. Also, you have a boosted rank so that more people will see your book and therefore buy your book. Once your rank stalls and you raise the price, you still get a ton of people who are seeing your book at the high rank and buying. Not as many, but a lot. There's such a huge huge huge potential readership on Amazon, you're not possibly going to reach all of the people who would be interested in your book UNLESS you have a high rank and get more visibility. Case in point: my last book launched at 99c and sold 500-1000 a day at the 99c price point, enough to get me up to the top 100 and a bunch of subcategory bestseller lists and VISIBILITY. Then I raised the price to $2.99 and have been selling around 200-400 a day. All of my initial fans bought it at 99c. Who cares? Now I'm reaching new readers, new potential fans. The next book I write will have more people buying it on day one, launching it higher. Then the next book will launch higher, etc, etc. If you're playing this game with one book, you're already losing. Plan for long-term success.
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# ? Aug 14, 2014 22:32 |
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July KDP sales reports are posted. I'm showing $1.805 per KU/KOLL. I really hope that rate holds for August.quote:Hello, Jalumibnkrayal fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Aug 14, 2014 |
# ? Aug 14, 2014 22:39 |
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What's a good length for a $2.99 romance novel, about 50k words?
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# ? Aug 14, 2014 22:41 |
Huh. Well, that makes sense I suppose. What fields are you writing in, moana? And for that matter, how do you go about setting up a mailing list? I've heard that mentioned a few times, is there some tool or service for it online?
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# ? Aug 14, 2014 22:47 |
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Grammaton posted:What's a good length for a $2.99 romance novel, about 50k words? 65k will get you less grumbles.
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# ? Aug 14, 2014 22:51 |
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Nessus posted:Huh. Well, that makes sense I suppose. What fields are you writing in, moana? Mailchimp.com is mentioned a lot as being free (for up to 2,000 subscribers) and easy to manage. There's also TinyLetter.
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# ? Aug 14, 2014 22:53 |
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Jalumibnkrayal posted:Mailchimp.com is mentioned a lot as being free (for up to 2,000 subscribers) and easy to manage. There's also TinyLetter. My Mom uses http://myemma.com/ I don't know much about it but it lets her put together a professional looking email with words and pictures and then send it to I would guess a bit more than 2k people. I am two of the people because she just dumps her contact list into this thing. Every month I get to look forward to book covers and the family dog.
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# ? Aug 14, 2014 23:02 |
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Grammaton posted:What's a good length for a $2.99 romance novel, about 50k words? The romance market will support up to $4.99 for an indy romance novel, and a 50k word book is considered the bare minimum for a novel. No matter what you price it at, no matter what your length, people will complain that it is too short.
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# ? Aug 14, 2014 23:08 |
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Nessus posted:Huh. Well, that makes sense I suppose. What fields are you writing in, moana?
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# ? Aug 14, 2014 23:08 |
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Nessus I remember you used to write erotica, not sure if that's what you're still writing. One thing is, there's no possible way that you're even hitting 1% of the people that might be interested in buying your book. It's not that they're looking at it and not hitting the buy button, it's that they have no idea it exists. If you get eyes on it, over and over and over, you'll eventually get those people to be like "Okay what's the hype about this book, why do I keep seeing it everywhere when I'm shopping?" I have a book that I continually am running visibility experiments on, and the book continues to sell. Most of these visibility experiments are coupled with the promotional price point of $0.99, and I just don't care because I know there are always more people who want to buy this book. PS woop woop for the KU royalty rate!
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# ? Aug 14, 2014 23:14 |
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I've been through lots of email marketing options, and have settled on MailChimp. If you just want something simple and friendly, I would probably try TinyLetter first. TinyLetter has more of a personal-updates kind of feel, while MailChimp is definitely more marketing. In the end, though, you're just sending emails, and either one will get it done. However, if you want to get fancy with autoresponders and stuff, MailChimp is the better way to go. Aweber has some different options for marketing automation, but the UI isn't great and the people at Aweber are jerks about letting you import email addresses from any other platform.
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# ? Aug 15, 2014 00:12 |
EngineerSean posted:Nessus I remember you used to write erotica, not sure if that's what you're still writing. One thing is, there's no possible way that you're even hitting 1% of the people that might be interested in buying your book. It's not that they're looking at it and not hitting the buy button, it's that they have no idea it exists. If you get eyes on it, over and over and over, you'll eventually get those people to be like "Okay what's the hype about this book, why do I keep seeing it everywhere when I'm shopping?" I have a book that I continually am running visibility experiments on, and the book continues to sell. Most of these visibility experiments are coupled with the promotional price point of $0.99, and I just don't care because I know there are always more people who want to buy this book.
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# ? Aug 15, 2014 01:00 |
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Nessus posted:I'm approaching my personal goal of 'OK I have written enough of that poo poo' and am planning to branch out into other fields, probably some kind of fantasy or YA-ish stuff. Since I'd be doing the new stuff under my own name rather than my old nom de spoo I figure I can't really take a mailing list with me or anything. What kind of visibility experiments are you talking about? (I did get inspired to go SLASH SOME PRICES on the back catalogue, at least) Your current level of progress and freedom is what I aspire to. Go get 'em, tiger!
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# ? Aug 15, 2014 01:54 |
moana posted:Are you doing Select? If so, free at launch, hit up a ton of freebie promotion sites. I'll be going Select, but I'm nervous doing my release as a free one. I was thinking $0.99, keeping it Select, and seeing how the Unlimited sales go. There's a list at http://www.trainingauthors.com/places-to-promote-99-cent-ebooks/, any others I should tap? Regarding mailing lists I use mailchimp. Been very pleased with the layout creator, and also the tracking tools.
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# ? Aug 15, 2014 13:10 |
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Nessus posted:(I did get inspired to go SLASH SOME PRICES on the back catalogue, at least) Simply slashing your prices isn't going to do anything unless you promote it. Erotica is difficult to promote and I'm not going to go into it here, but there are options for you if you go KDP Select with those particular titles. If they weren't making you money before, you don't have a whole lot to lose anyway.
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# ? Aug 15, 2014 13:43 |
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I'm working on polishing the manuscript for my first novel. It is a crime thriller with a goofy tone, sort of like a more noir Tim Dorsey or Dave Barry. Could I have a blurb critique, please? When neurotic horror-movie buff Martin Bowers sins, he sins big. An abandoned set of car keys in a theater inspires him to take his attractive new coworker on a joyride in the middle of the night. Hallucinated voices threaten to ruin his impromptu date as he worries about getting caught by the police or by his long-term girlfriend, but those are the least of his concerns when after he finds the chloroform, handcuffs, and knives in the trunk. Martin calls on his perpetually stoned friend Jerry for advice on navigating the steamy streets of South Florida's underbelly and soon learns that getting rid of the stolen car won't be easy, especially now that it's rightful owner has his number --- and his girlfriend.
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# ? Aug 16, 2014 15:17 |
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TheForgotton posted:I'm working on polishing the manuscript for my first novel. It is a crime thriller with a goofy tone, sort of like a more noir Tim Dorsey or Dave Barry. Could I have a blurb critique, please? The only people that get names in this blurb are the men. Maybe don't? I feel like this is telling me a bit too much, actually. I'm not great at blurbs, though. This doesn't really come across as the kind of fun, goofy that would sell me, it sounds more like a generic stoner adventure. Amp it up. Excite me.
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# ? Aug 16, 2014 16:17 |
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I'm currently at Gen Con and overall the Writer's Symposium series of panels/workshops has been pretty nice. But holy cow right now I'm in a panel on e-publishing and it's weird as gently caress. One panelist doesn't even do e-publishing. The other just pimped Smashwords as a really cool, easy-to-work-with service (and also had never heard of D2D). The third unironically cited Amazon's recent bizarro grovel email as a legit guide for pricing your work. I don't even know man Trustworthy fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Aug 16, 2014 |
# ? Aug 16, 2014 17:57 |
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Trustworthy posted:I'm currently at Gen Con and overall the Writer's Symposium series of panels/workshops has been pretty nice. Was that scammer from Damnation Books on there?
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# ? Aug 16, 2014 19:23 |
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# ? May 9, 2024 23:20 |
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TheForgotton posted:especially now that its rightful owner has his number—and his girlfriend. Just a couple editing corrections. Copy and paste that long dash, it looks better than the short dashes. I like the blurb, it's a nice teaser.
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# ? Aug 16, 2014 19:29 |