What a nice surprise to get an email to let me know that my blog post from last week - Kindle Book Sales A Surprise - is featured on www.iFogovillage.com right now. Thank you iFogo Village.
I read in an Amazon discussion that another author was surprised at how well his book was selling on Kindle after not getting as good a result for his hardcover book. Made me wonder just how many Kindles have been sold. Maybe sales would dry up soon. Also, on the discussions, I've seen it written that Kindle users were running out of their favorite genre to download. They were asking for help in finding electronic books they hadn't read yet. Maybe that is why Amazon raised the royalty fee for authors, encouraging them to download on Kindle.
This morning I had an answer to my wondering. At the bottom of the screen on Good Morning America, the scroll stated Amazon's sales of electronic books surpassed sales of hardcover books for the first time.
Looks like I picked the right time to download on Kindle. However, I'm not giving up on my paperback books. So many people stare at computer screens all day. Their eyes need a rest from that glare which means they are more likely to pick up a book. Call me old fashion but trying to relax after a busy day with a electronic device to read just isn't the same as getting cozy with a book.
This week I want to share sites I promote my books on. This is just a few that I know about. There are many more on the internet to try so I keep looking for the ones that are right for me to join. If you don't know about the sites in my list, check them out to see if any of them will be helpful to authors looking for places to put portions of their books for readers, agents or publishers to find. Some of the sites have an upgrade which you have to pay for, but I stick to the free plan. I like the sites that have a link to the social sites I belong to, because I can get an added announcement from that each time I add a book. When an author submits to these sites, Google crawler picks up book titles and authors to add to Google search.
Booksie.com
Published.com
1chapterfree.com - displays the first chapter of your book and shows how many hits have been made to read it
Stumbleupon
Authorden.com
Filedbyauthor.com
Goodreads.com
Reader2.com
Biblioscribe.com
Writetobreath.com
Weread.com
Zvents.com
Compulsivereader.com - just found this site. It has 23 book related links to check out. This site does reviews.
One more newsletter - Author Marketing Experts, Inc. - Penny C. Sansevieri, Editor
This free newsletter has some helpful tips for marketing and provides link.
Absolute Write watercooler - Forum topics you can check out. I've gotten information on publishers and agents I was curious about by reading authors posts.
Writers Beware - warnings about literary frauds, scams, deceptions and pitfalls listing agents and publishers you might not want to submit your query to. Definitely, a helpful site.
Showing posts with label Kindle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kindle. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Kindle Books Sales A Surprise
The month of June has past with several of my books in the Kindle store on Amazon. I priced the download of my books very cheap. I'm an unknown author so my paperback books in the list of choices in the different genre is near the bottom of thousands of titles. I've searched Amazon for them myself, and by the time I went through a few hundred books, I was tired of looking so I know how buyers feel. Then there is the fact that $16.00 plus $4.00 postage is a lot of money to pay to take a chance on a paperback written by an unknown.
So I've tried Kindle. I was amazed at the wide variety of my books sold in June including one download of my western book, The Dark Wind Howls Over Mary. Still my best sellers are my Amish books. Now part of the Kindle buyers will know me as an author. If they liked what they read, they will find my books by searching for my name. They will watch for my latest books in the future and tell someone else about my books. Word of mouth has always been a great way for me to get buyers. Also in the back of each of my books is my bio with email address and a list of my other books.
In June, I didn't have an easy experience with kindle downloading. I wanted to use PDF because that's the format I downloaded my books to publish and save, but the system warned that PDF conversion didn't format well. Amazon was working on that but couldn't guarantee conversion with PDF yet. I found that out. The sentence structure was all out of whack. I don't have Microsoft, but my Open Office should work just as well. I found the format that worked one time didn't the next. I've went from PDF to rft, to hmtl to doc. I kept trying until I found a format that is fairly neat, I hope. Thank Goodness for the preview pages so I could check. Two years ago when I put the first book in my mystery series in kindle, I didn't finish filling out the form. When someone in the mystery community asked when my books would be on Kindle, I finished the download only to hear about the odd sentence structure so I stopped the production and resubmitted that book. Next problem was the cover downloads. They are blurry. I was wondering why Amazon didn't transfer the covers from my book page to Kindle. Checked the Kindle store and found my covers had been transferred.
What a difference a month makes. The last books I downloaded didn't give me as much trouble. The different formats to download a book weren't mentioned so I used PDF. Amazon has fixed their system to automatically help with conversion when needed before publishing. Hopefully, my next Kindle books are neater now. A discussion on Amazon mentioned the problems with the format downloading so now I feel better, knowing this wasn't a ME thing.
Amazon's 35% royalty wasn't very much. By July 1st, a new royalty has been added with a choice of 35 or 70%. I stopped all my books and repriced them so that I get a descent royalty. The bottom price is $2.99. Now my books are back for sale. The Kindle download at $5.99 is still much cheaper than the price of my paperback books. With 70% royalty, I have to pay for the buyer's download of the book according to the size. In my case that amounts to 2 - 6 cents.
Here is a review of Neighbor Watchers from Luv2read in Amazon kindle community discussion group I started titled New Amish Books On Kindle. She looked for my Amish books and found my mystery series book one Neighbor Watchers so she downloaded it, too.
She wrote I loved this book! The characters were so well written, it was easy to see it played out in my head as I read. Gracie was my great grandmother and Sam Elliot was the sheriff. Gracie & Melinda get into quite a few predicaments trying to "Help" solve the murder across the street. It kept me turning the page to find out what mischief these two adorable old ladies would get into next. I see more books in the series. I would definitely buy them.
Another time she wrote
I highly recommend this series to anyone who has ever known or had a nosy elderly neighbor that seemed to ALWAYS know what is going on in the neighborhood. This is a funny laugh out loud easy read. Neighbor Watchers is really unique as the time period is the turn of the century.
Of course, the thing I can't do in the Amazon discussion groups is advertise that my books are cheaper in my online bookstore( http://www.booksbyfaybookstore.weebly.com ), on ebay or from me personally. Not everyone wants to read a book from a screen on Kindle. Since my books sold on Kindle in June, it looks like what buyers are looking for is a bargain. Next month I'll update you about July sales after I've raised my prices. What I need is to get the word out to buyers of paperback books that I am the keeper of my book bargains and am glad to accommodate customers.
So I've tried Kindle. I was amazed at the wide variety of my books sold in June including one download of my western book, The Dark Wind Howls Over Mary. Still my best sellers are my Amish books. Now part of the Kindle buyers will know me as an author. If they liked what they read, they will find my books by searching for my name. They will watch for my latest books in the future and tell someone else about my books. Word of mouth has always been a great way for me to get buyers. Also in the back of each of my books is my bio with email address and a list of my other books.
In June, I didn't have an easy experience with kindle downloading. I wanted to use PDF because that's the format I downloaded my books to publish and save, but the system warned that PDF conversion didn't format well. Amazon was working on that but couldn't guarantee conversion with PDF yet. I found that out. The sentence structure was all out of whack. I don't have Microsoft, but my Open Office should work just as well. I found the format that worked one time didn't the next. I've went from PDF to rft, to hmtl to doc. I kept trying until I found a format that is fairly neat, I hope. Thank Goodness for the preview pages so I could check. Two years ago when I put the first book in my mystery series in kindle, I didn't finish filling out the form. When someone in the mystery community asked when my books would be on Kindle, I finished the download only to hear about the odd sentence structure so I stopped the production and resubmitted that book. Next problem was the cover downloads. They are blurry. I was wondering why Amazon didn't transfer the covers from my book page to Kindle. Checked the Kindle store and found my covers had been transferred.
What a difference a month makes. The last books I downloaded didn't give me as much trouble. The different formats to download a book weren't mentioned so I used PDF. Amazon has fixed their system to automatically help with conversion when needed before publishing. Hopefully, my next Kindle books are neater now. A discussion on Amazon mentioned the problems with the format downloading so now I feel better, knowing this wasn't a ME thing.
Amazon's 35% royalty wasn't very much. By July 1st, a new royalty has been added with a choice of 35 or 70%. I stopped all my books and repriced them so that I get a descent royalty. The bottom price is $2.99. Now my books are back for sale. The Kindle download at $5.99 is still much cheaper than the price of my paperback books. With 70% royalty, I have to pay for the buyer's download of the book according to the size. In my case that amounts to 2 - 6 cents.
Here is a review of Neighbor Watchers from Luv2read in Amazon kindle community discussion group I started titled New Amish Books On Kindle. She looked for my Amish books and found my mystery series book one Neighbor Watchers so she downloaded it, too.
She wrote I loved this book! The characters were so well written, it was easy to see it played out in my head as I read. Gracie was my great grandmother and Sam Elliot was the sheriff. Gracie & Melinda get into quite a few predicaments trying to "Help" solve the murder across the street. It kept me turning the page to find out what mischief these two adorable old ladies would get into next. I see more books in the series. I would definitely buy them.
Another time she wrote
I highly recommend this series to anyone who has ever known or had a nosy elderly neighbor that seemed to ALWAYS know what is going on in the neighborhood. This is a funny laugh out loud easy read. Neighbor Watchers is really unique as the time period is the turn of the century.
Of course, the thing I can't do in the Amazon discussion groups is advertise that my books are cheaper in my online bookstore( http://www.booksbyfaybookstore.weebly.com ), on ebay or from me personally. Not everyone wants to read a book from a screen on Kindle. Since my books sold on Kindle in June, it looks like what buyers are looking for is a bargain. Next month I'll update you about July sales after I've raised my prices. What I need is to get the word out to buyers of paperback books that I am the keeper of my book bargains and am glad to accommodate customers.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
My Kindle Books & Gone Fishing
I've decided to give Amazon's Kindle book buyers a try with my Amish books. At first, I didn't think I wanted to take less royalty. Admittedly, I usually take my time to think about a change. Finally, I decided the people that have a Kindle aren't buying paperback books anyway so why not give this a try. After all it's one more way to get people to see my name as an author. Once they try my books, readers usually want another one.
I'd already submitted to Kindle the first of my mystery series, Neighbor Watchers, awhile back. This time I added to the Kindle list my western The Dark Wind Howls Over Mary and two of my Amish books - Christmas Traditions-An Amish Love Story and A Promise Is A Promise-Nurse Hal Among The Amish - book one.
Using the different communities on Amazon is a good way to advertise. I entered posts about my books being in Kindle. Even started new discussions to make sure my posts would be noticed since if the discussions are popular ones, a post can soon get buried. I checked the boxes to let me know if there was a response to my posts. Later in the afternoon, I found three responses. Seems I got in a hurry when I posted. Three people wanted to buy my kindle books already and the link only went to my paperback books. I had to reply to each post that it takes two days for Amazon to get the kindle entries ready so be patient and try again. If there seems to be interest in my books on Kindle I will have to enter one now and then and do the posts just to keep my name noticed.
This morning I was delighted to see I had more posts to answer. One was going to her local library to see if she could get my books. My thought is probably not, but I posted that she can ask. I've been told if someone is interested in a book and asks, the library will get it for the patron. Another post was a reader was a comment I've heard before. The poster didn't like the writing style of one of the better known Amish authors because there isn't enough in the story about the Amish farm life. The stories concentrate too much on the serious and often not a very complimentary problem concerning the Amish. So I left a post that was an excerpt from one of my books A Promise Is A Promise. Nurse Hal is trying to help the Lapp brothers catch some pigs that escaped from their pen. She caught one. The pig squealed. The cry got the attention of the protective sow. She rushed at Nurse Hal to protect her baby. The boys were yelling. The dog was barking. Can you picture the scene? Something similar happened to me once. One of those moments when I was running for the fence that I won't forget.
What I have tried to do with my Nurse Hal books is concentrate on Nurse Hal's human faults and her learning about what it takes to be Amish. Dealing with every day life on the farm is part of her experience. As I've said before farming experiences are something that's easy for me to write about since I've lived it and still do with our few head of livestock. Writing the books with that in mind, I hope I don't put the Amish in a bad light. The whole point of the stories for me are to be entertaining and fun with characters that the readers want to continue to get to know.
I joined a website called Book Marketing Network. It's looks interesting as a helpful place to get author information with many groups to join. The site is used by publishers which might be a good thing. Other businesses are offering to do editing and ghostwriting among other services. Emails have already started so I will pick and choose which members I want to hear from and stop the other emails while I explore the site. I did find a person that does free book reviews by book or PDF. I can send a copy of my book and the review will be on Amazon and B&N. That is the reason that I'm sending one of my Amish books. None of the readers leave a review to let others know how they liked the books. I know they must like my books, because the second one in the Nurse Hal series came out in March and has been selling. I wager that the buyers of my other two Amish books came back for The Rainbow's End.
Now for the second half of this post. I knew it was going to happen sooner or later but just not which day. My first clue was when my husband got up at the crack of dawn which he doesn't usually do. I got up an hour later to find chores already done. My husband stuck his head in the door long enough to say I thought we'd go fishing today. The door shut, and he was on his way to hook the boat to the pickup. I hustled to fix a picnic lunch and the water cooler. The day was a quiet, sunny one and not too warm. Perfect for being on a lake. We both caught a blue gill right away, but then the fish stopped biting. We didn't mind as we floated and enjoyed the day. The geese seemed to have had good hatches this spring. We saw several families enjoying a swim. Did you know that geese families swim in a line? The mother takes the lead, the babies come next and father is last. I suspect that is the way the parents protect the babies. It's their version of like us holding a child's hand as we cross the street.
The next day, my husband had a different lake in mind. No matter where we go the lakes are over an hour away. I like the drive, watching the beautiful Iowa countryside. The lake we're were going to - not so much. If I rate all the lakes from 1 - 10 with 10 being the worse this lake would be a 15. First of all, there aren't public restrooms. I suspect that's because there's not a conversation officer station on the grounds. At one time long before I went fishing at that lake, I'm told there were portapotties, but a conservation officer said the portapotties were all vandalized and trashed so they took the facilities away. Made for a long day and lead me to wonder why I bothered to take a water jug.
While my husband was disconnecting all the straps on the boat, I wandered into the tall grass to check out a bunch of wild flowers. The banks of this lake have some interesting native plants. Also, wildlife. I came within an inch of stepping on a three feet long, very healthy looking garter snake. That was the end of my nature study. The snake slithered one way, and I ran the other.
The East wind was probably 15 mph that morning which is doable for our boat. Just after we settled in the boat, my husband said when the wind's from the East the fish bite the least. It went through my head that should have been enough to make him load the boat and go home. The lake is long, running east and west with alcoves off to the north side. We had to buck the strong ripples to go east to get to an alcove. According to the fish finder, lots of fish were swimming around our hooks. To know that should be encouraging, but none of those fish seemed hungry. I've decided the only thing the fish finder is good for is to tell my brother in law about the big one that got away. I don't have to exaggerate the size of the fish that got off the hook. The fish finder shows fish lengths. A 23 inch fish swam by without a second look at my worm. As I told it, that was the big one that got away from me that day. I just didn't say how.
Finally later that afternoon after I worried that I might get sea sick, my husband had enough of the rocking boat and headed for the dock. Once we were back out in the main channel, we found the wind was more like 25 or 30 mph. Before my husband could get the boat turned toward the dock, waves splashed water over the side onto us. Once we got to the dock and tried to pull along side, a gust of wind and waves helped the nose of the boat land up on the dock. I fastened the rope and shoved the boat off the dock. My husband went for the pickup while I held the boat against the dock so it wouldn't do a circle and end up on the dry landing. The waves splashed over the dock around my tennis shoes which aren't water proof and slapped with a force against the boat, making a tight grip necessary.
That day wasn't enough to do my fisherman in. The boat is still attached to the pickup, waiting for another go. So far I've been praying for rain, but as long as I'm on land, a strong wind will do. That's an easy prayer to get answered. So far I don't have to pray very hard for wind in Iowa.
I'd already submitted to Kindle the first of my mystery series, Neighbor Watchers, awhile back. This time I added to the Kindle list my western The Dark Wind Howls Over Mary and two of my Amish books - Christmas Traditions-An Amish Love Story and A Promise Is A Promise-Nurse Hal Among The Amish - book one.
Using the different communities on Amazon is a good way to advertise. I entered posts about my books being in Kindle. Even started new discussions to make sure my posts would be noticed since if the discussions are popular ones, a post can soon get buried. I checked the boxes to let me know if there was a response to my posts. Later in the afternoon, I found three responses. Seems I got in a hurry when I posted. Three people wanted to buy my kindle books already and the link only went to my paperback books. I had to reply to each post that it takes two days for Amazon to get the kindle entries ready so be patient and try again. If there seems to be interest in my books on Kindle I will have to enter one now and then and do the posts just to keep my name noticed.
This morning I was delighted to see I had more posts to answer. One was going to her local library to see if she could get my books. My thought is probably not, but I posted that she can ask. I've been told if someone is interested in a book and asks, the library will get it for the patron. Another post was a reader was a comment I've heard before. The poster didn't like the writing style of one of the better known Amish authors because there isn't enough in the story about the Amish farm life. The stories concentrate too much on the serious and often not a very complimentary problem concerning the Amish. So I left a post that was an excerpt from one of my books A Promise Is A Promise. Nurse Hal is trying to help the Lapp brothers catch some pigs that escaped from their pen. She caught one. The pig squealed. The cry got the attention of the protective sow. She rushed at Nurse Hal to protect her baby. The boys were yelling. The dog was barking. Can you picture the scene? Something similar happened to me once. One of those moments when I was running for the fence that I won't forget.
What I have tried to do with my Nurse Hal books is concentrate on Nurse Hal's human faults and her learning about what it takes to be Amish. Dealing with every day life on the farm is part of her experience. As I've said before farming experiences are something that's easy for me to write about since I've lived it and still do with our few head of livestock. Writing the books with that in mind, I hope I don't put the Amish in a bad light. The whole point of the stories for me are to be entertaining and fun with characters that the readers want to continue to get to know.
I joined a website called Book Marketing Network. It's looks interesting as a helpful place to get author information with many groups to join. The site is used by publishers which might be a good thing. Other businesses are offering to do editing and ghostwriting among other services. Emails have already started so I will pick and choose which members I want to hear from and stop the other emails while I explore the site. I did find a person that does free book reviews by book or PDF. I can send a copy of my book and the review will be on Amazon and B&N. That is the reason that I'm sending one of my Amish books. None of the readers leave a review to let others know how they liked the books. I know they must like my books, because the second one in the Nurse Hal series came out in March and has been selling. I wager that the buyers of my other two Amish books came back for The Rainbow's End.
Now for the second half of this post. I knew it was going to happen sooner or later but just not which day. My first clue was when my husband got up at the crack of dawn which he doesn't usually do. I got up an hour later to find chores already done. My husband stuck his head in the door long enough to say I thought we'd go fishing today. The door shut, and he was on his way to hook the boat to the pickup. I hustled to fix a picnic lunch and the water cooler. The day was a quiet, sunny one and not too warm. Perfect for being on a lake. We both caught a blue gill right away, but then the fish stopped biting. We didn't mind as we floated and enjoyed the day. The geese seemed to have had good hatches this spring. We saw several families enjoying a swim. Did you know that geese families swim in a line? The mother takes the lead, the babies come next and father is last. I suspect that is the way the parents protect the babies. It's their version of like us holding a child's hand as we cross the street.
The next day, my husband had a different lake in mind. No matter where we go the lakes are over an hour away. I like the drive, watching the beautiful Iowa countryside. The lake we're were going to - not so much. If I rate all the lakes from 1 - 10 with 10 being the worse this lake would be a 15. First of all, there aren't public restrooms. I suspect that's because there's not a conversation officer station on the grounds. At one time long before I went fishing at that lake, I'm told there were portapotties, but a conservation officer said the portapotties were all vandalized and trashed so they took the facilities away. Made for a long day and lead me to wonder why I bothered to take a water jug.
While my husband was disconnecting all the straps on the boat, I wandered into the tall grass to check out a bunch of wild flowers. The banks of this lake have some interesting native plants. Also, wildlife. I came within an inch of stepping on a three feet long, very healthy looking garter snake. That was the end of my nature study. The snake slithered one way, and I ran the other.
The East wind was probably 15 mph that morning which is doable for our boat. Just after we settled in the boat, my husband said when the wind's from the East the fish bite the least. It went through my head that should have been enough to make him load the boat and go home. The lake is long, running east and west with alcoves off to the north side. We had to buck the strong ripples to go east to get to an alcove. According to the fish finder, lots of fish were swimming around our hooks. To know that should be encouraging, but none of those fish seemed hungry. I've decided the only thing the fish finder is good for is to tell my brother in law about the big one that got away. I don't have to exaggerate the size of the fish that got off the hook. The fish finder shows fish lengths. A 23 inch fish swam by without a second look at my worm. As I told it, that was the big one that got away from me that day. I just didn't say how.
Finally later that afternoon after I worried that I might get sea sick, my husband had enough of the rocking boat and headed for the dock. Once we were back out in the main channel, we found the wind was more like 25 or 30 mph. Before my husband could get the boat turned toward the dock, waves splashed water over the side onto us. Once we got to the dock and tried to pull along side, a gust of wind and waves helped the nose of the boat land up on the dock. I fastened the rope and shoved the boat off the dock. My husband went for the pickup while I held the boat against the dock so it wouldn't do a circle and end up on the dry landing. The waves splashed over the dock around my tennis shoes which aren't water proof and slapped with a force against the boat, making a tight grip necessary.
That day wasn't enough to do my fisherman in. The boat is still attached to the pickup, waiting for another go. So far I've been praying for rain, but as long as I'm on land, a strong wind will do. That's an easy prayer to get answered. So far I don't have to pray very hard for wind in Iowa.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)