Big Deal

I kind of think this is a big deal. I’ve written in the past regarding how Amazon rankings work and I won’t rehash it here, other than to say you can track how your book is doing by its Amazon ranking, which is how it’s selling compared to other books. On Saturday, First cracked the top 10,000 of the US market on Amazon. Of the millions and millions of books they sell, First jumped into some rarified air. Let’s take a quick look back for perspective, shall we? Since publication in October 2023, the book has danced up and down the rankings, from the 250k range to 100k to 40k to 20k and back again, depending on the day. Sometimes all within a single month. When I look at the handy graph that displays the ranking on a line chart on the Amazon Author’s Page, the variance becomes very apparent. What’s really interesting is that the past two years look like someone’s cardiogram readings, but at the beginning of April the daily rankings evened out and began a long, slow upward slope to today. All that to say that I do think it’s a big deal that so many people are buying First. The rankings are cool and reflect sales, but what I really like is to see so many people enjoying the book. As always, I’m grateful for every single reader.

Pricing #2

It’s time for the early report on the price increase I made last week for Next Time. If you’ll recall, I upped the price from $1.99 USD to $2.99, a move that I explained in that post a week or so ago. It’s been interesting to watch. As I’ve described before, you don’t get to see how many books you’re selling on Amazon. Instead, you get a ranking that compares to all the other books they’re selling. I changed the price last Monday, which looked to take effect on Tuesday, and the general trendline was down until it bottomed out Thursday to about the lowest level it’s been at in the last several months. However, on Friday the ranking spiked to its highest level in that same time period and has stayed at that general ranking, give or take a few thousand. Which is good, right? Yes, it is. What lesson am I supposed to take from this? First, that it’s too early to draw a conclusion. One week is a small sample size, so let’s give it some time and see how the sales pan out over a longer time period. Second, we’re still in the summer months here in the US. I don’t know if the “summer slump” is still a thing, but eBook versions of my books have remained consistent and actually gone up during the hot part of the year. Will that change when cooler weather rolls in? We’ll see. And finally, does price matter that much? Again, it’s too early to draw a conclusion and initial feedback is mixed. I’ll post again on the topic after more time and the accumulation of a bigger sample size.

Done

I’m done with the draft of the second book in The Drop series. I finished it Saturday, coming in at just over 75k words. Even more important, the story and ending came out well, I think. It also ends with a nice setup for the next book in the series. Next question: when will it be out? Great question and I don’t know. As I’ve said previously, I’m toying with the idea of self-publishing directly to Amazon, especially since this series is geared toward Kindle Unlimited readers. That means I’d have to do the covers, formatting, and managing everything about the books. I can do that and I’ve done it before. Before any of that happens, though, I need to do some serious editing on both books. I shared the document on my wife’s laptop yesterday so she can read it, and I took a few minutes to review the first chapter to see how it went. Let’s just say five minutes of reading reinforced my assertion about editing. Heck, I even used the name of the planet from First Step. It’s a bad sign when you’re mixing up stuff like that. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll write more here about lessons learned and the process of writing a book completely on-the-fly. I’ll also keep you updated on the editing and publishing process. It would be wonderful to publish something this year and this is probably the only way that’s going to happen.

Pricing

In my last post, I mentioned changing the advertising distribution. This post, I’m going to mention a pricing change that I’m trying out. Both of my recent books, First and Next Time, came out at $0.99 USD for the eBook version when they were published. Mainly because it gives an incentive for people to buy the book at a discounted price. I’ve mentioned here before that Amazon, the market where in my experience 97%+ of eBooks are sold, has an interesting royalty model. For eBooks prices at $0.99, the author receives $0.35 in royalty. At $1.99, the author gets $0.70. But at $2.99, the royalty goes up to $2.10. I know, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, either. And clearly I’m not in this game to get rich, but it’s also nice to get a little more quid with each sale. Last year at some point I ratcheted First up to $1.99 and then several months back I raised it to $2.99. It hasn’t hurt sales and actually might have helped. Next Time has been at $1.99 for quite a while and done reasonably well. This week I raised the price to $2.99 and we’ll see how it goes. I know that there are people who equate price with value, so maybe I’ll capture some of those. We’ll try it for a few weeks. If sales drop off noticeably, I can change it back and the blurb on the book’s page will mention that it’s the lowest price in the last 30 days. If nothing else, at that people would get a little incentive. In the meantime, what’s a dollar between friends?

B&N #2

Last month I wrote about my Barnes & Noble problem when it comes to advertising and actual purchases. The summary is that when I run BookBub ads on the weekend, the number of clicks on the ads vs. the number of purchases on B&N’s site was disproportionate. In other words, I was getting a lot of clicks that took the reader to B&N’s site, but people weren’t buying the books. The weekend before last I decided hey, what the heck, let’s put these ads out and remove the B&N link. It’s been an interesting study and the results aren’t in yet. I’ve found over time that about 97%+ of eBook purchases are conducted on Amazon. Without a B&N link, presumably more people who click on the ad are going to Amazon. Anecdotally, First achieved its highest Amazon ranking on Saturday. Next Time remained consistent. This is only a two-week proof of concept, so it’s not quite the time to draw any conclusions yet. It’s interesting, though, and over the next few weeks we’ll see if the overall sales remain the same, decline, or even go up.

Nearly

Progress update: I’m nearly done with the second book in my series The Drop. As of this morning I’m sitting at 500 words shy of 70k, and my goal is 75k. The end is in sight and the climax of the book is in progress. There will be the aftermath, of course, and a hook for the next book in the series. I’m close, though, and should be done next week. I think this book is turning out well, but I know I’m going to need to go back through both books and make the characters more distinct. After I’m done, though, what next? I haven’t decided. I’m kicking around some ideas for another book, a standalone. Or I could go back and edit First Step. I know I said it’s done, but I have a couple of thoughts on the first chapter as well as the overall flow. Or I could edit both books in The Drop and get them ready to publish. It’d be nice to get something out the door this year and those two books are my best chance. That would also mean I’d probably need to write the third in the series so that I can plop those out on Kindle Unlimited within short order. I don’t know. Lots of choices on what to do next. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Words Too

How many words does a writer write when a writer writes words? This is a question that comes up occasionally in the world of writing books: how many words a day do you write? I usually spend about 60-75 minutes writing in the morning before work. During that timespan, I can usually pump out a thousand words. I’ve had days where I’ve been on a roll and written 1500+ words and I’ve also experienced days where the thoughts don’t flow so freely, but I can still usually get 800 words on virtual paper. And then the follow-up question: okay, you can write a lot of words, but are they good words? That’s where this line of questioning gets interesting. When I write, I know I’m writing the first draft that will be followed by multiple revisions. Therefore, I don’t stress about trying to find the exact right word in a sentence. That way of writing probably makes some writers cringe. I’ve heard and read about writers who aim to produce 300-400 words in a day. No, they’re not exceedingly slow. They’re writing a story and crafting their words as they go, and that’s okay. Different people write in different ways. Those folks finish a book and have a lot less editing to do than me when I finish my book. The only way one of those methods is wrong would be because a writer is trying to write differently than they’re wired. If I tried to output a small word count each day, I’d lose a lot of creativity and flow. As with most things in the world of writing, a person should decide what works best for them. If I didn’t have a day job and wrote for several hours each day, like in the morning, I’m sure I could produce 5k words/day and more. Which would be kind of awesome, since with that rate I could write a novel in less than a month. Maybe someday…in the world of retirement.

Words

The writer’s trade is one of words. Whereas painters paint, sculptors sculpt, and singers sing, a writer deals in a commodity that almost anyone and everyone uses daily. You can’t go anywhere or do anything without words. Sure, you can go on a hike in the wilderness, but you’ll probably see a sign at the trailhead with words of instruction. In the same scenic spot, the odds are you won’t see a sculpture, a painting, or a soprano singing an opera. Yes, we writers deal in the common currency of speaking and writing, something everyone can do. What makes a novel any different from an ad on a billboard? They’re both made up of words. One deals in long-form output, while the other (if done effectively) is a testament to brevity. Do you ever read something and think to yourself, “I could’ve done that”? Maybe. After all, it’s only stringing words together. Do you ever see Michelangelo’s sculpture of David and think, “I could’ve done that”? Of course not. What’s the difference? Anyone can write, but not everyone can sculpt. Does that devalue the written word, particularly in the form of fiction? Rather than downplaying the written word, I look at the commonality between the creative arts. Just as with sculpting, singing, painting, etc., writing something worthwhile requires honing the craft. Years of practice. Michelangelo didn’t just sit down one day and decide to sculpt David. He spent years and concentrated time making mistakes and learning. In much the same way, writers hone their craft over years and decades. Is this a long way of saying practice makes perfect? No, but practice does make better.

Return

I’ve returned to the keyboard after a week’s absence. Yesterday morning I picked up where I left off with the second book in the series and wrote about 1200 words. I can see the end of the book from here. Then comes decision time. Do I go ahead and order covers for the books and put them on Kindle Unlimited myself? Or do I hold onto them along with the other two that I have waiting? It’d be nice to publish something this year and if I’m going to, it’ll be these two books and maybe a third yet to be written. And before I publish either of them, I’ll need to do some editing. I’ve read books on KU that clearly never saw an editor’s red marker and I don’t intend to just throw out sloppy stuff and call it good. I have a little pride in my work and want it to be as perfect as possible. Just because it’s going on KU doesn’t mean I should compromise on quality. Anyway, I’m inclined to publish them this year, even though it’ll take a little extra work on my part to format and do all the back-end work. Eh. I’ve done it before. We’ll see what happens when I finish this book in another week or two.

Interruption

Not getting any writing done this week due to some travel to take care of family issues. Nothing too bad, just getting parents back to Kansas where they can take up residence again in their home after a road trip to New Mexico in early June that devolved into Dad having to go to the hospital. Better now, thank you, but having some extra duties means I haven’t had any opportunity to write. I’m close to finishing the second book in the series I’m writing, less than 15k words away. I hope to finish that in the next couple of weeks, which means I’ll have four - count ‘em, four! - books in the can and ready to publish. I need to decide if I’m going to write the third book in the series or go ahead and publish the first couple while writing the third. As I’ve mentioned before, these are going direct to Kindle Unlimited, so all I’ll need are covers. That’s a decision for another day, though. In the meantime, all seems to be going better with the family and writing can take a back seat for a week. That’s life.

Profits

Is writing profitable? If you get an agent, a big advance, and killer marketing from a major publishing house, it’s probably easier. For those of us in the self-publishing industry? A little bit tougher. Okay, a LOT tougher. Why do I bring up this question? Because, for the first time since I published First, I can actually say I’ve made a profit. A few caveats about that, though. First of all, don’t get too excited. This isn’t the world of high finance and any numbers I’m talking about are low. Without getting into specifics, much lower than you think. Embarrassingly low. The kind of low that makes you shake your head and wonder why you’re even bothering with this endeavor. Lower than a middle-aged mom spends on coffee every month. Or week. Second, as you know, I run ads every weekend. That means any profit for a month has to outweigh the expense. This has only happened the last couple of months, finally generating a miniscule profit for the year. And third, I haven’t published anything this year, which was the major expense of the last few years. Limiting expenses somehow helps profitability. Who knew? That means the warning I got last year when I filed my taxes about my writing being considered a hobby if it has losses every year is now moot. At least I hope so. Sales continue to be at a level which should maintain a slim margin of profitability. I think I’ll celebrate by writing some more.

Summer Reads

It’s been awhile since I talked about what I’m reading these days, and this seems like as good a time as any to catch up. A few days ago I finished Table for Two by Amor Towles. What a wonderful collection of stories. His writing is top-notch and I wish I could capture the English language the way he does. On top of that mastery, his stories are wonderful, enchanting, and full of interesting characters. The only bad part about reading this book was that I’ve now read all his books in print and have to wait for the next one. I read these stories slowly, making them last as long as possible. Beyond that, I also finished a four-book SF series on my Kindle. It was entertaining, but not the best I’ve ever read. The writing was good, for the most part, but by the second book the author had telegraphed the ending and all the threads moved that way over the course of the next few books. Still, I enjoyed several of the characters and the inventiveness of a timeline where Earth was conquered by a race that had also been conquered on Earth in the past. What am I reading now? A book-of-the-month thriller on my Kindle and Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson in a hefty paperback tome. The latter is fascinating and scattered full of drawings and paintings by the master, which is nice since that means I don’t have to jump out of the book to search the Internet for the images. I’m up to the part where Leonardo moves from Florence to Milan, a young man of 30ish who hadn’t yet made a name for himself beyond a few commissioned paintings of Mary, the mother of Jesus, contributions to larger paintings by the master he worked for, several commissioned yet unfinished pieces due to his streak of perfection, and a slew of drawings in his notebooks. Fascinating man and fascinating book. My TBR pile is gone and I do believe it’s time to stock up at the bookstore. What awaits me there?

400+

First hit the 400-rating mark on Amazon yesterday. Seems like only a few months ago (April) that the book reached 300. The average rating has leveled out to 4.4 stars, which is the same as Next Time. Speaking of the latter book, it’s closing in on 250 ratings. It’s quite amazing to me - still! - that thousands of people have read my books and, for the most part, enjoyed them. To reach 400 ratings with First is a satisfying achievement, but I know it’s not the end. I think there are higher goals to scale. 500 is quite the nice number, and 1,000 sounds even better. I hope to report back in a few months on progress and beyond.

Corner

I mentioned in the last post that sometimes writers can write themselves into a corner. I had a sequence in my current project that seemed close, but once again, I started pounding away at the keyboard that morning and inspiration struck. It’s an amazing thing, this inspiration. That writing corner remains unoccupied and my story continues. Inspiration on-the-fly is key to this book series, especially since I’m not outlining the stories beforehand and going into them with a sense of exploration. I have to say that it’s an interesting way to write a book and probably not the way a creative writing instructor would endorse. It’s working for me, though, at least in this case. Will I want to do every book I write in the same manner? Absolutely not. One of the recent reviews on Amazon for Next Time said that the author (me) thought out the story very well. Yes, I mostly did, mainly because the storyline involved time travel and if you don’t get the order of events correct then your book will suffer, both in quality and sales. Will I get a similar review when The Drop is published? Doubtful. And I’d laugh if someone did, knowing how I didn’t think it out in advance and the evidence is here online. But it’s a different type of storyline and other than a few threads running through every book in the series, I’m looking for inspiration as I go.

67%

It’s actually 66.666666%, but I rounded up to 67%. That’s how far along I am in writing the new book, second in the series I started this year. How do I know the book is 67% complete? Because my goal is 75,000 words and yesterday I made it to 50,000. That’s 50 divided by 75, making 67%. Which brings up a different issue. In recent chapters, I’ve had a couple of characters see a common obstacle from different perspectives, but haven’t yet told what that obstacle is. And now I’m to the point where not only do I have to divulge the obstacle, but it has to live up to the dread I had the characters experience. Some people might refer to this method as “writing yourself into a corner.” I prefer to think of it as a challenge. It reminds me of a comic book series from DC back in the 1980s, a 12-issue limited series if I remember correctly. And titled, appropriately enough, DC Challenge. A different writer would be responsible for each issue, and the short of it was that they would try to screw over the next writer in the series with an impossible-to-resolve cliffhanger. I only remember the concept and not so much the story itself. I do remember that it was fun and made an impression on me. I haven’t written myself into a situation nearly that bad, but it’s time to get to work. I need to fire up the ol’ imagination and have some fun.

Life

Sometimes life interrupts my regularly scheduled writing routine. Such was the case earlier this week when we took a road trip and I missed my Monday and Tuesday sessions. Not the end of the world and writing is not the be-all and end-all. I do miss it, though, when that happens. To be fair, I also missed my regular running day on Tuesday as well. These things happen and they’re called life. We all have our routines, but just like everything else in life, they’re not guaranteed. At least when I’m not writing I can still think about it and ponder the possibilities. In fact, it’s probably good to have interruptions like this once in a while since they can reset my thought patterns and maybe come up with something I hadn’t thought of previously. Kind of like the epiphanies I get when I’m running. It’s also why I don’t write on Sundays. Besides being a day of rest, it really does make a difference to give my brain a break once a week. And as you’ve probably figured out from reading this, my brain needs all the breaks it can get.

Bookaversary

Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of Next Time’s publishing date. As usual, hard to believe a year has passed already. It was a quick, eventful year for my second professionally published book. Let’s tally up the events, shall we? Next Time garnered 5-star reviews from Reader Views, Readers’ Favorite, Literary Titan, and the Bookish Elf, and was on must-read lists from Independent Book Review and Reedsy Discovery. Awards? Yeah, multiples of those, too. Literary Titan, PenCraft, and International Impact Award, all gave Next Time first prize as the best book in its category. Heck, the book even received a great review from a website reviewer I didn’t even know I’d sent it to. Just for fun, I went back and read all the reader comments on Amazon. Several of them said the book was hard to put down and at least one said they read it in one day. I’m so glad that people have enjoyed the book and even more so that they liked it that much. As you know, I run ads on BookBub each weekend, and the quote I use for the Next Time ad is from The Bookish Elf which calls it “a gorgeous, affecting read.” Not only is it great ad copy, it’s also great praise. Happy anniversary, Next Time. It’s been quite the ride and we’re just getting started.

Barnes & Noble

I have a Barnes & Noble problem and it kind of struck me out of the blue a few days ago. As you know, I normally run ads on BookBub every week for three days, Friday through Sunday. For some reason, I was checking the stats on the ad for First, the same ad I’ve been using since last August. Hey, it’s been effective and the few times I’ve changed the ad, the click-through rate has gone down. But using the same ad for so long gives me a good sample size to evaluate. People set their preferences, e.g,. Amazon, Apple, etc., and when they click on an ad it takes them to the bookseller they prefer. What I noticed in the statistics was that the click-throughs for B&N account for a full THIRD of total clicks, but when I compare clicks versus sales, the actual ratio of First purchases from B&N readers is about 5% of the total sales. I may not be a rocket scientist but even I can tell that’s a big discrepancy. And it makes me wonder. Why? Do people set their preference on those ads to B&N but then end up buying the book on Kindle? Or am I missing a huge chunk of readers who click but don’t buy, and if they don’t buy, why not? I have to say the B&N book page isn’t the most well-constructed. And no readers have rated or reviewed it there, which also seems odd given that I’ve sold enough that there should be at least a few. That could be off-putting to other potential readers. Maybe this is a question for AI to investigate. I certainly don’t have the answers at this point.

Fun Reviews

Reviews are different than ratings. If you go to Amazon, you’ll see five stars which are shaded according to the ratings people have given your book. The shading approximately reflects the average rating. Currently, both First and Next Time are at 4.4 stars. The number of ratings is quite a bit higher than the number of actual reviews, mainly because ratings require clicking a star on your Kindle, while reviews require writing a few sentences or more. In the past week, First received a couple of fun Amazon reviews. Well, more than that, but these two I particularly enjoyed. The first was a five-star review by a gentleman with the moniker Joe Chambliss:

The EMD technology enabled a private venture to do what only NASA had done before (and I'm a NASA retiree). The development of the technology then using it for exploration was well written and the course of history was believable and engaging. The main character was down to Earth and relatable. Good hard science fiction!

Why did I enjoy that one so much? As you’ve read in recent posts here, several people have called the EMD unbelievable and slighted the book for it. In the review above, a real-life NASA retiree said the technology was just fine. Granted, he could be a rocket scientist or he could be the guy who empties the ashtrays in Mission Control. Do they still have those? He worked for NASA so I’m going with the former. Thank you, Mr. Chambliss, that made my day.

The other one that tickled my fancy landed squarely in the negative with a two-star rating from an Amazon customer who goes by TEF. The title of their review was “A descent story but reads like a trashy dime store novel”. Yes, they wrote “descent” instead of “decent”, but let’s not get petty. The body of the review reads as follows:

If you are a serious sci- fi reader you most likely won’t enjoy reading this. I had to skip a lot of lame filler to finish this. The characters were not very interesting and it just felt like the same characters you’d find in any modern day kindle thriller.

Did that ruin my day? Not at all. In fact, I wanted to respond but Amazon doesn’t provide a way to do that. My response? “I had to use small words in the book so you could get through it without moving your lips while you read.” Seriously, though, I’ve said before that I understand not everyone will like my books. Maybe TEF was having a bad day. Maybe TEF is a pseudonym for a well-established SF writer in their own right. Whatever the case, a SF book that’s character-driven won’t hit the same chord with every reader. Between Mr. Chambliss and TEF, I appreciate that both took the time to write their opinions. I always do, regardless of the message.

Progress Update

As the kids say, it’s been a hot minute since I provided an update on the book I’m currently writing. April 24th, if my quick scan through recent posts is accurate. I wouldn’t say my writing pace is setting the world on fire, but I’ve had a few interruptions along the way with some travel. Right now the book clocks in at 37k words, which means it’s about half complete. I should complete it, if all goes well, by the end of July or early August. I’ll have a few more interruptions and maybe that timeline is a bit optimistic. How is the story itself? I think it’s coming along fine. It’s different from the first book in the series, which I would expect. It also continues some of the storylines from the initial volume, and that’s also how I expect things to go. There’s a small development in the first book that now I’m not sure I want to keep since I haven’t figured out how to deal with it. And that’s why I wanted to write the second book before publishing the first. Heck, I might even write the third. That way I can make sure I’m not developing storylines that might be better on the editing room floor, to use a film reference. Overall, though, I’m happy with the story and the progress I’ve made. Another update in a few weeks, I’m sure.