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The Issue of Exclusivity in KDP Select

10/26/2012

14 Comments

 
The CEO of Smashwords, Mark Coker, recently published a guest post in the Self-Publishing Advice Blog of ALLi (Alliance of Independent Authors) entitled:   “Amazon Is Playing Indie Authors Like Pawns,” says Smashwords founder, Mark Coker

In a nutshell he states that Indie authors should have their books distributed to as many retailers as possible and should therefore avoid joining Amazon’s KDP Select program because this program demands exclusivity. If they don’t, he argues that these authors will not gain access to many emerging markets where other retailers are rising in importance. His reference to Indie authors being pawns is because he thinks Amazon is using them to harm other book retailers and presumably harming (sacrificing?) the authors as well in the process.

As one of these “pawns” that Mr. Coker mentions I want to state that I don’t agree with the exclusivity requirement for belonging to KDP Select. However, leveraging an advantage against your competitors is a common sales strategy. Amazon knows that it offers the best deal for authors when royalties, publishing platform, discoverability, size of market, and other aspects are considered as a whole: something that is especially true compared to Smashwords. I considered publishing with Smashwords, but after reading what the author blogoshere had to say about them and their publishing platform called “The Meatgrinder,” I decided otherwise.

From reading author blogs I also gathered that the most common reason why authors leave other retailers and sign up their books with Amazon is because their sales with those other retailers amount to a fraction of their sales with Amazon. To this you have to add two additional features that authors gain in exchange for exclusivity in the KDP Select program.

The first is that books in the Select program get included in the Amazon Prime library where readers can borrow them, and for each borrow Amazon pays authors a certain amount of money from a pool allocated to this program. If a book is priced at $1.99 and someone borrows it, the resulting payment can be equivalent to the royalties from 3 sales. If the book is priced at $0.99 the resulting payment can be equivalent to the royalties from 6 sales. The second feature is the capacity to make a book free for a total of 5 days, which can help with promotion and boost the amount of sales once the book comes off the free period.

So is Amazon using me as a pawn? Maybe, but I don’t really care. I am not “married” to Amazon. I am on Amazon and on the Select program because in my opinion they offer me the best deal at many levels. When and if this changes I will make my move to other publishing platforms. Perhaps, as Mr. Coker says, I miss the chance to get on the bandwagon of emerging markets where other retailers are rising in importance. However, to gain entrance into a market through another retailer it is not enough to simply publish. You have to work at it and master the nuances of promotion on each retailer’s platform. The way it is now, I barely have time to keep up with everything I have to do on Amazon, and I am still making mistakes and trying to get things right.

Finally, I want to remind Mr. Coker that if a pawn reaches the eighth row it can get promoted to a knight. Right now I think my odds of achieving this with Amazon are higher than with Smashwords or other retailers.

What do you think?

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My Review of Jeff Whelan's Space Orville

10/26/2012

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In this book you will meet Space Orville, a youth commandeered by the Universal Protection Service to rescue Miles O’Teeth, inventor of the irreplaceable Fog Napkin, who has been kidnaped by the Candy-Apple Weezle Bums. Space Orville sets out on a quest that will take him from the safety of a torus-like structure orbiting Earth all the way to the most enigmatic of the layers of the universe: Narvosis. In true superhero style he has a sidekick called Neutrofuzz who gimbles, thimmers, tingulates, felingers, and many other verbs that you never knew existed. Along the way Space Orville and Neutrofuzz team up with a motley crew of characters that will aid them in their quest and also solicit their help to fight a most dangerous criminal bent on dominating the galaxy: Bizmo the Inconceivable!

Brought to you by the intriguing mind of the erudite wordsmith Jeff Whelan, this book is a wild romp, part fantasy and part science fiction. The science fiction is very well thought out with convincing explanations being presented for many of the gadgets used and the phenomena encountered. The characters are also portrayed very well, especially Space Orville who learns a thing or two about himself and grows up with the experience. But what I found most amazing is the sheer descriptive ability of the author. Jeff Whelan literally paints with words bringing to life worlds full of multicolored shape shifting landscapes that engage the senses. Here is a sampler:

“Bubbling waves of purple and green gave way to a solid sheet of icy blue laced with rippling ribbons of pink. This landscape blended into a fresh, white froth that eventually smoothed out into rolling orange hills patched with splashes of red.”

Although the author has remarked that he was inspired by the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the outlandish science fiction of Dr. Who, and the bizarre humor of Monty Python, in Space Orville Whelan has found his own voice by creating a unique blend of reality and lunacy. If you want adventure spiced with zaniness and astounding writing that engages the senses, Space Orville is the book for you!

                                   ***
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Don’t Spread Yourself Thin When Building an Author Platform

10/19/2012

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I recently ran into an article on the web about the top 65 sites where you can list your book for free. The article states the following:

For your book to sell, you need to create the demand. You need an audience, a platform – which you will get when your book is showing up on many websites and forums, visible to readers. Make it a habit to submit your book to at least 2-3 websites a day.  Don’t forget to post links to them on Google+, Twitter, FB, Tumblr, StumpleUpon, LinkedIn, Chime.in, Pinterest … whatever social media you are signed up.  In one month you will have your book on all of these listed sites and you will see a difference in sales.

I think this advice is wrong for two reasons.

The first reason is that in most of these sites it is not enough to merely upload a notice about your book or a chapter or two. Your post will be one among thousands; for all practical purposes it will be invisible. To guarantee visibility in these sites you have to create an account and then develop a following. This means interacting with other people, reading what they upload, and then commenting, liking, sharing, pinning, readcasting, retweeting etc. This is a lot of work and it is impossible to do it for many sites unless you are glued to your computer 24/7. Developing a large following in many of these sites can take years. If you follow the above advice and post in 2-3 websites a day you are in effect wasting your time. You are better served by choosing some carefully selected websites and then concentrating your efforts on them. But which websites should you select?

This leads to the second reason why I think this advice is wrong. You have to ask yourself who will read your book. For example if you wrote a book that will be of interest primarily to people 60 years old and over, then maybe you should not even bother with social media (yes you read that right) as this group of people does not use it that much. If you wrote a book that will be read by younger but still mature audiences (say 30 to 50 years old), then you should probably not devote your time to websites whose readers belong predominantly to a 18-24 year old crowd. Depending on the subject matter of your book, other pertinent questions that you may have to ask yourself when selecting a website are things like what will be the gender of your readers, what will be their level of education, and whether they have children. But even if you have selected a website that seems to be visited by people that would be interested in your book there are further questions. How big/important is the website? Does it have a lot of traffic? Are people that visit the website primarily interested in books or does the website offer other products and/or services that would distract them from looking at books? Is there a better website? These are all important questions to ask to make sure you make the best out of your promotional efforts.

So don’t spread yourself thin trying to list your book everywhere. Try to focus and tailor your promotional efforts to your target readership. I know this is easier said than done. I myself am still learning and experimenting with promotional approaches and different ways to do things and sites on which to post. But when it comes to promotion we should all heed the old seemingly paradoxical advertiser’s maxim: less is more.

What do you think?
                                  ***
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Deep Cat Thoughts: We Cannot Escape Ourselves

10/19/2012

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Oh the unbearable existential agony of it all: immortalized on the wall, forgotten on the floor! I love the ending: “Et parfois, la porte du chat est fermé.”



Check out my other posts about cats: Celebrating Writers and Their Cats, Kitten vs a Scary Thing, and Do Cats and Writing Mix?

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The Strange World of E-Books

10/13/2012

8 Comments

 
If you buy a print book, the book IS yours. You bought it, it belongs to you. No can one can take it away from you and you can sell it if you please, or family members can inherit it if you pass away, and they can later donate it to a library. This is not the case with e-books.

Many readers don’t understand that when they buy an e-book from Amazon or other businesses they are not buying a book, they are merely entering into a licensing agreement. You don’t own an e-book, you are just leasing it. And legally you cannot sell your copy of the e-book, have your family members inherit your e-books, or give them away to a library.

Amazon created a huge stink back in 2009 when it deleted (of all books) George Orwell’s “1984” from Kindles because the book had been placed for sale on Amazon by a company that did not have the rights to sell it. After some readers brought a lawsuit Amazon clarified and limited the conditions under which they could delete digital content from their customer’s Kindles. This happened again in 2010 with books that contained fictional accounts of incest. This time Amazon deleted the books from the Kindle archive. If customers had the book in their Kindles, the books were not affected, but if they had moved the books to their Kindle archives, the books vanished and could not be re-downloaded. In the first case Amazon gave refunds to their customers, and in the second case they reinstated the book to the archives of readers who had bought them (although they deleted them from the general store due to content violation). But the point is that Amazon HAS the ability to delete the e-book you purchased.

In an earlier post I have also covered the fact that Amazon monitors what you read with your Kindle, how you read it, and the highlights or notes you make.

In many ways this is a strange new world. I am sitting typing this next to a bookshelf that contains some books that belonged to long-dead relatives. Now these books belong to me and my family. The publishers or vendors of these books cannot take them away from me, in fact they don’t even know I have them, and the books have marks on them whose nature is only known to me and my relatives. These books are in many ways a connection to the past, a bridge between generations.

As most of you know I am all for self-publishing and e-books. In fact I believe that when it comes to e-books, their sales pattern is more natural than that of print books. But I wonder what sort of world we are creating. One hundred, or two hundred years from now, what will reading look like for families? Will everything be electronic? Will people be able to inherit and read the books (files?) read by their ancestors and see what comments they typed on them or what passages they highlighted? Or will the reading performed by one generation be cut off from the next?

What do you think?

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Why Do New Authors Think Their Book Will Sell Well?

10/13/2012

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Most authors about to self-publish their first book will probably acknowledge that it will not be a best seller. But even though many beginning authors have read countless blogs about the trials and tribulations of selling books, ask them whether they think THEIR book sales will be reasonable or acceptable as opposed to bad, and most of them will agree. The majority of these authors find out the hard way that in self-publishing bad is the norm. Why are we so optimistic about the sales of OUR book in the face of all the information out there that screams the opposite at us?

This is an example of what scientist call the good news/bad news effect; which is a bias in belief formation. When people are exposed to new facts they tend to alter their beliefs less in response to negative information than to positive information. This is why beginning writers give preeminence in their minds to the examples of successful self-published writers like Amanda Hocking, Joe Konrath, Barry Eisler, John Locke, or Hugh Howey, and discount the stories of tens of thousands of other writers that are struggling out there to get their books noticed. This effect, of course, goes beyond writing. It is related to things as massive and complex as economic bubbles.

But there is a fascinating development in this field. Scientists have identified a brain structure that is involved in the good news/bad news effect. It is called the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and we have two of them located in our brains (right and left). The left IFG has been linked to the capacity for adjusting beliefs in response to good news whereas the right IFG has been linked to the capacity for adjusting belief in response to bad news. In the majority of people the left IFG either has a greater activity and/or tends to inhibit the function of the right IFG. This makes it less likely that individuals will change their beliefs in response to bad news.

In a recent experiment scientists asked a group of subjects to list what their odds were of experiencing 40 adverse life effects (e.g. Alzheimer’s disease, robbery, etc.). The individuals were then presented with the real probabilities of experiencing these events (good or bad news), and they were asked to list their odds of these events again. This way the scientists gauged whether these persons changed their beliefs in response to this new information (positive or negative). The researchers found that the individuals exhibited the usual good news/bad news effect (i.e. they changed their belief less in response to bad news). Then the scientists combined this experimental protocol with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). TMS has the effect of temporarily disrupting the functioning of the brain area that it targets.

When they disrupted the functioning of the left IFG the researchers found that this allowed the right IFG to become more dominant. Individuals so treated tended to change their beliefs more in response to bad news. By this selective disruption the scientists modified the bias in belief formation in the human brain. They eliminated the good news/bad news effect!

This study cements the notion that the “set point” in our brains seems to be hard wired to dismiss negative information rather than modify our beliefs (i.e. we learn less from bad news). But this study also raises the intriguing possibility that this behavior can be changed.

So, should beginning authors endeavor to develop a realistic pessimistic outlook of their publishing success? Should they perhaps even consider getting their left IFG zapped by TMS to be better able to do this?

I think that “keeping your feet on the ground” is a good thing. But fully grasping how high the odds of failure are can have a stifling effect on individual initiative. Maybe the only way for a few to reach the highest heights is for countless thousands to fall short trying. That may the price society has to pay to generate dreams that motivate people to action. Perhaps new authors are better served by following the age old maxim: hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

What do you think?

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It’s Astounding! The Enduring Magic of the Rocky Horror Picture Show

10/5/2012

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I went to a wedding reception a while ago. They had a DJ playing music and we all danced to several songs with choreographed moves including the Electric Slide, the Hokey Pokey, the Chicken Dance, and the Macarena. So I thought about asking the DJ if he had the “Time Warp,” which is the most emblematic song of the Rocky Horror Picture Show (RHPS). He frowned and looked around his list and then replied in the negative, so I shrugged and went back to dancing.

However, a few minutes later the DJs assistant came over and informed me with a tone of voice that made it sound like the DJ had had to dig his way through a mummy’s tomb that after looking more thoroughly he had found it. As if this were not enough, just before playing it the DJ said. “And now I am going to take you way, way, way…back. Actually I lost track of the number of times he said “way,” but I felt I aged 10 years for every time he said that. Finally the initial notes of the Time Warp began to make their way out of the loudspeakers, and I had the sinking feeling that I would be the only one dancing.” To my surprise I heard screams and a commotion. Everyone, young and old, hastily made their way to the dance floor and we all did the Time Warp again!

This is the enduring magic of the RHPS. Created by the brilliant mind of Richard O'Brien, The Rocky Horror Show began as a play in London in 1973 and was adapted into a film bearing the name of the RHPS in 1975. While many A movies of that time have all but been lost to the interests of new generations, this B-movie musical with its hilarious over the top antics still captures the imagination of the young.

Conceived as a satire of earlier science fiction and horror flicks, the RHPS boasts the incipient talents of future Tony nominated actor Tim Curry in his amazing gender bending performance as the infamous Dr. Frank-N-Furter, future Oscar winning actress Susan Sarandon in her performance as the innocent/slutty Janet, and future Grammy award winner mega rocker Meatloaf who would also wow the world with the bestselling rock album of all time “Bat out of Hell,” playing Eddie a pizza delivery boy who meets a gruesome fate.

And not only are the performances and the storyline “out of this world” but the songs are pure foot stomping naughty fun. From the scandalous "Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me” to the touching "I'm Going Home”.  From the energy packed "Hot Patootie – Bless My Soul" or “Wild and Untamed Thing” to the commanding “Sweet Transvestite”. There is also the tour de force of old science fiction movies “Science Fiction/Double Feature” and the “Dammit Janet” song whose title every woman named Janet has heard. And, of course, there is the “Time Warp” and its choreographed moves with the bizarre commentary of the criminologist.

But what has made the RHPS a cultural icon for the ages is the audience participation. Even nowadays the practice is still going strong and there are groups of youngsters that show up en masse for RHPS performances to shout their lines at the screen. Most of these groups have names related to the movie such as The Satanic Mechanics, The Wild and Untamed Things, or The Transylvanians. Many of the kids in these groups have seen the movie and or play dozens of times. In any given week there are dozens of performances of the RHPS going on in the USA and this increases towards Halloween when showing this movie is practically a tradition. In fact the RHPS bears the distinction of being the film that has remained on limited release for the longest time in film history.

So this Halloween find the RHPS playing at a theater near you or rent/download the movie and invite your friends to take that jump to the left and that little step to the right, to place your hands on your hips, press your knees real tight, and be driven insane by that pelvic thrust while you do the Time Warp again!


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Are You A Blogger? Beware of Forum Spammers!

10/5/2012

10 Comments

 
Every blogger eventually gets to the point where he/she begins to get noticed. Unfortunately, I am not talking about the kind of attention bloggers want.  I reached this point with my “Indie authors are rude, pushy, completely self-absorbed, and their books suck” post in December of last year, which got a lot of people talking about it. Almost immediately I began getting comments like this one by a character named Coach Factory O:

“Hi, this is my first visit to your blog! Our group of volunteers and start a new initiative in a coHi, this is my first visit to your blog! Our group of volunteers and start a new initiative in a community in the same niche.Your blog provides us with useful information to work on.You have done a good job.”

This was a weird comment that said nothing related to my post and used mangled English. I deleted it but I got more such comments and then they spread to other posts in my blog. I realized it had finally happened. I had attracted the forum spammers!

Forum spammers can be either persons or robots that leave comments on your website.  The robots are programs that search the web for relevant blogs and other outlets with comment sections and leave comments at random. The comments sometimes don’t make sense such as the following one by “Tory Burch” which I got in five of my posts in one day:

“detection of data errors or abnormal first notify the relevant technical personnel”

Usually the comments are more coherent and designed to flatter you like the following comment by Technic:

“It constantly shocks me exactly how blog web page entrepreneurs for example your self can discover a while plus the commitment to bring on creating exceptional articles. Your website is amazing and one of my own ought to study blogs. I basically want to say thanks.”

And some are even funny, like this one by Corset Wholesal:

“Great information, First of all many thanks to the author who wrote this article. It is incomprehensible to me now, but in general, the usefulness and significance is overwhelming. Thanks again and good luck!”

It looks like these comments were translated into English from another language with one of those web translators.

Forum spammers can have two purposes. The first is that by leaving a post on website “A” with a link to website “B” the spammer artificially increases the number of websites that link to website “B” and thus increases the visibility of website “B” for search engines (search engine optimization: SEO). It is a way to make a website more noticeable. The second purpose is that sometimes the link in the comment leads to a phishing site with the intent of identity theft.

The spammer problem not only turned into a bit of a nuisance for me, but also it is a bit depressing to get back to my blog and learn that my readers left ten comments only to find out that all of them are spam. I have now switched to comment moderation. This means I have to approve every comment before it appears on my site. Unfortunately this destroys any chance of back and forth discussion among my readers.

There are tens of thousands of spammers both robot and human roaming the web nowadays. The programmers of the robot spammers are locked in an arms race with anti-virus/spam companies. There are anti-bot programs like those hard to reach CAPTCHA recognition codes that were successful for a while, but a new generation of spambots has arisen that can surmount this barrier.

So far I can recognize the comments left by spammers from their nonsense words, their mangled English, their repetitiveness, or their lack of relation to the particular blog post. But spammers are getting more sophisticated. What happens if I get a single comment like:

“Great post, thanks for sharing!”

The content of this comment is very general; it could make sense within the framework of many posts. Should I accept it or delete it? Sometimes people don’t have the time to write a long post making specific references to the subject matter of the post. I don’t want to shut readers out of my blog, but at the same time I don’t want to approve comments with links to potentially malicious sites.

What do you do?

                                   ***
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