Kobo, Apple, Barnes and Noble and Google Play are getting a Cozy Mystery Series!

Yep, I'm doing it. I'm taking the first three books in St. Ives Book Club Mystery Series to Kobo, Google Play, Barnes and Noble and Apple iBooks this Fall 2023!

• Advertisement for Murder (Oct. 18)
• Death Knocks Twice (Oct. 30)
• Dead to the World (Nov. 27)

For those of us who don't understand what this means - Kindle Unlimited is a subscription service for book lovers. For a monthly fee, subscribers can borrow 10 (or is it 20 now?) books in a month. For big readers, this is an economical choice. 

For authors who enroll their books in the program, we cannot publish anywhere else for 90 days. In exchange, we're paid a percentage for every page of our books that are read. It's a great way for a new author to gain readers and fans for their series. However, it means we are not spreading our wings to other retailers.

I decided to wait until St. Ives Book Club Mystery was almost finished and reads had plateaued in Kindle Unlimited before moving the series out. It's like seeing a series on Netflix but it's not available on Prime. That sort of thing. 

I'm excited to introduce readers who frequent the other bookstores to the St. Ives Book Club amateur sleuths. The last book in the series, The Final Chapter, will be released in Kindle Unlimited Dec. 12, 2023 as usual. 

If the series does find readers in other markets, I'll move all of the books out of Kindle Unlimited gradually throughout 2024. 

IN OTHER NEWS:

The Missing Foote Mystery : Book #9 in St. Ives Book Club Mystery Series is out now!

On Amazon and in Kindle Unlimited

One country fair. Two dead bodies. Hundreds of suspects.

Avery Holmes is chagrined when the debut of her thriller, The Spy Wore Heels, is held at Northumberland County's Agricultural Fair but when a body is dug up during the plowing match, her book launch goes from bad to worse.

Agent Lannister Foote vanished last year under mysterious circumstances that CSIS analyst Elliot Marks refused to investigate. That the missing Foote turned up (literally) is not surprising to Marks. But who is the killer? A farmer's field hints at someone local. Someone they all know. Someone who is at the scene the moment the corpse is unearthed.

Then another body is discovered in the corn maze - this time bizarrely hung up like a scarecrow. The fair-goers and organizers are starting to panic.

​​​​With the sprawling five-day event under threat and pressure from the big commercial farming interests to solve the murders and fast, the St. Ives Book Club rally together to uncover a shocking secret. 

LAST BUT NOT LEAST:

THANK YOU ARC team members (advance reader reviewers) for reading this series and leaving reviews on the various book sites that we all love. You have helped readers decide to take a chance on a new mystery (and me) and we all appreciate it! 

I am looking for readers to review for Kobo, Google Play, Barnes and Noble and Apple. If you like to read murder mystery for free (that is on the cosy side of the spectrum), subscribe to my newsletter The Butler Didn't Do It  and get a free short story, Long Shadows Fall, to sample the series and my writing style. Then, if you would like to read the first three in the series for review on the sites listed, contact me through the newsletter and I'll be in touch. 

HOW TO BECOME AN ARC READER:

1. Subscribe to The Butler Didn't Do It

2. Download your free copy of Long Shadows Fall

3. Reply to newsletter with request to be added to the Team

4. I send you the link to download your books to review

5. Read. Review. Post on your favourite retailer site. 

A parting gift for readers of this blog!

 

I've joined with 48 mystery authors to promote our work to readers on the hunt for new mysteries without the price tag. Taking a chance on a new series is a lot easier when it's free. Some of the offerings are full books, some (like mine) are short stories, some are collections. 

I participated in a mystery giveaway last year and came away with two authors that I love. You might get lucky! And if you haven't tried St. Ives Book Club Mystery yet, Long Shadows Fall features the cast of characters, a mystery and the general tone and purpose of the series. It's a chance to try it out on a short story. 

1) Click this link: January February Free Mystery Promotion

2) Peruse the selections

3) Choose as many as you like! Enter your email address and a link to download your book will be sent to you. 

4) If you decide later that the author isn't for you, simply use the Unsubcribe link at the bottom of their newsletter and that's it!

5) Come back as often as you like during the promotion to find stories and by all means, share the link with your friends and family. 

6) Enjoy a month of reading without spending a dime.

Thank you, readers! Have a warm, safe winter!

Fuck you Facebook or Meta or whatever you're called. This time I mean it.

In the interests of trying to connect with family who only respond to shit on Facebook, I tried once again to open an account. This was the message I received after filling out the form with my real name:

We require everyone to use the name they use in everyday life, what their friends call them, on Facebook. Learn more about our name policies.

They don't tell you what those policies are or where to find them. I did a search in Help and found this:

www.facebook.com/help/112146705538576/?helpref=uf_share

As you can see, there is nothing helpful about the Help. So when prompted to respond to the query "Did this answer your question?" I bit back the foul language I had stored up (They only give you 500 characters to vent your spleen) and wrote this reply (paraphrasing):

I'm using my given-at-birth-name that is on all my government documents and is accepted by every social media site on the PLANET except Facebook. I guess you've never heard of Gen. James Doolittle who led the raid on Tokyo called the "Doolittle Raid". In the interest of connecting with family, I tried to set up an account and was given this message: We require everyone to use the name they use in everyday life, what their friends call them, on Facebook. Learn more about our name policies. Really? FFS.

So pathetic. They won't figure it out. Not now, not ever. I'm only posting this to let any random family member who nags me to "Join Facebook!" know that their addiction to the conglomerate that shuts out one of their own is why they'll never hear from me.

And friends who urge me to send documents to this fuckwit enterprise in order to get an account so they can contact me - that's a hard pass.

To all of the book marketers out there who email me daily hoping to get my enrollment fees in their Facebook courses - good luck with that. 

To everyone with whom I might do business with if only you weren't Facebook exclusive with your advertising, I guess I'll never know what I've missed, but I'm a little richer today.

And to all of you who rant on Facebook daily about a long list of grievances now at work in the world - YOU are the problem because you feed the beast that LOVES keeping those issues alive and well and flourishing in the hearts of humankind. Well done, you. 

Put in that light, Fuckbook has done me a favour. This Doolittle is out.  

Huffington Post and the woefully uninformed writer

I live near Wakefield, Quebec, a small village in which independent artists create music, poetry, theatre, textiles, glasswork, woodwork, photography and more. Everything from the food we eat to the culture we consume comes from the place we live. Our seniors are anything but "elderly" and our way of life is DIY if all else fails. We are not conservative. Though we value tradition, we respect differing points-of-view and choices.

Or so I thought.

A traditionally published author in Wakefield has written an article for Huffington Post entitled Self-Publishing: An Insult to the Written Word. 

Laurie Gough is a fine travel writer; I have two of her books and a copy of her latest release on my shelf. But she does not know anything about self-publishing and to the best of my knowledge (based on this article) she made no attempt to inform herself before she posted her opinion piece. She is aware I am a self-published author. I cheerfully insult the written word every morning from 7 am and 12 noon.

Laurie makes an apology of sorts in the comments trail in which she more or less throws Canada under the bus saying self-publishing isn't as big up here. That doesn't fly with the Canadian authors on KBoards Writers' Cafe. (Founded by a Canadian author who passed away last year. Seriously, Laurie. Google is your friend.) 

HuffPo article take down of self-pubbers destroyed in comments

I drop into the Cafe every morning with my cup of coffee to wake my brain up and get started on the day. I usually don't read threads like the one above because, meh, I've heard it all before. I made $1400 in 20 years of traditional publishing and $10,000 in 2 years of self-publishing so I can't be bullied into thinking less of my work. For whatever reason, I opened the thread and Laurie's name came up. Talk about surreal. And then I read the piece and got a stomach ache.

I can accept that Laurie was expressing her personal opinion. What I can't accept is the utter lack of thought, research or fact-checking that went into forming her opinion before she hit "publish." She made no effort to challenge her beliefs and consequently she has no idea how to defend them.

We've all fallen victim to the sloppy journalism of online "news" so I won't go down that rabbit hole of dissecting the misquoted Margaret Atwood, the lazy analogies or the hyperbole. The over 700 comments do a better job of correcting the errors and misinformation.

Two authors address the fundamental flaws in Laurie's thinking better than I can.

It's Joe Hunt

Monster Hunter Nation

The interesting silver lining that I got out of this as I head into 2017 was the sense that I am part of something bigger. The traditional publishing system is far from obsolete and has a lot to offer society and writers. But where it can't serve, self-publishing is a viable alternative.

It is also work, but that's what's cool about it. I had no appreciation for what editors, publishers and agents were talking about in terms of marketability until I tried to sell my own books. I do now and that's the best thing about DIY--one is forced to be humble enough to learn.

A lesson I hope Laurie Gough gets out of all of this.

Google Love

Google. I loved you when you were just a baby search engine and everyone was hot for Yahoo and its ilk. I remember when Yahoo was king and Ask Jeeves and how they clogged up the search with advertisements and confusion. I took one look at Google's clean, readable pages and I had found my Web Search soul mate.

Then came Gmail and Blogger and our love deepened. Now there is Google Play where I've listed my books and sales are anemic but I'm not worried. We've been down this road before, haven't we, Google? We'll get there.

Now my kid, who grew up only knowing the great Google, is working on a Google-related product. Heck, yes, I'm proud. Check out this YouTube video of Salman Sajun Productions working on a project for a cool Google phone case.

It's neat to see how it all comes together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dv-P8QG4JXc

And here is the making of the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv9svoypuUs

Google, thank you for all the good years and here's to many more. Stay the course and all will be well.

Books2Read Universal Link and the Independent Publisher

I am an independent publisher. I also write but because I manage four pen names, one imprint, two blogs and forty titles, I am considered an independent publisher. I use Smashwords, Kindle Direct Publishing and Draft2Digital to get the titles into the world. I use CreateSpace for printing and print distribution. After twenty years of trying to make a living at writing, these service providers have made it possible for me to actually make a living at writing. Whoo hoo!

You'll notice I've changed the sales links to the titles on this blog from individual ebook retailers to one link per title: Books2Read Universal Link. ( https://www.books2read.com/ ) 

This amazing little tool was developed by Draft2Digital for authors and book-buyers to streamline the shopping process. Instead of half-a-dozen links (that I may or may not get right) I only have to provide one. 

1) The book-buyer clicks on the link and is taken to a landing page for that book where all the stores that carry the book are listed with logos readily identifying each  store. Cool!

2) Book-buyer chooses store he or she likes, clicks and boom--there you are on the product page. Read the blurb, mull over the price and buy. Swell! 

3) The buyer is prompted to request the same store for future purchases. Nice!

I like stuff to be as uncomplicated as possible. Shopping online is very difficult for me so anything like this helps cut out the clutter and I don't feel pushed or hassled into looking at a bunch of stuff I don't want.

Draft2Digital did not charge me as a publisher for this new tool. These savvy ebook distributors are quietly remapping the publishing industry one book sale at a time.

Smashwords is another forward-thinking distributor that also has a hopping book store. They sell in all formats, retailer direct, give an outstanding royalty to the author, host author pages, giveaways and work with libraries to promote independent titles. They are super international and have a free section to sample new authors. No pop-ups or advertising or spam emails--just books in all genres at great prices.

Check them out:   Smashwords Book Store

Hey! Happy Reading!

Unpublishing a book is like....

Getting a divorce.

It smarts. But I had to do it.

My foray into the fast-paced world of writing fast and dirty was a bust. I conceived the idea for Razor Wire for the brand-spanking-new Kindle Unlimited program. It was designed to be read in installments, ending in a cliffhanger like a thriller television show. I'd outlined 6 'episodes', wrote 3, and then Kindle Unlimited changed its royalty structure for payment and the serial format lost its value overnight.

I bundled the installments, thinking I would come back to the series in future to write Razor Edge and Razor Close.

Heh. Well, here's the thing. I lost steam or my mojo or whatever that thing is that makes a writer connect to a story long enough to get it out. I tried many different methods to get going again but my brain wasn't having it. Creatively, the series was dead in the water.

And dead sales-wise too. I think I sold less than 10 ebooks and 5 print books that were mostly pity sales. A local fan said it wasn't anything like my other books. Yeah, well, a girl's gotta try new things or she becomes stale. I'm not sorry I wrote it because it pushed me out of my comfort zone to explore a new sub-genre. I think of Razor Wire as a creative experiment in writing to market, in which I proved to myself that the book market is a moving target.

Razor Wire is unpublished (or is in the process) at all retailers as of today. CreateSpace will still sell the print edition. My plan for the thriller is to go back to my original idea and publish it as a trilogy. I'll beef up the story, explore some themes I rushed through and go deeper into the psychology of the characters. I believe there's a good story there and I didn't give it its due. I'll release the serial in July in three complete installments. CreateSpace will get the complete edition for print at the same time.

Writing fast is dandy for first drafts, but the process has to slow down after that to get to the good stuff. Lesson learned. It only hurts a little. Lives were not lost.

Takeaways:

1. Stick to your vision.
2. The story wants to go the way the story wants to go. Be the pencil.
3. Slow down. You are creating worlds not making a cheese sandwich.

Daniel Razor and his troubling sidekick, Charlotte Dawson, will return new and and improved in the summer. Bigger and brighter in three juicy installments. 

Kindle Unlimited and Me

I would've titled this post Kindle Unlimited and the Indie Author but every author's experience is different. Our books are different, our marketing skills are different---it gets really boring itemizing how different we all are. We're so hung up on trying to find commonalities when we share information that we can't see the forest for the trees.

Here is the forest:

Amazon is a book retailer. They also publish their own imprints. They're also a mechanism by which authors can self-publish their work direct to Kindle ereaders. They sell the devices as well as the books to read on the devices. They also offer subscription-based access to all books enrolled in Kindle Direct Publishing Select. They have margins.

Here are the trees:

The independent authors who have enrolled their books in Select. They give Zon an amazingly diverse catalogue to hook Kindle Unlimited subscribers and Zon gives them a platform with which to reach readers. Sure, almost everyone wants the blockbuster novels, but indie offerings are the "added value" component of the whole forest. The authors also have margins.

It's a happy, balanced ecosystem until Amazon has to increase its margins and then the authors inside the forest get squeezed. We felt the Amazonian boa constrictor squeeze this week when the KENP formula was changed and the value of our books decreased by about 60 pages. KENP stands for Kindle Edition Normalized Pages. Authors in Select are paid 0.0046 per KENP read. If Mary Sue borrowed my riveting mystery, Iced Under (511 KENP) in January, I would have been paid a $2.35 royalty. Now, I would be paid $2.07. The royalty on a sale is approx. $2.79.

Not too shabby, right? What's 72 cents among friends. And besides, isn't the idea we'll get readers borrowing our books and make a bit of money on the side? Hey, I drank the Kool-aid, I'm not judging.

The kicker is we have to promote and compete to get borrows with exactly the same zeal and expense that we have to promote to get sales. Time and money margins. Only these are not sales and your book is only available in one store, not four (or five if you count Google Play and I don't). And then you open your reports page and whoa nelly! You are down by a sum that you did not see coming.

Okay, so we've been "normalized" after not being normal. Or something. I was all in with Kindle Unlimited until I realized I wasn't building a sales record. I was knocking myself out to get borrows. Borrows are lovely when they're in a library and somebody--somewhere--has already paid for the book. But when you become dependent on them for income, borrows are like living in your mom's basement. Every now and then she threatens to sell the house.

It's been said that KU has cannibalized sales. It's also been said that KU has helped sales. I have no data either way. In my experience, I worked like a dog to promote my novels last year and came out about $10 ahead each month that I was in Select versus wide. Other authors report dramatically different results.

The upshot of all this analysis is no two books are alike. Look at your own book and take your own market and margins into consideration when you're deciding to go exclusive or wide with all retailers. If all else fails, experiment. I liked the convenience of Select but I like getting sales in other markets a whole lot more. I like building a sales history. I like getting my $2.79 fair and square.

My margins are chubbier now too and I like a chubby margin.

Peace out.

Kindle Unlimited Royalty Structure - My Thoughts

Oh to live in a world where things stayed the same for more than a calendar year. Rapid change and publishing do not mix. As a writer on KBoards said: "This is why authors drink."

Amazon's KDP platform rolled out its new royalty structure for titles exclusive to KDP on July 1st. If you enrolled your book in Select, your book is subject to borrows. Borrows used to be paid at a flat rate (the amount varied from month-to-month) of $1.35 for a book read to 10%. Under the current structure, royalties are paid for pages read at a rate of 0.005779/page.

A 300 KENP (the term for Amazon's calculation of a page) book read to the end would earn $1.73. Under the old system (fondly known as KU.1) that book would have earned $1.35. 300 KENP breaks out into roughly 150 regular pages depending on how it's formatted. So let's say a price point of $2.99 with a $2.09 royalty on a sale and a $1.73 on a borrow. A sweet deal, right? Oh, but that's the honey-trap. Let's run the math....

10% read under KU.1 earned $1.35. 10% read under KU.2 earns 0.17. Yes. 17 cents. (Cents is such an old-fashioned word. I feel I should be wearing a newsboy's cap as I write this, fingers inky with newsprint.) One hopes one has written a high-octane, addictive page-turner but it's a little late now if it isn't. The book is exclusive to Amazon for three months.

With Kindle Unlimited, a subscriber is allowed up to 10 titles at a time per month on their Kindle for $9.99. Maybe my book will make it to the top of a reader's TBR pile. Maybe not. In the meantime, Amazon does not pay out for more than what is read that month. There are obvious reasons why the old system was unsustainable for Amazon, at the same time it was an excellent strategy because the retailer was able to quickly build a huge catalogue of books for their subscription service. It is equally obvious why KU.2 is a bottom-line dreamboat.

(Sadly, I would've done exactly the same thing if I were Amazon. Actually, I'd be even meaner. I'd start culling books from my store that were not performing. I'd be analyzing the Pages Read Data to identify a break-out book that hasn't broken out yet and then I would snap up that author for my Imprints. I'm horrible.)

KU.2 has deep ramifications for publishing and I'm still mulling the possible outcomes. But in the here and now, what it means for this author is something like 17 cents a day. (30 KENP pages x 0.005779 = 0.17337 cents; 30 pages is approx. 3 chapters)

Drinks are on me!

Day 12. iTunes Legal. The Sequel.

Two years.
Five DMCA take down notices filed.
One query from an Apple legal representative.
Two emails from beleaguered author.
Result:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-grey-lady/id560171274?mt=11

I swear I will leave this post up for posterity if they remove The Grey Lady and the last laugh is on me.

Here's the thing: If you are not ready to sell books, then don't sell books. If you don't like dealing with authors and their pissy-diva complaints, then don't sell books. If you want lovely content to lure buyers to your freakishly expensive devices, then you'll be dealing with human beings who write books. If you don't want to deal with them, then don't sell books.

The thing about Corporate Image is it can't just be an image. The way a corporation treats its smallest customer is the measuring stick of their integrity, not a glossy ad campaign telling us you have integrity. I wrote a book. It was published. Shit happened and now we want the book removed from the iTunes Store. Easy-peasy. Literally every other book retailer managed to pull off this wondrous feat as soon as they were notified.

At the moment, I can't enroll The Grey Lady in KDP Select because it is being SOLD on iTunes without permission or payment in direct violation of copyright. This means I can't hold the promotions I planned for this summer. This means lost revenue.

It's not rocket science, Apple iTunes. It's book-selling and if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

(Speaking of ad campaigns, for the love of God, will the Conservative Party give us a break from those truly stupid Justin Trudeau attack ads? Running them every 15 minutes is not helping. One of the actors carps from a script about Mr. Trudeau's hair and all I can think about is his hair compared to Mr. Harper's hair and then I wonder 'Why am I thinking about hair?' In the meantime, Mr. Trudeau has an ad running about the issues facing middle-class Canadians. No mention of hair. Do the math, gentlemen.)

Kindle Unlimited and Indie Publishing

I'm not going to get into a semantic wrestling match over whether or not a self-published author is an independent publisher. I call myself an indie author. It has fewer syllables.

Amazon recently announced changes to the Kindle Select/Kindle Unlimited royalty structure. An author will be paid for the number pages read when their book is borrowed. How much will they be paid? We don't know yet. I expect Amazon will walk the tightrope between paying just enough to keep authors in the program but less royalty than a sale would deliver.

The caveat is the reader has to finish the book to get the full amount. Can you imagine? How many of us abandoned War and Peace? (I'm raising my hand) We are biting our nails, hoping that we've written a book gripping enough to keep the pages turning. (This does not apply to the trade-published novels by the way. Indie is a whole 'nuther universe.)

Here's the interesting (to me) twist to the story. I woke up on June 2nd, suddenly resolved to remove my three Gatineau Hills Mystery titles from Kobo, Apple, and Barnes and Noble (among other places) and enroll them in Select. I didn't know this new royalty structure was in the wind--it was only announced last week. I would have received $1.37 per borrow (est.). A sale would net me $3.50 (give or take). But I figured it was worth it to promote the books, find readers willing to borrow an unknown author and the enrollment is only for 90 days.

Under the new royalty, a borrow read all the way through could net me closer to $3 (assuming a 0.01/page royalty). Am I psychic? Hah! I'm very happy I trusted my intuitive voice this time and made the move. I created new covers especially for KDP and I'll hold a promotion over the coming months.

The flip side of this new event is that shorter works such as the Razor Series will be bundled and take longer to release. NJ Dorrian's Wuthering Heights Variations Series will be released wide as soon as her 90 days in Select expires. That series was designed to be novella-length. Besides, in watching buying and borrowing habits, I believe readers of historical fiction prefer to buy over borrow. So look for NJ Dorrian on Kobo, Apple and Barnes and Noble this August.

As for me--holy hannah! Too much writing to do. My brain gives out after four hours and then I run off to make covers, ponder promos, write blurbs, tweak keywords, post updates to the blog, and plunk updates in the Excel spreadsheet I had to create for this enterprise.

Sounds like an independent publisher to me. Indie all the way.

Fifty Shades of Sheep

Across the street from an Author's house there is a field of sheep. For the most part they stick together at the hay troughs but every now and then something catches the fancy of one or two and off they go.

On this day, it was a book. The story had caught on with a few members of the flock and they ran off to read it from cover to cover. After a short time, hearing the shrieks of glee, several others followed not wanting to be left out. Gradually, more and more of the flock trotted after them, curious as only sheep can be, until only handful of sheep were left near the hay trough.

One of them looked at the others and said "Maybe we should go along just to see what the fuss is all about."

"It is about a movie based on a book about a virgin who wants to be controlled by a billionaire who has issues."

"So it's a romance?"

"Only if you think control is romantic," bleated another. "The girl doesn't want to think and she doesn't have to with the billionaire."

"There must be more to it than that. They seem to think it's Important," insisted a third sheep. He rose up on his skinny legs trying to see over the billboards, television ads and commercial sex shops circling the flock.

"The author made millions and millions from the book and now millions more from the movie. That's why it is Important."

"Ah, so it is a Worthy Piece of Culture."

"The Media certainly think so and the Media are never wrong," intoned an older sheep.

"Then why do we not follow the others and get in on this party!" bleated one of the younger sheep, clearly chomping at the bit. "I, for one, do not like to Miss Out."

"By all means, go if you must. I, for one, have no trouble Missing Out," said one of the sheep who had joined the discussion late. "I Missed Out on Pet Rocks, Cabbage Patch Kids and Tickle Me Elmo. I slept through Twilight and I forgot to turn up for Titanic. But go if you like. It will do you no harm."

"It will do you no good either but that never seems to enter into the equation," griped one of the quieter sheep of the flock.

"Oh, not this again," groaned the older sheep. "This Fad is no different from the days of the Roman circus. We survived that nonsense, we shall survive this."

"There were fewer of us then. It seems like it's much easier these days to fool all of the sheep all of the time."

"You are taking this far too seriously. It is only a movie. I am not going only because I don't like crowds."

One of the flock at the premiere had broken away and was careening toward them at a dangerous speed wearing a black silk mask. The Ewe skidded into them breathlessly. "The movie is even better than the book!" she gushed. "It is very naughty and we're all watching the naughtiness together so it doesn't feel like we're baaad. A documentary filmmaker said this is an insightful phenomenon; women are finally coming out of the closet about their sexuality."

One of the Ewes who had stayed behind rolled her eyes but did not comment for fear of being labelled a prude. She was a prude and she would admit it freely if prudery hadn't become a dirty word within the flock.

The young sheep bolted to his legs and gamboled off after the masked Ewe to catch the second showing of the movie.

The older sheep bent his rickety old legs and settled near the trough. "I suppose it'll be hours now before anyone shows up with anything nourishing for us to eat."

"Hours? It will be years before Culture recovers from this shock. Mark my words. Look at them. The sheer weight of their collective shades of wool has shifted the balance. No one will want to invest in the really nourishing hay after this."

"You are probably right," bleated the sheep who had joined the conversation late. "I found a patch of grass at the fringe of the field. I think I'll graze on that until the fuss dies down and things get back to normal around here."

The rest of the sheep settled near the trough of stale hay to wait for nourishing feed. Some continued to grumble but most were not at all surprised that a book about a girl who did not want to think had struck such a chord among sheep.

The Introverted Author's Guide To Marketing

10 Tips to Flogging Your Books the Introvert's Way:

1) Read KBoards but never post. You don't have to. No one knows you're on the other side of the screen, snooping into the threads. You'll learn just as much and it's almost like being with people, only better.

2) Exercise. Pop a cassette tape into the old VCR--(yeah, you heard me)--and follow a work out led by a really cheerful, extroverted fitness leader. You'll kill two birds with one stone. A workout and socializing!

3) Email. No need to talk to anyone on the phone. Ever.

4) Write books.

5) Put the books on sale occasionally and advertise the sale at carefully chosen sites using this criteria: (a) they will accept your book (b) they offer a reasonable risk of recouping your investment (aka ROI) (c) they don't bug you to tweet stuff for them.

6) Work on improving your storytelling skills by writing more books.

7) Blog if you like it. I do.

8) Don't do anything that bugs you, makes you tense, grates on your nerves or is a time suck in the interest of "building a platform." Write books instead.

9) Do the activities you enjoy doing. I like giving readings where I can talk about the writing process, self-publishing or the writer's life. I'm not crazy about talking about the books themselves because I'm already removed from them by the time they come out. (Huh. Doesn't sound much like a reading. More like talking about books with wine involved....)

10) Join up with other writers when you foolishly commit yourself to hand selling at a fair or some other mad undertaking. You'll be less likely to hide out in the bathroom and therefore sell more books.

Bonus Tip: Write a bestseller and become a recluse.

Inspired by David Gaughran's book: "Let's Get Digital." Introverts need not fear the self-publishing marketing journey. Give it a read.

A big shout out to Draft2Digital for the free gift!

Goodreads Giveaway Winners!

And the winners of the Goodreads Giveaway for THE RIVER BRIDE are.... *insert drum roll here*

Susan Gannon of Arvada, Colorado
Arturo Operario of North York, Ontario
Sarah Hansrote of Knoxville, Tennessee

792 people entered THE RIVER BRIDE Giveaway and 365 people added it to their To-Read shelves. Thank you!

Folks, this will be my last Giveaway and here's why:

The mailing of books is costly in addition to the cost of the books themselves. This expense is absorbed by the author. The service the winning readers provide is to post their reviews at Goodreads. Without reviews, authors cannot afford to continue to enroll their books in Goodreads Giveaways. A print copy is the only format accepted and because of the cost involved (and often disappointing result) many authors I know are giving up on Giveaways. It is a great program and I'd hate to see it go but for independent authors on a tight budget, it has become a poor return. 

There are readers out there who buy indie books at full price and post their reviews. There are companies who for a fraction of the cost of a Giveaway will promote an independent author's book. When marketing dollars are tight, the non-performer gets cut. 

Writing a review can be nerve-wracking but your opinion matters, especially for an unknown work in this day and age. Think of yourself as a literary talent scout! Finding diamonds in the rough! going where no man has gone before! Readers rule! Discovering a new work by an unknown author is an adventure. You have to tell the world about it because if you don't, who will?

Congratulations to my three winners. Folks, your books are in the mail and I look forward to reading your reviews!

Peace and happy reading.

The Trouble with Kindle Select

If you are traditionally published you delude yourself that your publisher will honour the contract. If you are self-published you delude yourself that you are in control of the contract. I'll say this for Kindle Select--it has a way of disabusing authors of the notion that we are anything but in control.

A Case Study:

On Thu, Aug 28, 2014 at 11:06 PM, Kindle Direct Publishing wrote:

Hello,
We found the following book(s) you've published doesn’t meet the KDP Select content guidelines. Books enrolled in KDP Select must be exclusive to Amazon in digital format during the entirety of their enrollment in the program.
Iced Under (Gatineau Hills Mystery Book 1) (ASIN: B00JR9ZSAW) is available on: http://www.nook.com/gb/ebooks/iced-under-by-nadine-doolittle/2940045818025

Our records indicate that we previously informed you that submitting non-exclusive content to KDP Select is not acceptable and may result in loss of KDP Select benefits.
As a result of repeat violations of the KDP Select exclusivity requirement, we have removed all of your books from the KDP Select program. Your titles remain available in the Kindle Store. Please note that repeat violations of the program’s exclusivity requirement may result in loss of KDP Select benefits, including participation in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (KOLL), Kindle Unlimited, and the usage of free promotion days. To ensure KDP Select benefits are not revoked, please be sure that all of your KDP Select-enrolled books are exclusive to Amazon in digital format at the time of enrollment.
Check out this page to learn more about the KDP Select guidelines: https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=200798990#eligibility For all other KDP questions visit: kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/contact-us

Best regards, Kindle Direct Publishing http://kdp.amazon.com

MY RESPONSE:

How is this even possible! I closed my account with Smashwords months ago which was the only distributor I used for these ebooks. I unpublished them long before that. I fully understand Select's requirements and I have adhered to them. You say there have been repeat violations:

1) The Grey Lady found at iBooks (for which it was removed from Select) was not even the same ISBN! I emailed Apple immediately to remove this previously published edition; the book was removed immediately. I was still penalized.

2) Lie For Me was removed Select although the product page at Kobo clearly indicated the book was not available for sale until after the term ended. I queried before I listed it there and was informed pre-orders were okay. Apparently not. ​​

3) I did everything in my power long before enrolling Iced Under in Select to remove all digital copies. It wasn't enough. Apparently ebook distributors are just as irresponsible as traditional publishers.

Finally, because this is the third time I have experienced trouble "adhering to the guidelines" it is perhaps best if I don't participate in the program. If a backlist book has been published anywhere in the world, the author has no hope of finding every digital copy that has been distributed. I did my very best to make sure I was following the rules and it wasn't good enough.

I give up.

Sincerely, Nadine Doolittle

I know I did what was legally and ethically required of me to remove my ebooks from all channels before enrolling them in Select. But it wasn't enough because the guy at the other end did not do all that was legally and ethically required of him to remove the ebooks from all channels.

And so endth the lesson.

12 Weeks In - A Self-Publishing Report

Over the course of the past three months, I have self-published four titles as ebooks and brought one of those titles out in print. Two titles are making steady sales. One is struggling to gain traction as an ebook but has already earned out as a print title (very soft release on May 10). And one is only 12 hours old so it's too soon to tell.

The Stats:

All sales in the 12 weeks have come from Amazon.
Smashwords reported one sale very early in. Although downloads of the sample were brisk in the beginning, the books haven't moved since and the downloads did not translate to sales.
No sales reported through iBooks
No sales reported through B&N
No sales through Kobo because they are experiencing delays (as per Smashwords) getting titles listed and to list them myself, I'd have to do some reformatting. Which I might one day when I have time.

In fairness to the other sales channels, the titles were listed with zero marketing and I haven't investigated any promotional opportunities that may be available through them. Here is why:  Marketing takes time. Precious time from writing new work, editing current work, formatting, and reading up on changes in the industry just to keep up. Plus I have a wedding to plan in September.

From a business perspective (Hey, I watch Dragon's Den) Amazon is getting me where I want to go faster with the least time-consuming effort. If I enroll all four titles in KDP Select, I can manage promotions in one location for no cost. It's 90 days. Titles are listed with KDP exclusively. At this stage in my self-publishing journey, my priorities are to keep costs down and write new content.

So although it seems counter-intuitive, I'm going to list my titles with KDP Select, run some promotions through Amazon, write the next book and at the end of September, I'll evaluate the strategy. Many authors feel Select is not worth tying up their books for 3 months exclusively, but when I weighed the pros and cons it came down to time. I just don't have time to effectively promote in other channels right now.

12 Weeks SP Positives:

Self-publishing was the only option left for Iced Under and The Grey Lady. If you think getting a new book published is difficult, try attracting interest in a book that has already been under contract. Win!

Self-publishing was the only option for my three romance novels. Surprising, successful, fun and creative, I'm really enjoying giving this older debut work new life. Bonus!

Self-publishing gave print life to The Grey Lady and I've sold out my initial print run. Validation!

I have two full length novels waiting to be revised and formatted to be published. And the book I've started writing as well as two new series I have outlined will keep me busy until 2016. My old enthusiasm for writing is back. Productive!

12 Weeks SP Negatives:

 A lot of work. Long hours at my desk. There is always more to do. Time.

The feeling of having no back up. Writers are for the most part generous with support but I miss having the structure of a publishing house behind me. Or maybe I miss what I imagined a publishing house to be... Exposed is the feeling. It is just you and your books. Solitary.

You make ALL decisions for your books. Everywhere. Constantly. Sooner or later you're bound to make a poor one from sheer fatigue. Responsibility.

There's no money or very little money. There was no money for me the other route so this isn't a total negative but one to keep in mind. No money. No advance. Frugal.

For the author just starting out, I'd recommend pursuing traditional publishing before self-publishing for a least a year. If no one bites, revise the manuscript and then go ahead and self-publish. I'm glad I had my trade publishing experience before I took the leap. But at the same time, I am very glad I took the leap.

Book Launch in a Brave New World

I waited until I saw what it looked like before I wrote this post. I've been burned before.

It arrived an hour ago via DHL from CreateSpace. My self-published (although that isn't entirely accurate: Kim McArthur, Kendra Martin, the copyeditor and the proofreader at McArthur and Co. shaped the mss and turned it into a novel suitable for public consumption).

Okay--my semi-self-published novel, The Grey Lady, arrived today. I opened the box. I felt sick with terror. If you've read what I went through the last time a box of books arrived from a publisher, you'll know why. I lifted the top copy. The cover is a bit dark--no problem--CreateSpace said to expect that. Something to do with transparency being flattened. The designer and I can tweak and upload a new cover in a few weeks if I feel it's really necessary.

But I'm scared to open it. I'm scared it'll feel like a POD. I'm a book snob--I admit it. I was raised with print and I love books. I love them, like spend the-grocery-money-on-them kind of love. The page is part of the experience. Thanks to Kendra, I now understand how the layout and design of a book conveys the story too. We are not only reading words on a page--we are reading the collective consciousness of everyone who works on a book.

I open it. Deep breath. It's pretty damn perfect.
I'm pretty damn happy right now.

To sum up this month's adventure in self-publishing: Doing it myself has been the most respectful, empowering experience I've had with publishing to date. CreateSpace, Smashwords and Kindle Direct Publishing will change the face of publishing forever if they keep doing as they have been doing. It's not easy. You have to really want your book out there to do-it-yourself. But so worth it.

I don't believe self-publishing is having an negative impact on literature. I believe a corporate bottom line with shareholders to think about has a negative impact on literature. I believe that by empowering authors to tell a story their way, we are opening the door to critical thinking, to challenging our current beliefs. As a reader, I can stop whining about the lousy "bestsellers" I've been reading these days and go find my own bestseller. And when I do, I'm going to write a goddamned review that says so.

Okay, I'm getting giddy and philosophic right now. But hells bells! I had no hope of seeing this book in print last year and here it is. I don't care--I'm opening the champagne!

Bookselling 101

This post is coming to you from behind the sales counter of an independent bookstore. I have a part time job selling books to the public and I am getting first hand knowledge on selling books to the public.

I think I'd rather be left in the dark.

Lemme tell you. A crude, mercenary mind-set takes over a bookseller. Sure the unknown author has a title on the shelf but I'm pushing the latest Stieg Larsson and Jodi Picoult. Why? Because I have a better chance of making that sale. Today my priority is the survival of the independent bookstore, not growing some unknown author.

But darn it--why are the two mutually exclusive? Remember the 70's when radio stations were ordered to play a percentage of Canadian music? The result is that today we have internationally famous artists and a healthy music scene at home. It didn't happen by magic, it took legislation.

I'm not saying we need legislation to force booksellers to showcase Canadian books. But maybe, just maybe, booksellers could be encouraged to piggyback a lesser known author onto the fame of a bestseller. As it was with the radio stations--everyone tuned in because they wanted to hear the familiar U.S. and U.K. hits. The Canadian musicians who were given airplay piggybacked onto that popularity, becoming popular in their own right.

Here in Wakefield, local performers did just that. Last year they launched the Piggyback Festival a day after the larger, hugely popular Ottawa Fringe Festival closed. Theatre-goers, hungry for more fringe, flocked to tiny Wakefield to take in the smaller shows. Today, the Piggyback Festival is a hit, attracting a heavy share of media attention.

There's no reason why a bestselling author can't drag the rest of us into the limelight. Or at leastcast a bit of glow our way. It takes a year or more for a book to be written and get to the shelves, correct? In the meantime, fans of a bestselling author can be persuaded to try another, lesser known author. I discovered William Deverell while waiting for PD James. A friend handed me a Louise Penny one day. Penny led me to a world of Canadian mystery that makes me positively weak in the knees.

With this in mind, I pop some lesser known Canadian musicians into the CD player and set a couple of fine Canadian mysteries next to good old Stieg.

Will you take a Barbara Fradkin with your Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest?