Kindle Select Results, Caveat Auctore.

Louis Shalako

To keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting to get different results is a form of insanity.

I forget who said that, but it’s true enough.

I wanted a better fate for my new novel, The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue. 

Previous science-fiction novels such as Third World were essentially published and died. The same day.

I would be hard pressed to claim even ten copies of that book sold.

And yet I have always resisted the Kindle Select Program. Part of that was pure dogma. It is my opinion that authors and readers alike are served best by a healthy ecosystem, where no one party is dominant. But Amazon is dominant. At some point I just had to admit that and take appropriate steps. One reason for being slow to do that, is that I really wasn’t selling all that many books on Amazon to begin with. The same could be said of Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, Google Books…the list goes on. Barnes & Noble is my best platform—a platform that Joe Konrath says will die very soon now. If that happens, then I guess my sales are dead as well.

You can read all kinds of blog posts about how Amazon  will destroy literature and take over the world.

Some of that comes from  traditional publishing, and some of it comes from places like the Smashwords blog.

I owed it to myself to find out what would happen. Normally, I publish a book on Smashwords, Amazon, Google Books, OmniLit, etc.

Okay. So on my first free day, I gave away a grand total of 35 books through Kindle Select, in the U.S. I gave away four in the U.K., one in Germany, etc . I had one sale, through Kindle Unlimited, Amazon’s new subscription service.

Using another pen name, I published another title. This one is a short story of 12,000 words, literary fiction, and it’s not the most exciting thing in the world. I would say that a book on friendship is not as enticing as a book about vampires, werewolves, thrillers, or the like to the modern reader. Romance books will beat that one every time.

Another challenge is how to promote any book these days. People rapidly tire of link after link on your Facebook feed, and there are so many voices on Twitter, your tweet quickly disappears, drowned out by fresh links.

I’m not real good about seeking reviews, providing advance reader copies, or anything, really.

When I’m done writing a book, I publish it and move on. If passive discoverability works, then it really ought to work here! The only positive news here is that Heaven Is Too Far Away, my WW I memoir/historical parody, sold four books in June through Createspace’s Expanded Distribution. Since I have no real way of promoting that book, it must be passive discoverability.

For what it’s worth.

As far as promotion on Kindle Boards, for whatever reason, I had never bookmarked my KB-Amazon Book Pages. I got rid of Internet Explorer, and then Google Chrome. It’s hard to even find them again. I don’t know how to upgrade my marketing images, the ones in the signature and on the book page itself. 

When I raised my prices last year, the novels were no longer $2.99, but $4.99 and up. You can only post free, or books up to $2.99 on Kindle Boards. Basically, I just stopped going there. That’s one less promotional tool to work with; and some say it is an essential tool.

So it is my own mistakes and my own lack of knowledge that really kills any attempt to promote any book. 

Low sales, low incentive to learn, I guess. And yet learn we must, or die.

So here’s what I learned from Kindle Select.

If your book is not in a particularly popular genre, your results will reflect that. If your cover is not that good, if your blurb is not that good, Kindle Select cannot save it. The date you choose has an effect. For whatever reason, I chose a holiday weekend in summer. I have three more promotional days for The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue, and another two and a half months of exclusivity before I can publish it elsewhere. This is the price of knowledge, one might say.

What’s really interesting is that when Amazon price-matches your book on another platform, (Kindle Select Titles are exclusive and I’m talking about other titles) your monthly result in terms of giveaways can be far superior to the Kindle Select exclusive promotion.

I know that for a fact, because I’ve given away 173 copies of The Shape-Shifters in the first four days of August. That book is not exclusive to Amazon. You can get it for free on any number of sales platforms.

Whether it’s caveat scriptor, or caveat auctore, (writer beware) all I can say is that unrealistic expectations and a distinct lack of skill in the promotion can kill a book pretty darned quick.

That’s why I try to write and submit short stories as much as possible. A sale is a sale, and it’s a ray of hope as well. As to whether I will write another novel and begin submitting to traditional publishers again, I don’t know.

For that you need the motivation, but more than anything you need patience—and some shred of hope that it will be picked up.

Who knows, it might even change my life.

END

Writing With Confidence.

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A few successful experiments in writing breeds confidence.

Over the course of time, that confidence becomes unshakeable.

I’m just in the process of finishing up the first draft of my twelfth novel. It’s at 56,000 words and I’m shooting for 60,000+.

It’s an interesting feeling, one preggers with hope and satisfaction. At the same time, I still need a cover for the book. It will be gone through a few times, as I check for errors of time and place, making sure all the names are correct, fleshing out room descriptions, character descriptions, decribing more fully the exterior places, and all that sort of thing.

It is a process.

There is this feeling of accomplishment. I totally controlled this book from start to finish, and it will end up at the exact length I projected. It’s more linear, smoother than the first two, (certainly the first one) and it pays more attention to tropes and conventions of the genre.

My last half dozen books have been like that, in that they all had a certain pace and came in where I wanted in terms of word count.

Lately I’ve been writing clean copy. It flows well enough, with some nice cadences in places. The Maintenon mystery series books do have a unique feel and voice to them. They are different in tone from much of what is out there and available to readers, as written in English by native English speakers. I had fun writing them, and it really is a kind of parody.

Set in 1931, this particular mystery involves the murder of an old woman, not rich but well-off, and as a writer there is the pleasure of learning about the era. The research into another time and place can be fascinating and educational. I am becoming comfortable writing about it, bearing in mind no personal knowledge of France, or Paris, or anything else. I know little of police work and have never investigated a murder.

In some weird sense, to set out to write a certain kind of novel is an adventure. No adventure would be complete without some effort, some sacrifice, one where you dig down deep inside and scrape the bottom of the barrel, just to keep going sometimes. This book required some stretch on the part of the author, if only in the discipline—writing day in and day out and keeping the project alive and moving forwards is half the battle.

There is that feeling that one has overcome all obstacles, and in that sense writing a book is a character-building experience in more ways than one. Writers are creative, resilient people, with a rich stock of personal attributes, including persistence and a willingness to take a few risks.

Otherwise we could never even finish writing a book.

To me, I think, the story is everything—and throwing aside all mundane considerations of a professional, or business type nature, there is such a thing as the art of storytelling. To master than art, in the form of the written word, well, that is my goal.

To look back, is to see progress, and to look forward, is to see infinite possibilities, although time is precious.

***

For the Maintenon series, bearing in mind my ongoing program of upgrading the marketing images, now would be a good time to get new pictures for the three books and the original novella. This will cost a few bucks and I can only put it on my credit card.

One thing I know for sure, I don’t really want a skull on the cover of a series that might go to twenty books or more, assuming I live that long and one new mystery a year.

This one needs formatting, ISBN number, and all of that. New covers take time to design. Barring unforeseen computer explosions, the book will be published in a couple of weeks.

“There’s many a slip ‘tween the crouch and the leap,” as my old sabre instructor used to say; which you can find in some old George Macdonald Fraser novel.

As for Maintenon Mystery # 3, I don’t even have a title yet.

Now that’s just sad, ladies and gentlemen!

For the Maintenon # 3 book I wrote 28,869 words in thirteen days, Sept 1-13, and then set it aside while I did other things. I upgraded numerous marketing images, put together three short story collections, published a few short stories, kept up submissions and blog posts.

There is the artistic, creative side, and then there is the business side. The business side can be creative as well, it’s a matter of seeing certain opportunities and then doing the work.

An example: with my new browser showing me things I couldn’t see before, and doing things I couldn’t do before, what are the odds that now I can complete the Canadian tax information on the Omnilit book publishing platform? As an independent author, I want to be on as many platforms and in as many stores as possible. Kind of a no-brainer.

It’s like there’s never enough time in the day, and yet day by day, and in every way, we just keep getting better and better.

I suppose I have an unfair advantage. I don’t have a spouse and three kids, I’m not dragging them off to grandma’s for Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving. I’m not taking them to Mexico or Florida for a week in the winter and I don’t have to worry about summer vacation. I don’t have a big fancy house and lots of landscaping to look after, nor do I have two cars, a trailer, motorcycles, a boat and scuba or fishing equipment to look after or just move out of the way when I want something.

To those who say we are not in competition, I say, you know yourselves best. You know your own circumstances, and your own potential better than I ever could.

All of our circumstances are different, and to be jealous of someone else is a waste of my time.

To be spiteful towards them is to reveal our innermost insecurities.

Que sera, sera.

To those who say you can’t write a good novel in a weekend, I suspect you are right, but then neither one of us has ever tried.

This is why I really don’t have much of an opinion on traditional publishing: because I’ve never done it.

How could I possibly speak intelligently on the subject?

It doesn’t seem very likely, does it?

And anything they have to say about me is irrelevant, and most likely fatuous in the extreme.

Promotion.

Giveaways: if only this was real.

Promotion.

We have a couple of basic choices in promoting our books. We can go on Twitter and a hundred other social platforms, post, tweet and auto-tweet our product links fifty times a day, and hopefully move a few books off the shelf and into the reader’s hands.

The other choice relies on ‘passive discoverability.’ This is when people simply ‘find’ your book. On electronic platforms such as Kobo or Amazon, when they buy a book or merely look at a book from another author, they will be presented other options, all lined up in a row. It’s like a bookshelf physically arranging itself for the customer, as it ‘knows’ the customer’s previous purchase history, their age, gender, and of course the category they’re looking at. It doesn't present them with books they've already bought in that store, for example. If your book is in the same genre, there’s a mathematical probability that it will be presented, ‘sooner or later.’

All other things being equal, (and they aren’t) if there are 10,000 books in a category, then each book would ideally be presented once for every 10,000 unique visitors to that category. (There are other factors such as duration of visit and the number of browsing customers at any given moment, which limit the number of options they may be presented with, and few people look at thousands of books in a session.)

This is where the all-important rankings come into play. The highest ranked book is presented first, and so forth and so on.

However, things are never equal. Stephen King’s releases sell more initial copies than any unknown author. If someone looks at one, and it’s number one in category, they are more likely to be presented with the number two, three and four authors in that category—the electronic store has concluded, all governed by algorithmic equations, what choice is most likely to please a customer of such a ‘configuration.’ It’s another way of describing an individual in mathematical terms a simple machine can easily understand. A customer-fan of that genre, in other words.

In passive discoverability, the keys are fairly simple: a good cover, a good product description, a popular category, good reviews, and more than anything, frequent publication by the author. The quality of the book matters too, but until someone actually buys one, it means nothing in terms of ‘gaming the algorithms.’ There are more complex biological algorithms, which govern such human reactions after-sale, including word of mouth, surely the most effective form of promotion. We can even control this to some extent—by writing good books and moving some of them off the shelves, for example by promotion of free titles. This is where the tweets and posts come in.

The only way to game total ‘passive discoverability’ (i.e. no other forms of promotion being used) is by publishing something new as frequently as possible. New books pop out in a stream of new releases. They’re at the top of a list for however brief a time. The best way to game the algorithms is to first and foremost, write good, entertaining books, and to do it as often as possible. This why people who publish exclusively on Amazon use the Select Program. It’s a way of moving some books out the door.

So your book is at the top of a list when first published. For that exact moment in time, that book has as much chance as Stephen King’s new book, assuming good product presentation. It all depends on how many people are looking at the new releases, and not much else, algorithmically. Without sales, without downloads, those books sink very quickly.

Most authors will probably choose a mix of the two techniques. You want people to go and look at the books, and you want someone to buy one once in awhile. The higher you go up the rankings, the better your odds become of selling your next book. (All other things being equal, which they are not. Ever. Because the customer choice is so subjective.)

Social Media.

My personal opinion is that social media is overrated in terms of booting up bestselling books. Yet it is not entirely useless in marketing books. It must be understood, exploited, but not abused endlessly. Without social media I would not be selling a single book. With it, I sell a few. That is the real revolution in independent publishing. I’m selling a few books. This is a requirement for further success, and it must be exploited systematically and rationally in order to be most effective over the long haul.

Writing a series.

If readers like a book, a story, or the characters in it, they want more. This is why TV has spin-offs and why Agatha Christie wrote Hercule Poirot books, Miss Marple books, and characters like Mack Bolan and Matt Helm had such a long career. People recognized a good read by the character names on the cover.

Rather than writing a whole bunch of standalone novels, using the same characters allows for more development, more world-building, and it provides much more material for the reader to ‘discover.’ As the author goes along, they know so much more about the world they create that it does get easier to write them after some time.

Linking a series.

Smashwords now has a ‘Series Manager’ where authors can link and number their books if they are part of a series. Kindle Direct Publishing has a field for that in the publishing page.

This is a good tool. I was conflicted by the need, or even just the method of indicating that some of my books were in a series. It felt clunky to write it into the product description, and I really didn’t want to put a big red #1 on the cover of my first one—how the hell would I know if I could do another? I only have a novella and two books in the series, and yes, I am writing the third. But it felt presumptuous and so I didn’t do it. Now there’s an easy way. For promotions, the first book in the series should be free. You can tweet with a good conscience, because you’re giving away free product. It’s a legitimate promotional tool

Free giveaways.

Some people scoff at free giveaways.

“Don’t such authors value their own work?” I read that in a blog somewhere, it was quite hurtful at the time.

(You’re danged right I do.)

“Would you like to supersize that meal?” How about 24 ounces of Coca-Cola to go with that burger and fries?

It’s only twenty-nine cents more.

I find it hard to believe that after all these years Coca-Cola Corporation (whatever) doesn’t value their product, and yet they still keep giving it away…

You want new readers. You want people to download free books. The algorithms are predicated on information technology and information theory. You can game those algorithms, by getting people to buy, take, borrow, lend, or review, or even just look at your book.

The more people look at your book, the more people will buy it. Store traffic is one thing, that’s different across platforms, but you want them to stop and look at your book if you can possibly get them to do it.

Spam.

Spam is shit in my inbox, where I have to click on it to look at it, and I have to search for an unsubscribe link, and yet I’ve never been to your website. I’ve never done business with you.

Spam is wasting my time and slowing down my inbox.

Now, if you want to post pictures of cupcakes on Facebook, well, that doesn’t bother me at all.

If you don’t like all the spam on Twitter, I have no idea what the hell you’re doing wrong. Maybe you should switch it off, and watch a football game, as no one, (or hardly anyone) has ever complained about all the commercials there, even though they say they don’t like commercials and yes, they can be kind of annoying. Right?

Twitter is like an old party-line phone, only instead of half a dozen other households listening in, anyone in the world can sign up and eavesdrop on your ‘private’ conversations. It is a form of communication, I will grant you that. Like any form of communication, it can be exploited, effectively or otherwise.

Here’s the real value of any social network: you can go on Facebook and click away, (judiciously, or you end up in Facebook jail) and build up an audience or readership of 5,000 friends. You can go on Twitter and build up an audience, even buy one, of 100,000 or a million followers. Let’s completely ignore what it is that you’re posting. This is the real revolution in social media—an obscure guy, an isolated person, perhaps some lonely old fart on a microscopic pension, can go in, learn the system and build up a following, over time of course, that might not rival Tumblr’s recent 38 million unique visitors in a month, but something that does the job.

How many books a month would you have to sell to make it worth your while? I would love to sell 200 books a month. This would go a long way. I could buy a car or pay insurance or something with that kind of money.* It is by no means a bestseller, as it might be sales of a dozen different titles. It’s not the sort of money that attracts big investment, but then it doesn’t require a large expenditure up front for infrastructure. In a recent blog post Hugh Howey, ‘Wool,’ etc, suggested that almost anyone should be willing and even able to invest $2,000 in order to launch almost any successful business. (I think that’s what he said.) I’ve done better than that. My first three years involved a cost of about $30.00 a month initially, although the bill has gone up for the internet. Only recently have I been buying marketing images from Canstock, for a total cost per book cover of about $5.65, which includes tax. Now, over the years, I have probably spent my two grand. Never at any time did I have two grand to invest in a business; I just did it anyway, using all available and alternate means.

That stems back to my training, (all too brief) as a journalist. Get your story out by any means necessary. Period.

***

Comments on this blog are always welcome.

*I’d love to sell 2,000 books a month and throw this lousy pension back in their faces…

END

Here are some of my titles on iTunes.

https://itunes.apple.com/ca/artist/louis-bertrand-shalako/id412091968?mt=11

Hugh Howey's Advice for Aspiring Authors.

http://www.hughhowey.com/my-advice-to-aspiring-authors/