Jake Needham's Experience With Amazon's KDP Select Program

Jake Needham, author of The Ambassador's Wife and crime novelist, tweeted me in response to one of my articles about the changes in Amazon's ranking algorithm and what they could mean for writers in Amazon's KDP Select program. What he had to say stunned me. Before we get to that, though, let me give you a bit of background.

Amazon's KDP Select program demands it's authors sell exclusively through Amazon, but it provides authors with perks: your books are included in Amazon's prodigious lending library and you are allowed to offer your books free a maximum of 5 days every 3 months. Every time a book is borrowed and every time a book is downloaded--even when it's free--the book's rank goes up.

Or at least it used to.

It seems the recent changes to Amazon's ranking algorithm mean free downloads now count only a fraction of what they once did, and it's pretty much the same for borrows. Since the rule of thumb is that the higher ranked a book is the better it sells authors are wondering whether Amazon's KDP Select program is still worth the price of exclusivity.

Enter Jake Needham and his tweet. Here's what he wrote (I'm using this with his kind permission):

After a big free promotions (20,000+ copies), paid sales were far lower in June than after same number of free in April.

That agrees with what I've heard from a lot of other authors. So, if Jake's experience is representative, should authors abandon Amazon's KDP Select program?

It depends.

It depends on how many books an author would have sold through other retailers such as Barnes & Noble, Smashwords and iBooks, etc.

Here's what Jake said:

I sell thousands of copies of my titles every month for Kindle. So far this month for the Nook? O-n-e. Seriously.

Let's put this in perspective. Here are the books Jake has for sale on Amazon (I'm only looking at books available as ebooks):

The Ambassador's Wife
Laundry Man
Killing Plato
The Big Mango
World of Trouble

And here are the books he has for sale in the Nook store:

Laundry Man
Killing Plato
The Big Mango
World of Trouble

So the only difference is that The Ambassador's Wife is sold exclusively on Amazon. And of the thousands of copies he's sold this month, only one, one, was sold through Barnes & Noble. Wow. That's amazing.

What should we conclude?

I suppose it depends. On the one hand selling thousands of books a month on Amazon is great. I'd be swinging from the rafters. I'm guessing that even with the drop in revenue after Amazon tinkered with it's ranking algorithm, Jake is doing just fine.

On the other hand, what if Amazon breaks the algorithm? I think that's the fear, that Amazon will, intentionally or otherwise, change their algorithm in such a way that it becomes hostile to independent authors, and if Amazon is the biggest and most lucrative market out there, then we could be in very real trouble.

For what it's worth, my take on this is that it's a good idea to continually be on the look out for other places to sell ebooks, places such as Kobo's Writing Life portal for self published writers, now in beta.

That said, Amazon has shown every sign of being friendly to independent/self published authors. I believe the changes they're making to the ranking algorithm have to do with maximizing book sales and aren't intended to discourage indie authors. On the contrary, they recently featured author Jessica Park and her recently self published book Flat-Out Love on the front page of Amazon.

While there may be turbulence ahead I don't think Amazon's plane is going to crash anytime soon.

Next week I'll be posting an interview I did with Jake Needham, so stay tuned and keep writing.

Cheers.


Related reading:
- Kobo's Self-Publishing Portal: Report From A Beta Tester
- Amazon's Ranking Algorithm Has Changed: what this means for indie authors
- Amazon's KDP Select: Another Author Shares Her Experience

"Jake Needham's Experience With Amazon's KDP Select Program," copyright© 2012 by Karen Woodward.

The Vandal's 10 Ways To Promote Your Book

10 Ways To Promote Your Book

Derek Haines' blog is one that I read regularly, it was one of his posts that convinced me to set up my own website, although that is still a work in progress. Here are the first 5 of his 10 ways to promote your books, the remaining 5 can be found on his website.

1. Use a Facebook Page. I made the mistake of using my personal Facebook profile for too long before realising my error. Keep your personal life away from your book marketing and set up a Page. It’s more professional and much easier to manage.
2. Always be positive. It doesn’t matter in what form your communication takes. Whether it be posting on Twitter, Facebook or another social platform, never be negative. Even if you are insulted, do not react. Ignore, and even block that user. Keep what you post friendly, informative, complimentary and of course also add news or interesting tit bits about your books.
3. Use multiple Twitter accounts. This may have been frowned on earlier, but I believe it’s a necessity for effective promotion. It serves to keep your main account, that is the one using your own name, relatively free of direct promotional material. As it is the account you use to interact with friends and probably other writers, filling your own timeline with book promotion is not going to be received well. By setting up another account (or two), you can aim at different target groups to follow and build a new following. Of course you need to add content to these accounts, but there are many ways to almost automate the process. Think about posting interesting bloggers, related news stories or even selective retweeting. Then add your promotional content in between.
4. Use Stumbleupon. This is a great way to get your books and blog posts discovered, and by a large audience. Stumbleupon is second only to Twitter for me in attracting new traffic to my blog.
5. Write and publish under a pen name. This may sound off topic when talking about self promotion, but it’s a great way to experiment and try new writing ideas. Amazon allows publishing under a pen name on your own account, so it opens up a lot of possibilities. I have used it to experiment with writing short novellas in new genres. To do a little promotion and test the market, I use one of my secondary Twitter accounts. If it looks like it could work, you can then unpublish, change the cover and title as well as make any other changes you think would improve the book then republish under your own name. As you hold the rights under both names, there’s no problem in republishing the same book again under your own name.

To read the rest of Derek's article, click here: 10 Ideas To Promote Self Published Books

[Update (Oct 29, 2012): I just re-read the above direct quotation from Derek's blog and was shocked. I'm not sure if Derek Haines has changed his opinion about using multiple Twitter accounts to promote ones books, but doing this is NOT best practices.

Honesty is the best policy. Represent yourself as yourself. If you want multiple Twitter accounts, that's fine, just be sure to clearly identify yourself as the account holder of each one.]

I have a StumbleUpon account, but hadn't thought of using it to promote my own books. Great idea! This is one of the reasons why I love the wonderful community of indie bloggers, they're so marvelously helpful.

[Update (Oct 29, 2012): I never used my StumbleUpon account to promote my books or my blog, at least not in any way objectionable. And, as you can see if you look at the account, I clearly identified myself as Karen Woodward. I'm not passing judgement on anyone who used the sort of tactics Derek describes, I just want to make it clear I never followed suit and that I do not recommend the practice.]

Here's a tip of my own: Pinterest. I've been using it off and on for the past few weeks just because it's fun, but I think it could be a great way to share links with a new audience. In case you're interested, here's my Pinterest page.

Cheers!

Amazon Award-Winner Regina Sirois & The Problems Of Indie Distribution

I love success stories!

When author Regina Sirois decided to self-publish her young adult literary fiction, On Little Wings, she found the process satisfying but for one aspect: the gate to getting her book into bookstores was nearly impossible to open. While she was happy with her ebook and print sales online, it was the bookstore experience that was left out of the process.

“That is the one hurdle I couldn’t break,” said Sirois in an interview yesterday with GoodEReader. “I loved being a self-published author, but getting it in bookstores was the last gate I couldn’t get through.”

That will certainly change now that Sirois’ novel won the young adult category for the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards. The winner in each of the two categories will win a publishing contract with Penguin and a $15,000 advance, and Sirois will most definitely see her book gracing the shelves of her local bookstore.

“I said in my speech at ABNA that I am grateful for this opportunity but it wrecked my marriage,” Sirois laughed. “I wasn’t going to enter. My husband forced me to enter it in ABNA at the last second, right before the contest closed. I told him it sounded like a huge waste of time for me to even enter. He mentioned it to me several times and I told him no. He came back two days before it closed and said, ‘If you don’t enter it, I will enter it for you.’ It was about 11 o’clock at night and I was tired and more than a little irritated with him, but I did it. He’s right about everything now! I will not live this down.”

Read the rest of the article here: ABNA Winner Regina Sirois on Indie vs Traditional Publishing.

Distribution was something John Locke had trouble with as well, here are his comments from a recent interview with IndieReader:

Before entering into my distribution deal with Simon & Schuster, I knew that TV and print media was the exclusive domain of traditionally-published authors. I knew as an indie author it was unlikely I would ever be interviewed on TV, or have my paperback, Wish List, reviewed in print media. So I knew there was an exclusive club. But I thought my distribution deal made me a member, or at the very least, an honorary member. Boy, was I wrong! I hired a publicist and offered myself up…and quickly learned I was not part of the club! Not one media outlet would talk to me or review my book.  Even the little papers in the towns where I grew up and went to high school and college refused to do a story on me!
- John Locke on the Big Problem (Still) Facing Indies

Hopefully, one day, it will be possible for indie authors to strike distribution deals with bookstores. Who knows, perhaps one day Waterstones will carry certain indie books! Here's hoping.

The important thing is to keep writing. Cheers.

The Most Common Mistakes In Writing: A Series

I found this series thanks to Elizabeth S. Craig over at Mystery Writing is Murder and her fantastic Twitter feed. If you ever need inspiration or guidance, or you want to learn how to become a better writer (and we could all be better!), go to @elizabethscraig and read a few of the articles she links to.

One series I'm going to be working my way through is Wordplay's Most Common Mistakes Series.  There are 15 posts in all and growing. I've provided an index to them, below.

Most Common Mistakes Series:

1) Are Your Verbs Showing or Telling?

2) Are You Using “There” as a Crutch?

3) Are You Confusing Readers With Poor Cause and Effect?

4) Why Vague Writing Is Weak Writing

5) How Not to Use Speaker Tags and Action Beats

6) Is Your First-Person Narrator Overpowering Your Story?

7) Is Your Opening Line Lying to Your Readers?

8) 10 Stylistic Mistakes Sabotaging Your Story

9) Is Nothin’ Happening in Your Scene?

10) The Dangers of Character Overload

11) Do Readers See Your Characters the Way You Want Them To?

12) Are Your Flashbacks Flashy or Flabby?

13) Don’t Drown Your Reader in Explanations

14) The Case of the Vanishing Setting

15) How to Spot and Fix Non-Reactive and Over-Reactive Characters

Enjoy!

Mark Coker, Founder Of Smashwords, Talks About Indie Publishing

Mark Coker

Mark Coker gives great advice about indie publishing that the average person can understand. I highly recommend his Smashwords Style Guide and Smashwords Book Marketing Guide.

Below is a recent interview he did with Morgan Doremus over at RT Book Reviews.


Cheers, thanks for stopping by.

Thanks to the Passive Voice Blog for positing about Mark Coker's interview.

10 Reasons Why Stories Get Rejected

It's always nice to learn why a story was rejected and, although it hurts, the greater the detail the better. David Farland's latest article gives 10 reasons why he rejects stories. I'm just going to summarize them (well, that was my plan), so I recommend you read his article for the details.

1) The story is unintelligible.

2) The story is unbelievable.

3) Too many adverbs and adjectives.
I hadn't meant to comment on these, but I can't resist. The first time I heard someone say that, as a general rule, a writer should avoid using adverbs, especially those that ended in -ly, I thought they were daft. (And yes, I'm painfully aware of the -ly adverb I just used, but I think it adds something to the sentence that goes toward my point so I'm keeping it. Isn't irony grand?) It took reading Stephen King's book, On Writing, for me to see the wisdom in this.

If it helps, think of it this way: Instead of using -ly adverbs, use strong verbs. Rather than making a word more interesting, or more meaningful, by modifying it with another word, try making the word itself everything you need.

For instance, rather than writing,

a) "I won the lottery," she said happily.

write

b) Waving her lottery ticket above her head, she jumped up in the air and screamed, "I won the lottery!"

I think that the advice to steer clear of -ly adverbs goes hand-in-hand with the advice to show rather than tell. I don't think the above example is very good, but hopefully it is enough to give you the sense of what I mean. For the purposes of the example, I should have used one strong verb rather than the adverb ("happily"), but perhaps you can suggest something better in the comments.

Also, there is a change in tone between (a) and (b). I think that (b) hints at the speaker being an extravert and fond of screaming, especially at concerts.

In any case, moving along.

4)   Nothing happens.
Make something happen and make it happen earlier rather than later. Try to grab the reader with your first sentence and don't let them go until the last one. I'm sure there are many names for this quality of can't-put-it-down-edness but I think of it as narrative drive.

5) Don't confuse your readers.
You may know the story takes place on the 5th moon of Dovan, but your readers won't unless you tell them. After a while folks are going to stop guessing, get irritated, and find something else to do.

6) Remove the boring bits.
I can't remember who said this first, but it's true. If it doesn't absolutely have to be in your story toss it. Ask yourself: does this further the story? If yes, fine. If no, lose it.

As David Farland says, this also applies to writing sentences like, "They shook on it," rather than, "They shook hands on it." If it's clear from the context that what they're shaking are hands (rather than, say, flippers), then you don't have to include that information. If, on the other hand, the "they" in question are squid-like personages living on the dark side of our moon then you might want to specify which appendages they used.

7) Have a story and tell it.
If a piece of writing is, say, 2,500 words long and has a title that doesn't mean it's a story.

Although there are no rules for what makes a story a story--including the rule that says there are no rules--people who judge story contests generally appreciate it if there is a beginning and an end. You get bonus points if there are characters things happen to and if these events put your hero in danger of not reaching their goal. I've written a bit about story telling here.

8) Don't cheat
I'm not talking about plagiarism (but don't plagiarise), I'm talking about including something like violence or sex when it has nothing whatsoever to do with the story. To be clear, I'm not saying anything for or against using sex or violence in your stories, but everything in your story, everything, has to be there for a reason and if that reason is simply to shock or titillate then your story will be weaker for it.

8b) Understand your market
Let's say you're writing a paranormal romance. Including a scene in which a character has something done to them worthy of the movie Saw means you run the risk of alienating the editor who will make the decision whether to buy your work.

9) Non-formed stories.
See point 7, above: Have a story and tell it.

10) Don't irritate your readers
This is in the same vein as 5, above: Don't confuse your readers. For instance, although I don't believe there are hard-and-fast rules about how many points of view your story should be told from, if you have 5 in 2,500 words you'll confuse your readers.

Dave Farland gives the following example: "John raced out the door, after brushing his teeth." After I read this sentence I parsed it as, "After brushing his teeth, john raced out the door." If a story was filled with sentences like that I would become irritated.

To read the rest of David Farland's awesome article (alliteration can, occasionally, be tolerated ;) click here: Ten Reasons Why I'll Quickly Reject Your Story.

This ends the list of 10 things which will will send your story to the proverbial dust bin of obscurity, but of course (and unfortunately), there are far more than ten. But take heart, Mr. Farland has just published the next article in this series: Why Editors Reject Your Story. In that post he discusses what separates stories which receive honorable mention from stories that win.

Cheers!

Related reading:
- The Starburst Method: How to write a story, from one-liner to first draft
- Jim Butcher: How To Write A Story
- How to build a Villain, by Jim Butcher

Photo credit: A Writer's Journey


"10 Reasons Why Stories Get Rejected," copyright© 2012 by Karen Woodward.

Excerpt From The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

Raymond Chandler

I've been re-reading The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. I had forgotten how much I love his writing. For instance:

The path took us along to the side of the greenhouse and the butler opened a door for me and stood aside. It opened into a sort of vestibule that was about as warm as a slow oven. He came in after me, shut the outer door, opened an inner door and we went through that. Then it was really hot. The air was thick, wet, steamy and larded with the cloying smell of tropical orchids in bloom. The glass walls and roof were heavily misted and big drops of moisture splashed down on the plants. The light had an unreal greenish color, like light filtered through an aquarium tank. The plants filled the place, a forest of them, with nasty meaty leaves and stalks like the newly washed fingers of dead men. They smelled as overpowering as boiling alcohol under a blanket.

"The air was thick, wet, steamy and larded with the cloying smell of tropical orchids in bloom." Larded, that word is evocative. I'm there in the greenhouse, the obscene sweetness of the flowers coating my tongue, my throat, making me want to gag. The scene is cast with a pall of sickness, of decay. I suppose it's a symbol for the decay that has infested the Sternwoods and come to fruition in Carmen.

In any case, I get inspired by great writing and wanted to share. :)

Keep writing!

Jim Butcher: How To Write A Story

Jim Butcher is a writer I have a lot of respect for. Not only because I love his stories, but because time again he demonstrates a level of skill in his writing I can only aspire to. Thankfully, Mr. Butcher has been generous, penning many articles about the writing process and giving folks just starting out--or perhaps even well on their way!--many useful tips.

I'd like to talk a bit of about one of Mr. Butcher's articles, "Putting It All Together: How to get your story started," or "Organizing this frikin' mess."

Honestly, when I read this article I felt he was writing to me, this was just what I needed. So I thought I'd pass it along.

So, what are we waiting for? Let's write a story! Here's what we'll need:

1) A story question

2) A protagonist and antagonist

3) A turning point in the middle

4) A story climax

Sure, we need a lot of other things too, but this should help us get started.

1) The story question/The Story skeleton
 Jim Butcher writes:

The story skeleton (also called a story question) consists of a simple format:

*WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENS*, *YOUR PROTAGONIST* *PURSUES A GOAL*. But will he succeed when *ANTAGONIST PROVIDES OPPOSITION*?

For instance, look at Storm Front. (Yes, I'll use my own books as examples, because I'm just that way. ;) Also, I'm more familiar with them than I am with almost any other writer.) Storm Front's story question:

****************************
When a series of grisly supernatural murders tears through Chicago, wizard Harry Dresden sets out to find the killer. But will he succeed when he finds himself pitted against a dark wizard, a Warden of the White Council, a vicious gang war, and the Chicago Police Department?
****************************

Why does it seem so easy when he does it?

2) Protagonist and Antagonist
Jim Butcher writes:

Simply put, a story is a narrative description of a character (the protagonist/hero) struggling to attain an important goal. In general, the protagonist is opposed by another character (the antagonist/villain).

The protagonist sets out to achieve his goal and faces problems and opposition to his intentions along the way. His risk of loss increases as the narrative proceeds, and casts an element of doubt over whether or not the protagonist will attain his goal. Then, in a final confrontation of some sort (the climax), the protagonist either succeeds or fails, based upon his own choices and actions.

Jim Butcher gave an interview not long ago in which he spoke about how to build a villain, so I'm going to let you follow that link and not talk a whole lot about the antagonist. Kristen Lamb also has an excellent post about this: Spice Up Your Fiction–Simple Ways to Create Page-Turning Conflict.

3) The Great Swampy Middle: Turning point
Jim Butcher writes:

Here's the nutshell concept: Plan a great big freaking event for the end of the middle. You want it to be a big dramatic confrontation of whatever kind is appropriate to your genre. The fallout from your big bad Big Middle event should be what boots the book down the homestretch to reach the story's climax. Really lay out the fireworks. Hit the reader with everything you can. PLAN THE BIG MIDDLE EVENT. Then, as you work through the middle, WORK TO BUILD UP TO IT. Drop in the little hints, establish the proper props and motivations and such. Make sure that everything you do in the middle of the book is helping you build up to the BIG MIDDLE.

(I've used the Big Middle concept in EVERY book I've ever published. It works. It ain't broke. It ain't the only way to do the middle, either, but it's one way.)

I love Jim Butcher's name for the often amorphous middle part: The great swampy middle.

4) Story Climax
Jim Butcher writes:

A story climax is, in structure terms the ANSWER to the STORY QUESTION that we talked about earlier.

There, see how tidy that is? Simple! Again, not EASY, but simple!

For example, the overall Story Question of Lord of the Rings:

*************
When Frodo Baggins inherits the Ring of Power from his Uncle Bilbo, HE SETS OUT TO DESTROY IT before its evil can wreak havoc upon Middle Earth. BUT WILL HE SUCCEED when the Dark Lord Sauron and every scary evil thing on the planet set forth to take the ring and use it to turn the entire world into the bad parts of New Jersey?
*************

And the story climax of the Lord of the Rings:

******
Yep.
******

See? ANYBODY could have written Lord of the Rings!

.  .  .  .

Remember earlier, how we talked about ways to hook your readers and get them emotionally involved in the story? Well, if we've done that right, then when you reach story's end, they are INVESTED in its outcome. They want to SEE what happens, preferably as vividly as they possibly can. By the time you've reached the end of a story, a good writer has got their readers on the edge of their seats, at 3:30 in the morning, and the pages are tearing every time they turn because the reader is so excited.

You've made an implicit promise by getting your reader so bound up in the story. You've /got/ to deliver on it, or that reader is going to freaking /hate/ you for doing that to them. They are gonna go away from that ride all hot and bothered and frustrated as hell. That's what catharsis is: the release of all that tension and sympathetic emotion that the reader has built up because of the writer's skill at weaving the story. Done right, your readers will cheer and cry and laugh out loud and dance around their living room.

EVERYTHING YOU DID IN YOUR BOOK LEADS UP TO THIS. Deliver on the climax or die as a working writer. Simple as that.

Okay? Got it? Ready to write that story? Well then, what are you waiting for!

Oh, and if you want to read some of the best writing on writing--that just so happens to be free--head on over to Jim Butcher's livejournal. All the excerpts on this page are from http://jimbutcher.livejournal.com/.

Tips For Writers From Richard Nash, Previously Of Soft Skull Press

Mexican Sugar Skull

Richard Eoin Nash writes about his time at Soft Skull Press:

The real work is in the day-to-day writing and connecting with people. So you're continuously putting out the poem, the short story, you're doing a reading in a series, you go to your writing group, you show up at a writers conference, you study with someone you admire, you go to workshop, you're blogging, you're critiquing, you're putting your ideas out there, that's the true work of writing. There's something profoundly wrong about the model of sitting in a room for three years writing a novel all by yourself. Successes that happened with that model happened in despite of the process, not because of it. That whole writer in the garret cliché came out the Industrial Revolution, and it created an absolutely alienated producer, the writer. I'm not saying all you should do is sit around and shmooze and not write your book. Not at all. I'm saying engage with others who are doing similar things, and if you do it right these people will advocate and be your ally in making better art that means something to you and your friends. And in fact, agents and publishers are more likely to find you if you are actively participating in your culture. If you do it for your own sake, it will make you a happier and more fulfilled writer.

 Amen!

Mr Nash talks about what he was looking for in both writing and writers when he was at the helm of Soft Skull Pres, so if you're thinking of submitting your work to a traditional publisher--and even if you're not!--it's worth a gander.

Read the interview here: How to Get Love From Independent Publishers and the Future of Books: Richard Nash & the Book Doctors

Here is Mr. Nash's impressive biography:

Richard Nash is an independent publishing entrepreneur -- VP of Community and Content of Small Demons, founder of Cursor, and Publisher of Red Lemonade. He ran the iconic indie Soft Skull Press and was awarded the AAP Miriam Bass Award for Creativity in Independent Publishing. Books he edited and published landed on bestseller lists from the Boston Globe to the Singapore Straits-Times; the last book he edited there, Lydia Millet's Love in Infant Monkeys, was a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist. The Utne Reader named him one of Fifty Visionaries Changing Your World and Mashable.com picked him as the #1 Twitter User Changing the Shape of Publishing. Twitter: @R_Nash Website: http://www.rnash.com/

Cheers.

Photo credit: Tatooology

The End Comes For The Rock Bottom Remainders

Rock Bottom Remainders

After raising 2 million dollars for charity, the Rock Bottom Remainders are going their separate ways.

I'm saddened by this news, especially since it follows the death of the group's founder, publicist and lead singer Kathi Goldmark. But there is good news, the Rock Bottom Remainders are playing at least once more.

The group's "Past Our Bedtime Tour" (because real musicians don't get up early like writers do) will include a public performance June 22 at LA's El Rey Theatre, followed by a private show the next day for the American Library Association's Anaheim convention.

To read about the Rock Bottom Remainders and their final tour, click here: Rock Bottom Remainders saying goodbye to lit-rock.

It's sad when something ends and I always thought it was cool that Stephen King was in a rock band. And, yes, I know Mr. King cherishes a special hatred for the word "cool," but it fits so I'm using it.

Keep writing!

Photo credit: RockBottomRemainders.com