How to Promote Free Books to Sell More

Being published by a micropress has its drawbacks, mainly a dearth of distribution and promotion. I like to have my books available in paper for the few who decide to take one, but mainly I sell them at outdoor festivals and book events. Most of my mysteries and thrillers (now ten) are sold as ebooks. And since I decided to cast my lot with Amazon KDP, they're only available in the Kindle Store.

I have used their free days almost monthly over the past year to promote sales. KDP allows you to give a book away for five out of every ninety days. Despite how it sounds, the act of giving away books has a definite effect on book sales. The practice has brought less results as time progressed for several reasons. One has to do with the fact that more and more authors are using the free days route. There are several dozen Internet sites that promote free ebooks, but they get so many requests now that they limit what they do or charge for the service.

I have used several sites in recent months, paying from $5 to $25 for guaranteed listings. When I first began the practice, my books sold well after the three free days (that seems the most effective period) for two weeks or more. Not just the book that had been free, but the rest of my backlist. However, for the past few months, the lingering effect has been much shorter.

Recently I've read posts by my colleagues on some promo sites about their use of  BookBub.com. It sends out an email to its list of thousands of readers daily, promoting from two to four ebooks that are either free or on sale at a discount such as 99 cents. This one is not for the faint of heart. For mysteries that are free, the price is $240. For mysteries priced at $1 to $2, it's $720. They claim 700,000 subscribers to the mystery email list and show average downloads of 18,000.

I started three days for a free Kindle copy of my second Greg McKenzie mystery, Designed to Kill, on Saturday. It goes back to $2.99 tonight (Monday) at midnight PDT. As of 10 p.m., the time I'm writing this, the book has been downloaded 49,009 times. During this time, the first book in the series has sold 47 copies, book three 31 copies, book four 12 and book five 6.

If things go as expected (at least hoped), Designed to Kill should sell hundreds of copies in the coming days, while the other books in the series continue to do well. The theory is that if readers like the free book, they'll come back to buy the others. I've already gotten three new four-star and one five-star reviews since the giveaway began. People who take part in these promotions are good about writing reviews on Amazon.

I'll post in a couple of weeks how the after-effect turns out. Has anybody else tried this approach? How were your results?

Cornish Mysteries now in UK

by Carola

[I used Grammarly to grammar check this post, because after 45 years in the US, my UK schooling is beginning to wear off.] 

All three of my Cornish Mysteries come out in the UK this week. Read excerpts at http://historicalfictionexcerpts.blogspot.com/2013/06/cornish-mysteries.html

Buy now at
Waterstones
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Nook

They're set in Cornwall, in a fictional fishing village called Port Mabyn, which is a cross between Port Isaac (think Doc Martin) and Boscastle, and set on the North Coast between those two towns.
Eleanor Trewynn, after working all her life for an international charity all over the world, retires as a widow to a Cornish village. She buys a cottage and sets up a charity shop on the ground floor.

US hardcover

Large print

UK cover

The first book is MANNA FROM HADES: 






 Looking forward to a peaceful retirement, Eleanor's horrified to find in the stockroom behind the shop, the body of a scruffy, unknown youth.


Waterstones
Amazon.co.uk

REVIEWS:
“Adept at showing character through witty dialogue, Dunn paints an amusing picture of a small town that readers will want to visit again soon.” -- Publishers Weekly on Manna From Hades

 “Dunn has a knack for writing meatier-than-usual cozies with strong female characters, and she has another charming winner here.”
-- Booklist on Manna From Hades

“Eleanor is a wonderful, multi-faceted heroine and Manna from Hades is a first-rate story…Carola Dunn demonstrates the same smooth writing and seasoned storytelling that readers have come to expect from her.”
--- Mystery News

“Welcome to Cornwall, beautiful land of Cornish pasties, cream teas and murder. [Manna from Hades] is a modern day version of the classic English village mystery.”
--- Kirkus Reviews

 Port Isaac pics

UK edition

Padstow

The second is:
  A COLOURFUL DEATH

US edition

Once again murder disrupts the quiet life of widowed charity shop owner Eleanor Trewynn, who's settled in the village of Port Mabyn with her Westie, Teazle. On returning from a train trip to London, Eleanor's artist friend and neighbor, Nick Gresham, discovers that someone has slashed several of his paintings in his Port Mabyn shop. Rather than go to the police, a furious Nick sets out to confront rival artist Geoffrey Monmouth, who Nick is sure is the culprit. Accompanied by an anxious Eleanor, Nick finds Geoff stabbed to death in his Padstow bungalow. When the authorities detain Nick, Eleanor determines to track down the real killer, who just might be one of the young artists living communally on a local farm. Bolstered by strong characters, the fast-moving plot builds to a satisfying conclusion. --Publishers Weekly

Waterstones 
Amazon.co. uk 

Large print

VERDICT Dunn's second cozy set in 1960s Cornwall (after "Manna from Hades") is a delightful romp, full of busybodies, unscrupulous artists, and a charming Westie with character. ---Library Journal

On-line review:
http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/none/quot-a-colourful-death-quot-by-carola-dunn-book-review-1697662/

 The third book is THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW

US hardcover

“The sights and sounds of the coast of Cornwall come alive in The Valley of the Shadow. The rescue of a drowning Indian man leads to a race against time to rescue his family, trapped in the smugglers’ caves on the rocky shore. Feisty retiree Eleanor Trewynn enlists her fellow villagers in tracking down those responsible for abandoning the refugees — but will the smugglers find her first? Dunn gives us a thoroughly enjoyable, cozy suspense novel — one with a social conscience.”
 —Carol Schneck Varner, Schuler Books & Music, Okemos, MI

...Dunn lives up to her reputation for cozies that take on serious stuff, allowing her ragtag bunch of investigators to unearth a story with roots deep in international politics...
--Publishers Weekly 


Waterstones
Amazon.co.uk

Large Print

UK cover

Rocky Valley--Gave me the idea for Valley of the Shadow

99c for Kindle experiment

by Carola Dunn


My Regency e-publisher is experimenting with pricing on Amazon. She asked me if I'd like to find out what happened if one of my (36) Regencies was priced at 99c (UK 77p) instead of the usual $3.99. I said okay, and she chose A Lord for Miss Larkin, originally published in paperback in 1991.

 
No murder here, but there is an abduction so at a pinch you could call it crime fiction. What it does have is dogs, as you might guess from the paperback cover. The heroine has a Newfoundland, and three of her four eccentric aunts have West Highland Terriers. (The protagonist of my Cornish mysteries also has a Westie.) 


 

 http://www.amazon.com/Lord-Larkin-Valiant-Hearts-ebook/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Larkin-Valiant-Hearts-Trilogy-ebook/

This book is the first of a trilogy, so if sales go up, the second and third books may follow at the regular price--one can always hope!

The second book, The Road to Gretna, features an elopement--or rather two elopements that get entangled with each other--and an extremely troublesome kitten. 

The third, Thea's Marquis, doesn't feature any animals, but it does have a villain or two and it ends with a thrilling rescue...

 It will be interesting to see what the pricing does for the sales and whether any increase carries over to the sequels and even to the rest of the 36. We won't know for a month or two, when the numbers come in. Fingers crossed!


  

Welcome to E-Book Week

By Chester Campbell

March 3-9 is E-Book Week. The e-book revolution has changed the face of the publishing world. The major publishers were dragged into it kicking and screaming, but they're now pushing ahead. There's still a lot of disagreement about prices and royalties, with some publishers charging as much for e-books as they do for print books, though they don't have the same production expense involved.

Authors who are able to negotiate contracts that leave them with their electronic rights typically cut the price for their e-books. After writers like Joe Konrath struck out big-time in the e-book business with prices like 99 cents or $2.99, showing huge sales numbers, this became something of the standard for pricing. When Amazon started paying 70 percent royalties on books at $2.99 or above, that became the benchmark.

The ebookweek.com website is full of information on the electronic publishing business. There's an excellent history of e-books at the website here.

I suspect most of the books written by the authors who appear in this blog are available as e-books as well as books in print. Some, like my The Poksu Conspiracy, can only be purchased in the .mobi format for the Kindle. But it isn't necessary to own a Kindle to read it. Amazon has programs to download allowing you to read their e-books on your PC, laptop, cell phone, and wherever. And if you own a Nook or other e-reader that uses files such as EPUB, you can get a free program at calibre-ebook.com that will let you convert files from one e-book format to another.

For the author who owns their rights, e-book royalties at 70 percent can be as much or more than paper royalties even with a low price. Personally I'm doing better than ever since most of my sales are e-books. If you haven't read an e-book lately, celebrate E-Book Week by ordering one now.

Visit me at Mystery Mania

Keep Titles Short. Really?

By Chester Campbell

When it comes to rules, I'm like my PI protagonists. I don't particularly care for them. Greg McKenzie, the main man in my first mystery series, got his Air Force career stalled out at lieutenant colonel after some of his superiors didn't like the way he played the game. He declined to be a clone of the good old boy, let's get along model investigator.

My second series features Sidney Lanier Chance, better known as Sid, who refused a desk job after a marijuana grower's gunshots interrupted his career as a National Park ranger. He took a job as a small town police chief but refused to kowtow to the local sheriff. This resulted in his being setup for a charge of bribing a drug dealer. Following a period of isolation at his hillside cabin, Sid hung out his shingle as a private investigator in Nashville's Madison suburb.

The second Sid Chance book is titled The Good, The Bad and The Murderous. Okay, it's somewhat longer than the conventional wisdom would dictate. But I've never been one to slavishly follow the conventional wisdom. I chose this title because...well, because it fit.

The "good" is a young black man named Djuan just out of prison at age twenty-five, where he had been since shooting a man during a drug deal when he was twelve. He moved in with his grandmother who vowed to help him follow his determination to make something of himself.

The "bad" is a  pair of tainted cops who accuse Djuan of committing a new murder on flimsy evidence. Sid reluctantly takes an assignment from Djuan's grandmother to try and prove he isn't guilty.

The "murderous" is a deadly hit man we don't see until the latter part of the book. But when we do, he has Sid in his sights.

I initially came  up with the title "Good, Bad and Murderous," but my colleague Beth Terrell, now  known as Jaden, said since it was obviously a parody on "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," I might as well add the rest. Which I did. And I think it's quite effective.

Today, tomorrow and Friday (Jan. 29-31) The Good, The Bad and The Murderous will be free to download as an ebook in the Kindle Store.

The Valley of the Shadow Dec. 11th

Carola Dunn

The Valley of the Shadow, my third Cornish Mystery, comes out on December 11th from Minotaur, in hardcover, e-book (Kindle, Nook, and others), and Mystery Guild--large print and UK editions to come. 

 Reviews:

 Dunn lives up to her reputation for cozies that take on serious stuff, allowing her ragtag bunch of investigators to unearth a story with roots deep in international politics...
 Publishers Weekly
 

http://news.bookweb.org/news/december-2012-indie-next-list-preview

 “The sights and sounds of the coast of Cornwall come alive in The Valley of the Shadow.
 The rescue of a drowning Indian man leads to a race against time to 
rescue his family, trapped in the smugglers’ caves on the rocky shore. 
Feisty retiree Eleanor Trewynn enlists her fellow villagers in tracking 
down those responsible for abandoning the refugees — but will the 
smugglers find her first? Dunn gives us a thoroughly enjoyable, cozy 
suspense novel — one with a social conscience.” —Carol Schneck Varner, 
Schuler Books & Music, Okemos, MI

     ...the author introduces several village characters and draws the reader 
into the small, cozy world of Cornwall. The action moves in a leisurely manner but it 
kept me turning the pages. As the police-procedural aspect of the story kicks in, Eleanor 
and Megan make a good mother-daughter team.
      The denouement is both wild and funny, and the author ties up all the threads in a 
surprising but satisfactory ending.
      I loved this Author’s Note: “Port Mabyn is a fictional village in a fictional world 
lurking somewhere in the 1960s and ‘70s, between my childhood memories of Cornwall and 
the present reality. <snip> For information about the real Cornwall, I refer the 
reader to countless works of nonfiction, or, better still, I suggest a visit.”
Pat Browning

 You can see pictures of the setting here:
http://murderousmusings.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-valley-of-shadow.html

and read an excerpt here:
http://historicalfictionexcerpts.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-valley-of-shadow.html

Title? Cover Art? What makes you buy?

Carola Dunn

I expect some of you know that before I started writing mysteries, I wrote Regencies--32 full length novels and a bunch of novellas. (Many have mystery and suspense elements, smugglers, spies, attempted murders, impersonations, etc.) They have all been available as e-books for several years, but it's only since they became available on Amazon that I've been getting a monthly list of all titles and how many of each sold.

It's been interesting. For some reason the same titles tend to have the highest sales numbers month after month. Lavender Lady is almost always at the top.

Ginnie Come Lately also does well, as does A Poor Relation.

At the bottom are the collections of novellas. I can understand that. Some people just don't particularly like novellas. Somewhat above them are my ghost and time travel Regencies, The Actress and the Rake and Byron's Child. OK, so some people don't like ghosts or time travel.

But why are Angel and The Fortune Hunters so often near the bottom? 

 



















Is it the picture? Is it the title? It doesn't seem to be the number of stars or reviews on Amazon that makes the difference. It's all a mystery to me.





Especially as Smugglers' Summer has such wonderful cover art, the title seems to me as intriguing as any of the rest, and it has 5 stars, yet it's near the bottom in sales!














What do you think? Is there anything I can do to level the playing field?

Available in multiple formats at RegencyReads.com or for Kindle at Amazon.com/carola+dunn+regency

PS. Just after I finished this and turned off my computer, I went out to get the mail. Nice surprise arrived: The trade paperback large print edition of My Lord Winter, first published in 1992. I take it this means the hard cover large print sold well enough to justify bringing it out in paper. The work that keeps on paying!

Book Giveaway Works

I've changed my mind about ebook giveaways. I had read about the experiences of writers like Rob Walker, who has his books in the Amazon KDP Select program where you have five days every ninety days that you can make your book free for the Kindle. Rob is always writing about how he gives away thousands and the result is an increase in sales. I tried it back in the spring when the ebook version of Beware the Jabberwock came out.

I knew it would take a lot of promotion, so I did posts on all the lists I belong to, mentioned it on Facebook, and in my blog. I had read about all the thousands of downloads people would have, but my three-day promotion produced only about 3,000, and I found no subsequent boost in the sales of Jabberwock or my other ebooks. As a result, I took it out of the KDP Select program and decided free books wasn't the way to go.

Then Rebecca Dahlke resurrected her All Mystery E-Newsletter and started a discussion group along with it. She put out eight pages of instructions on how to promote your ebook in the Amazon program, complete with dozens of websites that list free ebooks where readers can find them. After reading it, I thought it was worth another try.

This time I chose to give away my first published book, the one that started my Greg McKenzie mystery series, Secret of the Scroll. I took it off of Smashwords.com, since you have to give Amazon an exclusive to be in the Select program. I had only sold a handful on Smashwords anyway. Then I started going through all the recommended websites, setting up my book to be listed on the free days.

I originally set the promo for August 29-31, and that's how I scheduled it on the sites. But when I went to the book's Kindle page the morning of August 29, it wasn't showing as free. I checked the Promotions Manager and my days had disappeared. I quickly entered August 30-September 1 and tried to notify as many of the free book sites as possible. I also plugged it on Facebook and Twitter, which Rebecca's instructions said was a good place to promote.

By the second day of my promotion Secret of the Scroll was #1 in the Thriller Suspense category for free books and #16 in the Top 100. It stayed at #1 the last day as well. When it was over, 10,253 people had downloaded a free book.

The theory is that giving away books gets your name out there and will result in more sales. In the two days since the promotion ended, I have sold 42 copies of the Secret ebook and 14 copies of my other ebooks. I've also had 19 people "borrow" Secret of the Scroll. Amazon puts up a kitty of about $600,000 each month that is paid to authors of borrowed books, depending on the number borrowed. This is far and away more sales than I've ever registered in such short a period.

So, yes, I'm now a believer in the giveaway feature of KDP Select.

Chester Campbell
Visit me at Mystery Mania

E-book Daisy

by Carola Dunn

I am exceedingly happy to announce that at long last all my Daisy Dalrymple mysteries are available for Kindle and Nook (using the original hardcover art--not necessarily a good idea!).

 The first four recently joined the fifth through twentieth.

 

They were delayed partly because I changed agents halfway through the series and my former agent no longer agents; partly because back when I wrote them St Martin's wasn't interested in what were called "computer" rights.

Their legal department first had to figure out what to do about it. Then the two agents had to come to an agreement--not difficult--as to who was "agent of record." Countless papers (in sextuplet) had to be sent back and forth and signed by all concerned. That really slowed everything down. Then the publisher had to decide what they were willing to pay for the e-rights. 

 

 

It's all sorted at last. You can find these four and all the other titles at:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/daisy-dalrymple-series?keyword=daisy+dalrymple+series&store=ebook

And:

http://www.amazon.com/daisy+dalrymple+mysteries

(Click on my name at the top to go to my website and see a list in the proper order.)

E-Reading Ups and Downs

By Jaden Terrell

I came late to the electronic revolution. Long after my husband had said he might never read another print book (because of the ability to change the font size on the e-reader), I was still insisting that I didn't want to read on a screen. I liked print just fine.

He bought me a Kindle two Christmases ago. (Which means, to be fair, I'm going to have to also invest in a Nook.) Surprisingly, I like it. It's great for traveling, because I don't have to lug a dozen books with me, and it's cheaper and easier to download books than to go to the bookstore--too easy, if you ask my wallet, but that's another issue. Overall, it's a convenient little gadget, and I'm glad I have it.

On the other hand, I've noticed some downsides, and I'd be interested to know if anyone else has had the same experiences.

1. When I read a novel, I often like to flip back and refresh my memory about characters and events. Did I miss a clue? Wait a minute . . . wasn't there a guy with cigar on the park bench when the heroine jogged past? And now he's two tables away at Starbucks? With a print copy, I have a pretty good idea where in the book that information was, and it's quick and easy to flip back to it. Finding the reference on my e-reader is cumbersome and annoying--so much so that I usually don't bother. Sooner or later, Cigar Guy's role in the plot will (or won't, if I was mistaken about the park bench) be revealed. I know you can bookmark things, but how would I have known to bookmark Cigar Guy when I had no idea he was going to be sitting there in Starbucks ten chapters down the road?

2. When I read nonfiction, especially books on writing craft, I often like to refer back to previous chapters. Same problem as above, except I can't just blow it off as a plot device I'll find out sooner or later. The information I need isn't going to show up again. Instead, I have to take notes as I go, and if there's something I think I might need later, I have to write it down--even if I only think I might need it. That means I have to read with a notebook and pen in hand, taking notes I shouldn't need to take, since I own the book. Yes, you can highlight. But again, it's cumbersome, and I've never figured out how to get back to what I've highlighted. And I don't always know what I want until later.

3. I can't tell how long the book is. A "real" book, I can see how many pages it is and how big the print is. I know about how long it will take to read and how close I am to the end. An e-book, not so much. So I'm 5% done. Five percent of how much? The only way I can tell is to estimate how long it's taken me to read a percent of the book ("Good lord! I'm still at 4%?!" or "Good lord! I'm already at 20%?!), and then I know if I have War and Peace or Ten Apples Up on Top.

4. For some reason, it's much easier for me to put down a book I'm reading on my e-reader. When that happens, I may or may not come back to it. Or, maybe it's more accurate to say I may take a very long time to get back to it. I bought a book for my Kindle, a book by an author I love. Read a little. Meh.I'm not saying it wasn't good. It just didn't particularly engage me. A few weeks later, I picked up the hard copy at my local B&N. Just browsing through it, I was immediately engaged, bought it, and finished it in two days. I went back to read it on my e-reader, just to see if I loved it as much. Same words. Same story. Meh. I had no trouble putting it down. (It wasn't because I'd already read it; I'm a voracious rereader of books I love.) There's been some research that says we read and process e-books differently from print books, and all I can figure is that's what's happening to me. You can find an interesting post about one person's anecdotal experience with this here. The comments are especially enlightening.

The upshot of it is that, while I find the e-reader convenient, I don't find it especially engaging. The joy I take in reading a good book is diminished when I read it on an e-reader as opposed to an actual book with pages. I would have expected it to be exactly the same, but for some reason, it feels like a completely different reading experience. (Audio books also feel different, but those I get more immersed in those if the reader is good.)

What about you? Do you experience the digital and print versions of a story differently, or is it exactly the same for you? Do you enjoy your favorite books as much, regardless of the delivery system, or does the delivery system make a difference?

Video interview

by Carola 

Gone West comes out on Tuesday, hardcover, Kindle, and Nook:

I'm now 5 months behind with my Work in Progress, so I hope you'll forgive me if the rest of this Wednesday's post is just a link to a video interview about my  career as a writer:

http://www.authorsroad.com/CarolaDunn.html

This was created by a couple who, on retiring, sold their house and bought a motor home with the intention of travelling about and interviewing authors. As they started from Portland, I was one of the earliest.

It's about half an hour long, so if you're interested allow time.

Do Blurbs and Reviews Sell Books?

by Jean Henry Mead

Every writer covets a great review from Publisher’s Weekly but how many readers base their purchases on reviews? Nothing I've written so far has grabbed PW’s attention although my new release, Murder on the Interstate, has earned some good comments, starting with a blurb from bestselling mystery novelist, Carolyn Hart:

“Careen into crime with two intrepid sleuths who outwit terrorists in a fast-paced plot taken from today's headlines. A page turner."

Unfortunately, it didn’t jump start book sales, nor did Lefty Award Winner J. Michael Orenduff's colorful review, which I love:

“Murder on the Interstate burns rubber right out of the gate and exceeds the speed limit on every page. With all the car chases, gun shots, screeching breaks, and crashes, the movie version could be the sequel to one of those car-heist action-films. Except for the fact that the protagonists are two women approaching Medicare, and their vehicle is a motorhome. Dana and Sarah are stalwart, clever and funny characters, and author Jean Henry Mead caroms them from one tight situation to another as they weave along the Interstate and into a high stakes mystery.”

I thought, WOW, that ought to stir up interest, but it must have only reminded readers of the tire tracks on the cover. Marilyn Meredith’s great blurb came next:

“Full of surprising twists and turns, Jean Henry Mead has produced an RV adventure with her two senior sleuths in hot pursuit of a murderer, but the tables turn and the two women learn that not only are they in danger but so is our national security. An exciting mystery that will keep you turning pages."

Book sales numbers barely budged. I thought maybe the counter was broken or everyone hated the cover. I received several additional reviews, including one of my favorites from Earl Staggs, who said:

"I don’t expect an amateur sleuth novel to start fast. I expect to spend time getting to know the protagonist, then get a feel for the setting, and maybe get to know another character or two before the story begins to move forward. That doesn’t happen in MURDER ON THE INTERSTATE. Jean Henry Mead kicks it off in high gear and doesn’t slow down. This is the kind of novel I enjoy. . .”

By then I was in the midst of a virtual book tour and Molly’s online review had this to say:

“This was good. REALLY good. REALLY REALLY good. So good, in fact, that I have GOT to go back and get the first two in this series! It was a LOT better than I was expecting. It really gripped me and kept me hanging on, until I was, sadly, on the last page. I couldn't believe the ups and downs and twists and turns it took me on. FANTASTIC!”

Readers didn’t take Molly seriously, so I decided the book’s salvation rested with Kindle and Nook. Murder on the Interstate made its official debut on Kindle today, here, and the UK, and will hopefully be a Nook book soon.

Are readers forsaking print editions for ebooks? How about you? Do you still prefer print or have you joined the ebook revolution?

And do reviews influence your book buying habits? Writers (and publishers) want to know. :)

The Power of Hope

by Jaden Terrell

The television show Criminal Minds frequently features voice-overs of the lead characters sharing famous quotations that reflect or illuminate the themes of each episode. Tonight, as I was half-watching a DVR'd rerun of the show, I heard a quote from Friederich Nietzsche, who said, "Hope is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torment."

In Greek mythology, Pandora was entrusted with a container (originally a jar, but in modern terms generally referred to as a box) which she was forbidden to open under any circumstances. But curiosity compelled her to open the box. As soon as the lid was opened, all the evils of the world were released. Appalled by the consequences of her act, she slammed the lid down, but it was too late. Only one thing remained in the box/jar--Hope.

We are never told why Hope remains in the box. Is the story, like Neitzsche, telling us that Hope is a great evil? Does it mean that, while evil has been released, Hope is still trapped in the box, forever unattainable?

I recall a version that ends with Pandora, realizing what she has done, opening the box a second time and releasing Hope into the world. I prefer this ending, because I believe Hope is the antidote to "all the evils of the world" and that its presence in the box was a gift of grace.

Hope is a vital component of every writer's toolbox. What else would keep us going when yet another agent or editor rejects our work, when our Amazon ratings hover in the millions, when our Kindle sales are in the single digits, or when a disgruntled reader posts a one-star review? What gives some writers the stamina to go on writing page after page and book after book until they finally get that contract or that good review, while others fall by the wayside?

The love of writing, of course, but I think there's something more. That something more is Hope. Hope that each book will be better than the last. Hope that we will write something that will touch readers' hearts--make them laugh, make them cry, entertain them, help them forget their problems, or reassure them that they are not alone. Hope that our words will make a difference.

Hope helps us stay the course.

There have been times when I've felt like I would never be a "real" writer, that I was just fooling myself with false hope. Fortunately, those times have never lasted long. My wonderful critique group, my family, my friends, and my blessedly supportive spouse have always helped me rekindle Hope.

What has helped you keep your hopes alive?

The E-Revolution

By Jaden Terrell

For the past few years, writers, agents, and others in the publishing industry have been engaged in a dialogue about whether e-books were the future of publishing, whether the new e-book technology would make self-publishing the smart way for writers to go, and whether digital publishing and internet marketing heralded the end of traditional publishing. While it seems likely that traditional publishing is here to stay--at least for the foreseeable future and at least as a niche market, there are some signs that the ease of digital publishing has shaken the industry to its core. Joe Konrath, who, as J.A. Konrath, writes the Jack Daniels thrillers, became the first author to sign a publishing contract with Amazon and is making much more with his electronic books than he ever did with a traditional print publisher. Of course, Joe is a marketing genius and a fiend at promotion. There was no proof that his success could be duplicated.

Then along came Amanda Hocking and the Kindle Millionaires. People were making big money at this self-publishing stuff. Big, big money. Now, thriller writer Barry Eisler has turned down a $500,000 print deal in favor of self-publishing his new stand-alone. I got the link to this dialogue between Barry and Joe from two people on the same day: fellow Murderous Musings blogger Pat Browning and former literary agent Nathan Bransford. Barry says that, while traditional publishing has been kind to him, he can make much more money over time with digital self-publishing. From someone who was just offered half a million dollars, that's staggering. He has compelling numbers to back up his argument. Whether his numbers (or Joe's or Amanda's, for that matter) are any indication of what the rest of us might make is uncertain, but there's no doubt the opportunity is there.

Of course, there are still advantages to the traditional model as well. Currently, it's still the easiest way to get reviews and contracts for subsidiary rights, such as film and foreign. It will be interesting, though, to see how the landscape will change over the next five years. Some publishers are already reporting e-book sales that are higher than their print sales. If that doesn't bring about some major changes in the industry, I don't know what will.

I like Chuck Wendig's take on the subject (warning: Wendig's post contains some adult language) on his blog, Terrible Minds. Why choose one, he says? Why not choose both? Wendig says if you can write two books a year, why not write one commercial blockbuster for the traditional publishers and one niche-market book for the digital self-publishing market? I kind of like the way this guy thinks. While you're there, take a look at his post on the 99-cent pricing of e-books and jumpstarting a stalled novel. You won't be sorry you did. Only . . . did I mention the adult language?

So where do you think the e-revolution is taking it? Has it affected how you read and/or publish and/or market your books?

If a traditional publisher offered you a $500,000 deal, would you take it, or would you turn them down flat?

Confessions of a Kindle Killer

by Jaden Terrell

I came late to the electronic revolution. I love books, love turning the pages, love the look of print on the page (which is not the same as e-ink, no matter what people say), love being able to carry them around with me and not having to worry about plugging anything in. Love everything about them.

Last year, my husband bought me a Kindle for my birthday. I liked the way I could download books so easily (though it took great strength of will not to burn through my paycheck ordering $2.99 novels from Amazon. I liked the way I could make the print larger if I needed to. Above all, I liked that I could carry hundreds of books with me when I traveled. The Kindle didn't take the place of my beloved books, but it was a pretty cool supplement.

Of course, there were downsides too. Although it held a charge pretty well, having to recharge it regularly was a bit of a pain--especially if I let the battery get low and had to plug it in at a crucial point in the plot. And I noticed that, for some reason, I found it easier to put down a book that I would, if I'd bought it in print, have read straight through, and I wasn't as likely to carry it around with me to read in restaurants or in free moments in waiting rooms. I didn't love it, but I liked it a lot.

I liked it even better when I found several books I needed to research my next Jared McKean mystery. They weren't $2.99, but they were cheaper than they would have been in print. Then Timothy Hallinan e-published all his Simeon Grist books and the first of a new series. A long-time Hallinan fan, I bought them all. I was starting to feel pretty happy with this new technology.

I started carrying the Kindle around the house with me, as if it were a regular print book, reading as I took my vitamins, brushed my teeth, brushed my hair, fed the cat. Well, you can imagine the rest. As I stood at the bathroom sink, toothbrush in one hand, Kindle in the other . . . I dropped the Kindle.

It struck the floor, face down, with a sickening crack. Oh no. I picked it up, a feeling of dread settling in my stomach. The screen was intact, but the image looked like an angry orangutan had thrown a tantrum on an Etch-a-Sketch. I tried to turn off the device. No luck. The fractured image was frozen on the screen. I told myself maybe it was in shock and just needed a little time to settle down. No such luck. By morning, it was clear.

The Kindle was dead.

Mike says he plans to replace the Kindle when my next birthday comes around. I have my reservations. It seems like maybe I should wait until they come up with a klutz-proof version. Still, I've managed to keep my laptop intact, so maybe there's hope. Maybe I could get one of those little slings like people carry babies in. Do they make padded Kindle-carriers? Maybe I could make a sort of safety belt for it--hook it to my belt with a carabiner?

Hmm. Maybe I could invent one and market it for a gazillion dollars. Surely I'm not the only Kindle-Killer around.

e-Revolution

By Mark W. Danielson

Depending upon your frame of reference, the word “revolution” may spark images of riots, banners, blood, and death, or perhaps spin the Beatle’s tune in your head. But for writers, the e-publishing revolution is as significant as Gutenberg inventing the printing press.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be passing on what I learned at the 2011 San Francisco Writer’s Conference. Of course, there is no way I can sum up everything, but I will attempt to share its key points. First and foremost, I must say this is a very professionally run conference, and I encourage anyone able to dedicate the time and money to consider attending this event in the future.

E-readers have increased exponentially in the past three years. While the iPad, Kindle, and Nook lead the pack, more readers are on the way. E-book sales increased 190% last year while bound book sales decreased 5%. The repeated message from Writer’s Conference speakers is e-publishing has empowered authors like never before. The up side of e-publishing is authors receive a much higher royalty. The down side is there is no quality control filter that literary agents normally provide. While e-publishers such as Smashwords.com will gladly publish your work, they publish whatever is sent to them, good or bad. And while this makes it enticing to e-publish, authors must realize they will be judged personally as much as they will on their work. So, before sending your manuscript to a literary agent, self-publishing, or e-publishing, make sure you hire a reputable editor to ensure it's as good as it can be.

It’s both interesting and encouraging that 80% of the e-books sold are fiction. That’s great news for fiction writers because it shows that people are still reading for entertainment and escape. My two out of print books will be e-published this year. I’m proud to say that Danger Within and The Innocent Never Knew are as pertinent now as when they were written.

It is up to every author to produce quality work. Without quality, there is no credibility or repeat sale. The e-revolution may be here, but if you’re going to wave your author’s banner, you’d better have something worth reading.

Something To Say

By Pat Browning


Growing up, I thought everything had been written. Who could top the King James Version of the Bible, the plays of Shakespeare, the novels of Charles Dickens?

In grade school, a teacher stood at her desk and read Longfellow’s poem “Evangeline” to us. I sighed and cried over it, but I thought of it as a fairy tale, not a story about real people. It would be years before I met Cajuns who lived on a Louisiana bayou, the poem made flesh, so to speak.

In junior high school the boys lined up for Zane Grey’s westerns even though the teachers didn’t accept book reports on such novels. I would be middle-aged before I read a Zane Grey book and realized what a good writer he really was.

In high school English class we read Beowulf, the Old English epic poem by an anonymous poet, and Canterbury Tales by Chaucer. Chaucer’s language fascinated me. I still remember “Whan that aprill with his shoures soote/The droghts of march hath perced to the roote.” Translation: “When April with his showers sweet with fruit/The drought of March has pierced unto the root.” Not nearly as musical as the original, and loooooong before my time.

In college I was put into an advanced freshman English class where we each got to choose one book to study for an entire semester. I chose John Steinbeck’s THE GRAPES OF WRATH, probably because the novel and movie were only whispered about in Oklahoma. I fell in love with Steinbeck’s writing and eventually read everything he wrote, but at the time GRAPES OF WRATH had nothing to do with me. I didn’t know any of those people.

The day would come when I moved to the part of California where Steinbeck lived while getting material for his novel. I would end up working on the local newspaper with a woman whose family had come from Oklahoma just like the Joads, and lived in an Okie camp, just like the Joads. She was a good writer and a good friend whose mantra – “The Lord will provide” – comes to mind almost daily.

Tme and fate led me to Dorothy Baker, who was beyond famous when I met her in late l962. Baker had literally been there and done that in the literary world. In Paris she had met and married Howard Baker, a poet, critic and novelist who became a citrus rancher in the rural Fresno area.

The Bakers taught and wrote, together and separately, but it was Dorothy Baker’s 1938 novel, YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN, that really made a splash. Loosely based on the life of jazz musician Bix Beiderbecke, it became one of 1950’s hit movies. She was back on the citrus ranch when she wrote her fourth novel, CASSANDRA AT THE WEDDING, the story of a young woman who tries to sabotage her twin sister’s wedding.

Baker was a careful writer. CASSANDRA AT THE WEDDING appeared more than 20 years after YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN. Reviews were mixed, ranging from “a perfect novel” (London Observer) to “a crushing disappointment” (Time magazine.) To me it was a revelation. Cassandra, the book’s narrator, drove home from Berkeley on the same roads, past the same fields, that I now drove to reach Baker’s house. Suddenly here was a piece of work from a famous writer that mirrored the here and now of my own life.

As a new stringer for The Fresno Bee I showed up at Baker’s door expecting to be awestruck, even intimidated. Instead, I found her company to be as comfortable as an old shoe -- no airs, no archness, no visible trace of vanity. She talked about famous people she had met, good books she had read, her writing technique, how she sometimes sat for hours before typing a single line.

My clipping of that interview is brown with age but still readable. The best quote from Dorothy Baker: “A writer should have a thorough understanding of what the Greeks call the ‘recognition scene,’ that moment when a character has a revelation, an insight that will change the course of his life and the course of the story. It’s a basic technique.”

Toward the end of our chat I confessed that I had written a brief memoir, hoping to turn it into a novel, but I was stuck. She dismissed it with a wave of her hand. “Don’t worry. If you have something to say, you’ll say it.”

Life takes its own sweet time. It would be almost 40 years before I finally had something to say and time to say it. FULL CIRCLE, my first mystery, was set in a fictional version of a small Central San Joaquin Valley town. A fictional version of the here and now of my life, as many first novels are, I self-published it in 2001.

In 2008, Krill Press, a small start-up press, picked it up and republished it, after some revisions and a new cover, as ABSINTHE OF MALICE. Best of all, the publisher put it on Amazon’s Kindle, where it has sold almost 400 copies in this month of October.

It was nine years after the book’s first publication before the brief memoir that started it all finally made it into print. “White Petunias,” about growing up in Oklahoma, had been revised periodically because I liked it too much to throw it out.

In 2007 “White Petunias” won second place in its category in the Frontiers in Writing contest sponsored by Panhandle Professional Writers, Amarillo, Texas. In 2009, after more revisions and polishing I submitted it to the RED DIRT BOOK FESTIVAL ANTHOLOGY: OKLAHOMA CHARACTER. In 2010 the anthology finally appeared in print. In the words of the Grateful Dead, “What a long, strange trip it’s been.”

And in the words of almost everyone who ever entertained a deep thought, “It’s not the destination that matters, it’s the journey.”
======
Photo of Dorothy Baker by Patricia Cokely (Browning), 1962

The Ebook Revolution

Tim Hallinan prompted a raft of comments when he wrote a post for Murder is Everywhere a day or two ago, praising what the ebook has done for authors. Tim pointed out how he has put up some of his old books for the Kindle, books the publisher let go out of print, and plans to release in electronic format some new books publishers were less-than-enthusiastic about.

I'm thinking of doing the same with two or three thrillers I wrote before landing a publisher for my first Greg McKenzie mystery. At least a couple of them were spoken of favorably by publishers before being turned down.

All six of my current mysteries are now available for the Kindle at $2.99. I've put the last two on Smashwords, which makes them available in various e-book formats, and plan to upload the others soon. I get 70 percent of the sales, which gives me a little more than the standard royalty on a paperback. Of course, I don't have a following like Tim Hallinan, who sells about 1,000 ebooks a month. But half a hundred isn't bad and should add  up to more than a thousand bucks in a year. Hopefully my sales will improve, and if I get a few more on my Amazon page, it should cover the cost of attending a couple of conferences.

One of Tim's blogging partners, Stan Trollip (half of Michael Stanley), decried the long-term effect of books going electronic. He talked of fondly remembering times when he opened his grandfather's bookcase and browsed its impressive contents. I sympathize with him. A faded wooden bookcase with artfully decorated glass doors stands against one wall of my office. It opens with an old hollowed-out metal key. It contains some of my own books, plus ones handed down in the family. Pulling out one at random, I hold a thick volume titled The Mentor, Serials 73-96. A little more battered are volumes with Serials 49-72 and 97-120.

These came from my history-teacher aunt who died some years back at age ninety-six. The Mentor was a weekly publication of  The Mentor Association in New York City. Serial 73 is dated December 15, 1914. An early issue of the publication contained this statement:

"The object of The Mentor Association is to enable people to acquire useful knowledge without effort, so that they may come easily and agreeably to know the world's great men and women, the great achievements, and the permanently interesting things in art, literature, science, history. nature and travel."

Serial No. 73 is devoted to Charles Dickens. Printed on heavy stock, it contains beautifully rendered intaglio-gravure pictures illustrating Dickens' characters. The next issue covers Greek masterpieces, with full-page pictures of various sculptures, including one I saw on a visit to the Louvre, Venus of Melos. Following this came an issue devoted to Fathers of the Constitution.

I have my doubts that any e-reader will ever have the impact of turning the pages in this vintage volume. I hope our libraries will continue to provide sanctuary for bound books both old and new. But I think coming generations will depend more on electronic reproductions of books read for entertainment. I intend to contribute my share of ebook fiction to the cause.