Sizzling Summer Sale

Yes, Lynn, it's on sale at £2.14.

Shelagh wrote:

Yes, Lynn, it's on sale at £2.14.

Oh good, thanks for checking for me.

Read the rinse and repeat article, Shelagh, and it has some interesting stuff in it. Sounds like something I may very well give a shot.

If I understand the Locke book, he is talking about selling a million total books, and not just of one of his titles. That's great, and I'd certainly like to do it, so I guess I'll have to pick up a copy of his how to and see if I can figure out how to.

I was one of those who kept the electronic rights when I signed with PA back in 06, and I've been able to make both of my books with them available on Kindle and on Smashwords. In addition, I have all of my other books at both places, and my short stories are in just about any combination you can think of. You can download them as singles for 99 cents, or as 4 - 5 story collections of like titles for $2.99, or you can get 18 of the stories for $5.99. That anthology is called UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF A FULL MOON, and is the best deal in the bunch. In addition, I've also published all 10 of the stories I co-wrote with Eugen M. Bacon into one collection, and I think it should do well. It includes the story that was in the Eppie winner in 2007, and Eugen is a fantastic author. Some of our work even surprises me when I re-read it.

The Redneck Riviera stories are also now combined into a book, and they were very successful in the Amazon Shorts program.

As you can tell, I've tried not to let any grass grow under my feet in the last couple of years, and about the only thing I really need is a good national promotion idea. I've used a lot, and never miss a chance to try something that might work.

I'll be out of town for a couple of days, but when I get back I will certainly look into the rinse and repeat idea. Sounds pretty good.

And Lynn, I'll visit the site you mentioned, and good luck with your FB pages.

Harpe

Don,

Select one of your best stories/novels and make it free on Smashwords. make sure that it gets into Smashwords distribution catalog. As soon as it shows up at $0.00 on B&N or iPad, inform Amazon (you can do it through Amazon Central or by the "tell us about a lower price link"). Amazon will price match.

The free book will then automatically go onto Kolorbooks (http://kolourbooks.appspot.com/) and a few more sites that list free Kindle books. The downloads happen rapidly -- thousands in the first few days. This should generate sales for your other books. If you promote hard between now and the end of the year by giving away free stories and offering 99c deals, you should be able to build a fan base. It will be hard work -- as hard as you've ever worked in any of your previous jobs, but the rewards should be far greater.

Good luck!

7/18/2011


My E Book " Dusty," is now free on Smash Words.


Cheers..Joe

Shelagh - has that process worked for you? I'd like to give it a try.

Yes, DK. It hasn't produced a great deal of money but sales have been brisk (only 35c royalty on a 99c book). My books are not part of a series and are for different audiences, but I can see how it works. Suppose you had four or five novels in the same genre and a few short stories. You could give the stories away for free download. The process involves uploading the book onto Smashwords and following their formatting guidelines. If you use a short story (I can send the word file for your story in the anthology) then the formatting should be straightforward (no chapter headings or font changes, etc.).

Once the book is in the distribution catalog, Smashwords send the file to B&N and the iBookstore (iPad). Amazon will price match if the price appears on either of these online stores at $0.00.

For the process to work, you would need to upload your books/short stories onto Kindle. The free book would give you access to thousands of readers. Not all will read the book, and not all will want to read more by the same author. Those that do will buy the books that are reasonably priced ($2.99). To boost those sales, you can drop the price to 99c for a short period and then put the price back up again. This is just one tactic and not a one-size-fits-all.

At the moment, I have made Mr. Planemaker's Flying Machine free on Smashwords. The book is now listed as free in the iBookstore:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/mr.-planemakers-flying-machine/id438856416?mt=11

I've informed amazon.co.uk that the book is free and I'm waiting for Amazon to price match. I will be one of many authors contacting Amazon about a free book and they will not price match every book. It's a matter of waiting to see if Amazon go with it. I'll post here if and when the book is available for free download. I'll let everyone know how things go with the free offer.

Thanks for the details. I'll give it a whirl with the story from Forever Travels. Is there a way to tie the short story to Forever Travels? It appears in my list that Forever Travels has been selling.

Yes, DK, you can say that the story is included in the anthology. Forever Travels sold a few copies (about 4) before I dropped the price and has seen quite an increase in sales (36 total from .com and .co.uk in the last two weeks).

Well, I see y'all have been busy in here while I was away updating my blog:

http://callsignwreckingcrew.blogspot.com

to include some page links from:

http://www.independentauthors.org/

then I linked my blog which included the page links and put them on the FB fan page:

https://www.facebook.com/IndependentAuthors

so hopefully somebody will be 'twittering' about us somewhere (stop shaking your head, it could happen).

Seriously, thanks for the lively and insightful discussions.

BTW, I did slip my Sizzling Summer Sale onto the blog so wish me luck that somebody new sees it and wants to buy our e-book.

I wish you all the luck the market can muster - and even better that you find a fan base that craves your books.

dkchristi wrote:

I wish you all the luck the market can muster - and even better that you find a fan base that craves your books.

Thank you very much D.K.!

I made three of my most popular short stories free on Smashwords, and now all I can do is wait until they show up in their online places at that price, and then see if Amazon will price match. I also reduced the price of my collected shorts from $3.50 to $1.99, so readers can download four or five stories in a collection and save $1.50 over downloading them as singles. I've updated my website to reflect the changes, and as soon as I am sure that Amazon has matched the free stories, I'll start promoting them all. We'll see how this works.

Good idea, I think.

In case anyone here wants to sample a story, here's the link to the free download of FIRE FELL FROM HEAVEN, which has been one of my most successful works.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/69613

Shelagh wrote:

Don,

Select one of your best stories/novels and make it free on Smashwords. make sure that it gets into Smashwords distribution catalog. As soon as it shows up at $0.00 on B&N or iPad, inform Amazon (you can do it through Amazon Central or by the "tell us about a lower price link"). Amazon will price match.

The free book will then automatically go onto Kolorbooks ([url=http://kolourbooks.appspot.com/]http://kolourbooks.appspot.com/) and a few more sites that list free Kindle books. The downloads happen rapidly -- thousands in the first few days. This should generate sales for your other books. If you promote hard between now and the end of the year by giving away free stories and offering 99c deals, you should be able to build a fan base. It will be hard work -- as hard as you've ever worked in any of your previous jobs, but the rewards should be far greater.

Good luck!

Hi Don.

I reported the Smashwords price to Amazon for Fire Fell From Heaven. I reported that Mr. Planemaker's Flying Machine is free on iPad but it hasn't been price matched yet. Sometimes it takes a day, sometimes it takes several days, and sometimes you need to keep reminding them!

Hi everybody,

Still no sales from anywhere since last I was here.

Hope we get a last minute burst of sales before Friday, 22 July 2011 ends.

Thanks Shelagh. I checked today and we're still averaging almost one download a day on Kindle. Not much money, to be sure, but at least people are beginning to find us there. So far there isn't too much activity from Smashwords, but I expect that to pick up a bit once the stories are all available for the Nook reader.

All we can do is just keep on hanging in, and banging on every door we can find.

I feel overwhelmed by it all, really. I want to try your processes, but it just seems so difficult because I never did format AMOUR: Stories of Love and Friendship properly on Kindle. My 99 cent Valentine didn't do very well on Kindle. I tried smashwords but couldn't figure out how to format for their system.

I'm pretty technically savvy; just having a bit of a mind wall on this one.

I hear you, DK. I'm not getting very far either.

Ann

It's not all that hard, and I'll be glad to help.

E. Don Harpe wrote:

Thanks Shelagh. I checked today and we're still averaging almost one download a day on Kindle. Not much money, to be sure, but at least people are beginning to find us there. So far there isn't too much activity from Smashwords, but I expect that to pick up a bit once the stories are all available for the Nook reader.

All we can do is just keep on hanging in, and banging on every door we can find.

You got that right...knock, bang, kick...oops that's too far...we don't want to kick down every door.

One of our characters kicked down a door and quoted a John Wayne line to boot.

dkchristi wrote:

I feel overwhelmed by it all, really. I want to try your processes, but it just seems so difficult because I never did format AMOUR: Stories of Love and Friendship properly on Kindle. My 99 cent Valentine didn't do very well on Kindle. I tried smashwords but couldn't figure out how to format for their system.

I'm pretty technically savvy; just having a bit of a mind wall on this one.

mind wall? Is that like writer's block?

E. Don Harpe wrote:

It's not all that hard, and I'll be glad to help.

That's sweet of you.

Glad to see you posting.

Okay, so we got another sale on Amazon...yay! Up to four books from the Sizzling Summer Sale. It is about to be shut down, put away for another day.

LynnCSWC wrote:

One of our characters kicked down a door and quoted a John Wayne line to boot.

Put the boot in?

OK, here is my situation. I would like to put my Forever Travels story, "From Belfast to St. Joe," and my Redstone Stories short story, "Incident at Bandera Pass," on Kindle. I would like for the "Incident" story, at least, to be offered free for a time. When I have finished my next Redstone short story, I would like to put a minimum price on the first one, just to see what happens. I figure there are maybe four or five short story possibilities, and I could offer the latest one free. Once they are all complete, I would like to publish them in one anthology on Kindle, for a small price. The idea is to generate enough interest in the characters so that by the time the first novel is pristine ready, I can put it on Kindle at a reasonable price, and maybe begin to make a little profit.

Is there someone who can give my aging brain a chronological, step-by-step process on how to do that? Because I'm trying to put it together from reading the instructions at Kindle publishing as well as the various posts here (I've been reading them all along, just didn't have anything positive to add), and am still confused.

And can I do this on both Kindle and Nook at the same time? And can I still offer the free PDF downloads on my website?

Ann