The Valentine's Day Curse is Free

Just a quick post to let you know that my short story, The Valentine's Day Curse will be free on Amazon in all its stores from 2/11 through 2/15.

"When Lisa’s Valentine’s Day ritual is interrupted by a phone call, she is surprised it’s from someone she hadn’t heard from in many years. What could her ex, Joey, possibly want from her on what could have been their 25th wedding anniversary?

The Valentine’s Day Curse is a short story about stirred memories of unrequited love. For some people Valentine’s Day is not always a bed of roses."

I hope you enjoy this tale with a twist and that all your Valentine's Days are better than Joey's!

Just click on your country below for a direct link. Thanks for your support, and any reviews and/or recommendations to friends are always greatly appreciated!

Amazon US
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Kindles Unlimited Revisited

Just one sale...one measly sale of Fractured Facade on Smashwords was all it would have taken to keep The Valentine's Day Curse available everywhere. But after a year, it never happened. Oh sure, I got plenty of sample downloads of Fractured Facade, but I just couldn't make the sale, which is odd, because I still was getting sales on Amazon. No, not many, but at least I was thrown a bone once in a while. Nook readers, iPad people, Smashies, Kobo tablets, had no problem "buying" the free short story, but unless Smashwords was screwing up, they just wouldn't part with $4.99 for the novel. Also, not one of them left a review of the Valentine's Day Curse either. Hmmmm, so much for my grand plan!

My thinking was that if I made the short story free everywhere, Amazon would have to price match it as well, and they did. Great, right? Well, along the way, freebies on Amazon suddenly no longer had the same punch as they did once before. Why? The only thing I could figure out was that the new Amazon program, Kindle Unlimited, stopped not only downloads of freebies, but also sales of books. Kindle Unlimited is a program whereby a reader pays a yearly fee and can then borrow as many books on their kindle as they like (up to 10 at a time) instead of only one per month as in the past, for free. I figure readers aren't bothering with freebies any more as their thinking may be, why borrow something that's free when I could borrow something that would have cost me money.

In order to have a book in KDP select, which would then be part of the KU, the book had to be exclusive to Amazon. And that is the one thing that really bugged me. So, I said I would NEVER go into KDP Select. And now over a year later I am eating my words. I gave all the other outlets a shot and they all fell short. So I figure now is the time for me to try another tactic by putting The Valentine's Day Curse -- A short story back into KDP Select and price it once again at $.99.

My thinking last year was that folks will be getting Nooks, iPads, etc. and they will seek out the free story, download it, and then hopefully review it and/or seek out my novel and buy it. Never happened anywhere except on Amazon! So now the thinking this year is the same thing - that folks will be getting kindles for Christmas, only this time with each kindle they automatically get a free month of the Kindle Unlimited deal. My hope is that they borrow the Valentine's Day Curse which would translate to a higher royalty than if they bought it. Will this work? Who knows, but as an independent author I can change my mind and give it a shot. I'm still debating if I should pull Fractured Facade everywhere too and put that exclusively on Amazon as well.

Of course, the best way to sell books is to write more books, and I am doing just that...just not quickly.

My Thoughts on Kindle Unlimited

Yesterday authors who have books on Amazon received an email to let them know they are offering a new subscription service called Kindle Unlimited.

"Hello,

Today we are excited to introduce Kindle Unlimited--a new subscription service for readers in the U.S. and a new revenue opportunity for authors enrolled in KDP Select. With Kindle Unlimited, customers will be able to read as many book as they want from a library of over 600,000 titles. KDP authors and publishers who enroll their books with U.S. rights in KDP Select are automatically enrolled in Kindle Unlimited. Inclusion in Kindle Unlimited can help drive discovery of your book, and when your book is accessed and read past 10% you will earn a share of the KDP Select global fund. For the month of July we have added $800,000 to the KDP Select global fund bringing the total to $2 million."

For those who don't know, once upon a time Amazon's KDP Select program was a Godsend for authors, especially for unknown authors. In the beginning, offering a book free equaled many downloads which equaled a nice top spot in the charts once the promotion was over whereby your book became highly visible to the masses. This in turn equaled sales, a nice amount of sales. Then one day Amazon decided it would change its algorithms. No longer would one free copy equal one sale. The buzz is, and I don't have cold hard facts to back this, that it now took ten free downloads to equal the ranking power of one sale. After a promotion ended, the "bounce" became a thud. Many authors, like myself, questioned if it was worth keeping a title in KDP Select. What harm would it be you might ask, and don't you get some royalties if someone borrows the book? Well, the problem is in order to enroll a title in Select your title cannot be sold ANYWHERE else. "Strangely" this exclusivity mandate only applies to independent authors, not big published authors.

A lot of independent authors bailed so Amazon came up with another plan -- offer a new promotion tool -- the Kindle Countdown Deal whereby you can lower your price for five days, say starting at 99 cents for two or three and upping it as the countdown clicked onwards. I never bothered with it so cannot say if it's a successful endeavor or not. I'm guessing probably not so successful as Amazon has come up with yet another plan -- Kindle Unlimited.

Kindle Unlimited is being called by some the Netflix of books. If a reader wants to join this program they pay $9.99 a month and then can "read as many books as they want." But here's some of the fine details...not every single book Amazon carries is enrolled. You can have up to ten titles at a time on your Kindle, which you can keep for as long as you want. If you're a voracious reader this service might be worth the $120 a year. As a reader, I already subscribe to a similar service...it's called my local library, and it's a free service. True, not every book is available for my Kindle, but every book is available in a hard copy. All I have to do is request it.

Now as an author, how do I feel about this new program? First and foremost, unlike the major publishing companies, I would still have to make my books exclusive to Amazon. Now maybe if I was a prolific author and had dozens of books I'd give it a shot, but I'm not. The first book I wrote, Fractured Facade, took years to write and the one I'm presently working on has taken me years to research, and I've just begun writing it. Sure, I could whip out a short story in a week or two, or a monthly erotic novella, but I don't want to.

I have one short story, The Valentine's Day Curse, originally 99 cents, that I was able to make Perma-Free. One might ask, well, why don't you put your short story in Kindle Unlimited? If someone borrows it you can make some cash. True, a borrow on a 99 cent book is worth more than a 35 cent sale. But, if I did that I would have to remove it from everywhere else. My plan has been that if someone likes my short story enough they might seek out my novel and actually buy it for $4.99, the price of a cup of Starbucks coffee, depending upon the size one chooses. It has been a pretty successful idea, (not bestselling top of the chart one) as I've gotten sales from Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, and Apple. From Amazon? Not so much. I'm beginning to think Kindle readers don't like to part with cash as easily as Nookies and iPeople, and maybe expect every book will become free at some point so they'll just wait it out until it does.

So I have to ask myself, would I get more borrows which would equate to more revenue than if someone actually bought my novel. I don't know. The borrow royalty varies from month to month and is good for a 99 cent short story, but would never be higher than sale of my novel. Of course in order to even get credit for the borrow, the reader has to read at least ten percent, which I hope wouldn't be a problem. But say I had put my full length book in it and the reader was someone who had a problem with an expletive or two, and once they got top the 8% mark was offended by my use of the word F*ck or Bitch, and returned it before they reached the golden 10%, I would get zilch. Oh, and if they were really offended they'd probably would leave a bad review as well which would suck, but has been known to happen. And on the other hand, say they really liked the book and decided they wanted to keep it. They could without paying for it, and still have 9 other slots to borrow books. Believe it or not, there are folks who will only "buy" free books. I'm not one of them, but I also don't have $28 to buy a new hardcover every time one comes out that I want to read. In fact, I will not spend $14.99 on an eBook either. That's just crazy. I hope the author who wrote that book is getting a huge percentage from their publisher, like $10.49 per book which is the 70% Amazon pays in royalty at that price, but I doubt it. Anyway, I digress. So, although I really want to read this book, I will wait for one of two things, whichever comes first...the paperback version, or a free copy from my local library.

Well, there you have it, my thoughts on Kindle Unlimited. Clearly, as a reader I won't be paying $120 a year, and as an author, I won't be enrolling my books, but I'm curious as to what you think, both authors and reader...worth it, or not?
And here's my blatant sales pitch...check the side bar for links to my two books, one of which is free, everywhere.

Is PermaFree For Me?

It's been almost two months since I removed both my books from Amazon's KDP Select Program. Once again, I wanted to give readers who have other devices besides the kindle the opportunity to read my books since KDP Select is an exclusive platform. At that time I felt I wasn't getting enough borrows to justify keeping it in there, so wanted to "test the waters" again. That's what's great about being an indie...I can make my own decisions/mistakes.

I immediately offered my short story, The Valentine's Day Curse, free, on Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, iTunes & Kobo. Amazon does not allow me to price it at zero, however, I did hear that they price-match. So, I hoped that would happen. Meanwhile, I waited to see how many free downloads the other sites would garner. After six weeks, the short story was downloaded a half-dozen times on Smashwords. I have no idea if it was downloaded on iTunes or B&N because they take forever to report to SW. There were zero downloads on Kobo. My novel received zero downloads, not even a sampling, on all those sites, yet I had sales on Amazon.

I think part of the problem is that when your book is on different sites it becomes difficult to promote them all. Although I have tried to point potential readers to my website for all the links, it's just easier to tweet one link to a direct outlet like Amazon, and more convenient for a reader to just one-click purchase it there. Even I don't like to download from Smashwords because it takes a couple of steps and I have to hook my kindle up to my computer.

Amazon wasn't budging on price-matching, and a reader of mine did contact me to let me know they had reported the free price to them, and had received an email stating that they no longer price-match, but "here's the link if you want to buy it." I was disappointed. Then yesterday I noticed the brown bar of shame on my monthly Amazon sales report was white. Sure enough there were downloads of The Valentine's Day Curse entered into the price match column. When I checked the listing, yup, Amazon finally price-matched it to zero. Happy dance!

Now, why, you may ask, would I want to give away my short story for free on Amazon and everywhere else for that matter. Two words...new readers. If I still had Fractured Facade in KDP Select there would be two more words...potential borrows. My hope has always been that after someone reads The Valentine's Day Curse they will seek out other books I have written. Well, other book, I have written. Still working on the next one.

Advertising is pretty expensive and not in my budget. I'd rather lose the royalty, a whopping $.35, by giving away the short story and think of it as advertising. So how is it working thus far? Well, it's been free on Amazon for one day, and I've already had ten times the downloads I had from all other sites in two months. As of this posting, it's #43 on Amazon's Best Selling Kindle store for Short Stories. Will this translate into sales for Fractured Facade? Maybe, maybe not, but I know I have a better chance of exposure by being in Amazon's Top 100 list than anywhere else. No matter what anyone says, Amazon's the big dog. So is PermaFree for me? Well, right now it is, but that's subject to change...

Freebies For Your Easter Kindle

So what does The Valentine's Day Curse -- A short story have to do with Easter? Absolutely nothing!!! However, I am offering it free today so you can put it in your Easter Kindle.

Here's the latest 5-star review on Amazon -- "This is a great short story, a tale with a twist. The author has a strong voice and smooth style. I look forward to future works from her. Great story for Valentine's Day...great story for ANY DAY! Recommended read...Enjoy"

I hope you do enjoy it enough that maybe you'll leave a review and then check out my novel, "Fractured Facade", which by the way, not only has some great reviews, but is also enrolled in the KDP Select Program so Prime Members can borrow it for free. What? You don't have a Kindle? You don't need one...check out these free apps!

And after you finish downloading my books why don't you check out these other freebies...There's got to be something to your liking!

Valerie Douglas -Dirty Politics - Song of the Fairy Queen - and Nike's Wings Thurs 5th - Sat 7th

Stephen H. King - Cataclysm: Return of the Gods - Friday and Saturday, April 6 and 7. Blog: http://theotherstephenkingonwriting.blogspot.com

Candy Ann Little - The Unwilling Bride - April 7th

Kelly Rimmer - Suspending Reality - Thursday 5th - Sunday 8th

Sarah Barnard - Earthlink: Impact (UK) http://www.amazon.com/Earthlink-Impact-ebook/dp/B006YR4BIK/ (US) Free from Friday 6th April through Monday 9th April. Blog: http://sarahbarnard.co.uk

Have a great weekend!

My 2nd KDP Select Experience

On Saturday evening, right before I climbed into bed, I witnessed a beautiful picture on the internet...




Yes, that's my short story, The Valentine's Day Curse, in the # 1 position on Amazon's Free Best Selling Short Stories chart, directly across from a book I've read and enjoyed very much, "A Visit from the Goon Squad," which, by the way, is not a short story. 'The Valentine's Day Curse" also was # 9 in Contemporary Fiction and #125 in the Kindle Store. Of course, it wasn't really a best "seller" as it was free, but let's not quibble about money.

The important thing is that my short story, between both promotions, is now on over 2,600 Kindles, iPads, Smartphones, computers, etc. in the U.S., England, Germany and yes, even France! How cool is that? I have to admit it was hard to pull myself away from the screen Saturday knowing the promotion was still going on for two more hours. And I was glad my daughter came home in time to capture that screen shot because when I awoke Sunday morning the bubble was burst. Back to the netherlands.

Well, that's not exactly accurate. Before the promotion I was in the 400,000 rankings. I found I actually had some paid sales afterwards, and one return. I hope the reader returned it because they thought it was still free, and not because they read it & didn't want to pay the 99 cents, or worse, hated it. So early Sunday morning the book's ranking was in the 70,000's. Okay, so it's pretty down there, but not as bad as 400,000! The hope now is that people will actually read it, and some must have because I did garner additional "likes." Hopefully they will review it and then seek out something else I wrote, which would be the novel that practically killed me, Fractured Facade, and then buy that.

Besides lucking out by being one of the books included in Ereader News Today's picks, I also received help from folks on Twitter and Facebook via retweets and reposts on their Facebook walls. A big thank you goes to everyone, especially the total strangers who opened their walls and hearts to my wee little story.

As Sunday went on I enjoyed the beautiful day, glad to be away from the computer screen, promoting is hard work! And after my walk along the Roanoke River I checked my stats again and was surprised, and thrilled, to find that The Valentine's Day Curse was actually selling! At 5:00 pm the book had moved to the left side of the screen into the # 7 position on Amazon's Paid Best Seller's Kindle list, and #12 on the Fiction Book list!




Yes, paid sales!

Now, what about the week long Read an eBook Smashwords promotion for Fractured Facade? One word...Blech! That my friends, I would consider a bust, except I did get one sample download which resulted in one paid sale. So, I am happy that my novel is in one new reader's hands. However, with the results of both promotions I am now convinced that I need to pull my novel from everywhere else and enroll it exclusively at Amazon. I know I said I wanted it available to the most people, and based on actual experiences, I think that would probably be if I put it into Amazon's KDP Select program. Gotta go where the action is.

One quick check this Monday morning before I post this shows The Valentine's Day Curse is still selling, but has moved down to the #12 paid position. I'll take it!

The most important lesson learned is that I need to get back to writing. You want to sell books? Write them...

Why I Love eBooks

My promotion for Read an eBook Week is still going on...click here for details on how to get 50% off of Fractured Facade on Smashwords. And I've also decided that for the last day, Saturday March 10th, I'm going to be giving away The Valentine's Day Curse -- A short story for free on Amazon.

I thought that today would be a good day to blog about why I love eBooks. Sure, it's given me the opportunity to self-publish and get my stories out there, but that's the author side...I want to speak about the reader side.

First off let me say I love my Kindle. And this is not my eReader is better than your eReader statement. It's about my experience. Your wants and likes may differ. I love the un-lit back screen which looks like I'm reading a "real" book. I love how I can increase the print size. I love that it's big enough to read comfortably, yet small enough to fit in my pocketbook. I love that I can hold it easier than I can a hard cover book. What I don't love about it is when I get the notification my battery is about to die. I wish the battery bar showed me that I'm getting to a point where I need to recharge instead of getting that dreaded notice just as I'm getting into a scene. Of course, I could just plug it into a wall, or my computer and keep right on reading, but sometimes that's not possible.

By far the best thing about my Kindle is that it has introduced me to the world of fiction. What??? That's right, I have never been a fan of fiction. In fact, when someone in the past has asked me which authors I like I would have a hard time coming up with names, other than Edgar Allen Poe, O. Henry or some beat writers. That's because most fiction I've read I could barely get through, and there was rarely an author I would seek out to read the next book. I found too many stories "unbelievable" or "too pat." It was like the authors were following a computer program whereby they inserted the character names, settings and plot lines, and the computer would spit out a book. Life is not filled with happy endings. So my preference in the past have been biographies and memoirs, even by "unknowns." Although I could find a couple in the bargain bins in used bookstores and library sales, the problem I found is that most memoirs by unknowns have not been published in the traditional sense. With the advent of self-publishing that has changed.

Right now I have over one hundred books downloaded to my Kindle. I'm sure others probably have thousands, but I'm of the mind set, just because it's free I'm not going to download a book. However, I have been quicker to download a free novel and "give it a shot" than I was to buy one in a bookstore. I'm glad I have because I have discovered some really good indie authors. Right now I am reading "Elephant Girl: A Human Story" by Jane Devin and it's really screwing up my life because I'm having a hard time putting it down. Before that I read JD Marder's "Joe Cafe" and Fred Limberg's "Ferris' Bluff." And although, those two are not the genre I usually read, I enjoyed them both.

What I don't like is when you download a free book then find out it really isn't a full book at all, just a couple of "sample" chapters. That happened to me with Luc Carl's "Tales from the Drunk Diet." I was disappointed to find out that all it contained was two or three chapters from the middle of the book with the statement buy my full book if you like this. Umm, no, I won't. Maybe I would have if there was full disclosure at the time of the "freebie" but there wasn't, and I feel "tricked."

In order to make my life easier I have created collections on my Kindle. At first I just had one called "Books I Read." Then I realized some of the books I read don't belong in that category so I added another one, "Books I Read that Sucked" which includes books I could not get through. I also have one entitled "Classics" and "Cookbooks." With each download I find I have to scroll through pages to find the next book I want to read and frankly some I had downloaded weeks prior so I have forgotten what the book is about. So, next up I'll have to create more collections by genres. Just don't know when I'll get to that, or get to making Twitter lists!

All this reading is cutting into my writing time, but I'm not going to feel guilty...yet!

Live on Amazon...The Valentine's Day Curse!

Live, in the Amazon store...it's The Valentine's Day Curse -- A short story!

"When Lisa’s Valentine’s Day ritual is interrupted by a phone call, she is surprised it’s from someone she hadn’t heard from in many years. What could her ex, Joey, possibly want from her on what could have been their 25th wedding anniversary?

The Valentine’s Day Curse…A short story about stirred memories of unrequited love, revealing Valentine’s Day is not always a bed of roses."

Not everyone is a fan of Valentine's Day, and although I'm one of those as well, I just want to be clear that unlike my last book, Fractured Facade, this short story is not about me. Well, some "elements" of the tale are based on true life experiences, but not necessarily mine.

I think of this short story as the 99 cent KDP Select experiment before I begin working on the next full length novel. Since it's such a timely piece I thought it would behoove me to take advantage of Amazon's free promotion days around Valentine's Day. I will be curious to see if giving it away free will stir some folks to seek out my other book. The other possibility is what I fear most people do with free books...download them and forget about it. However, my thinking is that if I release a short story maybe they will be more likely to actually read it quickly than have it fall into the cellar of their Kindle.

The other benefit of the KDP Select program is that Prime Members can check it out for free. I can't imagine anyone would use their check-out on a 99 cent short story, so I doubt I will see any income generated from that. The drawback as I've stated in the past, is that in order to use the KDP Select Program I have to list the book exclusively on Amazon for 90 days. Fret not, Amazon does have free applications that can be downloaded so anyone can read this book on other devices. I think being it's a short story it's more likely that will happen than if it was a full length novel.

It's much easier to put a book up on KDP Select at its inception than it is after it's been published on other sites. From what I understand it could take B&N 6 weeks to remove the book, and from my personal experience I know it takes months for them to even report to Smashwords that a sale was made! The other problem with B&N is that it's very difficult for folks to find one's book unless they are specifically searching for it. I think I pretty much tapped out this valley and my friends and family, so really Amazon and their promotions are my best bet to get my name out. Still, as of right now I have no intention of removing Fractured Facade from Smashwords. I still think it's going to be a "sleeper" and I want folks to be able to read it on any of their devices.

So...if you like a "love story" haha! check out The Valentine's Day Curse. Yes, that is a noose around the groom's neck...

Ready, Set, eRead!

So you might have been resistant to buying an eReader, vowing it would never replace your "real" books. Then you received one this past holiday, and quickly discovered it wasn't as bad as you thought, which made you say, "Hey, this is pretty cool," and after 24 hours exclaim, "What the heck took me so long?"

And if you're like me, and many others, you probably spent the next couple of days downloading anything free you could. This includes games. And in my case, I went for the Kindle because it was easy to read outdoors and, I wanted, "just an eReader, nothing else...I don't want to become distracted." Haha! Yeah, free games are available for Kindle. I probably have all of them. And I was right, I am easily distracted. Luckily the thrill of them wore off after a couple of days.

I bought my Kindle a couple of months ago, right before I published Fractured Facade. Since I had no plans to print up hard copies, I figured the least I could do was have my own book on my own eReader. I downloaded it from Smashwords, and it looks great. So it was back to looking for good eBooks from other authors to read.

I quickly filled up my eLibrary with many free classics, many of which I already had on my physical book shelves. I think I now have every word written by one of my favorite authors, Edgar Allen Poe. Since I downloaded all his works, I believe I have only read one, "Annabelle Lee." It's not because I don't want to read more from Poe, but until my Kindle can download more hours in a day for me, I'm not able to read as much as I would like.

After I began downloading other free eBooks, I realized the mantra, "If it's free, it's for me!" definitely did not apply to all eBooks. Now don't get me wrong, there are excellent free eBooks available as many are made free by an author as a promotional tool. I recently downloaded some free J.A. Konrath books to see what all the hub-bub was. Of course, I haven't found the time to read any yet, but when I do, and if I like what I read, I will buy some of his other books, so his promotion would have worked. Now Konrath was a name I recognized, but how do I find other authors worthy of a download?

Since I could check out most well known authors' books from my local library, I prefer to use my eReader to check out independent authors, but I am discriminating. Before I download a book, even if it's free, I read the description, sample it, and check out the reviews. I've found the best way to find a good book is through word of mouth. There's also a site called 5-Star Books which lists by genre books by independent authors that have received five stars. Fractured Facade is listed, and it's not free. Be advised, I believe most of the books featured are not free. And they shouldn't be.

Recently I read a post on the Kindle Community Boards by someone who proudly claimed they had downloaded over 3,000 free books over a weekend. That's insane. They will never read all those books, especially if they didn't pay anything for them.

Have fun downloading free eBooks, but once in a while throw an author a bone and pay for their book. $4.99 is less than a fast food meal or a fancy cup of coffee. Besides, if you pay for it, it's more likely you'll actually read it, and that's what an author wants.

KDP Select and Me

When I initially heard stirrings that Amazon would be allowing independent authors another way to introduce their books, via the Kindle's Owner Lending Library, thus far only containing a limited choice of ebooks, I thought, "What a great opportunity!" Besides getting more exposure, the authors would also get paid.

According to the press release , based on a monthly $500,000 fund, it works like this -- "The monthly royalty payment for each KDP Select book is based on that book's share of the total number of borrows of all participating KDP books in the Kindle Owners' Lending Library. For example, if total borrows of all participating KDP Select books are 100,000 in December and an author's book was borrowed 1,500 times, they will earn $7,500 in additional royalties from KDP Select in December."

So what's the catch? The catch is in order to opt in, the author must give Amazon sole rights to their ebook for at least 90 days. Since Fractured Facade is in the Smashword Premium Catalogue, it's distributed to many other eRetailers. I've actually had more sales on Smashwords than Amazon, so I'm not keen on killing that audience. Maybe if I had a couple of novellas out there I'd give it a spin, but I don't. Besides, I'm still launching. Maybe in six months, I'll feel differently.

I'd register in a heartbeat, if I didn't have to hand over all my rights to Amazon. If Apple, Barnes & Noble, or any eRetailer, would offer something similar, without the same demands, I'd probably opt in.

Thoughts?

***Update***

Some thoughts from Smashword's Mark Coker - Amazon Shows Predatory Spots With KDP Select

"If Only It Was Available as a 'Real' Book"

Although I appreciate all the folks who have said, "Oh, I would definitely buy your book, if only it was available as a "real" book," once they saw what I would have to charge, I highly doubt they would put their money where their mouth is. And that, in a nutshell, is why I chose to only go the eBook route...cost!

I never bothered trying to attract a publishing house as I doubted my debut novel would attract the huge following that would ensure a hefty advance, a large first-run print edition, a prime space on the shelf of a Barnes & Noble bookstore, and an all expenses paid marketing campaign. Sure, I'm a dreamer, but I'm not delusional.

I could, as many others have, published my own "real" book that I could hold and caress, and sign for the throngs of readers who would surely show up at all the book signing events I would be afforded, if I only had a "real" book, by going through one of the many self-publishing companies out there. One of the most popular and most affordable is one called Createspace. Let's look at the start-up costs...

The cheapest package they offer is a mere $728.00, which includes a book cover, interior design, and an ISBN number. The next package costs $1,737.00 and adds one round of copy editing and LCCN assignment which allows the book to be eligible for sales to libraries. The advanced package comes in at $2,534.00 which includes all the above and adds a press release and creation of a book description. The final package is the Marketing Pro one which costs $4,853.00. The Pro package has all the features of the others but also includes another round of copy editing and a video book trailer.

I already have most of the components including the cover and book trailer, the only thing I am missing is the LCCN assignment and the press release (and that's only because I've been dragging my feet on it!) Maybe if I was a doctor, lawyer or some wealthy person who could afford to spend thousands I would, but I'm not, so let's say I went with the cheapest package. After you pay the start-up costs you only pay for the books you order, and you set the price.

My book in print would be approximately 347 pages. Let's say the trim size is 5.5 x 8.5, soft cover and I chose to charge $14.99 per book. For each book I sold on Amazon.com my royalty rate would be 53 cents. I would have to sell 1,374 copies to recoup the $728.00. If I wanted to get closer to my royalty rate on Smashwords I would have to charge $20.99 per book. I would have to sell 208 copies to break even. Other than some friends and family, maybe, I can't imagine anyone (except for me, when I bought other local author's books, books by the way, in genres I will never read, but still felt it was important to support a fellow author) paying almost $21.00 for a paperback novel. Just not gonna happen.

$4.99 is more affordable, so affordable in fact that one reader told me she first downloaded it onto her computer, read it, and then decided to buy another copy to download to her Ipad. I thanked her, but informed her that if she bought it from Smashwords she would be able to just download another copy to her Ipad without having to pay again. Not bad. One other perk for potential readers is they get to sample 15% of the book via Smashwords before deciding if they want to buy it or not. I know I'm not for everyone, but at least the opportunity to "try me" is out there.

So, just to recap you can get Fractured Facade here at Smashwords, or here at Amazon, or, at any other eRetailer now. What? You don't have an eReader??? Christmas is coming, and you can get a Kindle starting at $79!

Kindleicious -- Cross Post

On my book blog today a post about eReaders -- Kindleicious.