There's Psychopathy then there's Marketing Apathy!

Norm Cowie w/Rob Walker @www.loveismurder.com conference

Thanks, Rob, Morgan, and everyone at ACME Authors Link for having me back here at youZ guyZes great blog where almost everything goes. I had once been one of youZ, a regular contributor with Acme until I was sucked into the black hole of author marketing apathy - as serious a disorder as writers block!                      

On that note, it’s time for me to come clean on something that I’ve been hiding from my friends, neighbors and publishers. Something so horrible and ... well... (sigh)... let me just come out and say it.

I was an advertising/marketing major back in college.

                             Joe Konrath w/Norm Cowie in Galena, IL 2009

There, I said it. And I was pretty good at it, too. I was even selected as one of the University’s five representatives for a national advertising competition. So wouldn’t you think I’d be pretty good at marketing my books?

Nope, I suck at it. And not just a normal suck, but more like the big magic, steroid-inflated Hoover vacuum cleaner of suckage. Even worse, my instincts for knowing which way the wind is blowing pales even compared to that of a naked mole rat.

In August 2009, I went to Galena, Illinois with several other authors including Joe Konrath, Henry Perez, Luisa Buehler and Margot Justes to market our new anthology Missing. We were hosted by fellow author Barbara Anino and her husband in their Bed and Breakfast.

One late evening after we wore everyone else out, it came down to just Konrath, Perez and me lounging in the living room, wearing courtesy b&b robes and bending elbows with liquid we’d liberated from one of Galena’s many wine outlets, and Joe started talking about something he called ebooks.

Ekkk-books?

Joe (we know him now as the Pied Piper of this ebook revolution) said ebooks were going to be the wave of the future, and he was converting all of his previously unpublished work and releasing every title onto Amazon’s Kindle himself. I laughed (easy when you’ve been drinking) and told him he was crazy. Who’d want to read on a tablet?

The truth was I was a bit intimidated by the thought of wrestling with formatting a book to meet this new technology.

Joe wouldn't let it go; he insisted ebooks were about to explode in popularity, so I said, “Tell you what, Joe. How about I give you one of my unpublished books and you convert it to ebook, publish it, and we’ll split the profit?” He firmly and politely said, no, that he wouldn’t feel right, and insisted I consider doing so myself.

Well, we all know what happened with Joe and other of his friends who follwed the Pied Piper into ebooks, and I sure wish he’d have taken me up on my offer -- and/or that I'd gotten off my duff and looked into the possibilities.

Two years later, I belatedly began taking Joe's advice--as had many another 'smart' writer. My first try was with a non-fiction collection of humor essays called, The Guy’d Book, why we leave the seat up ... and other stuff. The Guy’d Book is a collection of humor essays I’d written over the years dealing with being a guy, father and ESPN addict, some parts of which had been published in the Chicago Tribune and Cynic Magazine.

I wrestled with the formatting for both ebook and printed book (using Create Space where I stumbled onto something they called their Cover Creator). With this nifty little tool, I was able to cobble together a usable cover, seeing as without a publisher, I was on my own for covers. Soon after, The Guy’d Book was available as an ebook.

Right around the same time, my contract was expiring with my publisher for my first book, The Adventures of Guy. They offered to renew, but flushed with enthusiasm I took back the rights. In hindsight, I think they were ticked off because citing a clause in our contract, they demanded I remove all images of the book cover from my sites. The clause wasn’t well written, and while I disagreed about the intent of the clause, I decided not to fight (mostly because I never liked the cover all that much in the first place). But it did teach me one important lesson: whenever possible, control your own covers.

Then I turned down my second publisher’s offer to publish WereWoof, the sequel to my first YA vampire book Fang Face, and released it myself on Kindle, followed shortly by my newest adult humor title, Bonk & Hedz, a caveman ... and woman... story. I took my own advice to design and do the artwork for both books.

I now had six books, four of which were self-published, and I sat back and waited for everyone to discover me.

I wasn’t active in forums, did no advertising, no blog tour and otherwise totally neglected my blog, and basically my marketing efforts consisted entirely of watching reruns of Big Bang Theory, doing angry political tweets and checking the ESPN website for news of Peyton Manning’s recovery from neck surgery.

You can probably guess what happened with my book sales. Though the Guy’d Book once nipped into the Top 100, my others were flotsam in the Amazon jet stream. Readers aren’t Christopher Columbus. You have to bring the New World to them, not vice versa.

So I’m finally stepping into the marketing pool encouraged by the seemingly idefatiguable Rob Walker and his results with Kindle Select and other authors who are carving a path to show how to get books out to readers. I'm following his methods along with Joe's these days. Another suggestion Konrath had made was to do short stories, so I’ve released a few onto Smashwords as companion pieces to my other books. Rob's been great at advising me on many otherlooked steps I should be taking as well.

In other words, I’m finally getting off my butt, climbing out of the black hole of marketing apathy and putting fur on my naked mole rat.

So, hi, it’s good to meet you all ...again, and I hope you will please leave a comment. Finally, thanks to all the Acme family here for having me back!

The Guy’d Book is available for free with Kindle Select lending. Here’s my Amazon page: http://amzn.to/l9d9Ya , http://www.normcowie.com

NORM COWIE

Garnering ebook eReviews fr0m Joe/Jane Q. Public

Originally posted on April 15, 2011, but this may be of help to some of you!

Using Twitter and Facebook effectively can gain reviews for your ebook. While such prestigious outlets as Publisher's Weekly and even the New York Times have announced (finally) that ebooks will be reviewed by them, the number of slots for such reviews are miniscule at best, and I suspect most such reviews will go to the authors who least need the extra toot to their horns. I mean does Dean R. Koontz need another place to be reviewed? Evanovich? Now, you and I and many another upstart Indie author or midlist author with an ebook -- we are the ones who need a review outlet.  There is Mysterical-e and a handful of others reviewing online but for ebooks and kindle books, the place where you will most likely be seen if you do garner a review is on Amazon.com.

But then how do you get people to review your book on Amazon?  I recently put up new books for sale from the Kindle shelf, and to entice eReaders to review my books, I announced on Facebook and Twitter that I would gift a copy of a book to anyone interested in then reviewing -- FREE copy of Children of Salem or Titanic 2012  and the eReader need only review it in some venue, preferably Amazon.com.

I recently received on April 14, 2011 -- the 99th year of Titanic's launch and demise -- another review of my T2012. The reviewer, a Chris Gibson, eReader, Joe Q. Public, remarked on how chills went through him when he realized he had placed up the review on April 14th--the exact night 99 years ago when Titanic sank.  Next year at this time it will be the 100th year of Titanic. One of the reasons I tackled the manuscript which posed huge challenges.

The reviews I have recieved from this process have been terrific and detailed for the most part. in which I said I would prefer an ugly, nasty, bad or tepid review to NO review but that I would take my chances as I believed strongly in the novel. They also inform me that I was on the right track with these two titles and offer some strong vindication as both books were repeatedly shunned by brick and mortar publishers, but in the case of querying myself as Independent Publisher for Instinct InK, I sorta knew I was not going to get a rejection slip or a pleasant 'no thank you'--HA!


It is rather nice to know your book is accepted by the publisher even before you have completed the thing. Independent authorship/publising with Amazon.com/Kindle. Nice to know you will be all-in on the cover art, the script/lettering, and no one to fight you on your title. All copy writing in my hands, so the description is precisely as I want it to be. Marketing director, PR person, responsible for it all, and oddly enough it frees me up from a myriad of problems faced when dealing with brick and mortar publishers, includinng no confusion on earnings and no delays on earnings. No more waiting six months or a year to learn of the progress or lack thereof of the book. Instead of royalty statements, I have unit sales reports. Instead of an agent and a publisher, I have a partner in crime who allows me to take 70% off the top to his 30%.

It is all so remarkable that even after placing up 46 booklength works on the Kindle shelf, I am still flabergasted that I am realizing a childhood dream--to be able to afford to publish myself so I don't have to cow-tow to anyone or wait on others I consider far, far too slow as I write too fast for brick and mortar stores but never too fast for the Kindle Store.

People looking for advice on practical methods for selling ebooks/kindle titles, find me on Kindle Community Forums. Hope to see you there.

Robert W. Walker
Killer Instinct, Cutting Edge, and Thrice Told Tales

Catch 22s in Publishing

This is the CATCH 22 of being a published author; years ago, I felt no one could possibly understand the problems and bumps in the road a PUBLISHED author must face. What's HE got to complain about, after all he has one loaf of bread under his arm, and yet he is complaining he has no bread. Who wants to hear it?


With more and more authors now being published with indie publishing and the advent of the Kindle platform, more authors who are published are experiencding such round robins as --"You gotta get out there and market your books" but you can't be so foolish as to get out there and say anything positive about your own work."

This is the crucible. You are responsible for any and all that goes wrong with the book in traditional publishing, but you HAD no control over all the most important decisions from cover art concept to title to ad copy, PR, marketing, etc. But if and when the book TANKS, guess whose ""WRITING" is the problem? The 'true' cause of the failure to 'communicate'?

Then you go Indoe Author and YOU are responsible for all those same decisions, and the book TANKS -- guess who is all out willing to take the responsibility for the causes of the "tanking"? With the freedom of Indie Authorship comes responsibility and accountability. Down to editing, rewriting, all of it.

At the same time, there is a PERVASIVE view that unlike a carpenter or archetect or painter or sculptor, a WRITER has NO BUSINESS liking his own work out lout and in public, that for some damn reason we have to keep it under our beds, this idea that we actually love what we have spent years crafting...what our hands and minds have wrought. That we should have no opinion on our own works anymore than a Hollywood actor ought have a political view, that 'How Dare We be so presumptous! O r that we dare love our 'children' and show any PDA (public display of affection). Or that we dare pound home the fact that we had a BALL writing this last one, or that we dare think it is our BEST work, or that we extremely DARE call it our most literary attempt. Our greatest most ambitious work.  Our most challenging work.

Actors are asked how they feel about a role they played and it is OK for Matt Damon to say that while the Bourne Identiy earned him more recognition and money than did Good Will Hunting, that the part he played in the film he co-wrote is his best work. It is OK for a cosmotologist to go on and on about what a fantastic job she did on someone's hair or nails, but GOD FORBID (for a pervasive number of idgits) that an author dare have a single word of praise for his own work, his own efforts, his blood, sweat, tears, and years of honing his or her skills in a culture that heaps praise and huge amounts of money on silly, insipid celebrity books.

I wrote and rewrote Children of Salem so many times it was rejected by every major publisher in New York twice and thrice in various drafts. I kid you not. I was so devoted to this story that I rewrote it countless times over a 30 year period, but I can get stoned at any time should I say, "This is, of all my books, my most literary work, my most amitious work, one that challenges the reader on every page." No good, BSP, but nowadays it is Kosher to lay out fifty bucks to have the same book reviewed by ten people on Amazon? It is OK to hear it from a paid lacky reviewer but not OK if I believe this aloud?

When I do get attacked, being a Scorpio, I generally sting back. I got into it with one group for a long time because I dared describe some readers, some reviewers, and even some editors as "hack readers" citing the fact that so many are so ready with the phrase "hack writers". Man did I catch hell. More recently, I used the term 'short-sighted readers' who just do not GET what I am doing and man, you'd think I was plotting the demise of the Pope. But when we pay reviewers to review our books, what does that make of the reviewer? Hack writers were called that because they wrote FAST in order to get paid per word fast. If that practice made writers 'hacks' then what does this new practice make of reviewers?

In short, so many goofy people online you have to ignore and just plow the rows you are cultivating, and to hell with short-sighted people and hacks or TROLLS of any sort. Like the sort who take exception to what you choose to place on YOUR facebook wall, for example. Exasperating to run into anyone with such temerity in the real world much less online. Then you have the trolls who devalue your writing based on the price you are willing to sell it for! The same book at 25 bucks is the same book at 99c.

Rob Walker
Children of Salem, Titanic 2012, Dead On, Dead on Writing
http://www.robertwalkerbooks.com/

Why Writers Should Embrace Amazon-Kindle

Recently heard around the virtual water cooler someone complaining that Amazon/Kindle cheats its authors. How? They drop your ebook price without telling you; they do it when their bot (function of the hunter robot) finds you have reduced the price and are selling it elsewhere.

Not to quibble...OK, to quibble... LOOK at it this way when thinking that Amazon is out to rob you of YOUR royalties. First off, no one ever in life -- at least not since the advent of the Kindle -- ever, ever offered an author as sweet a deal as 35% on every unit sold PLUS worldwide distribution on a platform you do not have to pay a dime for.

I know some small presses have offered sweet deals of 50-50, 40-60. 30-70 but typically such deals earn you zip and typically the percentage is weighted in the favor of the publisher who is going to send you royalty statement six months down the road to tell you that you have earned out nada, zip because all your heavy hardcover books set at 25 bucks did not actually sell so much as they shipped....and shipped BACK -- returns. Or you were selling a 15 or 16 dollar book and your realized a royalty after six months of $63 -- enough to buy that tuna sandwich you'd been eyeing for those six weeks and splurge on a day at the movies.


With kindle the number of returns is negligible, you do not wait six weeks to a year to see sales figures (in fact, these are not ROYALTIES but sales figures). We have this archaic notion that royalties--something owed us for months--is the proper term here, but NO....this is not an Advance Against Royalties circumstance and never was.

I thank God I can sell a book today at 99c and 1.99 and realize 35% on each sale. I respect Amazon's reasoning that if a book is going to be priced that low, for THEM to make any sort of pennies on it, that the 35-65 split has to kick in. If I do not wish to play that game, I do not lower the price. I have NEVER in 45 titles up on Kindle EVER had Kindle lower a single book price on me. Why is that not happening to me but happening to other now distraught authors?

Think about it. I control the pricing on all those books. I do not have these books on Smashwords or B&N for a lesser price. I understood from the get go that if I place one of my books in any other ebook store for a lower price that Amazon will find me (bot me) and drop my ebook price to the same or lower on Kindle. I never had any problem with that, and in fact decided from the get-go to associate myself so closely with Kindle-Amazon, to be a real partner, that my books are Kindle Exclusive and Kindle App friendly. I also put no restrictions on my books--lending or otherwise.

Earlier I had about 13 or 14 titles with Fictionwise. I got those rights back. There may be a title here or there still up for sale somewhere else but in the main as no other ebook stores are reducing my prices, only one doing so is me, myself, and I. I drop first in a series to 99c or 1.99 and place the other ten or five or four up at a price that will garner the 70% to me.

Now when in life has any author on the planet ever gotten a sweeter deal than 70 percent of each unit sold, a platform/display space/ worldwide distribution/the functionality to create buzz/timely payment/bookkeeping at no extra cost (and even if there are hidden costs, you are still the recipient of the BEST deal a Publisher has ever offered an Author in the history of book-making?

DoEs It MaKe SeNsE?
I feel as though I have my cake and can eat it too.

Just dropped my Vampire Dreams down to 99c....first in a four-book series, and all the other three are above 2.99 -- so I see the 99c as enticement and investment to get all four selling well. I JUST made this drop in price yesterday and I was something like 37,000 in store NOWHERE with the title, but today, WOW...I am now #71 in some category in top 100 and 17,000 something in store paid.

Now my job is to get the word out that for a "limited time ONLY" this book is up for sale at 99c. The terms "limited...only...sale" REALLY seem to have an effect as I have dropped other books to 99c without the fanfare or the TERMS of Sale, and people, it would seem, have a Pavlovian response to those simple words-- Sale, Limited Time Only.

Anyhow, onward and upward. My next duty is to spread the word of its now being #61 on said list. Need to go back to check that list....was it horror or suspense or urban fantasy....I think horror but unsure. I got to excited, I dropped my teeth -- and I do not even have dentures (yet).

Please leave a comment; love to hear from you. What has been your experience in this area? How do you feel about amazon? about ebooks, ePricing?


RoboWriter Rob Walker
http://www.robertwalkerbooks.com/
Vampire Dreams. Brain Stem, Floaters

Re-Inventing Oneself as a Writer

There are writers who absolutely write the same book not just twice but many times over, no question of it. Like actors, there are many different types of writers. Some are one-book wonders that have a single title come out of the blue to take top honors, awards, bestseller status, but for most of us, we write one book, two, three, etc. until we find we've written ten, twenty, thirty, etc. Some of us are "serial" writers, our nose to the grindstone not of writing the same book over and over but throwing one adventure after another at the SAME character or ensemble of characters.

I fall into the later category, having created something in the neighborhood of 8 series characters, some of whom have lasted through two books, others eleven, most three and four. My last two novels added on to two series as Titanic 2012 continued my fascination with Inspector Alastair Ransom who had earlier had a trilogy. The book after this was purely for kicks, a horror novel, which continued my desire to work again with my character Dr. Abraham Stroud, archeologist and vampire slayer, a book called Bayou Wulf.

A year ago Ransom and Stroud were both "dead" characters according to the 'rules' of traditional publishing, but as a re-invented author, now an Independent Author thanks to Amazon's Kindle store, I can ressurect Ransom and Stroud and any of six other 'dead series characters'....and so I am re-invented anew as an author interested in continuing otherwise dead series. Kindle allows for this.

Even in content, I have taken on a new author personae beyond that of Indie Author....as now with Titanic 2012 complete, I decided to go back to the sea for another seafaring suspense thriller, so am now working on Bismarck 2013, a working title.  You might say I am carving out a new genre -- occult seafaring suspense with science fiction overtones and a good dollop of historical to boot.  OK, not sure what to call these books; perhaps the new label or category should read -- Labeless.

As I am way over-tired, I am goint to let a snippet of Titanic 2012, follwed by a snippet of Bismarck 2013 speak for me here. I am blogging on the "Making of Bismarck 2013  at Dirty Deeds - Advice from a pro  found on Google. Here are the snippets: 


TITANIC 2012

—CURSE of R.M.S. TITANIC—

ONE

Belfast, Northern Ireland, April 3, 1912

Slippage dust choked them. A fine shower of it fluttered about the men like a million black fairies that insisted on entering them. The dark dust created of itself a ghostly, unruly fog. Yet it was so fine, the two wouldn’t have known it was here had not their helmet lights reflected it. The earth around them groaned and stretched as if disturbed from slumber, just awakening. Tim McAffey, one of the two who’d dared enter to inspect the damage wondered why he’d ever become a miner. Then the floating grave ahead of them settled, and he thought of the bonus promised if he did his job. He thought of home and family and food on the table.

“The day ends with little to show,” said mine superintendent McAffey, frustrated and upset. He knew from experience it’d take days if not a week to get the men comfortable enough about this section of the mine to even begin to clean up the mess where some timbers had given way. “Hell, amounts to a sneeze,” he said to the man beside him.

“Minor inconvenience at best,” agreed O’Toole.

@http://tinyurl.com/6753a69

SECOND SNIPPET:
B I S M A R C K 2013

May 5, 1941 aboard the Bismarck, docked in Gotenhafen Bay, Occupied Poland

Adolph Hitler smiled and rocked on his heels, feeling safe, even smug here where the Bismarck had been kept from prying British air patrols—far to the west of where the ship had been built in Hamburg. Here amid multiple land masses, fjords, in the straights between Germany and Sweden.

Hitler felt comfortable here in his 5’10 frame inside his British-made Wellington boots. He smiled and turned his head in all directions from his vantage point on the bridge of the deadliest battleship ever to set sail on the high seas. Her guns were the largest ever assembled on a floating vessel.

Hitler had come aboard with heavy security. There had been yet another recent attempt on his life in Berlin. He had a small army of SS men on all sides of him and four men carrying a crate, a curious wooden crate…something many of the seamen aboard, all lined in rows for the inspection by the Fuehrer, thought interesting. In particular Lt. Commander Ivan Hulsing had noticed the large crate, and he immediately wondered if it had anything to do with the new encryption code machine that Hitler’s top engineers had been working on.

This would make sense. And if so and installed on Bismarck, the admiral and captain of the ship would be deciphering every message sent across the airways between Britain and its allies. Hitler might also ascertain if it was true that the Americans were quietly supplying the British with more than just food and supplies in their so-called humanitarian efforts to back the United Kingdom.

Bismarck was built to lay waste to such foolishness, to destroy anything that dared to move across the North Atlantic. Her guns could hit a row boat fifteen miles off her bow. Ivan Hulsing began to hear the whispers wafting among the rows of sailors lining the deck, all now curious of the box—a wooden crate marked as oranges, ostensibly a gift for Admrial Lutgens whose love for fresh fruit aboard his ship was legendary.

Hitler’s entourage had first come aboard intent on plying directly to the Admiral’s quarters with the crate. Anyone seeing the strain on the faces of the four men carrying the elongated, coffin-sized crate, must imagine it carried more than oranges. Meanwhile, Captain Lindeman and Admiral Lutgens followed Hitler’s men like a pair of puppies in the great leader’s wake. It appeared Hitler, an oddly shaped, small man, which Ivan realized for the first time, was nearly lost in his leather coat—as if it’d been borrowed from a larger man. Hitler had surrounded himself with men selected for the best in Aryan features: blue-eyed, blond-haired six-foot high soldiers in spanking new military uniform and Nazi insignia-emblazoned caps. Alongside such men, the Fuehrer appeared a perfect foil for such men—as Hitler himself was dark-eyed, dark-haired, little-statured man who seemed weak and lost in his uniform by comparison; a man playing at soldier.

And Hitler was intent on getting that crate tucked away in the Admiral’s possession, in the Admiral’s cabin down from the Captain’s quarters. This took the darkly-clad entourage up several flights of stairs and catwalks facing the bridge. Hidden somewhat amid his entrouage, Hitler’s gait was that of a determined ape chasing a female, an ape with a mission fuck over anything daring to get in his path. Determined first to deposit the gift, before anything to do with inspecting the ship or crew.

Once done with the ‘gifting’, this man determined to rule the Earth, would return to inspect Bismarck and the mariners of this mighty ship. Every sailor aboard, including Ivan Hulsing must maintain attention status while awaiting Hitler’s return to inspect the rows upon rows of sailors, two thousand, lining every deck at every level.

THANK you for dropping by and I do hope you will leave a comment in your wake! 
Rob Walker

Patience & Persistence Makes a Writer

MARK TWAIN, my spiritual mentor since beginning my long journey as an author and the guy I stole more from than anyone else I have stolen from, he has a great many great quotes but this one I purely love: "KEEP AWAY from people who try to belittle your ambitions. SMALL PEOPLE always do that, but the really great make you feel that you too, can be great."

I have had my collegaues in the teaching profession say to me, "Rob, you actually think anyone can do what you do, don't you?"

"Of course and why not? When it comes to writing fiction, guess what? Doing of it is the teacher, and I pretty much taught myself, set up my own curriculum and went at it. So why not another? Why not my students?"

Of course not all students succeed, and not all great young writers prevail. It is a myth to believe that well crafted writing alone will lift an author to the top of his profession. Most never get past all the frustration and need for patience, the time it takes to evolve into a talented writer who can actually make shapely fiction. For it takes years, and for most of us, a lifetime as truly, there are few things in life that require as much self-teaching and practice and skill-building as crafting solid fiction.

Dearn R. Koontz once advised me to slow down, adding, "Robert, you don't do your best work until you turn 50 anyway."  He was right of course but at the time I was teetering on 50, and very frustrated and feeling I had put in way too much time on a dying propostion to begin with...contemplating quitting altogether. Who needed the headaches and the heartaches and the belly aches from hunger and depression at not achieving the gold ring?

What Koontz meant and what I know now is that it has taken me 30 years of continuous writing to get to the level of proficiency I am at currently. Sure there are those amazing wonders among us out who careen to the top of the bestseller list with their first publicaiton but scratch the surface and 99 percent of the time, you will learn that first publicaiton came only after six, seven or even ten previously written UNpublished novels.

I feel indeed I am doing my BEST work in a checkered career now, that my more recent titles -- all of which have been written within the last few years as Kindle Originals are my best to date works, books I could not have written when I was young and full of eager impatience to be published. 

With each book I have written, I have gotten better over these many years, and to get so good as to be speed writing with confidence, most of us have to go through the harrowing period I call the Valley of Death thorugh whch Job himself must suffer...that it takes the patience of the biblical Job to prosper in any of the major arts - be it film, sculpting, painting, computer graphics, poetry, biography, fiction. Whatever your addiction craves to create.

Frightfully now, up on Kindle bookshelves, my readers can go wayyyy back in time, look over my early works, and see how terribly weak they are compared to my latest works. What a difference; it is like when Martin Cruse Smith went from doing a schlocky vampire vs. Native American horror novel to writing such as Gorky Park, not that any of my books are Gorky Park. But I began writing thin books, thin in size and in depth, lacking setting and character but with a lot of plot. Only over time and with experience(s), did my novels fatten up completely to the point they turn some folks off due to sheer page numbers.

My newer work, however, are character-driven, filled with fully realized characters rather than the thin shadows of my early, past creations.It is instructive even for me to go back in time and read the kid's early stuff--and to realize that while the kid had something on the ball and a lot of gall, hutzpah, smarts...that the work was thin by comparison to the old gent's stuff.

Don't believe me? Look at my first published novel alongside Children of Salem or Titanic 2012. There simply is no comparison. While the kid I was had sparks of passion, perhaps even a bic lighter flame of smartness, the depth of all the elements coming together in the later works is just so much more of...of everything readers want and need..In orther words, Dean Koontz knows of what he speaks. It takes a life devoted to writing to reach par.

I am soon to be 63 and I began writing as a kid, maybe around fourth grade, and wrote my first short stories as a child, my first novel as a high schooler, modeling it on Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn-- a sequel!  The arrogance of youth, but in tracking Twain so closely as to "write Twain", well the genius became my spiritual mentor, and I never forgot what he taught me about writing.

Still it was I who unearthed Twain; he did not come to me in a drean or a zombie state. It takes a powerful yearning to want to imitate and emulate a writer of Twain's caliber. So when the Chicago Tribune review of City for Ransom compared my work favorably to Twain, Dickens, Doyle, and Poe I felt in great company. I began to feel I was getting pretty good at what I chose to devote my life to.

It takes enormous patience, the sort of infinite patience required of a teacher these days, the sort that requires a higher PQ than IQ...a high Persistence Quotient.

Thanks for visiting and do leave a cogent comment; would love to cogently respond to you as well or simply to hear from you.

Robert W. Walker
"What Moves Kindle Bks. off Shelves" -- Kindle Community forums
http://www.robertwalkerbooks.com/

Sell That eBook - What Sends ebooks Flying Off Shelves?

Selling the e-book with a Look! What Sends ebooks Sailing off Virtual Shelves?

Some simple changes I made turned my book sales on Kindle from a drip, drip, drip to big sales. I just clocked in at 935 books sold in my slowest month since sales have been going well for me—December 2010. Now in month one of 2011, I have sold 1,140 books – all at 2.99. I make almost $2 (70%) from each book or unit as they say.       

When first I placed my work onto Kindle, I was lucky to make 60 bucks a  month.                                                      

How'd I do it? What changes did I make? First I went back to my book descriptions and made absolutely certain of no typos or errors of any kind as well as rewriting to make each the best damn short-short I could. This made a huge difference in sales, I kid you not. Secondly, I went on a TAG binge, tagging all my books below where they are found on Amazon to utilize genre-specific tags like Occult Horror, Generational Horror, suspense, mystery, police procedural, supernatural, paranormal female detective, etc. and I linked using my name along side other more successful authors in my field. This did two things – by placing my name on tags whenever anyone opens my book list, they also get my author’s page coming up. By ‘associating’ my work with the work of say William Miekle—as he did me—I am seen by his fans, and he by mine.

I had an amazing spike in numbers since taking these steps. Of course promoting online is of great import but so to is professional cover art and editing. When I am working on a novel, I put it out there what I am working on, and I invite early readers, and it is amazing how much readers will catch. One does not have to pay huge prices for good editing as I have found my best editors – amazing editors – who love to read a book BEFORE anyone else help me create the best book I possibly can. Most people believe they had to pay out big bucks for excellent editing but truth be told many people pay out big bucks and get punk editing for their money. I’d rather have a passionate edit with no exchange of money than a so-so one that cost me a couple thousand bucks, wouldn’t you? I edit myself heavily and do many rewrites, but I know I need more sets of eyes on the project, so as I am doing a work in progress, I ship it off to people I have come to trust absolutely. This has worked out fantastically well for Children of Salem -

Romance Amid the Witch Trials, and for Titanic 2012 – Curse of RMS Titanic. My payment to these wonderful contributors has had to be in acknowledgement only, and guess what – they have been tremendous about this, and they so love being involved in a project and seeing their name in the book, that I have never been sued or held up or yelled at.

Notice how on my recent ebooks I have chosen to use subtitles? I believe subtitles help sell the book with a look, so to speak…a bit more detail right there in the title. Which brings us to titles. One’s title needs be unique and grab-ilicious. Early on, I put it out there that I am looking for the perfect title. For my last two I conducted searches. For Titanic 2012, I set it up as a contest – and I got two titles I loved – and so I used them BOTH as you see. Titles can either be seductive and alluring or boring and repellent! Think it through before you lock down on a title and as with so much put it out there for a search or contest as I did on my blog Dirty Deeds.

Cover art is imperatively important. I can’t stress this enough. Generic cover art or templates are seen as about as exciting as seeing one of those blanks where the photo or cover should be but isn’t. This is one area where I get professional help. The package has to look elegant and reflect the story within. I have been fortunate to have had excellent artwork for my ebooks. My artist happens to be my son, Stephen, a graphic artist by profession. Again, I have been fortunate in not having to pay out big bucks for artwork/graphics. But there are more and more people doing this for a one-time only fee and not for the lifetime of the book.

If you turn over your rights to an ebook publisher, guess what? They will take care of all such concerns and problems and things you may view as obstacles you do not want to deal with, and so long as you know what you are getting into, this can be a fine way to go, but you will be splitting that royalty then three ways instead of two. If you do sign with an ebook “agent” or “publisher” be clear on what their services for you provide. Will they be editing the work? If so, is that to be an extra charge? Same with artwork/graphics? If you sign with an ebook group that takes care of all the hassles and they are charging you a one-time fee to place the work up for you, do they turn over the controls to you or do they control your dashboard – thus the royalty payments, etc. Or is this group speaking of simply a one-time only fee. It should be one or the other. A real insult in my opinion is that a company charges you for these services and also wants a percentage for lifetime of the book.

You may want to find a kid – any kid – and pay them a modest amount to get your book(s) onto Kindle shelf and show you how to find your payment reports/sales reports (not actually royalty or advances as in the traditional model of publishing).

Now getting back to what actually SELLS the ebook – a key, key, key element is pricing. Ebook readers expect low, lower, lowest prices. All my novels, despite the disparity in complexity and length, were originally put up at 1.99 but I notched them up to 2.99 as soon as Kindle offered the 70/30 split as part of the partnership ‘deal’. My latest, a very complex title that is truly two books in one, I placed up at 3.99. I believe low prices to be a key element in larger numbers of books sold. I learned early on that I can make more money on a 2.99 ebook than I can a 25 dollar hardcover due to the difference in the author percentage per sale. 10 to 12 percent on 25 is far less due to the far fewer number of books sold at this high a price.

Finally, what sells ebooks for me has been a long-running presence on such places as Facebook, twitter, blogs, online magazines, chat groups, and more recently kindle forums and ebook forums. Almost all my ebook reviews have come about via meeting people online who love to do book reviews and routinely look for ebooks to review. More and more review outlets for ebooks are coming into being every day, but I have made contacts on Facebook for instance that have reviewed Children of Salem and Titanic 2012, placing reviews on their blogs and on Amazon.com, but such results came after long hours on Facebook, not just seeking such outlets but engaging people in all manner of conversation and discussing issues of interest placed up by others. In the end, if you are liked thanks to your online presence, sense of humor, concern for the universe, etc., then others online will begin to eagerly seek out your writing. If they like you, they'll want to like your ebook(s).

Some reading this will say it can’t be that simple or easy, but guess what – it has not been simple nor easy at all, and it has taken great and abiding patience. My IQ is not as important in this “business” of ebooking it as is my PQ – Persistence Quotient. Recall what I was making a month when I started with nearly the same amount of books up. It does help indeed to have an impressive list of books – numbers of covers in a line do encourage sales as well, so the last job and first really is for you to post more works – collected short stories, themed stories, how-to book crafted from your years of blogging perhaps, and more fiction, more novellas, novels. Keep putting new titles up. I had a huge backlist but it took me years to build that backlist, I can tell you.

Keep on truckin’ and ebookin’ – and take a look at my website to see what can be done if you work with a truly good graphic artist. Look at my graphic artist and webmaster’s own website – www.SRWalkerdesigns.com and find other information on this subject at The Newbies Guide to Publishing and archived blogs on the subject right here at ACME Authors.

Robert W. Walker

www.robertwalkerbooks.com

www.robertwwalker.com.blogspot.com

Wikileaks for books? Book-e-Leaks is Here!

I recently put together a blog I considered necessary to fill a need. I am sharing information about the new blog here at Acme --Book-E-Leaks is here! Leak info. about YOUR books here! This is just the kind of blog all writers and readers need - a place where writers are encouraged to speak freely and openly about their favorite titles created by THEM without being attacked but rather appreciated for appreciating their own works and favorite lines and ideas and methods used as well as news of new book launches, signings, sales strategies that worked or failed --- anything leaking from your book from inception to completion and publication....whether an ebook or a paper book. Post your news and great feelings of completion and closure right here at Book-E-Leaks. Share great blurbs, quotes, snippets from reviews here as well. All without fear of being attacked or having your book called SPAM. Don't know about you, but my life's work is not SPAM.


To get started here I will go first since I have bragging rights here just as you do. I will post a great line from Titanic 2012....and you do your best to add a great line from YOUR book so that readers will have a BookEleak to go by....you may also want to leak such lines on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere with a link to Book-E-leaks.

So come on over to http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2476000364646494559

do too leave a comment!
Rob Walker
http://www.robertwalkerbooks.com/ (order direct)

Rejecting Traditional Publishing & Rejectionists Policies via Ebook PubbX

I am going to keep this short and sweet and to the point. If you are like me and sick to death of having perfectly good work rejected or a series character killed off by your publisher(s) due to nothing foreseeable or reasonable (had two series cut that were both earning good money via one phone call to my agent once), then you may want to join me in Indie Publishing via Amazon.com kindle bookstores. You will find a kindle bookstore in just about every home in the country now...a kindle bookstore near you.

But you say publishing in hardcover with Random House or Penguin is so prestigious. Fine, then go seek your prestige while I sell books, far more books than I ever sold in either paper or hardback with Penguin, working out of their bargain basement line--Berkley Books. The same foolish folk who killed off my Jessica Coran Instinct Series and my Lucas Stonecoat Edge Series same day. Cut me to the quick they did that day. For no apparent reason, and none given. Nothing that held water at least. Myself, I believe it was in-house politics and I had a guilty editor to scaffold my suspicions.

But like a terrible, rending divorce, in the long run it may have been the best thing to ever happen to me as since have discovered how to publish my own work at my own pace in my own time with my own title attached along with getting to make all the decisions involved in publishing work in a professional manner. In essence, although I was rejected by traditional publishing, perhaps even black-balled (certainly felt so), I can now say without impunity that I REJECT them...and reject their whole way of doing business. You know the type of business wherein you are expected to be professional, to be ethical, to be loyal and such but the company owes you no respect, no professionalism, no loyalty, no ethics as they don't need to be honest with you, despite thier expectation of all of the above from you. Sound familiar? That's cause it is not just in publishing but in a myriad of businesses across America.

The sweeping upside of all the accumulated rejections I have gotten over the years is that now I am the only one in a position of such authority over this writer (employer) to reject or fire me as I am also the boss (as kids say, "The boss of me!"). In my other life as one of the stable of mid-list authors for NYC publishers, I was held accountable for the win or the loss while not given any of the responsibility to make that win or loss a reality. In other words held accountable for actions I could not be a party to. Not so with Indie publishing with Amazon.com/Kindle books. Win or lose, all decisions will have been made by me, and I cannot tell you how freeing up that is, being my own boss, running my own book show. I feel like Barnum and Bailey at this digital platform age of publishing.

Rather than even attempt to read a publisher's royalty statement now I read a daily, hourly, minute-by-minute sales report telling me precisely how many units have sold with returns already figured in or out as it were, with returns hardly worth mentioning as to number, and a readable report at that. I can tell at a glance what titles sold how many in a given day, week, or month. It is the opposite with the infamous author's royalty statement which one sees only six months to a year depending on publishing house, and even then the numbers are unreliable and downright confusing.

In addition, in Indie publishing with Amazon.com/Kindle the percentage on every book is seventy percent to the author, thirty to Amazon. Amazon is not acting as publisher but rather giving you--as publisher--the wherewithal to distribute and or display your wares on a platform seen by millions. The dynamic is absolutely new and different and has traditional publishers crying in their pillows at night.

If you have thought of placing up an ebook, first go with Amazon.com -- as this is where all the action is -- but by all means do it yourself or hire some expert to do it for you for a one-time fee. Turning it over to a publsihing house to do for you, or giving it up for your agent to do for you is tantamount to asking these others to rob you for the duration of the life of the book. In a two-step process made as simple as it can be, anyone can put up a book at http://www.dtp.amazon.com/ for ebooks and http://www.createspace.com/ for P.O.D.'s...
so let no one baMboozle you; do it yourself.

Look at how lovely my Children of Salem came out, or more recently my Titanic 2012 looks on the Kindle Shelf. You can have a sneak peek at:  http://ningit/97tRIE

Please leave a comment, ask a question, wave a flag, correct a typo under comments!

RobWalker
http://www.robertwalkerbooks.com/

what Editors Know

Recently, I read this line on a chat group I hang with:  An editor who does not charge is not a true editor.  That sort of logic if taken to writing would say that an artist or writer or composer is not a true WHATEVER unless he or she is making money at it; unless and editor is making money at editing, he or she is not a real editor.  This sort of snobbery has existed in NYC book business forever as they pay editors so well (HA!).  I have had many many editors, some who woud place a comma between many many and some who would not, and I have as yet to find one properly compensated by anyone.  I have also operated my own editorial services (Knife Services) from my website, and I charge half or a third of what some editors charge, and lately, the business is slow as molasses.

No one wants to pay for editing services.  To this I can attest.  To qualify that, few want to pay for editing services, but one way or another every author needs a great editor or two or three in order to truly get a MS to sing.

An editor for your work is worth his or her weight in gold, even if he or she edits your work for nothing but the opportunity and "privilege" and charge you nada...for no charge. Despite the line this blog began with, there are capable and surprisingly fine editors among those who do not charge a fee; I know because I have availed myself of some excellent editorial help at no charge over the years.  These people are my early readers.  People I have cultivated a strong friendship with as a result of our making great books together, people who wind up in my acknowledgment pages.

It may upset some pricey editors (some priced at ten dollars a page if you can imagine it) to hear such talk from a professional writer and published author, but I have relied all my life and career on people who have a sixth sense about what works and what does not work in a manuscript, items you want OUT before the MS goes to press or release to Kindle or Smashwords or wherever you are publishing nowadays.

My Children of Salem, my highest grossing Kindle title, was put through the grist mill by two editors in particular who suffered and struggled with me like Jonah and the Whale until we GOT it.  My work in progress, Titanic 2012 has had the tremendous help of two editors in particular who have wrestled that one to the mat where they MAKE me wring out rather than ring out the right words and save me countless embarrssing moments as well as point out plot weaknesses and sags. They are simultaneously copyeditors and developmental editors these folks.

I go back as far as 1965 or 6 working with my Wells High School managing editor on the school newspaper for editorial advice, and damn but she was good with langauge and writing; one lesson she taught me then stayed with me all my writing career - Acitve over Passive. I get cudos for making my work "compelling, fast-paced, a page-turning roller-coaster ride" etc. etc. due in great part to my editorial board -- and now that I am a writer turned publisher putting out Original to Kindle titles, I rely even more on my early readers, my editorial board. They have recently truly impressed me, digging damn deep to make the work the best it can be to the point it is no longer about me but the novel itself that comes first.  Of course, it helps that the publishing industry has long, long ago beat the living ego out of me.

My apologies to those who consider themselves legitimate editors because they charge a fee, whether fair or exorbitant, but sorry as I am, I must say that there are people who are not just willing to be early readers for an author but who become invaluable editors an author can and does TRUST, often just as much as he trusts an editor within a publishing house or with a logo.  I love editors, love them all, and feel they all deserve a raise but the practice of authors cultivating two, three, four early readers is not likely to stop but increase as we go to press as Indie author-publishers.  Certainly been the case with me, but then I had always cultivated early readers.  By the same token, over the years, I have learned a great deal from my contacts with all editors, those who were paid--even if poorly by the publsihing house--and those who have graced me with thier help out of the goodness of heart and understanding and unfettered desire to be a part of the process of creation.

Sneak peek of Children of Salem and/or Titanic 2012 is available at http://www.robertwalkerbooks.com/

Thanks so much for coming by and do leave a comment, good, bad, ugly, indifferent but leave some word....

Robert W. Walker (Rob to my friends)

E-Books and On Becoming an Indie Author/Publisher

Why Go All Independent Author on Us, Rob?
  (Part I)

E-books and the electronic readers like the kindle are suddenly legion at schools, at writers conferences, even at ironically enough bookstores. I will never forget at a book signing when a lady pushing a baby carriage by stopped long enough to reach into the carriage to pull out her kindle to proudly flash before me to ask my wife, Miranda and I, “Are your books on Kindle?” We were ready for her, both of us replying, “Yes indeed.”

THREE Million plus kindle e-readers have been sold since December of this year, and Mother’s Day is likely to see a huge number sold as well—perhaps more; at least this is the number I keep seeing in articles in The New Yorker and Newsweek. In other words, the future is upon us and traditional publishing has reason to be concerned even if they don’t know it. More and more authors are taking control of their content and making decisions that impact the content—what they create.

Traditionally, the working arrangement between publisher and writer has always been one of you turn over your creation and the publisher “takes all the risks” as if you are taking no risks in spending months if not years on a manuscript. However, since you are taking “no risks” like those faced by the publisher—business risks—the notion is you are now passive cargo and worth about 8 to 10 percent of each “unit” sold after costs incurred such as an advance.

Now all decision-making is out of your hands, and you are supposed to go write another book in the event the first one sells well. Meanwhile, the publisher’s team—all of whom have pensions and paychecks—make the important decisions of pricing, placing, marketing, packaging, title, down to the font and colors on the cover.

In other words, all decisions made by committee, all of whom are making more money on books being pushed than the author. Think totem pole and the author is at the bottom, and wasn’t a camel a horse designed by committee? My point is when the book fails, the guy at the bottom of the totem pole is the one blamed as his/her numbers of unit sales is too low.

So the business model for the author is pretty bleak, and has been since Guttenberg’s invention of the printing press; ninety nine percent of all novelists in the world cannot live on what they earn as writers. Could you live on eight percent of what you sell without health benefits or pension?

That said, let’s turn now to the business model for the author who is now an Independent Author/Publisher—and for starters, the Kindle contract is not an 8-10% cut but a 70/30 split with the 70 going to the author! Aside from this, the author makes all the decisions to package and price the book, no title fights, no arguments over hardcover vs. trade vs. mass market as none of these designations apply in e-books. The added attraction to doing e-books is control and a sense of freedom.

NYC BIG Publishing appears as interested in change as glaciers, and for good reason—status quo is always attractive.  Also there is the constant mantra about how they “take all the risks” and they also take the lion’s share of the profits. This glacial attitude is no more evident than now with the sudden growth of e-readers and e-readership as the big houses like Random House and Penguin and others are warring with Amazon.com over price-setting.

They have always controlled the prices, and now suddenly millions of avid readers, rabid readers if you will (as kindle readers can go through forty books in a week) want their books at less than ten dollars—as Bezos, the head of Amazon "suggested" and I paraphrase: “You buy a kindle, no kindle book on Amazon for more than 9.99--unless otherwise priced.” Frankly, I believe Bezos truly wanted to revive an interest in reading, reading more, and more reading among all peoples of the world, that he was concerned as many of us are about literacy.

Fact is, Bezos wants the world to have access to any book you or I want “at the moment” or as close to NOW as Whispernet can make it happen. This is why Bezos named his device “Kindle” to “kindle the passion in readers and non-readers alike.” An altruisitc-based business model; imagine that!

By using the A-B-C directions at www.dtp.amazon.com, I now have some 43 novels for sale online via Kindle Book Store on Amazon.com. The e-books for out of print titles may require getting a company like http.//www.blueleaf.com
to convert an actual book to a scan to doc, and once you have a doc file it must be converted to HTML—which can be the most difficult part of the steps involved. If you already have a doc file of the book in question, you won’t have to send off a book to be scanned. I used Blue Leaf because their prices are three times cheaper than anyone else doing book scanning.

By the way...recently learned that if you send a book doc file to a friend with a gmail address it "automatically" converts to html.  I can hardly believe this but have it on good authority!  After all, the most trouble involved in the process is converting the file to html and then in reviewing it, correcting the errors that will inevitably come up in the process of conversion—sometimes quite time consuming.
Meanwhile, once the html conversion is complete, once done and placed up on your kindle dashboard, the rest is smooth sailing. The results in terms of sales are astonishing. In the old business model with traditional publishing wisdom has it that your price the book at the top end—as high as the market will bear.

However, in the e-book model, the readers expect and demand low end pricing, very low end pricing. They are savvy readers who know that putting a book onto Kindle is a snap compared to printing on paper, paying for paper, warehousing paper, overhead for paper, paying PR people, paying marketing director and his staff, etc. Since all of this “goes away” in e-book world, the readers expect far cheaper books in the manner Bezos envisioned – and why not?

It is for this reason that I listed most of my forty plus books on Kindle at 1.99 and 2.99. These books at this low end rate are selling like a river flowing, while my three titles placed up by Harper Collins—priced at exactly the same price as the paper books at 6.99—are sitting there like three stones (no sale) while my novels like Children of Salem at 2.99 are my bestselling titles.

I earned 400 dollars last month on books priced at the lowest end of the scale, while my hardcover novel in the same month earned zip. In one year, I earned (after repaying advance, after packager’s 20 percent, after all overhead costs) a mere 141 dollars on my traditionally published hardcover DEAD ON, while in one month, I earned 400 dollars on my lowly 1.99 and 2.99 specials. What does this kind of economic comparison say about the old way of doing things and the new way of doing things?

Part II – Your Guide to Independent Authorship Found Here will continue here next Friday. Hope to see you back in your seat, ears alert, right here next time for the particulars of getting started in this brave new world of becoming an Indie Author.

Robert W. Walker hoping to hear your comments

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