Ruth Nestvold's Blog, page 59

New Collection, New Cover, and New KDP Select Results

Ok, so I went a bit overboard on the alliteration there, but I couldn't resist. Been another busy week. I continue to make consistent progress on this editing pass of Shadow of Stone, and I have a new short story collection in the works. I'm not quite done yet, but I do have a cover:

Shiny, yes? The artist of this one is Karri Klawiter, who has just started branching out into cover design. If you're in the market for a ebook cover, definitely check her out! She's great to work with and very ...

"Never Ever After" #30 in – um – Mythology???

When I saw the rankings of my short story collection, I was a bit confused, but then I realized it must be because I categorized Never Ever After as "FICTION / Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology" (in addition to fantasy short stories). In the bestseller category, the mention of fairy tales gets lost, and I'm suddenly in the "World Literature/Mythology" category. Whatever. At least I'm on a Top 100 list again! Not sure if that category is going to help me much in the long run, but...

Giving more books away and a new review

I was recently asked how my strategies for getting reviews were working, and all I can say is – not. I have several people interested in doing an interview with me, though. When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Writing a review is definitely more work than sending out interview questions and then posting them to your blog. I'm not knocking it; it's just an observation. I'm learning as I go here.

I did get a review yesterday, though, completely unsolicited, for my new story...

Never Ever After, Monkeys, and an Interview

It's been a busy week. I got another short story collection up for Kindle, Never Ever After, containing three previously published stories based on legends and fairy tales.

Here's the description:

"A Serca Tale" is a retelling of the old Irish legend "The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne."

"King Orfeigh": A young Irish king has lost his wife to the king of Faerie. Is there any way he can win her back?

"Happily Ever Awhile": Everyone knows the story of the filthy girl who married the prince by...

The Indie Experiment Continues: Tags and Pricing for Ebooks

Despite the fact that I've gone back to dedicating a couple of days a week to marketing, Yseult still has not gotten back above ten copies a day in sales. At least it's (mostly) hanging in there on the Top 100 list in historical fantasy. (Right now it's off again, sigh.) But who knows, without my extra efforts it might have totally fallen off the radar by now. Just dropping marketing efforts completely for a couple of weeks is another experiment I should conduct in this brave new world of...

Marketing is Eating my Brain: Advantages and Disadvantages of the Ebook Revolution

I've had a couple of things up on Smashwords and Amazon for several months now, but I never really got serious about this whole publishing revolution until I decided to put Yseult up as an ebook. Ok, so I've written hyperfiction before (hyper-what?), but that was back in my former life, when I was concentrating more on literary criticism than fiction. My creative writing ideas at the time reflected the research topics I was writing about for my day job.

Ebooks now are a completely different a...

Results of KDP Select Promotion: Yseult #20 in Historical Fantasy

… and that's PAID for Kindle.

I am stunned and amazed at how well my first freebie promotion worked. I can't say exactly how many free downloads Yseult got, but when I first checked after the promotion, it was at over 8600 units. Now it's at over 8700, with 31 units borrowed (for which Amazon pays authors a per unit price, depending on the funds in the Kindle Prime borrowing pot). So no matter how you look at it, it's a couple hundred dollars in a couple of days. The price for the cover...

Yseult #1 in Epic and Historical Fantasy

When I came home last night from my father-in-law's 86th birthday celebration, I avoided the computer for a while. First my hubbie and I watched the late news: the embarrassment of the present German Bundespräsident (of which he is unaware), further crises of the Euro (which we here in Germany don't really notice, except that books on Amazon are getting more expensive), etc, etc. Finally, after all the bad news, which wasn't really news, since we could have prophesied it, I turned on my...

Yseult Snack Rating: Buffalo Wing Blue Cheese Kettle Chips

That's the summary of the first review Yseult received on Amazon. I have never heard of the "snack rating" before, but I have to admit I like it, since I love Buffalo Wing Blue Cheese Kettle Chips, spicy and sweet and salty all at once, an incredibly intense flavor sensation. If they had those things here in Germany, I would probably be a couple more kilos overweight than I already am.

So anyway, the week has been a washout as far as new writing is concerned. I wanted to try to balance...

Ebook Madness: Preparing "Yseult" for Kindle

Yseult has now passed review and is available on Amazon as an ebook. It took me a lot longer than expected, but in the next few weeks I want to try and get a couple of collections of my previously published stories up, so perhaps with practice it will no longer seem quite as complicated.

I know there are lots of resources on creating ebooks out there, but everyone's process is different, and perhaps my experience can help some folks who tend to work more like me. Here are the steps I took in ...