Zoe E. Whitten's Blog, page 31

May sales report and June price increases

May brought 21 sales, with 20 coming through Amazon, and 1 coming through Gumroad. As I expected, putting out new releases from March to May has increased sales, though not necessarily for the new books. What happens is that all those ads catch peoples’ attention, and maybe the book I’m selling isn’t what they wanted. But they look through my back catalog and find something that does interest them and buy that instead. This also tells me I can only go a few months at a time without new releases because even if I continue to promote the same titles, ad fatigue sets in and makes me invisible again. So I really do need to keep up the regular releases if I want my sales to remain consistent.

I’d taken some advice from someone to reduce prices on my Tobe White books during the opening month of Adventures in Trolling, but despite heavy promotions, there weren’t any new readers coming to the series. I think the biggest problem is, a 99 cent price point is now about as useful as a free book. When only a few folks were doing it, readers would download just about anything offered to them. Now they’ve got a few hundred free books when in reality they only read an average of maybe 25-50 books a year. Some might average lower numbers, and others higher, but my point is, they’ve taken in far more books than they could conceivably read, and free by itself is no longer the blinking neon sign that it was a few years back. The quality of these books is irrelevant because people are not going to read what they downloaded either way. Most of the books they picked up will be deleted unread. So free, or even steeply discounted books might pick up some people in a promotional push, but there’s no guarantee that those folks will ever read them. It’s pretty much the same situation as shotgun blasting ARCs out to reviewers. You’re free book is entry 500 out of 700 books in the pile, which means your odds of being read and reviewed are now depressingly slim.

And this brings me to my announcement about price increases for all my books across all three vendors. I could tell you I’m doing it because with my lowering sales, I’m trying to improve my royalties. But while that is a positive side effect of the increase, my real reason for doing this has a lot to do with reader feedback. On Twitter and in reviewer blogs, I’m seeing a lot of people saying they won’t buy a book in the 99 cent to $2.99 range because they feel that price point equals lower quality. They think the books must be selling badly, so the authors are desperate to move units. This isn’t a book judged by the cover or the blurb. It’s all about the perception of price.

As a reader I can’t say I agree with this, and I’ll buy an ebook at any price between 0.99 and 13.99 so long as the blurb gets my attention. But I know I tend to be a bit weird in my reading habits and review policies, and I can’t ignore what so many readers are saying about their buying habits. So I’m going with the flow and bringing book prices up to avoid looking cheap and desperate. All the shorter works under 50K are now $3.99, and all my novels are $4.99. My omnibus collections are priced between $5.99 and $9.99 depending on the lengths of the books and how many books are in the collection.

These prices will be in place until at least January 2015, at which point I will evaluate my performance and decide if another increase needs to be made to get back on peoples’ radars. It’s a bit weird to me to be contemplating price increases to attract readers, but that’s the wacky world of ebooks for you. Go too cheap and you fall off the map. =^/

Now that I’ve got my pricing policies sorted out, my next goal this month will be uploading and formatting my books for NookPress. They work a little different from my other vendors, so when I upload an epub file to them, they format the page breaks into a table of contents with the links named HTML1, HTML2, HTML3, etc. This wouldn’t be so bad if those chapters weren’t numbered in reverse order. So HTML1 is actually the last chapter, not the first. NookPress does allow me to edit the Table of Contents titles from within their site, but that still means I have to format all of my books as well as fill out the various forms for pricing and marketing categories and such. Oh, and Nook has a different cover requirement from Amazon, so all my covers have to be resized to meet their standards. Of course. So it’s going to be a week-long project, at the very least.

After I’ve got the back catalog up on NookPress, my next project will be releasing Nobody Special. I’ve debated about what to market it as, and I decided to call it YA and accept that it’s going to offend some adult readers because the main character isn’t a perfect guy. But after reading The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and making an attempt to read The Perks of Being a Wallflower, I think Scott is a good fit for YA even if he is a lousy role model.

In conclusion, I want to thank everyone who bought my books in May, and to the fine readers who reviewed them as well. Every time I get a new sale, I’m reminded of the fact that you have hundreds of thousands of talented writers to choose from in this crowded market, and that you still choose to buy my stuff. That by itself is amazing, but some of you even like my stories enough to post a review or a rating, and I cherish every one of you for spending your time with me. You all make this writing gig so much more satisfying, and you make it easier to plant my butt in my chair and keep cranking out new stories.

Thank you again, and I’ll try to have a new review out in the next few days, assuming I can find some free time to finish reading Kealan Patrick Burke’s The Hides.

Guest post by Nerine Dorman: Heroes – Good and Not So Good

Today my blog is guest hosting author Nerine Dorman who has just released her newest fantasy tale The Guardian’s Wyrd with publisher Wordsmack. She’s been kind enough to explain a bit about her book and include an excerpt. So without further ado, here’s Nerine:

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I admit it freely. I am a huge sicker for stories where the hero or heroine ends up leaving this world completely to end up somewhere else. As a child, I read CS Lewis’ beloved Narnia books, but I was equally bewitched by fairy tales in which the adventurer visited the land of the faeries – which brings with it its own brand of complications.

How a person will react when they get over the denial and, better yet, how they are changed once they return to Earth is all part of the journey. In fact, the great storyteller Joseph Campbell addresses these exact themes in his The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Don’t know who Joseph Campbell is? Here’s a hint, he was a great influence on none other than George Lucas, who explored Campbell’s concept of the Monomyth in the Star Wars films.

But, without boring you with unnecessary detail, I’ll say this much, The Guardian’s Wyrd tells the story of a boy who discovers that he’s a hero. In fairy stories, it’s usually the prince rescuing the fair damsel. This time, it’s an ordinary boy who never saw himself as anyone special, who goes out to rescue the fairytale prince.

The Guardian’s Wyrd was a story I wrote to please myself, that touches on some of the magic I experienced as a child. The house where Prince Rowan lives really exists, as does the overgrown garden, though I’ve taken some liberties with a number of the features. As one does in fiction.

When you’re younger, there’s so much that is hidden in the past, and some of the stories that you stumble into are already old.

Jay has no idea of the complexity of what he’s getting himself into. In fact, at the beginning, he doesn’t even want to be involved, but there you have it. Heroes are sometimes born out of circumstance. Just ask Bilbo Baggins.

The other aspect of storytelling that I touch on is motivations. Characters are good or bad depending on whether you are standing with them or against them when it comes to achieving their goals.

The “evil” uncle, King Lessian, thinks his older sister, Queen Persia, is too irresponsible to rule. He feels perfectly justified in having staged a coup to wrest power from her. Quite clearly, she’s not that keen to hand over power to her son, Prince Rowan, when the time comes, yet by equal measure, she’s not in a position to rule the kingdom from she’s been exiled. No one wins. And yes, it’s quite possible she has only herself to blame for the fact that her son is not the brave hero destined for greatness that he should be.

Even Jay, our reluctant warrior, isn’t squeaky clean. Though he’s been bullied, he is quite capable of becoming a bully himself.

So, as for who will enjoy this story… Well, obviously if you enjoyed CS Lewis’s Narnia books, but of course The Guardian’s Wyrd doesn’t follow the trend of moralising when it comes to good or bad. And, yes, if you liked Harry Potter, then there’s a good chance that you will find The Guardian’s Wyrd hitting the mark.

Essentially, I allowed my imagination to run wild and I warmly welcome you into my world of Sunthyst, where unicorns roam.

EXCERPT

All things considered, I couldn’t help but feel a small rush of excitement. I now had a valid excuse to visit Amberlee. There was a reason I walked past that property whenever I had half a chance. Old man Bastian’s family had bought almost the entire block many years ago, and they’d built a rambling manor house which, over the years, had become hidden behind a thick screen of vegetation.

Large, ornamental wrought iron gates were guarded on each side by immense cement sculptures of owl-headed felines which grasped heraldic shields, and all that could be seen of the manor house was a crenulated turret shrouded in ivy. So not like any other house on the road.

No one had seen the reclusive sculptor in years, but delivery trucks from various stores visited twice a week, and occasionally an old silver Bentley with tinted windows was seen coming and going.

So, yeah, I was curious like cray-cray to find out what was going on behind that gate. And yes, curious enough to put up with weird-ass Rowan. Or so I kept telling myself, because round about now I was about to make that boy’s day. Unless of course by some sheer bit of pure coincidence he happened to be somewhere else when I arrived. Oh come on now, it wouldn’t be so bad, right?

LINKS

Add The Guardian’s Wyrd on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22086015-the-guardian-s-wyrd?from_search=true

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/nerinedorman

Sign up for my monthly newsletter: http://eepurl.com/JoPUv

BIO

An editor and multi-published author, Nerine Dorman currently resides in Cape Town, South Africa, with her visual artist husband. Some of the publishers for whom she has edited works include Dark Continents Publishing and eKhaya (an imprint of Random House Struik). Her fiction sales include works to Dark Continents Publishing, Wordsmack, Tor Books, Apex Publishing and Immanion Press. She has been involved in the media industry for more than a decade, with a background in magazine and newspaper publishing, commercial fiction, independent filmmaking, print production management and advertising. Her book reviews, as well as travel, entertainment and lifestyle editorial regularly appear in national newspapers and online. A few of her interests include music, travel, history, Egypt, art, photography, psychology, philosophy, magic and the natural world.

Flouncing back to Facebook…

This weekend, one of the folks I follow on Twitter suggested that I should go back to Facebook. They’d been using it to make huge progress with their comic and movie review blog and thought I should go back and give it another shot. Well I said I’d think about and slept on it, and I decided, what could it hurt to try again?

MY BRAIN. (Yeah, I’ve done that joke before, but sometimes you gotta go back to what works.)

First of all, I can only use Facebook in IE because logging into it with Firefox causes all kinds of drama with error messages on Facebook, and on every single site I normally frequent. I logged out, rebooted, and used IE to log in, and that cleared up the problem. But for a good hour or so, I was growling “Motherfucker” so often you’d think I was trying out for a death metal band.

I also had trouble setting up a new page for myself, but that was a misunderstanding on my part. And my first few posts, Facebook kept asking for money to promote my updates. Sh’yeah, Facebook. if I had money, I wouldn’t be coming back to your invasive ass.

Anyway, here’s my Facebook page, and here’s my profile. You can choose to like me, add me to your friends list, or do both. I’m going to try adopting a policy to keep the content of the two separate, and that means no self-promotion through my normal profile. I will post writing updates for what I’m working on, but for news on book releases and blog posts, you should like my page and check in occasionally for updates.

My hope with this policy is that by setting my blog posts and book releases as exclusive content for the page, I’m giving people a reason to want to like it and check back every once in while. I still have concerns about whether my stuff will show up in people’s timelines, so checking in is important. I also hope that by keeping these two streams separate, it might encourage fans of my page to hit the share button every once in a while and help me find new readers.

I have no plans to link my Twitter and Facebook profiles, as I would flood out peoples’ timelines with my huge amount of tweets. This way, you can choose how much of my crazy you feel like dealing with. If you only want the basic package, look for me on Facebook. If you want the full stream of consciousness crazy, head over to my Twitter account. I hate the idea of repeating myself across every social network, and I think that ignores the differences in how each platform works. So maybe by keeping my streams separate, I’ll give you more reason to check each out.

This still leaves me wondering what to do with Tumblr, Wattpad, and Goodreads. With Tumblr, I’d intended to use it for floating ideas for new stories, but that kind of fell apart after a few weeks, and now I’m just randomly sharing other peoples’ posts. It’s not that I don’t want to use it for promotion, but I keep forgetting it’s there when I’m releasing new books. Maybe I’ll try something to drum up business there with my next release, Nobody Special. On Wattpad, I still have a collection of stories that people can read free, and in the future I’ll offer new stuff. It’s just that right now, nothing feels right for the audience there. Okay, I do have one story that feels right, but I’m waiting to submit that story to Angry Robot when they have their next open submissions event. If they reject me, then I’ll post it on Wattpad. As for Goodreads, I mostly use it to keep track of what I’m reading, and I don’t see much point to bugging people with constant recommendations of my books. My blog posts are part of my profile, so if people want to know what I’m selling, they already have a way to do that without me being too intrusive on their social time.

This is all more of my stumbling attempts to experiment with a marketing approach that brings in new readers without getting on peoples’ nerves. I know what annoys me when I’m online watching other authors going overkill with their sales efforts, and I don’t want to do that. Hopefully people will appreciate these efforts to respect their boundaries, but we’ll see how it goes.

In conclusion, I’d like to hear your thoughts on my experiments. Is there anything you’d like to see me doing or not doing on any of my platforms? If you have any ideas for how I can make my various social accounts more useful, feel free to comment here, or on Goodreads, or Facebook, or Twitter. And as always, thanks for spending time with my crazy ass.

Book review: Barrendack by Leigh Wilder

Barrendack is one of three stories by Leigh Wilder that I read the blurb for and bookmarked for later purchase, and it’s the first story of hers that I’ve read. While I can say it won’t be the last, and that I liked it, I do so with a bit of embarrassment and guilt. Why? Twincest. Gay, unapologetic twincest.

This is the story of Giselle, the youngest daughter of the Stillwater manor, who travels to Barrendack with her father to be married in the name of political expediency. From the start, her father is short with her, treating her as a massive inconvenience to the family, and speaking as if he’s glad to be rid of her. During the trip, he falls ill, and after retiring him to a room at Barrendack manor, Giselle is stunned to be presented to her potential husbands, two perfect twins named Drue and Eduard. Not even their father can tell them apart, and worse, he’s not exactly clear on which man will be wed to Giselle. Reluctant to make a choice, he hints that Giselle should choose whichever one she likes more, even though she can’t tell them apart either. No one can, and some of the household staff believe they are one soul occupying two bodies. With both men sharing similar traits, how can Giselle choose which brother she likes more?

This being erotica, I kind of knew the story would lead to a threesome, but before reaching that point, it’s revealed that the two brothers are actually lovers. That’s the part when I went, “Gee, I don’t know if I should find this weird or not.” I think it helped that Giselle’s reaction was almost the same. Before she has time to come to terms with this, her father dies, and her brother shows up and gruffly chooses “that one” to marry her off. But the twins are not so easily dissuaded from sharing her, and they make an appeal to Giselle to marry both of them in a private sexual ceremony the day before the real wedding.

So did I like the story? Yes, but I also admit that liking it made me feel a little squirmy and guilty. In any case, I give Barrendack 4 stars and would suggest it to fans of threesome erotica.

Interview at Lisette’s Writers’ Chateau

It’s another short post today since I’m just pointing y’all to an interview I did with Lisette Brodey on her blog. Lisette is the author of Mystical High, which is close to the top of my to be read pile. You can find more information on it and her other books here.

The interview covers a few of my books, including Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, and I talk about my writing habits and some other stuff. I hope you’ll stop by to check it out and maybe leave a comment if you’re so inclined.

I want to thank Lisette for having me on her blog, and to everyone who reads my stuff. And that’s about it for now. I’ve got to get back to work on my next release, Nobody Special, which will be hitting the bookstores in June.

The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Today’s post is going to be real short. There’s an article on The Atlantic, The Case for Reparations, and you really should read it. It’s a long article, but I think it’s worth the time it takes to read it. I won’t add any comments about it because I think the author makes their points better than I ever could. So please, set aside the time to read it.

Book review: Fairy Bound by Katey Hawthorne

“Hey wait,” you say, “Didn’t you just review a book by Katey Hawthorne just the other day?” I did, but the thing is, I really couldn’t wait to read Fairy Bound. Or rather, I couldn’t wait any longer. I got to read the first two books in this series pretty close together, and then the author had real life intrude on her creative efforts (Don’t you hate it when that happens?) and this episode was delayed for ages and ages. Okay, maybe it was closer to a year, but with the way the last book ended, it was sheer hell waiting for this book.

So, was it worth the wait? Oh hell yes.

The previous book ended on a cliffhanger in which Aeron offered to recover the magic bond between him and Tammas using a method Tammas is adamantly opposed to. The third book opens months after that point with the issue still unresolved. Tammas is now a teacher at the magic school, and he and Aeron are still debating about how to deal with their missing bond.

Firez’s sister Suchi, who Tammas and Aeron rescued in the second book, is still upset over being taken by the fairies, and she turns the townspeople against Aeron and Tammas. If I had to sum up this book in one sentence, it would be “Humans are kind of dickish ingrates.”

The story builds to an unavoidable confrontation, but Aeron and Tammas work together to save their home without resorting to harming the jerks. (Gee I’m not biased at all) Their story concludes on a happy note, even if the humans are still dicks. (Okay, yes, slightly biased.)

I give Fairy Bound 5 stars, and I highly recommend it for fans of gay romance and fantasy. But I’d also suggest reading the first two books, The Dangers of Fairy Compacts and Life as a Fairy Thrall, first. Without knowing the history between Aeron and Tammas, this story just wouldn’t be as satisfying. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need a ciggie. Heh.

Book review: Cinder by Marissa Meyer

I went into Cinder with some misgivings because I’m not really fond of fairy tale reboots. Even so, the blurb intrigued me, and I decided to give it a chance. About 25% I had to stop and put down the book because it had hit on two of my bigger triggers. Cinder Linh-mei, being a cyborg, is turned over to the government by her wretched step-mother Adri and is pinned to a table against her will while the scientists experiment on her. I have a huge problem with characters being bound, or of not having any rights. Making a long story short, it all ties back to my crappy childhood, and while I knew the story would move on, I had to take time to decompress.

While I was waiting, I thought about the story up to that point and realized I knew what the ending was already. So I returned to reading and finished the rest of the book. And after that one rough bit, the story played out pretty much exactly like I thought it would. It’s not hard to figure out because all the clues are loaded right there in the first quarter, and the rest of the story is really just characters avoiding saying the obvious until the last ten pages. So, that’s 25% clues, 70% percent delaying tactics, and 5% “AHA, I knew it!”

I can’t say Cinder is a bad story, because it does what it sets out to accomplish pretty well. It presents the familiar story of Cinderella in a future world gripped in the midst of a deadly plague. It adds a subplot about the elf-like queen of the moon, Levana, who is pursuing a marriage to Prince Kaito in order to give her a legitimate rule on Earth. The Lunars are certainly fae-like, being cruel and fickle, and they have the ability to cast glamours and control Earthen people.

Most of the plot centers around Kai pursuing Cinder and asking her to attend the annual ball so he can avoid Levana. But Cinder can’t accept because she’s a cyborg, and she just knows he’ll hate her if he finds out because everyone hates cyborgs. They’re a lower class race that have no legal standing in the Commonwealth, and Cinder is just a slave to her step-mother, a mere mechanic who she feels has no right to be thinking about the handsome prince.

Cinder uncovers a plot against Kai and decides to attend the annual ball anyway, leading to a confrontation with Levana, and to a slightly different reenactment of Cinderella losing her shoe on the step in her attempt to flee at midnight. Then comes the big plot twist that’s not at all surprising, at least not to me. And then the book is over, which will obviously lead to the next episode in the series, Scarlet.

Even if I saw the end coming very early on, I liked the story, and I’m sure I’ll be getting the rest of the series. Each one will be introducing other fairy tale characters into this sci-fi world, and the setting is certainly fleshed out enough to keep me interested. So I give Cinder 4 stars, and I recommend it to fans of sci-fi or fairy tales, or both.

New release: Adventures In Trolling (Tobe White #3)

Yay! Another new book release, this time the third Tobe White book, Adventures In Trolling. Here’s a look at the blurb and cover by artist H.D. Harris, who’s handled art duties on all three Tobe White books:

On the run and watching over his shoulder for monster hunters, Tobe White decides to visit Shauna and her moon wolf family in Boise, Idaho. He learns his ex-boyfriend Keith hasn’t forgiven him for his mistakes, and he dejectedly agrees to stay one night with Shauna’s family before he returns to the vampire coven.

But his plans change abruptly when Shauna’s baby brother Reggie is stolen from his crib and replaced with a feverish changeling. The wolves are ready to give up hope of finding their missing cub, and they refuse to touch the changeling. Tobe takes it upon himself to care for the sick infant and find his parents to propose a swap.

It sounds like a good plan in theory, but first Tobe must cross dimensions into the mystical plane, something no human has done in centuries. Even if he can somehow accomplish this nigh-impossible feat and convince the local elves not to use him for archery practice, finding a nomadic tribe of trolls in a hostile forest will make all his past misadventures seem like a walk in the park.

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Kindle – Kobo – Gumroad

As I mentioned in the previous post, this book is being released at a discounted price of $1.99, and the first two books in the series are only 99 cents until the end of May. Normally buying all three books at once would cost $8.97, which is still cheaper than some single ebooks from the big publishers. But if you buy them this month you can get all the paranormal fantasy goodness for $3.97. And that’s not too shabby.

I would like to mention reviews one more time. Book two, Fangs, Humans, and Other Perils of Night Life still doesn’t have any reviews on Amazon or Goodreads, so I hope that after you read it, you might consider leaving a review, or even just a rating. I’ve just set up the Goodreads listing for Adventures In Trolling, so you can add it to whatever shelves you like. And hopefully after you finish it, you’ll also give it a review or a rating.

Now with this release out of the way, I have to get back to writing more new stuff. Gotta keep the queue full if I want to earn my title as a prolific author. Oh, and as always, thank you for reading my stories.

Tobe White books on Sale through May…

Tobe White’s third book Adventures In Trolling should be out very soon, within the next couple of days barring some catastrophic failure with the vendors, possibly even tomorrow if I can get my ass in gear with the final proofing. With this new book coming out, I thought it might be a good idea to have a sale on the first two, so all through May, A Boy and his Dawg and Fangs, Humans, and Other Perils of Night Life are now only 99 cents, and Adventures In Trolling will come out at a discounted price of $1.99. After May, all three books will be $2.99 each, so this month will be a great chance to get caught up on Tobe’s misadventures with his mystical friends. These sales prices are on Amazon, Kobo, and my blog bookstore through Gumroad, so if you’re not fond of Amazon, you can still take advantage of the discount.

A Boy and His Dawg

Amazon – Kobo – Gumroad

Fangs, Humans, and Other Perils of Night Life

Amazon – Kobo – Gumroad

If you haven’t checked out the series and wonder what makes it different from your average paranormal YA series, Tobe White is unique for a number of reasons. First is Tobe, a gay black teen who plays tennis and is part of the cheerleader squad. (In book one, at least.) He’s the son of a pastor, and part of his first story is about him coming out to his father after his boyfriend Keith Moon is disowned by his family. Very soon after Keith moves in, Tobe also discovers that his boyfriend is a moon wolf, a breed of shapeshifter born from wolves who were blessed by a goddess to take on humanoid forms. The second book in the series brings Tobe and Keith into a conflict between monster hunters and vampires, and the third book sends them on a quest to recover a stolen cub and return a changeling baby to the mystical plains, where they encounter all kinds of mystical creatures like elves, trolls, a unicorn, and a dragon. (Well, half dragon actually, but close enough.) This is an open-ended series, so at present I don’t have any plans for a final story just yet. Each book is right around 50K, so they’re fast reads. If you want YA with a diverse cast that deviates from the usual white heteronormative romantic triangle, this might be the change of pace you’ve been looking for.

If you go to Amazon, you’ll notice there are 6 reviews for A Boy and His Dawg ranging from 5 to 3 stars, but there are no reviews for the second book. This is due in part to the fact that A Boy and His Dawg was my first and only KDP select book, and the added downloads during the free period led to a number of reviews. Fangs, Humans, and Other Perils of Night Life had no free period, and hasn’t had very many sales. So the only review it got was sent to me by email. While that was a positive review, it isn’t listed anywhere, so it technically doesn’t count. This is a slightly long-winded way to segue into a polite request for reviews on the first two books, and on Adventures In Trolling after you finish it. Remember that reviews don’t have to be long book reports, and even just a sentence or two giving your opinion is fine.

After this upcoming release, I’m debating whether to coast for a month or two while promoting Third Wheel Romance Blues, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, and the Tobe White series, or if I will keep up with the new releases through June with a standalone book, Nobody Special. I guess that depends on whether I can make a cover and handle the various rounds of edits in a timely order, so I’ll let y’all know closer to June what my plans are. Either way, I hope at least one of my new releases will tickle your fancy, and if so, thank you for reading my stuff.