Matt Youngmark's Blog, page 19
May 5, 2011
Amazon pricing: Up? Down?
Looks like the Kindle version of Zombocalypse Now is back up to the regular price of $2.99 at Amazon. But the Trade paperback edition has been discounted 10% to 13.46! Progress? Depends on whether you happen to own a Kindle, I suppose.
In extremely related news, I've decided for the time being to stop selling the book through Google's new ebook store. If you've been reading this blog, you know I'm pretty excited about Google coming into the ebook market in general -- especially in light of their platform-agnostic ebook philosophy. The problem, though, was that Google automatically discounted the book from $2.99 to $2.51, and when Amazon got wind of Google's price, they dropped their price to match.
The fact is, independent publishers like Chooseomatic Books don't have any price control in our contracts with the major online retailers -- they're free to charge anything they want for our ebooks and pay royalties based on that amount. We feel that $2.99 is a smoking deal for our books already, and it's a price point that's carefully crafted to be as low as it can possibly be while still bringing in enough revenue to make it worth selling. Amazon is by far our biggest market for ebook sales, and the pricing difference there cost us about $85 in the month of April. Not a huge amount, to be sure, but that number will only go up as sales continue to grow, and if Google was flat-out charging me that every month to sell my book in their store, I'd tell 'em to go screw. This isn't any manifesto against Google in particular. I just don't really sell any books there, so I took a long, hard look at the situation and decided that for now I'd rather have the 85 bucks.
You can still feel good about buying the trade paperback from Amazon no matter how much they decide to discount it -- in general, retailers eat any discount for print books, and we get the same amount per sale no matter what they charge for it. Also remember that Amazon isn't the only game in town, either -- Buy.com , for example, sells Zombocalypse Now for $10.80 (with shipping, it comes to just above Amazon's pre-shipping price). And the print edition is also available at many fine comic and game retailers -- some of them hopefully near you!
In extremely related news, I've decided for the time being to stop selling the book through Google's new ebook store. If you've been reading this blog, you know I'm pretty excited about Google coming into the ebook market in general -- especially in light of their platform-agnostic ebook philosophy. The problem, though, was that Google automatically discounted the book from $2.99 to $2.51, and when Amazon got wind of Google's price, they dropped their price to match.
The fact is, independent publishers like Chooseomatic Books don't have any price control in our contracts with the major online retailers -- they're free to charge anything they want for our ebooks and pay royalties based on that amount. We feel that $2.99 is a smoking deal for our books already, and it's a price point that's carefully crafted to be as low as it can possibly be while still bringing in enough revenue to make it worth selling. Amazon is by far our biggest market for ebook sales, and the pricing difference there cost us about $85 in the month of April. Not a huge amount, to be sure, but that number will only go up as sales continue to grow, and if Google was flat-out charging me that every month to sell my book in their store, I'd tell 'em to go screw. This isn't any manifesto against Google in particular. I just don't really sell any books there, so I took a long, hard look at the situation and decided that for now I'd rather have the 85 bucks.
You can still feel good about buying the trade paperback from Amazon no matter how much they decide to discount it -- in general, retailers eat any discount for print books, and we get the same amount per sale no matter what they charge for it. Also remember that Amazon isn't the only game in town, either -- Buy.com , for example, sells Zombocalypse Now for $10.80 (with shipping, it comes to just above Amazon's pre-shipping price). And the print edition is also available at many fine comic and game retailers -- some of them hopefully near you!
May 4, 2011
Saturday is Free Comic Book Day!
And you can go
here
, to my post about it on ftE, and get yourself all psyched up for it. Free comics! It's the best day ever!
April 25, 2011
Norwescon, you're the bes'con
We're back from four glorious days at Norwescon (and by "back" I mean we've made the half-hour car trip from the hotel to our apartment -- lots of con-goers who live WAY further than we do from the Sea-Tac Doubletree chose to commute and skip the hotel room, but our laziness outweighs our thriftiness by a wide margin).
(This post is one million miles long, so to read it you're just going to have to click on the Read More link.)
(This post is one million miles long, so to read it you're just going to have to click on the Read More link.)
April 21, 2011
Totally at Norwescon, you guys
For any of you folks in the greater Seattle area, I'm a guest at
Norwescon
this weekend at the Sea-Tac Doubletree, in case you want to come see me ramble. Here's my schedule:
Thursday 9pm
Geriatric Batman
Friday 3pm
How to Survive a Zombie Invasion
Friday 6pm
An Illustrated History of the X-men
(This is the big show, y'all. I totally made a powerpoint presentation for this and everything)
Friday 7pm
Comic Adaptations
Friday 9pm
Deconstructing the Superhero
Saturday 2pm
Autograph Session 1
Saturday 6pm
Batman vs Superman: Who Would REALLY Win in a Fight?
From this list, you'd think Norwescon was rally heavy on comics programming, but really the focus is mostly Science Fiction and Fantasy, and I'm just working hard to bring comics love to the masses. We did the con for the first time last year, and had a blast.
It's not too late to get passes! Come see us if you can!
Thursday 9pm
Geriatric Batman
Friday 3pm
How to Survive a Zombie Invasion
Friday 6pm
An Illustrated History of the X-men
(This is the big show, y'all. I totally made a powerpoint presentation for this and everything)
Friday 7pm
Comic Adaptations
Friday 9pm
Deconstructing the Superhero
Saturday 2pm
Autograph Session 1
Saturday 6pm
Batman vs Superman: Who Would REALLY Win in a Fight?
From this list, you'd think Norwescon was rally heavy on comics programming, but really the focus is mostly Science Fiction and Fantasy, and I'm just working hard to bring comics love to the masses. We did the con for the first time last year, and had a blast.
It's not too late to get passes! Come see us if you can!
April 18, 2011
Two days left to win that Kobo!
Wednesday is the last day to enter our contest for that Kobo eReader that I bought to give away, and then discovered wouldn't read my book. All you have to do enter is follow me on Twitter (@chooseomatic), and send a tweet to @kobo asking them to fix that shit. (Full contest rules are here.)
Here are some examples of tweets that would make perfectly valid contest entries:
So far, no word from Global Kobo Corp even acknowledging our demands (and by ours, I mean mine). Keep tweeting, folks!
Here are some examples of tweets that would make perfectly valid contest entries:
@Kobo: please support text links so I can read #ZOMBOCALYPSENOW (retweet to win a Kobo eReader!) rules: http://bit.ly/eAsrwn
@Kobo: it hurts my soul that I can't read #ZOMBOCALYPSENOW on your eReader. Especially if I win one by tweeting this! http://bit.ly/eAsrwn
@Kobo! #ZOMBOCALYPSENOW! Win! Retweet, retweet! http://bit.ly/eAsrwn
So far, no word from Global Kobo Corp even acknowledging our demands (and by ours, I mean mine). Keep tweeting, folks!
April 15, 2011
So much teen angst
My post at ftE this week celebrates my deep and enduring love for 1994 TV high school drama
My So-Called Life
.
In an attempt to preserve a shred of human dignity, I'm just going to leave it at that.
In an attempt to preserve a shred of human dignity, I'm just going to leave it at that.
April 13, 2011
On sale at Amazon for… $2.51?
Kindle owners rejoice. The ebook edition of Zombocalypse Now is currently on sale at Amazon for $2.51, which is 48 cents off of the manufacturer's suggested retail price, my friends. How this came about is actually a little bit of a story.
A few of months ago I started selling ZN through Google Books, and for whatever mathematical reason (seriously, 16%?) they discounted it from $2.99 to $2.51. It took Amazon a while, but they've responded to the ZOMBIE CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE PRICE WARS by lowering theirs to match. Unfortunately this means about a quarter less per copy in my pocket (with print books Amazon pays the publisher a set percentage of the cover price and they eat any discount, but with ebooks Amazon can theoretically price my book as low as they want, and pay based on the sales price).
I'm not stressing too much about the mountain in lost change, though -- the upside here is that there's never been a better time to buy Zombocalypse Now. And if you prefer your ebooks on some other ereader, you can always get it for that price from Google as well.
Now, if I could only get Amazon to start discounting the print edition again, we'd be in business...
A few of months ago I started selling ZN through Google Books, and for whatever mathematical reason (seriously, 16%?) they discounted it from $2.99 to $2.51. It took Amazon a while, but they've responded to the ZOMBIE CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE PRICE WARS by lowering theirs to match. Unfortunately this means about a quarter less per copy in my pocket (with print books Amazon pays the publisher a set percentage of the cover price and they eat any discount, but with ebooks Amazon can theoretically price my book as low as they want, and pay based on the sales price).
I'm not stressing too much about the mountain in lost change, though -- the upside here is that there's never been a better time to buy Zombocalypse Now. And if you prefer your ebooks on some other ereader, you can always get it for that price from Google as well.
Now, if I could only get Amazon to start discounting the print edition again, we'd be in business...
April 8, 2011
Audio interview video
I found this snippet from my Booklending.com interview on youtube -- not much in the way of video here (it was a phone thing), but here you go. If you want to listen to the rest, it's at the booklending blog.
You should also check out their most recent interview, with Cory Doctorow and Seth Godin -- which you can listen to here! I had the chance to meet Doctorow (and his parents!) at Norwescon last year, and can confirm that in addition to being a visionary writer and digital pioneer, the guy is a class act.
April 7, 2011
Favorite things ever: WordPress! Castle Panic!
My most recent post at ftE is about Wordpress, and how much I love it. (Here's my dark secret, by the way: if you think my site design is great and want yours to look EXACTLY like it, use wordpress and subscribe to Elegant Themes. Lesson: you don't have to become an internet genius, you just have to find existing internet geniuses and pay them $40.)
Also, we're updating ftE on M/W/F these days, with reruns on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Today's blast from the (recent) past is my post on Castle Panic, a game we discovered at PAX last year which is probably the most fun you can have siting down (With pants? Without pants? Up to you, I guess.)
Also, we're updating ftE on M/W/F these days, with reruns on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Today's blast from the (recent) past is my post on Castle Panic, a game we discovered at PAX last year which is probably the most fun you can have siting down (With pants? Without pants? Up to you, I guess.)
April 6, 2011
Win a Kobo eReader!
KOBO A NO GO?
If you're looking to hop on the digital book bandwagon, there's a lot to recommend the Kobo ereader. Its black & white e-ink display is similar to the Kindle's, so its easy on the eyes and reads well indoors and out. It also has kind of a quilted texture on the back, making it super comfortable to hold. But the thing I like most about it is that it uses the standard epub format so you're free to buy your ebooks wherever you want. Kobo has a perfectly lovely ebook store, but you're not forced to use it if you prefer B&N, Google, the growing number of independent book stores selling ebooks on the web, or just about anywhere that sells books in epub (read: anywhere but Amazon). To open up the device even more, they include an SD card slot, so you can load any epubs you already own right onto a card, and BOOM, you're good to go.
The device is not quite as sleek as the Kindle, but it's a great choice for someone who wants a solid, bare-bones ereader and doesn't want to be tied down to a company store. I like the Kobo so much that I bought one with the intention of throwing a Twitter contest and giving it away to a lucky follower, preloaded with a copy of Zombocalypse Now.
And then I discovered the problem. Although it works with most books perfectly well, the Kobo doesn't support text links within pages (or at least not in any way I can figure out). That means that in a choose-your-own-ending book like ZN, when you get to the bottom of the page and want to choose a path there's no way to select your choice. This is no doubt for simplicity's sake (the Kobo has fewer buttons than the Kindle, so pressing up & down on the directional pad just changes the font size) but unfortunately it makes giving one away to promote my book pretty much pointless.
Or maybe not? This is the kind of feature that could probably be added with a software update. The folks at Kobo seem pretty smart. So we're going to flex our consumer muscle and use the power of the internet to encourage them to be the best Kobo they can be!
CONTEST RULES
1) Follow @chooseomatic on Twitter. (Yes, this is also a ploy to get Twitter followers. What am I, a saint?)
2) Tweet the following message. (You're free to reword it, but be sure to include @Kobo so they see it, and #ZOMBOCALYPSENOW because this is how I'm going to track entries).
3) That's it! Contest ends Wednesday, April 20 at 6pm PST. I'll pick an entry at random from the list of retweeters (cross-referenced with my list of followers), and the winner will be contacted via Twitter. The contest is open to everyone (yes, I'll pay to ship this thing anywhere in the world), but is void where prohibited (wherever that might be).
ABOUT ZOMBOCALYPSE NOW
It's a zombie choose-your-own-adventure written for adults! Also, if you already have an eReader, the ebook edition is only $2.99. Maybe check it out?
If you're looking to hop on the digital book bandwagon, there's a lot to recommend the Kobo ereader. Its black & white e-ink display is similar to the Kindle's, so its easy on the eyes and reads well indoors and out. It also has kind of a quilted texture on the back, making it super comfortable to hold. But the thing I like most about it is that it uses the standard epub format so you're free to buy your ebooks wherever you want. Kobo has a perfectly lovely ebook store, but you're not forced to use it if you prefer B&N, Google, the growing number of independent book stores selling ebooks on the web, or just about anywhere that sells books in epub (read: anywhere but Amazon). To open up the device even more, they include an SD card slot, so you can load any epubs you already own right onto a card, and BOOM, you're good to go.
The device is not quite as sleek as the Kindle, but it's a great choice for someone who wants a solid, bare-bones ereader and doesn't want to be tied down to a company store. I like the Kobo so much that I bought one with the intention of throwing a Twitter contest and giving it away to a lucky follower, preloaded with a copy of Zombocalypse Now.
And then I discovered the problem. Although it works with most books perfectly well, the Kobo doesn't support text links within pages (or at least not in any way I can figure out). That means that in a choose-your-own-ending book like ZN, when you get to the bottom of the page and want to choose a path there's no way to select your choice. This is no doubt for simplicity's sake (the Kobo has fewer buttons than the Kindle, so pressing up & down on the directional pad just changes the font size) but unfortunately it makes giving one away to promote my book pretty much pointless.
Or maybe not? This is the kind of feature that could probably be added with a software update. The folks at Kobo seem pretty smart. So we're going to flex our consumer muscle and use the power of the internet to encourage them to be the best Kobo they can be!
CONTEST RULES
1) Follow @chooseomatic on Twitter. (Yes, this is also a ploy to get Twitter followers. What am I, a saint?)
2) Tweet the following message. (You're free to reword it, but be sure to include @Kobo so they see it, and #ZOMBOCALYPSENOW because this is how I'm going to track entries).
@Kobo: please support text links so I can read #ZOMBOCALYPSENOW (retweet to win a Kobo eReader!) rules: http://bit.ly/eAsrwn
3) That's it! Contest ends Wednesday, April 20 at 6pm PST. I'll pick an entry at random from the list of retweeters (cross-referenced with my list of followers), and the winner will be contacted via Twitter. The contest is open to everyone (yes, I'll pay to ship this thing anywhere in the world), but is void where prohibited (wherever that might be).
ABOUT ZOMBOCALYPSE NOW
It's a zombie choose-your-own-adventure written for adults! Also, if you already have an eReader, the ebook edition is only $2.99. Maybe check it out?
