Keith Robinson's Blog, page 18
November 14, 2012
How to design a book cover
Just to be clear, this post is about how I design and create my own book covers and is NOT necessarily a lesson in what designs work best and market well. I'm not a marketing expert, just a computer geek. I'm assuming that you have a good graphics program and have some basic knowledge of resolution.
Design your cover at high resolution
I can't stress this enough. Even if you're only planning to sell your book in electronic form (Kindle, Nook, etc), I would strongly advise you to build a high-resolution, print-ready cover. An ebook cover is seen only on a computer screen and is a relatively small image, whereas a paperback book cover is printed and needs to be a much higher resolution (about three or four times bigger than your ebook cover). It's very easy to copy and downsize a cover for use with your ebook, but not the other way around. If you make the mistake of building your cover at ebook size, then decide later you want to print the book as well, you'll have to start over. You can't -- repeat can't -- just enlarge your ebook cover for printing. It will look awful.
Choose a book size and create your working canvas
As a quick guide, and using CreateSpace as our (future) paperbook book printing service, decide what book size you want to use. Two popular choices are 6 x 9" and 5.25" x 8" and whichever size you pick will determine your starting point when creating your canvas. You need to allow "bleed" on a printed book cover, which is where your cover extends slightly beyond the finished size. This is to allow for the tiniest of inaccuracies when the cover is printed and cropped for binding. CreateSpace require that you allow 0.125" on each side. So:
However, since your cover will normally wrap around the book, there's no need to leave a bleed on the left side because it won't actually be cut there. So:
A book cover with a width of 6" will become 6.125" (6" + 0.125" bleed).Clear? We won't go into spines and back covers here. The back cover would of course be the same dimensions, but the spine width depends on the number of pages in your book. If you want to calculate this and a build a complete wraparound cover, use this handy CreateSpace information.
Anyway, you now have a cover size of 6.125" wide x 9.25" high. If you want a different book cover size, you can figure it out using the same formula because the bleed is the same no matter what.
If you go ahead and create a new canvas in your graphics program with the above dimensions, and with the resolution set to 300 dpi, you should find that this equates to about 1837 x 2775 pixels. I'll be using pixel sizes from now on in this post because everything on the internet and on your screen uses pixel dimensions.
Plan your cover layout and allow space for the title and author name
A common mistake I've heard about is finding the "perfect" image for your cover and then finding that there's no good place to put the title and author name -- or adding the title and author name over the top anyway and finding that it's all a little busy and unclear. When looking for your cover image, you need to plan ahead and visualize the text that will go with it.
Normally a printed book cover and an ebook cover will be the same (with a difference in overall size and perhaps a slight variation in ratio). But there's one important thing to remember about your cover, especially with ebooks: when promoting your book on the internet, it will initially be seen by potential readers as a tiny thumbnail. It's worth considering that your title and author name are big and bold enough to be read at such a small size, and your image should ideally be fairly clear and not too busy. Look at this random mix and see which ones work:
Thumbnails on Amazon and Goodreads are usually bigger than this when you're browsing their categories, but there are plenty of places where your over will be tiny, for example on the "Customers Also Bought..." feature on Amazon. There's no harm in giving it some thought at least.
Finding and editing your cover image
There are a billion alternative ways you can put your cover together. All I can do here is give you a hint about the steps I went through to design Chamber of Ghosts. I started off with a general idea of what I wanted, and went to a couple of royalty-free stock-image websites like BigStockPhotos.com and 123RF. Images only cost a few dollars each and are well worth having. Don't even think about using one from Google's image library. If you're going to spend any money, spend a few dollars on a good high-resolution image that you know you're allowed to use.
Here's the one I bought shown with the book cover guide outline. Remember the book cover size I mentioned above? Bear that in mind when you buy your image. It will probably come in different sizes, and you DON'T want to enlarge it after you've bought it. Make sure to pick one that is big enough to use. Downsizing is fine and most likely necessary.
The one I bought was 3831 x 2554 pixels and I knew that, once cropped to fit a portrait-orientation book cover, I would need to add a bit to the top. I could have bought a bigger image to fit the full height, but I didn't want the title text running over the ghostly faces. Best to leave some clean, empty space for that.
Then the fun started. This is where spent a few hours editing. I adjusted its color, brightness and contrast. Then I added a layer image of solid rock and deleted the bit in the center (with some heavy feathering all around) so that the main image showed through. This started to give it the effect that these ghosts are in fact within/behind a solid rock wall. I then added some smaller details like a crack across the front, a bit more feathered rock here and there, and some "noise" to the whole thing to give it a more grainy effect. Basically I messed with it until I was happy. A final touch was darkening the top corners.
All this gave me a bright, vibrant image but with a big, clear space for the title text.
Adding your title and author text
Don't use standard computer fonts. I did this on the first three books in the series and have regretted it ever since. Fonts that are too "familiar" scream amateur. Go and find yourself a really nice rare, stylish, but clear font. There are plenty of free font sites including Google web fonts.
I made my text nice and big. Normally on a dark background I would use light-colored text with black drop-shadow to make it stand out, but in this case I used black with a white glow. It's more ghost-like.
Remember that little extra bleed to the right edge of the canvas? I used to debate over whether to center my text INSIDE the bleed or go all the way to the outside edge. Honestly, it doesn't seem to matter one way or another. When producing book cover images for use on the internet, then I make sure it's centered. But for your print copy, you can't control it as much as you'd like. The cover is cut where it's cut, and it wraps around the spine imperfectly, so your text will never be absolutely centered whatever you do. But it's usually close enough.
Create your ebook cover
Finally, the last piece of the puzzle. This is the fun and easy part. Just downsize the entire thing. But to what size, I hear you ask? Well, I have multiple images for different reasons. A bigger question is not the size but the proportion of the image you use for your ebook. Many say that ebook covers should perfectly fit the screen of a Kindle or Nook, and for that your image will need to be a little more square...
Something like 600 x 800 should work -- or 800 x 1066, which is the same ratio but (apparently) the "perfect" resolution to fill most device screens. Personally, I still use the printed book proportions so my covers are slightly slimmer/taller. Just look around on Amazon and see which you prefer. Look on your Kindle and see how those fill the screen -- or not.
At the end of the day, readers really just want to read the book and probably won't care if the cover fills the screen or not. Even big-name authors, backed by giant publishing houses, vary on this subject; there seems to be no set-in-stone standard. So don't lose too much sleep over it.
November 4, 2012
Island of Fog Book 6 - Chamber of Ghosts
The sixth and final installment in the Island of Fog series now has a title and cover. Up until now I've been using a working title for the book, and it irks me every time I look at it, but the new title hit me this weekend when I was in the middle of writing. It just fits perfectly. I checked on Amazon to make sure it wasn't already being used, and -- surprisingly -- it isn't.
And so, allow me to introduce you to Chamber of Ghosts.
New titles always take a little while to sink in, but once they do, they become permanently etched. This particular title refers to a chamber within the mines at Bad Rock Gulch, which as you may recall from the end of Roads of Madness is the next destination for our intrepid heroes. The chamber is supposedly haunted and the locals tend to avoid it, but guess what? For reasons I won't reveal here, Hal and his friends end up spending quite a bit of time there. And do they see the ghosts? You betcha.
Progress on the book is much better and faster than I expected. I've written 38,000 words, and the target is around 100,000, so I'm, er, well, 38% through if my math is correct. Since I already wrote chapters 9, 10 and 11 earlier and have now done chapters 1-6, it means that I'm about to "catch up" and close the gap. This will seem like a huge leap forward because I can then continue onward with chapter 12, which is slightly more than halfway through the book.
That final half is going to be challenging and fun to write. It's not just the last half of the book but the final book in the series, and I plan to pull out all the stops. Up until now, Hal has been going along for the ride and dealing with situations as they arise. But now he's about to become a "man with a mission" -- and nobody else is in agreement. It's where he lets his inner dragon out and takes control.
What's he going to do? Well, you'll have to wait and see. ;-)
I'll be writing this up until Christmas, and then editing in the New Year. I still plan a launch date of April 24th (the anniversary of Island of Fog's release in 2009), but if I find that I'm all finished way ahead of time, well, I might just go ahead and release it early.
Okay, now I've gotta get back to Hal and his friends...
October 29, 2012
Free Kindle books for Halloween
As the title suggests, on this page you'll find not one, not two, but THREE fantasy/sci-fi Kindle books that will be available for free this Halloween.
These are offered as Brain Candy from Elder Tree Books who insists that you "take a Halloween vacation to a spookily different future, and two fabulous and freaky other worlds."
It's funny how this came about. I was planning another free promotion for Island of Fog around Halloween, and so were two other authors, A.E. Howard (the founder of Elder Tree Books) and Becca Campbell. So we all got together to help each other promote our books.
Since these books are free, you can also gift as many copies as you like to friends and family. Ebooks make great Christmas gifts! Tell everyone you know because the more downloads we get the better exposure you'll be giving us poor hard-done-by indie authors.
I hardly need to introduce Island of Fog to regular readers of this blog, but I will anyway just in case a welcome stranger chances across this page...
Island of Fog by Keith Robinson
Middle-grade fantasy
FREE ON KINDLE OCTOBER 29, 30 AND 31
A lonely, foggy island is home to eight families. Twelve-year-old Hal and his friends have always wondered what happened all those years ago on the mainland, that unseen place Out There beyond the fog, and after an astonishing discovery in the woods the children are more determined than ever to find out what their parents are hiding. But their lives are turned upside down when Abigail reveals her closely guarded secret. According to her, the children are slowly changing into monsters! Are they freaks of nature, or subjects of a sinister experiment?
Each child reacts differently to his or her unique monstrous transformation; after all, one may feel proud to be a dragon, faerie, or centaur, but who in their right mind wants to be a sadistic manticore or cowardly harpy?
ISLAND OF FOG is a story of intrigue and conspiracy. The reader follows Hal Franklin as he struggles to accept that he and his friends are something more than ordinary children, and that their parents have been covering up the truth the whole time. With their trust shaken and the unexpected arrival of a strange woman from Out There, the children hide their frightening shapeshifting abilities and pretend nothing is wrong.
"I love it! The story is interesting throughout, and builds nicely to a reasonable explanation for all mysteries. Congratulations on a fine juvenile novel." —Piers Anthony's July 2009 Newsletter
"This is a well written sci-fi novel. There is that 'it could happen' quality that you find in Dean Koontz novels. The suspense works and doesn't frustrate the reader. It makes you want to read the next installment!" —Writer's Digest
Download ISLAND OF FOG for Free!
Flight of Blue by A. E. Howard
Middle-grade fantasy
FREE ON KINDLE OCTOBER 30 AND 31
A cursed traffic light. A rip in the fabric of the world. A possum sorcerer injured on a quest for revenge.
Kai and Ellie embark on a journey to return the sorcerer to his home. Entangled in events that could destroy the world, Kai must choose whether to accept the role he was born to play, but isn't sure he wants.
"Great adult reading in the tradition of Madeleine L'Engle and her A Wrinkle in Time series and Austin Family Chronicles." —Elizabeth Munzert
"Flight of Blue transcends my usual reading experience..." —Julie Jordan Scott
"There was something so magical about it..." —V. Cano
Download FLIGHT OF BLUE for Free!
Not the Norm by Becca Campbell
Science fiction/Speculative fiction
FREE ON KINDLE OCTOBER 30 AND 31
Eden has a dangerous secret.
In a world where GenEns (enhanced humans) are the norm, her own ability is flawed. If anyone found out about the glitch in her genetic code, she'd be deemed a sub-norm, as one unfit to exist in the human race. Her certain fate would be extermination.
She always thought keeping her defect secret was her biggest struggle. That concern vanishes when her life is put in danger. Suddenly, fighting back is her only option, and she's completely unprepared.
Her only chance for survival is by wielding her damaged power. But fear and painful memories threaten to hold her back. What will happen to her if she unleashes the terror within?
A Sub-Normal short story. Approximately 6500 words.
"I loved this story. Campbell has succeeded again in populating her world with characters that I care about. I have read a lot of really bad writing recently, so it was with great pleasure that I read this story and was swept up in Eden's story." —Jason Sharp
"Becca J. Campbell has a knack for human connection and a driving interest in the individual flaws that do so much to define characters. As an author, she loves exploring these utterly mundane aspects of the human condition in fantastically imaginative environments." —Aaron Pogue"
Download NOT THE NORM for Free!
So what are you waiting for? Get 'em for free while you can, folks! And if you like one or more of these books, please consider posting reviews on Amazon. Reviews don't have to be very long, and ratings are REALLY helpful to authors.
October 25, 2012
Island of Fog Book 6
I'm making good progress on Book 6 of the Island of Fog series. I couldn't wait to get stuck into it, and it's flying along. I'm already a third of the way through and fully expect to finish the first draft by Christmas.
Near the beginning, during a ride in Blacknail's buggy, Hal and his friends get to meet a bunch of trolls...
"There they are," Darcy exclaimed in hushed tones.
Lauren let out a squeak, and Thomas said something under his breath.
"They look mean," Fenton said simply.
"And big," Dewey added in a small voice.
Hal finally caught a glimpse of four gangly monsters slithering down the sloping walls just ahead of the buggy. They were vaguely similar to ogres only much thinner and a little shorter — but still enormous compared to Hal and his friends, at least twice as tall. They had coarse hair the color of rock, and strangely oversized hands and feet well suited for clambering up and down steep mountains. Whereas ogres were dimwitted giants, trolls radiated a cunning intelligence. Fangs stuck up out of the corners of their mouths, and their eyes were so deeply sunken, their brows so heavy, that each of the four trolls appeared to be wearing a permanent grimace.
I mentioned on Facebook a while ago that I actually started this novel by writing chapters in the middle of the book, and then went back to the beginning where I've so far written the first three and half chapters. Why did I start in the middle? Because I wanted to. I often think of scenes that I can't wait to get to, and truthfully the beginning of a novel is always the hardest and perhaps the most tedious part to write because I have to set the scene, slip in gentle reminders of the previous story, and so on. Diving straight into a mid-chapter is liberating. I can just "get it out of the system," and somehow it makes the beginning a little easier because I'm not chomping at the bit to "get to the good stuff" later on.
There's plenty of other good stuff though. This is the sixth and final book in the series and there's a pretty major event lined up. Yes, you heard it: this is the final episode for Hal and his friends. Books 1-3 in the series formed a trilogy, and so do Books 4-6. They're closely linked on various levels and form an arcing plot that culminates in something really, really big.
In fact, the ending will be hard to top in the future, and that's part of why this is the last book. Although I have plenty of possible ideas for future stories, I don't want to flog it to death; I'd rather leave it with more to tell than keep writing with dwindling interest. So Book 6 is the last in the series. If I ever write more, they will be a spin-off series. After this second trilogy, I think Hal's tale (tail?) will be done.
There will, of course, be a prequel later on, but that's another story (pun intended).
I'll leave you for now with a scene from about halfway through the book. Poor, poor Hal...
He had no feeling in his fingers or toes, no pressure on his limbs, no pain anywhere on his body, not even the slightest sensation of ambient temperature on his face. Nothing.
Panic swept over him, but even that was a strangely peripheral experience. In a situation like this, his heart should be pounding in his chest, his breath coming in ragged gasps, sweat pouring down his face. Instead he was in a dreamlike state, floating in a vast nothingness. His mind screamed with terror and revulsion at the suffocating blackness, and he fought to regain control of his paralyzed body, to wake it up and gather some sensory input from his surroundings. He wanted to touch a hard surface, smell the air, hear echoes of dripping water, feel warmth or even icy chills on his skin — it didn't matter, just SOMETHING.
"Help!" he yelled.
October 21, 2012
KDP Select aftermath
This is a quick report on the weeks following the KDP Select promo for Island of Fog that I ran on August 29th and 30th (read more about that in my previous post, Does KDP Select work?).
Just as a recap, the purpose of the promo is to give away Book 1 of the series for free in the hope that those readers will like it and buy the others in the series. The promo was a great success with over 6000 people downloading the free book. The boost in sales (for ALL books in the series) started immediately.
As I mentioned in the previous post, after the promo my sales increased from an average of 1 a day to 40+ a day for the first few days of September. My post was written on September 5th, so I couldn't report beyond that. Well, now I can. As the days went on, the daily count slipped to around 25 a day, then 15, and by the end of September it was mostly under 10. I kept a daily log just for fun.
SeptemberSalesTotalSat 1st4242Sun 2nd4385Mon 3rd42127Tue 4th39166Wed 5th26192Thu 6th26218Fri 7th26244Sat 8th22266Sun 9th32298Mon 10th21319Tue 11th32351Wed 12th24375Thu 13th22397Fri 14th21418Sat 15th13431SeptemberSalesTotalSun 16th14445Mon 17th21466Tue 18th18484Wed 19th18502Thu 20th12514Fri 21st12526Sat 22nd13539Sun 23rd16555Mon 24th20575Tue 25th13588Wed 26th9597Thu 27th10607Fri 28th9616Sat 29th7623Sun 30th22645.head { background:#dddddd; }.totals td { font-size:12px; text-align:right; padding:2px 8px; border-bottom:1px solid #dddddd; }Now we're into October and sales are continuing to drop. It's currently averaging about 5 a day and I'm estimating a total of 175 or so by the end of the month. Not bad at all, but certainly not as good as September. So all this proves that a promo can be fantastic for sales, but the boost is short-lived and a more sustained long-term plan needs to be in place.
...Or more promos! Because each promo needs to be about 2 or 3 days long, and I have 5 days available within a 90-day KDP Select period for each book, I can run two promos every 3 months. I ran the first at the end of August and let sales flood in. Now, nearly two months later, sales are back to a trickle, so I can run the second promo and hopefully have another flood. By the time I'm back to a trickle again, I'll be able to renew the KDP Select program and start over. So in theory, if all promos are as good as the last, I can keep this going indefinitely.
That's not to say each promo will be a success though.
I have another Island of Fog promo planned for Halloween. I'm very curious to see if the first promo was a fluke success. Can I replicate it and get another 6000+ free downloads? Or get anywhere close? We'll see.
I ran a promo for Roads of Madness recently, just a quiet one to see what the results would be if I did no marketing beforehand -- in other words, to see if Amazon alone provides all the boosting as opposed to all the websites and Facebook pages I advertised on. The promo was pretty slow, a total of 491 downloads for the 2 days. This isn't to be sneezed at, but it can't compare to the Island of Fog promo. But why? A few possible reasons spring to mind:
It wasn't advertised beforehand. I did advertise it a little halfway through and saw no real difference, but the best places to advertise need a few days notice so the poor effort could just be because I didn't advertise on those particular websites.It's Book #5 in the series rather than Book #1, so maybe interest wasn't as high?Amazon gives an author's very first promo a really good boost in the background just to get him in the mood for other promos later. Maybe I've had my 15 minutes of fame already.That last point is something I read somewhere. It may or may not be true. When I run the second promo for Island of Fog, I'll be advertising it in all the same places as before with a couple of additions. So if the promo isn't as successful, then that MIGHT give weight to the idea that Amazon does indeed boost an author's first KDP Select promo and then leaves him alone to fend for himself.
But if the second promo is just as successful as the first, then I think I can safely scratch that idea and consider that the Roads of Madness promo "failed" because of other reasons -- such as it being Book #5, or because it was advertised less, or it has fewer reviews, or other reasons I haven't yet fathomed.
Anyway, for all those who haven't yet bought Island of Fog and want to give it a try, mark your calendars: It will be FREE to download for Kindle on October 29th, 30th and 31st.
October 13, 2012
In the works for 2012 and 2013
I just spent a week in Florida, with four days at Daytona Beach, and I think the coastal wind blew away the cobwebs and revived my inspiration. Or it might have been author Brian Clopper's staggering enthusiasm that did it. More on him in a minute!
Want to win a book?
I need to step up my writing pace. Island of Fog Book 6 is underway (I'm a fifth of the way through the first draft) and I aim to complete that first draft by Christmas, take a short break, then start editing in the New Year. Expected release date for Book 6 is April 24th, 2013. Why April 24th specifically? This is where you get a chance to win a book. The first reader to post the answer below will win a printed or electronic copy of any title in the Fog series.
Other books in the works
I've mentioned Quincy's Curse in the past, a middle-grade fantasy about a boy cursed with terrible luck. This novel is complete but needs another edit, and I plan to get to that within the next few months. It'll be my first published non-Fog book.
I had another book in the works, Caleb's World (formerly The Impossible World) but have decided to drop it for now. It's just not "there" yet. A writer needs to accept that not all novels work out the way he hopes, and this is one of those that starts off great and has some really nice ideas but ultimately lacks something. I'll look at it again one day.
Throughout 2013 I'll be releasing a few short novels under the banner "Unearthly Tales." These will be around 40,000 words, less than half the length of the Fog books. Actually, 40,000 words is considered fairly average for a middle-grade (9-12) audience; my Fog books are really way too long! Anyway, these standalone tales will be a mixture of fantasy, science fiction, and creepy-weird.
I also have a zombie novel I'd like to try. I think the idea is fairly unique, and for that reason I'm not giving it away here!
Then of course there's the Island of Fog prequel. This features 14-year-old Chase who, during the summer holidays, has to help out at a small private school located on thousands of acres of property that his father owns. But he's not bored for long when he finds out what's going on with these 8-year-old children. A young Simone, Charlie, Orson, Riley, and others start to transform one by one. Chase will also make an appearance in Fog Book 6, so you'll get to meet him soon.
Last but not least, I have a complete short novel called Flying Saucer in the Woods in which Russ sees a weird light in the sky and follows it into the woods where he finds, not surprisingly, a flying saucer. He and a friend end up "borrowing" the alien craft. This novel is just 30,000 words and is the first in an open-ended series of adventures involving these two boys and their stolen saucer. It's based on an idea that a friend and I used to write and draw comic strips around, and is probably what many nerdy young lads dream of -- owning a spaceship! This is a series I'd like to launch soon, but as usual I have a bit of editing to do first.
More writing inspiration
Now take a stroll over to Brian Clopper's blog. There you'll discover an author who has so much enthusiasm and inspiration that he can barely contain himself. He's reviving stories he wrote nearly ten years ago as well as writing brand new ones, and the result is a deluge of excellent novels that are worth a try if you like highly imaginative fantasy and science fiction. And note the mention of a "secret collaboration project with another stellar author." [smiles knowingly]
Truthfully, I think the two of us feed off each other's ideas and enthusiasm. Writing can be a lonely business -- which is great when you're actually writing because the last thing you want is to be interrupted! But it's nice to talk to other authors and bounce ideas off one another, and also to beta-read and edit each other's work. There's no competition; we're not fighting to churn out the most amount of books in a short time. Still, it's hard not to be inspired when you see all these new books being released. It makes me want to buckle down and finish things that I started years ago, and write the various ideas that have been knocking around in my head.
I wonder if can manage ten new books by this time next year?
September 18, 2012
Searching for young-adult and middle-grade fantasy books on Kindle
I'm curious. My KDP Select promo for Island of Fog in August caused my sales to shoot up then level off, and I'm now in a much better place than I was a month ago. But it's hard to figure out exactly why.
Now that the promo is over, what exactly is causing my books to continue selling better than before? I had listed Island of Fog on various websites and Facebook pages at the time of the promo, but that kind of exposure is short-lived because new promotions come along daily and shove others down and off the page. Take Facebook, for example; a post about my book will be off the bottom of the page within hours. On Twitter it's a matter of minutes. So I'm pretty certain my continued sales today are unrelated to any such listings.
One possibility is that some of the 6025+ readers who downloaded the free book have gotten around to reading it and are now buying the others in the series. Only that doesn't add up because Book 1 is still outselling the others in the series. Nobody would buy a book they already had a free copy of, right? So these must all be brand new readers who weren't around when the promo was active and are more recently chancing across my series by searching or browsing on Amazon.
Somehow the promo boosted my status in Amazon's search and browse functions. But there's a big difference between SEARCH and BROWSE. If you browse the appropriate categories, you'll have a hard time finding my books. There are just way too many pages to flick through before you get to mine. For instance, I'm listed in this long-winded, very specific category:
Kindle Store � Kindle eBooks � Children's eBooks � Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror � Science Fiction, Fantasy, & MagicBut there are 11,130 books in this category, and each Amazon page shows only 12 books, meaning there are 927 pages to go through if you want to see all the books in the category (and since I'm not in the Top 100, I'm definitely not showing within the first 9 pages). I'm pretty sure people aren't finding my books simply by browsing.
So what about a basic search? If you searched Kindle Store for "fantasy," there are over 82,000 results. Gulp. Well, "young adult fantasy" yields 7,230 results. Okay, what about "middle grade fantasy" at only 384 results? That's still 32 pages to wade through, but let's see what I can find. Hold on a sec...
[ music plays softly ]
Okay, I'm back, and guest what? I didn't find my book at all. My book doesn't show up for the "middle grade fantasy" key phrase. Ah, but that actually makes sense. When an author sets up his books for Kindle, there's an option to specify up to seven keywords or key phrases. For Island of Fog I specified the following:
fantasy, dragon, manticore, faerie, centaur, naga, young adultThis isn't a great list. If you search on "manticore" in Kindle Store, there are a mere 17 results and I'm listed at #4, #5, #7 and #9 (four different books in my series). Much better! If you're looking for books about manticores, I'm your man.
But clearly "manticore" is not a very popular keyword. If it were, more authors would be using it as a keyword. What good is it if nobody searches on it? If I made up a mythical creature and called it "fizzygummiewidget," and used that as a keyword, I guarantee I'd be the ONLY listing if someone happened to search for it... but who would?
If you search on "faerie" in Kindle Store, there are 670 results and I'm listed at #47. This is better in that the keyword obviously generates more interest, but my book is not listed until the end of page 4.
A much more useful result is for "young adult dragon," of which there are 422 results and I'm listed at #7. There's quite a bit of competition here, but I'm faring well.
I've always known that the best keywords to target are actually key phrases -- 2 or 3 words together like the aforementioned "young adult dragon." This is very specific and yields only 422 results, but although that number is relatively small compared to tens of thousands of results, I'm right up there at the top. Often it's better to snag the lion's share of a small market than a miniscule portion of a large market. If you're not listed on the first couple of pages of a search, you might as well not be listed at all.
So maybe this is where my buyers are coming from. The promo prompted direct sales at the time, and those sales added to my "sale history," and the improved sale history increased my relevancy as an author, and so on, but ultimately it's searches like this that help people find my books. I need to pay better attention to my keywords and phrases.
What about you? When you search for a fantasy book, what exactly do you type in to find books like Island of Fog in that specific genre and age group? Examples:
young adult fantasymiddle grade fantasydragon fantasy...and so on. Please let me know. I firmly believe that authors (with their marketing caps on) can easily over-think this process. Understanding an average reader's mindset and habits when they search or browse for books on Kindle is vital to obtaining a better position in the ranks.
I need to find a balance between a key phrase that's popular enough to be searched a lot but not so popular that I'm competing against tens of thousands. I'll never be in the Top 10 for a widely popular single keyword like "dragon," and therefore I'll never be found at all, but I can be in the Top 10 for a lesser popular keyword like "manticore" -- but what's the use if nobody ever searches on it? There needs to be a balance.
So let me know what YOU search for, or let me know of any other methods you use on Amazon. Do you browse through categories and narrow your search? Do you browse with tags? Or do you just use the search bar? Perhaps you search for books on Google and follow the links to Amazon?
Off now to work on better key phrases...
September 11, 2012
Roads of Madness is available in print
Just a quick post to say that Roads of Madness is now available in print at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.
Or you can pre-order a copy from me and I'll sign it for you. I'll be placing an order on Monday 17th September, so if you want a copy reserved, either order it now or email me keith@unearthlytales.com and pay later. Because most of my sales now are electronic, I don't intend keeping a large stock.
Alternatively you can get copies directly from CreateSpace, which might be more convenient for other writers who use CreateSpace and have an account already. Even if you don't have an account, you can set one up for free. The benefit? You'll get 15% off the cost if you use this discount coupon: FHTY9XMM
Speaking of which... This month has been a good one for Kindle book sales. I hope it's a new trend. The average has gone up to about 30 a day, which is great! The recent KDP Select promo has been well worth the effort in my case, although I know it's not always that way for other authors. I've read reports of authors who have done five or six times better than me, and others who have had no luck at all. I guess it depends on the book, the number of reviews, where you promote it, what time of week it is, what the weather's like, how you hold your mouth when clicking the mouse button...
Anyway -- enjoy!
September 5, 2012
Does KDP Select work?
Recently I opted into Amazon's KDP Select program for a 2-day free promo of Island of Fog. Was it worth it? You betcha! It's too early to tell about long-term effects, but I can give you a brief rundown of the days before, during, and immediately after the promo.
For the last couple of years, sales have trickled in at around 30 a month for all my Kindle and Nook books combined, or 1 sale a day. Sigh. Obviously this is better than nothing, but it's nowhere near enough to retire on. I always thought it would be useful to try a free promo. The thing is, I can easily give away my own book anytime I want, but it's better to give it away through Amazon so that the download statistics are recorded and affect ranking and so on. Unfortunately an author can't just change the price of his Kindle book to $0.00. Amazon won't allow it.
But they do offer the KDP Select program. KDP means Kindle Direct Publishing. I'm already part of KDP, but their KDP Select program is where you opt in for 90 days and, during that time, are able to choose up to five days to run a free book promo. Just what I want, right?
The reason I took so long trying out the KDP Select program on Island of Fog is because it demands that I make the digital edition of the book exclusive to Amazon's Kindle -- which means removing Barnes & Noble's Nook edition for the duration. I hate the idea of a Nook customer prepared to buy my book and finding it to be unavailable. But heck, it's only for three months.
So on August 23, with some trepidation, I opted Island of Fog into the KDP Select program. This means that the digital edition is now exclusive to Amazon for 90 days (until November 20). You'll note that it's gone from Barnes & Noble even though the others in the series are still there.
I ran my first 2-day promo on August 29-30.
Before doing so, I spent a few days plugging my book on various websites, blogs, and Facebook pages. There are lots of places an author can do this for free, sometimes in advance of the promo (where you specify the forthcoming promo dates) and sometimes during the promo (where the book is only accepted if the price is currently $0.00). I submitted my free book to maybe 20-25 different places.
I was hopeful for a few thousand free downloads but, honestly, didn't expect more than a few hundred. The total was 6025 in the USA, India, UK, and Germany (of which 5834 were in the USA). During these two days, my ranking shot up. I'm not absolutely certain but I believe the ranking during this period is specifically a "FREE" ranking, separate from the usual "PAID" ranking. Anyway, before the promo, all my books were languishing around 110K in PAID. The promo boosted the Kindle Store rankings dramatically, sending Island of Fog to #50 FREE and the others to around 25-48K PAID:
After the promo, the ranking for Island of Fog switched from FREE back to PAID and ended up at 180K. Ouch. But it was temporary. Sales quickly boosted it up the ranks again, although not as high as before. But remember, we're now back in the PAID rankings along with the majority of everyone else. The rank has been hovering around 3000-6000 ever since.
Before the promo, from August 1-28, I had managed 28 sales. See? Literally 1 sale a day. Anyway, during and after the promo (August 29-31) another 67 sales came in. The average went from 1 up to 22 sales a day.
September's total sales quickly rose to 166 in four days, which is 41 sales a day. My sales rank was around 2500 for a while, and I was listed as a best seller under three categories. Then the rank dropped to around 4500 and I lost those best seller listings. As I write this, on the morning of September 5, my rank is 6451 and my sales are 172. It seems like it's slowing, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will keep going even if it's at a slightly slower pace. I'm aiming to renew my efforts in promoting the books.
The way ranking works is largely a mystery because Amazon keeps it secret. Still, plenty of smarter people than me have figured out that it's an algorithm based on the number of recent sales -- in other words, if I sold 100 books in one hour, my ranking could shoot up to best-selling status along with the Big Names. Long-term sales figures don't seem to mean as much as you'd think on Amazon. It's the here and now that matters, or the "Movers and Shakers" as they're called.
Anyway, the point is that the number of sales per hour directly affects the ranks. I don't know what the exact figures are, but if I sell x number per hour then I start climbing the ranks, otherwise I start slipping again. If I climb high enough overall (say to around 3000) then I start showing as a best seller in certain categories. When that happens, sales increase because more readers find me. And as sales increase, so the rank climbs, and so on. By this reasoning, if I got to #1, I'd stay there forever -- right?
The thing is, it's relatively easy to climb the ranks until you get near the top where all the big boys play. For example, if I launch a new book, its rank is probably going to start out somewhere around 2.5 million. Once I sell a couple, the rank jumps to a few hundred thousand. As I said earlier, my books were languishing around 100K based on the 1-sale-a-day average I was clinging to. Sell 15-30 a day and wham!, you leap up the ranks. But as you climb, it gets harder and harder to keep going. It's like a tall mountain. The first half is easy with its gentle slopes, plenty of space to move, and fairly easy competition. Near the top, though, it's much steeper and there are loads of really determined die-hard climbers fighting for room, elbow to elbow as they reach for the peak.
So I'm currently paused just below where the snow starts, looking up and wondering how I'm going to make it to the top. Still, looking down, I'm quite happy with the progress I've made in the last 10 days. :-)
A big THANK YOU to all those who gave me a helping hand up the slippery slope, whether you downloaded the free book, bought it, or promoted it for me.
Here's a quick list of places I promote my books at. Some of these are Facebook pages, while some are websites that also display listings on separate Facebook pages and Twitter feeds. The number of LIKES on a Facebook page is worth looking at; they range from a few hundred to several thousand. This list will change over time as I add more...
GENERAL BOOK LISTINGS (FOR FREE AND PAID BOOKS) Digital Book Today (Weekly Featured Read) Free Ebooks Daily Authors on the Cheap Kindle Korner (contact Kim – she's so helpful and friendly) eReaderIQ World Literary CafeFREE PROMO LISTINGS (FOR FREE BOOKS ONLY) – ADD IN ADVANCE OF THE PROMO Digital Book Today (Top 100 Free) Pixel of Ink Ereader News Today Books on the Knob FreeBooksy Bargain eBook Hunter Orangeberry Book Tours The Official Kindle Facebook pageFREE PROMO LISTINGS (FOR FREE BOOKS ONLY) – ADD ON THE DAY OF THE PROMO Snickslist Free Kindle Fiction Kindle Boards (self-promotion thread) Reading Kindle Indie Kindle eBooks Free Free Free The Official Kindle Facebook page Kindle Finds Kindle Korner Freebies4Mom Authors on the CheapAugust 31, 2012
Roads of Madness is available on Kindle
Although I've been bleating a lot lately about the 2-day free promo of Island of Fog (and I'll post next week with all the results of that), today is all about Book 5 in the series, Roads of Madness, which as promised is available now on Amazon for your Kindle. It will also be available in print during September, but right now you can buy the digital edition for a mere $3.99.
Over the last couple of days, some people have mentioned that they don't own a Kindle. Well, the thing is, you don't have to own one. No sirree. You can simply download a free Kindle app for your computer, tablet, or phone, which basically transforms said machine into a Kindle. I have a daft little smart phone with a factory-loaded Kindle app, and it works just fine. The only thing you need is an Amazon account, and most people do these days. If you have that, you're in business.
Anyway, Roads of Madness is ready to go. Thanks to suggestions by my ARC readers throughout August, I've made a lot of tiny edits and a couple of larger ones, and it's muchly improved!
Read the free sample either here or via Amazon's LookInside! preview.
Now onto Book 6...