Jason Halstead's Blog, page 21

The Gorilla in the Room

I’ve been working on my latest book for a week or maybe a little more now. It’s the fourth fantasy book in my Blades of Leander trilogy about the farm boy turned warrior, Alto. Of course his companions are important too, especially his romantic interest Lady Patrina. Not that others are any less appealing or interesting, it’s just that I only have so much room to write.

This fourth book also marks the beginning of a new series for Alto. The first, Blades of Leander, is doing remarkably well. I have this second series set to be a trilogy, but I have to confess things took a twist on me. I’d mapped it out, you see, but I really wasn’t happy how the first book ended. Not that I didn’t like the direction and everything, it just seemed a little too clean. There wasn’t enough complications. Or in other words, it wasn’t realistic enough.

Dude, you’re writing about a warrior that fought dragons and giants – realism checked out a long time ago! I know, but this is fantasy. Dragons and giants are practically required! By realism I’m talking about how life throws curve balls at us every day. Some days it seemed like it’s on the hour. It’s not enough that I have a major character plotting the demise of the good guys, there are subplots and other forces at work.

So my characters, ten chapters into the book, made a foolish choice. Well guess what, they’re going to pay for that choice. Sure, they’re the good guys but even the best of heroes make stupid choices from time to time. Courtesy of that bad choice the book took a major twist.

So now Alto and friends must contend with the consequences of their actions. I’d call it the 800lb gorilla in the room but it’s far, far worse. And bigger. Perhaps by a factor of 10 or so. But hey, that’s okay – it gave me the name of the book that I’ve been struggling over. “The Gorilla in the Room?” Heck no, what kind of name is that? It’s barely even a decent blog title. No, the first book in the second trilogy about Alto will be called, “Isle of the Ape.”

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com .

Pass the Peanut Butter

People fascinate me. I like to people watch and try to understand what makes them tick. And no, not just the ladies on beaches. I’m talking about everyone. I want to know why they do the things they do, especially when they make a decision I would not have made.

Case in point, I was browsing through my Amazon Affiliate account yesterday and I saw a list of items people had bought while using my affiliate code. This happens if they click a link of mine and purchase the item listed at the link (one of my books), or anything else while still on Amazon. No, it doesn’t cost them anything extra, but Amazon sends a few pennies my way to say thanks for bringing us a customer.

Anyhow, I noticed that amongst my books there were a few other books that I did not write. Let me stress that point again, I did not write these books. They don’t have my name on them and they sure as hell don’t have a topic I have any interest in. Why the strong reaction in me? Well let me share the topics of the books – the first involves a woman and her large dog having conjugal relations and the second involves a fresh faced 18 year old virgin farm girl developing an affinity for manmade replicas of the equine phallus. I hope it all makes sense now.

I’m a very open minded and tolerant guy. More so than anyone else I happen to know, I think. I’m not trying to prove anything, I’m trying to wrap my head around why these books exist and why they’ve obviously been purchased several times. One of them was released on March 4th and has over 100 reviews on it, 73 of them five star! I assure you from the handful of negative reviews I read that the vast majority of 5 star reviews are fake reviews purchased to increase visibility. What’s worse is that the book is in two top 100 lists and was ranked under 5,000 in the paid Kindle list. I’m hopeful that it’s dropping fast after the initial rush provided by fake reviews and fake sales, but even the other book with hardly any reviews is in the 50,000 range (marking it as mid list but still selling a few copies a day).

I ask the world, WTF? How is it even remotely possible for this many copies of books like this to rank so highly? The cover is clearly done by an amateur, not to mention disturbing in itself. I can understand some macabre curiosity or desire for humor, but come on, this is ridiculous! And they’re asking $4.99 for one and $3.99, respectively. My own book, Child of Fate, is ranked in the 9,000 block on Amazon paid books and I have to sell 10 – 15 copies a day to hit that rank. For the

To each their own, I get that. Don’t ask and don’t tell…sure. But come on, if that’s the kind of crap I have to write to get decent sales I’m doomed to a life of obscurity. If I thought 50 Shades was poorly written, now I’m truly flummoxed.

My faith in humanity is shaken when I see this sort of thing.

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com .

It’s Not a Small World Anymore

I’m not talking about Earth, I’m talking about the world that my fantasy trilogy, Blades of Leander, takes place on! I’ve written about and continue to do so (hard at work on the second trilogy now), but I figured I needed to stop and get all my background information established. And that means mapping out the world, or at least the region that my characters have explored / will explore in the near future.

I’m a veteran pen and paper gamer, going back more years than I care to admit. Many of those years I spent running the games with friends as a game master (or dungeon master / DM). I got tired of using stock modules and adventures, so I created my own. that included making my own worlds by sketching out maps on sheets of graph paper and taping them together at times. Who knew that experience would come in handy one day? The big difference this time around was that instead of using colored pencils, graph paper, and scotch tape I turned to my computer.

I found that there are  a lot of fantasy map enthusiasts out there. I can see why, developing my own world was a lot of fun. The program I purchased to do it, Campaign Cartographer 3, had an impressive learning curve though. Thankfully there are tutorials that I used to help me put together my map. So, without further delay, let me present the work-in-progress map of the world of Kroth!

The World of the Blades of Leander

Shazamir, in the south, needs work, as do many of the islands on the right of the map. I don’t intend to change anything, but rather to add more detail as it is uncovered by the characters in the books.  In future blog posts I’ll go into detail about the areas and explore them a little further. My intentions are to make this roughly 40% of the continent, or maybe a little less. One of the great things about designing a map is all the opportunities it opens up. I had no trouble coming up with ideas to move the story forward, but seeing it laid out before me allows for even more ideas! It’s going to be a lot of fun, I promise you that!

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com .

The Art of Submission

Now THAT is a loaded title! Fortunately (or unfortunately for some of you naughty readers), it has nothing to do with people wearing thigh high leather boots or ball gags. Not that I happen to know anything about those, I’m just saying…

Right, so anyhow, back to submission. Of course I’m talking about writers and their stories! It’s a brave new world for writers, one I’m charging into at full speed. Some writers still feel the need to be published traditionally while others do not. Some even vehemently mock the traditional publishing industry as they rake in six figure months off of self-publishing.

I’m not going to tell you which path you should choose. It’s a personal decision. I started out going through a publisher and have since left that publisher (mostly, I still have two books published with them but I retain full rights to them) so I could do it on my own. But I didn’t really do it on my own, you see, I had the help of a team of talented individuals. It was with this team that Novel Concept Publishing was formed. That’s the company I co-own that publishes my books, my partner’s books, and the books of a handful of other writers that have come to us.

More than a handful have showed up, for the record, but we’ve turned a lot of them away. In a few cases they decided to go and do it their own way instead of working with us. That’s fine too. It can be done, and it can be done with great success. NCP exists to help people who don’t have the network or resources to do it on their own. I can’t imagine not taking complete control of my own writing process, all the way through publication, but for some people it’s not a big deal. They’d rather focus on their day job, writing, needlepoint, alligator wrestling, or whatever floats their boat. If that’s okay with them then it’s okay with me.

The thing the people that we’ve worked with have in common is a great story. They came to us with a story that we liked. It spoke to us and the characters made us want to know more about them. In other words, they wowed us. Personally I think my two favorite writers I’ve had the pleasure of working with are Marc Hamlet and Bob Stewart. Both have considerable talent and great stories to share with the world. I consider myself privileged to have worked with them and I get excited every time I hear they’ve got something new in the works.

For the writers out there thinking about trying to find a place to help them get published, take heed. You need a story that will wow whoever you’re sending it to. Shock them. Excite them. Engage them. Find a way to make your characters stand out. Don’t focus on the plot or the story, focus on making them believe.

And, for the love of all that’s holy, edit the manuscript! Most especially the sample you’re sending. Grammar issues we can deal with. Typos, missing words, or a lack of simple spell checking, on the other hand, is just unprofessional. If you don’t take your work seriously, why should anyone else?

I had the displeasure of shooting down two submissions to NCP recently. I lost interest very quickly since the stories didn’t grab me. They were both filled with the kinds of errors I just mentioned too, which pushed disinterest into irritation rapidly. Both of these stories could very well succeed on their own and I encouraged the writers to pursue that. A rejection from NCP isn’t worth shedding a tear over, not when we’re in an age where so many options abound.

And maybe, just maybe, the manuscript is one that should never be published. Don’t be upset – we all have them. In fact I have a handful of them that I keep agonizing over. I keep telling myself I’m going to go through them and rewrite them, but that takes more time then writing a story from scratch does, or it feels that way. Or maybe it’s the pain I endure when I read the crap I wrote years ago and realize just how bad it really is. Repressed memories are repressed for a reason!

The point is being a writer is about writing. That’s an action word. A verb. It means you’re doing something. If you reach the point where you’re more concerned about what you’ve written instead of what you’re writing, you need to reevaluate. Other than as a bullet point I never even think about the 35 books I’ve written. I think about the book I’m writing or the ones I will soon be writing. Action, my friends, is what gets us where we want to go.

 

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com .

An Alien, a Marine, and a Dinosaur Walk into a Bar…

The day has come at last. I’ve been building up to this for days now. At least two, maybe three! The anxiety and suspense was killing me, I tell you! Okay, maybe I’m a little over the top (or a lot). Regardless, tomorrow is the first of five days that my Vitalis Omnibus goes on a freebie promo at Amazon.

The Vitalis Omnibus includes all seven of my Vitalis novellas, which is somewhere around 150,000 words. A novel is considered 50,000 – 100,000, as a point of reference (longer works are considered super novels). And it’s all free for a few days. I know, what the heck is wrong with me! Well I’ll admit that I have an ulterior motive – I want to get you hooked so you’ll buy the other books in the series (Vitalis: Resurrection and Vitalis: Provenance).

What’s Vitalis got to make it worth your time? Well, it’s a mix of science fiction and, well, more scifi. Not the hard stuff in spite of faster than light travel and discovering an unexplored world light years beyond the explored systems of the Terran Coalition. That’s where the aliens and dinosaurs come in. And Marines. There’s lot of Marines and it gets pretty messy. Ooh! I forgot to mention the pirates, the assassin, and the cross breeding between species. Yeah, I went there and it was fun!

So go pick yourself up a free copy. Even if you don’t have time for it now, it’s only free for five days. Grab it and come back later to read it. Heck, even if you might never get to it or aren’t interested in science fiction, a free lunch is a free lunch! Not to mention I’ve been told my Vitalis books are the perfect gateway drug for people who’ve never been interested in science fiction before…

Here’s the blurb and the cover. Go ahead and click in it or the links to head straight to Amazon.

Mysterious blackouts left Kira with precious few memories of events in her life, never mind those worth sharing. Somewhere in those blank spots she acquired skills – skills she was hard pressed to explain. But those skills got her a job as the new navigator for the Rented Mule, a transport ship that plied the Rim Systems at the very edge of human civilization.

When their ship is set upon by pirates Kira’s skills allow her and the crew to escape, only to find themselves stranded in deep space with only one chance for survival, an undiscovered planet teeming with life that is light years beyond the borders of the Terran Coalition of Systems.

Forced to crash land, the crew of the Rented Mule learns immediately that the key to surviving on Vitalis is a closely guarded secret. Vitalis has a way of getting inside the mind, body, and soul of a person and once it’s got them, it doesn’t let them go.

Amazon

Amazon UK

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com .

Watch Out For The Gunship!

This post isn’t about me. Well, okay, maybe a little. Mostly it’s about a fellow writer and human being, John M. Davis. Mr. Davis is the author of a science fiction series by the name of Gunship, although to be fair he’s written and continues to write other stories as well. In spite of all the leading in I’m doing, this is not a guest post.

Nope, this is me talking about John and his book. Oh sure, I have an ulterior motive, but in truth it’s more of a fringe benefit or side effect. You see John and I recently concocted a scheme to take over the world. It’s pretty long and drawn out though, so I’ll spare you. The relevent part is the first stage: getting people interested in both our books.

I proposed it last year at some point in a Yahoo group I created and John hearkened to the idea. He contacted me recently and reminded me I’d mentioned it. He then suggested trying it out even though he seemed worried I might misconstrue his barely hidden desire to crush the universe in his plasmanium fist. I wasn’t too worried about the supreme dictator thing since plasmanium hasn’t been invented yet. Instead I thought it would be great. Sure, I want people to read my books but what are they going to read next week? Maybe if we let people know about it, they’ll read one of his next week. Or vice versa.

Thus our purely platonic relationship was formed. Swapping links, cover art, and blurbs one day, bodily fluids the next. (Bodily fluids like donating blood. Sheesh).

But why should you read his Gunship Omnibus that I’m linking to in my Vitalis Omnibus? Great question, thanks for asking! John has created a world that is fun, quirky, and fast paced. It’s got a lot of elements of Firefly in it that any sane lover of science fiction will appreciate, although nothing is stolen from the ill-fated series either. There’s love interests and more, even zombies! And it’s free, or at least he’s running free promotions on it. How can you go wrong with that?

So I’m listing it in Vitalis Omnibus at the end, showing the cover, a blurb, and the link to get it. I’m really hoping it helps to boost what John’s got going on because, well, he’s a good guy trying to do the good guy thing. And it’s a good book, what more do you need! Don’t take my word for it, check it out and see what you think for yourself – I wouldn’t trust me either.

And let’s not forget that my Vitalis Omnibus book will be free on Kindle this Friday, the 19th through Tuesday, the 23rd.

 

Kindle

Nook

Kobo

Smashwords

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com .

All for Nothing

By ‘all’ I’m referring to all 7 episodes that comprise my Vitalis Omnibus book. ‘Nothing’ refers to the five day freebie I’ve signed it up for. You do the math, it means a whole lot of fast paced and very fun science fiction with nothing to hold you back. It’s the closest thing to a free lunch there is!

But there’s a catch, of course. The catch is that you’ll want to keep up with the characters so much you’ll end up buying the second and third full novel length Vitalis books (Vitalis: Resurrection and Vitalis: Provenance).

But what if you’re not big into science fiction? Why bother, you wonder. Well that’s an easy one. I’ve had readers tell me that they took a chance on this series and were shocked and amazed. They had no interest in sci-fi but found themselves immersed in the story and captivated by the characters. The science fiction is just a background that makes it possible for the story of how the characters evolve and endure to be told.

What it does contain is a lot of sweat, some tears, blood, and even a bit of the really juicy stuff. Putting the bodily fluids aside there’s pirates, there’s dinosaurs, there’s futuristic space travel, there’s spirituality, and there’s aliens chewing their way out of people’s bellies. No, not those aliens. Although I will confess I think Ridley Scott subconsciously influenced me. Without realizing until this very moment one of my main characters is a tall kick ass woman. She’s even got dark hair. Her name is not Ellen Ripley (It’s Kira Eskew, if you must know). And as much as I love Sigourney Weaver she wouldn’t be the right actress to play Kira if the opportunity arose.

So check it out, it’s going to be free on Amazon from 19th to the 23rd. And free for at least the next 90 days if you’re an Amazon Prime member. Then when you’re done loving it, leave a review and be sure to check out the two sequels. Unless there’s three or more by the time you get to it since I am definitely continuing this amazing series!

Until then, it’s back to work on the fourth fantasy book featuring Alto and his friends as they defend the northern regions from evil.

 

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com .

How Were Book Sales in March

The purpose of this post is to follow up on sales numbers I released earlier this year (early March, I think) where I posted great hopes of hitting some amazing numbers (to me) for March. Well, I have those numbers now, so here they are: $8500.

Wait a minute, for those with exception memories I’d claimed I might be looking at a $10k month. Well, those hopes faded after midway through the second weak. The sales dropped. Not a lot, but enough. They started to pick back up near the end of the month, but not enough to make the magic $10k number. By the end of March I figured I was looking at around $9200 – $9500 in gross royalties off of Amazon. Hitting $8500 was a kick in the gut because I’ve never been off by that much before.

A deep dive into my payment report explains what really happened. Discounts. At first I thought it was purchases made in India or other areas where I only receive a 35% royalty instead of 70% due to not being in KDP Select on most of my titles. That does have an impact, but less than 10% of any given title is affected by that. It explains some of the discrepancy, but not the majority it.

For the majority we must go to discounts. Discounts are something I don’t understand. Oh sure, I get price matching. I use it, in fact, to make some of my books free for prolonged periods of time. Often due to other retailers being screwed up (Kobo was notorious for this in March – I’m still quite angry at them for this and other reasons). In other cases Amazon just seemed to discount my books for no reason I could discern. I’m sure there’s something viable behind it – I’m not pointing fingers and accusing them of anything. Still, it hit my between the pants and left me surprised.

Am I hurt, upset, or negatively impacted? Heck no! March was my best selling month ever. April is looking like it’s going to come in at a close second. If it does I’ll still be pretty happy but maybe a little disappointed that my books aren’t ramping up in the same trend they showed last year. Last year I saw incredible increases from March through May and then they stayed strong until they began to fade in July. They kept dropping until mid to late November, which had me kind of freaked out. So if this year the rise isn’t as meteoric I’m okay, as long as they don’t take a drop just as extreme and terrifying.

But that’s not why you’re reading this – you want to know the cold hard stats. Well, I’m a cold hard stats kind of guy so I can appreciate that.

 

Blades of Leander (4 books): $4000

Wanted (4 books): $1500

The Lost Girls series (4 books): $1250

Dark Earth (3 books): $200

Voidhawk (5 books): $1600

Vitalis (2 books, 7 novellas): $400

Stand Alone books (4 books): $50

 

Since March I’ve put out two more books (Voidhawk – The Edge of Forever and Vitalis: Provenance) and I’m forecasting this for April:

 

Blades of Leander (4 books): $3700

Wanted (4 books): $1400

The Lost Girls series (4 books): $500

Dark Earth (3 books): $300

Voidhawk (6 books): $2150

Vitalis (3 books, 7 novellas): $500

Stand Alone books (4 books): $20

 

Lower numbers in most cases, what the heck? Well some of it was pricing experimentation. The results of those experiments are over and hopefully I’ll score better on Vitalis and The Lost Girls than my formulas show. Here’s why…

I dropped my prices on my Blades of Leander trilogy to $2.99 for each book. It increased volume but not enough to offset revenue. So I’ve left it at $2.99 for Child of Fate (book 1), and increased it back to $4.99 for Victim of Fate and Silver Dragon. That happened earlier today, so we’ll see how that treats me.

The Lost Girls series took a plunge. 55% loss or so in April because I changed The Lost Girls (book 1) to being paid for. I switched it back late last week to free and I’m just beginning to see increased sales of Traitor, Wolfgirl, and Black Widow begin to pick back up. I expect it to make more of a difference next month than it will this one though.

I dropped pricing on my Vitalis Omnibus (the first 7 episodes) to $2.99 this month as well. So far I haven’t changed it back because I have seen an increase in sales of Vitalis: Resurrection and I hope they translate into sales of Vitalis: Provenance, my latest release.

Stand alone books suck. From a sales perspective. Sure, if you James Patterson, Dean Koontz, or Stephen King they can turn ‘em into bestsellers. Unfortunately, those guys aren’t reading this blog. Writing books in a series has really worked well for me. I’m working on a new series to that end, but book 1 won’t be out until mid May. Forbidden Love is the title and yes, it’s modern fiction with romance, smut, and espionage in it (aka chocolate and flowers, boobs, and guns – something for everybody!).

Like Joe Konrath and many other writers, I’m a big proponent of the free book. It can only help, as far as I’m concerned. As a matter of fact I’m hoping to do some more free stuff in the very near future. I’ll be sure to blog about it when it happens so I can raise awareness and hopefully get people to grab ‘em while they can!

And I’m hard at work on the next book following the Blades of Leander trilogy. My tentative title at this point is Dragon Lady but it may change – I’ve got a lot of questions the characters haven’t answered for me yet. It’s going to be great, I just wish they’d let me know how they’re going to get from point A to point B!

 

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com .

The Sky Will Fall

Fans of my science fiction series, Vitalis, might be surprised to learn that I’m tired of writing about the hostile but beautiful alien world. I’ve had enough of writing about the dynamic characters and their gradual mutation to survive the harsh ecology. The monstrous animals, plants, and even the spirit of the planet that is so intent on protecting its bounty has begun to bore me.

Of course I’m kidding! That’s a primordial soup of opportunities for a guy like me! Nonetheless, in my latest Vitalis book I decided to write about the Terran Coalition. Humanity spread amongst multiple solar systems and all of them are aching for a chance to get their greedy hands on the miracles of Vitalis. And maybe, just maybe, it might be fun if those miracles ended up being more of a nightmare? Might it even spell the doom for humanity as we know it?

Vitalis: Provenance, is my new book that I’ve just released. “Just released” doesn’t do it justice. How does “Released 3 weeks early” sound? Yes, the stars aligned and between writing, editing, and cover art this one came out like a well oiled machine. With glowing green crystals, a venomous bite, and a tail capable of slapping you into next week. It’s that kind of book.

Here’s the blurb and the links – now go snatch it up and get ready for an action packed bit of fun the likes of which you haven’t had since you read Vitalis: Resurrection!

The human race has many traits. Among them are compassion, greed, violence, and curiosity. The survivors on Vitalis have embody these qualities and more, and Vitalis has been watching. She has learned how to use humanities quirks to Her advantage and when researchers come hoping to study the miracles the planet has to offer they return with more than they expected.

The human colonists of Vitalis have learned that in order to survive they must adapt and become a part of the world they now live on. If Vitalis has Her way the rest of humanity will soon be forced to follow in their footsteps.

 

 

 

Amazon

Amazon UK

Smashwords

Barnes and Noble

Kobo

Sony

iTunes

Createspace (print version)

 

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com .

 

Book Pricing, v.10.5

I’ve stated my opinions on book pricing in the past, but I’ll do it again for anybody just joining. I believe in cheaper books. I feel this way because I’m a reader and because not everybody out there has disposal income they can toss around. I know I’ve passed on books many times simply because I couldn’t afford them. It’s become somewhat ingrained in me now to pass over a book that’s priced too highly. There are rare exceptions, but that’s what they are, rare exceptions.

Because that’s how I buy, that’s how I sell. I keep my books cheap. It’s not purely humanitarian though, I’m hoping to reach a larger audience that way. My belief is that more people are going to pick up a $2.99 book than they would a $9.99 book. The caveat to that is that I do have a couple of higher priced omnibus editions (Blades of Leander and my Wanted Trilogy), but those are compilations of all 3 books in a trilogy.

I recently conducted a couple of tests. I’ve lowered the price of my three individual Blades of Leander books to $2.99 to see how that stimulates sales. Book 1, Child of Fate, increased significantly, over 20% in volume but it took a loss in dollars of about 30%. Victim of Fate (book 2) and Silver Dragon (book 3) had similar results, although not quite to the same degree.

Another experiment I ran in March and April was switching The Lost Girls (book 1 of my Lost Girls series) from free to paid for ($2.99). The results were disappointing. Obviously I made more on The Lost Girls having it paid for than by having it free, but the other 3 books in the series, Traitor, Wolfgirl, and Black Widow came in at or under half the revenue.

So what does this mean? Easy – cheaper is better, when you have a series. Here’s why:

If I leave Child of Fate at the cheaper price let’s say I lose $400 in a month in potential sales. By raising books 2 and 3 back up to their normal price of $4.99 I make an additional $1000 on those two . Net gain is $600. A decent car payment. Times 12 months that’s me making an additional $7200 because I made my books cheaper.

Now back to The Lost Girls. By increasing the price of book 1 I made less than $200. Sales on the other books dropped by almost $700. That’s a $500 loss in per month or $6000 a year. In this case free is making me more money, so yeah, experiment’s over and I’m changing it back.

But why? Is the world filled with cheapskates who aren’t willing to pay a decent price? Or do people expect quality at any price? Well I like to think I’m cost conscious and thrifty myself, so I can appreciate the desire to get a good deal. The price of books, courtesy of Amazon and independent publishing, are perhaps the only thing in America that isn’t inflating to new levels. I don’t disagree with people there – I want books that are well written but affordable as well!

With cheap and / or free books there’s another benefit to be gained. There’s no risk. I can’t tell you how many emails, tweets, Facebook posts, or other communications I’ve received from readers that took a chance on me because I offered them a book for free. They loved it and were hooked, then were willing to buy my other books. It’s called a loss leader in the industry. I call it common sense. After all, I was asking people to trust this brand new name in the industry with no experience or credentials behind him. Give me money and I promise I’ll give you a good time (wink, wink). Yeah, if I were the buyer I’d offer a one finger salute and move on. By giving away a few books they were willing to take that chance and I gained their trust.

So, gentle writers, keep in mind that what you value your work at has absolutely no bearing on what people will pay for it. You might think your novel is worth $9.99 or more, but if nobody knows who you are and nobody else is vouching for you, you’re not going to get it. Our readers are our friends and our lifelines. Talk to them. Get to know them. Interact with them. Or at the very least, respect and try to understand them.

 

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com .