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New Emperor’s Edge Novella (Beneath the Surface) Preview

Thanks to holidays and cross-country moves, it’s been a while since the last update, so I’m pleased to have some news for you. I reviewed my editor’s edits for Beneath the Surface (an Emperor’s Edge novella that takes place between Books 5 and 6) and hope to get the final file back soon. I’ll send it off for formatting and hope to have it available this weekend. In the meantime, here’s a preview of the first chapter (yes, it’s a long enough novella to have chapters!):

Beneath the Surface

Chapter 1

 Sergeant Evrial Yara jogged past crew and passengers bundled in coats, their backs to the cold wind whipping down the Goldar River. A wan afternoon sun poked through the clouds, dappling riverbanks littered with soggy orange and brown leaves, but its rays did little to warm the air. Winter was on its way. Coal smudged the skyline to the north, promising a town waited somewhere ahead. Evrial didn’t know if the River Dancer was due to stop there or not. If it were…

“You could get off there,” she muttered to herself. A week ago, she never would have considered abandoning Sespian Savarsin, the young emperor who was being plotted against from all sides. That was before the truth had come out. “You don’t owe him anything. He’s not the proper heir.”

Realizing she’d spoken aloud, however softly, Evrial glanced left and right. Though she was earning curious looks from the people she passed, she guessed it was for her repeated laps of the lower deck rather than any muttered words.

Evrial grimaced as her gaze landed on the knot of jugglers practicing on the aft deck. Every time she passed them, they decided to make her a part of their exercises, tossing batons and clubs to each other over her head.

A pair of the young men smiled when they saw her coming again. One was juggling a trio of razor-edged knives, and he nodded to his comrade, indicating the other fellow should move closer to the wall so she’d be forced to jog between them as she made the turn. What was it about her that always drew the attention of idiots?

Without slowing her gait, Evrial skewered the blade juggler with a glare. “If you two sludge-licking toads so much as wave those knives in my direction, I’ll rip your apples off, stuff them like taxidermy ostriches, then hand-deliver them to your boss with the suggestion that they be incorporated into future juggling practices.”

That threat was a mouthful, especially given that she was breathing hard from her jog, but it was worth it. The brats shrank away from her path, muttering apologies as she passed. One’s face took on an impressively pale shade, given the bronze coloring of his skin. Evrial supposed being born into a long line of blacksmiths, where the men and women were all over six feet tall, came with occasional perks. Her shoulders were broad enough to swing a hammer, her back was strong enough to move an anvil, and her hands… well, she fancied making good on her threat wouldn’t tax them overly much.

“Ah, Sergeant Yara,” a familiar baritone called from a doorway. “I thought I recognized one of your classy threats.”

Maldynado Montichelu, formerly Maldynado Marblecrest, stepped onto the open deck, smiling and spreading his arms wide, as if he expected Evrial to jog into his embrace. His broad-brimmed black hat—an accessory made completely ridiculous by the addition of a giant plumed pink feather—couldn’t throw enough shadows to hide the chiseled features of his face. His high, well-defined cheekbones, strong square jaw, and liquid brown eyes that always crinkled with humor combined to create a visage that made women of all ages swoon. Evrial kept reminding herself that she wasn’t the type to fall for that sort—after all, that sort had never fallen for her—but he kept smiling warmly at her. It was all very disarming, so she reacted the only way she knew how when he fell into step beside her, giving her a pat on the back.

She snarled. “We’ve gone over the no-touching rule numerous times, have we not?”

Unlike the jugglers, Maldynado wasn’t quelled by her tone or her snarl. His smile grew wider, and he said, “Indeed so, but it’s been a few days since you mentioned it. I thought you might have changed your mind and decided to succumb to my charms in the interim.”

“Aren’t you and your charms supposed to be hiding in your cabin with the rest of your team?” Evrial left his side, ostensibly to run around a pair of acrobats practicing throws and airborne somersaults, but mostly to put space between her and Maldynado. It discomforted her that she occasionally found herself wondering what it’d be like to let his hands linger and where they might roam if given permission to explore. Her face heated, and she ruthlessly shoved the thought away. Though he might have shown her he wasn’t as foppish and dumb as he pretended, she knew he was only flirting with her because she resisted his advances, not out of any desire or true feelings. For one who so easily seduced women, she must represent a challenge.

Maldynado caught back up with her on the other side of a team of actors practicing the battle scene from some old tale. “The ice circus folks only visit the capital once a year; I doubt they’re familiar with the handsome face gracing my wanted posters.”

Evrial shot him an exasperated look. She might have figured out that he was more than a fop, but he certainly made it easy to forget. “The crew and some of the other passengers may be more frequent visitors. Though I suppose those well-to-do enough to afford steamboat tickets aren’t likely to feel inclined to risk themselves wrestling someone with such a meager bounty.”

“Meager.” Maldynado sniffed.

“It’s still only two hundred fifty ranmyas, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes, but I’m convinced the printer made a mistake and left off some zeroes. I’m sure if you brought me in, you’d find the reward more like twenty-five thousand ranmyas.”

“Careful, you’ll tempt me to turn you in.”

Evrial spotted someone walking down an outside stairway up ahead, a woman with locks of gray hair escaping a hood she clasped about her face. She glanced left and right, then darted into a doorway leading to the kitchen. Evrial slowed down, a discordant twang plucking at her enforcer senses. Only the crew used that door, and the woman had not been wearing one of the ubiquitous white uniforms.

“Turn me in?” Maldynado asked. “Before we’ve shared a night of passionate sheet tussling? You may find my skills are worth more to you than coin. Perhaps you’d wish to blackmail me into servicing your every whim, a sacrifice I’d be willing to make to avoid being arrested, of course.”

“Why must you be such an insufferable lout so much of the time?” Evrial headed for the kitchen door.

“It comes naturally, I suppose. Did you recognize that woman?” Maldynado was trailing along beside her.

Evrial was almost surprised he’d noticed the woman, though she shouldn’t be. She’d just been admitting to herself that he had half a brain under his soft curly brown hair. At least, it looked soft. She’d never touched it.

Focus, Evi, she told herself with a mental growl. “I couldn’t see her face, but she was acting suspiciously, don’t you think?”

“Indeed so. Her gaze went right past me without pausing to linger on my fine attributes. Very suspicious.”

“Would you stop that, already? It’s annoying.” Evrial eased the kitchen door open. The smells of baking pheasants, simmering soups, and sautéing vegetables wafted out.

“Sorry.” Surprisingly, he sounded like he was. “It’s a habit.”

“Break it.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll attempt to do so.”

“Yes, Sergeant is the proper way to address me.”

Inside the kitchen, pots clanged, utensils rattled, and heavy knifes thudded against chopping blocks. Evrial eyed the tight aisles, searching for civilian clothing amongst the numerous white uniforms. Compact and efficient for river travel, the kitchen offered few hiding spots. A swinging door on the opposite end caught her eye.

“Will there be a point when I may call you Evrial?” Maldynado asked as he peeked over her shoulder.

“Not unless I lose my job.”

Which, Evrial feared, was a possibility. She’d been in trouble with her employer and her family when she’d taken off to meet Amaranthe Lokdon and her team of mercenaries. All she’d wanted to do was make sure the emperor was safe, but somehow she’d ended up embroiled in a kidnapping scheme and an assault on an underground lair full of business people plotting against the throne. All that might have been tolerable if not for the shocking news revealed at the end, that Emperor Sespian Savarsin wasn’t the rightful emperor at all, but the son of the deceased Princess Marathi and the former court assassin, a man who, as far as anyone knew, had absolutely no royal blood and no right to have a son on the throne.

When most of the staff’s backs were turned, Evrial eased into the kitchen. She hustled toward the swinging door, hoping to pass through without being seen. Only one woman lifted her head and frowned as she passed.

Evrial stepped into a corridor on the other side, its narrow utilitarian confines intended for crew rather than passengers. She glanced in both directions and glimpsed a woman’s slippers and the tail of a gray cloak disappearing up a ladder. Evrial jogged after the figure, climbing the brass rungs without making a sound. She paused on the next floor, didn’t see anyone in the service corridor, and continued up one more deck. A cart of laundry blocked her view of the corridor, but she heard the patter of soft footfalls. She climbed out of the ladder well in time to see the cloaked woman struggle to open a heavy hatch, almost upending a basket of salamis and flat cakes. Her hood slipped down to her shoulders.

Evrial sucked in a breath, recognizing the sharp-nosed face. It belonged to one the people who’d been seated at that secret business meeting. That made her one of the more prominent heads of the Forge organization, the people plotting to put a loyal figurehead on the throne.

Staying low, Evrial crept forward, a vague notion of accosting the woman arising in her mind. Before she’d reached the laundry cart, her target glanced back.

Evrial ducked, hoping she’d reacted quickly enough to stay out of sight. Hinges squeaked, and the hatch thudded shut. Evrial pushed the cart aside and ran to the end of the passageway. She eased open the hatch without trouble and peeked through the crack. The wide, wood-paneled corridor was empty.

“Emperor’s warts,” she whispered.

Cabin doors stretched along the walls in either direction, but they were all closed.

“She got away, huh?”

Evrial jumped in surprise, losing her grip on the hatch. It clanged shut.

Maldynado stood behind her in the corridor, his hat brushing the ceiling, the feather crooked against the wall. His broad shoulders brushed the walls as well, and Evrial caught herself staring at his collarbone and the hint of firm pectoral muscles revealed by the V-neck shirt.

“What?” Maldynado asked.

Evrial cleared her throat, embarrassed that he’d caught her staring. “I didn’t know you were following me.”

“You thought I’d loiter in the kitchen and graze off the appetizer platters while you wandered off, looking for trouble?”

“No, I mean, I didn’t hear you.”

“Oh.” Maldynado offered a bright smile. “Good. Basilard and Sicarius always tell me I have the stealth of a drunken elephant, but I think they’re hypercritical because they were born with cat’s paws instead of human feet.” He pointed his chin at the hatch. “Did you figure out who she is?”

Distracted by the idea of Sicarius having cat feet, it took Evrial a moment to answer the question. “One of the Forge women.”

Maldynado straightened, clunking his head on the ceiling. He barely noticed. “Really? The boss’ll want to hear about that.”

Yes, and Evrial wished her prey hadn’t eluded her so she’d have more information to share. “I wonder why this woman is sneaking around instead of simply going to the dining room for meals.”

“Maybe she knows we’re here and is worried we’ll flood her cabin with the river,” Maldynado said, “the same way we did with their under-lake meeting chamber.”

“Nobody’s supposed to know your team is here. Lokdon sent me to buy the tickets, everyone boarded after dark with their hats pulled low, and they’ve been sneaking out for their food. Although, some members have been roaming around of late.” Evrial eyed him up and down.

“What do you expect? Books is my roommate, and he’s got his papers all over my bunk. And on the floor. I can barely turn around in there. I ought to come sleep with you.” Maldynado wriggled his eyebrows.

“I have a roommate, too, you know. I don’t think your employer would care to listen to your spelunking attempts.”

Maldynado lifted his hands. “I was just talking about sleeping arrangements. I don’t know what you’re suggesting, my lady.”

Evrial snorted. “Let’s just go talk to her. If more Forge people than that old lady are here, and they know we’re here, we might be in for trouble.”

“Yes, I suppose it was too much to hope that we’d have a week’s vacation to recover from our wounds before arriving to that mess back home.” For once, Maldynado’s face held only grimness and not a trace of humor.

* * * * *

Amaranthe Lokdon darted from shadow to shadow, hugging the railing and avoiding the freshly lit lanterns burning on the steamboat’s hull. The wooden doors between those lanterns were closely placed at this end of the vessel, indicating the smallness of the cabins. Engineering lay right below, and the reverberations from the paddlewheel’s pumping pistons vibrated through the textured steel decking.

A door opened a few meters away. It wasn’t one of the rooms her team had claimed, so Amaranthe turned her back to it, propped her arms on the railing, and pretended to be fascinated with the farmlands drifting past on that side of the river. Though she gazed forward, she watched the door with her peripheral vision. A man and woman walked out, arms linked. They didn’t glance in her direction. Good. Amaranthe patted the brown paper bag tucked beneath a flap of her parka. It seemed she might get away with her discreet outing without having to explain herself to anyone.

After the couple disappeared down the nearest stairwell, Amaranthe trotted to her own door, holding her parka closed—and protecting the bag—with one arm. She slipped out the key and inserted it in the lock… only to find that someone had unlocked the door since she left fifteen minutes earlier. Sergeant Yara must have returned from her exercise session. That was all right. She probably wouldn’t betray Amaranthe to any fitness-obsessed assassins. Yara and Sicarius had never, insofar as Amaranthe had noticed, held a conversation.

She opened the door and stepped inside, a greeting for Yara on her lips, but she found herself face-to-face with Sicarius. Arms crossed over his chest, he stood in the center of the small cabin. He wore his usual fitted black clothing and knife-and-dagger collection. His cool expressionless stare had a where-have-you-been mien to it. Or maybe her imagination conjured up that nuance. Her guilty imagination.

Amaranthe pursued the age-old strategy employed by those seeking to avoid answering questions—she preempted them with her own unrelated rambling. “That’s odd. I distinctly remember locking this door before I left.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “And Yara is my only roommate and the only other key holder, but I don’t see her here.” She made a show of surveying the cabin. She peered under the lower of two bunks mounted on the back wall, then beneath a table bolted to the floorboards near another wall, and she finally pulled open the table’s single drawer to peek inside. “Nope, she’s not here.”

Amaranthe turned, intending to continue her show, this time checking behind the door, but found herself gaping at a new addition to her tiny cabin. Someone had bolted an iron bar in the corner so it hung horizontally a few inches below the ceiling. Two chains dangled from it. A couple of clunky iron balls with handles sat on the floor beneath the apparatus.

“What’s all this?” Amaranthe asked, though with Sicarius being Sicarius, she had a suspicion.

“There is something in your pocket.” Sicarius hadn’t moved from the center of the room, but his gaze had lowered—to the bulge in her parka.

“No, there’s not.” Amaranthe feared her attempts at evasion were in vain, but couldn’t bring herself to give up. Maybe if she could get him to go over and explain the new addition, she could slip her bag into that table drawer. It looked deep enough… “If this were Maldynado’s handiwork—” she tilted her head, trying to draw his eye toward the bar and chains, “—I’d assume it was some sort of apparatus for… sex play, but since we haven’t even, uhm, played in the bed yet…” Dear ancestors, what was she doing? She should have simply confessed. That would have been less painful. “…That would seem premature,” she finished weakly.

“It is for training,” Sicarius said, once again demonstrating his ability to mask his thoughts in the face of any commentary. “Since those of us with notorious faces have been ordered to remain in our cabins for the duration of the journey.”

Er, yes, that had been her order, so she could hardly balk at it. But his explanation offered an opportunity; maybe she could yet salvage this conversation. “Training? Care to demonstrate?”

Sicarius walked past her, though not without giving her an all-too-knowing sidelong gaze, and gripped the bar with both hands. His back was to the room. Perfect. While he performed a variety of pull-ups, demonstrating different grips, Amaranthe tiptoed toward the desk. With one hand still holding her parka flap closed, she eased the drawer open. Meanwhile, she kept an eye toward Sicarius, making sure he didn’t glance back. Emperor’s burst bunions, he didn’t expect her to do those one-armed chin-ups, did he?

“What are the chains for?” she asked when it looked like he might be finishing his demonstration.

She opened her parka flap slowly, careful not to rustle the bag. The man had the hearing of an owl.

“They can be used for abbreviated maneuvers while some of your weight remains on the floor.” Sicarius gripped the chains and demonstrated. “This may be necessary while you regain your strength.”

Amaranthe pulled out the crinkled brown bag, its bottom spotted with grease stains. A faint smell wafted up, teasing her nose. Cinnamon. She placed the bag in the drawer as fast as she could without making noise. Sicarius’s hearing wasn’t his only preternatural sense.

The chains rattled as he released them. Amaranthe slid the drawer shut, coughing to cover the rustle as the top of the frame scraped at the bag. The drawer snagged against something. She winced and started to reach in to adjust the bag, but Sicarius was turning to face her. She spun about, leaning a hand casually on the table and using her body to block his view.

“That’s very thoughtful of you to install that,” Amaranthe said, “but I thought we’d agreed to let the group relax and recuperate on this voyage upstream, considering the battering we’ve all taken.” She touched one of the remaining bruises on her neck. Though she preferred to forget about her wounds, and was glad they were fading, she thought he might be moved by compassion and forget about her suspicious behavior. “We’ll be in the capital in a few days, and we’ll have enough hard work to occupy us then. We’ll need to be fresh.”

“There is a difference between fresh and out of shape.” Sicarius strode toward her.

Amaranthe tried to force the drawer shut with her butt. That last inch wouldn’t budge. She spread her parka to further block the view of the cursed thing. Only when Sicarius stopped in front of her, less than a foot of space separating them, did she realize that the way she was leaning against the table, touching her neck with one hand, spreading her parka open with the other, probably looked like… an invitation. Sicarius might not have reacted to her “bed play” comment, but they had discussed a future that involved such things—insomuch as she could imagine him playing at anything. When she was ready, he’d said. If he thought she was ready to resume training, maybe he thought she might be ready for other activities. Amaranthe swallowed. Might she be?

Sicarius was gazing steadily at her. She couldn’t tell what thoughts lurked behind his dark brown eyes, but he didn’t seem annoyed or irritated—those emotions she could usually read in the extra degree of hardness to his jaw. He lifted his hands to touch either side of her waist. Her breath hitched. The warmth of his fingers radiated through her shirt. He stepped closer. He was going to—

Sicarius’s grip tightened, and he lifted her from her feet.

Amaranthe blurted a startled protest as he picked her up, rotated her, and set her down behind him. Sicarius slid open the desk drawer, plucked out the bag, and dropped it on the table. He arched a single eyebrow. It was all Amaranthe could do not to squirm and shuffle her feet like a child caught filching cookies from the kitchen.

“You risked being seen by security to acquire a bag of tarts?” Sicarius asked.

“They’re pastries, not tarts. Besides…” Amaranthe set a hand on her hip. “You risked being seen by security to acquire iron bars and chains.”

“I was not seen.”

“Neither was I.” All right, that was a lie. The baker had been making up a fresh batch for dessert, and Amaranthe had needed to offer her most charming smile to convince the man that some of the pastries had been hastily frosted and were in no condition to be served to the high-paying guests whose tickets earned them seats in the formal dining hall.

Sicarius’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“By anyone who would turn me in,” Amaranthe amended. “Anyway, you did a good job providing me with nourishing food on the trek from the Forge ship to the lake, and then again on the way to Port Dremel.” At least during that second part of the journey, they’d been with the rest of the team, and Basilard had foraged for late-season herbs to add flavor to Sicarius’s organ-delight meals. “I’m feeling much better, and there’s no need for such stringent dietary guidelines now.”

Sicarius’s grunt didn’t sound terribly convinced.

“On the other hand,” Amaranthe said, “you could stand to add a pound or two, after all those days of running you endured to find me. I have enough to share.” She opened the bag, letting more of those delicious scents waft out. “Would you like one?”

“I have no need for sweets.”

“You could take one to Sespian. As a peace offering.”

Sicarius eyed the bag, and for a moment Amaranthe thought he might do it.

“I do not believe he would accept a peace offering from me.”

Yes, though Sespian hadn’t pulled any more weapons on Sicarius, their new relationship wasn’t off to a brilliant start. Like a mother hoping to make two young brothers get along, Amaranthe had tried to put them together as roommates, but Sespian had traded berths with Basilard before ever stepping into the cabin.

“You have to keep trying,” Amaranthe said. “Be friendly in the face of his dark glares, and he’ll eventually grow weary of rejecting you. Why, just look at us. In a short ten months of sparkling smiles and effervescent one-sided conversations, I thawed your icy exterior and got you to profess your undying love for me.”

Sicarius blinked slowly.

“It’s possible we remember the events a little differently,” Amaranthe said. “The female mind has an interesting way of filtering reality.”

“Yours certainly does,” Sicarius said, a hint of dry humor finally infusing his tone.

Amaranthe rattled the bag and pulled out a flat round roll drizzled with frosting. “Seriously, you should take him one. It’ll be funny. It’ll warm the frosty air between you.”

Sicarius’s gaze went from her to the roll and back to her. “Funny.”

His monotone had returned, and she couldn’t tell if it was a question, but answered anyway.

“Yes, funny, because of the name.” Amaranthe hefted the sticky roll, but didn’t spot any sign of illumination in Sicarius’s eyes. She supposed a man who never consumed sweets wouldn’t know what the various types were called. “They’re emperor’s buns,” she explained. “Given his occupation, there’s all sorts of potential for humor, don’t you think?”

“Or for causing offense.” Sicarius clasped his hands behind his back. “I will stay here and see to your recovery and training.”

How… considerate. As much as Amaranthe appreciated his new interest in caring for her—and demonstrating that he cared for her—he’d been around a lot, first during their trek to Port Dremel and then hourly since they boarded. His eyebrow had twitched a good millimeter when she’d announced Yara would be her roommate. She’d shooed him out at bedtime the last two nights and had made him promise not to stand guard outside the door.

“I’d like it if you two reached an agreement, or working relationship at least, before we arrive in Stumps.” Amaranthe wondered what he’d say if she tried to make it an order. “We’ll need the team to be working flawlessly together if we’re to have a chance against our opponents.”

“Agreed,” Sicarius said, but he didn’t make a move toward the pastry bag—or the door. “I will approach him soon for a frank discussion.”

“Tomorrow?”

Sicarius hesitated. “Soon.”

She’d have to accept that as a start.

“If you do not feel ready to train physically,” Sicarius said, “we could play Stratics to hone your mental acuity.” He fished in the drawer and pulled out a box of tiles and accompanying roll-up game map.

Amaranthe supposed that was an improvement over chin-ups. “Fine, but if you sit over there and glare at me while I’m indulging in my sweets, I’ll shove a bun up your nose.”

Sicarius’s eyes glinted. “You may try.”

Huh. That sounded like a challenge. While he spread the map across the table, Amaranthe mused upon how that particular challenge might go if she tested him with it. She’d probably be the one to end up with baked goods lodged in her nostril, though it might be worth it if she elicited a playful side in him. Hm.

 

 

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Emperor’s Edge Extras: Sgt Yara Interview Part II

Sgt Yara is the secondary point-of-view character in the upcoming novella, so I thought it’d be nice to actually finish posting the long-awaited second half of her interview (the first part is here). As before, questions were submitted via the EE forum and my facebook author page. Many thanks to the participants!

Sgt Yara Interview Pt. 2

Liana asks, “You seemed to admire Amaranthe when she was an enforcer and to be disappointed in her after she changed careers. Has your opinion of her changed after spending some time with the EE team and if so how?”

I am still forming an opinion on Corporal Lokdon and her team of outlaws. I do believe they intend well, but their methods are highly questionable. They’ve left a wake of destruction that a marching army, complete with a battalion of steam trampers, couldn’t surpass. Given these new revelations in regard to the rightful emperor… it does not seem the destruction is justified. We will see what the future brings.

Sarah asks, “What will she do if her stint with the team costs her her job as an enforcer?”

This has been on my mind a great deal. I am hoping that something may yet be salvaged from this mess, but now that I’ve learned the truth about the emp — Sespian’s heritage, I fear that I may not find the future an amenable place. If I’m willing to grovel, I may be able to get my old job back, but that’s about as appealing as as cherry tart up the nose. (Yes, that’s happened to me. We discussed my brothers earlier, I believe?) I can always go back to work in the smithy, I suppose, but that seems a small job after fighting criminals and preserving law and order for the good of the people in my district. Also, working with my brothers is tedious (see earlier cherry tart comment).

EEfangirl asks, “What are five words that she would use to describe Maldynado? (I started with three, but I’m trying to get her beyond, “boarish, infantile, and annoying.” )”

Well. He’s not nearly as funny as he thinks he is. Is there a word for that? Perhaps Books could suggest one.

I guess he’s tall. And muscular (though it’s surprising that someone with the indolence tendencies of a fat cat lounging in a sunbeam can obtain such muscles…). Agile. You wouldn’t think that from someone so big, but I’ve seen him…

Uhm, is that five?

Close enough. Next up, Kitty asks, “What are her real views on pot holing/spelunking?”

Those are ridiculous terms for physical relations. If a man wishes to have sex with a woman, he should simply state the fact. There is nothing wrong with such acts — they are part of nature — so long as they do not interfere with work or more important life issues.

State the fact? So you like a man to be blunt.

Yes.

And you’re always blunt with men when you wish to have sex with them?

Er, what? I mean, it’s not the woman’s place to be… forward.

Mmhmm. Next question. Moldynotgo asks, “I am actually curious if she had any success dating in the past. I wonder how many Turgonian men actually appreciate a woman in uniform who is a competent and professional fighter.”

I’m not sure how this is relevant to current events, but of course I’ve had success. Who told you I didn’t? If it was Sergeant Ovokkor, don’t listen to that half-melted heap of slag. Ever since I rejected him, he’s been telling people that I prefer… well, that’s not relevant either. There are plenty of men who appreciate tall, strong women in uniform. Sometimes all you have to do is point and say, “Come.”

You’ve done that?

I’ve… seen it done.

Look, I’m far too busy with my work to worry about getting an itch scratched every weekend. There are more important things in life.

All right, let’s hope Moldynotgo found her answer somewhere in there… Next question: “Have you ever considered forming or joining a social or professional organization for female enforcers, so that you can all stay in touch and maybe support each other as needed?”

I’ve actually attempted to do some of this through written correspondence. I’ve met a couple of the other female enforcers in the city, but distance makes it difficult to meet regularly. I’m also not the most natural person for creating a social organization. I’ve been told I can be… brusque.

I’d once thought Corporal Lokdon sounded like the sort of person who could spearhead something like this. She was centrally located and, from what I heard, liked to schmooze with people. This was before she turned outlaw of course. That dampened my enthusiasm for interacting with other female enforcers for some time.

Last question. Sarah asks, “Do you have any hobbies? Are you an avid gardener or stamp collector or bibliophile or scrimshaw artist or anything like that?”

Hobbies? I help out at the smithy when I’m not busy at work. My specialties are decorative hinges and gate closers.

Gate closers? Those are balls on chains, aren’t they? I’ll warn Maldynado about that one.

*Yara props her fists on her hips* What does that mean?

Oh, nothing. I think we’re done here. Thanks for participating!

*interviewer walks away with shoulders hunched, feeling an icy glare leveled at the back of her head*

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Merry Christmas and Please Enjoy Some Emperor’s Edge Fan Art!

It’s Christmas, and the “Beneath the Surface” EE 5.5 novella is off to the editor, so I thought I’d celebrate by sharing some of the Emperor’s Edge fan art that’s been posted in the forum this year.

Sicarius & Amaranthe

These two by by BlackMetallic

Sicarius by SketchingBarefoot

Amaranthe by Mark Toner

Crochetted “Bunnicarius-Amaranthe” by Heather

 These two by Sweartoad (she does commissions!)

Maldynado, Akstyr, and the Rest of the Team

Books by Hydroxify

Books by ArtofLoneWolf

Maldynado by Sweartoad

Maldynado by Tilly H.

Basilard (and Sicarius’s butt) by Sweartoad

Akstyr by ArtofLoneWolf

Akstyr by Sweartoad

And lastly, another Sweartoad original, specifically for the holidays…

Maldynado, Sgt Yara, and furry friend…

Thanks for reading (and drawing), all! There’s more EE artwork up on Pinterest if you haven’t seen it yet.

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Kobo Becoming a Player for Self-Published Ebook Authors

A lot of authors, self-published and otherwise, focus on Amazon when it comes to book sales and promotions. How do I sell more ebooks at Amazon? How do I increase my sales ranking? How do I get my book to appear in their recommendations and also-boughts?

Given how many customers shop at Amazon and how much money some independent authors are making there (aside from the rockstar best-sellers, even a lot of mid-list types such as myself are earning a living from that income), this isn’t surprising, but Amazon isn’t the only store out there selling ebooks. Barnes & Noble has long been the Number 2 earner for me, with iTunes coming in at three and Smashwords itself as four. Canada-based Kobo wasn’t on my radar at all in 2011 (my earnings were fairly negligible there), and it wasn’t until Mark Lefebvre, Director of Self Publishing and Author Relations at Kobo, sent me a note in early 2012 (as a result of my woefully neglected self-publishing podcast) that I started following them more closely.

And Kobo has been quite busy this year! In addition to launching a self-publishing platform in June, they’ve been extending their reach around the globe, making deals and going into many countries where Amazon isn’t yet a player. For more details, I’ll refer you to a Kobo-centric interview that Joanna Penn (from the Creative Penn) did with Mark last month.

So, what does that matter to you and me? Well, naturally, we have an opportunity to sell more ebooks, especially in different countries. As some of you know, I never enrolled in Amazon’s KDP Select because of the exclusivity requirement. Back in my blogging days, I saw a lot of people making a living with Google’s “Adsense” advertising program (i.e. they got paid for ad clicks on their sites), and every now and then you’d hear about someone getting kicked out of the program without recourse. Suddenly their entire income was gone, and they had to scramble to find other ways to monetize their sites. Those who’d been diversifying from the start slept a lot more peacefully at night, knowing that the disappearance of one income stream wouldn’t break them. Thus, I’m tickled to see other ebook sellers stepping forward to collect a share of the pie, something that gives us authors more of a chance to diversify our income streams.

So, how much am I making with Kobo, anyway?

As I said earlier, my Kobo earnings weren’t worth tracking last year. I lumped them into the Smashwords collective, which wasn’t that significant either. (Apple iTunes sales fell into the same category in 2011.) But in this last year, both iTunes and Kobo sales have increased for me. Part of that is because I have more ebooks in both stores, and a couple of freebies to boot, but part is also due to these e-tailers working hard to get into more countries and extend their reach. They’re also making their stores more functional and appealing for shoppers (for the longest time, searching for my name at Kobo turned up a perplexing list of erotic books and none of my own work).

This last July, I made about $100 through Kobo’s new “Writing Life” self-publishing platform (with two books: Conspiracy and my Emperor’s Edge three-book omnibus) and that’s gradually increased over the months, especially since I added another full-length novel in September. I’d guess my July earnings were about $200 total when one factors in the books that sell at Kobo via the Smashwords distribution network (This includes most of my titles. I didn’t yank them from SW distribution when the Kobo self-pub platform came online because I didn’t want the books to start over with no reviews there, but I may reconsider this now that sales are increasing –  you earn more going direct and sales reports are updated daily).

In November, my Kobo “Writing Life” earnings hit $450, and again that’s just for the ebooks I published directly (four titles total now). Smashwords hasn’t posted a Kobo-sales update since October 31st, so I have no idea how my other books have been doing there in the last couple of months. I’ll be very curious to see how November and December shape up, as my Writing-Life earnings have definitely been on the upswing, and, in this case, it doesn’t have anything to do with new releases for me. I haven’t put anything new out since a short story in October.

As of this morning, December 21st, I have over $500 in estimated earnings sitting in my Kobo account for this month, so I’m guessing December will finish in the $600-$700 range. If my Smashwords-Kobo titles are selling even half as well, I could break $1,000 at the Canadian store. This would mean that in the last year my Kobo earnings have gone from not-worth-tracking to vying for the #2 spot with Barnes & Noble.

If Kobo ends up surpassing B&N (my December earnings there are a little over $900 for the month so far — at B&N I have everything except my free ebooks and one collection of short stories published directly through PubIt), it’d be fairly significant to me. B&N has been such a solid #2 for me from the beginning, that this seems like a change worth reporting. It’s true that my sales from all of these ebook stores combined have yet to come near my Amazon earnings, but I’m excited to see these other book sellers becoming viable options for authors looking to increase (and diversify) their income.

How do you sell more books at Kobo?

I’m going to confess that, outside of having free Book 1s in the store (the same as I have at Amazon, iTunes, Smashwords, and B&N), I haven’t done much to promote my Kobo books. I’m just now getting my Kobo book links up on my site (before, there was a two-month delay for ebooks to go from uploaded at Smashwords to being live in the Kobo store, so I’d have long since moved on to new projects and new announcements by the time I could find the links. With the Writing Life platform, though, books usually go live within a couple of days, so… make sure to add buy-links to Kobo books from your author site.)

Also, thanks to Mark Lefebvre, a sample of my work was included in the free Kobo Writing Life Spring 2012 Collection. I had one person tell me he went on to grab my entire Emperor’s Edge series after encountering my work there (you have to figure that for one person who emails you there are lots of others who had a similar experience but didn’t email). I believe that came about because Mark found me through my podcast. I see authors debate the pros and cons of blogging all the time, and lots of folks say it doesn’t result in many direct book sales. I’d agree with that, but there can be a lot of intangible benefits of being out there where people in the industry can find you. If you’re trying to help people with your posts, you may just find that others want to help you as well, sometimes in ways you’d couldn’t have imagined.

For the future, I’m keeping an eye out to see if any advertising options come up in regard to Kobo, but in the meantime I think your best bets are to include those Kobo links in any of your promotional materials and to consider uploading a free ebook (especially a Book 1) to the store as a way to let people try your characters and your world at no charge. You might also check out that interview I linked to above, as Mark had a few words at the end about book descriptions and searches and such that can help authors looking to be found at Kobo.

I’d love to hear about other people’s experiences this year at Kobo, so please leave a comment if you’d like to chime in. Thank you!

 

 

 

 

Related Posts:

Beyond Smashwords — My Plans to Upload Ebooks Directly to Apple & Kobo
Want More Time to Write? Go Indie
$0.99? $2.99? $9.99? My Answers to Ebook Pricing Questions

Want More Time to Write? Go Indie

I’m busily editing away this week, so have invited another indie author to guest post for you guys. Actually it’s a pair of indie authors writing together as M.H. Mead. They’ve just released their science-fiction novel Taking the Highway and are here to argue that self-publishing means you have more time to write. Here’s what they have to say:

Want More Time to Write? Go Indie

by Margaret Yang and Harry R. Campion

We’re always surprised when indie superstars like Amanda Hocking take a traditional publishing deal, claiming it’s because they want to spend more time writing. Here’s the dirty little secret. Publishing with a big company does not give you more time to write, and in many ways, it steals writing time from you. Forget, for a moment, the dollars and cents questions. Looking at it only from a days and hours perspective, indie publishing is a better deal.

What makes us qualified to say this? We’ve been on both sides of the publishing fence, having published short stories both traditionally and indie. We also used to have a high-powered agent, one of the best in the business. He was on the verge of selling our first novel to traditional publishing when we pulled the book and decided to go indie instead.

So let’s examine the ways that traditional publishing does and does not give you more time to write.

Day-to-day writing

Indie publishing easily wins this one. A big publisher releases books on their schedule, not yours, which means you have to do things like finish edits and proofread galleys when your publisher wants you to. Also, agents think nothing of calling during productive working days. Or they send emails that must be answered right away (while you spend three days waiting for a response to a single question).

We also need to talk about stress. Studies have shown that the jobs with the most stress are the ones where the workers have the least power and the most responsibility. Publishing houses will change your book any way they want and publish it on their schedule (no power), yet put your name on it (most responsibility). Also, writers are solitary creatures. Inviting editors and agents into our working life is hard, even when things are going well. When things are going badly, it’s a nightmare. One memorable week, we reached such an impasse with our agent that Harry couldn’t sleep and Margaret couldn’t eat. Not a healthy way to live. Sure, our agent was a bad fit for us, but even the best agent is going to cause you stress at some point. Remember: time spent freaking out is time spent not writing.

Interpreting royalty statements

Those publishing traditionally should be prepared for long, fruitless hours trying to interpret royalty statements from big publishers. An indie writer spends hardly any time at all reading her easily-understandable statements from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and the other the other indie distributors.

Help with Publicity

You’d think, with all that infrastructure behind them, that the big publishers would win this one. Unless you are a household name, not so much. New writers still do all of their own publicity, and yet, they have to seek permission from their publisher for every bit of publicity they do. Publishers get snippy if you arrange book signings without consulting them. They have, in many cases, paid for author tours and/or better placement in stores. They don’t want you stepping on their superstars’ toes. Even blog tours can become problematic if the publisher is trying to get book blogger attention for other authors in their stables. Indie authors don’t have this problem. They can contact anyone they wish, at any time. The worst that can happen is that the blogger or bookseller says no.

Editing

This one is a wash. Big publishers edit for you, but again, on their own schedule. And it’s not as if freelance editors are hard to find, so indie authors can get the same services, usually more quickly, or at least more conveniently. It’s not unusual to wait months for galley proofs from a big publisher, and then have your editor say “I need these back in a week.” One friend of ours canceled his family vacation because galleys came that same week and needed to be sent back in a matter of days. To say no to the publisher was unthinkable, as it could have “bumped” the book back a year or more. An indie author would have finished the proofreading before vacation, or waited until she got back.

Distribution/Uploading to sales channels

Big publishers win this one. A traditionally-published author will never have to touch source files or deal with sales outlets. But how much time will you save? If you do it yourself, it takes about half an hour to set up accounts. After that, uploading each new book takes maybe five minutes.

Formatting

This one goes to the publishers, too. Indies can hire this job out, but if you decide to do it yourself, it will cost you quite a bit of time. However, even if you let your publisher do the formatting for you, you have to double check to make sure your ebooks are the same quality as your paper books.

Cover Art

A traditional publisher can save you time here, too. If you do it yourself, you will have to either hire and instruct a designer, or make your own cover. However, if your publisher makes your cover for you, you will have watch them to make sure they don’t whitewash or plagiarize your covers. You may spend as much time looking over your publisher’s shoulder as you would doing things yourself.

For us, the conclusion is clear. Being an indie author is a much more efficient use of our writing time. The time we spend in formatting and making covers is more than made up for with a more streamlined schedule and less stress. We are writing more than we ever did under a traditional system, and we’re happier too. Do you want more time to write? Maybe you should be going indie, too.

***

If you want to hear more from Margaret and Harry, check out their site or catch them on Facebook. You can find their latest book, Taking the Highway, on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords. You can also try their Riding Fourth for free at Amazon and Smashwords.

Related Posts:

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Book Updates: Emperor’s Edge Novella, Decrypted, and Beyond

I’ve had a few email questions of late about when things are coming out (and thank you for caring enough to ask!), so I thought I’d do a public update for curious readers. “When is EE6 coming out?” is the most common question, but, as some of you already know, I’m working on the sequel to Encrypted before starting in on Book 6.

However I did decide to write an Emperor’s Edge novella during NaNoWriMo (November), and that ended up being a bigger story than I expected. It’s over 55,000 words (almost half the length of one of my novels) and called “Beneath the Surface.” It takes place after the events in Book 5 and before 6 starts up. I’d originally intended to write a story that wasn’t crucial to read (i.e. people wouldn’t be lost if they went from EE5 to EE6 without picking up the novella), but it really did end up being a part of the continuing adventure, so I hope you guys will check it out.

I’ll post some teasers here soon, and I’m hoping to get the long-awaited (by at least three people) second half of the Sergeant Yara interview up by Christmas since she’s the second point-of-view character in the novella. Here’s the first half of the interview if you haven’t seen that yet.

As for release dates, it shouldn’t be long now for the novella. I received the comments from my beta readers this weekend (thanks, ladies!), and I’m doing final edits this week. I plan to send the manuscript to my editor this weekend. The holidays will probably slow things down a bit, but I’m hoping to have the novella online around the 1st.

I’ve started editing Decrypted (the Encrypted sequel) too and hope to have that one ready to go in February. It’s too early to set a date for EE6 yet, but I’ll definitely start in on the writing for that one after I’m done with my Decrypted edits. I hope the novella will tide you over in the meantime. I promise explosions, brawls, and possibly… spelunking.

Also, for those who have asked about the next Flash Gold story, I’m sure I’ll need a break from the novel-length projects at some point this spring, and I have been thinking about a new adventure for Kali and Cedar.

Thanks for reading!

 

Related Posts:

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Ebook Marketing Thoughts — What’s Changed and What’s Still Working? (guest post from Collin J. Earl)

As we move into 2013, a lot of new authors are coming into the e-publishing world and many of the older ones are realizing that selling ebooks isn’t as easy as it was a couple of years ago. Collin J. Earl, the CLO of Darkfire Productions (the company putting out the Emperor’s Edge audiobooks) is a fellow indie fantasy author, and he’s been at this for a while now, so he’s seen marketing trends come and go. He’s here today to talk about what he’s doing for his latest project, The House of Grey.

So you want to be a writer: marketing in the 2012/2013 publishing world

by Collin J. Earl

How quickly the world changes, no? Feels like just yesterday I was writing blog posts similarly to this. Books. You’ve written them. Now how do you sell them? Since the start of the publishing/independent writer evolution has anything changed?

You bet it has and its about time someone says it.

Couple of things: first, this article “Ebook/book Marketing” is targeted more for the independent writer. I am sure that some of the thoughts could carry over to the traditional publisher and author, but I seriously doubt they are reading it. Chances are its just you and me – I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing.

Marketing Thoughts Introduction

Authors are always looking for the next greatest thing to help sell books; back in the 90s it was the Internet, then shortly after that, email, closely followed up by blogs, Myspace, YouTube, Digg, Facebook, Twitter, Podiobooks and more. There is so much to do, so much to get your head around, it’s hard to know where you should be spending your time. I’ve suffered from similar time management problems. Most authors, myself included, have jobs, families and other obligations outside their writing. Until we make enough money to meet our everyday obligations, writing is the career we are supposed to have and not the one we have currently. What does that mean? It means the obvious that an author has to outline, create, write, market, blog, and be social through social media all while navigating our real lives, families and alternative careers. Time is the biggest thing working against us and it can be difficult to know what the most efficient use of that time is.

You’ve probably read thousands of blog posts, books, ebooks, or heard hundreds of talk shows on the exact subject. While my thoughts aren’t anything ground breaking, I think its important to remember the true key to success. This is the universal characteristic that all successful authors have in common. I will get to it. I know you want to know, but worry not. This is something you are probably already aware of. I am just reminding you.

You need to write. That is the key, writing, writing, writing. Content, content, content. You’ve got to do it. I cannot say it enough. That is the one thing that has not changed in the last five years. You want to be a paid author, (I don’t say successful because there are different definitions) I mean a paid author – one who makes money off of books, you need as much content as possible.

A look at the past – a couple of case studies:

Amanda Hocking – everyone knows this little vixen – Hocking lives in Austin, Minnesota. Employed as a group home worker until 2010, she wrote 17 novels in her free time. In April 2010, she began self-publishing them as e-books. By March 2011, she had sold over a million copies of her nine books and earned two million dollars from sales, previously unheard of for self-published authors. In early 2011, Hocking averaged 9,000 book sales each day.

John Locke is a writer of crime fiction and the first man to sell over a million self-published digital books in Amazon.com. He was born in an unspecified municipality of Puerto Rico to a Canadian military father and an American mother. He is the author of several e-book novels. His works are predominantly published electronically by Telemachus Press, a work-for-hire author services company. One early work was published by iUniverse.

Michael J. Sullivan is an artist and American author of epic fantasy, best known for his Riyria series, which has been translated into over ten languages. In 2012 io9 named him one of the “Most Successful Self-Published Sci-Fi and Fantasy Authors”. He has written two series, The Riyria Revelations and The Riyria Chronicles. The Riyria Revelations is a six book epic fantasy series while the Riyria Chronicles is an ongoing series that centers on the early adventures the two main protagonists of Riyria Revelations.

Between these three INDEPENDENT authors millions of book were sold from around 2008 to 2011 and there is a lot of speculation on how they did it. John Locke even wrote a book on it – “How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in Five Months” (This book received less than stellar reviews). So much speculation and scams out there – allow me to offer my two cents and you might be surprised at what I have to say. The three things these authors had in common to make them successful were: timing, content and price. That is how they each sold so many books –there was not much beyond that.

I am really serious. If you took time to read Michael’s blog, Amanda’s Twitter feed, or even John’s “How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in Five Months” book. They really didn’t “do” much in the way of promotion. Michael used book bloggers to some extent, John really likes Twitter and Amanda used some combination of both. So what was so instrumental to their success? Well first was price. All of their books were less than five bucks. Still are for the most part. Second, and content, books, books, books, each author had books to spare when their sales blew up. Third and I think the MOST important, they were the front-runners in a space where consumption was EXPLODING, they used price and content push themselves to the forefront of that explosion and sold a whole lot of books because of it. Yep, it was a simple as that.

So what has changed? Why aren’t I selling 9000 books a day?  Several things I think:

Ebooks aren’t new anymore – just a couple of years ago ebooks were new, exciting and while Amazon and Barnes & Noble are still selling thousands of ebook readers the consumption of ebooks has or will top out on its share of the market place at a bit above 30 something percent. Don’t see it going much above that. It’s established.
Competition – lots more authors and wannabe authors out there. Amazon ain’t a “pond” like it used to be for ebook writers – is a freaking ocean and its real easy to get lost in that ocean.
Pricing – “wars” have driven down the price enough so that .99 cents for an ebook is not out of the ordinary. People expect it now because there are so many people doing it.

I could name more. What’s my point? My point is that putting up a book, making it free or low priced is not enough anymore. With changes in the market place, stiffer competition and the like going on, you need to have a better plan. (Notice I say plan)

Several suggestions – Global strategy – this is the first step now that you realize its not as easy as it used to be or you used to think. You need to come to a strategy to create exposure.  Obscurity is the greatest enemy of the author. That’s where marketing comes in and planning comes close after that.

Have a Marketing plan, but only after you have several projects out. I wouldn’t even start thinking about spending any real time marketing until I had at least 3 books out. Remember! Content is key. You need to have content to gain traction in the market place.

Once you have content, come up with your plan. My plan involves a mix of paid and unpaid marketing platforms. I base my plan on the “Free Loss Leader” meaning I give a book away for free knowing that a certain percentage of those readers will “convert.” I like this platform because it allows people to “enter the fold” at little to no cost. So step one in my plan is to push people towards a free product. Step two, use five different platforms in conjunction. Here is what I am using right now.

1.     Twitter

2.     Google Adwords

3.     Bloggers

4.     Bookbub/Pixel of Ink/FreeEbooks.com etc

5.     Facebook

These are a combination long term and short-term exposure sites. I don’t do use more than five platforms at any given time, because then you cannot manage everything. Remember doing something half way is like not doing it at all. Time is important with these endeavors, try to coordinate to use your endeavors in combination to create even more exposure. This is part of the reason I like the loss leader so much. Getting that free book moving on Amazon can put the Amazon marketing algorithms to work for you. If you can get those algorithms working for you. You are going to sell books.

There is more to say on the subject but perhaps we can leave it at that for now. Just remember these few thoughts. Have a plan, keep it simple, use a combination of different platforms that have both long and short term repercussions, don’t spread your efforts thin by doing many different things half way and try to get the big sight algorithms working for you.

Let me know about your success!

***

You can visit Collin at his website, or on Twitter or Facebook, and you can download the first book in his House of Grey series at Amazon, Sony, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.

Related Posts:

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Emperor’s Edge Ebook Series Free to Libraries

This is just a quick post to announce that the ebooks in the Emperor’s Edge series are now free to libraries via Smashwords. If you’d like to help spread the word about the stories (this is much appreciated!), you can ask your library to carry them.

I’m not quite sure how the behind-the-scenes stuff works, but it sounds like the Smashwords Library Direct program is available to any library or library network that hosts and manages its own ebook checkout system, typically using Adobe Content Server.

Here are a couple of blog posts on the Smashwords Library Direct Program and how authors can discount their books.

Library Direct Enables Libraries to Acquire Large Opening Collections of Smashwords Ebooks
Smashwords Pricing Manager Tool Enables Custom Library Pricing

 

Related Posts:

Emperor’s Edge 5 (Blood and Betrayal) Teasers and Update
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Deadly Games, The Emperor’s Edge Book 3, Is out!

$0.99? $2.99? $9.99? My Answers to Ebook Pricing Questions

I went skimming through the traffic logs this morning to see what search terms people were using to find my blog and picked out a few questions related to ebook pricing. I figure if one person is asking something then others may be wondering about it too. Pricing can be a heated topic in the independent e-publishing world and almost everything in here will simply be my opinion based on my experience of the last two years, six novels, and numerous odd short stories and novellas. I hope something helps!

Ebook Pricing Q&A

How much should I charge for my novel?

As you probably already know, Amazon and many of the other retailers reward authors and publishers who create price points between $2.99 and $9.99 by offering a 70% cut of earnings. Sell for less than that or more than that and you’ll only receive 35%. So a $2.99 ebook brings you a little over $2.00 whereas a $0.99 ebook only brings about 30 cents. For those who want specifics, here’s a chart with the breakdown for each price point.

Anything in that $2.99 to $9.99 range is going to bring what I consider to be a decent return, per reader, for a full-length novel. At 30-60 cents, it’s always felt (to me) that you can get more out of giving the novel away for free (basically using it as a loss leader to encourage sales of other books, an established and effective technique for many authors publishing series).

Of course, earnings depend on units sold, not simply earnings per unit sold, so, yes, if you can sell oodles of books at 99 cents, you can do well for yourself. That worked for some self-published authors in popular genres in 2010. This year, however, Amazon tweaked its algorithms, apparently to cut down on the numbers of 99-cent titles rocking the popularity lists. More on that in this “Updates to Amazon Book Ranking Algorithms” interview from earlier in the year.

I personally think about $5 per full-length novel is a fair price all around. It gives you far higher per-book earnings than traditionally published authors are receiving (even those whose ebooks are selling for $10+), it gives the readers a deal when compared to most traditionally published ebooks, and it’s often considered a fair price by those who feel that digital books should cost less than the dead-tree variety since paper, ink, and shipping aren’t a part of the equation. Lastly, it separates you from the legions of indie authors charging $0.99, $1.99, and $2.99 for their novels (often on the belief that they won’t be able to sell at a higher price because they’re not established names — I started out at $2.99 for just that reason). A lot of readers still walk warily around self-published books, so it can only help if you’re not giving obvious clues that your book was never vetted by a gatekeeper.

How much should I charge for a short story?

For ebooks that come in under 10,000 words, authors often choose 99 cents as a price point, and I’m in agreement with that choice. Yes, you’re stuck at the lower royalty rate, but a lot less work goes into writing and editing a piece that short. If reviews and sales rankings are anything to go by, readers aren’t keen on the idea of $2.99 short stories, even by established authors.

But that’s okay. If you sell a 100 copies a month of a 5,000-word, 99-cent story, you’re still making more that year than you’d receive if you sold that same story to a pro-paying magazine. If you have a fan base established, you can sell a lot more copies than that in the first month or two you publish it. During release month, I sold about 1400 copies of my last short story (Enigma) even though I also mailed out a Smashwords coupon so readers could download it for free (and many people took advantage of that). If it follows the pattern of my other short stories, it should continue to sell 100+ copies a month. This is from a mid-list self-published author, not a best-selling indie rock star. It’s why I don’t bother submitting anything to magazines or anthologies any more. Even at 99 cents, you can do pretty well for the amount of work that goes into a short story.

What’s up with all those free ebooks? Why would an author give away her hard work? Are these folks smoking some of that newly legal Washington pot?

I already touched on the idea of using a free ebook (a short story, a novella, or even a full-length novel) as a loss leader, the idea being that you can sell more of your other books by giving away free samples. This works particularly well with a series (and particularly less well without a series), assuming your free book is well-written, well-edited, etc. Having awesome cover art doesn’t hurt either.

Another reason you’ll see authors offer books for free is because they’re a part of the Amazon KDP Select program (which demands exclusivity in exchange for enrolling your ebook in the Amazon Prime lending library). As a promotional perk, these authors are allowed to make their ebooks free for five days a quarter at Amazon. Receiving a pile of downloads during the free days used to help boost a book’s sales ranking and visibility when it came off of the free days, though Amazon has nerfed that particular “feature” this year so that it’s less effective (though not totally ineffective). There’s more on that in the interview I mentioned above.

Wait, so how do you make your ebook permanently free at Amazon?

Though one never knows how long such tricks might last, you can currently make your ebook free at Barnes & Noble (through Smashwords distribution), Kobo, and iTunes, and Amazon may price-match. Here’s a video I did last year to explain the free ebook/price-matching thing in more depth.

How do you make a living as an indie author?

Not exactly a question about price points, but variations of this one show up in my traffic log every day, so here’s the quickie “formula.”

1. Hone your craft for years, receive feedback from mentors and peers, hire an editor, and put out as rocking of a first book as you can.

2. Write many more books in the coming years (I did hit the “make a living” point about a year into this, but I had four novels and some shorter ebooks out at that point), and put something out on a regular basis (as much as we’d like to wish and hope otherwise, more books are always being published and it’s rare for any one book to stay on the radar for long).

3. Promote, promote, promote. As time goes on, if you do things correctly (see next step), you’ll be able to do less promoting to random people you don’t know and more to your existing fans (i.e. blog, Facebook, Twitter announcements, fun extras — character interviews, cut scenes, etc.) who will then (we hope!) share news of your work of their own accord.

4. Have a web presence (whether you need to blog or not is always up for debate — it sells some books for me directly, through the links at the right, but not a lot in the grand scheme of things) that you direct readers to (i.e. at the end of your ebook) where they can sign up for your newsletter (see my post on newsletter marketing for authors). This way, you can immediately get in touch with fans when you have a new book out. Right now, if you get a thousand purchases of your book on the day you release it, it will be enough to propel you into the Top 1000 at Amazon, something that will, at least temporarily, put you into the Top 10-20 in most sub-categories (i.e. fantasy > epic) and make you a “hot new release” in your category. Yes, this fades once sales slow down, though for some authors with books with wide appeal, this may bring the necessary attention to become a best-seller for weeks or even months on Amazon. (No, that hasn’t happened with any of my stuff, but you can make a nice living simply by cultivating a core fan base and selling to them — if you haven’t yet, read Kevin Kelly’s 1,000 True Fans post.)

Any other questions related to pricing or thoughts on these? Please leave them below.

Update: You may also want to read my post on Ebook Pricing Strategies for a First or Stand-Alone Novel.

 

Related Posts:

How to Sell Advanced Reader Copies as a Self-Published Author
Is It Harder Today for Self-Published Authors to “Break in” at Amazon?
What Can We Learn from JA Konrath’s $140,000 E-Publishing Sales Month?

How Can You Sell More Books at Christmas?

Christmas and other gift-giving holidays are around the corner. If you’ve embraced your inner marketer, you may be mulling over extra ways to promote your books and ebooks this season. You’re not alone — judging by the various blog tours, requests for guests posts, and Kindleboards threads I’ve seen, a lot of authors are making plans.

Should you join the rush? Here are my thoughts and experiences on ebooks and holiday promotions:

This is technically my third Christmas as an independent, e-publishing author, though it’s hard to count the first, since I released my first ebook just days before the 2010 holiday. I didn’t have a fan-base or even many relatives waiting to buy. Thus Christmas was a non-event my first year.

Last year, December brought my (at that point) best earnings month, though I’m not sure how much of that I can attribute to the holidays. I’d released my third Emperor’s Edge book at the beginning of November, then, after Thanksgiving, had the first go free for the first time at Amazon. I credit those events with the boost in sales.

So, what am I going to try this year? Less than you’d think. I don’t have much data to back up my hypothesis, but I don’t think people necessarily buy more ebooks in the weeks leading up to Christmas. You may get more sales in the weeks after, if lots of people get e-readers for the first time, and that’s when it may pay to be more visible at Amazon and the other stores. That’s always easier said than done, but you could try some advertising (I had a good run at Bookbub recently), though there aren’t many places out there with enough eyeballs to be worth the fees. Other authors have had good luck banding together and doing group promotions that include blog tours and Facebook posts with lots of cross-promoting of each other’s work.

If you have something in the pipeline, releasing a new book tends to help too. I was hoping to do that with an EE novella I started during NaNoWriMo, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get that together in time for a Christmas release. It’ll probably be more of an early January publication. I do have another Bookbub spot coming up on the 12th, this time for the second book in my EE series. I’ve never paid for advertising on a sequel, but EE1 has already been promoted there. I’m dropping the price to 99 cents for the day of the sale, and I’ll be curious to see if random people buy it without having read others in the series (or perhaps downloads of Book 1 will pick up).

What about paperback books?

I’m glad you asked. Paperbacks, unlike ebooks, make good Christmas gifts (yes, you can email someone a gift certificate for an ebook at Amazon or B&N, but it’s not anything you can put under the tree). I haven’t done anything to promote my paperbacks, but I’ve definitely noticed more sales of late. That started in mid-November and December has been strong so far. Maybe next year, once I have all six EE books out, I’ll do something on my site for folks who may be interested in buying signed copies of the set.

If you like to sell in person (and have a big stack of author copies on hand), this may be the best time of year to push those paperbacks. While you don’t make a lot on paperbacks ordered online from Amazon and such, you can do much better by ordering author copies (mine run $4.70 to $5.75 or so, depending on length, at CreateSpace) and selling those at retail prices.

What are your holiday book-promotion plans?

Do you guys have any plans of your own that you’re enacting? Anything you did last year that worked well? Please let us know in the comments.

Related Posts:

How to Improve Your Ebook Sales at Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, and iTunes
High Level vs Low Level Book Promotion Techniques
Trading Excerpts with Other Authors in the Back Matter of Your Ebook