Barbara G. Tarn's Blog, page 196

Indie authors

The daily prompts weren't very inspiring, so I found some food for thought on the Smashwords website.

July 30, 2011 – Prequel backfires.  I was browsing over at Amazon this morning and was surprised to run across a hoard of scathing reviews for Jason Pinter's The Hunter.  Pinter's a well-respected indie author, yet readers were merciless on him.  Reviewers there were incensed that his book is labeled a novella only to discover after downloading it that it's an incomplete teaser "prequel" for another book.  Even though it's a free download, they're angry.  Sample reviews:  1.  "This is a sample passed as the full thing. I will never buy from this shady author."  2.  "Misrepresentation of a real book. If I want a sample, I can do that with any kindle book. I don't want a sneak sample. If the real version of this book becomes a NY Times best seller, I will still NEVER BUY IT. This practice really irks me." We hear the same thing from customers at Smashwords.  They value their time more than their money, and when they download an ebook they expect it to be complete with a beginning, middle and end.   If they see an author trying to divide a novel in multiple serialized $.99 chunks, they feel as if the author's trying to take advantage.   Do ebook buyers prefer full length books?  The two highest-earning authors this quarter at Smashwords are Amanda Hocking, who writes paranormal romance, and Brian S. Pratt, who writes epic fantasy.  Both of them write full-length books.   Amanda's titles average 80,000 words or more.  The seven titles in Brian's epic Morcyth Saga series average 145,000 each.  Each.  You might call Brian's books double full-length.  It's paying off for him.  If you missed my interview with Brian last December, check it out here.  In that interview, I predicted he was on track to earn over $100,000 in 2011 at Smashwords.  I was wrong.  It'll be a lot more.  He prices his series starter at FREE and the other six titles go for $5.95.  Financial success isn't the only measure of success, yet it is a good measure for reader satisfaction and reader excitement.  As I peruse the list of highest grossing authors this quarter, a strong trend emerges:  Ebook buyers prefer full-length.  In the months ahead, I plan to crunch the numbers and share more granular sales data broken down by book length and price.   The exception to this potential long-book rule:  Erotica.

I would have never thought of putting out as novella a beginning or prequel of a novel, but I'm obviously not very smart… This so reminds me of Dan Simmons's Hyperion with it's cliffhanger ending that made me swear never to read anything from him ever again! OK, that's why I don't like serials either, so I understand why those readers were pissed off with the author. I mean, even the first book of the Dragonlance saga was finished, just in case it didn't have success. And it was waaaay before e-books. And David Eddings explained in the Rivan Codex why his series are sort of serials, but after reading The Belgariad I knew that if I wanted to read something else from him, I better wait until the series was done… but again, that was waaaay before e-books.

I know that someone has their first book of a series real cheap (99cents), but I don't consider mine a series – although it might be considered the world's series, as instead of having recurring characters I have a recurring world. And even if I go down many generations and centuries, I guess there is some form of serialization… BUT BoI Air is quite unconventional, so giving it away for free wouldn't really give a taste of Silvery Earth… hence I'm only giving away for free a novelette, Jessamine (the Queendom of Maadre is also quite unconventional, but not as much as the Southern Kingdoms! ) – which is complete anyway.

I'm still not sure giving away free reads brings in new readers (nor reviews for that matter…). I mean I have almost 800 download on FeedBooks (which are all free), but I don't think it lead to any sale anywhere else… And of the over 1000 downloads at Smashwords, SOLD are 29 and with actual earning (not downloaded for free during promotions) 4 on Smashwords, 1 on Apple and 1 on Kobo (yeah for the last 2!). So I'm really thinking that people who go for freebies are not going to pay anyway. That's another reason to stop giving freebies next year!

Last words from Mark Coker on reviews…

July 19, 2011 – Carpet bombing.  We've seen a few instances over the last couple days where authors' book pages have been carpet bombed by swarms of one-star reviews obviously intended to damage the book's overall ratings.  We have deleted the offender's accounts.   See the Terms of Service for review guidelines.  Some of the victims have been concerned that these reviews are sponsored by fellow authors who are trying to get a leg up in the highest-rated reviews listings.  It's also possible these reviews were perpetrated by over-zealous fans who are trying to harm one author for the benefit of another.  If we discover that an author or associates of an author are creating strawman accounts for the sole purpose of harming fellow authors' rankings with malicious reviews, we'll delete their books and accounts.  No tolerance for such shenanigans. Folks, we're all in this together.  Be nice, stay ethical.

That's why I'm not going under 3 stars in my reviews. If I didn't like it, I won't review it and you won't know I read it (like my1800 readers who didn't bother to leave a review anywhere on those freebies… hope it's not because they hated it! )

Another book out

So, BoI Water is here too… please welcome my latest and most controversial baby… I think I even labeled it as adult on Smashwords, but I don't really write erotica anyway…

Here's the trailer. And yes, I re-designed Kahnee's tattoos!

Now I have to go back to the Tales of the Southern Kingdoms AND the historical novel AND my sci-fi novelette (which I haven't decided when to issue yet, but it's ready). Busy August indeed…

Better go back writing… and reading…

Happiness is…

Six sentence Sunday

Hello Sunday visitors and a special thanks to those who leave a comment. As per request of those lovely ladies, I'm continuing from last week – The High Priestess WiP.

***

He didn't care for his life. He had started his heavy drinking after Yash's death and doubted Ramesh had noticed anything. It had taken him three years, but now he had reached the point of no return. And he was ready to go.

He pulled himself up and said the transport spell that took him to the underground city of the Sect. He went to the Temple of the Goddess and stared at the black statue towering over the altar and the pit – the face of the Bloodthirsty Goddess was almost welcoming.

***

Now hop back to the official blog for more six sentences! Have a great Sunday! And please note that today is the last day for great discounts (and some freebies) on Smashwords… You can have Air with 50% discount, Fire with 25% and 2 Tales of the Southern Kingdoms for free (excerpt of The Slave from past SSS)

WoW Saturday

Both "writers on writing" and "words of wisdom" can be shortened with the same word. Thus, welcome to WoW Saturdays, June to September 2011. Enjoy this collection of writers quotes throughout the summer.

"I want to write books that unlock the traffic jam in everybody's head."

- John Updike

"I don't sit down to write books of social or political commentary. Both as a reader and a writer, I'm pulled by stories, not by ideas; I see the world in the stories of the people around me."

- Sarah Paretsky

"Writing a novel is gathering smoke. It's an excursion into the ether of ideas. There's no time to waste. You must work with that idea as well as you can, jotting down notes and dialogue."

- WALTER MOSLEY

"When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen.  But if you have not a pen, I suppose you must scratch any way you can."

- Samuel Lover

"Everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise.  The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt."

- Sylvia Plath

Linky Friday

Another couple of weeks gone, and another month over. It was cooler this month than in June, but I'm afraid the heat will strike again sometime soon.  Anyway, let's get on with the links, shall we?

Literary Lab on looking at typos from a different angle. I don't mind some, but I do get upset when there are too many!

Heidi Thomas on 10 things you might not know about punctuation. Well, I'm still struggling with it because, believe it or not, it's used differently in different languages, and I've used Italian punctuation for almost 30 years. So I not only do have to struggle with a second language, but also with those damn thingies, sigh!

Blood Red Pencil on how to understand critique speak. Someone ought to teach also how to express critiques so that the author doesn't have to scratch his/her head to understand what the crit is trying to say – I'm speaking for myself when I'm in the critiquing position, here!

Agent Jessica Faust goes epublishing and gets bashed by Passive Guy…

Writers assumptions at Books&Such. I, of course, follow assumption #2! Except I have good reasons, because, hey! I'm Writing! And I'm writing deliberately… (you've gotta love Joe Konrath, of course! Which I do, even if I never read any of his fiction. But then I haven't read any of Dean Wesley Smith's fiction either, but I love his blog! )

Both authors points out that new year will bring Kindle to India… now if my dear Indian friends could tell their friends about Air and the Tales of the Southern Kingdoms (which will be out by then)… And I'll do the Italian version whenever Kindle reaches Italy as well (but Amazon Italia is brand new, so I have some respite there, phew!).

Dean Wesley Smith on setting his priorities – and I'll be attending the same workshop he has just finished in the fall… looking forward to it… trying to avoid the death of an indie writer's career… well, there's always the 50 best reasons to quit writing, but honestly none appeal to me!

Zoe Winters on the 99cent ghetto – and I'm totally behind her. Next year no more free reads, even the short stories will be at 99cents (I know because that's what Dean Wesley Smith teaches and I'm going to follow his advice, haha)!

Finally Lawrence Block on John Locke and Russel Blake's books. Have a great weekend!

Author's notes

That's something found usually at the end of historical novels, but I have written an Afterword also on my sci-fi novella AND BoI Water because I felt I needed to tell the story behind those stories. So I don't know if I should call them "author's notes" or "afterword", but I think I'm going to use that device again, especially if it's a rewrite.

In the case of my genre stories, those additions are meant to provide the reader with some behind the scenes of that particular story – think DVD extras. In Water I needed to explain why the novel-within-the-novel was written that way, in the sci-fi novella I wanted to tell the evolution of that story from novel (in Italian) to 3 screenplay versions (in English) to novella (in English).

In another novella, a rewrite of an old story originally written in 1985, I felt I needed to explain what I changed and why because hey, it's been a quarter of a century, I changed and it was unpublishable as it was! It's now a story set after Air and should come out along with the Tales of the Southern Kingdoms as soon as I find a fast beta-reader willing to go through both.

The Author's Note on the historical novel with obviously be different, as I'll use it to tell where I found some episodes, how I did my research, etc. I might add the posts I made on this blog as well, and hopefully it wont be another short story added to the novel!

daily prompt and shortlisted

I'm shortlisted as a finalist at JC's Birthday Bash Blogfest! Go and vote, you have time until tomorrow! (and no, I won't hate you if you prefer somebody else's entry – that's what I did, after all! ) That was a fun challenge, writing exactly 100 words…

The daily prompts weren't really inspiring except the interesting post on style. Which relates to Loralie's post about buying a book by a blogger because you like their voice. Except I'm not sure the blogging voice is identical in the prose/fiction – the first post gives examples of different styles from the same author: I've done that too, trying to use different styles either for different stories or in a same story because it was either an exchange of letters or crossing journals and I wanted them to sound different according to the character writing them.

So I don't know if a blogger's voice is also the voice found in his/her fiction. I mean, I am very colloquial, informal and slangish on the blog, but as I write fantasy (or historical novels) I try to be more formal even if I keep a journalistic prose – that's my voice, I don't like literary prose.

When I bought other bloggers books, it was either to support another indie author or because I was interested in the story – and I can't say the books were written with the exact same style of the blog. Maybe I picked authors/bloggers with a not so distinct voice? I don't think so.

And what about me, do I sound different here or in my fiction?

Weekly photo challenge: colorful. London backyard autumn colours (note the British English, please).

 

On historical novels

This Sunday I found some time to lurk in the Goodreads group forums and found some interesting discussions. Mostly I'll refer here to the obligation of the historical fiction writer to be factual AKA history and fiction: how much of which – something I'm becoming acutely aware of as I brace myself to add the fiction on the facts of my historical novel.

Group members (both writers and readers) seem to agree that a little leeway is fine, especially if explained in an author's note. Historical novels are supposedly fiction anyway, and history buffs can turn to non-fiction books to check the facts. But blatant anachronisms show lack of research on the author's part, although probably the average reader might not catch them.

Because let's face it, each one of us has a specific period he or she prefers and has probably researched on his/her own. Even historians specialize on a certain century or a certain culture. For my part, I'm curious now to read more books set at the end of the 12th century like mine to see what other authors have found and incorporated in their story set in that time. And hey, someone pointed me to a wonderful site that has 5000 historical novels divided by period… so I bookmarked it, and will hate to study the Angevin Period list! Will get there one day…

Dialog was also discussed. Mine sounds too modern even in my fantasy books according to some betas. But as I'm using 19th century translations of the Chansons de Geste for my novel, I'm probably using oldish style (and British spelling, although I probably don't sound like Jane Austen) for this one. I might even reread Sir Walter Scott for the prose (and to laugh at how wrong he got the history, haha) – when I'm done with the story.

I like the words "informed creativity" to fill the blanks! I sure hope it will help me to give more life to my characters as I do another pass on draft one. If the alchemy works, I'll have a winner – in September, as I won't be able to work on it for another week, but sure hope to go through it in August.

And I'll definitely add an author's note on how the story came about, which were the main inspirational texts, etc. Anyone has an idea if it should be put at the beginning or at the end of the book? There won't be any spoilers on the story, only mention of historical events and people… In The lady and the unicorn they were at the end, but maybe it's better to put them at the beginning?

Happiness is…