Dean Murray's Blog, page 19
March 4, 2012
A New Review of Broken
Another review of Broken just went up at Rather Barefoot. Big thanks to Sandra for taking the time to read and review Broken.
http://ratherbarefoot.blogspot.com/2012/03/book-review-broken-by-dean-murray.html
http://ratherbarefoot.blogspot.com/2012/03/book-review-broken-by-dean-murray.html
February 15, 2012
Why Mailing Lists?
It's time for a bit of an update. My blog will probably continue to be something that generally only gets updated once a month or so. I've got an extremely demanding day job in addition to trying very hard to sneak in time to get new stories written, but occasionally something will come up that needs to find its way onto here.
Broken went free on Amazon Dec 28th and when the dust all settled, we'd seen a bit over 6,100 free downloads and I had a renewed appreciation of the power of Amazon's algorithms. The ability to let Broken go free for that 5-day period meant I had to accept delayed release dates for the rest of the retailers like Barnes and Noble, but it was a calculated risk I felt was worth taking. That being said I wanted to explain the logic to my fans that tend to buy from somewhere other than Amazon.
When Broken went free, Katie and I reached out to all of our friends and family and asked them to help spread the word. They responded like real champs, but I'm pretty confident that they didn't manage to contact 6,100 people. Even if they had, not all of those 6,100 would have gone out and downloaded Broken. What they did do though was make enough of an impact for Amazon's recommendation algorithms to take notice and start pushing Broken to other customers. Broken also spent a bit of time ranked in the top 10 on one of the romance lists which I'm sure helped some as well.
I'm sure that most of those 6,100 people won't ever get around to reading Broken, but since it's gone back to paid we've sold another 60 or so copies of Broken and 88 copies of Torn. We're seeing some positive reviews go up on Amazon and Goodreads and we're getting a trickle of purchases of some of my other 9 titles. Nobody in the Murray household is getting ready to quit their day job or anything yet, but that's a marked increase over our run-rate of sales from before Christmas.
There's still always the chance that some of those who read Broken and Torn will turn into the kind of 'rabid' fans (pun intended J) that every author hopes for and Broken will pick up additional steam over the next few months. But even if Broken and Torn just trickle along at their current rate it represents a big win to the extent that people continue to enjoy them enough to wander over here out of curiosity. Some percentage of those fans will decide to subscribe to my mailing list and that's where the magic will really start happening.
Some of you who are writers might have spent some time over at Dean Wesley Smith's blog(DWS from here on out-there's too many Dean's here otherwise J). He's got some very interesting things to say; and while I don't agree with all of his positions, in most things he talks a lot of sense. One of the really interesting things he highlights is the fact that ten years ago a writer had a very short window in which to sale each new book. The book stores would stock a bunch of copies of their new title, and after six weeks or so most of the copies that were left were sent back to the publisher or destroyed.
It's just one of those economic kinds of things. Book stores don't have room to stock dozens of copies of every title out there, they have to try and match up with people's buying patterns. A new book generates a little or a lot of buzz. A bunch of people come to buy it and then things slow down. An author who sold a few copies and then needed a bit of time to build word of mouth might have found that by the time their early readers had told a few friends and the friends started looking that there weren't any copies of the novel in question in the bookstore.
DWS calls it the produce model of book distribution. You've got to move a lot of books in a short time because they go bad if left unsold. In the new world of publishing your books don't ever go bad. They don't ever have to be out of stock, they can always be just a click or two away from finding a new home.
As a long-term pro who probably saw dozens of books he'd put his heart and soul into go out of print, I can understand DWS being frustrated with the produce model. Frankly, I'm very excited that books aren't forced into the produce model, but I'm equally happy that we can still get the benefit of the produce model at the same time.
Let's say two books were released, each from authors with 1,000 fans who were absolutely going to buy the authors' work…eventually. Book one moves 1,000 copies in the first two days. Book two moves 1,000 copies over the first two years. I would argue that book one is the winner all other things being equal and the reason is the algorithms.
Amazon and the other retailers will flag the book that sells well and quickly as being something people are excited about and will tend to recommend it to other potential customers. People will see it at the top of genre lists that they are interested in and decide to take a chance on it.
That's where my mailing list comes in. I'm hoping, to reproduce a bit of the distribution spike we saw with Broken for all of my future stories. It lets me reach out to some of my most excited fans and let them all know within a short time that there's a new story available that they will probably like. As each new story jumps, even briefly onto the lists, top selling, also bought and otherwise, it will help put Alec and Adri, Va'del and Jain, and a host of other stories in front of thousands of new potential fans.
Ultimately that's a win for everyone. Amazon makes money, the readers get enjoyable stories that hopefully stay with them after they finish the last page, and I get one step closer to being able to write full time which means more stories for everyone.
If you've been on the fence about signing up to my mailing list please give it another thought. I really won't spam you with a bunch of stuff you don't care about. You'll get announcements when I put a new book up for sale and maybe the occasional other Dean Murray writing development that other fans are telling me should go out in the next update.
I wouldn't feel right closing without saying thanks to all of the people who are helping to spread the word about Adri, Alec and all of my other stories. I'm really excited about what comes next and hope you all enjoy the ride as much as I think you will.
Thanks-
Dean
Broken went free on Amazon Dec 28th and when the dust all settled, we'd seen a bit over 6,100 free downloads and I had a renewed appreciation of the power of Amazon's algorithms. The ability to let Broken go free for that 5-day period meant I had to accept delayed release dates for the rest of the retailers like Barnes and Noble, but it was a calculated risk I felt was worth taking. That being said I wanted to explain the logic to my fans that tend to buy from somewhere other than Amazon.
When Broken went free, Katie and I reached out to all of our friends and family and asked them to help spread the word. They responded like real champs, but I'm pretty confident that they didn't manage to contact 6,100 people. Even if they had, not all of those 6,100 would have gone out and downloaded Broken. What they did do though was make enough of an impact for Amazon's recommendation algorithms to take notice and start pushing Broken to other customers. Broken also spent a bit of time ranked in the top 10 on one of the romance lists which I'm sure helped some as well.
I'm sure that most of those 6,100 people won't ever get around to reading Broken, but since it's gone back to paid we've sold another 60 or so copies of Broken and 88 copies of Torn. We're seeing some positive reviews go up on Amazon and Goodreads and we're getting a trickle of purchases of some of my other 9 titles. Nobody in the Murray household is getting ready to quit their day job or anything yet, but that's a marked increase over our run-rate of sales from before Christmas.
There's still always the chance that some of those who read Broken and Torn will turn into the kind of 'rabid' fans (pun intended J) that every author hopes for and Broken will pick up additional steam over the next few months. But even if Broken and Torn just trickle along at their current rate it represents a big win to the extent that people continue to enjoy them enough to wander over here out of curiosity. Some percentage of those fans will decide to subscribe to my mailing list and that's where the magic will really start happening.
Some of you who are writers might have spent some time over at Dean Wesley Smith's blog(DWS from here on out-there's too many Dean's here otherwise J). He's got some very interesting things to say; and while I don't agree with all of his positions, in most things he talks a lot of sense. One of the really interesting things he highlights is the fact that ten years ago a writer had a very short window in which to sale each new book. The book stores would stock a bunch of copies of their new title, and after six weeks or so most of the copies that were left were sent back to the publisher or destroyed.
It's just one of those economic kinds of things. Book stores don't have room to stock dozens of copies of every title out there, they have to try and match up with people's buying patterns. A new book generates a little or a lot of buzz. A bunch of people come to buy it and then things slow down. An author who sold a few copies and then needed a bit of time to build word of mouth might have found that by the time their early readers had told a few friends and the friends started looking that there weren't any copies of the novel in question in the bookstore.
DWS calls it the produce model of book distribution. You've got to move a lot of books in a short time because they go bad if left unsold. In the new world of publishing your books don't ever go bad. They don't ever have to be out of stock, they can always be just a click or two away from finding a new home.
As a long-term pro who probably saw dozens of books he'd put his heart and soul into go out of print, I can understand DWS being frustrated with the produce model. Frankly, I'm very excited that books aren't forced into the produce model, but I'm equally happy that we can still get the benefit of the produce model at the same time.
Let's say two books were released, each from authors with 1,000 fans who were absolutely going to buy the authors' work…eventually. Book one moves 1,000 copies in the first two days. Book two moves 1,000 copies over the first two years. I would argue that book one is the winner all other things being equal and the reason is the algorithms.
Amazon and the other retailers will flag the book that sells well and quickly as being something people are excited about and will tend to recommend it to other potential customers. People will see it at the top of genre lists that they are interested in and decide to take a chance on it.
That's where my mailing list comes in. I'm hoping, to reproduce a bit of the distribution spike we saw with Broken for all of my future stories. It lets me reach out to some of my most excited fans and let them all know within a short time that there's a new story available that they will probably like. As each new story jumps, even briefly onto the lists, top selling, also bought and otherwise, it will help put Alec and Adri, Va'del and Jain, and a host of other stories in front of thousands of new potential fans.
Ultimately that's a win for everyone. Amazon makes money, the readers get enjoyable stories that hopefully stay with them after they finish the last page, and I get one step closer to being able to write full time which means more stories for everyone.
If you've been on the fence about signing up to my mailing list please give it another thought. I really won't spam you with a bunch of stuff you don't care about. You'll get announcements when I put a new book up for sale and maybe the occasional other Dean Murray writing development that other fans are telling me should go out in the next update.
I wouldn't feel right closing without saying thanks to all of the people who are helping to spread the word about Adri, Alec and all of my other stories. I'm really excited about what comes next and hope you all enjoy the ride as much as I think you will.
Thanks-
Dean
January 23, 2012
Advance Reader Copies!
Two posts in less than a week-I'd better be careful or I'll start a trend that I can't live up to J. Great news, Splintered is now ready to go out to advance readers. I've contacted a few of the bloggers that I've had the most back and forth with, but I'm sure I've missed some of you, and there are others I purposefully didn't bother because I know you're still reading either Broken or Torn and I didn't want to be too much of a pest.
That being said, even if we've never talked, if you have a site, and do the occasional, or frequent, book review I'd be happy to get you an ARC of whichever of my books you're interested in. Just send me an e-mail with the address of your blog/site and let me know which book you're after. I'll get something back to you within a couple of days.
Thanks,
Dean.
That being said, even if we've never talked, if you have a site, and do the occasional, or frequent, book review I'd be happy to get you an ARC of whichever of my books you're interested in. Just send me an e-mail with the address of your blog/site and let me know which book you're after. I'll get something back to you within a couple of days.
Thanks,
Dean.
January 21, 2012
Splintered Cover Reveal
Things have been quiet here at DeanWrites, but I wanted to break the silence and share the cover for Splintered.
It pretty much goes without saying that I'm excited about this one. I think Katie did an excellent job! We now have a bit more clarity around the release date-sometime early April. Don't forget to join my mailing list for additional details as they become available and a cool freebie shortly after Splintered goes live :)
Dean
It pretty much goes without saying that I'm excited about this one. I think Katie did an excellent job! We now have a bit more clarity around the release date-sometime early April. Don't forget to join my mailing list for additional details as they become available and a cool freebie shortly after Splintered goes live :)
Dean
November 5, 2011
Twilight Put Me Back on the Path
There's been a ton written about Twilight, both positive and negative. Realistically, nothing I say here is going to matter one bit; it's not going to convert someone who hates Twilight into a fan, it's not going to add to Stephenie Meyer's well-deserved success or otherwise move the world from its normal course.
It will however let me be true to the fact that I owe Twilight and Stephenie a real debt of gratitude. I grew up reading books, loving books really, and somewhere along the way I realized I wanted to be a writer. I racked up 5 novels and a dozen or so submissions to agents and then drifted away from writing. I think there were a lot of reasons: chiefly work stresses and discouragement that most of the agents never even responded to my queries, but I'd essentially abandoned my dream before really giving it a chance to be realized.
In mid-2007 a friend recommended Twilight, and I picked it up almost against my better judgment (I'd never really been a romance fan), and found myself placed back firmly on the path I'd strayed from.
I'm not sure I can really fully explain everything I loved about Twilight. Maybe it's just the simple elegance of a story where the characters are willing to risk everything else for a chance to be together. I've always been a more deliberate, careful kind of person when it comes to my relationships, but that never stopped me from wishing I was a bit more like Edward and Bella.
Whatever it was that captured me, really got me. I read Twilight and New Moon in less than 48 hours, and then hit the internet in an effort to find out when the next book was due to release. I found a group of people just as rabid as me, and it was wonderful. I didn't participate in many of the discussions, but simply seeing that there were others just as enthralled with Stephenie's cast of characters was an amazing experience. It was a bit like what I felt like standing in line for one of the latter Harry Potter books, but smaller, more ground floor than buying the last Harry Potter book.
I'll never forget the night Eclipse released. I helped convince my local bookstore to do a release party that Thursday night, and then when I found out that they didn't have much of anything planned, I ran out and bought a dozen roses for them to use as prizes in a trivia game.
I've been amazed at just how much bigger Twilight Fandom has grown. It was already awfully big even by book three, but once the movies hit it seemed like it really exploded. I'm glad Stephenie has been so successful, but sometimes I find myself missing those earlier, more intimate times.
It was those earlier, high energy days combined with the story of someone turning a fragment of a dream into a bestselling phenomenon that ultimately started me writing again. My most recent novel, Torn, is a direct result of finding Twilight and enjoying hours and hours following a boy and girl who were perfectly meant for each other.
You don't need my thanks, Stephenie, but you have it regardless!
It will however let me be true to the fact that I owe Twilight and Stephenie a real debt of gratitude. I grew up reading books, loving books really, and somewhere along the way I realized I wanted to be a writer. I racked up 5 novels and a dozen or so submissions to agents and then drifted away from writing. I think there were a lot of reasons: chiefly work stresses and discouragement that most of the agents never even responded to my queries, but I'd essentially abandoned my dream before really giving it a chance to be realized.
In mid-2007 a friend recommended Twilight, and I picked it up almost against my better judgment (I'd never really been a romance fan), and found myself placed back firmly on the path I'd strayed from.
I'm not sure I can really fully explain everything I loved about Twilight. Maybe it's just the simple elegance of a story where the characters are willing to risk everything else for a chance to be together. I've always been a more deliberate, careful kind of person when it comes to my relationships, but that never stopped me from wishing I was a bit more like Edward and Bella.
Whatever it was that captured me, really got me. I read Twilight and New Moon in less than 48 hours, and then hit the internet in an effort to find out when the next book was due to release. I found a group of people just as rabid as me, and it was wonderful. I didn't participate in many of the discussions, but simply seeing that there were others just as enthralled with Stephenie's cast of characters was an amazing experience. It was a bit like what I felt like standing in line for one of the latter Harry Potter books, but smaller, more ground floor than buying the last Harry Potter book.
I'll never forget the night Eclipse released. I helped convince my local bookstore to do a release party that Thursday night, and then when I found out that they didn't have much of anything planned, I ran out and bought a dozen roses for them to use as prizes in a trivia game.
I've been amazed at just how much bigger Twilight Fandom has grown. It was already awfully big even by book three, but once the movies hit it seemed like it really exploded. I'm glad Stephenie has been so successful, but sometimes I find myself missing those earlier, more intimate times.
It was those earlier, high energy days combined with the story of someone turning a fragment of a dream into a bestselling phenomenon that ultimately started me writing again. My most recent novel, Torn, is a direct result of finding Twilight and enjoying hours and hours following a boy and girl who were perfectly meant for each other.
You don't need my thanks, Stephenie, but you have it regardless!
