Larry Darter's Blog, page 9

First Goodreads Giveaways Completed

Our very first Goodreads Giveaways contest concluded on February 17, 2017. Goodreads has notified the two lucky winners, chosen at random from among all those who requested a copy of the book. Each winner will receive a signed hardcover edition of Come What May, the first novel of the Malone Mysteries Series. Congratulations to the winners! Your book will be shipped on Monday, February 20.

 

The Prize

ISBN:978-0-692-81722-3

Published by Ingram-Spark, the hardcover edition of Come What May is available for ordering from Amazon and most other major booksellers.

It was very gratifying to see that a total of 1,025 Goodreads members requested the book. We will definitely be giving away more books through this program in the future. A big thank you to all who entered the contest and to Goodreads for hosting the giveaways.

Fair Is Foul and Foul Is Fair Cover Reveal

Only about three months remain until the release of Fair Is Foul and Foul Is Fair, the second novel in the Malone series. I’ve finally settled on the cover.

In this book, Ben Malone makes the leap from LAPD detective to Los Angeles private investigator. Candidly I always envisioned him as a P.I. but the storyline of Come What May just seemed to work better with Malone in the role of an actual police detective.

Another significant change coming with book two in the series is a change from a third-person limited point of view to a first-person. The two authors who most influence my writing in crime fiction is the legendary Raymond Chandler and the contemporary “Dean of Crime Fiction” the late Robert B. Parker. Both of these prolific writers used the first-person point of view and so I’m anxious to give it a go. As an avid reader of Mystery, Thiller & Suspense novels and books in its subgenres, I like books written in first-person because it seems easier to connect and to identify with the characters.

At present, Fair Is Foul and Foul Is Fair will be offered both as an eBook and in paperback. While sales of the Come What May hardcover version have mildly exceeded my expectations to this point, they haven’t yet justified the investment required to produce hardcover editions. So, I’ll wait and evaluate a bit longer before deciding whether to publish this second book in hardcover.I’m also still collecting data and evaluating the decision to publish the eBook version of Come What May exclusively with Amazon’s KDP Select. At the moment I’m inclined to pull the book from KDP Select and to make it available through more channels. I haven’t ruled out enrolling Fair Is Foul and Foul Is Fair in KDP Select for the initial 90-days after release, but I’ll probably wait until a month out from publication to make the final decision.

I’m also still collecting data and evaluating the decision to publish the eBook version of Come What May exclusively with Amazon’s KDP Select. At the moment I’m inclined to pull the book from KDP Select and to make it available through more channels. I haven’t ruled out enrolling Fair Is Foul and Foul Is Fair in KDP Select for the initial 90-days after release, but I’ll probably wait until a month out from publication to make the final decision. Truthfully, I just haven’t been all that impressed with my first KDP Select experience.

I’ve completed a first draft of the blurb for Fair Is Foul and Foul Is Fair. I’ve included it here to those interested an idea of what the second novel is about since I’ve yet to create a dedicated page for it.

Fair Is Foul and Foul Is Fair Blurb

Former LAPD detective turned Los Angeles private investigator Ben Malone must hunt down deadly killers terrorizing Hollywood in this fast-paced detective mystery thriller from Larry Darter.

Soon after resigning from the LAPD and taking over the private detective agency of his late friend, Jack Bright, Malone receives a visitor at his office. This time the visit is from blonde, gorgeous, young woman with an interesting story, unusual pastime, odd request, and a pile of cash. That can mean only one thing, a new case.

The woman reveals she has witnessed the murder of an acquaintance but because she has a personal secret to protect can’t go to the police. Instead, she asks Malone to go to the police as her proxy with her story. After explaining that he can’t just act as a stand-in for her as a murder witness, Malone agrees to try and help her by fulfilling the intent of her request without identifying her to the police or revealing her secret.

It should be a straightforward, albeit somewhat peculiar job for Malone: find and identify the killers, develop evidence that implicates them, and then bring them to the attention of the LA cops. But after only a few hours into the case and three murders later, matters quickly become complicated.

As the case rapidly grows darker once ugly secrets about both the killers and his client come to light, Malone learns that when it comes to guilt and innocence, things are not always as they appear. Sometimes fair is foul and foul is fair. The case that once seemed so simple turns into a treacherous and politically charged investigation.

To make matters worse, things become personal. Malone faces his most difficult challenge yet, keeping his cool while his beloved Sara Bernstein is in danger, he uses all his connections both above and below the law to uncover the truth and will stop at absolutely nothing to rescue the woman he loves from harm’s way.

Fair Is Foul and Foul Is Fair is the second book in the Malone Novels series.

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I’d really appreciate your feedback on the cover and blurb. Please leave a comment if it’s not too much trouble. Thank you.

 

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My Take on the KDP Select Debate

To KDP Select or not to KDP Select? That is the question, for Indie publishers who choose to self-publish using the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) platform to publish and sell eBooks on Amazon.

In a nutshell, KDP Select is a program where publishers give Amazon exclusive digital rights to their eBooks in exchange for a set of promotional advantages not available to those who publish eBooks using KDP but who choose not to enroll in KDP Select.

Regarding KDP Select, exclusive digital rights mean that books enrolled in the program may not be published digitally or offered for sale anywhere but Amazon, including the publisher’s or author’s own website.

Also, except for advance review copies, digital versions may not be given away free by the author or publisher other than via the KDP Select free days. Exclusivity means exactly that, exclusive. The books are not available in digital form anywhere but Amazon.

As with most things in life, there are both advantages and disadvantages for those who choose to enroll their books in KDP Select. Many Indie publishers swear by the program, insisting that it has brought them great success. Others consider enrollment in the program a poor decision that not only doesn’t help them succeed but costs them money.

That’s where the “debate” I alluded to in the post title comes into play.

While all my books are available on Amazon, only my recent novel, Come What May, is enrolled in KPD Select. When I started writing and publishing in 2010, I published my books on multiple platforms via Mark Coker’s Smashwords.

I’ve sold a lot of books through Amazon, but the truth is most have sold just about as well on other eBook retailer sites, most notably Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and iTunes.

I didn’t decide to enroll Come What May in KDP Select seeking book selling success I felt had eluded me in the past. I was merely curious to learn whether there was any real advantage to going the exclusive route with Amazon.

The purpose of this post isn’t to throw shade on Amazon’s program or to tell other Indie publishers they shouldn’t enroll their books in KDP Select.

The purpose is to share my own experiences with KDP Select which might be useful to others when making their own decision about whether to hand over exclusive digital rights to Amazon or to retain the option of publishing their books on multiple platforms.

Advantages of KDP Select Enrollment

First, let’s look at the advantages of the KDP Select program that Amazon trumpets to entice Indie publishers to enroll in the program—

Chance to earn higher royalties

Enrollment in the program makes a book eligible for sharing in the KDP Select Global Fund when customers borrow and read the book from Kindle Unlimited and the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. Enrollment also makes a book eligible to earn 70% royalty for sales to customers in Japan, India, Brazil and, Mexico, which otherwise would earn only 35% royalty from sales to customers in those countries. These advantages can potentially produce higher royalties.

Opportunity to maximize a book’s sales potential

Indie publishers who enroll books in the KDP Select program get to choose between two promotional tools unavailable to other KDP publishers; Kindle Countdown Deals, a time-bound promotional discounting program or free book promotion where readers worldwide can download the books free for a limited time. Books enrolled in the program may be offered free to interested readers for a total of 5 days during any 90-day enrollment period. Many believe these free days used in combination with active marketing efforts can raise the visibility of a book and result in greater long-term sales.

Possibility of reaching a new audience

Amazon peddles enrollment in KDP Select as a means of reaching more readers. Enrollment in KDP Select automatically makes books available through Kindle Unlimited and the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (KOLL) in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, India, Japan, and Australia. This, according to Amazon, makes it more likely that a book will attract attention from readers in those countries, who might otherwise never discover the book.

Access to Amazon Marketing Services

Enrolling a book in KDP Select provides the author or publisher access to Amazon Marketing Services (AWS) where PPC campaigns can be conducted that at least theoretically may increase the ranking and sales of the book. Only books enrolled in KDP Select are eligible for AMS advertising.

Disadvantages of KDP Select Enrollment

Next, let’s consider the disadvantages of enrolling a book in KDP Select—

Potentially lower royalties from surrendering exclusive digital rights

The 70% royalty incentive notwithstanding, enrolling a book in the program could actually result in lower royalties. Let’s use my own past experiences as an example. As mentioned previously, my other books sold just about as well on the sites of several other eBook retailers as on Amazon. It’s possible that I am missing out on sales and losing money with Come What May that I might have realized if the book wasn’t available exclusively on Amazon.

Possibly fewer sales as a result of Kindle Unlimited and KOLL

With more and more people borrowing and reading KDP Select-enrolled eBooks for free, there obviously has to be some effect on the number of eBooks being purchased. Also, while many publishers believe that they earn as much or more in royalties from borrowed, read for free books through sharing in the KDP Select Global Fund, that is likely only true when the books are borrowed and read by U.S. Amazon customers. Customers in other countries pay less for Kindle Unlimited subscriptions and Amazon pays publishers less for pages read by customers in those countries. Not to mention unless a book earns a high ranking in its category, it likely will not even be visible to many potential borrowers in the first place and won’t earn much of a share from the KDP Select Fund.

Having to pay Amazon to promote a book they own exclusive digital rights to

While many Indie publishers jumped for joy when Amazon opened up Amazon Marketing Services to them, to me at least, it intuitively seems a bit unfair that after surrendering exclusive digital rights to my book to Amazon, Amazon expects me to pay them to promote my book. That seems tantamount to a traditional publishing house telling an author that they aren’t going to put any effort into promoting the author’s book unless the author reimburses them for the advertising expenses. I’m not quite sure then that AMS is a real advantage at all to anyone but Amazon.

Debates aside, here are three things you can be sure of when facing the decision about whether to enroll your book in KDP Select—

KDP Select is not a marketing plan

If you believe that you can publish a book via KDP, enroll it in KDP Select and then sit back and watch the royalties roll in, you’re in for a major letdown. It’s just not going to happen. The program may have some real advantages. Yet no matter how good your book, how great the cover, or enticing the blurb unless you are willing to put your own blood, sweat, tears, and money into marketing it, it will permanently be all but invisible on Amazon. Few potential buyers will ever even find it. There are simply too many eBooks on Amazon now, nearly 5 million, with an estimated 100,000 more new titles uploaded every month. That means “book visibility” has become the number one problem for Indie publishers. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to make your book stand out in such a vast crowd.

Amazon is not going to promote most books unless they are paid to do so

Amazon puts significant effort and resources into promoting only those books that are bestsellers in their genre categories. Books that have few or no reviews and that aren’t selling in significant numbers from the marketing efforts of the publishers are not promoted by Amazon at all. This is true whether or not the book is enrolled in KDP Select. And you can’t blame them. Amazon is a for-profit company. They aren’t going to devote attention or resources to books that don’t make them significant money. And think again about the numbers. Even if all of the nearly 5 million eBooks were great books, worthy of promotion, it would be literally impossible for Amazon to effectively promote them all even if they wished to do so.

With one month remaining in my first 90-day KDP Select enrollment, I’ve all but decided that I will not renew when it expires. I said all but decided only because my book has done reasonably well in light of my own personal expectations and metrics of success. So, before making my final decision, I have decided to give Amazon Marketing Services a try.

For me to decide to enroll in another 90-day period of KDP Select, it will take some positive results from the AMS experiment. By positive results, I mean seeing consistently high ad placements, substantial numbers of click-throughs, and conversion rates that produce a positive ROI. If after the 30-day campaign I don’t see that kind of results, I’ll drop KDP Select, return to Smashwords and publish the book on the other eBook retailer platforms. And chances are, if I decide that is the best way to go, I won’t be enrolling another book in KDP Select.

In conclusion, besides the very crowded eBook playing field at Amazon in general, something else I find worrisome is the glut of free and 99 cent books now enrolled in KDP Select. I think that’s a real problem and one that is only going to get worse.

I’m well aware of the theories behind authors literally giving their books away or selling them cheaply on a more or less permanent basis, but this situation is a major contributor to the “book visibility” problem. It also makes KDP publishing less profitable for everyone concerned.

Not only that, I think that the recent changes in the Amazon algorithm have largely rendered perma-free and 99 cent book strategies effectively worthless, but too many authors just don’t seem to want to accept the reality of it. I’ll talk about that more in the next post.

Hopefully, if you are facing the decision on whether or not to enroll your next book in KDP Select, I hope this post has at least given you food for thought. On the other hand, if you have a very favorable opinion on KDP Select, and feel you have really benefited from it, I’d love to hear from you. Please share your opinion with a comment.

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What Kindle Unlimited Means for the Indie eBook Publisher

If you are an Indie eBook publisher with books currently enrolled in KDP Select, your books are automatically included in Kindle Unlimited. Perhaps you already know that. But do you know all the details about what Kindle Unlimited inclusion potentially means to your bottom line?

In July 2014, Amazon rolled out Kindle Unlimited, an eBook subscription service that currently offers subscribers unlimited access to over 1.4 million Kindle eBooks in all categories for $9.99 per month. For the avid reader, who spends $9.99 or more each month on eBook purchases, Kindle Unlimited seems like a no-brainer. But not so fast.

As pointed out in the Ebook Friendly.com article, “Kindle Unlimited ebook subscription – 12 things to know,” there are both pros and cons for readers when it comes to Kindle Unlimited subscriptions. But what I want to focus attention on in this post is what Kindle Unlimited means for those of us who write and self-publish and elect to participate in KDP Select, and by default Kindle Unlimited.

As much as a great many authors would rather view writing books as an art form rather than business, at the end of the day, the fact remains that authors who self-publish are also engaged in a business that sells a product, namely books. After all, since most writers write to be read, you must sell books for that to happen.

Take the innate desire (often desperate desire) of writers to reach readers and add to the mix a giant retailer that controls around 70% of the entire global eBook market. Not only that, but the retailer has a business model wholly predicated upon offering its customers the greatest possible selection of eBooks at the lowest possible prices. What you get is the potential for a “perfect storm” when it comes to the devaluation of eBooks, both regarding what readers think an eBook should cost, as well as regarding what authors can expect to be paid for their books.

Like the pros and cons of Kindle Unlimited for readers, there are also pros and cons for authors with eBooks included in the service. One advantage is the potential for reaching readers who might take a chance on a new author they otherwise wouldn’t when they can read his or her book for free. But that potential for increased exposure and readership does come at a price.

To maintain its huge share of the global eBook market, Amazon must continue finding ways to offer lower prices which in part means the company must continually find ways to force suppliers to accept lower prices and margins. Kindle Unlimited, especially with the relatively recent pages read tweak is one way Amazon accomplishes that. Indie authors earn significantly less from books borrowed and read by Kindle Unlimited subscribers than he or she would realize from an actual book sale. I’ll use my book, Come What May, as an example.

The book is 277 pages in length. If a Kindle Unlimited subscriber in the United States borrows it, I’ll receive about a half cent ($.005) for each page read so if someone borrows the book and reads it in its entirety, I stand to earn only about 68% of the royalty I’d earn from an actual book sale. Perhaps the potential for wider exposure to readers could justify the difference. But what if the person borrowing and reading my book happens to live in another country like India as one example, where people can’t afford the $9.99 per month KU subscription.

Amazon reduces the subscription price for KU India subscribers, so the company also reduces the pages read payment to me for pages read by KU India subscribers. There my book might earn only a third of what it earns in the US, or about two-tenths of a cent per page.  At two-tenths of a cent per page, a reader would have to read about five pages for me to earn a single penny.  My 277-page-book that might earn me 68% of the royalty from a book sale might earn me only about 55 cents in India.

Participation in KDP Select and by default Kindle Unlimited is, of course, a decision each individual Indie publisher must make for themselves. But you need to understand that Amazon is not some benevolent player in the book marketing business that always has your best interests at heart, but a heartless mega book retailer with its own profitability firmly in mind. A part of that includes forcing self-published authors to gradually accept lower prices and lower margins for their work. Kindle Unlimited renders royalty based on list price irrelevant and allows Amazon to pay authors less.

Honestly, Kindle Unlimited is only one of a host of reasons why participation in KDP Select is increasingly becoming a poor business decision for many Indie book publishers. We will take a behind the scenes look at that topic in my next post. But for now, as a teaser, think about this.

The much-ballyhooed roll out of Amazon Marketing Services eligibility for Indie publishers is being touted by Amazon as the means to achieve greater visibility that will help authors compete more effectively for readers’ attention in highly competitive, high-traffic areas on Amazon.com? Isn’t that the whole point of enrolling in KDP Select?

I’m inclined to believe that Indie authors unwilling to pony up more of their margin to pay for Amazon Marketing Services aren’t getting what they were promised as a perq for enrolling in KDP Select. I’m of the opinion they aren’t getting anymore added visibility and competitive advantage for their books by enrolling them in KDP Select than are authors who choose to eschew making an exclusive arrangement with Amazon in favor of marketing their books on multiple platforms. We’ll talk about that and more next time.

Reality Check for Indie Publisher-Critic Author Laurie Gough

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Yet another traditionally published author, Laurie Gough, blundered into a firestorm of controversy by penning an ill-advised and tactless article disparaging self-published authors.

The article, “Self-Publishing: An Insult to the Written Word” which appeared December 30, 2016, in the Huffington Post Blog, really takes Indie publishers to task. Here are but a few of Gough’s “pearls of wisdom”—

“I’d rather share a cabin on a Disney cruise with Donald Trump than self-publish.”
“From what I’ve seen of it, self-publishing is an insult to the written word, the craft of writing, and the tradition of literature.”
“With the firestorm of self-published books unleashed on the world, I fear that writing itself is becoming devalued.”
“The only similarity between published and self-published books is they each have words on pages inside a cover. The similarities end there.”
“And every single self-published book I’ve tried to read has shown me exactly why the person had to resort to self-publishing.”

Ms. Gough is of course entitled to her opinion. Our much-celebrated First Amendment rights to free speech empower her to shout her opinion in the public square. But for me, her insensitive and thoughtless comments brought to mind the quote; “But when you try to dictate what to do to others, remember this—It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt!”

Nothing wrong with having an opinion. Sometimes, however, wisdom dictates that we keep our opinions to ourselves. That’s especially true of those like authors who have chosen a career entirely dependent on earning the goodwill of potential readers.

Due to the ever-burgeoning popularity of Indie publishing, Ms. Gough, evidently inhabiting some sort of “I’m traditionally-published” bubble completely untethered from reality, failed to recognize that many of the very people she so vigorously insulted were likely potential customers for her prose that she has now permanently alienated.

The truly ironic thing about Laurie Gough’s Huffington Post article was that she used a quote from author Sue Grafton to buttress her argument that “self-publishing is an insult to the written word.”

For those unfamiliar with Grafton, she too committed a similar faux pas, insulting and offending Indie publishers during an interview back in 2012, published by LouisvilleKY.com. Grafton quickly walked back her remarks after receiving the same sort of career-killing blow-back Gough is apparently now experiencing.

Perhaps Gough would have been better served to have done a tiny bit of research into the consequences of Grafton’s unfortunate remarks rather than just cherry picking a quote that seemed to support the premise of her article. She obviously was completely unaware of the backstory behind the quote.

I admire authors who have been traditionally published. Those intrepid souls were willing to jump through all the hoops and to suffer through the endless delays to being published imposed by the formerly formidable literary gatekeepers; agents, publishing houses, editors, national, and international reviewers.

I easily imagine that having your book traditionally published gives one a great sense of pride and accomplishment. But as the old biblical adage goes; “Pride goes before a fall.” When pride results in a person becoming so out of touch with reality and the general public that she believes a caustic condemnation of people who choose a different path to authorship than the traditional one will be well-received, that’s a problem.

Obviously, self-appointed Indie publisher-critic, Author Laurie Gough, has experienced a reality check. She has already walked back the misguided, and foolhardy statements she wrote in her article like her hair was on fire, just as fast as Sue Grafton did in 2012. You can read the full text of her apology on her Facebook page if you wish. But given Sue Grafton’s experience, the apology is likely another case of too-little-too-late.

Although I’m one of the self-published authors Gough disparaged, it isn’t my intention to take her to task. Truth be known, I’d never heard of Laurie Gough before I read her Huffington Post piece. A person must first earn a place in my insecurities before her opinion about self-published authors or anything else for that matter has the power to offend me. Yet I think Gough’s imprudent decision to write the article is a cautionary tale for other mid-list traditionally published authors who may be tempted to follow her lead.

Gough may have had some valid points had she written her article a decade ago, but to quote the legendary singer and songwriter, Bob Dylan, “the times they are a changin’.” Yes, it is true that there are some terrible self-published books out there, but more and more that is becoming the exception rather than the rule.

The truth is, the best self-published authors today are every bit as good if not better than their traditionally published counterparts. Equally true is the fact that there are some awful traditionally published books. I started more than a half dozen such books last year that I couldn’t be bothered to finish because they were either poorly written or mind-numbingly dull. A dull book, perfectly edited, pushed by a literary agent, and duly approved by a big publishing house is still dull.

Traditional publishing is rapidly becoming the past whether its adherents wish to face that reality or not. The decline of traditional publishing and parallel advance in self-publishing doesn’t mean the disappearance of gatekeepers. It only heralds a change in who fills that role.

Indie publishing casts the reader in the role of gatekeeper which is actually as it should be. Readers will neither read nor buy poorly written books regardless of how the books are published. Thus, poorly written books fade quickly into obscurity and certainly do no harm to the craft of writing or the traditions of literature.

 

Louisville Author Spotlight welcomes Sue Grafton

 

To everyone I offended with my Huffington Post article on self-publishing, I am so sorry! As I explained in the comments…

Posted by Laurie Gough (Author) on Tuesday, January 3, 2017

 

 

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Fern Sutherland and The Brokenwood Mysteries

Fern Sutherland and co-star Neill Rea

Why would I post an article about Fern Sutherland and The Brokenwood Mysteries television show on my crime fiction author’s blog? For one thing I simply think The Brokenwood Mysteries is such a great show that I like telling others about it. After all, those who enjoy a good crime fiction novel often like great detective drama on television too. But I’m going to go a bit deeper than that by sharing a little about one of the characters in the show that I’ve come to admire.

Truth be told, even though I’ve on occasion crossed paths with a few of them, I’ve never been much impressed with movie or television celebrities.

I don’t read celebrity magazines or tune into Entertainment Tonight. I don’t watch the Oscars or the Emmy Awards. I don’t follow who the stars marry, what they do, where they live, what they drive, or who they hang around with. Same goes for musicians and famous athletes.

It isn’t that I don’t respect the talents of movie and television stars, or that I don’t appreciate the value of the entertainment experiences that they provide. It’s just that in my own general experience, the more you learn about a celebrity away from their big screen or small screen character roles, the less you find them to be people you would actually choose as friends, much less find a reason to admire.

A photo or an autograph from a celebrity has always been about the last thing on earth I would ever want. I can’t even imagine spotting a celebrity in public and then running up to them fawning and screaming their name. They are just people, right?

I’ve always felt that too many people put actors on pedestals when they have really done nothing for the world that is deserving of such hero worship. What’s all that fascination and appeal about anyway?

The real heroes, those most deserving of our admiration I believe are those who protect us and who put themselves at risk to protect and help others; like soldiers, firemen, police officers, and EMTs.

But then I discovered Fern Sutherland.

is a New Zealand actress, increasingly best known for her role as Detective Constable Kristin Sims in the hit New Zealand television police procedural series, The Brokenwood Mysteries, where she is part of a truly stellar cast

In addition to Sutherland, the cast includes Neill Rea as Detective Senior Sergeant Mike Shepherd, Nic Sampson as Detective Constable Sam Breen, and Cristina Ionda as Dr. Gina Kadinsky, medical examiner. Pana Hema Taylor as Jared Morehu, a Maori local who has many friends and interests and often finds himself involved in the murder investigations, rounds out the regular cast.

Just confirmed for its fourth season, The Brokenwood Mysteries, produced by South Pacific Pictures, has not just had a successful run inside New Zealand. The show has also achieved international recognition and acclaim as well, picking up a bronze world medal at the New York Festival International Television and Film Awards and fast becoming one of the most-watched television series in France.

Giving credit where credit is due, I was immediately impressed with Fern Sutherland’s acting abilities. As a retired police officer with more than 20 years service, I can be quite critical of television police procedural dramas which often requires one to suspend belief because they can be so unrealistic and technically deficient. But Kristin Sims is a very believable character. Sutherland has in my opinion even mastered the “look” and demeanor of a veteran police officer.

Yet I haven’t come to admire Fern Sutherland for her considerable acting talent or even for her good looks, although she is a strikingly stunning woman. I’ve come to admire her because of the person she is.

No, I haven’t met her personally and know her only vicariously through the articles I’ve read that have been written by those in the media who have interviewed her. But in all of the articles, I’ve seen a common theme that smacks of authenticity.

Fern Sutherland is a real person, where real in part is defined as one with a great sense of humor and who doesn’t take herself too seriously. I discovered that quite by chance when I stumbled across her social media accounts and read the amazingly witty things she shares with her friends and followers.

I was also impressed with the frankness with which Sutherland spoke to a Woman’s Day interviewer about her decades-long struggle with anxiety that produced not only stage fright but full-on panic attacks that even made her doubt her ability to continue acting. Where admiration comes in here for me is how instead of giving up the profession she was so passionate about, she persevered. She worked hard to learn and develop some coping mechanisms that helped her channel the anxiety into excitement and focus.

Finally, Fern Sutherland is a person of ethics and principles. This I think is no better exemplified than by her decision to join her flatmate and friend, fellow Kiwi actress, Michelle Langston, in a pact to embrace vegetarianism. Fern explains that her choice not to eat meat or dairy is “a little thing I do every day that makes me feel like I’m making a difference.”

Fern Sutherland it seems is destined for greatness as an actress. But I think she has already achieved greatness on a personal level, and that’s the reason I admire her. I admire her for the discipline she imposes on herself to achieve her goals. I can conceive of no higher praise than to say she is definitely someone I’d like having as a friend.

While I discovered Fern Sutherland and The Brokenwood Mysteries during the first season of the show while visiting New Zealand with my Kiwi partner, happily I’ve been able to continue watching the show here in the States via a subscription to Acorn TV. Apart from the fact that it is an amazingly entertaining show to watch with a super cast, another thing I like about the show is that much of it has been filmed in and around my partner’s New Zealand hometown, so I get to see a lot of familiar sights.

If you enjoy watching television detective drama shows like Midsomer Murders, you’ll love The Brokenwood Mysteries. You will also enjoy getting to know the very talented cast that includes Fern Sutherland in her role as Detective Constable Kristin Sims, a celebrity I find most worthy of admiration.

 

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A Look at Novel Scenes

So what are novel scenes? Scenes are actions in a work of fiction that take place in a single location over a continuous time. Scenes build and maintain momentum by engaging the reader.

Oddly enough, as a reader, I never had any real awareness of scenes or appreciation for the importance of scenes in a work of fiction. It wasn’t until I started writing fiction that those things became apparent to me.

I knew about scenes in the context of plays and films. But I viewed a novel simply as a collection of chapters. It just never occurred to me that scenes were also the basic building blocks of the chapters contained within a novel.

Any novel, in essence, is a series of scenes strung together, like beads on a necklace. Novels are comprised of many scenes. Each individual scene has a beginning, middle, and an end.

In a novel, the start of a new scene is typically signified by the beginning of a chapter, by an extra blank line between the final paragraph of one scene and the first paragraph of the next one, or sometimes by symbols like asterisks. These transition conventions alert the reader that time has passed.

Each new scene builds on the plot, and ideally, communicates to the reader the author’s ideas in a way that allows the plot to unfurl and captures the reader’s attention all over again.

A scene may be started in different ways. For example, a scene can begin with;

Action – Some act that is quick and spontaneous, that involves physical movement and a sense of real time.
Narrative summary – concise descriptions of the history of a place or the backstory of characters that communicates necessary information to the reader before the action take place.
Setting details – information about the setting so important to the tone of the scene, the overall plot, or character development that it’s necessary to include visual details at the start of a scene.

Great authors carefully and strategically craft each and every scene, understanding that each one is an invitation to the reader, bidding him or her to continue reading, to come further along with the story. The best authors understand the importance of making those invitations as compelling as possible.

If as I once did, you have formerly viewed novels more on a macro-level, simply as a collection of chapters, I hope this article has increased your awareness of and appreciation for the importance of scenes, the micro-level of a work of fiction.

How the Amazon Book Reviews Policy Hurts Indie Authors

 

Why isn’t anyone posting Amazon book reviews for my novel, you might ask as an independent author? Good question.

With more than a thousand copies of my debut Malone novel, Come What May, now in circulation, and only one Amazon review posted to date, I’ve asked the question myself.

Depending on whose statistics you believe, it is commonly reported that somewhere between 5-8% of Amazon book buyers bother to post a review. Personally, I believe for most Indie authors, the numbers are far lower than that.

Not every person who buys and reads books has any interest in writing and posting book reviews. There isn’t any solution to that part of the problem for authors.

You’re never going to find a way to convince someone to do something they don’t wish to do, especially when there is nothing in it for them to do so. You can’t offer people anything of value to encourage them to post a review. That violates Amazon book review guidelines.

Understanding how critical it is to get Amazon book reviews and unable to count on the rank and file Amazon book buyer to write and post a review, what’s an independent author to do?

Amazon book reviews have an enormous impact on how a book is perceived. As human beings, to one degree or another, we all are subject to the herd instinct. People like what other people like. More importantly, people trust what other people recommend.

A 2015 study revealed that over 88% of online shoppers trust reviews as much as personal recommendations.

A book with numerous positive reviews conveys an impactful message of the book’s legitimacy and value. Alternatively, books with few or no reviews, even if it should garner the attention of a potential buyer in the first place, will be viewed as suspect. Few people will be willing to break free of the herd mentality and take a chance on it.

Quite simply, the more reviews, the more likely a book will get purchased. But that is an issue that motivated, independent authors could conceivably effectively manage with a willingness to do the work required to convince enough readers to post a review of their book. But that’s where the Amazon book reviews policy creates the real problem.

Amazon has long understood the herd mentality and the power of product reviews in getting people to buy products listed on the mega-retailer’s site.

Understandably, Amazon has a vested interest in ensuring the integrity of customer review process. If for example, you were to buy a book or any other product on Amazon that had numerous positive reviews but upon receiving it found it to be very disappointing, you would not be a happy Amazon customer.

Thus, the company has published customer review guidelines that are rigorously enforced with the aim of protecting the integrity of customer reviews. In theory, nothing wrong with the guidelines, but in practice, the way the guidelines are currently enforced puts authors at a severe disadvantage.

Publicly, the key tenants of the Amazon book reviews policy are;

Authors may not publish a review of their own work.
Individuals who share a household with the author or close friends may not publish a review of the author’s book.
No one can post a review on behalf of someone else.
Amazon doesn’t allow any form of compensation for a customer review other than a free copy of the book provided upfront.

As said, in theory, there is nothing wrong with the Amazon review guidelines. All of the major tenants are easily defensible in light of the aim to allow only honest reviews. But, the manner in which Amazon enforces the guidelines approach the Orwellian.

Amazon reserves the right to determine who an author’s “close friends” are and more and more Indie authors are discovering that the definition is not limited to real-world friendships with people an author actually sees and interacts with on a regular basis. Instead, there seems to be a troubling practice on the part of Amazon to define social media contacts as “close friends,” and using that as a basis for excluding them from eligibility to post reviews.

There is an obvious and pervasive lack of transparency about how Amazon identifies personal relationships among users, but it has been learned that Amazon tracks the IPs of visitors to the site and uses that as one means of identifying an author’s family members and close friends. But it is the social media contacts where the reference to George Orwell’s novel, 1984 comes into play.

How else could Amazon become aware of the social media interactions between two or more people unless the company is actively harvesting the information? To harvest such information the company would have to go beyond its own website, where it clearly has the right to harvest useful marketing information, to social media sites where it just as clearly has no right to harvest such information.

Prying into who an author has as followers or friends on social media amounts to nothing less than an invasion of privacy. Using that information to decide who may or may not post a review for an author’s book amounts to nothing less than indefensible censorship.

If it isn’t bad enough that the number of Amazon book reviews largely determines whether a book will succeed or fail when book sales are used as the metric, Amazon also utilizes the number of reviews in it algorithms which determine how visible a particular book is to prospective buyers on the website.

I’ve learned from one source that a book with less than ten reviews gets practically no visibility and Amazon puts no resources into marketing the book. A book with less than ten reviews might as well not even be listed on Amazon because for all practical purposes it doesn’t exist since no one will ever see it unless he or she is specifically searching for it.

From another source, I’ve learned that another magic number is 50 reviews. With 50 reviews Amazon starts paying more attention to the book and devotes more resources toward helping to promote it.

Therefore, any author who aspires to a measure of success in book sales on Amazon must get reviews, and a lot of them. As though that wasn’t already difficult enough, Amazon makes it exceedingly harder by arbitrarily deciding who an author’s “close friends” are and deleting reviews from those so determined.

Those unfair practices are compounded by the seemingly sinister methods Amazon employs to make those determinations which the company then conveniently cloaks in non-transparency with statements like, “due to the proprietary nature of our business, we do not provide detailed information on how we determine that accounts are related.”

While I applaud the efforts of Amazon to keep book reviews objective, I disagree with some of the methods they appear to employ to accomplish that aim. In my opinion, Amazon needs to stick to their written review guidelines and limit their use of related accounts detection to the information they can legally harvest from their own website.

It’s more than a bit creepy to think about the company tracking my every move about the Internet, prying into my social media accounts to glean information to use in disqualifying perfectly honest and objective reviews from people that I have never actually met and know only through social media interaction. That’s just wrong, and if it isn’t unlawful, it should be.

A Review of the BookDaily Book Promotion Services I Tried

 

This article is an unvarnished review of BookDaily, a book promotion services site that I tried recently. If you are an independent publisher/author considering the use of a paid book promotion service, perhaps reading about my experiences with BookDaily will save you some time and considerable aggravation.

Candidly, negative reviews are not my thing. Generally, when I have a bad experience with a product or service, I just don’t buy it and look for a better alternative. What makes this situation different? Sometimes something is so bad, you feel that you owe it to the rest of the world to stand up and talk about it.

Since encountering them via Twitter, I receive at least two emails each day, sometimes more, from BookDaily touting their services. Because I waited to publish my latest book before I concerned myself with marketing it, I was seriously considering using the paid promo services described on the BookDaily website.

After visiting the site and virtually kicking the tires, it seemed like a fairly-priced resource that might really kick start my marketing efforts. I started by creating the free author account and then claimed my first book.

Frankly, from the start the mechanics of the site’s upload application seemed a bit clunky. As an example, it took several tries before my profile picture successfully uploaded. I had similar issues trying to upload my book cover. But eventually, the image uploads were accomplished.

Next, I added the details to my book; descriptive blurb and a one chapter summary. That’s when the real problems began. When I hit save, I received an error notification, “data is too Long (47775/30000 characters).” I tried several more times and received the same error message. I knew that the sample chapter was nowhere near 47,775 characters but I checked it just to be sure using the Microsoft Word program word count function. Including spaces, the character count was well below 10,000.

Since the site warns: “There is currently no excerpt for this book! The book will NOT be viewable on site until an excerpt is provided,” I knew I had to somehow manage to get the sample chapter uploaded before I could continue to the promotion link.

I tried everything imaginable but still wasn’t able to save the chapter excerpt. It began to occur to me that the problem wasn’t mine but that of the BookDaily upload application. So, I deleted the chapter sample and just typed in three random letters, three characters with no spaces and hit save.  I got the same result, ” data is too Long (47775/30000 characters).” Clearly there was a problem with their clunky upload application.

I looked around the page and finally found a small “Contact Us” link buried in the website page footer. I clicked on it and too my surprise was taken to a very professional looking “Support Ticket” page. Relieved, I completed the form, giving the details of the issue I was having, and then submitted it. That was on December 6, 2016. Days went by. Weeks went by. I checked the status of my support ticket regularly only to find it was always flagged as “New.”

Finally, on December 21, 2016, I decided I’d given BookDaily ample time and opportunity to respond to my request for assistance and more importantly, to earn my business. Big fail. All around. I didn’t even receive the courtesy of a reply to my support ticket. That strongly suggests that the site owners pay no attention to support tickets. I can’t imagine that they simply singled me out to ignore.

If the clunky software and lack of support I experienced while trying out BookDaily is any indication, and I think that it is, I find it exceedingly difficult to imagine the site provides any real value to independent publishers/authors seeking book promotional services.

When it comes to book promoters, with the rise in popularity of independent authors and publishing, the web is rife with sites willing to promote your books in exchange for your money. I have no doubt that many of these promoters are legitimate businesses that do offer value in exchange for the fees they charge in terms of an author’s marketing efforts. But the inability to even upload your book specifics to site or get any response from the site owners when you’re having problems doing so to me is a big, fat red flag.

I’m not suggesting that BookDaily is an illegitimate site or service, only that a company that has nothing to sell but a service should have at least a basic grasp on the concept of providing service before they entertain the idea of separating potential customers from their hard-earned cash. At least from my experience, BookDaily doesn’t seem to grasp the concept.

In fairness, there are a great many books advertised on BookDaily. Perhaps their upload application once worked swimmingly but it simply broke down and they haven’t noticed it. And to take fairness a step further, if you are someone who uses BookDaily or have in the past, a raving fan who can’t say enough good things about BookDaily, do feel free to leave a comment telling your side of the story.

Since all I have to work with it at present is my own horrible experiences with the site, I give BookDaily two thumbs down. If you are looking for a book promotion partner, take my advice and don’t bother with BookDaily unless you enjoy aggravation. Keep looking.

The Ultimate Guide to Mystery Books

How much do you know about the genre subsets of mystery books?

Literary genres are labels that characterize the elements a reader can expect in a work of literature. Genres are determined by the subject matter, style, tone, and narrative technique used by an author, and to a degree some set of stylistic criteria used by critics to define genre.

Mystery novels, of course, fall under the major literary genre fiction. But mystery books can be categorized under any number of different crime fiction genre subsets, also known as common genres. To name a few traditional mystery sub-genres, there are—

Cosy mysteries (or “cozies”) – A sub-genre in which sex and violence are downplayed or treated humorously, and the crime and detection take place in a small, socially intimate community, often featuring an amateur detective as the sleuth.
Hard-boiled (or “detective fiction”) – A sub-genre characterized as graphic, gruesome and unsentimental. These contain details of the crimes committed, which are often violent or sexual in nature and often feature psychopaths, serial killers, and detectives (generally private detectives) with deeply flawed characters.
Legal dramas – A sub-genre where the story revolves around courtroom procedure related to the crime or where the main focus of the detective work falls on an attorney or legal team and the details of the crime are revealed as the court case proceeds.
Police procedural – A sub-genre where the focus is on the work of the police to identify the perpetrator and a main character who is usually a police detective and which often includes lots of detail about crime detection, interview and forensic techniques.

The above list is not exhaustive but is only representative of major mystery fiction sub-genres. The thing that all mystery novels have in common, regardless of sub-genre, is a story that involves a crime (usually a murder or other mysterious death) to be solved. Mysteries also typically have a lineup of suspects, each of whom has a credible motive and reasonable opportunity for committing the crime, and a central detective character who eventually solves the mystery by logical deduction from facts fairly presented to the reader.

Mystery books can also be categorized as “Whodunits” or “Howcatchems.” Whodunits are stories where the aim is to discover, with the aid of clues, the perpetrator of the crime. In Howcatchems however, the identity of the perpetrator is revealed at the outset and the stories focus on how the detective finds the clues and catches the perpetrator.

As a reader, it isn’t really necessary to be able to discriminate between crime fiction sub-genres to enjoy mystery books. But being able to do so can make it easier to quickly find the kind of mystery books you enjoy reading. Authors on the other hand need a good knowledge of mystery fiction sub-genres to properly classify and effectively market their books.