James Bailey's Blog, page 5
March 20, 2019
Take my book--please! (a.k.a., the review conundrum)
There's a distinct Catch-22 when it comes to promoting a new book. You need reviews in order to run most promotions, but you can't get reviews if you haven't promoted the book. This leads many desperate authors to harangue their family and friends into reviewing their latest release, and some unscrupulous ones into buying reviews, a practice that Amazon has banned, though it's practically impossible to stamp out.
For those who want to play it straight, the options are limited. It would be great to have a big enough mailing list to shoot an email to your followers and simply offer review copies to anyone willing to write an honest review. At the pace I'm building mine, I might get there by 2050. (This is the part where I include a link so you can join my mailing list. Please.) Failing that, you're left to try some of the sites that offer ARCs (Advance Review Copes) to willing readers. The largest of these is probably NetGalley, though there's another called Hidden Gems that may rival or exceed it.
I only recently learned of Hidden Gems, and while I'd love to try giving away review copies there, they're booked through December, so I'd need a time machine in order to set something up. NetGalley is easier to get into, at least if you use the side entrance. For an independent author like myself, the way in is through a co-op, which buys up ARC slots in bulk and resells them to individual authors. This actually puts indie authors on even footing with big publishing houses, because reviewers who use NetGalley will see your book listed among the big press titles. I had good success with NetGalley when I released Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed back in 2015. It was reviewed by a number of book bloggers, who had at least enough of a following that their reviews reached people I couldn't myself.
Unfortunately, I had less success with The First World Problems of Jason Van Otterloo when I tried NetGalley last October. I got two reviews on Amazon and a couple more on Goodreads. And that was it. Boo.
There have been no new reviews over the past two months. I'm stuck in limbo. Most of the decent promo sites require either more reviews or a higher average rating. BookSends asks for a minimum of 5 reviews, with a "high overall average." Is 3.5 a high overall average? Maybe, but I'd like it to be at least a 4 before I feel comfortable submitting it. (Thanks again for that 1-star review, buddy!) The Fussy Librarian wants at least 10 reviews, with a minimum average of 4.0. Book Gorilla sets their threshold at 4 stars and 5 reviews. EReader News Today doesn't specify a minium number of reviews, but it's competitive to get in there and I'd be more confident with a higher number of reviews and better sales ranking.
In the past couple of weeks I've been hunting for more sites that offer ARCs to interested reviewers. While I'm willing to pay, the two most attractive I found were free. I submitted to BookSprout a week and a half ago, and have had one request thus far. I tried Library Thing yesterday and have had one copy claimed. Note that someone claiming a copy does not necessarily equal a review. They must also read it and take the time to write something and post it. The ratio of books claimed to reviews written is probably 1 in 3 or 1 in 4. Maybe lower.
So here I sit, waiting to achieve the critical mass necessary to clear the minimum thresholds on the various promo sites. And now that the next book in the series, Dispatches from a Tourist Trap, is nearly ready to go, I really need to get the first one off the ground, because who's going to buy Book 2 when they haven't read Book 1? Oh, the dilemmas of an author. Jason isn't the only one facing first world problems.
How about you, dear reader of this blog? Have you read The First World Problems of Jason Van Otterloo yet? Fancy a free copy in exchange for an honest, thoughtful review? If you're interested, shoot me an email to jamesbailey@rochester.rr.com, and I'll send you a link to a site called Book Funnel, where you can download the book in any format you desire. (If you're not familiar with it, I'll refer you to the Amazon page, where you can see what it's all about, and read the other reviews that have already been posted.
For those who want to play it straight, the options are limited. It would be great to have a big enough mailing list to shoot an email to your followers and simply offer review copies to anyone willing to write an honest review. At the pace I'm building mine, I might get there by 2050. (This is the part where I include a link so you can join my mailing list. Please.) Failing that, you're left to try some of the sites that offer ARCs (Advance Review Copes) to willing readers. The largest of these is probably NetGalley, though there's another called Hidden Gems that may rival or exceed it.
I only recently learned of Hidden Gems, and while I'd love to try giving away review copies there, they're booked through December, so I'd need a time machine in order to set something up. NetGalley is easier to get into, at least if you use the side entrance. For an independent author like myself, the way in is through a co-op, which buys up ARC slots in bulk and resells them to individual authors. This actually puts indie authors on even footing with big publishing houses, because reviewers who use NetGalley will see your book listed among the big press titles. I had good success with NetGalley when I released Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed back in 2015. It was reviewed by a number of book bloggers, who had at least enough of a following that their reviews reached people I couldn't myself.
Unfortunately, I had less success with The First World Problems of Jason Van Otterloo when I tried NetGalley last October. I got two reviews on Amazon and a couple more on Goodreads. And that was it. Boo.
There have been no new reviews over the past two months. I'm stuck in limbo. Most of the decent promo sites require either more reviews or a higher average rating. BookSends asks for a minimum of 5 reviews, with a "high overall average." Is 3.5 a high overall average? Maybe, but I'd like it to be at least a 4 before I feel comfortable submitting it. (Thanks again for that 1-star review, buddy!) The Fussy Librarian wants at least 10 reviews, with a minimum average of 4.0. Book Gorilla sets their threshold at 4 stars and 5 reviews. EReader News Today doesn't specify a minium number of reviews, but it's competitive to get in there and I'd be more confident with a higher number of reviews and better sales ranking.
In the past couple of weeks I've been hunting for more sites that offer ARCs to interested reviewers. While I'm willing to pay, the two most attractive I found were free. I submitted to BookSprout a week and a half ago, and have had one request thus far. I tried Library Thing yesterday and have had one copy claimed. Note that someone claiming a copy does not necessarily equal a review. They must also read it and take the time to write something and post it. The ratio of books claimed to reviews written is probably 1 in 3 or 1 in 4. Maybe lower.
So here I sit, waiting to achieve the critical mass necessary to clear the minimum thresholds on the various promo sites. And now that the next book in the series, Dispatches from a Tourist Trap, is nearly ready to go, I really need to get the first one off the ground, because who's going to buy Book 2 when they haven't read Book 1? Oh, the dilemmas of an author. Jason isn't the only one facing first world problems.
How about you, dear reader of this blog? Have you read The First World Problems of Jason Van Otterloo yet? Fancy a free copy in exchange for an honest, thoughtful review? If you're interested, shoot me an email to jamesbailey@rochester.rr.com, and I'll send you a link to a site called Book Funnel, where you can download the book in any format you desire. (If you're not familiar with it, I'll refer you to the Amazon page, where you can see what it's all about, and read the other reviews that have already been posted.
March 1, 2019
Print is undead, long live print!
When I first saw the notices last summer that Amazon's CreateSpace publishing arm for print books was going away and I needed to migrate my titles to KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) Print, I did what I often do when bombarded with unwelcome information: I ignored it.
The notifications kept coming, however. Every time I logged into CreateSpace to check my nonexistent sales, I was hammered with more messages. Move your books now! Eventually, I did click one of the links and made a half-hearted attempt to migrate one of the three titles I had published through CreateSpace. But the options I saw on the screen didn't match what Amazon said I should be seeing and I literally couldn't submit the changes. So I gave up.
After procrastinating a little longer, I tried again, ran into the same roadblock, and ignored the entire thing again, as if it might somehow go away. No surprise, it didn't. Finally, I contacted the KDP Help with my question, was told how to get past the obstacle I had encountered, and ... well, it wasn't so hard in the end. By Halloween I had moved all three of my books.
I'll chalk up my reluctance to bother with the entire migration ordeal to my pathetic print sales. Over the first 10 months of 2018, I had shifted a grand total of six print copies of my three books. Combined. That came after a whopping eight units were moved in 2017. To say print sales were a sore subject would be an understatement. While my Kindle sales were nothing to brag about, the futility of print was downright laughable. So why bother, right?
And then 2019 rang in, and things got even more hopeful. In January I moved eight print books. Zoo-Wee Mama! Hot stuff. At least it was until February. How about nine sales? Make that nine each of The Greatest Show on Dirt and Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed . Yes, a total of 18 print units in the shortest month of the year.
And to put this in even more perspective, I had sold a colossal seven print copies of Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed from the time I launched it in May 2015 through the end of 2018. That's an average of two per year for you calculus wizards in the back.
My newfound print success coincided with my improved click-ad performance on Amazon. So it wasn't like readers just spontaneously started buying paperbacks unprompted. But given the prompt (keyword ads), they were responding. And while my ads in the past were never as effective as they've been the past 3-4 months, there were times I had moderate success with them, particularly for Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed. It's just that back then almost all of the positive results were ebook sales.
My takeaway from all of this is that the demise of CreateSpace has been a very positive thing. Publishing both print and ebook formats through KDP has eliminated a barrier that seems like it shouldn't have existed but apparently did. (Based on nothing more than the anecdotal evidence of my own sales, which I'll acknowledge doesn't hold much scientific clout.)
The notifications kept coming, however. Every time I logged into CreateSpace to check my nonexistent sales, I was hammered with more messages. Move your books now! Eventually, I did click one of the links and made a half-hearted attempt to migrate one of the three titles I had published through CreateSpace. But the options I saw on the screen didn't match what Amazon said I should be seeing and I literally couldn't submit the changes. So I gave up.
After procrastinating a little longer, I tried again, ran into the same roadblock, and ignored the entire thing again, as if it might somehow go away. No surprise, it didn't. Finally, I contacted the KDP Help with my question, was told how to get past the obstacle I had encountered, and ... well, it wasn't so hard in the end. By Halloween I had moved all three of my books.
I'll chalk up my reluctance to bother with the entire migration ordeal to my pathetic print sales. Over the first 10 months of 2018, I had shifted a grand total of six print copies of my three books. Combined. That came after a whopping eight units were moved in 2017. To say print sales were a sore subject would be an understatement. While my Kindle sales were nothing to brag about, the futility of print was downright laughable. So why bother, right?
And then 2019 rang in, and things got even more hopeful. In January I moved eight print books. Zoo-Wee Mama! Hot stuff. At least it was until February. How about nine sales? Make that nine each of The Greatest Show on Dirt and Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed . Yes, a total of 18 print units in the shortest month of the year.
And to put this in even more perspective, I had sold a colossal seven print copies of Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed from the time I launched it in May 2015 through the end of 2018. That's an average of two per year for you calculus wizards in the back.
My newfound print success coincided with my improved click-ad performance on Amazon. So it wasn't like readers just spontaneously started buying paperbacks unprompted. But given the prompt (keyword ads), they were responding. And while my ads in the past were never as effective as they've been the past 3-4 months, there were times I had moderate success with them, particularly for Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed. It's just that back then almost all of the positive results were ebook sales.
My takeaway from all of this is that the demise of CreateSpace has been a very positive thing. Publishing both print and ebook formats through KDP has eliminated a barrier that seems like it shouldn't have existed but apparently did. (Based on nothing more than the anecdotal evidence of my own sales, which I'll acknowledge doesn't hold much scientific clout.)
February 22, 2019
Moving the Also Bought needle
I'm not giving away any secrets if I tell you I've become obsessed with my Also Boughts on Amazon, and in particular how my ads can influence them. My last post, earlier this month, was an in-depth breakdown of all 97 books linked from my third novel, Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed, in its Also Boughts. At that point, the books linked to were still almost exclusively--well, there's no polite way to put it--shit.
They were showing the scantest glimpses of life. But for the most part the books that were being linked to had no logical ties to my novel. There were cookbooks, romances, psychological thrillers, and World War II sagas, particularly of the "escape from the Nazis" variety. And I don't mean to cast aspersions on any of these (other than the cookbooks, which appeared to be a little on the sleazy/scammy side), but none of those fall within the sweet spot for my book.
Fast forward two weeks and change and ... things are moving in the right direction. My sales have been consistent in February. Not spectacular, but nothing like the anemic totals I saw the last two years or so. The Amazon keyword ads I'm running definitely work. I've learned and tinkered and learned and tinkered, and I've finally hit upon a formula that is cost effective. My ads no longer run at a loss. And that's huge.
And tonight, when I checked my Also Boughts, I saw reason for optimism. Okay, most of them are still shit. But some of them are falling in that sweet spot. Of the 97 books being targeted by the Also Boughts on Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed, I see 7 that target books that I would hand pick if I could. Three weeks ago, this was zero. As in 0. As in none. As in what's the point?
And now my Also Boughts are reaching out to seven books that I want to be linked with. Three of them link back to my book from their Also Boughts. Okay, I'm not there yet, but it's a definite step in the right direction.
And it's enough to convince me that this is worth the time and money I'm investing. I would bet $5 that two weeks from now my Also Boughts will look even better, with more of them reaching back to me. And that's the ultimate goal, right?
My lesson(s): Amazon ads do work. If you get them right. If you keep tinkering with keywords until you weed out the underperforming ones, you can more than break even on them. And plant seeds for Amazon's Also Boughts to take on the heavy lifting for you. Don't give up. I gave up last year and my sales tanked. I wish I could travel back 12 months ago and apply the lessons I've learned over the past few weeks. But I don't have a DeLorean or a hot tub and I'm stuck in 2019. So I'll tinker and tinker and sit back and see what happens. And maybe pop a cork when I get it all right.
They were showing the scantest glimpses of life. But for the most part the books that were being linked to had no logical ties to my novel. There were cookbooks, romances, psychological thrillers, and World War II sagas, particularly of the "escape from the Nazis" variety. And I don't mean to cast aspersions on any of these (other than the cookbooks, which appeared to be a little on the sleazy/scammy side), but none of those fall within the sweet spot for my book.
Fast forward two weeks and change and ... things are moving in the right direction. My sales have been consistent in February. Not spectacular, but nothing like the anemic totals I saw the last two years or so. The Amazon keyword ads I'm running definitely work. I've learned and tinkered and learned and tinkered, and I've finally hit upon a formula that is cost effective. My ads no longer run at a loss. And that's huge.
And tonight, when I checked my Also Boughts, I saw reason for optimism. Okay, most of them are still shit. But some of them are falling in that sweet spot. Of the 97 books being targeted by the Also Boughts on Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed, I see 7 that target books that I would hand pick if I could. Three weeks ago, this was zero. As in 0. As in none. As in what's the point?
And now my Also Boughts are reaching out to seven books that I want to be linked with. Three of them link back to my book from their Also Boughts. Okay, I'm not there yet, but it's a definite step in the right direction.
And it's enough to convince me that this is worth the time and money I'm investing. I would bet $5 that two weeks from now my Also Boughts will look even better, with more of them reaching back to me. And that's the ultimate goal, right?
My lesson(s): Amazon ads do work. If you get them right. If you keep tinkering with keywords until you weed out the underperforming ones, you can more than break even on them. And plant seeds for Amazon's Also Boughts to take on the heavy lifting for you. Don't give up. I gave up last year and my sales tanked. I wish I could travel back 12 months ago and apply the lessons I've learned over the past few weeks. But I don't have a DeLorean or a hot tub and I'm stuck in 2019. So I'll tinker and tinker and sit back and see what happens. And maybe pop a cork when I get it all right.
February 8, 2019
Has Kindle Unlimited cooked my Also Boughts?
I've become obsessed with Amazon's Also Boughts, mostly because the ones appearing for
Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed
have been so random/nonsensical recently. I posted about this last month, when the first three books appearing were cookbooks. At that time, none of the Also Boughts that I clicked on linked back to my book. Not good, right? I mean, the point of the Also Boughts is, "Hey, you there, shopping for books, if you like this book, you might want to check out this other, somewhat similar, book." But if these relationships are a) broken, and b) only flow in one direction, there goes one of the most valuable discovery tools in book-selling.
I strongly suspect I'm paying the price for not being more active about marketing my books last year. I was seeing less and less return on the pay-per-click ads I had up on Amazon, so I gave up on them early in 2018 and figured I'd wait until I was ready to release The First World Problems of Jason Van Otterloo in the fall before investing any more. More books = more bang for the buck, at least in theory. If a reader clicks an ad and buys a book and enjoys it, maybe they'll seek out another of an author's titles.
So I waited it out as my sales shriveled, with as much as 50 percent of my Amazon revenue coming through KDP Select, the program where Kindle Unlimited subscribers can download your book for free, and you get paid for the number of pages they read. And even that wasn't anywhere near what it was a couple of years ago. It was so lame, in fact, I decided to drop out of KDP Select in the fall. I removed my first three books by November, and never enlisted First World Problems.
And now that I'm digging into these Also Boughts, I'm even more convinced leaving KDP Select was the right move. Because I suspect most of these shitty Also Boughts that have nothing whatsoever to do with my novel came about because of indiscriminate Kindle Unlimited subscribers.
Or unscrupulous ones, in the case of the cookbooks, which look phony as hell the closer I look at them. KDP Select has a serious issue with scammers, uploading crap just to earn a quick buck. You tell me, is a book called Mediterranean Diet Cookbook: With Over 100 Best Healthy Food Recipes, Meal Plan to Lose Weight likely to be well written? The title sounds like it was poorly translated from Maltese. Here's a review someone left:
"While this book overall has some good ideas and is informative, there are so many errors and omissions in the recipes that most are useless! If this writing was edited, perhaps they had too many aperitifs before working on this. Very amateurish."
Red-flag scam alert!
One of the other cookbooks is called Fruit Pies: Practical Guide to Homemade Baking. Several reviews are critical of recipes that call for store-bought crusts and canned fruit filling. Sounds less than legit.
So this is the company my book is keeping in Also Bought land. Well, they're not all that bad, but even most of the legit books don't seem like they would share much of an audience with mine. Lots of romances and books about the Holocaust. (Not Holocaust romances, mind, but two very distinct sets of books.) In tabbing through the books listed almost every day, I did eventually notice some changes for the better. Jonathan Tropper's One Last Thing Before I Go showed up a week or so ago. A Camille Pagan book popped in briefly. And this week, one of my own books, Nine Bucks a Pound, appeared. Yay. I mean, ideally, you want your own books all to be there so readers can easily find them, especially if they don't know you've written others.
Wednesday afternoon I went through every book appearing as an Also Bought for Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed. All 97 of them. I clicked on each link and scrolled through its Also Boughts, checking to see if they linked back to my book. Out of 97, only two did, and one of those was my book. The only book that wasn't written by me that linked back was The Drift of Things, by Ben Schwartz. I had never heard of this book, but based on the blurb and the Look Inside, I could tell this was a legit match. It's about a guy in his 30s who returns to his hometown for his mother's funeral and has to deal with crap from his past. Mine is about a guy in his 30s who returns to his hometown for his father's funeral and has to deal with crap from his past. So, yeah, you could see there might be some crossover readership. (And I enjoyed the part I read enough to buy The Drift of Things, so the Also Bought link just got a tiny bit stronger.)
Over the past couple of months, I've been running Sponsored Product ads on Amazon. These allow you to target specific authors or books that are similar, at least in audience, to yours. When a shopper searches for an author or book that you've targeted, your book will appear in the "Sponsored products related to this item" section, which appears right below the Also Boughts. I've had decent luck with a handful of author names, where users search on them, see my ad, click and buy. This is great for two reasons. 1) It's a sale, yay. 2) It's building relationships, in theory, with books that I actually want to show up in my book's Also Boughts. And in time, hopefully there will be enough sales for a link back to appear in the related book's Also Boughts.
This is the ultimate goal. Also Boughts are like free ads, only more powerful. Much more powerful. For starters, they come above the ads. And then, obviously, anyone who understands the difference would likely give more credence to the Also Boughts.
I think I have things moving in the right direction, but this is like turning a battleship and it's likely to take time before all the crap links disappear from my Also Boughts. And this is assuming that my theory of why they showed up there in the first place is correct. I wish I understood better exactly how Amazon makes these associations, how many common purchasers it takes to form an Also Bought, whether free Kindle Unlimited downloads count as strongly as a full-price purchase, and if Amazon weighs them any differently depending upon whether the KU subscriber actually read the book or merely downloaded it.
But I'm learning. Better late than never.
In case anyone is interested, and for the sake of logging all this somewhere I can find it again myself, below are the Also Boughts that were appearing for Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed as of Wednesday, February 6. The KU column indicates whether the book was enrolled in Kindle Unlimited as of Wednesday. Fifty-three of the 97 were, though note that books that were not in KU then could possibly have previously been, as mine was.
BookAuthorPositionPriceKULinks Back?Mediterranean Diet CookbookInna Volia1$2.99 YesNoFruit Pies: Practical Guide to Homemade BakingMelissa Teigen2$0.99 YesNoThe MaddeningAndrew Neiderman3$6.00 NoNoAir Fryer CookbookInna Volia4$2.99 YesNoPrayers and Lies: A NovelSherri Wood Emmons5$9.00 NoNoDon't Look Back: A haunting mystery perfect for the long, dark nights Ben Cheetham6$0.99 YesNoA Dog’s Luck: A Love Story and a Family Saga IntertwinedLiora Barash Morgenstern7$3.99 YesNoGone Hollywood: A Romantic ComedySally Mason8$3.99 YesNoMary Lincoln: Biography of a MarriageRuth Painter Randall9$0.99 NoNoThe Couple on Cedar CloseAnna-Lou Weatherley10$2.99 NoNoThe Distance Between Us: A NovelNoah Bly11$4.20 NoNoI'm Not From Around Here: A Jewish Boy …Ishai Klinowsky12$2.99 YesNoNine Bucks a PoundJames Bailey13$3.99 NoYesThe Third Hill North of TownNoah Bly14$1.99 NoNoTilting: A MemoirNicole Harkin15$3.99 YesNoThe War of the WorldsH.G. Wells16$0.99 NoNoMan DownRoger Smith17$5.99 YesNoTwo Princes and a QueenShmuel David18$3.99 YesNoBest Served Frozen (The Derry Women Series Book 4)Gerald Hansen19$4.99 YesNoThe Greatest Gift: Contemporary Romance NovelJeremy Asher20$3.99 YesNoAmerican Journey: The First Three NovelsJohn A. Heldt21$6.99 YesNoAngels: A Paranormal Boxed SetAddison Moore22$7.99 NoNoThe Drift of ThingsBen Schwartz23$4.99 YesYesThe Annie Szabo Mystery Series Vol 1-2Meredith Blevins24$7.99 YesNoRethinking Possible: A Memoir of ResilienceRebecca Faye Smith Galli25$0.55 NoNoThe Gospel of Galileo GalileiAugustina Comte26$3.99 NoNoSaving Babe RuthTom Swyers27$4.99 YesNoSwans Are Fat TooMichelle Granas28$0.99 YesNoThe Haunting in Barry's Lodge: A Gripping Supernatural SuspenseAnnie Walters29$0.99 NoNoI Love You My Child, I'm Abandoning You: Holocaust book memoirsAriela Palacz30$3.99 YesNoLove For Sale (The Cost of Loving Series Book 2)Martin Humphries31$0.99 NoNoKilledJames Kipling32$5.99 YesNoWhat the Wind KnowsAmy Harmon33$4.99 NoNoStimKevin Berry34$3.99 YesNoStar-Spangled Manners: In Which Miss Manners Defends American EtiquetteJudith Martin35$10.49 NoNoThree Brothers Lodge - The Complete Series Box SetMorris Fenris36$9.99 YesNoMr. Love: A Romantic ComedySally Mason37$3.99 YesNoEmergency Exit (The Derry Women Series Book 8)Gerald Hansen38$4.99 YesNoThe Munich Girl: A Novel of the Legacies that Outlast WarPhyllis Edgerly Ring39$0.99 NoNoA Heart's Assurance (Bellingwood Book 21)Diane Greenwood Muir40$3.99 YesNoThe Medium: A Paranormal Adventure Novel Full of Supernatural EventsOri Koskas41$0.00 YesNoBeneath these Stars (Lucy Mitchell Book 2)Hannah Ellis42$4.99 YesNoSongs in Ordinary Time: A NovelMary McGarry Morris43$9.99 NoNoThe Risen: A NovelRon Rash44$10.99 NoNoDog Gone Lies (Pacheco & Chino Mysteries Book 1)Ted Clifton45$4.99 YesNoGood Crime: A Kat Makris Greek Mafia NovelAlex A. King46$3.99 YesNoKillerJames Kipling47$0.00 YesNoMagical Cool Cats Mysteries Boxed Set Vol 1 (Books 1, 2 & 3 & A Christmas Feral)Mary Matthews48$1.20 YesNoThe Odds of Loving Grover ClevelandRebekah Crane49$0.99 YesNoReal Life & LiarsKristina Riggle50$7.99 NoNoEscape to Osprey Cove: Book 1 of The Osprey Cove Lodge SeriesLuisa Marietta Gold51$2.99 YesNoMommie Dearest 40th Anniversary EditionChristina Crawford52$1.99 NoNoThe Year THEY Tried to Kill MeSalvatore Iaquinta53$2.99 NoNoMy Father's Kingdom: A Novel of Puritan New EnglandJames W. George54$2.99 YesNoWhite Jaguar: An Inspector Marco Nayal Crime Detective ThrillerPreben Ormen55$3.99 YesNoThe Self-Care Project: How to let go of frazzle and make time for you Jayne Hardy56$0.99 NoNoTexas Troubles (An Ollie Stratford Cozy Mystery Book 1)N.C. Lewis57$2.99 YesNoStepmother: A MemoirMarianne Lile58$5.56 NoNoI Only Wanted to Live: The Struggle of a Boy to Survive the HolocaustArie Tamir59$3.99 YesNoA Drop in the Ocean: A NovelJenni Ogden60$3.35 NoNoRound the Corner (Sister Circle Series Book 2)Nancy Moser61$3.99 YesNoOne Last Thing Before I Go: A NovelJonathan Tropper62$8.99 NoNoThe Four Gifts of AnxietySherianna Boyle63$12.99 YesNoCan You See Us Now?Cheryl Benton64$4.99 YesNoShoot to KillJames Kipling65$5.99 YesNoVeronica's Grave: A Daughter's MemoirBarbara Bracht Donsky66$5.56 NoNo1123 Hard To Believe Facts: From the Creator of the Popular TriviaNayden Kostov67$4.99 YesNoIllegal: A True Story of Love, Revolution and Crossing BordersJohn Dennehy68$2.99 YesNoSaving NoahLucinda Berry69$4.99 YesNoA Dark and Bloody Ground: A True Story of Lust, Greed, and MurderDarcy O'Brien70$1.99 NoNoMagnolia Gods (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 2)Thomas Hollyday71$2.99 YesNoSkip Langdon Vol. 1-9: (The Skip Langdon Series)Julie Smith72$9.99 YesNoBrought To Our Senses: A Family Saga NovelKathleen H. Wheeler73$7.49 NoNoThe Essay: A NovelRobin Yocum74$10.99 NoNoFragments of Isabella: A Memoir of AuschwitzIsabella Leitner75$6.00 NoNoThe Road to BittersweetDonna Everhart76$9.99 NoNo223 Orchard StreetRenee Ryan77$4.99 YesNoFleeing The Jurisdiction (The Derry Women Series Book 3)Gerald Hansen78$4.99 YesNoGold (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 4)Thomas Hollyday79$2.99 YesNoThose Children Are Ours (Jennie Bateman's Story Book 1)David Burnett80$2.99 YesNoFamily Ghouls (A Greek Ghouls Mystery Book 1)Alex A. King81$0.00 NoNoRiding Standing Up: A MemoirSparrow Spaulding82$4.99 NoNoSouthern Magic (Sweet Tea Witch Mysteries Book 1)Amy Boyles83$0.99 YesNoWhile My Sister SleepsBarbara Delinsky84$5.99 NoNoSleeping ArrangementsLaura Shaine Cunningham85$2.99 YesNoBreaking Out of Bedlam: A NovelLeslie Larson86$10.99 NoNoThe Grass Harp (Vintage International)Truman Capote87$5.99 NoNoHarvesting the Heart: A NovelJodi Picoult88$12.99 NoNoFace Of Our FatherG. Egore Pitir89$2.99 NoNoThe Vanished Child: A Jayne Sinclair Genealogical MysteryM J Lee90$4.99 YesNoRent A Husband: a Romantic ComedySally Mason91$4.99 YesNoThe Group: A NovelMary McCarthy92$10.20 NoNoBread Toast Crumbs: Recipes for No-Knead Loaves & Meals to Savor Every SliceAlexandra Stafford93$15.99 NoNoThe Night Child: A NovelAnna Quinn94$0.99 NoNoRemedy House (Home Sweet Home Book 3)Ruth Hay95$3.99 NoNoUp the Down StaircaseBel Kaufman96$1.99 NoNoIn a Different Key: The Story of AutismJohn Donvan97$14.99 NoNo
I strongly suspect I'm paying the price for not being more active about marketing my books last year. I was seeing less and less return on the pay-per-click ads I had up on Amazon, so I gave up on them early in 2018 and figured I'd wait until I was ready to release The First World Problems of Jason Van Otterloo in the fall before investing any more. More books = more bang for the buck, at least in theory. If a reader clicks an ad and buys a book and enjoys it, maybe they'll seek out another of an author's titles.
So I waited it out as my sales shriveled, with as much as 50 percent of my Amazon revenue coming through KDP Select, the program where Kindle Unlimited subscribers can download your book for free, and you get paid for the number of pages they read. And even that wasn't anywhere near what it was a couple of years ago. It was so lame, in fact, I decided to drop out of KDP Select in the fall. I removed my first three books by November, and never enlisted First World Problems.
And now that I'm digging into these Also Boughts, I'm even more convinced leaving KDP Select was the right move. Because I suspect most of these shitty Also Boughts that have nothing whatsoever to do with my novel came about because of indiscriminate Kindle Unlimited subscribers.
Or unscrupulous ones, in the case of the cookbooks, which look phony as hell the closer I look at them. KDP Select has a serious issue with scammers, uploading crap just to earn a quick buck. You tell me, is a book called Mediterranean Diet Cookbook: With Over 100 Best Healthy Food Recipes, Meal Plan to Lose Weight likely to be well written? The title sounds like it was poorly translated from Maltese. Here's a review someone left:
"While this book overall has some good ideas and is informative, there are so many errors and omissions in the recipes that most are useless! If this writing was edited, perhaps they had too many aperitifs before working on this. Very amateurish."
Red-flag scam alert!
One of the other cookbooks is called Fruit Pies: Practical Guide to Homemade Baking. Several reviews are critical of recipes that call for store-bought crusts and canned fruit filling. Sounds less than legit.
So this is the company my book is keeping in Also Bought land. Well, they're not all that bad, but even most of the legit books don't seem like they would share much of an audience with mine. Lots of romances and books about the Holocaust. (Not Holocaust romances, mind, but two very distinct sets of books.) In tabbing through the books listed almost every day, I did eventually notice some changes for the better. Jonathan Tropper's One Last Thing Before I Go showed up a week or so ago. A Camille Pagan book popped in briefly. And this week, one of my own books, Nine Bucks a Pound, appeared. Yay. I mean, ideally, you want your own books all to be there so readers can easily find them, especially if they don't know you've written others.
Wednesday afternoon I went through every book appearing as an Also Bought for Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed. All 97 of them. I clicked on each link and scrolled through its Also Boughts, checking to see if they linked back to my book. Out of 97, only two did, and one of those was my book. The only book that wasn't written by me that linked back was The Drift of Things, by Ben Schwartz. I had never heard of this book, but based on the blurb and the Look Inside, I could tell this was a legit match. It's about a guy in his 30s who returns to his hometown for his mother's funeral and has to deal with crap from his past. Mine is about a guy in his 30s who returns to his hometown for his father's funeral and has to deal with crap from his past. So, yeah, you could see there might be some crossover readership. (And I enjoyed the part I read enough to buy The Drift of Things, so the Also Bought link just got a tiny bit stronger.)
Over the past couple of months, I've been running Sponsored Product ads on Amazon. These allow you to target specific authors or books that are similar, at least in audience, to yours. When a shopper searches for an author or book that you've targeted, your book will appear in the "Sponsored products related to this item" section, which appears right below the Also Boughts. I've had decent luck with a handful of author names, where users search on them, see my ad, click and buy. This is great for two reasons. 1) It's a sale, yay. 2) It's building relationships, in theory, with books that I actually want to show up in my book's Also Boughts. And in time, hopefully there will be enough sales for a link back to appear in the related book's Also Boughts.
This is the ultimate goal. Also Boughts are like free ads, only more powerful. Much more powerful. For starters, they come above the ads. And then, obviously, anyone who understands the difference would likely give more credence to the Also Boughts.
I think I have things moving in the right direction, but this is like turning a battleship and it's likely to take time before all the crap links disappear from my Also Boughts. And this is assuming that my theory of why they showed up there in the first place is correct. I wish I understood better exactly how Amazon makes these associations, how many common purchasers it takes to form an Also Bought, whether free Kindle Unlimited downloads count as strongly as a full-price purchase, and if Amazon weighs them any differently depending upon whether the KU subscriber actually read the book or merely downloaded it.
But I'm learning. Better late than never.
In case anyone is interested, and for the sake of logging all this somewhere I can find it again myself, below are the Also Boughts that were appearing for Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed as of Wednesday, February 6. The KU column indicates whether the book was enrolled in Kindle Unlimited as of Wednesday. Fifty-three of the 97 were, though note that books that were not in KU then could possibly have previously been, as mine was.
BookAuthorPositionPriceKULinks Back?Mediterranean Diet CookbookInna Volia1$2.99 YesNoFruit Pies: Practical Guide to Homemade BakingMelissa Teigen2$0.99 YesNoThe MaddeningAndrew Neiderman3$6.00 NoNoAir Fryer CookbookInna Volia4$2.99 YesNoPrayers and Lies: A NovelSherri Wood Emmons5$9.00 NoNoDon't Look Back: A haunting mystery perfect for the long, dark nights Ben Cheetham6$0.99 YesNoA Dog’s Luck: A Love Story and a Family Saga IntertwinedLiora Barash Morgenstern7$3.99 YesNoGone Hollywood: A Romantic ComedySally Mason8$3.99 YesNoMary Lincoln: Biography of a MarriageRuth Painter Randall9$0.99 NoNoThe Couple on Cedar CloseAnna-Lou Weatherley10$2.99 NoNoThe Distance Between Us: A NovelNoah Bly11$4.20 NoNoI'm Not From Around Here: A Jewish Boy …Ishai Klinowsky12$2.99 YesNoNine Bucks a PoundJames Bailey13$3.99 NoYesThe Third Hill North of TownNoah Bly14$1.99 NoNoTilting: A MemoirNicole Harkin15$3.99 YesNoThe War of the WorldsH.G. Wells16$0.99 NoNoMan DownRoger Smith17$5.99 YesNoTwo Princes and a QueenShmuel David18$3.99 YesNoBest Served Frozen (The Derry Women Series Book 4)Gerald Hansen19$4.99 YesNoThe Greatest Gift: Contemporary Romance NovelJeremy Asher20$3.99 YesNoAmerican Journey: The First Three NovelsJohn A. Heldt21$6.99 YesNoAngels: A Paranormal Boxed SetAddison Moore22$7.99 NoNoThe Drift of ThingsBen Schwartz23$4.99 YesYesThe Annie Szabo Mystery Series Vol 1-2Meredith Blevins24$7.99 YesNoRethinking Possible: A Memoir of ResilienceRebecca Faye Smith Galli25$0.55 NoNoThe Gospel of Galileo GalileiAugustina Comte26$3.99 NoNoSaving Babe RuthTom Swyers27$4.99 YesNoSwans Are Fat TooMichelle Granas28$0.99 YesNoThe Haunting in Barry's Lodge: A Gripping Supernatural SuspenseAnnie Walters29$0.99 NoNoI Love You My Child, I'm Abandoning You: Holocaust book memoirsAriela Palacz30$3.99 YesNoLove For Sale (The Cost of Loving Series Book 2)Martin Humphries31$0.99 NoNoKilledJames Kipling32$5.99 YesNoWhat the Wind KnowsAmy Harmon33$4.99 NoNoStimKevin Berry34$3.99 YesNoStar-Spangled Manners: In Which Miss Manners Defends American EtiquetteJudith Martin35$10.49 NoNoThree Brothers Lodge - The Complete Series Box SetMorris Fenris36$9.99 YesNoMr. Love: A Romantic ComedySally Mason37$3.99 YesNoEmergency Exit (The Derry Women Series Book 8)Gerald Hansen38$4.99 YesNoThe Munich Girl: A Novel of the Legacies that Outlast WarPhyllis Edgerly Ring39$0.99 NoNoA Heart's Assurance (Bellingwood Book 21)Diane Greenwood Muir40$3.99 YesNoThe Medium: A Paranormal Adventure Novel Full of Supernatural EventsOri Koskas41$0.00 YesNoBeneath these Stars (Lucy Mitchell Book 2)Hannah Ellis42$4.99 YesNoSongs in Ordinary Time: A NovelMary McGarry Morris43$9.99 NoNoThe Risen: A NovelRon Rash44$10.99 NoNoDog Gone Lies (Pacheco & Chino Mysteries Book 1)Ted Clifton45$4.99 YesNoGood Crime: A Kat Makris Greek Mafia NovelAlex A. King46$3.99 YesNoKillerJames Kipling47$0.00 YesNoMagical Cool Cats Mysteries Boxed Set Vol 1 (Books 1, 2 & 3 & A Christmas Feral)Mary Matthews48$1.20 YesNoThe Odds of Loving Grover ClevelandRebekah Crane49$0.99 YesNoReal Life & LiarsKristina Riggle50$7.99 NoNoEscape to Osprey Cove: Book 1 of The Osprey Cove Lodge SeriesLuisa Marietta Gold51$2.99 YesNoMommie Dearest 40th Anniversary EditionChristina Crawford52$1.99 NoNoThe Year THEY Tried to Kill MeSalvatore Iaquinta53$2.99 NoNoMy Father's Kingdom: A Novel of Puritan New EnglandJames W. George54$2.99 YesNoWhite Jaguar: An Inspector Marco Nayal Crime Detective ThrillerPreben Ormen55$3.99 YesNoThe Self-Care Project: How to let go of frazzle and make time for you Jayne Hardy56$0.99 NoNoTexas Troubles (An Ollie Stratford Cozy Mystery Book 1)N.C. Lewis57$2.99 YesNoStepmother: A MemoirMarianne Lile58$5.56 NoNoI Only Wanted to Live: The Struggle of a Boy to Survive the HolocaustArie Tamir59$3.99 YesNoA Drop in the Ocean: A NovelJenni Ogden60$3.35 NoNoRound the Corner (Sister Circle Series Book 2)Nancy Moser61$3.99 YesNoOne Last Thing Before I Go: A NovelJonathan Tropper62$8.99 NoNoThe Four Gifts of AnxietySherianna Boyle63$12.99 YesNoCan You See Us Now?Cheryl Benton64$4.99 YesNoShoot to KillJames Kipling65$5.99 YesNoVeronica's Grave: A Daughter's MemoirBarbara Bracht Donsky66$5.56 NoNo1123 Hard To Believe Facts: From the Creator of the Popular TriviaNayden Kostov67$4.99 YesNoIllegal: A True Story of Love, Revolution and Crossing BordersJohn Dennehy68$2.99 YesNoSaving NoahLucinda Berry69$4.99 YesNoA Dark and Bloody Ground: A True Story of Lust, Greed, and MurderDarcy O'Brien70$1.99 NoNoMagnolia Gods (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 2)Thomas Hollyday71$2.99 YesNoSkip Langdon Vol. 1-9: (The Skip Langdon Series)Julie Smith72$9.99 YesNoBrought To Our Senses: A Family Saga NovelKathleen H. Wheeler73$7.49 NoNoThe Essay: A NovelRobin Yocum74$10.99 NoNoFragments of Isabella: A Memoir of AuschwitzIsabella Leitner75$6.00 NoNoThe Road to BittersweetDonna Everhart76$9.99 NoNo223 Orchard StreetRenee Ryan77$4.99 YesNoFleeing The Jurisdiction (The Derry Women Series Book 3)Gerald Hansen78$4.99 YesNoGold (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 4)Thomas Hollyday79$2.99 YesNoThose Children Are Ours (Jennie Bateman's Story Book 1)David Burnett80$2.99 YesNoFamily Ghouls (A Greek Ghouls Mystery Book 1)Alex A. King81$0.00 NoNoRiding Standing Up: A MemoirSparrow Spaulding82$4.99 NoNoSouthern Magic (Sweet Tea Witch Mysteries Book 1)Amy Boyles83$0.99 YesNoWhile My Sister SleepsBarbara Delinsky84$5.99 NoNoSleeping ArrangementsLaura Shaine Cunningham85$2.99 YesNoBreaking Out of Bedlam: A NovelLeslie Larson86$10.99 NoNoThe Grass Harp (Vintage International)Truman Capote87$5.99 NoNoHarvesting the Heart: A NovelJodi Picoult88$12.99 NoNoFace Of Our FatherG. Egore Pitir89$2.99 NoNoThe Vanished Child: A Jayne Sinclair Genealogical MysteryM J Lee90$4.99 YesNoRent A Husband: a Romantic ComedySally Mason91$4.99 YesNoThe Group: A NovelMary McCarthy92$10.20 NoNoBread Toast Crumbs: Recipes for No-Knead Loaves & Meals to Savor Every SliceAlexandra Stafford93$15.99 NoNoThe Night Child: A NovelAnna Quinn94$0.99 NoNoRemedy House (Home Sweet Home Book 3)Ruth Hay95$3.99 NoNoUp the Down StaircaseBel Kaufman96$1.99 NoNoIn a Different Key: The Story of AutismJohn Donvan97$14.99 NoNo
January 22, 2019
Barnes & Noble's new ad portal too rich for my book
Ever since I opted back out of KDP Select on Amazon last November, I've been searching--fruitlessly--for ways to kick-start my sales on other platforms. I've had sales here and there in the past on other retailers, in between my KDP Select stints (which require exclusivity to Amazon for ebook sales). Barnes & Noble's site is one I've had a trickle of purchases in years past, but since making my books available for the Nook this past fall, the royalties there have added up to a nice, round number.
The roundest.
Yes, zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
So when I saw Barnes & Noble was offering a new advertising option, I was intrigued. I have had some success with Amazon's pay-per-click ads, particularly for my third novel, Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed. If B&N was going to offer something similar, at perhaps a slightly lower price point, considering the relative unit-shifting potential compared to Amazon, well, that might be just what I needed.
Um ... not quite.
If readers clicked on the ads every time, B&N's charging strategy would be great for authors. But most users skip right by them. They might not even notice them. (Quick: Name all the sponsored books that appeared the last time you visited a page on Amazon or B&N.)
I've been playing around with Amazon's Sponsored Product ads since early November. I've created ad campaigns for all four of my books, three of which are still running. In that time, my ads have been displayed 280,472 times, as of this afternoon. My click-through rate (CTR) is 0.18%. It's been better for the campaigns I've done for Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed than for the others. I've done three campaigns for Sorry, with increasingly stronger CTR. It's climbed from 0.31% to 0.69% to 0.92% as I've refined the key words and nudged up my bids.
On Amazon, you bid for relevant keywords, which can be phrases or names of authors in your genre or even titles of books in your genre. The theory being, if readers search for author Stan Smith, and your book is similar to Stan Smith's, readers might see your book and decide to buy it. The more precisely you can target, the more likely you are to reach interested, willing buyers.
But even still, with my absolute best campaign, more than 99 percent of readers didn't bother to click on my ad.
To be fair to Barnes & Noble, their FAQ indicates their ads will appear on their category pages. So if a buyer is browsing the Crime Thrillers page, and your book is a Crime Thriller, your ad could appear at the bottom of the page, along with a handful of others. It's possible this may result in a higher CTR.
I'd love to test it out. But I won't.
The reason I won't even give it a try is B&N's lowest price point is $300. So the $12/1,000 impressions they tout is the breakdown on their bottom-tier package of 25,000 impressions for $300. (They go up to 1 million impressions for $7,000, if you want to go all-in.) There is no guarantee anyone will click on your ads or buy your book. Using my most successful campaign as a baseline, let's imagine I got a CTR of 0.92% on 25,000 impressions. That would mean 230 clicks. And if every click resulted in a sale, that would be an incredible bargain for advertising. If you assume a 70 percent royalty and price your book at $3.99 as I do, that would mean $632.50, or $332.50 clear after the $300 charge for the ads. A higher per-unit price could net even more of a windfall.
Unfortunately, not everyone who clicks buys. From my Amazon stats again, out of the 280,472 impressions my ads have received, they've been clicked on 494 times. From those 494 clicks, I've had 30 orders. (I've temporarily abandoned ads for the worst performing book, which sadly is my newest release. I will try again when it has more reviews, as I do think this makes a difference to potential buyers.) That breaks down to just over 6 percent of clicks resulting in a sale.
If we aim high and just go with the best performing book, Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed, the numbers are 178 clicks (combined, over three campaigns) and 21 sales, for a purchase rate of 11.79%. If we use that rate on the theoretical 230 clicks we'd get off 25,000 impressions, that nets us 27 sales. And 27 sales of a $3.99 ebook would result in $74.25 in royalties. For a net loss on a $300 ad expenditure of $225.75.
So while I'd love to experiment with B&N's new ad program, just to see how it compares, I can't.
Unless it significantly outperforms my BEST campaign on Amazon (by at least 4x), I would lose money, and likely a lot of it. If they were to, say, offer a mini-package in the neighborhood of $50, maybe I could swing it, in the name of science, to see what happened. As it stands now, I can't go there.
The roundest.
Yes, zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
So when I saw Barnes & Noble was offering a new advertising option, I was intrigued. I have had some success with Amazon's pay-per-click ads, particularly for my third novel, Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed. If B&N was going to offer something similar, at perhaps a slightly lower price point, considering the relative unit-shifting potential compared to Amazon, well, that might be just what I needed.
Um ... not quite.
If readers clicked on the ads every time, B&N's charging strategy would be great for authors. But most users skip right by them. They might not even notice them. (Quick: Name all the sponsored books that appeared the last time you visited a page on Amazon or B&N.)
I've been playing around with Amazon's Sponsored Product ads since early November. I've created ad campaigns for all four of my books, three of which are still running. In that time, my ads have been displayed 280,472 times, as of this afternoon. My click-through rate (CTR) is 0.18%. It's been better for the campaigns I've done for Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed than for the others. I've done three campaigns for Sorry, with increasingly stronger CTR. It's climbed from 0.31% to 0.69% to 0.92% as I've refined the key words and nudged up my bids.
On Amazon, you bid for relevant keywords, which can be phrases or names of authors in your genre or even titles of books in your genre. The theory being, if readers search for author Stan Smith, and your book is similar to Stan Smith's, readers might see your book and decide to buy it. The more precisely you can target, the more likely you are to reach interested, willing buyers.
But even still, with my absolute best campaign, more than 99 percent of readers didn't bother to click on my ad.
To be fair to Barnes & Noble, their FAQ indicates their ads will appear on their category pages. So if a buyer is browsing the Crime Thrillers page, and your book is a Crime Thriller, your ad could appear at the bottom of the page, along with a handful of others. It's possible this may result in a higher CTR.
I'd love to test it out. But I won't.
The reason I won't even give it a try is B&N's lowest price point is $300. So the $12/1,000 impressions they tout is the breakdown on their bottom-tier package of 25,000 impressions for $300. (They go up to 1 million impressions for $7,000, if you want to go all-in.) There is no guarantee anyone will click on your ads or buy your book. Using my most successful campaign as a baseline, let's imagine I got a CTR of 0.92% on 25,000 impressions. That would mean 230 clicks. And if every click resulted in a sale, that would be an incredible bargain for advertising. If you assume a 70 percent royalty and price your book at $3.99 as I do, that would mean $632.50, or $332.50 clear after the $300 charge for the ads. A higher per-unit price could net even more of a windfall.
Unfortunately, not everyone who clicks buys. From my Amazon stats again, out of the 280,472 impressions my ads have received, they've been clicked on 494 times. From those 494 clicks, I've had 30 orders. (I've temporarily abandoned ads for the worst performing book, which sadly is my newest release. I will try again when it has more reviews, as I do think this makes a difference to potential buyers.) That breaks down to just over 6 percent of clicks resulting in a sale.
If we aim high and just go with the best performing book, Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed, the numbers are 178 clicks (combined, over three campaigns) and 21 sales, for a purchase rate of 11.79%. If we use that rate on the theoretical 230 clicks we'd get off 25,000 impressions, that nets us 27 sales. And 27 sales of a $3.99 ebook would result in $74.25 in royalties. For a net loss on a $300 ad expenditure of $225.75.
So while I'd love to experiment with B&N's new ad program, just to see how it compares, I can't.
Unless it significantly outperforms my BEST campaign on Amazon (by at least 4x), I would lose money, and likely a lot of it. If they were to, say, offer a mini-package in the neighborhood of $50, maybe I could swing it, in the name of science, to see what happened. As it stands now, I can't go there.
January 18, 2019
My also boughts are cooking
One, potentially, helpful mechanism for selling books on Amazon is the Also Boughts. As in, "Customers who bought this item also bought" all this other stuff. As an author, you're hoping your book gets linked up with some other similar titles so readers might find your book while they're browsing selections in your same genre.
At the moment, my also boughts for Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed are not really what I need. The top three are cookbooks.
This mystifies me a little. I first noticed the cookbooks there a month or so ago. Admittedly, I had somewhat given up on my sales last year while I was working to get The First World Problems of Jason Van Otterloo ready to release. These days, to generate much in the way of sales on Amazon, you have to play around with Pay Per Click ads. I've had mixed success at best in the past with those, and by early last year they were no longer cost effective. So I stopped advertising for most of 2018 and my sales swirled the toilet bowl.
I found a helpful blog post on Amazon PPC ads a few months back and gave them another go in November. I've had better luck than I did previously, at least with Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed. It does much better than my other books, probably because it's reaching into a more vibrant readership band, where fans of Jonathan Tropper, Matthew Norman, Jess Walter, and others hang out. Ideally, those would be the books that show up in my also boughts.
And maybe if my sales keep growing over the next couple of months as they have in December and January, we'll start to see those associations taking root--as opposed to the Mediterranean Diet Cookbook and Fruit Pies. Which are probably lovely books. But not really what I need.
Of course, what I really need are enough sales for my books to show up on their also boughts, so their readers see mine. But that's two steps down the road. At the moment, I'll settle for the first step of booting the cookbooks out of my kitchen.
At the moment, my also boughts for Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed are not really what I need. The top three are cookbooks.
This mystifies me a little. I first noticed the cookbooks there a month or so ago. Admittedly, I had somewhat given up on my sales last year while I was working to get The First World Problems of Jason Van Otterloo ready to release. These days, to generate much in the way of sales on Amazon, you have to play around with Pay Per Click ads. I've had mixed success at best in the past with those, and by early last year they were no longer cost effective. So I stopped advertising for most of 2018 and my sales swirled the toilet bowl.
I found a helpful blog post on Amazon PPC ads a few months back and gave them another go in November. I've had better luck than I did previously, at least with Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed. It does much better than my other books, probably because it's reaching into a more vibrant readership band, where fans of Jonathan Tropper, Matthew Norman, Jess Walter, and others hang out. Ideally, those would be the books that show up in my also boughts.
And maybe if my sales keep growing over the next couple of months as they have in December and January, we'll start to see those associations taking root--as opposed to the Mediterranean Diet Cookbook and Fruit Pies. Which are probably lovely books. But not really what I need.
Of course, what I really need are enough sales for my books to show up on their also boughts, so their readers see mine. But that's two steps down the road. At the moment, I'll settle for the first step of booting the cookbooks out of my kitchen.
December 21, 2018
Dylan Thomas, detectives, and a depressing dentist: my 2018 reading list
One of my favorite posts from last year (and let's face it, I probably read this blog as much as anyone else, just shuffling back through to keep track of what I wrote about X months ago) was my year-end racap of what I read in 2017. I was actually surprised when I wrote that up how few books I'd made it through. This year's list will nearly double it, though we did have a few shorties in 2018, so apples/oranges, etc.
This list is in roughly chronological order of when I read each book, but neither you nor I know how precise that is. I can remember the last one I read and the one before that, and maybe the one before that, and then things go fuzzy.
A Man with One of Those Faces, by Caimh McDonnell. This is an Irish detective/adventure/humor that I stumbled across last year and added to my Christmas list. Got it and read it soon after the holidays. Loved it. Then found Caimh McDonnell had several other books, which will appear later in this list, all featuring the same characters.
Adventures in the Skin Trade; Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog; Under Milk Wood, by Dylan Thomas. Three short books, all received for Christmas in 2017. Along with the Welsh music and football, came an interest in the culture generally, and Dylan Thomas has to be a jumping off point for that. The first two books were mostly short stories, some of which were humorous, some quite religious, others just generally freaky, bordering on some kind of mythological horror (or horrifying mythology). I can't say I loved them all. I did enjoy Under Milk Wood, though I had the sense I only ever picked up on about 35-40 percent of the actual meaning of things. It's one I'll have to revisit sometime, though the proper way to absorb it would be to hear the original radio play.
The Lady in the Lake, by Raymond Chandler. Having read The Big Sleep in 2017, I was hot for more Chandler and Santa came through (can you guess what I like to get for Christmas?). I read this on our trip to Washington, D.C., over spring break, so when I think back on the story it's set for me within our room at the Embassy Row Hotel. Philip Marlowe is looking for a pair of missing wives. "Marlowe's not sure he cares about either one, but he's not paid to care." Fast talk, fast action, great stuff. I hope Santa brings more Chandler this year.
Trouble Is My Business, by Raymond Chandler. A collection of four short stories featuring Philip Marlowe. Some of these come from early in Chandler's career before Marlowe was as fully developed as in his novels. I like the novels better.
Fan, by Danny Rhodes. A novel based on the tragedy at Hillsborough in 1989 when 96 people were trampled to death at an FA Cup match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. Rhodes was there. He places his protagonist there as well, and the horrific events he witnesses will impact every aspect of his life. I stumbled onto this in Second Story Books on our D.C. trip. Great book. I wrote about it in detail here.
Angels in the Moonlight, by Caimh McDonnell. This is the prequel to the Dublin Trilogy, which properly begins with A Man with One of Those Faces. Solid, but maybe just a cut below the three in the trilogy itself.
Career of Evil, by Robert Galbraith. The third book in J.K. Rowling's gritty Cormoran Strike detective series. Good if not gruesome in places. There were points where Strike's relationship with his assistant Robin Ellacott grew a little weary. At least to me. Your mileage may vary. Good characters overall, but maybe there's only so far you can go with that tension before you just want them to either do it or go their separate ways.
The Day That Never Comes, by Caimh McDonnell. Book two of the Dublin Trilogy. More humor, more action, more sadsack misadventure from Paul Mulchrone, the main character in the first book.
Last Orders, by Caimh McDonnell. Is this the end for Detective Bunny McGarry? Certainly appears that way. McDonnell keeps you guessing, though you know which way you're hoping it turns out. Unless you really hate Bunny McGarry for some reason. I don't. He grew on me a bit since the first book.
Riffs & Meaning: Manic Street Preachers & Know Your Enemy, by Stephen Lee Naish. For Christmas it was books, for my birthday it was CDs. Or rather gift cards which were spent on CDs. I filled out my Manic Street Preachers collection with Lifeblood, Rewind the Film, Journal for Plague Lovers, and Know Your Enemy. Shortly thereafter, I saw a post on Twitter about a new book that examines Know Your Enemy and its place in the Manics' discography. It's a very short, small book, particularly for the price ($19.95), but I learned a few things about the album. Know Your Enemy came out after the period of time covered in Simon Price's incredible Everything, so it advanced the story a little for me, though this book is nowhere near the level of Everything.
Mohawk, by Richard Russo. More Upstate, N.Y., dead-end lives from the master of them. I'd rate this one below Everybody's Fool, which was my favorite Russo, but it's at least on par with Empire Falls, his Pulitzer winner.
Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed, by James Bailey. (Re-read) Yeah, that James Bailey. I hadn't read this since I released it in 2015 and it was time to give it another look. For the most part I'm still happy with it all.
Straight Man, by Richard Russo. Something a little different from Russo here. This time we're in Pennsylvania, in a small-college English department where not everyone gets along. The main character, William Henry Devereaux Jr., has reached midlife and may be in crisis due to any number of factors, including unresolved issues with his father. Funny, fun, occasionally deep. Don't let the Aflac duck lookalike on the cover put you off.
To Rise Again at a Decent Hour, by Joshua Ferris. I found this book at a library used-book sale for a buck. I think. I can't remember for sure exactly how I came across it, but I know it was very cheap or possibly free. And I took it because I had read Then We Came to the End by Ferris a few years ago and thought it was okay. I started this one in the spring, only made it about 70 pages in, and put it aside. After it got passed up by several other books, it earned the almost unprecedented dishonor of being moved back down to the basement library, where it sat for several months before receiving another chance. The second time around started with more enthusiasm and at one point I even wondered why I had dropped it before. And then it became a slog. And then I had to essentially force myself to finish it just to be done with it. In the end, I hated this book. I hated the main character, and I hated most of the other characters. I hated everything he did, and that wasn't really all that much to start with, because he mostly seemed to mope around his apartment or the dentist's office he ran. He was a tiresome fucking bastard. How this book was ever short-listed for the Man Booker Prize is beyond me. Takes all the luster away from the Man Booker Prize in my eyes, and I no longer feel half so bad they've never honored any of mine if this is the kind of shit that appeals to them.
Nine Bucks a Pound, by James Bailey. (Re-read) This fall I moved all of my books to wide distribution instead of having them exclusively available on Amazon. As part of that process I had to reformat them all for non-Kindle ebook compatibility. As I was going through Nine Bucks a Pound I kept catching myself stopping to read parts that I had forgotten about. I hadn't re-read it in several years and it was almost as if some parts were new to me in going back through it now. In hindsight, I think this is my best book. Worst selling, but that's another story.
A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. (Re-read) I'm pretty sure at some point in the distant past I have read this before. Maybe it has all just swirled in my brain over time because the story is so ubiquitous. But I think I did read it once. That said, I had forgotten all the details, so much so that it was like reading it for the first time. There's much more humor here than I remembered, and Scrooge is much quicker to display regret than I recalled. A book to be read more frequently, especially given how short it is.
This list is in roughly chronological order of when I read each book, but neither you nor I know how precise that is. I can remember the last one I read and the one before that, and maybe the one before that, and then things go fuzzy.
A Man with One of Those Faces, by Caimh McDonnell. This is an Irish detective/adventure/humor that I stumbled across last year and added to my Christmas list. Got it and read it soon after the holidays. Loved it. Then found Caimh McDonnell had several other books, which will appear later in this list, all featuring the same characters. Adventures in the Skin Trade; Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog; Under Milk Wood, by Dylan Thomas. Three short books, all received for Christmas in 2017. Along with the Welsh music and football, came an interest in the culture generally, and Dylan Thomas has to be a jumping off point for that. The first two books were mostly short stories, some of which were humorous, some quite religious, others just generally freaky, bordering on some kind of mythological horror (or horrifying mythology). I can't say I loved them all. I did enjoy Under Milk Wood, though I had the sense I only ever picked up on about 35-40 percent of the actual meaning of things. It's one I'll have to revisit sometime, though the proper way to absorb it would be to hear the original radio play.
The Lady in the Lake, by Raymond Chandler. Having read The Big Sleep in 2017, I was hot for more Chandler and Santa came through (can you guess what I like to get for Christmas?). I read this on our trip to Washington, D.C., over spring break, so when I think back on the story it's set for me within our room at the Embassy Row Hotel. Philip Marlowe is looking for a pair of missing wives. "Marlowe's not sure he cares about either one, but he's not paid to care." Fast talk, fast action, great stuff. I hope Santa brings more Chandler this year.
Trouble Is My Business, by Raymond Chandler. A collection of four short stories featuring Philip Marlowe. Some of these come from early in Chandler's career before Marlowe was as fully developed as in his novels. I like the novels better.
Fan, by Danny Rhodes. A novel based on the tragedy at Hillsborough in 1989 when 96 people were trampled to death at an FA Cup match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. Rhodes was there. He places his protagonist there as well, and the horrific events he witnesses will impact every aspect of his life. I stumbled onto this in Second Story Books on our D.C. trip. Great book. I wrote about it in detail here.
Angels in the Moonlight, by Caimh McDonnell. This is the prequel to the Dublin Trilogy, which properly begins with A Man with One of Those Faces. Solid, but maybe just a cut below the three in the trilogy itself.
Career of Evil, by Robert Galbraith. The third book in J.K. Rowling's gritty Cormoran Strike detective series. Good if not gruesome in places. There were points where Strike's relationship with his assistant Robin Ellacott grew a little weary. At least to me. Your mileage may vary. Good characters overall, but maybe there's only so far you can go with that tension before you just want them to either do it or go their separate ways.
The Day That Never Comes, by Caimh McDonnell. Book two of the Dublin Trilogy. More humor, more action, more sadsack misadventure from Paul Mulchrone, the main character in the first book.
Last Orders, by Caimh McDonnell. Is this the end for Detective Bunny McGarry? Certainly appears that way. McDonnell keeps you guessing, though you know which way you're hoping it turns out. Unless you really hate Bunny McGarry for some reason. I don't. He grew on me a bit since the first book.
Riffs & Meaning: Manic Street Preachers & Know Your Enemy, by Stephen Lee Naish. For Christmas it was books, for my birthday it was CDs. Or rather gift cards which were spent on CDs. I filled out my Manic Street Preachers collection with Lifeblood, Rewind the Film, Journal for Plague Lovers, and Know Your Enemy. Shortly thereafter, I saw a post on Twitter about a new book that examines Know Your Enemy and its place in the Manics' discography. It's a very short, small book, particularly for the price ($19.95), but I learned a few things about the album. Know Your Enemy came out after the period of time covered in Simon Price's incredible Everything, so it advanced the story a little for me, though this book is nowhere near the level of Everything.
Mohawk, by Richard Russo. More Upstate, N.Y., dead-end lives from the master of them. I'd rate this one below Everybody's Fool, which was my favorite Russo, but it's at least on par with Empire Falls, his Pulitzer winner.
Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed, by James Bailey. (Re-read) Yeah, that James Bailey. I hadn't read this since I released it in 2015 and it was time to give it another look. For the most part I'm still happy with it all.
Straight Man, by Richard Russo. Something a little different from Russo here. This time we're in Pennsylvania, in a small-college English department where not everyone gets along. The main character, William Henry Devereaux Jr., has reached midlife and may be in crisis due to any number of factors, including unresolved issues with his father. Funny, fun, occasionally deep. Don't let the Aflac duck lookalike on the cover put you off.
To Rise Again at a Decent Hour, by Joshua Ferris. I found this book at a library used-book sale for a buck. I think. I can't remember for sure exactly how I came across it, but I know it was very cheap or possibly free. And I took it because I had read Then We Came to the End by Ferris a few years ago and thought it was okay. I started this one in the spring, only made it about 70 pages in, and put it aside. After it got passed up by several other books, it earned the almost unprecedented dishonor of being moved back down to the basement library, where it sat for several months before receiving another chance. The second time around started with more enthusiasm and at one point I even wondered why I had dropped it before. And then it became a slog. And then I had to essentially force myself to finish it just to be done with it. In the end, I hated this book. I hated the main character, and I hated most of the other characters. I hated everything he did, and that wasn't really all that much to start with, because he mostly seemed to mope around his apartment or the dentist's office he ran. He was a tiresome fucking bastard. How this book was ever short-listed for the Man Booker Prize is beyond me. Takes all the luster away from the Man Booker Prize in my eyes, and I no longer feel half so bad they've never honored any of mine if this is the kind of shit that appeals to them.
Nine Bucks a Pound, by James Bailey. (Re-read) This fall I moved all of my books to wide distribution instead of having them exclusively available on Amazon. As part of that process I had to reformat them all for non-Kindle ebook compatibility. As I was going through Nine Bucks a Pound I kept catching myself stopping to read parts that I had forgotten about. I hadn't re-read it in several years and it was almost as if some parts were new to me in going back through it now. In hindsight, I think this is my best book. Worst selling, but that's another story.
A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. (Re-read) I'm pretty sure at some point in the distant past I have read this before. Maybe it has all just swirled in my brain over time because the story is so ubiquitous. But I think I did read it once. That said, I had forgotten all the details, so much so that it was like reading it for the first time. There's much more humor here than I remembered, and Scrooge is much quicker to display regret than I recalled. A book to be read more frequently, especially given how short it is.
December 17, 2018
Merry Christmas from me to you
My uncle from Connecticut came to visit last month, staying for a week at my dad's house. He's a reader, and having not brought enough reading material to last him the week, he borrowed a couple of books from my dad. My books. My first two, to be specific, The Greatest Show on Dirt and Nine Bucks a Pound.I spent six years from start to finish on each of them, with some overlap when I put the first aside to attempt to find a publisher. Poured everything I had into them, and then moved on. I read The Greatest Show on Dirt a couple of years ago, just to refresh my memory on what I had written. It will always have a special place in my writer's heart, having been my first, but reading back through it confirmed to me that it's not my best, even though it has sold better than all of my others.
No, my best book, in my opinion, is Nine Bucks a Pound. Though four years after its release, I seemed to have forgotten most of the nitty gritty details and could only answer my uncle's questions to the best my fuzzy memory would allow. Which was made the worse by the humdinger of a cold settling into my head the night I saw him. Later that week, when I finished the book I had been reading, I decided it was time to dust Nine Bucks off and give it another go.
So they died, and were replaced with originals. I especially loved Del's new dad, Milo, whose back story of a life-altering spinal tumor was based on the experiences of a good friend. I found Milo a job as a tender on a bascule bridge over the Lake Washington Ship Canal, and daydreamed myself about working there some days. I set his mother up as a bartender with secrets of her own to guard. I beset his relationship with his girlfriend with as many realistic challenges as I thought it could bear. And then some. And in the end the supporting cast felt worthy of what otherwise seemed to me to be an original plot, about a baseball player who gives in to the temptation to use illegal performance-enhancing drugs and then must deal with the consequences when his secret is exposed.
I'm not alone in regarding Nine Bucks a Pound as my best work. Not that I put too much scientific stock into Goodreads ratings, but of my four novels, it has the highest rating at 3.97 (out of 5). Though if you want to get scientific, it has a significantly smaller sample size than The Greatest Show on Dirt or Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed. And this is the part that frustrates me. It's had correspondingly smaller sales, as well.
I imagine part of that may be due to the subject nature. Books about baseball only appeal to the segment of readers who like baseball enough to want to read a novel about it. On top of that, this book is about steroid use, which most baseball fans want to forget ever happened. The Greatest Show on Dirt was easier to market, thanks to connections I had down in Durham, N.C., where it was set. I never realized just how good I had it when I released that as my debut back in 2012. I've never come close to matching the publicity I got for Dirt. Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed appealed to enough readers in the Jonathan Tropper fan camp to garner some nice reviews when I released it in 2015, but even that hasn't caught up.
Poor Nine Bucks a Pound has never found much of an audience. If you're in the majority of the 7 billion people on the planet who haven't read it yet, I've got an offer for you. Download a free copy from Book Funnel. Read it on whatever ereader device you use (Book Funnel will let you select when you download it). If you enjoy it, write a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads (and bonus points for actually writing a couple of paragraphs, not just giving it a number rating, which though nice doesn't really do much to convince other potential readers they should give it a look).
Consider it my Christmas gift to you. In return, if you enjoy it, you can respond with a nice New Year's boost for me. Cheers!
November 26, 2018
The Book Designer awards gold star to cover of First World Problems
The Book Designer unveiled its October 2018 e-book Cover Design Awards today, and you'll never guess who garnered an honorable mention gold star. Okay, maybe you will if I give you a big enough hint: It was the author's second such honorable mention in a row.Ringing any bells? Okay, it was me. Well, I didn't design the cover, so credit goes to Ebook Launch, the company that designed both honored covers (as well as the next one, so maybe there will be another gold star coming next year). But it was my concept. And I'm the one who had to go back and forth, saying, no, not quite, change the lettering, change his face, change the color, etc.
We got there in the end.
Joel Friedlander, who runs the Book Designer site, made this comment about the cover for The First World Problems of Jason Van Otterloo: "Charming and well integrated, the hand lettering helps to create a unique look." He makes comments on most of the entries, saying what worked and what didn't. Some of them are quite entertaining (read: brutal) when he's not in love with a particular cover. For example, "Terminally boring. Why would anyone care?" Ouch. That would smart a bit.
Amazingly, each month a handful of authors will submit covers they designed themselves. As if they haven't learned over the years to hire this job out from all the previous critical comments.
It's hard enough catching readers' eyes with a professionally designed cover. Why anyone would go the DIY route is beyond me. I'm sure glad I didn't. I'm happy with the covers of all four of my books. The first two were done by a graphic designer I worked with at Baseball America. Considering she didn't specialize in book design, I thought she did a great job with them. I particularly love the bobblehead on the cover of Nine Bucks a Pound, which was created by another designer and then used as the focal point of the book cover.
November 13, 2018
Help me help you help me
Did you know it's just six (6) weeks until Christmas? Yeah, sneaks up on you fast, doesn't it? It's easy to keep track of the holidays where I work, because it neatly coincides with layoff season. For the past 10 years, November has been the month to keep your head down. I've seen them come, I've seen them go, and somehow I always survived.
Until today.
Yep. My number came up today. Seventeen and a half frickin' years, and I got called into the 9:00 meeting with HR. It wasn't a surprise, necessarily. Well, the part where they're closing our entire office (400+ people) was kind of a stunner. But there have been enough warning signs that I saw this coming. I've seen it coming for several years now. And after all the gallows humor and hallway chatter ... it still kind of hurts.
Even though it may be for the best in the end.
Funny how life imitates art. Or maybe art imitates life imitating art. I started a blog to make the marketing of The First World Problems of Jason Van Otterloo a little more fun. It's Jason's blog, but shhhhhhhhhh, I write it. Last week Jason got laid off. I had to use my imagination a little to picture how it would all go down for him. I don't have to imagine it any more. I lived it this morning.
I still don't want your pity, even after getting laid off. (And to be fair to my employer, I will get a very reasonable severance package, so I won't be out on the street for months yet.) But, if you're a fan of win-win situations, I can say that my books are fair value for money. My ebooks are only $3.99 each, which is on the low end of the pricing spectrum. If you're looking for something to read, I've got four titles out now, and there is probably something that would entertain you $3.99 worth or better. For sake of ease, here's the link to my Amazon page (though as of now all of my books are available on every online retailer, so check your favorite).
I also have paperback copies available for the first three books, The Greatest Show on Dirt, Nine Bucks a Pound, and Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed. You can order them from Amazon or any online retailer. Or directly from me. I'll give you a deal, too. $10 for any book, postage included (media rate, not overnite, let's be reasonable). And if you want, I'll even sign it. Books make great Christmas gifts. So even if you've already read them all, maybe you can think of someone on your list who hasn't. You get some shopping out of the way, I get a few bucks to help me through a tough period (cue up the sad violin music ... and, cut). Win-win, right? Just use the Buy a book! link over there in the right margin.
One other thing you can do that doesn't cost a dime that is a legitimate help. Next time you're on Facebook or Twitter or whatever social media app the cool kids are using these days, shoot out a link to one of my books. Maybe your friends would be interested. You never know, people could be stuck for gift ideas. That's a win-win-win (Triple Win!) if you help them help me while they get someone crossed off their list.
As always, I appreciate your thoughtfulness and support.
Happy Thanksgiving,
James
Until today.
Yep. My number came up today. Seventeen and a half frickin' years, and I got called into the 9:00 meeting with HR. It wasn't a surprise, necessarily. Well, the part where they're closing our entire office (400+ people) was kind of a stunner. But there have been enough warning signs that I saw this coming. I've seen it coming for several years now. And after all the gallows humor and hallway chatter ... it still kind of hurts.
Even though it may be for the best in the end.
Funny how life imitates art. Or maybe art imitates life imitating art. I started a blog to make the marketing of The First World Problems of Jason Van Otterloo a little more fun. It's Jason's blog, but shhhhhhhhhh, I write it. Last week Jason got laid off. I had to use my imagination a little to picture how it would all go down for him. I don't have to imagine it any more. I lived it this morning.
I still don't want your pity, even after getting laid off. (And to be fair to my employer, I will get a very reasonable severance package, so I won't be out on the street for months yet.) But, if you're a fan of win-win situations, I can say that my books are fair value for money. My ebooks are only $3.99 each, which is on the low end of the pricing spectrum. If you're looking for something to read, I've got four titles out now, and there is probably something that would entertain you $3.99 worth or better. For sake of ease, here's the link to my Amazon page (though as of now all of my books are available on every online retailer, so check your favorite).
I also have paperback copies available for the first three books, The Greatest Show on Dirt, Nine Bucks a Pound, and Sorry I Wasn't What You Needed. You can order them from Amazon or any online retailer. Or directly from me. I'll give you a deal, too. $10 for any book, postage included (media rate, not overnite, let's be reasonable). And if you want, I'll even sign it. Books make great Christmas gifts. So even if you've already read them all, maybe you can think of someone on your list who hasn't. You get some shopping out of the way, I get a few bucks to help me through a tough period (cue up the sad violin music ... and, cut). Win-win, right? Just use the Buy a book! link over there in the right margin.
One other thing you can do that doesn't cost a dime that is a legitimate help. Next time you're on Facebook or Twitter or whatever social media app the cool kids are using these days, shoot out a link to one of my books. Maybe your friends would be interested. You never know, people could be stuck for gift ideas. That's a win-win-win (Triple Win!) if you help them help me while they get someone crossed off their list.
As always, I appreciate your thoughtfulness and support.
Happy Thanksgiving,
James
