C. Gockel's Blog, page 89
November 28, 2014
November 25, 2014
akumutsuki:
cgockel:
brightfire99:
I Bring The Fire is by far...
I Bring The Fire is by far one of the best series I’ve read. It’s right up there with the his dark materials, the swarm trilogy by Meg Jensen, the planet wolf series by Candy Rae, and the Guardian series by Heather Bowhay among a few others. But anyway if you like reading books that have the old myths with a funny crazy and yet still realistic and believable twist you gotta try this series. The first book is free on amazon with a prime account, I swear, you’ll fall in love with each and every character, if you want a good description of what goes on in each book you should look it up on amazon, I don’t want to spoil anything if you end up giving it a go.
I just saw this! Thank you, it is a lovely post. I would ad that the first in the series is still free, and it’s available on iBooks, Amazon, B&N, GooglePlay, Kobo, and Smashwords. The whole series can be borrowed on Scribd and Oyster.
Thank you so much for comparing me to so many great authors.
Why are there dinosaurs? XD
There are dinosaurs because dinosaurs are magical (ask any four year old) and make everything more fun! Also, the elves like to ride them. They’re sticklers for tradition.
Journey Advisorby SceithAilm
I don’t imagine Hoenir as...
schaudwen:
*SCREAMING* Oh my god, the comics FINALLY did it!...
*SCREAMING* Oh my god, the comics FINALLY did it! Bride Thor and Handmaiden Loki~
YOLOKI
(The Mighty Thor #.1)
November 23, 2014
Hey, I just reblogged a post I made a few months ago where I briefly reviewed "The Gospel of Loki" and a few other non-Marvel Loki works (including yours). It's near the top of my tumblr right now, if you want to hear a bit more about the book. ^-^
Thank you! I reblogged a second time (I think). Have you read Loki by Mike Vaisch? It’s more epic fantasy sword and sorcery epic. I have not—because I’m afraid of too much cross pollination. Also, don’t know if you know, but I did write quite a bit of Marvel Loki fanfic. You might like Blue and The Snow Wife.
cgockel:
brightfire99:
I Bring The Fire is by far one of the...
I Bring The Fire is by far one of the best series I’ve read. It’s right up there with the his dark materials, the swarm trilogy by Meg Jensen, the planet wolf series by Candy Rae, and the Guardian series by Heather Bowhay among a few others. But anyway if you like reading books that have the old myths with a funny crazy and yet still realistic and believable twist you gotta try this series. The first book is free on amazon with a prime account, I swear, you’ll fall in love with each and every character, if you want a good description of what goes on in each book you should look it up on amazon, I don’t want to spoil anything if you end up giving it a go.
I just saw this! Thank you, it is a lovely post. I would ad that the first in the series is still free, and it’s available on iBooks, Amazon, B&N, GooglePlay, Kobo, and Smashwords. The whole series can be borrowed on Scribd and Oyster.
Thank you so much for comparing me to so many great authors.
THE GOSPEL OF LOKI by Joanne Harris is now available at Amazon...
THE GOSPEL OF LOKI by Joanne Harris is now available at Amazon U.S. and iBooks among other places. I’m afraid to read it until I finish Ragnarok, but I Bring the Fire fans, did you enjoy it?
November 22, 2014
I just donated to Wikipedia!
If you’re a writer who has used Wikipedia for research, I urge you to donate to the Wikipedia foundation. Keep Wikipedia free of advertising!
November 21, 2014
Kindle Unlimited, Everyone Loses? (a.k.a. the Great Author Freak Out of 2014 Part III)
If you want to know what Kindle Unlimited is, my original intro post is here.
The Kindle Unlimited October borrow rate was was released last week. In October every borrow was worth $1.33. This is down from $2.02 when the program first started. For authors writing short stories that are normally priced at 99 cents, these are obviously still hay days (No, I don’t mean heyday, I mean make hay while the sun shines). For authors who have/had books that normally cost $4.99 in the program, it was huge shock to their bank accounts, and many of them are vowing to leave KU as soon as their contract (90 days) is up, and in the mean-time some of them are worrying about how to pay the rent.
But how are things on the other-side of the fence?
Even people outside of KU have seen a decrease in revenues. My sales too were hit. I’ve heard anecdotally that many people saw their borrows of their free first in series decrease. I didn’t have that problem. However, I noticed that sell-thru (i.e., purchases of my second in series) declined dramatically.
Here is why I think that happened. It’s true, KU is really only for “super readers”, the folks that read at least a book a week, and sometimes a book a day. The problem for indies, who rely on ebook readers instead of book readers, is that ebook readers are proportionally more likely to be super readers. The reason they switched to ebooks in the first place is because ebooks are (usually) cheaper. The super-reader in KU still picks up freebies, but I think they think twice about buying books now. Losing the super-reader purchases really hurt me.
How I fought back
To combat this I lowered the price of my second in series from $2.99 to 99 cents. This helped my sell-thru to my second in series tremendously, making it higher that it had ever been before. The problem was, at least in the short term, it has decreased my profits. (At 99 cents I only earn 35% royalties on Amazon, at $2.99 I earn 70%—it should be noted that everywhere else I distribute through Smashwords I earn approximately 55% on 99 cent sales. If I go direct with iBooks I’ll earn 70% on sales). In the long term, I may make more profits, as people who purchase book 2 are more likely to purchase book 3 and so on; but I don’t have enough data to determine that, yet.
Hope on the horizon
The growth of other ebook platforms. Like I said, other sellers, IBooks, GooglePlay, etc. offer higher royalties than Amazon for 99 cent books. (B&N does not offer better royalties unless you go through a distributor like Smashwords). iBooks and GooglePlay so far seem to have a better international reach. I’ve sold more books through iBooks in Mexico and Brazil than I have in Amazon. For some reason I’ve got a number of GooglePlay readers in Sweden.
Other subscription services which offer fairer deals for authors: Scribd and Oyster. Both of them pay 50% per borrow. The problem with Scribd and Oyster for Indies is visibility. On iBooks, Amazon, B&N, etc. visibility can be bought with newsletters like BookBub, ENT, Booksends, GenrePulse, FussyLibrarian and others (and FREE newsletters like ReadCheaply and The Midlist are also great options).
Nothing like this exists for Scribd and Oyster. The two subscription services might try offering newsletters and recommendations in the future, however. It is in their economic sell-interest to promote books that are cheaper. If they have to pay the traditional publisher $4.99 for every borrow, and the indie $1.50, it’s in their interest to push HIGH QUALITY indie books. Which brings us to …
A final note on quality
One of the big problems that KU is running into right now is scammers. KU subscribers have been complaining about checking out books and discovering they are literally four paragraphs long. Since KU pays out when a reader hits 10% of a book, as soon as you open the book, the publisher gets paid. On KU Facebook posts I’m beginning to see complaints about the books in KU being “junk”. THIS ISN’T TRUE. There are some wonderful books in KU (I just read Fluency, a first contact story by Jennifer Wells and really enjoyed it! Err, but I bought it. Not actually in KU.)
As explained in a previous posts, KU payouts are not fixed. There is a big ol’ pot-o-money that Amazon divvies up and pays out unequally. (They give bonuses to the top performers, and then divide up the rest of the pot equally among the top performers and everyone else). If more and more short scammy ebooks wind up in the KU pool, they drive down the payout and make midlist authors leave. (The top dogs are unlikely to leave since they get the bonus money, and even if the payout for borrows drops to 99 cents or so, they’ll do exceedingly well). Midlist authors tend to be like me—in genres that are unlikely to ever see KU bonus money.
The plan for the future
I might at some point put a book in KU. It seems to be a great place to publish short, episodic, serials. (If you write erotic romance, I would HIGHLY recommend KU).
I am toying with the idea of putting my next series in KU for 90 days for the extra bump in rankings that KU gives (borrows count as “sales” even before the book is opened), and then publishing on all other platforms. Some authors are also using a perma-free first in series, but then putting the second and third books in the series in KU. My concern with this would be ticking off iBooks and B&N readers.
I think another approach might be courting the growing audiences on iBooks and GooglePlay. iPhones, including the new wider screen version, come preloaded with iBooks. I hear the newest Androids come with GooglePlay. I’m working right now on a proposal that will hopefully compel iBooks to promote I Bring the Fire to their readers. GooglePlay offers a series promotion tool that I will be trying at some point in the next year too.
The best approach is probably a combination of these two methods: putting a few lead-ins in KU (perhaps in my I Bring the Fire universe) and courting other retailers and their readers!
In the meantime, the best thing is just to keep building my mailing list— and to finish Ragnarok, the final installment of I Bring the Fire!
About the Author:
C. Gockel is author of the I Bring the Fire series, a series about Loki Norse God of Mischief and Chaos, in the modern world. The first in series is free aThe first in series is free at: iBooks, Amazon, B&N, GooglePlay, Kobo, and Smashwords. The whole series can be borrowed on Scribd and Oyster.
THE ENTIRE I BRING THE FIRE SERIES Loki, Norse God of Mischief...
THE ENTIRE I BRING THE FIRE SERIES Loki, Norse God of Mischief and Chaos is loose in the modern world. He feels right at home.
The first in series is free at: iBooks, Amazon, B&N, GooglePlay, Kobo, and Smashwords. The whole series can be borrowed on Scribd and Oyster.
