Tim Tigner's Blog, page 6
April 24, 2015
Betrayal #1 on Amazon
Woohoo!!! Betrayal is currently the #1 Political Thriller and the #1 Terrorism Thriller on Amazon, with an average star rating of 4.7. Thanks to all of you for helping me reach this landmark! Hopefully Flash will see #1 as well before the year is out, completing the hat trick.
November 27, 2014
Coercion #1 on Amazon
My first novel, Coercion, made it to #1 on Amazon in the Espionage and International Thriller categories in September, just in time for the first anniversary of it's publication, and coincidentally my birthday. Many thanks to you for helping me reach this career milestone.
Time to work on promoting novels 2 and 3, Betrayal and Flash...
Time to work on promoting novels 2 and 3, Betrayal and Flash...#1 on Amazon
My first novel, Coercion, made it to #1 on Amazon in the Espionage and International Thriller categories in September, just in time for the first anniversary of it's publication, and coincidentally my birthday. Many thanks to you for helping me reach this career milestone.
Time to work on promoting novels 2 and 3, Betrayal and Flash...
Time to work on promoting novels 2 and 3, Betrayal and Flash...March 27, 2014
A week in the Top 5
COERCION has spent the week among Top 5 Best Sellers in three Amazon Kindle categories, including Espionage Thrillers, International Mysteries, and Spy Stories. I must say I enjoy hanging out with Lee Child, Tom Clancy's ghost, and Daniel Silva. Janet Evanovich makes for good company too. COERCION peaked at #2 over the weekend, and as I type is at #4, shown below.
I suppose I have Putin to thank for this spike in interest in a story about a devious KGB General, but I prefer to thank you, my readers, for the kind reviews and word of mouth that made this possible. Plus I worry that if I thank Vlad he may steal Vasily's ideas, and that won't be good for anyone.
Spacebo druzya!
I suppose I have Putin to thank for this spike in interest in a story about a devious KGB General, but I prefer to thank you, my readers, for the kind reviews and word of mouth that made this possible. Plus I worry that if I thank Vlad he may steal Vasily's ideas, and that won't be good for anyone.
Spacebo druzya!
March 4, 2014
Best SellerS
Coercion and Betrayal have both hit Top 10 Best Seller status on Amazon in there category, following Flash. It's been quite a thrill and honor to see them up there next to the works of Lee Child, Vince Flynn, and other favorites. Alas it doesn't last, but with each peek above the clouds they should soar a bit longer.
Meanwhile the good reviews keep rolling in. With about 30 per novel now, the average is 4.8/5.0. I feel blessed.
Thanks for all your kindness and support!
Meanwhile the good reviews keep rolling in. With about 30 per novel now, the average is 4.8/5.0. I feel blessed.
Thanks for all your kindness and support!
January 26, 2014
Best Seller!
Flash became an Amazon Best Seller this morning, placing in the Top 10 Best Sellers in the International Mystery and Crime segment. That felt good!
High rankings are always the results of promotions of one sort or the other, and usually many sorts. Going for the Gold, NYT #1, Publishers and authors plan to have multiple sales promotion events coincide all on the same day/week, which is where all those pre-orders and talk show appearances come into play. For my little promotion I just combined sale pricing on Amazon with a Book Blast advertisement. 36% of Book Blast Add clickers went on to buy the book, which tells me my marketing materials were well received.
High rankings are always the results of promotions of one sort or the other, and usually many sorts. Going for the Gold, NYT #1, Publishers and authors plan to have multiple sales promotion events coincide all on the same day/week, which is where all those pre-orders and talk show appearances come into play. For my little promotion I just combined sale pricing on Amazon with a Book Blast advertisement. 36% of Book Blast Add clickers went on to buy the book, which tells me my marketing materials were well received.
November 23, 2013
Paperback Economics
I'm pleased to announce that all three of my thrillers will soon be debuting in paperback and widely available. Yeah! So I wanted to take this opportunity pass along a little insight into author revenues from book sales, as you'll likely find it as surprising as I did.
Authors do pretty well with eBooks. If they're priced $2.99 and above the author pockets 70%. So I make about $4 on a $5.99 book. (Under $2.99 the author only makes 35%, so low pricing is a double whammy.)
Print books, however, are a very different story. The paperbacks we're most familiar with, those which measure 4.25" x 6.75" and are printed on cheap paper are called Mass Market Paperbacks. Alas, that format and the accompanying under $10 pricing is only available when you print tens of thousands of books.
Other books are printed in what's called Trade Paperback form. These are better quality and bigger, but also about double the price. They are printed on-demand. The cost to manufacture Trade Paperbacks is per page regardless of page size. So surprisingly the bigger the book the cheaper it is to produce, because of the lower the page count.
But who likes to read those big books? Not me. I ended up going with the smallest common Trade Paperback size, 5.25" x 8" to make it reading friendly, but then had to cut down on space everywhere I could to reduce the page count. So now there are no free chapters from other books, and new chapters don't all start on the top of a fresh page, etc. Even so I had to price them much higher than I wanted: Betrayal and Flash at $12.99 and the longer Coercion at $14.99. At those prices I will still make less per sale than on a $5.99 eBook.
Despite those surprises (I'd hoped to sell a typically sized paperback for $7.99) I'm still very pleased to be launching the paperbacks. Many people still only read paper, most of the established book reviewing organizations don't review eBooks.
Authors do pretty well with eBooks. If they're priced $2.99 and above the author pockets 70%. So I make about $4 on a $5.99 book. (Under $2.99 the author only makes 35%, so low pricing is a double whammy.)
Print books, however, are a very different story. The paperbacks we're most familiar with, those which measure 4.25" x 6.75" and are printed on cheap paper are called Mass Market Paperbacks. Alas, that format and the accompanying under $10 pricing is only available when you print tens of thousands of books.
Other books are printed in what's called Trade Paperback form. These are better quality and bigger, but also about double the price. They are printed on-demand. The cost to manufacture Trade Paperbacks is per page regardless of page size. So surprisingly the bigger the book the cheaper it is to produce, because of the lower the page count.
But who likes to read those big books? Not me. I ended up going with the smallest common Trade Paperback size, 5.25" x 8" to make it reading friendly, but then had to cut down on space everywhere I could to reduce the page count. So now there are no free chapters from other books, and new chapters don't all start on the top of a fresh page, etc. Even so I had to price them much higher than I wanted: Betrayal and Flash at $12.99 and the longer Coercion at $14.99. At those prices I will still make less per sale than on a $5.99 eBook.
Despite those surprises (I'd hoped to sell a typically sized paperback for $7.99) I'm still very pleased to be launching the paperbacks. Many people still only read paper, most of the established book reviewing organizations don't review eBooks.
November 9, 2013
New Covers
Here they are. I hope you like them. In addition to changing the images, I added descriptive teasers. Please let me know what you think!
Thanks to all my friends at Goodreads for their guidance, and to Ralph Cavero for his graphic design expertise!
Thanks to all my friends at Goodreads for their guidance, and to Ralph Cavero for his graphic design expertise!
November 8, 2013
Thank you!
I would like to begin my blog by thanking the first distinguished reviewers who were kind enough to add my novels to the stacks thrown at them for review, and then move them to the top of the heap. The kindness of strangers creates a warmth like no other and friendships blossom as a result. Thank you Gwendolyn Norcross, Pastor Dan Curnutt, Randy Johnson, and John Mariotti!
November 7, 2013
Thank you!
I would like to begin my blog by thanking the first distinguished reviewers who were kind enough to add my novels to the stacks thrown at them for review, and then move them to the top of the heap. The kindness of strangers creates a warmth like no other and friendships blossom as a result. Thank you Gwendolyn Norcross, Pastor Dan Curnutt, Randy Johnson, and John Mariotti!
