Chris Howard's Blog, page 82

Jelly Jam

“Jelly Jam” – Painted this one this morning, about four hours in Art Rage and CS6.  I was really trying for a lot of color on the canvas, with parts of her going transparent, fading into the background with her Cnidarian friends.

Blood in the Water

Okay, I think I’m done with this one, about nine hours total, mostly CS6 with some ArtRage and Sketchbook Pro.

Saltwater Witch Wallpaper

I’m working on a new Seaborn short story for an upcoming anthology on mermaids–so here’s some new wallpaper for Saltwater Witch. There’s a connection in there somewhere. About four hours in CS6, with a little bit of Art Rage and Sketchbook Pro.

DOWNLOAD:

http://saltwaterwitch.com/img/Shark-ChrisHoward-1920×1200.jpg

 

 

Using Amazon’s KDP Select Program

As most of us know Amazon’s KDP Select program requires an exclusive agreement to publish an ebook through Amazon’s Kindle book channel, which means that while registered with KDP Select the book can only be available for any of the flavors of Kindle.  Not on the Nook, in the iBookstore, on your web site, or in another book.

You get two things in return.

1. You get to run five-day free book campaigns–one per quarter I believe, which can get you significant “promo sales” numbers in most cases. That means hundreds, sometimes thousands of readers have your story, your book cover, and your name on their devices.  Amazon’s also been very smart about how free books appear to buyers without spoiling the normal buying channel.  It’s almost as if you’re in a bookstore with two different dimensions, and you see full-price and free books on the same end cap depending on which way you tilt your head.  I think it works.

2. Amazon Prime customers can “borrow” your book for free and Amazon pays you some amount per unit “sold”–the amount determined each month.  Some months the amount is greater than the author’s side of the royalty split, especially if you’re in the $.99 – $3.99 range.

Those are the general rules–if I have them right.  But I don’t really take complete advantage of all of KDP Select’s features.  I use the program mostly for short stories, collections, and novellas. I have had full novels in Select but the borrowing thing never worked steadily to my advantage. (In other words, I don’t mind having a particular story or collection of stories exclusively in KDP Select, but I really want my full novels in as many sales channels as possible. I sell enough books through B&N, iBooks, Kobo that offering them exclusively through Amazon wouldn’t make up for the losses elsewhere).

For me at least KDP Select is about finding my readers.

Writers write stories and readers read them, but pairing those two up may not be as easy as it appears.  Or maybe that’s simple to understand–because I do understand–but difficult to accept when it’s my writing that some readers don’t want to read.

As a reader it’s perfectly clear.  I like certain kinds of books and I dislike other kinds.  I like many authors, but there a some I don’t like. Just like everyone else. And it’s not always clear from a cover, from a name, or from the description that any particular book is going to be my kind of book.

The strategy is about finding your readers by using solid storytelling and a decent cover in the giveaways–and most importantly links in the ebook to your other books in Amazon (more about tricks with linking at the end).  You want to offer your more compelling shorter work, something that will lead some of those readers to your novels.  (I know it may be that your kind of readers don’t even look at the free books.  I’m sure that’s true for literary and a few other genres, but if you’re writing anything close to mainstream science fiction, fantasy, or horror, some of your readers are out there scanning the first few pages of Amazon’s top freebies.  I know it because I’ve had giveaway ebooks ranked 1 for some fairly narrow fiction category and thousands of people suddenly felt the strange urge to get my free book.  Of course the lower your ebook’s rank the more people see it and want it. Crazy).

That’s pretty much it. KDP Select allows me to give away an ebook for five days (I don’t do one day here, another day there, but straight five day runs) and in that time readers will definitely grab the books.  If some small percentage of them remember my name, or like my storytelling, and go on to buy one or two of my other books, that’s a success to me.

Get four or five of your novellas, short stories, books in the program and run a free campaign one at a time across each quarter. I’d love to hear how it works out. Email me if you have questions: chrishoward.author@gmail.com

A note about linking out to other books in Amazon

First, if you’re not linking to your other works in Amazon then you should.  Put an “Also by the author” or something like that in the beginning and at the end of your ebook. Go do that now!

I haven’t dug into this as much as I should, but here’s what I know:  say you have an “Also by the author” page in your Kindle book, and you’re using standard anchor tags to make those links hot—e.g., “http://goo.gl or one of the others , but I don’t think bit.ly works for this because it creates a link through Amazon’s own shortener.) or your own redirection process then you should be fine, and your book page will show up inside the Kindle app.

Here’s an example.

Both of these links will go to the same book page–the B0041OSB7A is the ASIN or Amazon’s own product identifier:

http://amzn.com/B0041OSB7A

http://www.amazon.com/Seaborn-ebook/dp/B0041OSB7A

On the “Also by the author” page in your ebook you will have something like this in html:

Seaborn

But it won’t work in the Kindle app on the iPhone or iPad.  Use something like this instead:

Seaborn

LINKS

https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/KDPSelect

https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A6KILDRNSCOBA

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Salvage wallpaper #1

Okay, here’s a 1920×1200 pixel wallpaper image with some of the Salvage art. For more wallpaper see the link on my site: http://www.SaltwaterWitch.com

DOWNLOAD:

1920 x 1200

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The Comic Edition of Salvage

Here’s another page–one of the opening pages–of the comic edition of my book Salvage, which will be out in August from Masque (http://masque-books.com/titles/salvage). Salvage is an all new Seaborn series–although as much a thriller as fantasy, with cool technology and people who can live underwater. More info on http://www.SaltwaterWitch.com

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Salvage Comic – sketching

I’m sketching some of the intro pages to the comic edition of Salvage, and here’s one page from the opening scene.  For links and more info about Salvage, which will be out in August from Masque Books: http://www.SaltwaterWitch.com

Plotting out the sequel to Salvage

Over lunch I worked on the plot for Salvage’s sequel, which I’m calling Wreckage for now.  Salvage will be out next month from Masque–more links and pics and more info when I have them.  Here are a couple pages from my notebook with my (fuzzy) notes and doodles about Wreckage.

 

Salvage will be out in August!

My novel Salvage will be out in August from Masque, the first in a new Seaborn series. Salvage is a fantasy/thriller with lots of cool shipboard stuff, guys with guns, commercial diving, weird things happening in the deep, and one seriously badass toymaker. I just got the latest cover back from the art director, some minor changes from the one shown. Thanks to Paula Guran and the team at Masque and Prime Books, it’s nearly there!

http://masque-books.com/titles/salvage

Seaborn – Sea Demons

Here’s another sea-demon, Ochleros who first appears in Saltwater Witch, and continues to be Kassandra’s confidante through the rest of the series.  He’s definitely supposed to be scarier looking than his brother Ephoros.

SaltwaterWitch.com:

http://www.SaltwaterWitch.com