Scott Nicholson's Blog, page 27
March 7, 2011
Indie talking
There's been a lot of lofty talk on some blogs about how writers need to price their books at a certain level to make a living. And bizarre predictions of expanding income forever for all writers. Sorry. It doesn't work that way. This e-book market is determined by readers and nothing but readers.
Sure, there's a hangover as people adjust to new buying habits, which is why they kept on paying $15 for their favorite name-brand authors, but it won't last.I don't think 99 cents is the universal standard yet, but it could come as soon as next year, 2013 at the latest. But I suspect the market won't even resemble the current set-up by then. If you want to know my thoughts, follow my blogs at Indie Reader.
Transparent Lovers has been marked down for sale by Amazon for kindle, now only 99 cents (I have no idea how long).At Amazon and BN and Smashwords
A ghost, a dead ex, and a living lover. What could be more fun?
###
Sure, there's a hangover as people adjust to new buying habits, which is why they kept on paying $15 for their favorite name-brand authors, but it won't last.I don't think 99 cents is the universal standard yet, but it could come as soon as next year, 2013 at the latest. But I suspect the market won't even resemble the current set-up by then. If you want to know my thoughts, follow my blogs at Indie Reader.
Transparent Lovers has been marked down for sale by Amazon for kindle, now only 99 cents (I have no idea how long).At Amazon and BN and Smashwords
A ghost, a dead ex, and a living lover. What could be more fun?
###
March 4, 2011
Forever Never Ends on sale
If you are quick and clever, you can take a journey to a remote Appalachian mountain where an alien entity is infecting the environment. An unlikely trio-a clairvoyant psychologist, a reclusive multimillionaire, and a drunken dirt farmer--team up to take on the organism before the infection can spread.
Forever Never Ends is on sale at Amazon and BN.com for 99 cents in ebook. You can also get the ebook at Haunted Computer and get free bonus books by Vicki Tyley and David Burton. Signed paper copies also available.
###
Forever Never Ends is on sale at Amazon and BN.com for 99 cents in ebook. You can also get the ebook at Haunted Computer and get free bonus books by Vicki Tyley and David Burton. Signed paper copies also available.
###
March 2, 2011
Liquid Fear and more wild ebook predictions
I can't get enough of making a fool of myself. First, there's my crazy forecast at Ebook Endeavors, and then there's my LIQUID FEAR launch on April 1. You can click on the tab up there for details, but basically I am giving you money if you sell my book. How honest is that?
Yes, the "LIQUID FEAR fool's gold rush" is fun for the whole family. Except babies in diapers. And possibly creepy old men with Alzheimer's, but they're having fun anyway. More details to come. But if you want to know "fear," then try typing frantically on a book you haven't finished when you've planned a huge giveaway and launch blitz...heh heh. I love it.
###
Yes, the "LIQUID FEAR fool's gold rush" is fun for the whole family. Except babies in diapers. And possibly creepy old men with Alzheimer's, but they're having fun anyway. More details to come. But if you want to know "fear," then try typing frantically on a book you haven't finished when you've planned a huge giveaway and launch blitz...heh heh. I love it.
###
February 28, 2011
New column, new book
My column for Indiereader.com talks about the Indie Gig and how publishers trained writers to be successful self-publishers.
Also, if you like movies, and who doesn't, why not give my screenplay for The Gorge a read? It's the adaptation of the 2007 novel They Hunger, only new and improved...leaner, meaner, and jucier. There's also an omnibus edition with three screenplays for $4.99!
### 
Also, if you like movies, and who doesn't, why not give my screenplay for The Gorge a read? It's the adaptation of the 2007 novel They Hunger, only new and improved...leaner, meaner, and jucier. There's also an omnibus edition with three screenplays for $4.99!
###
February 26, 2011
Ghost College; Supernatural Selection #1
The launch of a new series by J.R. Rain and I, featuring paranormal investigators Ellen and Monty Drew. The Drews are hired to investigate a bible college where restless spirits are suspected. $2.99 for Kindle at Amazon
###
###
February 24, 2011
Transparent Lovers out
Well, in all the madness I forgot to promote this here book. Private investigator Richard Steele must solve his most difficult case ever--his own murder--while torn between women on opposite sides of the grave.At Amazon and BN and Smashwords
Also check out my guest blog at indiereader.com 
Also check out my guest blog at indiereader.com
February 19, 2011
Don't Quit Your Day Job
Mark this on your calendar: Feb. 19, 2011.
It's the day I became (or am becoming) a full-time fiction writer. Well, also an editor, gardener, and occasional non-fiction writer. Plus maybe other things for money. But it's cool to say, very pompously, "A-hem, I am a full-time fiction writer." Back when I was a writer, I never told people I was a writer. Now I'm a writer and I feel pretty much the same, except I wear clothes with holes in them and don't have to comb my hair.
Anyway, when they unroll the crumbling scrolls in 2049 and look back at the myth that was Scott Nicholson, this will be the birth date. I expect to fail spectacularly, but it also feels so completely natural, as if all my life has pointed and led to this, that resistance is futile. Success, come and take me. I no longer fight you, and I'm no longer afraid one way or another.
Well, coincidentally, I babble some at Midnyte Review today.
It's the day I became (or am becoming) a full-time fiction writer. Well, also an editor, gardener, and occasional non-fiction writer. Plus maybe other things for money. But it's cool to say, very pompously, "A-hem, I am a full-time fiction writer." Back when I was a writer, I never told people I was a writer. Now I'm a writer and I feel pretty much the same, except I wear clothes with holes in them and don't have to comb my hair.
Anyway, when they unroll the crumbling scrolls in 2049 and look back at the myth that was Scott Nicholson, this will be the birth date. I expect to fail spectacularly, but it also feels so completely natural, as if all my life has pointed and led to this, that resistance is futile. Success, come and take me. I no longer fight you, and I'm no longer afraid one way or another.
Well, coincidentally, I babble some at Midnyte Review today.
February 18, 2011
Never Listen To Me
I'm pretty clear in my occasional writing advice that "nobody knows nothing and the people you should avoid the most are those who claim they know something. Or everything." And you should change your mind frequently. I often hear people make absolutist statements, given as fixed, eternal truths, that are the exact opposite of what they said last week. Sure, politics is the most obvious example, but it's true in art as well.
Someone asked me about some advice I'd given on my Website in an article still up from four years ago (I REALLY need to clean that thing out). Basically, this person asked if I thought it was still a bad idea to participate in a print-on-demand anthology. Back then, the answer was "Yes, it's bad," because the books would cost $30 and not even the writers' mothers would buy a copy, and you'd make three cents while losing your first rights (assuming the publisher ever bothered paying you, that is).
Today, of course, the answer is "Maybe." If it's a reprint, and the publisher is doing an e-book version, it's silly to neglect yet another revenue stream, and the challenges of getting into bookstores are fast becoming moot, just as bookstores are becoming moot. My point here is not to warn you from POD or get you to try it. The point is I have no idea what I'm talking about.
I'm sure somewhere on my Website I say "Never self-publish." Yet today I'd ask why you'd even WANT to contribute to a POD project when you can do it yourself with a lot less hassle and more profit. Some people like community and partnerships. I mostly prefer to work alone, because it's peaceful and I can usually determine the outcome.
So don't take any of my advice. It's take me 15 years to realize I'm stupider than I was the day the started.
###
Someone asked me about some advice I'd given on my Website in an article still up from four years ago (I REALLY need to clean that thing out). Basically, this person asked if I thought it was still a bad idea to participate in a print-on-demand anthology. Back then, the answer was "Yes, it's bad," because the books would cost $30 and not even the writers' mothers would buy a copy, and you'd make three cents while losing your first rights (assuming the publisher ever bothered paying you, that is).
Today, of course, the answer is "Maybe." If it's a reprint, and the publisher is doing an e-book version, it's silly to neglect yet another revenue stream, and the challenges of getting into bookstores are fast becoming moot, just as bookstores are becoming moot. My point here is not to warn you from POD or get you to try it. The point is I have no idea what I'm talking about.
I'm sure somewhere on my Website I say "Never self-publish." Yet today I'd ask why you'd even WANT to contribute to a POD project when you can do it yourself with a lot less hassle and more profit. Some people like community and partnerships. I mostly prefer to work alone, because it's peaceful and I can usually determine the outcome.
So don't take any of my advice. It's take me 15 years to realize I'm stupider than I was the day the started.
###
February 16, 2011
Too Many Witches
Because I love you, or you love me, or something, here's a sneak peek at the concoction now bubbling away in the labs of Mssrs. Nicholson and Davis. TOO MANY WITCHES tells the truth about jealous girls, stinky old bat wings, and what happens when you eat too much candy. In the tradition of If I Were Your Monster, but for big little kids learning new words, coming soon to e-reading devices near you. And paper, if you are an old fuddy duddy who doesn't believe in magic.### 
February 14, 2011
Currencies of the Ego
The indie movement has launched a new measure of "success"--the number of downloads. It doesn't matter whether they are free, 99 cents, or $4.99, and it works like this:
"Gee, I had 1,700 downloads last month!" You don't see Stephen King going around bragging about his numbers. But it also doesn't mean much without context. If you gave away 1,700 copies, that has almost zero value right now, unless it's the Gateway Drug to other purchases. If you sell 10,000 downloads at 99 cents, you made less than the person who sold 1,700 downloads at $2.99. So who's "bigger and better"?
If it's a newer writer, I can understand the exuberance, because the ebook era seems like a miracle after years and years of carefully controlled distribution, when your sales numbers were set in stone the moment an agent said hello to an editor. But it's also easy to sound like you are either bragging or insecure. I shared some end-of-year numbers and I shared on Konrath blog once, more to support the point that people can make a living at this, and now I regret having done it, because it feeds the whole notion of "How much I earn is how good of a writer I am."
"Units moved" has become the new currency of ego that used to be "I GOT AN AGENT!" And money is another currency of ego. I'm guilty of it myself. When I see somebody's raw numbers, I instinctively compare mine, even though consciously all I care about is how I'm doing, not how well I'm doing in relation to other people. In fact, the less I pay attention to other writers' performance, the generally happier I am, because all that matters are my readers and the work in progress.
Maybe that's human nature, and this "Currency of the ego" is an idea I'm exploring in my spiritual philosophy, so hopefully I'll revisit the topic. In the meantime, feed my ego and buy my books. And, by the way, the 3/15 Tweet for gift certificate is for The Skull Ring. All you have to do is RT the book link and you will be entered for a $10 gift certificate:
#mystery The Skull Ring by Scott Nicholson for #kindle http://amzn.to/9Ii8kC and #nook http://bit.ly/hzGa5Y $2.99 #books
###
"Gee, I had 1,700 downloads last month!" You don't see Stephen King going around bragging about his numbers. But it also doesn't mean much without context. If you gave away 1,700 copies, that has almost zero value right now, unless it's the Gateway Drug to other purchases. If you sell 10,000 downloads at 99 cents, you made less than the person who sold 1,700 downloads at $2.99. So who's "bigger and better"?
If it's a newer writer, I can understand the exuberance, because the ebook era seems like a miracle after years and years of carefully controlled distribution, when your sales numbers were set in stone the moment an agent said hello to an editor. But it's also easy to sound like you are either bragging or insecure. I shared some end-of-year numbers and I shared on Konrath blog once, more to support the point that people can make a living at this, and now I regret having done it, because it feeds the whole notion of "How much I earn is how good of a writer I am."
"Units moved" has become the new currency of ego that used to be "I GOT AN AGENT!" And money is another currency of ego. I'm guilty of it myself. When I see somebody's raw numbers, I instinctively compare mine, even though consciously all I care about is how I'm doing, not how well I'm doing in relation to other people. In fact, the less I pay attention to other writers' performance, the generally happier I am, because all that matters are my readers and the work in progress.
Maybe that's human nature, and this "Currency of the ego" is an idea I'm exploring in my spiritual philosophy, so hopefully I'll revisit the topic. In the meantime, feed my ego and buy my books. And, by the way, the 3/15 Tweet for gift certificate is for The Skull Ring. All you have to do is RT the book link and you will be entered for a $10 gift certificate:
#mystery The Skull Ring by Scott Nicholson for #kindle http://amzn.to/9Ii8kC and #nook http://bit.ly/hzGa5Y $2.99 #books
###
