The Writer’s Predicament

Since the last time I wrote in this column, a significant – and important – part of my life has changed. I’m no longer a starving artist, and that, I assure you, is a good thing.

I told you last month that things were going pretty good. I leaked the first four books of the Dillard series onto the market in November, spread out every two weeks, and sold 2,500 books. (And when I say books I mean ebooks.) They moved quickly up the lists on Amazon, and by the 20th of December, I had four titles in the top ten “legal thrillers” and was on pace to sell about 12,000 books for the month. But I was selling them for 99 cents apiece and only making 35 cents a book. Four thousand dollars a month isn’t bad, but I wanted to make four thousand a week. So after much research and nail biting and discussion with my ridiculously intelligent son, plus a couple of email exchanges with Laura Pepper Wu, I raised the price of all four novels from 99 cents to $2.99. At $2.99, I make about $2.05 per book.

My concern, of course, was that nobody would buy them at that price, even though I think they’re excellent books and $2.99 is a a great bargain. I went to bed the night I raised the prices thinking I was probably being impatient and greedy, that the price increase would kill the momentum I’d built, and that after a few days of watching the sales drop to nothing I’d have to stick my tail between my legs and drop the price back to 99 cents. Laura Wu told me that I’d probably see a 30 percent decrease in sales initially, but that I’d still make far more money. She was right.

I sold nine thousand books in December, three thousand of them at the higher price over the last eleven days of the month. Sales dropped about twenty percent initially and the books dropped out of the top ten in the legal thriller category, but both the sales numbers and the rankings have already recovered significantly. So yeah, I’m making serious money now, and I’ve just scratched the surface. I have a new Dillard book ready to go when I think the time is right and I have a stand-alone legal thriller called “Russo’s Gold” and a literary fiction/young adult novel called “River on Fire” in my pocket. I’ll release them, too, when I think the time is right.

Joe Konrath was right. I’ve never met Joe Konrath, haven’t communicated with him in any way. He’s a writer who had an experience similar to mine with the traditional publishing industry and he’s been writing a blog called “The Newbies Guide to Publishing” for several years. His basic message has been that Amazon and ebooks have changed the publishing world forever and that writers can make a good living publishing independently, without the Big Six publishers. His philosophy is pretty simple — write good books, write a lot of them, and sell them inexpensively. I believed the things he was saying, and while I was struggling to get the rights back to my first three novels from Penguin, I took a great deal of great deal of solace and more than a little inspiration from the things Joe Konrath wrote.

So thank you, Joe Konrath. You gave me far better advice than any agent ever did. And cheers to the rest of you. The money is rolling now, finally, and the best part about it is that it’s only gong to get better.

Now, briefly, for the other part of my life, the scary part. First off, I want to thank all of the people who reached out to me with kind words, thoughts and gestures after they read about the return of my wife’s cancer.  Kristy is doing very well under the difficult circumstances of having to take chemotherapy pills and medication to strengthen her bones and medication to shut down her ovaries. She’s tired a great deal of the time and she has to deal with pain and nausea and stomach problems and hot flashes, but her spirit is as strong and as beautiful as ever and I marvel at her strength and her resolve each and every day. Our daughter is moving back to the area from Knoxville to be near her and to help her with her dancing school, and our son has been a tremendous help. We’ve circled the wagons and are ready for a long, long, long fight.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some shopping to do. Kristy turns fifty in a couple of weeks and I plan to take some of my new-found wealth and get her something very, very nice for her birthday. Tune in next time and I’ll tell you what it is.