Tomas’s Comments (group member since May 15, 2018)

Tomas’s comments from the Support for Indie Authors group.

Phillip wrote: "I like that one. It reminds me of the famous LOTR scene from the movie."

Haven't seen it for a while, so I can't comment on that. Glad that you like it, though :)

We need more lines from our books! So, I'm bringing this thread back from the pit.

A quote from my current draft of Secrets of the Eternals, book two of my to-be trilogy. Said by one of the major supporting characters - and the MC's best friend - to the MC.

“You wanted me as your cover in battle. That’s what you’ll have. For as long as there’s blood in my veins, air in my lungs, and arrows in my quiver, I’ll stand behind you and shoot anyone foolish to oppose you.”

Thanks!

Hello fellow authors,
as I only truly joined the ranks of authors less than a year ago, I'm quite curious as to what level did the Kindle Unlimited global fund (henceforth mentioned as "jackpot") has been before the pandemic and during it. This is mostly because I've heard various theories about how the pandemic might affect reading time, and find myself curious what the effect might've been on KU specifically.

I know that 2021 began with the jackpot being just a bit above $33M, and has been growing ever since (July jackpot being $38,1M), so I'm curious if it's merely returning to pre-covid numbers, or if it's going above that.

So, if anyone has numbers for 2018-2020 and is willing to share them, I'd appreciate it.

Sorry for the late reply - I was on holiday. I didn't have any issues with setting up X-ray personally. Also, the count will drop a lot when you merge duplicates (typical First name alone, First name + Last name, etc.) and cross out things you don't really need.

And yep, you may need different descriptions for individual books if they may be spoilers for later books.

By what I've heard, it's because authors were doing review swaps and it's hard to guess what's a genuine swap of honest reviews and what's favor for a favor. Unfortunately, there are so many disruptive elements to reviews that it had come to quite a trigger-happy approach.

Justin wrote: "Hmm..I may look into this. I know I thought about using it for my crime thriller set in Shanghai. I used real places so I could've used x-ray to describe the places in more detail."

For real places and names, you can have X-ray pull Wikipedia entries (it uses the summary at the very top, which is usually a paragraph-long, just the right size)

To Linda: I don't know about a direct way, but there's nothing preventing you from copy-pasting the X-ray definitions from one book to another.

To Justin: it's very useful for people who tend to forget names/places, especially of minor characters or less-important things. It's way better than the old approach of glossary at the back, because you can highlight a name right in the text to get a hint. It depends on the reader - I tend to use it, in the rare case the writer bothers to set it up properly.

For me, Calibre creating e-books is quite easy and does what I want if I input a HTML file... but I couldn't make it produce a decent print file. I couldn't get the page numbers and headers/footers right.

Yeah, Expanded distribution allows Amazon to sell the paperback in other stores, though at a larger price cut. Since I don't expect to sell paperbacks, I enabled it and had to up the price to $25 (700-page book) to get above negative royalty for Expanded while the minimum for selling it on Amazon is around $16.

It's always better to upload to Amazon directly and use a platform only for the other retailers. Yes, you'll need to deal with two set-ups instead of just one, but you'll get better support on Amazon that way. My direct upload paperback was updated relatively fast.

A site where you can hire people to do stuff for you, mostly IT type of stuff or digital art. There's a lot of people doing book covers or book formatting there.

Formatting the e-book isn't that hard, in my opinion, if you can work with a guide and basic HTML. Paperbacks are worse because of all the headers, footers, page numbers, and other nonsense e-books are free of.

Yep, the royalty from expanded distribution sales is lower and the ceiling is higher. For me (170k words, 6x9 paperback), the break-even point (just cover printing cost and seller cuts at $0 profit) is $15 for Amazon sales and $24 for expanded distribution.

B.A. wrote: "In fact, my local B&N won't handle a book without an ISBN. I asked for a paperback I saw online and it wasn't in their database. When I checked, the book had an ASIN which is exclusive to Amazon, not and ISBN."

I've just set up a paperback on Amazon, and it has both ASIN and ISBN. Amazon actually gives you a free ISBN if you don't have your own.

If you know someone who can read that rough draft and give you honest feedback, that would be the best.

I think the old version was too text-busy, something the new version helped a lot.

Murphy's law work well here. If you leave it for the last moment, you're guaranteed to see massive delays.
If you set it up a few days ahead, the price change will be processed in minutes.
Better safe than sorry, I would say.
I don't know how fast Ingram is, but a trick that tends to work, if Amazon is taking their time and other sources are updated already, just report a lower price yourself, they'll be quick to price-match.

B.A. wrote: "like the Eragon series which were 300+ pages for each book"

Yep, Eragon is a hand-killer in paperback (I believe you meant 800+?) but each book has its own climax, even if lesser, until the end (as far as I remember). What I mean to say is that you can't just split it up in half anywhere - the split needs to respect plot structure.

Gail wrote: "Mystery solved!! I heard back from Amazon - I just had to ask them about this. Their reply: Per Terms & Conditions, they reserve the right to discount paperbacks based upon different factors, which they did not elaborate. BUT (most interesting), the lower price does not alter author royalties for the book on any of the their sites, including international sales."

Maybe they got a cheaper deal on paper or ink? :D

I wouldn't be surprised if the production costs were set up at some failsafe number to account for price fluctuations, and if the related commodities are cheaper due to lower demand (blame COVID for everything!), it may be an option.