Carole’s Comments (group member since Oct 19, 2016)

Carole’s comments from the Navigating Indieworld Discussing All Things Indie group.

OMG thanks, Ted. This explains why my sales tanked after the migration! My paperback sales were halved. It all makes sense- I'll have to make sure Brit checks all that information.

You can write them and complain. I got them to reinstate MY reviews but not the ones other people have given our books. It feels like they are not allowing new reviews to publish either. I sent out hundreds of paperbacks to our regular reviewers- while the first book in my son's series has maintained over seventy reviews (none have been added in months, even though the book is selling,) his other book can't get over 38- no matter how many I send out. It's strange- as thought they are frozen. If one shows up- they pull a different one off the site. His publisher indicated that 40 reviews is a magic number. Zon will start to promote the book once it gets over 40 and I can't seem to get it past that darn 38.
Alex, I am hoping they give me another assignment. Working with a publisher was like being in autopilot- however, they don't do royalties no matter how successful the book. I am hoping someone else will see if and give me a a better deal.

I agree with you, Magnus. It's disheartening. Amazon wiped out so many hard-earned reviews.They shouldn't have done all of them- tho. Did they keep mine? They took all of mine down and then restored most of them after I proved I review only books I purchase.
I sent out books to reviewers, paid for shipping, paid for the paperback and they arbitrarily decided which they considered "real." I assure you, they were all real, earned and campaigned for.
I find the one book I did with a publisher at the number one spot for new releases. While I have done that with many of my self-published books for a few days, this one is sitting there for more than a month. They have asked me to post to my social media three days a week for four weeks and watch whether I am doing it. They have asked for my mailing list ( I shared what I felt I could with them) and although I won't see a royalty- That was my deal- I got paid up front, I am assuming it must be selling enough to cover their cost. They informed me the book is doing well with close to more than 100 (paperback) copies being sold- so that's the best any book I've ever done. I would never have done a book like this or the subject- so it makes me wonder if they have a formula of what will sell?

Starting with a thousand- We are doing it slowly about two hundred a week. Then I have another mailing list of about 1200 that I will roll out all spring.

https://medium.com/@caroleproman/this...

You're welcome!

Thanks!!

Keep an eye out on it. I am sending out over a thousand flyers across the country to bookstores and libraries.

I checked back on my old records- we made pretty much sold the same amount on KU as we did when we went wide. Right now I have one book on KU and it does about the same as the others. (only it has a lot more free reads.)

Either way, we were making serious bucks before they did the KU transition and it tanked once they went to the page read stuff.

Thanks, Alex, but some of those places took electronic books as well.

I sent out the flyer from the Miami Book Fair to bookstores on a mailing list out West. I have noticed my distribution sales have doubled from last month. Best they've been for months. Has anybody else noticed that?
I noticed I had some Createspace distribution and the ones that doubled was Ingramsparks.

I was shocked they send it back. I thought that was very admirable.

I ran one of my books on Bargain Booksy. I usually just do Michael's but I thought I'd try them out for me and I didn't sell a single book. They wrote an email asking how the day went and I just mentioned that it didn't do well. I wasn't looking for anything- just thought they should know they might not have the right audience- Do you know what? They refunded me the money.

I want to add that Michael's books do wonderful on there.
I think they are amazing.

The lawyer that Michael is working with is specific about intellectual property. While he has a publisher, they will only get book sales. If the studios pick up his book the author holds all the rights on the intellectual property- meaning the characters and storyline. If for instance, all the income from Harry Potter rides at Disney go to Rowling rather than her publisher. They are only making money on her book sales, (not a bad thing) but merchandise and all the rest of it go directly to Rowling.
I trademarked my character, Captain No Beard. Soon after I published, someone swiped my character. I found a site dedicated to it and I sued for the rights. I proved that I created him before they registered him and they awarded me the trademark. It was an expensive thing to do, by I wanted to protect my intellectual property just in case it went viral. It didn't but I didn't want to find someone telling me to unpublish the characters I invented.

Whores drawers! Hahahah

voted

Great job! Congrats!!

Nice article, Sam

Mindfulness For Kids made the local paper! Check out what all the buzz is about... Grab your copy of Mindfulness for Kids here: http://bit.ly/MindfulnessForKidsBook

Learn a little about me, Carole P. Roman, in this latest article I published on Medium...

https://medium.com/@caroleproman/the-...