Anita’s Comments (group member since Jul 12, 2017)

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

Kimberly wrote: "Congratulations to everyone in their successes great and small. My great news is I have been nominated for 2018 Female Author award for my new book Beautiful,Strong Women:Poems of The Journey To Ov..."

Kudos to you. Congratulations!!!

I am delighted to say my new book, AU79, is close to completion. One more beta read to go. I am still hoping to have it published by mid-April.

I have been experimenting with Amazon ads, and actually have gone in the black on one. I've sold more than the cost of the clicks.

My day--is feeling darn good. And, my taxes are done! I can get back to the fun stuff.

Since CS and KDP are both owned by Amazon, I would expect that KDP is using the printing presses owned by CS. I can't imagine they would go to the expense of setting up new plants.

Alex wrote: "Amazon is really grinding my gears right now. I contacted them about my newest release to ask if they could add it to the series page so it is more easily found by readers, and they're aware there ..."

I'll add this to the mix. I received an email from an individual who attended the library convention held in Chicago. One of the conversations among those attending was the demise of Createspace. This month, Amazon announced layoffs in the Createspace division, and discontinued their editing and other services, which may be the reason for the push to load print books though Kindle.

I checked mine, and the boxes are still unchecked. Thanks for the heads up.

How long did it take Amazon to match the price?

I couldn't agree more about going the traditional route. I don't want to give up the control, freedom and the fun. And ... my next Tracker novel is complete, yippee. Now, it's onto the editing phase. I hope to have it published by early April.

I just came across another disquieting block for Indie authors. There has been chatter on another thread about the Library of Congress catalog for libraries. There are two programs, CIP and LCCN, to get a book into the catalog. The CIP excludes print-on-demand books. I have spent the last two hours attempting to ascertain if the same exclusion applies to the LCCN number that authors can obtain. I don't have an answer yet.

I am so delighted Susan has joined the group. I agree with Carole on blog tours.

Carole wrote: "You didn’t miss it. I didn’t say anything until today. I think this is going to b my reality for a while so I wanted people to know why I’ve been quiet"

I'm glad you decided to say something. A lot more prayers will be winging their way to you.

I publish a column, On The Hunt, in Indie Authors Monthly magazine. This month's article is titled: Circling the Globe: eBook Distribution. It might be helpful.

Here are the links to the magazine and my website where the article can also be viewed.

https://www.indieauthorsmonthly.com/r...
https://www.anitadickason.com/circlin...

Anna Faversham wrote: "Anita, perhaps I ought to add that in the last couple of weeks, I have seen my 'to read' statistics go down, probably because someone had read the book and changed it from 'to read' to 'read'. And ..."

Thanks Anna. I've seen the up and down as well, but I have to agree with Ted, it's another feature that doesn't seem to have any value for the author.

Anna Faversham wrote: "Anita wrote: "Does anyone know what value there is to the to-read feature for an author's books?"

Well some of my books are on 'to read' lists that run above 9,000. Assuming the people read as man..."

Thanks. That's what I thought. Wanted to see what someone else had to say. Wouldn't it be nice if we could reach out to those individuals?

Does anyone know what value there is to the to-read feature for an author's books?

Carole wrote: "That scares me, too.- I am reducing all my ad expenses and optimizing free resources right now.

I'm sure you'll get some sales from it, Alex- It's one of the only ways left to promote our books. ..."

Count me in. Where you go, I am happy to follow.

I have to agree about ENT. Without a doubt they were the best of all my promotions. I will be doing the same, trying to get a slot for Going Gone!

I hope to have my next book out by the end of first quarter. I am taking a hard look at what worked and didn't on my promotions for the first two. There are a number of paid ones that didn't bring diddly squat and won't use again.

I saw an article that stated book reviews from blog tours was on the hit list.

Sad, but true. A large local chain here in Texas closed it's doors this year. Even Walmart dumped a lot of bookshelf space when they remodeled the store.

Excerpt from article:
"Here is one way to measure the upheaval in bookselling: Replacing Book World as the fourth-largest chain, Publishers Weekly says, will be a company that had no physical presence a few years ago. That would be Amazon, which having conquered the virtual world has opened or announced 15 bookshops, including at the Time Warner Center in Manhattan."

The wave of the future.

I would have to agree. My stop on Jan 2nd is an Italian host. Most of the site is in Italian.

https://libreriabeppe.blogspot.it/

I have done two blog tours and am in the middle of a third. I used Susan Barton and Goddess Fish Promotions, but my tours didn't include a review. While I didn't do as well as Carole, I have been pleased with the results. I have had a slight uptick in sales. I also saw an increase in followers on twitter and facebook. I had no problems in scheduling a tour that was about a month to six weeks out.