Dale’s Comments (group member since Sep 15, 2017)

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

How I spent my day. Adventures in Online Shopping

My next flash fiction tale stars a furry hero: Lucky Catch

Finally, a new blog post by me! This one is about Medium. I thought you might enjoy seeing it as an example of how to promote your Medium work through your blog. Or maybe you can tell me how I didn't do it right. ;-) Or whatever. Enjoy!

Dennis wrote: "Here are our pages to follow:"

Got you followed.

D.J. wrote: "I wonder how much of it is genre specific. We all write different things so it can be difficult to compare. For instance, the higher price for the Bargain Booksy promo Dale has just run is because ..."

That's true. The mystery category is the largest by list size. The romance categories are slightly smaller but command a higher price ($70 for most of them).

Anna Faversham wrote: "Oh, I'm following all right - what makes me stop and think is that I always thought that for a promo there wasn't much point in competing with the free and 0.99 books if mine were to be priced even..."

Oh, good. I don't want to confuse anyone. ;-) However, I set the price at $3.99. The $2.79 was what I make, because the Kindle "royalty" (which isn't actually a royalty, but that's another matter) is 70% of the sale price, or $2.79.

Anna Faversham wrote: "Dale said I put it on sale for $3.99 USD. At a 70% royalty, that gets me $2.79 USD/book, so I needed 20 sales to break even. At a lower price, I wouldn't have done it.

Gee, that's an interesting..."

I guess I should qualify that. I spent $55 on the promo (they charge more for mystery and other highly popular genres). $55/$2.79 = 19.7, which is the number of sales required to "break even" at that price point ($3.99, which gives me $2.79 income).

If I had sold the same number of books at a lower price, I wouldn't have broken even. For example, at $0.99 sale price my income would be $0.69, and the break even point would then be $55/$0.69 = 79.7 books. So by lowering the price to $0.99, I would have had to sell 60 more books than I did in order to break even. I think it highly unlikely I would have hit that target, although it's always possible.

I seem to recall having heard people say they managed about 20 sales on a Bargain Booksy promo, so I priced my book to make that my break-even point. It's possible I could have dropped the price a tad and garnered more sales, but every price drop raises the break-even point, so it can't be done indiscriminately or I'd make it too hard to hit the target.

I hope that's not befuddling anyone. Too many numbers make some people's eyes glaze over. I know because I'm married to one of those people. ;-)

D.J. wrote: "At a higher price I sold 3 copies. Really not sure where to go from there."

Pricing is a bit of a puzzle. In doing occasional research to find out what the "hot" price points are, I've found it's a bit of a moving target. The last time I looked, $0.00 - $0.99 garnered a lot of sales, as did $2.99 - $4.99, but the range from $1.00 - $1.99 was a dead zone.

I suspect the lower range works well for occasional promos, but possibly not so much for a regular price. There is a theory out there that customers who see a regular price that low will think the book isn't worth spending money on.

It probably depends somewhat on other marketing factors, such as the cover, the blurb, etc.

D.J. wrote: "Excellent news. My promos this year have only made a fraction of the money I have spent on them. The book is however only at 99c/99p at the moment."

Yeah, price makes a difference. I normally sell my ebooks at $4.99 USD, so I put it on sale for $3.99 USD. At a 70% royalty, that gets me $2.79 USD/book, so I needed 20 sales to break even. At a lower price, I wouldn't have done it.

Anna Faversham wrote: "Good news! And rare to make more money on a promo than you spent."

I didn't expect to, so it's a pleasant surprise!

My promo ran yesterday, and it looks like I've made back the money I spent on it. I got 21 sales on the day of the promo (20 for The Fibonacci Murders and one for True Death), and I have at least one more today, so I'm a few dollars ahead on the deal. I was planning on doing one promo a month, but maybe I'll speed up the schedule, since this one worked so well.

I posted about the promo on FB and sent out a long overdue newsletter that mentioned it. I don't know how much activity I got from each of these components, but I'm happy with the results!

Got both Ben and Justin here, on Twitter, and FB as appropriate.

Lit Up has published my first "Tales in Parts," a 4-part story called "The Gift of Empathy." The links are:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Please enjoy and share.

They're baaaaack . . . Still Life with Melody, a flash fiction tale.

Theodore wrote: "I simply can't understand why people who, after expressing an interest in a book and agreeing to do a review, never "come through."

Things get in the way. You sound like a really organized guy, but unfortunately not all of us are--or we try to be, but life gets in the way. I have a bunch of books I won from the FB takeover days that I want to read and review. (None of them yours, although I really want to read some of yours, too, when I can.) I've only read three of them and reviewed two of them. My excuse is I'm currently working four jobs (my day job, a part time gig for a former boss, our little publishing company, and my own writing), and my wife's health issues, while not severe right now, mean she doesn't get to some of the stuff she used to do, so I have to cover part of them.

I know it's frustrating, and probably some people who promise reviews actually just forget for no really good reason, but then there's that old saying about walking a mile in another person's shoes before judging them. I'm gaining a new appreciation for that just from walking in my own shoes and being frustrated with the results!

Theodore wrote: "I want nothing whatsoever to do with the local library system."

It's largely a matter of understanding how they work. As a rule, no, they aren't going to purchase books or even accept large numbers of donations from someone who just walks in with them. My wife used to work at a library in Illinois and could explain it better, but usually donations that are dropped off don't end up on the shelves; they end up in storage until the next book sale.

The Baltimore County Public Library will accept a donation of a book from a local author, but generally it goes into a non-circulating local authors collection (which I found out only AFTER I had sent them a copy of Fibonacci). The Howard County Library system didn't take a copy of my Howard County novel, because, well, I'm not a Howard County resident.

We might think their rules are stupid, but there are reasons for them, even if they are sometimes convoluted government rules.

What I'm doing, though, is actually running an event that takes place at the library--a creative writing workshop. The members enjoy it and are relatively fascinated by the fact that I'm a published author (because most of them aren't), and many of them have wanted to purchase my books.

Having done that for over a year, I was asked to take part in a local authors night, in which four of us got up and talked about our works. But it wasn't well-attended (partly because the weather was miserable), and I only sold one book there. Mostly people came to support a specific author and already had that author's books.

D.J. wrote: "Second one. It's so pointless, I wouldn't bother reading it.

https://medium.com/@debzcooper/conver..."

Actually it's pretty funny. You have a talent for pulling humor out of seemingly pointless things. ;-)

Carmel wrote: "I wasn't sure where to put this comment, but I'll try here and see if I get scolded for being off topic. :) I thought I'd share some mixed results from doing personal appearances in the past month...."

Ten sales is a good event. I've done a few bookstore signings and have always sold a few copies, generally in the 3 - 5 range. I've sold more through the writing workshop that I run, however. At first I didn't sell books, because the library didn't seem to want me to, but participants asked for them, so I now bring a few every time and often sell at least one, although not always.

My latest Writing Cooperative story: Your Family Isn't the Cover Design Committee.

I was off today so have some catching up to do with the rest of you. I'll try to get to that tomorrow.

D.J. wrote: "Ok, so someone has to be picked but with those odds is it even worth the bother?"

It's worth it if you have a good enough story. ;-) They sent me a rejection this morning, though. I may have to try some of the lesser magazines. F&SF is closed for submissions this month, and I am still waiting on Analog to reply to my previous submission.

I have a feeling this particular story is a bit too oddball (in terms of the storytelling technique) for the mainstream SF mags.