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

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

Carole wrote: "Brit usually spends the day tweeting and posting on social media. We sell between 40 and 60 e books on those days of the featured book."

Thanks, I'll do what I can. I don't usually have a whole day to do things like that, but I can spread it across several days, I'm sure.

Anna Faversham wrote: "I see you ask for additional activities to help with the 'push'.

I can only suggest alerting folks on Goodreads on the first day of your promotion. I have seen some authors' suggestion of then rem..."

Thanks, Anna. I'll definitely do that, especially since the promo price runs through the end of the month.

Sam (Rescue Dog Mom, Writer, Hugger) wrote: "I'm 95% sure I posted the story to earn money, only 5% willing to state I may have forgot. I'm always careful about that.
I have an idea that might help. Would anyone be willing to delete their cla..."

I gave you some more. Mistakes happen. Sometimes it's a mouse, where you think you clicked something but it didn't actually take.

Thank you, folks. I wouldn't expect to make back the fee on the first day. I'm hoping that by running promos for three months, hitting all the books in the series, I'll get enough traction down the line to make it worthwhile. But it wouldn't surprise me if I don't.

I've purchased a bargainbooksy promotion for The Fibonacci Murders, set for July 15 (next Sunday). This is my first foray into this kind of thing. We'll see if I come anywhere near earning back the investment.

The price for the book has been dropped to $3.99 USD on both Amazon and B&N. I think I already have it on sale at the publisher site, Serpent Cliff, but that's experiencing problems right now. Once tech support gets it fixed, I'll check on that. The sale runs through July 31. I hope to follow this up with promotions on True Death in August and Ice on the Bay in September.

If any of you more experienced folks have suggestions for additional activities around these promos, please let me know. I've rather new and inept at this . . .

Oh, now here's something interesting. A lot of these magazines are using the same online submission software. You submit stories electronically, they assign you a number, and you can log back in with your email and number to get a status update. The status is always something obvious like, "received" or "rejected". The system at Clarkesworld has a key displayed, though, as follows:

Received: Your story has not been read yet.
Under Review: Your story is currently in the hands of one of our staff.
Under Review (Second Round): Your story is in the top 3% and has moved onto the next round.
Accepted: Your story has been accepted for publication and we have emailed an acceptance letter.
Rejected: Your story wasn't right for us and we have emailed a rejection letter.

That bit about two rounds of "under review" and the 3% figure is the interesting part. If they're picking just 3 out of every 100 stories received (on average, I'd guess) to go to the second round, it would be quite an accomplishment to get even that far. I wonder how many of those 3 make the final cut? Probably less than one . . .

D.J. wrote: "Oh well. Onto the next one. I don’t know which is worse the quick rejections that make you wonder if they even read it or the ones which make you wait while you build your hopes up before rejecting..."

Both are equally bad. ;-)

Analog still hasn't responded to "Safe House," which I sent them two months ago. But they do say their response time is in the 3 - 4 month range. I'm wondering why they are so slow when their competitors are rejecting stories a lot faster. Not enough staff, maybe? Or maybe they just take more time to consider works.

F&SF is closed for submissions during July so they can catch up, so I submitted "Testimony" to Clarkesworld instead.

Asimov's rejected it in record time. I thought it would take them a couple more days, at least. :-P

F&SF next . . .

Let's see where this one goes.

Belief Matters

Karen wrote: "Good luck!"

Thank you!

Anna Faversham wrote: "Something good? I made some sales.

Departing from my belief that it is not right to give my much-loved book away as a freebie - it's worth more... etc., etc., I put it on a 3 day freebie. There's ..."

Congratulations on the sales. 30 isn't a bad number.

D.J. wrote: "Good luck. I enjoyed that one."

Thank you! I'll let you know how it goes.

Erica wrote: "Congrats on your award, Dale and great news about your interview, Ted! Best of luck. :)"

Thank you!

Thanks to Karen and Debz for the feedback on this story. I've submitted it to Asimov's. We'll see what happens . . .

Thanks, folks, and congratulations, Ted! Sounds like a great opportunity.

Is this promotion disguised as angst? If so, it's very underhanded of me. ;-)

I'm an Award-Winning Author . . . Right?

I also got an honorable mention for 1/20/2018. Personally I liked that story better than the story for the week I won, but I won't complain. ;-)

Oh my gosh . . . have they announced a new set of winners? I'll have to go look. Thanks, everyone!

The collision of nature and technology. Or something like that. Oops! A flash fiction accident. Enjoy!

My short story Rebirth (published in Lit Up on Medium) received the following comment from a reader:

"Your story made me stop and think about life and what it’s all about."

Wow . . . I couldn't ask for higher praise than that!