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

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

Matt wrote: "The whole thing is confusing - but then, most things concerning Amazon confuse me.

Amazon has always been about low price. There was even a brouhaha between Zon and the big trad publishers a few y..."

As one agent explained on LinkedIn writers' discussion, Amazon has no skin in the game, so they don't care. They don't put up money to get books published, and they reap profits from whatever sales they get. So they are happy to have anyone put anything out there at whatever low price will entice people to buy. If a book doesn't sell, they loose nothing. If it does, they get something. They are so big that even small amounts of income add up to big profits.

Unfortunately, Amazon and other mega-corporations of their ilk are engaged in a race to the bottom, both in terms of price and quality, in order to make their top execs huge sums of money. They get customers to play along because, well, everyone loves low prices. But it is a race to the bottom, nevertheless, and it can't be sustained forever.

All caught up.

Mary Jane wrote: "please include me I have no reviews as of yet"

If I can get to you I will, but as I said, I have to read one of your books before I can include you, and I don't have a lot of time right now.

Prakash wrote: "Hi everyone there!
One more thing I noticed. If you compare the sales chart on "sales dashboard" and sales reported in "month to date" on KDP on day to day basis till the end of the month, there is..."

It may be because one of them includes the current day and the other does not. If you see a discrepancy, check to see if one of them is reporting sales for today, and if so if those sales are the difference.

Chris wrote: "Nice work Dale! The sentiment in your intro paragraph was great. I hope you encourage more readers to do the same for us indies."

Thank you!

Ted,

We're in complete agreement on that, anyway.

I've posted my new flash fiction story. I seem to be the first one this week, which kind of surprises me. Maybe nobody got a good idea from the photo yet? See https://www.indiesunlimited.com/2017/.... I don't think it's as strong a story as some that I've posted, but with luck people will like it.

Theodore wrote: "Dale wrote: "LOL You do have a way with words. And by the way, while it took a little thought, I "got" your story. (;>) ."

Thanks, so do you. Which is a good thing since we're writers. ;-)

And that's one who got it . . . actually, two, but the other fellow said he was confused because he expected the real killer to be revealed, which I didn't bother doing as it was beside the point.

Theodore wrote: "But on the whole, I demand a lot from my readers. Simply put, some home assembly is required. Batteries extra. "

That's generally the case, sure. But it's a bit different if (as in the case with my story), literally everyone you ask says they were so befuddled that they couldn't figure out the assembly instructions in the first place, and further didn't know what size battery the contraption was supposed to take. ;-)

CeDany wrote: "Dale wrote: "Dale, let me know if you'd be interested in an Epistolary/Fantasy/Historical/Romance series."

Interesting combination. ;-) Historical/Romance isn't something I've ever read, but if time permits I might be persuaded at some point.

Theodore wrote: "I doubt Picasso cared if people "got" him."

Mmmm . . . I have to disagree on this one. I guess if one wanted to write for themselves alone and never share with anyone else, it doesn't matter, but I'm telling a story for the enjoyment of my readers. If I'm confusing significant numbers of them, I haven't done a good enough job. They need to be able to understand, at least in basic, what's going on. They may bring varying interpretations to the work, of course, but if they're so confused they can't get anything from it, that's a problem.

Carole wrote: "It's all subjective- One person may love something, another may hate it. Just because a critic loves a book, doesn't mean it's good or bad- it just appealed to them."

Semi-subjective, anyway. I had a startling experience with this week's entry, which I thought it was a pretty neat story. My daughters read the story while we were all together. One of them didn't get it, after reading it four times. Another then said she didn't really get it, either. My wife then said she wasn't sure she got it, either. After that I asked a couple other people, too, and it turns out that pretty much nobody I talked to actually understood the story!

Apparently there were two problems. One was somehow the references to people in the story got crossed up, and readers didn't know at a certain point who was being talked about. The other was that my "surprise ending" was too much of a surprise. Readers were expecting the story to be resolved in a way that I never intended to resolve it.

This is why I tell writers that if 1 person out of 10 doesn't like your story it may just be them, but if 10 out of 10 don't like it, it's probably your story.

Carole wrote: "Never give up!!"

The reader's choice voting is just a popularity contest anyway. What I'd really like is to capture an editor's choice now and again. The first one I wrote got one, but that was over a year ago. Since then I haven't made the cut, although I think at least once or twice I really should have--but then I would think that, wouldn't I?

I've emailed you. Thanks!

I got my FB gang involved this week, but got trounced by Ara Hamilton and Theodore anyway. Just can't win...

My "process" at the moment is that if I've read your book and see something good in it (even if it's got problems), I'll eventually get around to featuring you. I'm part of the Indie Author Co-Op for EBook Feedback (formerly for Ebook Reviews). Most of the authors I've read are members of that group. I may eventually branch out a bit from there, but my time is limited right now. Also, I'm focused on fiction and on genres I know something about, mostly SF/Fantasy/Mystery/occasional mainstream. Make sense?

I offered 10 ebook copies and 3 print copies of both The Fibonacci Murders and True Death. All 10 Fibonaccis have been taken. I think maybe only 4 True Deaths have been taken. No print copies as yet. I have received a number of new reviews for the first book, and one for the second. Most of them have been good, with helpful comments (both positive and negative) that I mostly have to agree with.

I think it's probably a good service for getting reviews and feedback, although it may take a little time. They don't let people continue to get free books if they don't post reviews of the ones they've received. I haven't used WattPad so I can't compare it to that. It's far better than GR giveaways. I gave away 10 print copies of Fibonacci on GR and got one review that only said, "I got this in a giveaway." Not entirely helpful. :-P

I've started a series of blog posts on indie authors whose works I have read.

My debut post is on Shannon Heuston, author of Under God's Big Sky. Enjoy!

By the by, this will be a once-a-week, invitation-only thing, so please don't beg me for inclusion right now. I have to have read your book in order to feature you, and alas I don't have a great deal of time to gorge myself on everyone's works. I'm starting with those I have already read.

This led me a merry chase, but I found a list (badly formatted, but shown below). I think this is basically the same as the ISO-3166 standard, which you can find here.

Andorra AD
UnitedArabEmirates AE
Albania AL
Armenia AM
NetherlandsAntilles AN
Argentina AR
Austria AT
Australia AU
Azerbaijan AZ
BosniaandHerzegovina BA
Barbados BB
Bangladesh BD
Belgium BE
Bulgaria BG
Bahrain BH
Brunei BN
Bolivia BO
Brazil BR
Bahamas BS
Belarus BY
Canada CA
Switzerland CH
Coted'Ivoire CI
Chile CL
Cameroon CM
China CN
Colombia CO
CostaRica CR
SerbiaandMontenegro CS
Cyprus CY
CzechRepublic CZ
Germany DE
Denmark DK
DominicanRepublic DO
Algeria DZ
Ecuador EC
Estonia EE
Egypt EG
Spain ES
Finland FI
France FR
UnitedKingdom GB
Georgia GE
FrenchGuiana GF
Ghana GH
Guadeloupe GP
Greece GR
Guatemala GT
Guam GU
HongKong HK
Honduras HN
Croatia HR
Hungary HU
Indonesia ID
Ireland IE
Israel IL
India IN
Iraq IQ
Iran IR
Iceland IS
Italy IT
Jamaica JM
Jordan JO
Japan JP
Kenya KE
Kyrgyzstan KG
Cambodia KH
SouthKorea KR
Kuwait KW
Kazakhstan KZ
Laos LA
Lebanon LB
SriLanka LK
Lithuania LT
Luxembourg LU
Latvia LV
LibyanArabJamahiriya LY
Morocco MA
Moldova MD
Madagascar MG
Macedonia MK
Mongolia MN
Macao MO
Martinique MQ
Malta MT
Mauritius MU
Maldives MV
Mexico MX
Malaysia MY
NewCaledonia NC
Nigeria NG
Nicaragua NI
Netherlands NL
Norway NO
Nepal NP
NewZealand NZ
Oman OM
Panama PA
Peru PE
FrenchPolynesia PF
Philippines PH
Pakistan PK
Poland PL
PuertoRico PR
PalestinianTerritory PS
Portugal PT
Paraguay PY
Qatar QA
Reunion RE
Romania RO
Russia RU
SaudiArabia SA
Sudan SD
Sweden SE
Singapore SG
Slovenia SI
Slovakia SK
Senegal SN
ElSalvador SV
SyrianArabRepublic SY
Thailand TH
Tunisia TN
Turkey TR
TrinidadandTobago TT
Taiwan TW
Ukraine UA
UnitedStates US
Uruguay UY
Venezuela VE
Vietnam VN
Yemen YE
SouthAfrica ZA

And that Dale guy has a new story this week, too. Set in a graveyard. For Halloween. And matching the photograph. ;-)

Whoever you vote for, I'd like some feedback on the story itself. I think it's one of my best efforts so far, but I'm prejudiced.

Thanks!

https://www.indiesunlimited.com/2017/...

Amy wrote: "I can't remember now, it could have been eight years ago or more. A lot has happened to me since then. I was looking at several things at the same time including Black Lace publishing house. Someon..."

Ah, so something like, "If you want to get published here, don't use 'if' or 'but', but maybe somewhere else it's okay." ;-)