J.’s Comments (group member since Sep 09, 2014)

J.’s comments from the THE Group for Authors! group.

I have missed this group too though lately I've been so focused on getting my next book released that I haven't done any promos other than a single AMS ad and a BookBub ad. Neither has had much success but enough at low enough cost to me to just let them run. All the best to everyone else here.

I'm pretty sure new just means it's a new post not a new person

ENT has always been one of the best for me.

Jack wrote: "Mine appear to be showing up daily, but I've made a tracking worksheet to help me look for trends. You might want to do something similar. I'm using Libre Office, but Excel or any other spreadsheet..."

Jack,
As always, thanks for the info. I have just started using Amazon ads and as such have not gotten very far into fine tuning what works and what doesn't. I like your idea about using a spreadsheet to track things and will probably set up one myself. I only have one book active but as you point out getting increased activity that moves the book up the rankings can be worth it even when the book isn't selling. And Happy New Year to all.

Marian wrote: "A suggestion: take a screenshot of your AMS dashboard every day. It's an important record to have."

Darn, I should have been doing that too.

Mark wrote: "Jack wrote: "I read that Amazon is transitioning to their own storage farms. That may be the source of the glitches.
Follow-up to an earlier post: I've got one Sponsored Products ad running on Amaz..."
Hi Mark, thanks from me too. I have a trial ad running now and so far one sale on 12 clicks. I'm going to see what adjustments I might make based on your suggestions. All the best.

Ouch. That kind of sucks. Seems like Amazon is having more of these sorts of problems. Hope they get things fixed quickly.

Belle wrote: "They are all different. Some buy them outright and some do consignment. Having a local author angle helps. I was able to get into libraries and bookstores more easily after I had the state library ..."
Good for you. Another area that I need to put some work into.

Marie Silk wrote: "I've been a bit nervous about the transition from Createspace to KDP Print, especially after KDP gave me error messages when I tried to manually create the books in KDP print myself. I went with th..."

That is really good news. I did the easy conversion too but haven't ordered any copies. Glad this worked for you and hoping it will prove out okay for me as well.

Hey Jack,
You can use Ingram and Amazon with some restrictions, like that darn ISBN. The plus with Ingram is that indie bookstores will find your book whereas with Amazon they might not. I can testify to that because this summer I was at a small, private bookstore in MN and talked to the owner about my books. She was more than happy to look at them except when she tried to look them up on her purchasing software they wouldn't come up. She doesn't have easy access to books through Amazon. And therefore, I'm working on having my print books at both Amazon and Ingram. Not that it's been easy since my covers have not transferred well and I've had to work with the cover art people to make changes. Still, with persistence I expect to get the move done and be dual sourced. And maybe learn more about what Ingram expects on covers so it'll go more smoothly in the future.

I'm pretty sure that Ingram Sparks will sell you an ISBN or let you use your own.

Hey Jack, glad to see you here, even for a one-shot. Sounds like you are still moving forward, testing things, and finding what works for you. All the best.

Marie Silk wrote: "Sorry in advance for the long post! I wanted to share my experience with writing a novella, "permafree", and the aftermath. I published a short novella (17K words) last year. I called it a "prequel..."
Thanks, Marie for the info. Worth the long post.

Dennis wrote: "Jack, as nice a guy as I'm sure you are, you do every aspiring writer out there a disservice with this kind of message. First of all, I've checked out your books on amazon, their rankings, prices (..."
Dennis, Not sure what your point really is. Sure some writers won't make it. Some might end up like Andy Weir. Some will land near the same place Jack is. Nobody knows where any of us will end up. I don't make the kind of money Jack talks about but I have made a few dollars the last couple of years. You say it doesn't matter how good your writing is and I can agree that good writing doesn't guarantee success but bad writing pretty much assures failure. One thing is sure, if you quit, you'll end up nowhere so what's wrong with a bit of encouragement?

Lily, nice page.

Jack, thanks for the info. Books Butterfly is now on my "do not use" list. I have never used them and won't. The best sites I've found are ENT, Booksends, Book Barbarian (SF&F only as Jack noted) and KBT. Others work sometimes and miss badly at other times and of course there are those that just plain miss. Next week I've got a number of ads set up. Some with lesser sites to try out. I'll post results.

Anne wrote: "J. wrote: "D - any idea where the place is on KDP that suggests keywords by genre?"

It's on the 'Selecting Browse Categories' list: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/top...

Scroll down..."
Thanks. That helps a lot.

D - any idea where the place is on KDP that suggests keywords by genre?

Hi C.J.
Thanks. I realized most of my concerns were based on some of my own misunderstandings and that became clear once I started digging. My concerns were because I got the impression that the ISBNs from the print house might limit my options for publishing elsewhere. The good thing is that thanks to this thread I've got a better understanding of how things work and realize that I have not been doing what's best for me or my books. That's going to change. I hope I haven't muddied the waters.

C.J. Thanks for the interesting article. The more info we get the better. The only thing I've found that disagrees with my understanding of what I read here was the idea that the publisher owns your book and that you can't use another publisher unless you delist the book at the first one. What you do shows that's not so and that's what I've seen. True the publisher holds the book under that ISBN but that doesn't prevent you from getting another ISBN and publishing elsewhere. I really appreciate the info about expanded distribution in that article as it explains why it doesn't work the way I thought with CS. More things to think about before I get my next book out.