Amazon Select book lending program

[Dakota]

First we need to know what the "long acre" is. Then it shouldn't be too difficult to relate "cropping" to "grafting", unless Andre has changed the context again.

[Andre Jute]

Yes, to both question. Once you get "long acre", you're only one step away from an answer. And the context is different.

The "long acre" is common. That's a hint, not the answer.

[K.A.]

The 'Long Acre' is a swath of grass along a road.

Cropping is either cutting or to grow crops upon.

Grafting also has to do with fruit trees.

My guess is growing fruit trees along the side of the road.

Here's a PS for you:

My total combined downloads and sales for December: 8185

I'm not sure what to think about this figure. 90% was giveaways. The glass can be half-empty or half-full.

[Andre Jute]

K. A. wrote: "My total combined downloads and sales for December: 8185

I'm not sure what to think about this figure. 90% was giveaways. The glass can be half-empty or half-full."

Well, that's 818,5 sales, nothing to sneeze at. Who bought the half-book?

PS You're lukewarm on "cropping the long acre".

[K.A.]

Grazing cattle on the side of the road?

The half-sale was a return. LOL Had 19 of those.

[Sharon]

Kat: Glass more than half full for sure...

So, the grafter is cutting the grass along the side of the road. Andre would probably have him using a scythe.

Or is it the cows?

[Andre Jute]

Imagine a carload of middle-aged ladies of the utmost probity, members of the flower club, decorators of churches for a hundred miles around, raisers of funds for sundry good causes. They each have a little saw in the car or even in their capacious shoulder bags. On their way home from a good cause, they stop the car, dash into somebody's garden with their little saws, and take a small cutting. Since you insist on connecting it with grafting: Back home, each grafts her cutting onto whatever it requires to grow.

That's "cropping the long acre". Originally it meant to graze your animals on common land, gather firewood in a public forest, and so on.

[Sharon]

Very entertaining, Andre, as one would expect. May I point out, though, that it was you who first mentioned relating 'cropping the long acre' to grafting...

[Andre Jute]

Legitimate red herrings served here. Bring your own aquavit. No corkage.

[Patricia]

If this article is correct, it looks like we'll be getting $1.70 per borrow for the books we enroll in KDP Select, and Amazon has raised the pot for this month.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/12/amaz...

[K.A.]

All 7k of mine went out as freebies, there were only 18 borrows.

I'm going to see if a shorter Free run will yeild more borrows.

[Patricia]

Keep us posted. I'm going to have some short stories to offer soon and thought I'd go with five days, but if you say shorter stints are better, I'll trust you and go with that.

[Katherine]

I was surprised at $1.70. I was expecting pennies. I didn't have that many borrows.

Kat, I'm curious why you think if you do a shorter FREE run it will yield more borrows?

I have two FREE days left on the one book. I can't decide when to run it. I feel ill-prepared. My first three FREE days (12/25 to 12/27) had close to 600 downloads which I was feeling pretty good about, but not 1,000s. So far, that endeavor hasn't yielded to any new reviews from new readers. I'm still waiting for readers to work their way through their book downloads.

[K.A.]

I think that people snap something up when it's free, or borrow it, then 3rd they buy it.

A shorter period of free time might yield more borrows or sales. I'm not sure...that's why I'm trying it.

Also, I want to try using the last free days to launch the book to OUT of KDP Select. Out with a bang, not a wimper - I guess.

[Katherine]

Well, that's the other thing, Kat, since you brought it up~in terms of launching "out" of KDP Select. From what I've read of Amazon's TOS, it appears that you get five FREE days for every 90 days when you are signed up for the program. Intriguing. I'm considering staying in it because of that aspect, alone. If I were to better solidify my marketing program and plan for certain for it being free specific times of the year, I could market that aspect. Thoughts? Downsides to this?

I'm not lazy, just burned out I think. Perhaps.

The thought of gearing up to put When I See You on Smashwords to get to all the others is NOT appealing to me right now. It's been great just to fully concentrate on Amazon and market it there and on GR (as a print giveaway) and my blog(s) and call it good. Is anyone else enjoying this aspect as much as I am?

[K.A.]

I'm not convinced that staying in the KLL indefinately is a good idea for me.

I can see going in to launch a book for 90 days, after that, not sure if it is the best thing for me.

[Patricia]

My guess would be that a launch on Kindle won't help with sales elsewhere.

[Andre Jute]

Name recognition is name recognition; eventually it spreads, but at the speed of molasses.

I guess it depends on how many copies of your books sell elsewhere; didn't you have meaningful sales at one stage on Barnes & Noble, Kat?

[Patricia]

It doesn't matter if you get name recognition at a time your book isn't available on other platforms. If I had a Nook and heard about this swell book in the Kindle Store, I'd ignore the news.

[Andre Jute]

Patricia wrote: "It doesn't matter if you get name recognition at a time your book isn't available on other platforms. If I had a Nook and heard about this swell book in the Kindle Store, I'd ignore the news."

No, the way it works is that the umpteenth time you hear the name, if it is then stuck in front of your face on whatever platform, you buy it and make the effort to get the adaptor app.

It took me about four or five months before I put even a Kindle app on my Android smartphone, and I have plenty of Kindle books because I have a Kindle.

[K.A.]

I was doing the majority of my sales on B&N - 10 a month.

I have a Nook - I find recommendations for Kindle books and immediately check for them on B&N. All my local friends have Nooks.

[Patricia]

I know no one in "real life" who has a Nook, and it would never cross my mind to shop B&N for an ebook so I could run back to Amazon to see if it's in the Kindle Store.

Of course, I also don't respond to hearing an author's name or seeing an author mentioned somewhere. I stumble upon my reading material mostly by accident, not because I've been directed to it.

Maybe I'm the only animal in my species, but I sorta doubt it. I'll let Kat prove me wrong. If she finds she gets lots of Nook sales (by that, I mean an upswing that can logically be traced to her Kindle promo) after ending her book's stay in KDP, I'll pour some chocolate on my hat and eat it.

[Katie]

I've sold one book on Barnes & Noble - total. So I won't be racing to get there with either of the books that aren't already there. iBooks on the other hand, does quite well for me, so I don't know...

[Sharon]

I am seriously thinking of pubbing to ibooks.

don't move too fast now, Sharon, says my inner voice, 'cause it knows I've been saying that for a while...

[K.A.]

I've given away hundreds of copies of 'Impressive Bravado' to get my name out. Maybe it will work this time.

Patricia - we have a huge B&N store, with a Starbucks, that is ALWAYS busy. I'd love to open a little Coffee Shop in Vine Grove. This area loves books and coffee. It seems to be able to support something very small like that.

[Andre Jute]

I walk past our town bookshop when I go to the supermarket. I notice when I see someone coming out, as I did last Wednesday. It happens so rarely that it is notable. My family orders sets of paperbacks there, all the books of this writer or that. I think the owner could make more money selling coffee, except that fifteen feet in front of his door is Mary-Rose's place, and she's an experienced cafe keeper, a killer competitor.

[K.A.]

Too bad they can't knock a wall out - combine the shops.

[Patricia]

Kat, there are two huge B&Ns here, too, with cities large and small to support them -- but few do. The one I visit (which is seldom), is a stand-alone store with a major shopping center across the street from it. It has a big parking lot, but only a few spaces have been filled when I've been there. Once in a while there'll be two or three people waiting in line to pay, but usually I walk right up and get waited on immediately because I'm the only one buying anything. A Borders at the mall across the street went belly-up with the rest of the company, but that was a very busy store with long lines at the cash register. There was a cafe but hardly anyone used it. Their customers were after books. Armloads of them.

The other B&N, which is closer to me, was absolutely empty the two times I've been there. An employee told me she didn't see how they'd stay open. That one is in a shopping development with lots of stores so you'd expect it to do well given the foot traffic. One problem might be that it's in an open-air mall and it's located at the farthest end of the mall. It probably needs to be the shopper's predetermined destination because otherwise it's hard to know it's there unless you're a shopaholic, checking out everything the mall has to offer. I visited the Nook section (it was front and center inside the door) but that pretty much a disaster. The sales person couldn't answer questions about their product and when I asked questions about the Kindle just to see what Amazon's competitor says, he gave out false information.

The shopping area most people near me prefer has a large Books-A-Million that gets some traffic, but it's really the rest of the open-air development that attracts the customers (restaurants and specialty shops) despite its being located at the very front of the mall. Wandering around the store, I noticed they're mostly catering to the Christian crowd with religious books and Christian-themed gift items that are sprinkled in with non-secular reading material. The snack area was the only area that appeared to be getting any business (cold drinks and coffee).

I haven't been in a bookstore since a year ago last summer, so maybe things have changed.

[K.A.]

Gee - that's sad.

Ours is an odd community - yuppies, military retirees, dependents and active duty military sprinkled with country types, rednecks and farmers. There are also a large number of German, Korean and Japanese immigrants as well as some Latino's.

I think the population of people born in this area is like 20% of the total. Everyone is from somewhere else. LOL - like me.