Interview with MeiLin Miranda on Ebook Pricing, Web Serials, and Crowd-funding

Posted on May 30, 2011 by Lindsay

MeiLin Miranda Lovers and Beloveds Ebook CoverToday we’ve got an interview with indie fantasy author MeiLin Miranda. I tracked her down after reading a review of her novel, Lovers and Beloveds, over at Frida Fantastic. She started out publishing her work as a web serial and got help with the initial ebook start-up costs (for cover art, editing, etc.) from her fans. Read on for details….

What led you down the road to independent publishing?

Frankly I didn’t know if I had time to do it the traditional way. I finally began my lifelong wish to write fiction after a 30-year career in nonfiction when I had a near-death experience five years ago. None of us know when we’re going to die, but that kicked me into high gear; I started writing. And while I’m a lot better now, when it came time to figure out what to do a couple of years ago I didn’t know if I had the years to find an agent, years to find a publisher, years to wait for the book to come out.

I started reading a webserial and thought, hey, maybe this is what I’ll do. I began writing my series, “An Intimate History of the Greater Kingdom,” as a serial. It quickly gained a large audience, and I never looked back. When it came time to make it into novels rather than a serial — it turned out to be unsustainable as a serial — going indie was a no-brainer.

I read in a review that your first novel, Lovers and Beloveds, was a crowd-funded project insofar as paying for editing and cover art went. How did that come about?

Yes. Forty-eight people bought pre-sale packages to the tune of $2500. That paid for my editor, artist and typographer, and then the purchase and shipping of the paperback for those that bought the print package. The $50 presale bought them an autographed paperback, the finished formatted ebook and a thank-you in the acknowledgments, but the real attraction was that they got the raw manuscript as soon as my editor and I decided it was done (the $25 package was everything but the paperback). I finished on August 31st, 2010 at 9:30 pm; the raw manuscript was in their hands 24 hours later.

It came about because I needed $500 to match $500 I’d saved up for my editor. So I put this package together and said, OK guys, match me. I had the $500 in 24 hours, I closed the presale, and a bunch of people complained that they didn’t get a chance to buy one. So I reopened it. I had the rest of the $1000 in less than 72 more hours.

After that I just kept it open so that everyone would have a chance. It stayed open until about two months before the book came out, at which point it switched to pre-orders of the book–regular-priced autographed paperbacks.

I see you have your novels priced at $4.99 in the Kindle store. That’s a higher price than many indies try, at least in the beginning. Does $4.99 work well for you? Have you tried other price points?

I was priced at $2.99 for a while and sales were okay. Reading other authors’ experiences, though, there seems to be a “sweet spot” for each book, and sometimes that spot is *higher* not lower. So as an experiment I raised the price to $4.99. I’m selling the exact same number of books as I did in March and April (the price went up in the middle of April)–in fact this month I’m on track to sell more. And I make a lot more money. This is a BIG book–140,000 words, 420 pages in a 6×9 trade paperback–and $5 is not a lot for that many hours of quality reading. In fact, just the other day I got $5 from someone who got the book for free and liked it so much she paid me for it. When book two comes out I will probably drop the price of book one for a while, or perhaps for good.

One could argue that your novel has a fairly niche target audience. Do you have any marketing tips for those who aren’t writing in the most popular genres?

Quite honestly, no. What has worked best for me is to figure out who I’m most like and then appeal to that audience. For me, apparently that’s Jacqueline Carey, who I’ve never read myself. I’m told that while our styles and stories are different, we’re mining similar veins. So I’ve started saying in my marketing “If you like Jacqueline Carey, you’ll like ‘Lovers and Beloveds.'” It seems to be working–it gets me many more acceptances on reviews, at least. I’m still trying to figure out how to find Carey fans, though! Her fan sites don’t take advertising.

You have some shorter ebooks (stand-alone short stories and collections of shorts) out there too. How do those sell for you?

On initial release very well, but then they taper off. I think they’re selling to the choir, so to speak. I don’t think I have my blurbs down yet, or they may just be limited to people who’ve read the book. I did my best to make them stand-alone; reviewers of “The Gratification Engine” say they can tell you’d get more out of it if you’d read the book but that it was enjoyable nonetheless.

Do you want to finish up by telling us more about your work and any future projects in the pipe?

I’ve just today put book two in the corner to let it think about what it’s done. 🙂 I lost my way, and I’m taking a break for a week or two on the order of my editor to let the thing settle. While I’m doing that I’m working on another related short that takes place not long after the story-in-story of “Lovers and Beloveds.”

And I’m writing some more episodes of my fantasy western webserial, “Scryer’s Gulch.” I put it aside to work on book two, and its readers are peeved–especially since its last page was an April Fool’s story written by another writer in a round-robin the webserial community did. The story’s title: “The End.” People think I’ve abandoned the story, even though that entry is marked APRIL FOOLS! Gotta get back to that.

You can read “Lovers and Beloveds” in installments free on my website at http://www.meilinmiranda.com/intimate-history, where you’ll also find links to buy the ebook at Amazon, B&N, Smashwords and direct from me.

You can read all of “Scryer’s Gulch” for free on my site as well, though there are also ebook collections of Gulch episodes for people like me who prefer to use their e-reader to reading on a computer. 🙂 You’ll find the beginning of “Scryer’s Gulch” at http://www.meilinmiranda.com/scryers-gulch-1

 

Posted in Interviews / Success Stories | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments

How to Help Your Favorite Authors

Posted on May 29, 2011 by Lindsay

As authors, we spend a lot of time trying to promote our books. Our biggest obstacle is obscurity because there are a lot of books out there. No, really. A lot.

We like to think that good stories are all it takes to make it (in author terms “make it” usually means “become well known enough and sell enough books that I can quit my day job and write for a living”), but you can doubtlessly think of mediocre books that are selling bazillions of copies and authors you love who never make it out of the “mid-list” category.

Sometimes it’s just the author (or publishing house) with the biggest marketing budget who wins, but you, as a reader, have amazing power. Don’t believe for a second that you don’t have anything to do with whether an author makes it, because you do. A lot. No, really. A lot.

Why does this matter to you? Well, authors who get to quit their day jobs can write faster and put more books out for you!

The following are some little things you can do that can make a big difference. Some of them only take a few seconds. Your favorite authors will appreciate the effort. Trust me. 🙂

Helping out on Amazon

Amazon is the big kahuna of book sellers, especially when it comes to ebooks, so helping an author “get found” on there can give them a big boost. You can certainly do these things on other bookstore sites as well (nothing against copying and pasting a review, for example), but Amazon tends to have more cool features to help an author get found.

Here’s the list (any one of these things can help):

  • If you do nothing else, consider writing a review on Amazon, even if the book already has quite a few and/or you’ve reviewed it elsewhere. There’s evidence that ratings and reviews factor into the Amazon algorithms that decide which books are promoted on the site (i.e. certain books are recommended to customers who bought books in similar genres). If reviewing isn’t your bag, don’t worry about writing paragraphs-long in-depth studies of the book; maybe you could just pen a few sentences with a couple of specifics about why you liked the book.
  • “Tag” the book with genre-appropriate labels (i.e. thriller, steampunk, paranormal romance). You don’t have to leave a review to do this; you just need an account at Amazon. A combination of the right tags and a good sales ranking can make a book come up when customers search for that type of story on Amazon.
  • Give the book a thumb’s up. This takes less than a second and probably doesn’t do much, but it may play into Amazon’s algorithms to a lesser extent than reviews/ratings.
  • Make a “Listmania” List and add your favorite authors’ books to it. This creates another avenue for new readers to find books. It’s better to create lists around similar types of books (i.e. genres or sub-genres) than to do a smorgasbord, and consider titling it something description so folks will be more inclined to check it out, ie. “Fun heroic fantasy ebooks for $5 or less”
  • If you have a Kindle, highlight some wise or fun quotations from the book and share them publicly (if enough people share their highlights, they’ll show up at the bottom of a book’s page):

Popular Highlights on a Book's Sales Page

Helping out with Social Media

If you’re involved with Twitter, Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc., you can give your favorite authors a shout-out when they release new books. If they blog, you can follow their site (through Google Reader or other RSS readers) and share the link when they post something that may be interesting to your friends. If they’re on Twitter, you can follow them and retweet their links now and then.

Authors don’t expect you to follow them 24/7 and repeat everything they say (that might actually alarm some folks…), but a little promotional help now and then is greatly appreciated.

If you like to be social about books, you can join sites such as Goodreads, Shelfari, or LibraryThing. You can help your favorite authors by posting reviews and talking about their books on those sites, or you can just use those places to find online reading buddies with common interests.

Helping out with Your Blog

Do you ever talk about books or what you’re reading on your blog? You might consider reviewing your favorite authors on your site (you could even make a few dollars if you signed up as an Amazon affiliate).

Also, if most of your favorites maintain websites, you could add an “author blogroll” list in your menu with links to those sites.

And Lastly…

These days, most authors have websites and contact forms so you can get in touch. If you enjoyed their work, consider sending them a short note to let them know. While it won’t help them sell more books, it’ll make their day.

Thanks for reading (this post and books in general!).

**Authors, you’re welcome to reprint this article and post it on your blog. All I ask is that you give me credit with a link back to my site, i.e. “Originally by <a href=”https://www.lindsayburoker.com”>Lindsay Buroker</a>” or something like that. Thanks!

Posted in Tips and Tricks | Tagged , , , , , , , | 36 Comments

My Story, My Way–A Guest Post by David Baboulene

Posted on May 26, 2011 by Lindsay

David BabouleneToday we’ve got a guest post from UK author David Baboulene who’s here to talk about something dear to all of us: writing.

He’s a published author of two humorous books, two children’s books and The Story Book — an academic work on story theory. He also has three film production deals, two in Hollywood and one in the UK.

He works as a story consultant with training and development organisations, aspiring and established writers and producers. He is also working at Brighton University on his Ph.D. on the critical importance of subtext to a story’s power. David writes extensively on his subject, including his monthly column in Writing Magazine and Writers’ News.

You can find him on the web at http://www.baboulene.com.

My Story, My Way

The most obvious difference I see between the successful writers I have met and the aspiring writers who fail is confidence. Confident writers are focused and productive. They say, “This is MY story. I’m writing it MY way, and I don’t care what anyone thinks.” They put their blinkers on, they get busy, do what they think is right, and deliver. The final product may sell a million, or the writer might end up having thirty copies printed for his own bookshelf, and go back to his day job. Either way, he did it right.

Well, almost…

The wrong thing to do, which I see a lot in the writers I work with, is to go on endless courses or read a pile of books on ‘How to Write’. They inevitably provide you with a set of rules that seems to apply to famous stories. As soon as you buy into this, your story becomes driven by structure. It becomes a little unnatural and it loses its spark, and you have your creative instinct damaged by someone else’s rules.

In my experience, when I get writers to sit down and think about what they are really looking for, it’s not ‘How to Write’ help. You learned how to write when you were at school. The questions they really want answering are: “How do I make the most of my story ideas? How do I tell my story to its absolute best? How do I guide my ability to tell stories without damaging my natural talent? It takes me months to find out what’s bugging me in my story. How do I understand and solve story problems quickly and effectively? What gives one story power and another one not? What are the story tools that are available to writers that make stories grip and intrigue?”

There is only one person who can tell your story the right way, and that is YOU! What you need is knowledge of the craft of story so you are empowered to tell your story your way. Then you will also have the confidence to send it off, take rejection knowing that what you’ve done is right.

Because there’s only one right way to write your story, and that’s your way. If you think about it, there simply can’t be any other way. So take responsibility. Learn about story so you can squeeze the most from your ideas. Write every day, and say to yourself every day:

“My Story. My Way. And balls to the lot of you.”

Say it now. Say it out loud and mean it. Not only will you laugh at yourself, but take responsibility for your own development and suddenly life as a writer, and your path forwards from today, becomes very clear indeed…

And if it’s not clear, contact me and I will send you a free chapter from The Story Book on the topic that is puzzling. Unless your puzzled by `How to Write`. In which case, you`d better find someone else…!

David Baboulene Story Book Cover

Posted in Guest Posts | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Are Readers Downloading Pirate Copies of Your Ebooks? Does It Matter?

Posted on May 25, 2011 by Lindsay

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve had indie authors mention pirated ebooks to me in various Ebook Piratesonline conversations. “How can you find out if your ebook is up on a pirate site?” “How many sales am I losing because of pirated ebooks?” “What do I do if I find my ebook listed on a pirate service?” Things of that nature.

I’m not really the right person to ask about this stuff because honestly I don’t worry about it (though I’m throwing in a couple of links at the end of the post in case you are looking for answers).

Why don’t I worry about it?

a) The people who pirate stuff probably weren’t going to buy a copy of my ebooks anyway, so it’s not like I’m losing sales.

b) I think Elizabeth Warren is right and a lot of people just can’t afford to spend much money on entertainment these days (I pirated music left and right when I was a broke private in the army — back in the late 90s, when I was stationed in South Korea, everybody in the barracks with a computer had Napster on it. I share this tidbit, not because we were in the right, but because it might change your opinion of who your stereotypical pirate is.) Don’t want your stuff pirated? Write to appeal to an older, upper class audience :D.

c) I’m a nobody author at this point, so I’d be more flattered than anything if someone went through the hassle of hunting for my ebooks on a pirate site (that said, I doubt my opinion will change even if I become a somebody author one day). I kind of wonder how much of a problem this really is for any indie author who isn’t in the Amazon Top 1oo.

Naturally, I’d rather folks bought my ebooks, but I’m not going to take it as a personal betrayal if they don’t.

Oh, and incidentally, I ended up buying tons of CDs back when I was in Korea (and you could find anything on Napster for free). I discovered a lot of good music, stuff that wasn’t played on the radio, stuff I never would have tried if I’d had to take a chance on a $12-$15 CD (this was before Pandora and iTunes existed). Just saying. I agree with Neil Gaiman on this.

Okay, now that I’ve had my little say, here are some links if you’re concerned about this stuff:

Posted in Ebook News | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

The Indie Journey by Successful Author Scott Nicholson

Posted on May 24, 2011 by Lindsay

Scott Nicholson's Indie JourneyA couple of months ago, I interviewed full-time indie author, Scott Nicholson, and we talked about advertising, pricing concerns, and other topics pertinent to ebook authors. If you liked that short piece with him, you may be interested in his new ebook:

The Indie Journey: Secrets to Writing Success

Scott was nice enough to give me a review copy, and I just started reading this morning, but I’ve already highlighted quite a few passages on my Kindle. It looks like a good resource for anyone getting into e-publishing. Years ago, Scott started out going the traditional route, which never did make him a living — something he was able to do within 14 months of turning to e-publishing his work as an indie.

It’s clear from the opening, this isn’t how-to-get-rich-as-an-indie-author ebook, and that’s good because that’s not going to happen for many of us. Scott’s book is a straightforward look into e-publishing, and I’m sure you’ll find some inspiration and some tips you can use within the pages.

Here’s the blurb:

The e-book era has launched thousands of writing careers and holds tremendous promise for future growth. Here’s how one author went from publishing his first e-book to becoming a full-time author in a little more than a year. While offering general tips on business, craft, product development, and marketing, its primary goal is to inspire you to embrace your creative entrepreneurship and success. Bonus essays by successful indie authors J.A. Konrath, Zoe Winters, Vincent Zandri, and Vicki Tyley.

Scott Nicholson is author of more than 20 books, including the indie bestsellers Liquid Fear, Disintegration, and The Red Church. He also edited the charity writing manual Write Good or Die.

If you’re buying this book to sell a million copies, you probably won’t be happy. If you are buying this book to be happy, you probably have a better chance of selling a million books.

You can buy The Indie Journey (or download a sample) at Smashwords, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble.

Posted in E-publishing | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

How Well Does Short Fiction Sell in Ebook Form?

Posted on May 23, 2011 by Lindsay

A couple of months ago, I did a post called Novellas and Short Stories–Ebooks Not Just for Novels. It turned out to be pretty popular with authors, and why not? It takes a long time to write a novel, so there’s a definite appeal to writing and publishing short works…if they sell.

Do they?

I hope other authors will chime in below, but based on my experience I’m going to say…

Yes. Not as well as full-length novels, but you can find plenty of examples of shorter works doing well in the Kindle Store (and other places as well).

I haven’t tried selling a short story (less than 10,000 words) yet, though my Ice Cracker II is available for free at Barnes & Noble and Smashwords. The minimum price you can list an ebook for is $0.99, and that always seemed a little steep to me for such a short piece of fiction.

However, I did release Flash Gold, an 18,000-word steampunk novella (if you want to be picky, you might call it a novelette) at the beginning of April. It’s my third best seller, after The Emperor’s Edge and Encrypted, and it’s already covered its production costs, thanks to a good deal on cover art and the fact that editors charge by the word (it costs a lot less to have someone proofread a 20,000-word story than a 100,000-word one). That said, some of the reviews do say they wish it was longer (demanding folks, hah!).

In addition to turning novellas and short stories into ebooks, you can also do collections of short stories. I have two of those, and they’re my weakest sellers (especially the children’s one). Of course, I haven’t marketed that one in months, and I haven’t marketed the three-story fantasy collection at all, so that may affect sales.

I think, though, that short story collections or anthologies just aren’t that popular. I have to admit I’m unlikely to buy them. The exception would be if I already knew and liked the characters from a book series and the same characters were in the short stories. (That’s how my fantasy short story bundle works–it features the heroes from The Emperor’s Edge.)

That said, if you have a bunch of short stories collecting dust on your hard drive (maybe you wrote them to submit to magazines and anthologies at one point), you can certainly put them together and turn them into an ebook. I do make some sales with my short story bundles, even if it’s not a lot, and 25 or 50 sales a month can certainly add up over the life an ebook.

I thought I’d poke through Amazon and find a few examples of shorter fiction that’s selling well at the time of this post. To the best of my knowledge, I only picked indie and non-free stories. Check them out for ideas or if you’re just curious to see what’s selling:

There you go: some folks doing well with short fiction!

What are your thoughts on short story, novelette, or novella ebooks? If you’re a reader, do you like buying these shorter works? If you’re an author, are they selling well for you?

Posted in E-publishing | Tagged , , , , | 52 Comments

Preview of Dark Currents (Emperor’s Edge 2) and Other News

Posted on May 22, 2011 by Lindsay

Here’s a quick Sunday to post to let you know I’ve uploaded the first chapter of Dark Currents as well as the cover art. The manuscript is off to the editor for proofreading, and I hope to publish it in three weeks or so.

If you haven’t tried the first book, The Emperor’s Edge, yet, I’ve dropped the price to $0.99 to celebrate the release of the second. (Grab it at this price at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords.)

If you already purchased it at $2.99 (thank you!), I invite you to sign up for my newsletter (form in the menu on the right) where I’ll be giving away a Smashwords coupon so you can grab Book 2 for free for the first week it’s out.

I’m also planning to do some kind of contest or giveaway, so stick around for that as well (and if you have any ideas for prizes you’d like to see, let me know, though keep in mind trips to Hawaii and iPads are a little out of my budget).

Posted in My Ebooks | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

How to Get Your Ebook Listed for Free at Amazon (maybe)

Posted on May 20, 2011 by Lindsay

It’s no secret that Amazon is currently the biggest marketplace for ebooks. If you can sell well there, you’ve got it made.

As we’ve talked about before, one strategy authors employ is to give away a free or a 99-cent ebook since this can entice readers into trying an unknown author. With luck, they’ll enjoy the first one and go on to purchase your other (regularly priced) ebooks.

But how do you get an ebook listed for free at Amazon? When you list your book through the Kindle Direct Publishing Platform, the lowest price you can input is $0.99.

The following trick has worked for many ebook authors, but not everybody, so be prepared to wait for a while if you give it a try:

How to Get Your Ebook Listed for Free at Amazon

You have to use a backdoor (and there are no guarantees, but Amazon has started making things easier):

  1. List your ebook for free at Smashwords.
  2. Go to the Distribution Channel Manager at Smashwords and opt in to having your ebook distributed to Barnes & Noble (you can tick the Amazon check box, too, but that doesn’t seem to do anything currently).
  3. Upload your ebook to Amazon as normal (via the KDP page) and set whatever price you want.
  4. Sit back and wait for a few weeks. Eventually your ebook will be listed at B&N as a freebie. Sometime after that, Amazon’s bots will notice your work has a lower price elsewhere and price match, thus making your ebook free in the Kindle Store.

If Amazon doesn’t favor you by listing your ebook for free, you can also try putting it on sale.

How to Get Your Ebook Discounted at Amazon

This is a similar process, though with fewer steps.

Ebook listed for sale on Amazon

Right now, if you go to Amazon, The Emperor’s Edge is on sale for $0.99 though its “Digital List Price” is displayed as $2.99 while telling folks “You save $2.00.” Going by the psychology behind coupons, this may appear to be a better deal than if I simply listed it for 99 cents. Will it result in more sales? Who knows? But I’m releasing the second book in the series in a few weeks, and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try and draw in more readers (by the way, if you bought the novel at $2.99, I urge you to sign up for my newsletter, as I’ll be giving away a Smashwords coupon so subscribers can grab Book 2 for free).

But I digress. You’re more interested in getting your work listed for sale.

Just head over to Barnes & Noble and list your ebook for a lower price there than it’s selling for at Amazon. Again, it may not happen overnight, but Amazon should price match eventually and show your ebook as being discounted.

That’s all there is to it. Good luck!

 

Posted in Amazon Kindle Sales | Tagged , , , , , | 12 Comments