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October Reading Deals
Check out these multi-author book promotions. You're sure to find something you like:
KU Adventures | Superheroes & Villains | What Creeps in the Night | End of Civilization
Spooktober Sales | All Hallows Book Sale | Masterful Whodunits | Future Crime
Curl Up With a Cozy | Thankful for Fiction | Fill Your Kindle | KU Echoes of the End
October SFF Sale | Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense | KU Infinite Worlds
SF Audiobooks | SFF Series Sale | SFF Book Bazaar | KU SciFi & Fantasy
Mystery, Thriller, Suspense | Haunted Halloween | Cozy Mysteries | Cozy Mystery Event
And peruse these multi-author book giveaways. Download as many as you like:
Sci-Fi & Fantasy Giveaway | Free Sci-Fi & Fantasy Reads | October Free Sci-Fi & Fantasy
More Free Sci-Fi & Fantasy Reads | Fantasy & Sci-Fi Mania | Shadows & Starlight
Writing Update
I'm halfway through my current work-in-progress, a sequel to Double Murders that I started drafting during the summer. That's right, Vic Boyo the doofus detective is back in action, just as confident and clueless as ever. Hard to believe it's been seven years since the first book came out. Guess I've had other trilogies to work on in the interim. But now it's time to give Boyo his due.
Like the first book, I'm using a manuscript I wrote back in high school as the framework and fleshing it out as I go. So far, the first 25 pages of the original novella have swelled to over 100 in the latest iteration. That ratio won't continue; otherwise, the final draft will be 400 pages. Book 1 is under 250, so that's the sweet spot I'm aiming for.
It's been fun bringing back characters while adding new ones, and Boyo's internal monologue is unlike any of my other protagonists'. Half Sam Spade, half Michael Scott. Hard-boiled screwball crime noir that doesn't take itself too seriously, but where the good guy always wins in the end.
I was making pretty good progress on it—three chapters a week—before the school year started. Now I'm averaging about one chapter a week. But progress is progress, and if I can get the first draft done by end of year, I'll consider that a win.
Book Review: Small Favor
This year I'm keeping track of what I read. Whether I enjoy the book or not, I'll post a blurb and brief review. Most will be speculative fiction in some form—genres I gravitate toward in my own writing. Today, it's Book 10 in the Dresden Files: Small Favor by Jim Butcher.
I've never been a big fan of magical fantasy stories (except those written by Tolkien and Lewis), but I'm glad I took the advice of a fellow reader four years ago and gave this series a shot. Ten books in, and I'm enjoying it more than ever. Not great literature, but then pulp fiction doesn't pretend to be, and I don't think the snarky, wise-cracking Dresden would have it any other way. Small Favor is one of the best of the bunch, being an Avengers-like team-up of many characters we've gotten to know throughout the past nine books. One of whom is a Knight of the Cross, whose faith in the Almighty remains unshakable. Unlike so many of his contemporaries, Butcher doesn't include a Christian character only to belittle him. Instead, this friendship provides Dresden an opportunity to wrestle with a reality bigger than himself, one that he doesn't fully understand. That gritty tension keeps me invested in these characters as Harry learns more about his developing abilities and the forces at play in the world around him. One star deducted for chronic word repetition / thesaurus neglect; otherwise, a solid 4 out of 5 stars.
Two New Collections
You'll notice something when you click on either one of those covers: a Buy Direct option. Secure checkout through PayPal with tech support (if needed) from BookFunnel. I'll be adding this feature to all of my novels as they drop out of Kindle Unlimited and become available wide again. If you'd like more of the purchase price to go to the author instead of a megacorporation, buy direct.
I've decided to take a different route with my covers. Instead of making those fun 3D box sets, I'm going with this triple flat-panel look. For one thing, as cool as the 3D covers are, they're false advertising. Because readers aren't getting an actual boxed set when they buy a collection of eBooks. And since I'm going wide, distributors like Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and Apple don't allow the 3D boxes anyhow. So this way I'm keeping things consistent across all sales channels.
Taking the Plunge
Tackling Amazon ads has been on my to-do list for a while, but I haven't had the mental bandwidth to give it a go. With real life and the day job constantly vying for my attention, not to mention projects around the house, it's been tough to stick to my writing regimen, let alone learn a new skill. Excuses, excuses. The timing for things is seldom perfect. Sometimes all you can do is say enough with the procrastinating. So that's what I did. And then I put on my student hat.
My first step was to take the free Kindlepreneur course. Venturing into advertising blind, I figured it couldn't hurt to get some sage advice. The online course was helpful and explained everything in a way that made sense. What more could you want? It's definitely an advertisement in itself for Publisher Rocket, a book marketing software program that has some very cool features. But instead of shelling out $200 for that, I used Gemini (the Google A.I.) to come up with 50 keywords related to Murders at the Manor, one of my better-selling titles. Then I plugged each of those keywords into the Amazon search bar, one at a time, to see how many were used by shoppers. That narrowed the list down to about twenty-five, which I deployed in my first ad.
Following the Kindlepreneur directions step by step, I ran a sponsored product ad with manual targeting, a daily budget of $10, and set my bids at $0.65. (Anytime a shopper clicked on my ad, I would be charged 65 cents.) These amounts were based on best practices; however, Amazon made it clear that I would do better if my budget were $25 each day and my bids were well over a buck per click. But I held my ground. Because going broke is no fun. At the end of my three-week experiment, I had 166,000 impressions (that's how many shoppers saw my ad), 228 clicks, and 8 orders. Overall, I spent $160 and earned $16. But if I factor in sequel sales and Kindle Unlimited reads occurring at the same time, I earned $90 in total. Better, but not great. Not by a long shot.
I've decided to put the ad on pause while I recoup my losses. Once I break even, I'll try it again with automatic keyword targeting, or I might go with a book in a smaller category. (Something like space opera sword & sorcery, perchance?) This was a good learning experience, and I no longer feel clueless about advertising on Amazon. Some authors have lost thousands of dollars on their ads, and I understand how easily that can happen. But if you set your budget, stick to that budget, and pause things before they get out of hand, you can learn a lot from the data you've collected. Then regroup, course-correct, and give it another shot.
To be continued...
Eliminating the Middle Man
As my books drop out of Kindle Unlimited this fall and I start releasing them wide again, I'm going to try something that many other indie authors have been doing for a while now: selling direct. Instead of only offering my work via distributors like Amazon or Draft2Digital who take a 30-40% cut of every sale, I've decided to start using a platform called Payhip that takes a low 5%. It's just another option for eBook readers who might not want to financially support the megacorporations and would rather have more of their money go straight to the author.
How does it work? Glad you asked. Just click on the book you want, like you would on Amazon. Choose Add to Cart if you plan to do some more shopping or Buy Now if you're good to go. All sales are secure through PayPal, and every download comes with tech support (if needed) from the fine folks at BookFunnel.
On each of my landing pages, I'll be placing the Buy Direct option front and center, but there will also be the usual links to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, and Kobo. The more options, the better. You can check out the humble Speculative Fictioneer store right here. Only a few books are available at the moment, but expect plenty more on the way in the coming weeks.
Book Review: Machine Vendetta
This year I'm keeping track of what I read. Whether I enjoy the book or not, I'll post a blurb and brief review. Most will be speculative fiction in some form—genres I gravitate toward in my own writing. Today, it's Machine Vendetta by Alastair Reynolds.
When the first book in this trilogy was released way back in '07, I thought it was a standalone. So getting a sequel in '18 followed by this third installment last year has been quite a treat. Machine Vendetta avoids the pitfalls of the second book by bringing the overarching conflict full circle and focusing on the characters we care about most. It's a taut future-crime murder mystery with onion layers, solid plotting, plenty of action and intrigue, and few boring lulls. I've read all of Reynolds' books that take place in his Revelation Space universe, and this is one of the best—a satisfying end to an unexpected trilogy. One star deducted for Minty the Lemur, and for killing off one of my favorite characters. Because that's how I roll. Otherwise, a solid 4 out of 5 stars.
New Release: Angels & Androids
A new player has entered the game.
As Dome 10's criminal underworld destabilizes with bosses vying for the role of kingpin, assassins target Drasko in an effort to silence him. Hot on a sniper's trail, Investigator Sera Chen makes a terrifying discovery: one of the most powerful men in the Domes is building an army of killbots.
Meanwhile, someone is hacking into citizens' neural implants, forcing them to act against their will. But before Sera and Dunn have a chance to find out who's pulling the strings, they're sidelined. Sera is suspended, and Dunn is assigned desk duty.
That doesn't slow them down for long. Confronting zombies and zealots, mutants and madmen, Sera tries to connect the dots. She'll need people she can rely on, but with a sadistic puppeteer able to control anyone, who can she trust?
Kobo vs. Kindle
There's no doubt about it; Amazon dominates the eBook market. But Kobo is continuing to gain traction, particularly with readers who've realized recently that they don't actually own the content on their Kindles. They've just purchased a license to view it on their devices. There are ways around that (or so I hear), but not everybody wants to go through the rigmarole of downloading and transferring their Kindle eBooks via Calibre and various plugins. Most of us just want to buy an eBook and keep it on our device till kingdom come. Simple as that.
Kobo keeps things simple, and for that reason its market share is steadily growing. I believe they're at around 15% now (up from only 3% five years ago), and with their global reach, that will only increase. This summer, I decided to try out Kobo Writing Life for the first time, selling my eBooks directly via Kobo as I do with Amazon, instead of going through Draft2Digital (and giving up 10% of my royalties). One of the perks is the opportunity to apply to group promotions. After being rejected thrice, I made it into this one, where I had to pay $10 to play. I'm giving away the first book in my Charlie Madison P.I. trilogy, and the hope is that folks will like it enough to buy the sequels. So if I sell-through five copies, I'll break even.
After locking most of my books in Kindle Unlimited this summer, I'll be breaking out a few at a time and offering them wide again in the fall. Usually, I take the all-or-nothing approach, but this time around, I'll be keeping my short story collections in KU and releasing my novels wide. If a certain trilogy seems to be doing exceptionally well in KU, then I might leave it for another 90 days before setting it free. When KU works for me, it usually adds 20% to my income. But something in me balks at the idea of allying myself exclusively with Amazon, so I have to rebel every now and then.