by Karen J Mossman
#freebooks #newbooks #newrelease #shortstories #poetry #books #pre-orders #authors #indieauthors #writing
Preparing a book for publication after writing it, is a busy time for any writer. When I released my last book, Joanna’s Destiny, I had lots of help promoting, and it was posted all over the place.
But pre-order sales were poor, despite a huge effort. It was suggested the price too high at 3.99. I thought it was fair for all the time I’d put it, except that doesn’t count. No one actually cares. Putting on my other hat as a reader, I realised it’s true. Do you think of the time the author spent writing the book? No. We just care for a great story.
I reduced the price to 1.99 and got 3 pre-orders. Still not great considering the book before that, my thriller The Truth Will Out, had 19 pre- orders. Yet, I consider Joanna’s Destiny my best book yet.
So having learnt a lesson, my new release is The Magic of Stories and is due out on 20th August. This time I have set the pre-order price to 99. There has been a lot of promotion already, and not just from me. It’s been available for over a week and each day I have been checking to see how many I have. Zilch. Nothing, a big fat zero.
Why? What is the problem with my books? Nothing. It’s isn’t just my books, others have said similar. Since Amazon opened the doors to self publishing, talented writers have filled the shelve and we have more choice than ever before. That’s not a bad thing, is it?
The market is literally flooded with books of every genre, all vying for readers. In a bid to outdo one another, the prices have dropped ridiculously low, and some choose to give their books away for free. This means readers come to expect free books. It seems sacrilege that so much is worth so little.
I’ve always been a big supporter of Don’t give away your books for nothing, although I’ve now discovered one way you should. Series. If you have a series of books, try giving the first one away for free. You are likely to get readers wanting more and will happily buy the next one.
I have Joanna’s Journey and now the sequel Joanna’s Destiny is available. I decided to run a promotion offering readers the chance to have Joanna’s Journey for free. Over two thousand people downloaded it. I’ve yet to see any sales of Joanna’s Destiny. but thinking about it as a reader, I often download books and don’t read them right away. Sometimes they can sit on my Kindle for a year. So I’m yet to see a result of that.
To write a full novel, you have to do it for love, not money and I think my days of blood, sweat and tears over big books are gone. If I earned a living from it, it would be different. So instead, I will be writing novellas for
Electric Eclectic books. I have four books out under that brand another coming soon. It’s the way forward. I can enjoy my love of writing without slaving over it for months at a time. As a reader, I prefer a shorter book, and love nothing more than enjoying a complete story on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Electric Eclectic are idea for that.
Over the years I have written hundreds of short stories and poetry. Some made it into novels, novella’s or anthologies. Many were just sitting around doing nothin and that’s when I decided to put them all in one book. Although I am not a poet as such, I have dabbled over the years and had a heap of them lying around unused and unread. When I looked at them, they too were stories. That’s what makes this book a little different to the rest. The stories are in different formats, some as poetry, and others are as little as four lines long.
I took my inspiration from a book called Undressed by the wonderful author Karina Kantas. She gave brief explanation sin the form of an author’s notes telling the reader where her inspiration came from, where the story had appeared before, or whether it was a true story. I found that just as fascinating. So you’ll find that in my book too.
As a bonus,
Karina is offering readers of The Magic of Stories Undressed for free, and details of how to get it are in the book.
It was a big relief this morning to log on and find I had one pre-order. Yay! Amongst the many hundred people who had seen in, somebody was tempted. So whoever you are, I thank you!
If you want to take a look at the books mentioned, then just follow these links.
The Magic of Stories is part of the Just Stories collection.
Joanna's Journey and Joanna's Destiny of part of The Decade Series.
For more information, excerpts, readings and teaser images -
visit my website
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