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Post by djmills on Oct 26, 2020 12:20:00 GMT -8
I finally checked my SW account and to my shock, somebodies have been buying my books. And on Kobo. I just shake my head in wonder. It not much $ but it was such a surprise, I started laughing. I haven't made enough money to stop calling this writing thing a hobby, yet. It's not just Smashwords. Here's a post I made to the ASMSG group on Facebook: Have you noticed a surge in ebook sales recently? I have even though I've done little to generate it. The reason it seems is down to COVID-19. More people are at home and looking for entertainment. They are buying ebooks as a result. According to PublishDrive, who have researched this, you can best take advantage of this trend by not limiting yourself to Amazon only - I find that's also true since my sales via Smashwords and Google have shot up. PublishDrive's report on this is at blog.publishdrive.com/september-2020-book-sales-update-best-book-genres-more/ Look for the white paper, a pdf report, and download it. I tried, but they insist I sign up with them first. So did not bother to download the report. I did look at PublishDrive. Who would want to put any books with them, when there is no guarantee of sales but have to pay to "distribute" with PublishDrive? And even if they don't take a commission, 0% of $0.00 is not worth doing, when we have to pay $24.99 / month for up to 24 titles. I have about 24 books and plan on writing a lot more, so if I used them I would have to pay $49.99 / month for up to 48 titles. That sends up red flags to me. Remember, money goes to the author, not away from the author. :-) And Smashwords or D2D (or other distributors) do not charge to distribute our books. 60 or 70% of a sale is much better for an author. Or any manufacturer. :-)
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Post by jaydax on Oct 27, 2020 13:52:46 GMT -8
It's not a requirement that you use their promotion services. Where they excel is in publishing to Google Play Books. Apart from having a dreadful low contrast site, Google Play Books will discount your books published there without telling you about it. You still get royalties based on the price you set but if you set a price of $2.99, Google will probably sell it for less. That means that if you also publish elsewhere such as at Amazon then Amazon may price match and move you from the 70% royalty rate to the 35% royalty rate. Publish Drive continually monitor Google Play prices and adjust the price up to avoid that.
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Post by djmills on Nov 2, 2020 13:31:41 GMT -8
Have you all noticed that the annoying posts have all been banned/deleted. Yes! Thanks Ted. :-)
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Post by ChrisLAdams on Nov 4, 2020 9:22:02 GMT -8
Have you all noticed that the annoying posts have all been banned/deleted. Yes! Thanks Ted. :-) They keep returning, under new user names. Aggravating. On a good note, I finished another Black Lotus, this one for a buddy. And a pic framed!
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Post by djmills on Nov 4, 2020 11:23:24 GMT -8
Have you all noticed that the annoying posts have all been banned/deleted. Yes! Thanks Ted. :-) They keep returning, under new user names. Aggravating. On a good note, I finished another Black Lotus, this one for a buddy. Yes, I added the new users to the list. Most annoying. I love the Black Lotus. Well done. I wish I had the energy to finish my current story, and paint a few pictures. :-)
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Post by ChrisLAdams on Nov 4, 2020 12:31:44 GMT -8
They keep returning, under new user names. Aggravating. On a good note, I finished another Black Lotus, this one for a buddy. Yes, I added the new users to the list. Most annoying. I love the Black Lotus. Well done. I wish I had the energy to finish my current story, and paint a few pictures. :-) I hope you find the energy, DJ. I'm working the most assiduously on volume 2 of my Tales of the Tomahawk. It's in the homestretch, and I really need to just try to focus on finishing it. The story was completed last year, then two author pen-pals proofed it for me and sent suggestions, and I'm nearly finished with making tweaks and final edits. It's so close I can smell the ozone that will arise from pressing Add New Title on Amazon. The cover has been finished for the eBook for quite some time, but I will need to do the paperback version of it. Those are tricky; I just finished creating the paperback cover for my Valley of Despair. It's a thin volume, about 1/4" thick, but I managed it. I think it turned out pretty cool.
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Post by galatea on Nov 5, 2020 8:01:57 GMT -8
It's not just Smashwords. Here's a post I made to the ASMSG group on Facebook: Have you noticed a surge in ebook sales recently? I have even though I've done little to generate it. The reason it seems is down to COVID-19. More people are at home and looking for entertainment. They are buying ebooks as a result. According to PublishDrive, who have researched this, you can best take advantage of this trend by not limiting yourself to Amazon only - I find that's also true since my sales via Smashwords and Google have shot up. PublishDrive's report on this is at blog.publishdrive.com/september-2020-book-sales-update-best-book-genres-more/ Look for the white paper, a pdf report, and download it. Yes, my gut feeling says the same thing. The stats on Publishdrive also reflect the effect of the lockdowns in Europe. Whereas US remains stable, European countries spike right at the moment that they go on lockdown. No idea however if this will repeat now that Europe is going in lockdown again.
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Post by djmills on Nov 5, 2020 15:06:37 GMT -8
ChrisLAdams, I read the back of the print cover. I have one suggestion for the blurb. You have "Having survived a terrific plane crash, ... " You could change "terrific" (full of terror before crashing) to "horrific" (everyone dead or injured after crash) depending on how the plane landed. :-) Or you can just ignore my suggestion. Either way, the blurb is good, as is the cover image.
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Post by ChrisLAdams on Nov 6, 2020 5:08:28 GMT -8
ChrisLAdams , I read the back of the print cover. I have one suggestion for the blurb. You have "Having survived a terrific plane crash, ... " You could change "terrific" (full of terror before crashing) to "horrific" (everyone dead or injured after crash) depending on how the plane landed. :-) Or you can just ignore my suggestion. Either way, the blurb is good, as is the cover image. That would be a great suggestion for a passenger plane, but this is a single-seat WW1 German Bi-plane. So there's only the one guy, and he is the main character. You can kind of see it on the front of the cover, where we have a typical German Fokker with it's pilot. After surviving the crash into the jungle tree tops, he goes on to discover a lost city governed by aliens from a planet in the Deneb solar system. It was a fun story. It's one of mine that I began writing in the early 90s, and laid it aside. When I started writing more seriously, I dug these up (there was also On a Winter's Eve, about supernatural creatures attacking a cabin in the backwoods) and finished them.
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