International Paperbacks and Pricing

Recently, I received an email from Amazon that my paperbacks would now be available in Australia, and if I didn't go in and specify what I wanted those books to sell for, Amazon would choose a price for me.  When I went into each book to see what Amazon thought was a good price for my paperbacks, I saw that in each case, the amount they'd chosen would leave $0 for me.  

Umm... no.

So, I went through each and every book to change the price of the Australia paperbacks.  But in doing this, I noted that the prices I had let Amazon choose for all the other countries where paperbacks are available (based off my US price, supposedly) left very little meat on the bone for me. 

Noting this, I changed the prices for all international paperback copies.  I mean, come on.  I should be allowed to make a little somethin-somethin for the effort, eh?  I tried not to be greedy.  I mean, I make less on each paperback copy than I do on the ecopies of the same books - no matter what country it sells in.  

Unfortunately, with the amount Amazon takes for doing the job of printing and distributing, my paperbacks are not as cheap as I'd like them to be.  When you see the prices, don't curse me.  If I could give you all the same prices the trad pubs offer, I would.  I've got them all as cheap as I can make them - which is also why they aren't available for wide-distribution.  To give all those other sellers a cut,. I'd have to add even more money to the price just to eke out my dollar and change.  

It's the curse of being self-published, I guess.  :shrug:  There are quite a few of us self-pubs who don't even bother to offer hardcopy books because the expense versus the profit just isn't worth it.  I don't blame them.  But I wanted all of you to have a choice.  There it is.  

And, like I said, they're ALL now available as paperbacks in Australia.  Yay!  

And, if you're an author with paperbacks being printed and sold through Amazon, get in there and check your prices before you end up selling books and not getting any money for you.  Jus' sayin'.  

Opinion Piece

A while back I saw something on Facebook that is worth mentioning.  A bestselling author had posted a screen capture of a message she'd received from a reader and her reply to it.  The reader said that because of the author's politicizing things in their stories, the reader would no longer be buying her books.  The author's reply?  Basically it amounted to 'tough shit, I don't write for readers'. 

To be honest, I've let enough time go by on this that I don't remember the author's name.  I only know that it was someone whose name was easily recognizable to anyone who hasn't lived in a cave for the past ten, twenty years. 

Anyway, I suppose it's easy enough to say 'I don't care what readers think' when you're already a bestseller, a known name, who's made a boatload off the sales to readers you don't write for.  :shrug:  So what if a few people stop buying her books?  Millions of others will keep her flush.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not disagreeing with her.  I guess I don't write for readers either.  If I sat here thinking about what stories were going to garner me the most sales, I probably wouldn't be writing what I'm writing.  Or I'd be selling a hell of a lot more books than I am now.  Of course, it would be easier if I had a Big Five (or is it Three now?) marketing department behind me, putting my name in front of millions of readers.  But that'll never happen.

I guess I'm disagreeing with the way she went about addressing this.  Making it public for one thing.  Shaming the reader who disagreed with her politics in a format for the world to see.  If I remember right, the reader's name was even on the post.  Might've been just the first name as the author addressed her personally.  Something along the lines of 'just so you know, B, I don't write for your approval'.  Umm, not just no, but hell no.  You don't DO that.

Like I said, I don't remember which author this was*.  I remember thinking that I'd read something of hers and didn't like it, so I obviously wouldn't be inclined to read her again anyway, but this put a nail in the coffin.  Publicly spitting in the face of a reader isn't good for sales, nor should it be.

Lord knows I've DNF'd enough books because the opinions and the philosophies woven into the stories rubbed me the wrong way.  Of course, I would never contact the author.  And I don't review those books.   My opinions are not going to change theirs and one lost sale isn't going to either.  Especially when the publishing industry is on-board with the ideas being espoused. 

The person who shared what this author had posted thought the author's reply was most excellent.  I don't remember who it was.  Not a friend friend, not even an acquaintance really, but someone on my FB friend list who is no longer on my friend list.  If she thought the author's response was a good thing, then what will her reactions be to someone like me?  Buh-bye.  Call it a preemptive strike.  Removal of potential conflict.  Whatever.  I don't need that shit in my life right now.

Jus' sayin',

*If you've heard about this and know who the author is, don't say her name in comments or I won't let your comment through.  I try to make this as anti 'personal attack' as possible.  Which, I guess, is kinda what she should've done.

The Smell of Meth

Yesterday, I learned what meth smells like.

I was on my way from my car up to the feed store when a red SUV whips into the parking lot, nearly running me over.  She parked stupid and I walked past her into the store.  I'm in the store, explaining the near death experience to my friend the cashier when the gal comes in.  I step aside because she's obviously in a hurry, but she's only looking for the bathroom.

Once she's in the ladies' room, my friend tells me she thinks the gal is on meth.  (Apparently, my friend sees a lot of meth heads at the feed store, coming in to use the bathroom.)  Anyway, we go back to chatting and then the gal comes out of the bathroom, grabs a jumbo bag of 'for people'* sunflower seeds and slaps them on the counter in front of me.  As my friend is ringing her up, I start smelling this gag-worthy chemical odor.  And then the super-twitchy gal starts talking about this accident her husband was in just up the road when all I want her to do it leave.  (Although I did ask her where 'up the road' the accident was because I was headed in that direction, but it was off on a side road.  Yay.)

Anyway, she finally tears out of there and I ask my friend "is that what meth smells like?'  She nods.  Gross.  It was like 'bad home perm' mixed with nail polish remover mixed with 'I haven't bathed'.  The sad thing was this gal was dressed nice and looked nice, she drove a nice car... You never know, I guess.

By the time I got up the highway, I could see the blue lights flashing up the side road where the accident occurred.  If I could smell her, the cops should be able to smell her and do something.  But probably not.

From what I've been told, meth is a big problem around here.  I did encounter a meth head once before.  She looked like she'd crawled up out of the depths of Middle Earth.  But she didn't stink of chemicals.  Maybe that meant she was a user and the gal yesterday was a manufacturer.  Who knows.

I'm continually confused about people doing drugs.  I mean, I understand that once you're hooked, you're hooked, but who the hell would do meth the first time?  Is it like 'oh, please, let me try some of that highly addictive shit with the weird ass mix of chemicals in it you cooked up in your trailer'?  Might as well just shoot yourself in the head, the results are the same in the long run.  Feh.

Your brain is your only means of survival.  Why would you mess with that?

Jus' sayin'.

*Not to be confused with the 40 lb bag of sunflower seeds they sell as bird feed.

Talking Pricing Again

I've been noticing something lately.  The price point for new indie books seems to have risen again.  I'm seeing quite a few that are set at $6.99.   (In fact, the book I just finished that I got for free is now $6.99.  It was pretty good, but I would never have gotten it at that price.)

Six ninety-nine.

I mean, it's good margin if you can get that much for your books.  But are they actually getting that much?

I just looked at one that sounded really interesting in the FB marketing post.  Clicked over to Amazon... $6.99.  Nope.  Too rich for my blood.  And then I noticed it had no reviews and its ranking is in the 7 millions.  (I've never even seen a book in the 7 millions before.  Ugh.)  For a book published in 2018.  Sad.

So, the question in my mind is 'what is driving these indie authors to price their books so high?'

Okay, the first real question was 'am I pricing my books too low?'  It's an eternal question floating around my head.  The answer... I don't know.  A few years back a popular author told people on his blog that $2.99 books were all crap.  (Yeah, thanks for that, dude.)  All my books were $2.99 at the time.  Since then, I've raised several of them to $3.99 and a couple to $4.99.  But for me, the regular price doesn't really matter because I'm only actually moving books when they're on sale.

Now, back to the question of what's driving this.  I suspect part of it is a wish to make more per book - I mean, who doesn't want to make more per book? - and the belief people will actually buy their books at that higher price point.  I mean, if traditional books are $9.99, why not price your indie books at $6.99?  Surely people will see that your book is worth that.  The problem comes when people aren't actually buying books at the higher price point because the author is unknown to them, the ranking sucks, etc.  Which makes the rankings worse and... it's a vicious cycle.

Then the question comes around of 'if your books aren't selling at $6.99, why are you keeping them at $6.99?'  Or maybe that's just a question in my head and they aren't thinking about it.  :shrug:

Anyway, I'm just pondering things this morning.  I did feel bad for the guy.  Like I said, the story sounded really interesting.  I might've even taken the chance if it were $3.99 or $2.99, but I just can't afford to drop $6.99 for a new-to-me, underappreciated author.  Plus, I've been burned taking a chance on books that were 99c or free.  And every burn makes me less likely to take a chance again.  I'd love to be in a position to splash money around to all the indies I wanted, but I just can't.

What about you?  What are you willing to spend on a book?  What if it's an untried author? 

Crime and Punishment

I've noticed a disturbing trend in criminal defense lately - if a criminal has children, they're using the children as a reason why the criminal should be released from custody.  And get a lighter sentence.  Now, it seems to me that once upon a time, it was opposite.  If you were a criminal, you got your children taken away from you, so you could no longer influence them with your bad behavior.

One would think that having children would be a very good reason to not commit crimes.  One would further think that, even if you weren't concerned how your criminal activities would influence your children, you would care that committing crimes might get your children taken away.

Why does the opposite seem to be happening?

This post actually came about because a woman who was pulled over on suspicion of shoplifting tried to escape by dragging the officer down the road with her car.  And her defense attorney put forth the idea that because she has 4 children, she should be let off.  :blinkblink:

Makes absolutely no sense.  Feel sorry for the kids without their mom because she did something to get herself locked up?  More like feel sorry for kids with a mom like that.  She obviously doesn't give a rat's ass about her kids or she wouldn't be risking her freedom - freedom she needs so she can be with those kids.  She doesn't care about raising her children to be upstanding members of society.  She only cares about what she can get without having to pay for it.

And before anyone suggests that maybe she was shoplifting to provide for her children, her car looked pretty nice and she seemed to be able to pay for an attorney to represent her because when she finally turned herself in, she had an attorney with her.  Not a public defender, who would've been assigned after her arrest.  If she couldn't afford clothes, how is she affording an attorney? 

Oh, and her rap sheet was already littered with other crimes.  Not an upstanding, mother of the year type.  With a role model like that, those four kids will be joining her behind bars eventually.  I know the foster care system has problems, but at least there, they might have a chance. 

Of course, I'm the horrible one for suggesting that perhaps her children would be better served away from her. 

Sometimes I wonder who the hell is running our criminal justice system when the defense for a woman like this is to trot her kids out and say she needs to be with them so let her free.

Jus' Sayin'.

Wednesday's Post: A Gripping Read

I don't actually expect that any of you will find this post gripping in the least, but I wanted to see if using the word gripping in the title actually does attract readers. 

You see, I've been noticing lately that a lot of authors/publicists are referring to books as 'gripping' these days.  In the title, no less.  And basically what I've found is that when I read a book that refers to itself as gripping, it usually isn't.  Or at least not as gripping as the name implies.  Which, in my opinion, is a total letdown.

It's like roadside diners with a sign that says 'Good Food' out front.  In my experience, the restaurants that feel the need to say they have good food inside rarely do. 

So, what is it about the word gripping that seems to draw people in?  I mean, it must work or it wouldn't be such a noticeable trend.  (Maybe I'm the only one noticing it.)

Another, similar word I've seen, albeit not as much, is riveting.  Alas, I am rarely riveted by these books. 

If your book is truly gripping or riveting, you shouldn't need to say it.  Your reviewers will say it for you.  One hopes your blurb will hint at how the reader will be gripped or riveted and then they'll buy your book and find out. 

Or, to use an old maxim from the writing world, Show Don't Tell.  Show me that your book is gripping, don't tell me that it is. 

Jus' sayin'.

Suspended Sentence? WTF?

Our local paper puts out a court report once a month that tells basically who was arrested for what and what the sentence was.  It came out in yesterday's paper.

The headline read '9 Incarcerated for Felonies.' 

But when I flipped through, there were way more than 9 cases listed.  Deciding this bore further investigation, I read deeper.  Drug charges... suspended sentence.  Theft (burglary, shoplifting, car theft)... suspended sentence.  DWI... suspended sentence.  Child molestation... suspended sentence.  Non-payment of child support... suspended sentence.  Battery... suspended sentence.  (BTW, across the board of crimes, several of these people were listed as repeat or persistent offenders.)

Of the nine cases that actually saw someone's ass behind bars, only two of them were new.  The other seven were for people who had violated their previous suspended sentences, probation, or what have you.  Basically, they got caught committing the crime again, and in such a way, a slap on the wrist wouldn't do it.

Naturally, I was all like WTF???  And Hubs was like "Who the hell is our judge?"  (Brief googling netted me no names.  Apparently, it's a secret.)

Now, I'd like to say this was an isolated and unusual month, but it isn't.  This is about par for the court report around here.  People commit crimes, they get a slap on the wrist and probation, and then they continue to commit crimes because there is no consequence to their behavior. 

And we have a conservative sheriff here who has to be tearing his hair out because whoever the judge is keeps letting these motherfuckers back out onto the streets.

It's no wonder that I was told numerous times when we first moved here to be careful driving the roads because meth-heads are everywhere.  Of course, they're everywhere - no one is stopping them from being everywhere.  

I'm pretty sure it isn't just in this county.  It's here and it's there.  In the county, in the city, everywhere.  No consequences.  You committed a crime?  Oh, well sorry to have bothered you.  Here's a lollipop.  Run along.  Oh, if you don't mind, please don't do it again or we shall have to smack your little paddies once more. 

What in the sam hill is wrong with our judicial system?  Blerg!

Perhaps, if there were actual punishments for crimes, the punishments would deter people from committing the crimes. Cuz obviously this whole suspended sentence thing ain't workin'.

Jus' sayin'. 

You Got Message in My Fiction

Sort of like the old Reese's Peanut Butter Cup commercials where the characters proclaimed 'You got chocolate in my peanut butter!" and "You got peanut butter in my chocolate!", I was reading along in a pretty good book recently and found message in my fiction.

Oh, in this case, it was a message I appreciated, but I think it was laid on a little thick.  And in some places, laid on thick enough that the message overwhelmed the fiction.  (Which is why Reese's has worked very hard to achieve just the right balance in their PB cups.  Not too much PB and not too much chocolate.  Yum.) 

Which got me to wondering if perhaps I might have done the same thing to my readers on occasion.  I mean, I try not to be heavy handed with the message, but in books like Blink of an I and Unequal, there are places where I laid it on thicker than I would've with, say, Sleeping Ugly.

At one point in Unequal, my editor noted that a passage sounded very similar to a passage in Blink.  And after some mental debate, I left it as it was.   The stories are different, but the general message is the same - freedom, individualism, with a 'lemme explain something crucial here'... as in 'this is what will happen later if we follow a certain course today'.

Anyway, I think message in the fiction is okay if the reader is open to the message and you're not beating them over the head with it constantly.  If they're not open or you've overdone it, they'll stop reading the book when it pushes their notions.  And even if they are open, if it's something they already agree with and understand, they'll flip past to get back to the story - which is what I ended up doing in the recent read.

But there has to be a story to get back to.  If it's all message and no story, it all falls apart.  Which is where, I think, some books end up and why I flinch away from most 'critically acclaimed' books.  Those seem to be more about the message than the fiction.  Too much PB and not enough chocolate, or vice versa.

Jus' sayin'.

Oh, and just a quick heads-up - Blink of an I will be on sale starting tomorrow.  99c/99p for a week.  If you haven't snagged a copy, this might be the time to do so.

How Can You Trust Reviews These Days?

The other day, I was scanning through the ebook newsletter and FB posts as I often do, looking for new books to add to my growing TBR list.

I found a book that sounded interesting, so I dug a little deeper (so I don't get burned by a bad book).  Ten reviews.  Cool.  Fits my 'underappreciated' requirement.  All the reviews were 4 or 5 stars.  Also cool.  Scanned through the reviews.  None of them said 'verified purchase' and none of them had any specifics which would lead me to think the reviewer actually read the book.  Sniff test failed.  Move on.

I found another book that sounded interesting.  Repeat the process.  Low review count.  Check.  The majority of the reviews were verified and sounded like they'd read the book.  Except for one - the lone two-star review.  Unverified and almost totally unreadable.  It was one long sentence that barely passed for English - but not in an 'English isn't my first language' way.  More like a 'I'm American, but I failed every English class I ever took' way.  Sniff test on that review failed.  Downloaded the book.

How does one even know whether to trust any reviews anymore?  In the first case, it looked like friends and family reviewing a book they never read.  In the second, it looked like someone with an axe to grind or a warped bent to trash the author reviewing a book they hadn't read.

Just about every day, I see posts to one of the FB book groups offering to review books - either for free (if you send them your book for free) or for a small fee.  I see authors begging for 'review exchanges' - I'll review your book if you review mine. 

I get that not all reviews can be 'verified' reviews.  Authors regularly send books out to have them reviewed, so it stands to reason, the reviewer wouldn't necessarily purchase the book.  But I also see people offering to give 'verified' reviews for a small fee.  So, basically, you're paying them to buy your book and review it. 

I've talked before about seeing a virtually unknown book/author with thousands of reviews.  I shy away from those automatically.  Sure, they could be legitimate, but I don't want to risk wasting my time if they aren't. 

But Amazon won't let me review a certain author's books because they've determined we're friends.  (Umm, I don't love her books because we're friends - we're friends because I love her books.  I can't be friends with someone whose books I don't like.  Duh.)  And because of stuff like this, I know people who shy away from even trying to review books because they don't want their reviews to be rejected.  No one likes to be rejected.  Blerg.

It's all messed up. 

Jus' sayin'.

Jus' Sayin'

The other day I was talking to the assistant manager at the local dollar store. He was bemoaning the fact that they're short-handed. They've been short-handed for months. And it's not that people aren't applying for jobs. It's that none of them can pass the background checks.

Think about that for a second. Having fucked your life up so bad you're unable to pass the background check for a job at a dollar store.  You may say 'but they didn't fuck their whole life up, they just made one mistake, maybe'.  To which I'd say, 'the one mistake fucked their whole life up because now they can't even get a job at a dollar store.'

 

Here's something I found at an online employment site (company name redacted) that tells what a background check would entail:

 
All employment offers at :dollar store: are contingent upon passing a background check. :dollar store: uses the background check to look for criminal convictions on your record. They also use it to verify the information that you’ve provided on your application. So don’t try to be sneaky and twist the facts — honesty is the best policy.

 

Let's think about that for another second.  None of the people in this rural area can pass a background check.  Which means either 1) criminal convictions or 2) lying on their application.  

Sure, the reasons could be people lying.  But why would someone lie on a dollar store application?  They're so shorthanded that you don't need any experience, so you don't have to lie about that.  So, the only reason I can think of for lying on your application would be a criminal background.  And we're back to #1 again.  Crime.

 

Oh, and you need to pass a drug test.  Which, failing said test, would also mean a crime.  

 

Back to the one mistake thing.  One mistake can fuck your whole life up.  So, knowing that - and if you don't know that you're either in denial or you live in a hole - why WHY Whyyy would you do something that might potentially fuck up your life?  Jus' askin'.  

I follow the Bangor, Maine Police Department on FB.  They end a lot of their posts with the same advice: "Keep your hands to yourself, leave other people's things alone, and be kind to one another."  Seems pretty simple, eh?  Not a hard set of rules to follow that would lead to you not being unable to work at a dollar store, right?  

Apparently it is a hard set of rules.  Around here anyway.  And I would suspect we aren't the only area experiencing a dearth of background passing applicants.  

Jus' sayin'.

On a side note, it's nice to know I would have a job to fall back on if I needed one.  Bet I could walk in there today and have a job by the end of the month.  I already have a huge leg up on the other applicants.  Because I can pass a freakin' background check.  And that's just sad.