DNFs

With the limited amount of time I have now to read, it really pisses me off when I have to DNF a book.  What a waste.  Even if I've only spent 15 minutes on that book I didn't finish, it was 15 minutes I could've been reading something I might finish.

Now, back when I was still in the Kindle Unlimited program, I could 'see' people reading my books, because the page count would go up at a steady pace.  I can safely say that the majority of people read my books all the way through.  (About the only perk to selling so few books, by the way.)  Every once in a while, I'd see where someone only read a page or two.  For the most part, the page number they stopped on was the last page of the book.  

That, at least, could give me some measure of satisfaction.  Few people were picking up my books, but those few were enjoying them enough to read all the way through.  And often, they'd finish one book and go on to read the next book.  

My biggest problem has always been getting people to pick up a first book.  :shrug:

Anyway, the point here is I wasn't disappointing readers.  I would hate to do that.  Maybe I'm doing that now by not writing and publishing new books.  There's nothing to be done for that right now.  I needed a job.  I got a job.  And by the time I get home from a full day of work, I don't have the mental energy to put words on a page, let alone to edit, format, etc. and publish a book.  Gah, I wouldn't even want to think about the energy that goes into making a cover.  So, I'll say it again... I am deeply sorry to be not providing you with more books right now.

The only good thing I can say about all the DNFs this past year or so is that I rarely spent money acquiring them.  The books I download are almost always free.  And the books I do spend money on I almost always finish.  I think last year I has one DNF that I'd paid for.  I shrugged and got on with my life.  Sometimes you slaps your money down and you loses.  

It does make me wonder, though, about whether the authors who get a lot of DNFs with their books consider the whys and the wherefores.  If they attempt to change anything.  If they lay in bed at night wondering how to make the hemorrhage stop.  Or if they just shrug and continue on as usual. 

Personally, I think most writers are conscientious and they are paying attention.  Of course, without KU, how would they know unless they're seeing a lot of returns.  I dunno.

What do you think?

Saturday Reading Wrap-up - 12/12/20

Well, hello there.  Fancy meeting you here.  It's almost the end of the year, ya know, and we're coming to the end of these wrap-ups for 2020.  (I have a flare for stating the obvious, doncha know.)

I picked up four new ebooks this week - paranormal mystery, UF, paranormal romance, romance.  And I have one book left from before - a thriller.  No new hardcopies this week.

Books Read:

82) Drop Dead, Gorgeous by Mike Jastrzebski (12/6/20) - Supernatural Mystery*# - 5 stars.  New to me and while it does have loads of ratings, it doesn't have many reviews, which is too damn bad.  Free off the ENT newsletter.
Review: "Wow, that was a really fun story. I loved the characters and the premise was interesting. It was well-written with an intriguing plot. Plus, it hearkened back to the old noir crime novels I love. Supernatural mystery for the win."

DNFs:

12/11/20 - romance. Free.  I read this about 2/3rds of the way through and then I realized there was no way I was going to be able to give the book more than 3 stars, no matter how it finished.  So I stopped.  I mean, there was sooo much unnecessary stuff in there.  The author could've trimmed a lot and had a much better book with fewer pages.  One I probably would've read all the way through.  =o( 

Currently reading... the thriller left over from earlier in the month.  I'm not loving it, so I'm not sure if this will become a DNF today.  

How did your reading week go?  Anything awesome to report?

People Don't Talk Like That

I started reading a book the other day and within a few pages, DNF'd that sucker.  The problem was the dialogue.  It was stilted and wooden with loads of 'as you know' stuff where the author used the characters to supply backstory without any reason for them to be talking about the past.  

People don't talk like that.  And they don't converse that way.

I realize sometimes it's hard to see where your dialogue might have gone wrong.  (And as such, I hope I never present dialogue to my readers that's anything like that.)  For me, though, writing and reading is like listening to someone talking in my head.  Basically, it's all dialogue up in there.  So, when the dialogue goes wrong, it really sticks out.

If you're not like this, a basic way to figure out if your dialogue has gone wrong is to read it out loud.  If you find yourself tripping over stuff, it's because the way you've written it isn't the way people generally talk.  If it sounds wooden and hollow, it is.

Your mileage may vary if you're writing high fantasy.  People don't talk like that anymore either.  Still, even then, there should be a flow to the words.  Read Shakespeare aloud.  (Which, imo, is the only way to really enjoy Shakespeare if you're not actually at a play.)  Shakespeare's old stuff, but he's still relevant because he had the ebb and flow of human conversation down.  If you're worried about reading Shakespeare, read the newer fantasies of Brooks, Butcher, Farland, etc.  They do good dialogue.

Of course, the book I was reading was YA.  I think that only made it worse.  People don't talk like that.  Teens definitely don't talk like that.  It's been a while since I was a teen or had a teen, but I don't think the general drift of teenage conversation is towards more formal and stilted.  (Would that it were sometimes.)  It was also paranormal, which made the stilted dialogue even worse.  Ebb and flow is key there, folks.  

Ebb and flow is key everywhere.  Any well-received book of any genre has an ebb and flow to the dialogue.  Hell, there's an ebb and flow to the whole damn thing.  If the reader is tripping and stumbling and trying to make the writing make sense in their heads, they're going to put the book down.  Or throw it against the wall.  And never pick up another one by that author.  None of wants that, now do we?

Anyway, I'm probably the last writer to go to for advice - since my sales are dismal - but since I'm also a prolific reader, you should probably take note.  A little.  Maybe.  Do yourself and the world a favor and make your dialogue sound more like the way people actually talk.  K?

If you're a writer, do you read your stuff out loud?  From a reader standpoint, can you think of any writers who do dialogue especially well? 

It's All Been Done

We all appreciate the known and sometimes we crave it.  But on occasion, it feels like Bare Naked Ladies is singing 'It's All Been Done' in the backs of our heads. 

Recently, I was reading a cozy mystery and as I was reading along, it seemed like I was reading the same book I'd read a dozen times with the characters and setting slightly changed.  You know the book...  'amateur detective with a failed marriage comes home to start a new life, finds a body, meets an old love who happens to be a cop who doesn't want her involved in the mystery, but she keeps solving it while battling the bitch from high school'.  It did, of course, differentiate itself eventually, but it felt all 'it's all been done' for a while there.

It's the same with romance.  If you read enough romances, over the course of time, you will see that they're pretty much the same.  I mean, at the basic level, of course they are - boy meets girl, they start to fall in love, tension happens to screw it up but they work it out, boy gets girl.  And that's what we want in our romance.  But when you look at the differences in how to pull that off, you could probably find a slew of them with the above mystery premise slightly changed: 'woman/man with a failed marriage comes home to start a new life, meets an old love while battling the bitch/bastard from high school'

Sometimes that's a good thing.  Other times?  :yawn:

And SF is the same way.  I know of several 'estranged from their family, heroine/hero goes out into the universe to seek their fortune and kick alien ass' series out there.

I guess what I'm talking about are 'tropes'.  Wikipedia gives this description: "The word trope has also come to be used for describing commonly recurring literary and rhetorical devices, motifs or clichés in creative works."  Like the 'secret baby' one in romance.  (He and She get together, she gets pregnant and for some reason or other hides it from him until sometime in the future when they reconnect and he discovers he's a daddy.)

Like I said, sometimes tropes are a good thing.  Readers want the known.  They just don't want too much of it.

Thinking about this yesterday morning, I discovered I have a recurring theme in my books - a lot of my heroines/heroes have bad family things in their backgrounds.  I mean, Jo in the genie books is probably the queen of that - both daddy and mommy issues there - but Jace lost her family to a fire and Ned's family hated that he's a Fed.  Mary's a foundling.  Rue's dad pretty much tortured her.  Jeni's mom is a total bitch.  And let's not even talk about Dennis' sister.  Not sure why I lean that way - it doesn't reflect my own family in any way.  Maybe it just makes for a certain pressure-laden background that produces diamonds and heroes.  I should probably fix that in my next new MCs' backgrounds.

And that's what the point is.  Finding a way to make the tropes just a little bit different, so readers aren't feeling like they've read the book before.  I almost DNF'd the mystery I talk about up there.  Which would've been a shame.  It was fun.  And I've said this before - don't give a reader a reason to stop reading your books.  

The above book added in some things that weren't present in other books of the same trope.  She made it interesting.  The only problem was she threw all the same-same stuff at me right up front.  

And I talked about this the other day - with Oliver now Kazimir - and the sameness I was feeling from reading other paranormal mysteries.  Look for sameness in your writing and try to winnow it out.  

Remember when vampires were all the rage - the Anne Rice Syndrome, if you will.  I can't bring myself to read a paranormal with vampires anymore.  It's all been done.  (If you know of one that's different, let me know.  I still like the idea, I'm just bored with the execution.) 

Of course, you can't help but ascribe to the sameness of your genre, but you can find ways to stand out from the crowd.  You have to if you want to grab a piece of the market share. 

A Little Bit of Pixie Dust

I was sitting here last night, looking at the numbers for last week's sale and trying to figure out how to boost sales for next month.  And I was all like "I haven't done a sale for Project Hermes in a while.  I'll just set up an ad with..."

Which was when it occurred to me that PH doesn't have enough reviews to set up ads with almost anyone I'd like to advertise with. 

Which brings me back around to wondering how to get reviews without paying for them or begging for them. 

A while back, I took the 'please review my book' verbiage out of the ends of all my books and replaced it with 'please buy the next book'.  Figuring if readers only had enough time to do one thing, it was better to have them buy something than write something nice.

And that worked.  Kinda.

Now, please understand that I had the 'review' wording at the ends of my books for a long time and it didn't seem to help much, so I didn't think taking it out would hurt much.  Right now, I'm not sure if it did hurt.  All I know is that I haven't seen a new review for any of my books in a while.

I know my regulars here have reviewed as much as they are able.  And thanks to each one of them for doing so.  I just wish a higher percentage of my readers would do the same.  I'm not asking for a book report.  All I really need is some stars and a few honest and positive words.  "I enjoyed this" would be a nice thing to say.  (Although, I'm not sure if Amazon has the word minimum thing or not these days.  I've left some really short reviews, but I could be wrong.)

Anyway, if you're here and you're a reader, please understand that a lot of things hinge of the number of reviews a book has - advertising, sales, whether Amazon pushes your book or ignores it, etc.  Writers need your help.  I need your help.  We all need your help - especially indie writers who don't have a publisher behind us helping get reviews. 

So, if you would be so kind, take a moment out of your day to help a writer out by leaving an honest review for a book you've read and enjoyed.  It'll be like a little bit of pixie dust sprinkled over our day.  Trust me.

Pondering

I saw something yesterday that asked what current books we thought would be considered classics in 100 years.  I didn't bother seeing what other people were saying might be classic because that would just be depressing, but it did get me to thinking.

I don't write classics for the most part.  I expect that as long as I keep advertising the books, people will keep buying them for 5-10 years.  But classic?  Not really.  The SCIU series and the OUAD series are entertainment.  So's the Sleeping Ugly series if I ever get it past the first book. 

I'd like for Project Hermes to achieve the sort of status of Patriot Games, but I'm not fooling myself.  It'll never be a movie. 

If 100 years from now people pick up Blink of an I or Unequal and think 'wow', I'd be happy.  Then again, I'll be dead, so it probably won't matter much.  Still, I'd like for those to be classics someday.  Again, not fooling myself here.

I wonder what the authors of 100 years ago thought about their books.  Were they thinking 'this is going to be a classic' or were they just hoping to make enough money to pay the rent? 

A lot has changed since then.  I mean, all of the books of 100 years ago were paper.  And they all had to wait for some publishing company to recognize their brilliance so the masses could even have a chance of reading their books.  Now?  No waiting, but also way harder to get noticed and get read by even a portion of the masses. 

I'm sure there are a wealth of awesome books out there withering on the wine.  Mine could be several of them.  And the world will never know they existed. 

Don't mind me, I'm just pondering this morning.  Since I don't really read books anyone might consider potential future classics*, let me know if you've read anything new you think might fit the bill. 

*In case you don't follow The Writing Spectacle, where I talk about my reading habits, I primarily read either old books or new ones that are underappreciated.  When I do pick up a newer traditionally published book, it's from a thrift store. 

Choosing the Right Genres (or Not Cheesing Off Your Readers)

If you read my Reading Wrap-up this past Saturday, you'll see I DNF'd (did not finish) a book because it wasn't what it promised to be.  It was hyped as a historical suspense/thriller, and while there was some jumping back and forth between now and the mid-nineteenth century, neither aspect of the book was especially suspenseful or thrilling.

Oh, sure, the author dropped a body at the beginning.  I think the body drop was in the past part, but it wasn't clear.  Anyway, a body drop is a good way to start out a suspense or a thriller.  But they didn't follow that with anything to tie the body into the story.  Not for the reader anyway.  Maybe to the author - who knows what lies ahead - the ties were perfectly clear.  To this reader, though, it was all muddied up.

Like I said, a body is discovered almost immediately, then I read further waiting for some sort of tie-in.  I figured it was this one gal who is mentioned in both the past scenes and the present scenes.  Then I read far enough to a present scene were they introduce the woman's granddaughter, so it couldn't be her...

Unless, and this seriously just occurred to me, the opening scene was in the present and NOT in the past as I had assumed.

And see, this is what I'm talking about...  As a writer, you cannot leave those things unclear to your readers.  Because once they get confused about stuff like that, they will shut your book and never open it again.  (Or do what I did and scroll to the end so my Kindle sees it as 'read' and filters it out.)

But that's not the only thing that made me put the book away.  If you're going to market a book as a certain genre, it has to meet the main characteristics of that genre.  In the case of a suspense, it has to be suspenseful.  And if you call it a thriller, it has to be thrilling.  I know, duh, right?   If you call it both, you better knock my freakin' socks off.  And if you call it historical, it better be set in the past in its entirety.  But maybe that last part is just me. 

Anyway, it'd be like my calling any of my books romances.  And if I did that, my readers would be seriously disappointed.  There is very little romance, if any, in my books.  I do not want to cheese readers off that way.

That ought to be the first rule of publishing - do not cheese readers off.  Not if you can help it, anyway.  I mean, you're going to cheese some people off no matter what you do, but that's a topic for another day.

So, yeah, pay attention to how you market your books.  Get the genre right.  If you're on the fence about whether your book is this genre or that, pick the strongest one and run with it.  That's why I try to market Project Hermes as a political suspense.  Okay, sometimes I say political thriller, but calling it a thriller makes my uncomfortable because while it's suspenseful, I don't think it's especially thrilling.  Either way, I haven't marketed it as a medical thriller or a technothriller or what have you.  It has elements of those, too, but they're less prominent.  It's the political aspect that shines the brightest, I think. 

And that's my two cents on that.  What say you?

Do the World a Favor. Edit Your Books.

Okay, so I was wandering through my FB newsfeed the other day when I saw a book that looked really interesting.  Thriller, promising loads of action.  Intriguing title.  So-so cover, but I can get over covers.

Clicked the link and started my usual scroll down the detail page to see if it was actually something I'd want.  Blurb sounded interesting.  Further promises of action and thrills.  Check.

A little further down, the author's bio.  Promises of writing about justice.  Fan of good writers.  Check.

Further down to check reviews... no reviews. No reviews?  When was this published?  2016.  Ack.  But that's okay.  Maybe he just hasn't caught people's eyes yet.  Could still be good stuff...

Back up to the top to do a 'look inside'.  And therein lay the rub.

First sentence extremely technical and not in a grabby kind of way.  Two snipers on a rooftop, but started out with detailed info about their weapons.  Meh.

After that loads of dialogue, which is fine by me, but every bit of it was wooden and had a dialogue tag. 

"This doesn't look good," said Jim. 
"I know it doesn't," Mac replied. "But it's our mission." 
"I'm not sure about this," Jim exclaimed.
"It's what you signed up for," Mac said.

Not exactly that, but you get the gist.  (It's actually painful to me to try and make up bad writing.)

The final straw was when gunfire erupted from beneath them, where they were laying on a rooftop, which made it sound like the bullets were coming from, you know, a room inside the building they were laying on. But then the bullets were striking the rooftop.  :blink blink:  I think he might've meant from the street below, but even then, why would bullets from below strike the rooftop?

Stop reading.  Close product page without one-clicking.  Fade out.

Once again, I was left wondering if this writer had bothered to get someone... anyone... to edit his work.  If you follow my Reading Wrap-Up over at The Writing Spectacle, you might have noted that the last one had a DNF book with this exact problem - lack of editing.  That one was a Western.  This one was a Thriller, but it doesn't matter what genre you write when your editing stinks.

My editor would've bitch slapped me hard if I tried to get any of that crap past her.  (In a totally nice and lovely way, of course, and in pretty pink.)  And I would've taken it, because that's her job.  I pay her to bitch-slap me when I get stupid, so my books are better and readers don't snap my book closed on the first page.  (They might anyway, but I guarantee it's not because of editing.)

So, there you are with this book you think is freakin' awesome.  Got a great blurb.  Got a snazzy premise.  You've written the hell out of it.  Put months and months of sweat and angst into it. And you know in your heart that people will love it, too.  You've done all this work.  Do the world a favor and get someone to edit your book.

Find someone who will smack you in the back of the head when you use too many dialogue tags (or not enough).  Find someone who will point out when things aren't kosher - like the bullet thing up there.  My editor keeps constant track of where everyone is sitting or standing and when they're doing each, and pokes me in the eye when I get it wrong.  Which is sometimes annoying, but it keeps me honest, so I want her to keep doing it.

If you can't afford an editor, you have two options - find a friend or three who would be willing to kick the snot out of you for free OR put off publishing your book while you sock away the money to hire an editor.  (Which is why I only published two books in 2017 - no monies for editing.)  Go without for a while and stuff your pennies away until you have the $500-$600 it takes to edit.  But for pity's sake, get the book edited before it goes live on Amazon. 

The world will thank you.  You might even see more sales and more reviews.  You're certainly not seeing them now, so what could it hurt?  Because I'll tell you this, your unedited book is hurting you. 

In a way, it's hurting all of us.  Self-published books take a lot of crap because of poor editing.  Stop being part of the problem.  K?


Note: As I've said before, no one edits my blogs but me.  And even then, I don't do hard edits here, folks.  The writing here is not indicative of the level of editing you'll find in my books.  This is more conversational, straight out of my head writing.  And if, by some chance, you do find an error in my actual books, those aren't my editor's fault.  They're mine.  I'm not infallible, but I try.

Paying it Sideways

Okay, if you follow me over at The Writing Spectacle, you may have read that I do this thing where I find new-to-me, underappreciated authors, buy their books, read them and review them. 

I do it because I like to help authors like me.  I also do it to find new and interesting things to read.  Books the establishment wouldn't give a whit about.  Books readers might not necessarily gravitate to because the author is unknown or the premise is slightly different from what they're used to.  (For example, a book about a guy who creates magic using garbage or a book where the zombie is the hero.) Books people might not want to take a chance on because they are unknowns and they have so few reviews. 

I don't like the phrase 'paying it forward'.  And I don't think it necessarily applies here anyway.  Maybe this is paying it sideways.  I get a book to read, they get a review and maybe it encourages them keep writing books for me to read.

Sometimes I hit on a dud.  Buying books this way can be a crapshoot, whether they're self-pub or trad-pub.  More often than not, though, these are good books that haven't taken off yet.  Occasionally, I'll download a book that meets the criteria, but by the time I read it, it has taken off.  I'm okay with that, too.

Every rare once in a while, the author will contact me after I review.  I've gotten some positive exchanges from them.  And once, after the author contacted me and thanked me, he read the whole SCIU series in KU.  He liked DE and wrote a review.  Yay.  Not what I'm hoping for with this, but hey, I'm not against that, too. 

Now, I don't want you to think every book I download gets a review.  Sometimes, like I said, they're duds.  I don't finish books I don't like and I don't review books I don't finish.  Plus, I don't want to harsh an author that way, especially when it's subjective.  One bad review could tank the author's sales, or worse, tank their ability to keep on facing this business we're in.  Why do that to someone?

Mostly, I snag the books while they're free.  I'm a tightwad, okay?  They offer a free book, I give them a review.  Win-win.  Sometimes I'll buy them, if budget allows.  If they're really good, I'll buy the other books in the series.  (If they have other books.  Sometimes, they're so new they only have the one book, in which case, I hope my review gets them to write more.)

Anyway, it's a thing I do as a writer and as a reader.  I've already read ten of these kinds of books this year.  I try to average about one a month, so I'm on track for this year.   I'll definitely reach 12 for the year. 

I hope you'll join me this coming year.  It really is fun and I like to think it helps all us little, low-list authors.  Paying it sideways, eh?  ;o)

Observations While Searching for Books

I spent part of my time this week looking for something to read on Kindle.  I wanted a suspense, preferably free, that met my parameters (low reviews, new-to-me).  The Top lists of Free weren't giving me what I wanted, so I tried searching the 'Zon.  And I learned some interesting things...

When you search 'free' on Amazon, it pops up all the Kindle Unlimited books.  Which are only free if you're a subscriber, so that doesn't do me a damn bit of good.  (And they aren't really free, folks, they're included in your subscription price.)  So I sorted by price from low to high.  It was still throwing KU books in there, but I got some actually free books that time.

A bunch of authors are doing this thing where readers get the first six or ten or whatever chapters FREE.  Which isn't a whole book, it's a teaser for a whole book.  As a reader, I do not approve of this.  As a writer, I can totally see how that might be a good marketing thing, but I feel like it would just piss readers off.  With the 'look inside' feature, readers can get a whole bunch of chapters free for every book.  Listing the first x-number of chapters as a separate entity feels like a bait and switch to me.  :shrug:

Other authors are doing this thing where the whole book is split into 'parts'.  The first part is free, and the other parts you have to pay for.  I got caught on one of these a while back.  I downloaded it and got into it before I realized it was only a first part.  It was a good first part, but the idea irritated me sufficiently as to make me not buy the other two parts.  Isn't that how drug dealers sell their junk?  Give customers a taste and once they're hooked, you've got them.  I don't respond well to those sales tactics.

Another thing I noticed was books by authors I've never heard of with an obscene number of reviews.  The smell test tells me something's off.  Big Name Bestseller only has 500 reviews, but Joe Schmoe self-publishes and has 3000 reviews?  Umm. No.  It makes me wonder how much Joe paid for those reviews and it makes me think few of them are real.

I still haven't found any books to download.  For now, I'll read paperbacks and keep looking for the elusive 'right book'. 

Those are my observations and opinions.  What are yours?

Oh, and speaking of searching for a good book to read, both Wish in One Hand and In Deep Wish are on sale today only.  99c each.

On Reading My Own Books

I was going to post a snippet of the mostly-edited beginning of Sleeping Ugly this morning, but as I sat there, reading it again and deciding what amount of it to post, I saw some stuff that needed changing.  Or I think it needed changing.  I changed it.  Then I sent that part off to AWE to get her take on it.  She may tell me I've lost my everlovin' mind.

They say a book is never actually finished.  An author will always find stuff that they feel needs to be changed - even after it's on the shelves for other people to read.  Which is why, once I upload a book for publication, I don't read it again.  There lies the path to madness.

Oh, I look at it after publication.  But only to make sure the formatting is correct.  I never read it.  Sometimes I get the urge, but I squelch it pretty hard. 

No, Meissner, I says to myself*.  Leave it alone.

Because I know if I ever do start to read the published work, I will have the overwhelming urge to take out the editing tools.  A snip here.  A changed word there.  An entirely re-written passage along the way.  And by the time I'm done, it won't be the same book other people have already read. 

That's why I'm always happy when some reader contacts me to point out a typo.  (As long as they're nice about it.  Which they have been so far.)  I mean, I do my damnedest to make sure there aren't any flaws, but I know one might slip by on occasion.  Except, since I never read my books once they go live on Amazon, I won't find them. 

Not re-reading my books is kind of a sanity saving device.  At some point, I have to say 'This is done.  Finished.  Finito."  And let it be.  Otherwise, I'd never get anything else done and nothing else would be published.  I'd just be editing all the time.  All The Time.  Ugh.

What about you?  If you're a writer, do you read your books again after they're published?  How do you quiet the internal editor if you do?  If you're a reader, have you ever contacted an author and told them about typos?  How'd that go for you?


*I call myself by my maiden name in my head.  Hubs is Sanderson.  I'm Meissner.

A Little Marketing Research

I've been doing an interesting experiment lately.  I've actually been scrolling through all the marketing newsletters and FB groups I'm subscribed to, looking for books I want to read.

Now, understand something, I only subscribed to these newsletters so I could see the ads I was placing with them.  I get at least a half dozen every day in email form.  There are at least another half dozen groups I follow in FB that bombard me with book ads throughout the day.

I didn't start this out as market research.  I just had some time and some inclination to look for new books to read.  But the more I flip through the emails and the FB postings, the more I'm learning about the venues I've been paying to market my books.

This is, of course, totally unscientific and all anecdotal.  Your mileage may vary.

The best newsletters for finding books, for me, have been Ereader News Today and the newly-found duo of Book Barbarian (SF/F) and Book Adrenaline (mystery, thriller, suspense).  Clear and concise ads with a big enough font that I don't have to enlarge anything to read them.  And large images. Plus, a wide selection every day.  I'm also finding some good stuff at Reading Deals, Freebooksy and Bargain Booksy, and Book Gorilla.  (Although Book Gorilla is sometimes information overload.)

Another thing about Book Gorilla that I've noticed is that they have a bunch of books listed and then a big thing about their ongoing contest to win a Kindle Fire, and after that, a bunch more books.  Sort of a 'below the fold' kind of thing, which makes me wonder where my book would end up if I got an ad there.  I'm guessing below the fold since the 'above the fold' books all seemed to be trad-pub.  I received their newsletter for a while before I noticed there were other books down there.

If you're not familiar with Book Gorilla, I believe you have to pay for an ad with Kindle Nation Daily to get a free spot at BG.  And KND ads are expensive.  And I've been unimpressed with KND's offerings, for whatever that's worth.


ebooksdealsdaily only has like two books per email and they haven't been really interesting to me.  Booktastik is about the same.  The Fussy Librarian has a lot of books, but so far, only one that grabbed my interest enough to download it.  Omnimystery News also has a few books, but their last offering was mostly trad-pub and nothing I found really new or exciting.  (The first book was a "The Cat Who..." novel.  :shrug:)

ReadCheaply has a quality newsletter with some good books to offer, but again, nothing so far that's excited me enough to buy.  I'm a hard sell, though, and I've been looking for some very specific types of books*.

Goodkindles seems to be the worst for me, so far.  Their last offering was mostly self help and the fiction wasn't blowing my skirt up.  At all.

Paranormal and Urban Fantasy Bargains has an okay newsletter, but their main worth is in the FB page, I think.  I know I've gotten some nice sales numbers advertising there and I've picked up a couple books to read.

I follow Pixels of Ink on FB.  Not sure why.  In order to get an ad there, you have to sacrifice a virgin to the gods of internet advertising or something.  And I never seem to see any books in their ads that make me run off to spend money.  

Naturally, the best sales I've gotten from marketing with any of these places were through ENT.  They seem to be doing it right - both from a writer and a reader standpoint.

As always, this is just my opinion and personal observations.  Your experience with any of these places may be totally different.

So, tell me, do you subscribe to any book marketing newsletters?  I'm always on the lookout for new places to find books and new places to market.  Share away.


*New to me and underappreciated - which means less than like 30 reviews or whatever.  And 99c or free.  I'll pick up books that don't meet these requirements, but the cover copy really has to excite me.

A Little Window

The other day while I was at the feed store, I got to talking books with the cashier there.  And some interesting things came out of the conversation.

First, she loved Blood Flow (now Project Hermes) and spent some time gushing about it, which made my day.  I'd given her a copy back in May and she finally finished reading it.  (Her busy schedule, not that it was a slow read.)  I reminded her that it I had changed the name, and she was glad.  Her take on it was that the previous title was confusing and didn't really fit the story and it clashed with the cover.  Good to get feedback from a member of the reading populace. 

Second, the younger gal cashier there stated that she hadn't read an entire book since 7th grade (she'll be a senior in high school this fall.  Now, I don't know about you, but a young person should never say they hate reading in front of me.  Or apparently in front of my book loving friend there.  We spent a copious amount of time trying to convince the young lady of the joys of reading.  By the end of our harangue, she seemed like she might actually be interested in reading a whole book.  Perhaps one of mine.  My friend said she'd give her Dying Embers when she finished reading it. 

Third, the young gal stated that her teacher read the class a book last year that she really liked.  Had READ a book to her class... to juniors in high school.  The last time a teacher of mine read a book to the class, I was in third grade.   This might be how a gal reaches 17 without having read an entire book on her own.  We were reading like fools for our classes back in the '80s.  We had to in order to pass our classes.  Shakespeare and other classics were assigned reading.  Hell, even books like Lord of the Flies (which I hate) are better than not reading at all.

Fourth, the other occupant of the store at the time was the young grandson of the guy who loads the feed into my car.  I think he's eight.  Anyway, he was trying to be part of the conversation, too, but he really didn't have the chops - you know, cuz he's a child.  The only book he said he liked made me sad, because it was so obviously virtue signalling.  A boy that age should be reading The Hardy Boys or Tom Swift or Encyclopedia Brown.  You know, something adventurous and exciting.  He should've been able to talk about that.  Not a book about a poor tortured little girl.  Is it any wonder kids don't like to read? Ugh.

Of course, this is just a little snapshot from a small town feed store in northern Arkansas.  I would expect, though, it's a tiny window into the greater whole of middle America. 

Disappointing Read

If you know me, you know I rarely leave a bad review.  Part of that is because I rarely finish a book that would result in a bad review.  I realize it's bad partway through and quit.  Who's got time to read bad books?  I also know that bad reviews can hurt a book's sales and since a review is just my opinion, why do that to someone? 

But this weekend, I had to give a book three stars.  (Yes, for me, 3-stars is a bad review.)  The book was Mickey Spillane's The Erection Set.  From the title and the cover, I already had an inkling it was going to be tawdry.  And let's face it, Mickey is sometimes a little tawdry.  It's part and parcel of his books.  But this... this was over the top. 

It seemed like it was nasty for the sake of being nasty.  Full of shock factor snippets tossed off for effect.  I felt like Mickey was told to sex the book up a bit and took the editorial notes to a ludicrous level.  

And even then, I could've forgiven it.  I read books with sex in them.  I read books with some nasty bits in them, too.  I flip past that stuff and move on to the story.  Which was what I was doing throughout The Erection Set. 

But partway through the book, I found something familiar.  And even with my piss-poor memory, I could tell it had been ripped off from another book.  It was the same plot devise Mickey had used in his earlier book The Deep (which I totally loved).  And I thought to myself, he can't be doing the same thing in this book.  So I kept reading.

Oh, things were just different enough to make the story interesting, but it was, in essence, the same book.  All the way to the end.

Guy who's been away fighting in WWII and then stayed away for some amount of years afterwards, comes home.  He's got a reputation of being a criminal and a general bad guy.  Since he was something of a hoodlum in his youth, it's easy for everyone from his past life to believe he's bad.  And with bad things happening, he's the easy suspect.  So the police pull him in and question him.  He writes a number on a piece of paper, slides it across the table at the detective and tells him to call that number.  After the officer does, he's told he can go. 

There's a gal in the story who falls in love with the bad guy.  She's pretty sure he's not as bad as everyone thinks and she falls in love.  When confronted with what she thinks is the proof of his evil doings, she hates him, but she sticks around to see how it all plays out. 

In the end, it's revealed that he's been working for the government all along and the assumptions she's made are proven false.  All is well.  The end.

That's an easy description of both books.  And it gave me a serious sad last night.

I depend on certain authors to give me what I expect - well-written stories I haven't read before.  And Mickey had let me down.  I wondered if maybe in his old age, he was getting cantankerous, but then I realized he was only 54 when he wrote this.  Then I wondered if he'd perhaps gotten sick of people trying to tell him what to write, so he thumbed his nose at the establishment and gave them a regurgitated book so thick with raunch, they'd have to see how bad it was and leave him the hell alone. 

Then Hubs brought up an interesting point - Mickey allowed them to publish this book.  He put his name on it.  (Yeah, contracts... I know, but still...)  To Hubs, it sounded like Mickey had sold out.  The thought of which made me even sadder. 

So, yeah, 3-stars.  If it had been anyone but Spillane, it would've gotten fewer, but the writing was still there and still awesome, if you ignored the nasty and the regurg.  Hell, if it had been anyone else, it wouldn't have finished it.  But I learned an important lesson here.  I won't be reading anymore of his post 1970s novels.  Stick with the early stuff and I should be fine. 

And the other important lesson I learned.  Don't regurgitate your stories.  I'm lucky because I don't have any telling me what I should write or any editorial board telling me how to write what I write. 

And another thing... Don't write something just because someone thinks it's what the public might want.  Again, I don't have anyone telling me what I ought to write, so I'm lucky there.  I could write what I think the public might want, but that's just not me.  I write what I write.  Hopefully, readers will enjoy it and buy my stories.  If not, there's really not much I can do about it without selling out.

Not that I don't think about it on occasion.  Ah, the sweet siren song of sales... 

Writers Should Also Be Readers

I don't personally know any writers who aren't also readers.  I've heard tales of non-reading writers, but like mountain lions in Missouri, I haven't encountered one yet.

Now, I'm not talking about writers who don't read while they're writing their first drafts.  It takes a whole lot of writing your own words to defeat the voices of other writers in your head, so I totally get that.  Hell, for years, I couldn't read other works of fiction while I was writing my own.  And then for a while I couldn't read other works in the same genre while I was writing.

Nope, I'm talking about writers who proudly proclaim that they don't read.  Or that they don't read new books.  :shrug:  I don't get it, but whatever.

Personally, I'm a reader.  I've been a reader since I was knee-high to a grasshopper.  And I read widely.  Partly because I was a reader first and I love most genres.  Partly because, as a writer, you never know what might come in handy.

To give you a sample, you can go here to see what I've read so far this year.  Six books - mystery, action, history, paranormal romance, paranormal suspense, and YA paranormal.  Pretty mixed bag, even if you group the paranormals together.

And here's a list of what I've one-clicked to read since the start of 2017...

Remember the Night by Silver James (paranormal romance)
The Thirteenth Man by JL Doty (SF)
In For a Penny by Naigle and Browning (cozy mystery)
Good, Bad, & Sexy by Jennifer Lyon (romance)
No One Lives Twice by Julie Moffett (mystery)
Granny Hooks a Crook by Julie Seedorf (cozy mystery)

Loads of new-to-me authors in there.  I'll intersperse them with some old favorites from my shelves.  Some hard-boiled crime, naturally, along with a few suspense novels waiting for me, and I've got two SF series I'm working my way through, and a couple fantasy series I'm in the middle of.  I might also throw in a classic or two. I also read kids' books when the mood strikes me.  Keepin' it fresh.  You feel me? It's a smorgasbord all up in here.

LOL

What kinds of things do you read?  Are you a one/two genre reader or do you read whatever strikes your fancy?  Feel free to give a shout out to your authors of choice. 

Sticking to the Budget

Okay, so this is primarily a blog about writing and crime.  But I assume you all realize I am a voracious reader, too.  And since you're all readers (as well as writers and crime buffs), I figure this topic will  interest you, too.

Budgets.

Yeah, I'm groaning right along with you.  I'm groaning especially hard since this book I've been hearing about on Facebook that sounds particularly yummy just released yesterday and it's outside my set budget.

Sorry.  I can't afford to buy new-to-me authors if their books are over $4.  Hell, I'm barely will to spend more than $3, but I'm willing to stretch up a dollar if the premise sounds awesome.  But $4.99 is flat out for debut. No matter how many people recommend you.  No matter who your friends are.  For petesakes, I hardly ever buy $4.99 books from MY friends. 

Just a fact of life.  I have a budget and I have to stick to it.  Even if someone gives me a gift card.  Even when I really really really want to splurge.  Splurging leads to bad habits.  If I splurge today, I'm more likely to splurge next time.  And next time it might be a $9.99 book.  Nope nope nope.  Ten of those and I'm out $100.  I don't have $100 to blow. 

Yeah, I'm a stick in the mud.  Too many years being cash-strapped has made me Auntie Scrooge.  Blah blah blah.  Plenty of cheaper books to read that are just as yummy. 

And as I've said before, this is why all my books are $2.99 (or less, if they're on sale).  Pricing them otherwise would be hypocritical. 

So, while I might drool over higher priced books, I'm being good and sticking to my budget. 

Do you have a book buying budget?  Do you stick to it fervently or is it just a guideline?

STUPIDFUL

Not too far from here, there's a thrift store.  It works in conjunction with a local charity and there's usually something or other I can find to buy there.  Usually, it's used books.  I'm a sucker for used books.  Natch.

Anyway, the last time I went there, I noticed I hadn't seen the manager in a while, so I asked about him.  Well, he's moved on to a new mission in life.  Good for him.  The new manager, I was told, had all these great ideas on things.  Okee.  Whatever.  Cool for you if you get more sales for your charity. 

So, I went in there last week.  Everything looks about the same.  :shrug: 

I wandered through to the books.  I immediately found two paperbacks I needed.  Then I found another two.  Then I remembered that I'd heard they were changing the pricing on books from 4/$1 (used to be 5/$1) paperbacks.  I scanned around for the new sign.  PAPERBACKS 50c EACH. 

Well, that kind of put a crimp in my crinolines.  But whatever.  I found two more I wanted and then walked over to the 'vintage' shelves.  Big sign: VINTAGE $5 EACH.  Oh, holy crap.  Those used to be $1.50 ea.  I was almost afraid to look at the hardcover section.  Those only doubled in price from 50c to $1. 

No hardcovers or vintage books for me that day.  Time to check out.  With only 6 paperbacks when I'd usually take home a bag of books.  :shrug: 

I made casual mention of the price change in books to the cashier.  She must've been hearing it a lot because she got kind of defensive and a little snotty when she's usually quite nice.  She told me how they're having trouble moving books.  So much trouble that they're no longer accepting book donations.  Which is why they raised the price. 

No offense to her, but that's about the most stupidful thing I've ever heard.  (Yes, so stupid, it deserved its own word - STUPIDFUL.)  I didn't tell her she was stupidful.  She doesn't set the prices or the policy for the store.  This is one of the new manager's brilliant ideas. 

As I was relaying this story to Hubs and then on Facebook, something occurred to me.  This thinking seems to be what the traditional publishers are using.  Book sales are down... supposedly... so jack the prices up.  The last time I looked at buying a hardcover, it was $27.99.  And I didn't buy it.  I can't afford that.  Just like I can't afford to buy 12-15 books from the thrift store like I used to.  Not at 50c ea.  $3.  I had three dollars to spend.  Period.  It's called a budget, and I have to stick to it.

Oh, that store manager and those big publishers might comfort themselves with the idea that they made more money per book.  But they're selling fewer books.  For the thrift store, that means a backlog of excess inventory.  For the publishers?  I don't know how all that works.  I would think it would mean the same.  At the very least, it would mean their sales numbers are down.  Thus, book sales are down.  And I think it's showing in the pocketbooks of writers. 

Jus' sayin'.

The cashier did invite me, in an oh-so-snotty tone, that I was welcome to come volunteer at the store, if I had a better idea.  Oh, I do.  I have a ton of awesome sales ideas that might benefit that place.  And the idea of going in there and sorting through boxes of old books is tempting.  Problem is, I don't think they'd really welcome my ideas.  And I really don't have the energy or the will to stand in that place for more than an hour at a time a couple times a month. 

So, I'll do what most self-respecting customers do.  I'll bitch about it here and at home, and I'll find other places to spend my money.  Cuz that's how the free market works. 

There's another thrift store a little out of my way that benefits a different charity.  Maybe I'll drop in there and see what they have to offer. 

Interesting Discussion with Hubs about Ebook Pricing

Yesterday, Hubs and I were talking about pricing and marketing and ebooks.  As has happened before - because I'm the reader in the family and I know these things - Hubs wanted to know about traditionally published book pricing vs self-published pricing.

Basically it started out with me talking about my own books' pricing, and how much, as a reader, I'm willing to pay for an ebook and why.  (I mean besides the obvious reason that my book buying budget is dinky because I'm funneling most incoming fundage into the book publishing budget.)

Me:  I have a tough time spending more than $3.99 for an ebook, unless it's the next in a series from an author I really love.  And there's only one series I have to have immediately, so I spend $9.99* when they come out because I don't want to wait for the paperback.

Hubs: And how much are the paperbacks?

Me:  Usually? $7.99 or $8.99 but they come out like a year later.  I think (name withheld) puts his paperbacks out at $9.99, so I'm not paying more to have it early.


Hubs: So, let me get this straight.  The paperback - which costs the publisher more money to produce than the ebook - is more expensive than the paperback.  No wonder they're screaming so hard about keeping ebook pricing high.  That's where they're making all their money.
---
We didn't devolve this time into how much of that price the traditionally published author actually takes home.  For them what don't know, it's typically 15% minus the agent's 15% minus any marketing pay for themselves.  (Someone will correct me if this has changed recently.)

So, I walk into our office/library to check something out.  Another author I generally buy in paperback - because Walmart always stocks her new releases - has the list price at $7.99. I paid like $5.99 at Walmart.  I went on Amazon to check the list price of the paperback against the list price of the Kindle version.  Same same.  $7.99 either way.  Unless you're getting the Wallyworld discount.  Same book but with the paperback, the publisher has printing costs and labor and shipping and overhead - in addition to the across-the-board costs of editing, cover art, etc. that all versions of this book bear. 

Hmm.  Curious. 

Then I went to see what a big-name traditionally published author charges for his books.  For his most recent release, MSRP list price = $28.00. Amazon is selling it for $16.80.  Kindle price? $14.99.  The paperbacks aren't due to be released until February and they're listed at $15.99 a pop (or Amazon rate of $12.60).  Wow.  But he's really popular and people will shell that out.  Too bad he's only getting a fraction of that with a fraction taken out of it. 

It's really not surprising that the traditional publishers are pissed at the indies.  We undercut their pricing by around 60% ($3.99 vs $9.99 = $6 difference. If my math is wrong, shoot me.), produce a comparable quality piece of merchandise, and have little overhead.  Rascally upstarts that we are.  What I'm kind of surprised about is that the authors aren't pissed at their publishers who are making loads off the ebook sales and not sharing a larger portion of the pie. :shrug:  Maybe someday publishing contracts will catch up with new technology, but that's a discussion for another time.

One of these days, I'll have to do some more research into how much it costs to produce hardcopy books vs the cost of producing an ebook.  I think the readers might like to know.  But right now, I have work to do.  These books aren't writing themselves. 

*This author's Kindle book prices drop after they've been out for a while.  The last one I bought for Kindle is now $7.99.  It was worth the $2 difference to have it on release day, imo.

What's Up and What's Next - A Ramble

A while back the CFO and I were talking about the self-publishing business and how to keep the engine running. As in, how to keep a production schedule of a book released every three months when I'm clearly not banging away on the keyboard. As you know Bob, I do have a boatload of books already written, so I could probably publish books for three years straight without ever writing a new word.

"Are all of those books viable?"

"Well, I'd like to think they are."

The reality of it is that while they may all be viable and perfectly wonderful books, they also might not be what the market is looking for.  In fact, right now, I'd say MY market is looking for more of what I've already released.  And in order to give the market what it wants, it means more new words.

And in order to give my soul what it wants, I have to let the market down every now and then.

Wait, what? 

Well, I have a lot of books in me - in a variety of genres.  Generally, the market likes writers to stick to one genre and run with it.  So, I expect certain segments of the market will be let down every now and then by what's ahead.  Sorry about that.  If I do this, then the products you enjoy will be better in the long run, though.  Trust me.

Anyway, I'm just about done with this round of edits on Bloodflow (techno-political-medical suspense - a for-me book) and I'm thinking about what to jump into next.  September is for new words.  In deference to my customers, I'll be working on either the next book in the SCIU series OR the next Dennis Haggarty mystery.

I expect from here on out that's about how it'll work - for-you books put out at regular intervals with for-me books sprinkled here and there.  Hopefully some of you will enjoy the for-me books.  Expand your genres, expand the reading material available to you.  Know what I mean? 

Meanwhile, I'd better get editing so I can send this off to the AWE (Awesome Wonderful Editor-gal) and then set my buns down for some heavy-duty word slinging.

Have an awesome day, Everyone!  And happy reading.  =o)

Books, Books, Books... I'm Addicted

Hi.  My name is B.E. and I'm addicted to buying books.  I've been to my dealer twice in the past week.  She knows what I like and she has the goods, baby.

I thought I had the habit kicked.  Lord knows, I have enough books already... heh, as if... and if I started reading what I already have and read them straight through at my usual rate of 100 a year, it would take me probably 3-6 years to read them all.  (With time off for good behavior.)

True, I haven't read many books in the past month.  This always occurs when I'm getting ready to launch a book.  But now that Accidental Death is out there, I have time.  Time to read.  Ahhh.  (Unfortunately, that phrase brings to mind that episode of The Twilight Zone where Burgess Meredith is the only man left on Earth and has all the time in the world to read, but then he breaks his glasses. :shudder:)

Anyway, there's this little bookstore near here.  Used books.  A favorite fix for my addiction.  Old used books.  :sniff sniff snort inhale passoutfromecstasy:  I picked up three Mickey Spillanes, a copy of The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett, two Ray Bradburys, and an author I've never heard of but whose post-apocalyptic premise sounds awesome.  They're on the shelves with the haul I got last week from my dealer - the first three Dragonlance books, a couple SF by Sarah A. Hoyt, and... and...

You know, the first sign of an addict is an inability to remember the details of their last hit. 

Another sign is when you're on your way somewhere else, but you see your dealer and then the other errands get forgotten.  Like stopping by the library where I had planned on donating a copy of Dying Embers.  The library will still be there next time I'm in town.  Too bad I have to pass the book shop on the way there.  Every freakin' time.

Of course, I don't actually need to go anywhere to get my jones on.  Amazon one-click gives me the rush I crave - just not as sweet as holding a used book in my hand.  I picked up a couple books there last week, too.  Night Shift by Silver James, and Hit and Run by Allison Brennan and Laura Griffin.  I was treating myself.  Too bad, that's where the bender originated.

And this morning, I get a notification that a book I had my dealer keeping an eye out for arrived in the store yesterday after I left.  Crap.  It'll take tremendous willpower not to drive down there today - even though it's a book I've already read and have in Kindle format.  It's just one of my favorite books, in the original cover.  I just want it to have on my shelf, so I can pet it when I want to.

Yeah...

Hi.  I'm B.E. and I'm a book buying addict.

The first step, or so I've heard, is admitting you have a problem.