So, this one was kind of tricky because I basically have one enormous image spanning the front, spine, and back, which made it harder to get the front cover/thumbnail to look right. Also finding a good color for the author name took some time--I was thinking purple, but when I beveled the letters they went magenta on me, which I don't think is right for the series. It seems odd to go with a color so close to the color of the portal, but ironically darker blues blended into the background more.
I did more work on the Trials cover--hmmm. I may have something that looks really pretty but doesn't actually work as a book cover. We'll see....
I did some more work on the Trials cover today--I think I've figured out how I want those White Spider legs to look, as well as how to actually do it, so now it's a lot of detail work....
For reasons that I hope are obvious, I haven't been paying ANY attention to marketing or the like over the past few months. And yet, sales of Trust are just chugging along at a remarkably steady rate.
So when I saw Lindsay Buroker's post a couple of weeks ago wondering if giving away a free book on Amazon was still a viable marketing strategy, my initial response was along the lines of, Well, duh, yes. I'm not arguing that I'm maximizing my sales here, but I think there's something to be said for a marketing method that will continue to work without any active engagement from you--like, at all. Because sometimes life drops a brick on your head, and there ain't no warning.
But the issue kept rattling around the back of my head, because according to Buroker's post other authors are seeing lower sales and blaming the lower visibility of the free lists on Amazon.
The problem with that is, there are a lot of reasons why sales drop. Summer is traditionally a slow period in book publishing, so much so that in the industry there are "summer hours" (typically Friday is off or a half day--you're supposed to make that up the rest of the week, but you don't, and nobody cares) and all the hiring happens in September.
The other thing to keep in mind is that Amazon also rejiggered its categories, at least for science fiction. This doesn't seem to have affected me much: Trang went from being on the first page of the free Science Fiction: Series books to being on the front page of the free Science Fiction: First Contact books, so I'm guessing the audiences for those two lists are pretty similar in size. That said, I could see how shifting categories around could drastically affect sales--if your book got moved into a much bigger pool of books, it would vanish off the bestseller lists, and you'd be screwed.
Out of curiosity, I decided to look up how many copies of Trang I've given away each month for the few months that it's been free. And the result really surprised me: That number has bounced all over the place. Last month I gave away about half as many copies as the month before, and about half as many as I'm on track to give away this month.
Which is weird, because my ranking has been relatively stable, and my sales of Trust have been really steady.
I have no explanation for it, and I think focusing on these short-terms shifts and trying to determine an explanation for them is a waste of brain power. Think of how dynamic the situation is: The Science Fiction: First Contact category is a new one, which means that readers and other writers are still discovering it, so I have no idea if it will continue to be a friendly category for me or not. I also don't know if Trang will go stale with that audience, or if that bestseller list will consistently attract new readers.
I really don't know why my numbers have done what they've done. But do I think it's a little more complicated than "Amazon ruined free!"
Lily White LeFevre has a great post that asks, Why is your story set where and when it is? I've definitely read quite a few stories where the writer has obviously been taken with a particular setting but hasn't bothered to create a compelling story to go with it. LeFevre puts her finger on a similar issue, where people create a story that could have happened in any era or place--or worse yet, could have happened only in contemporary America--and jam it into a historical or "exotic" setting that they clearly think of as being more glamorous. That kind of thing does not make the story more interesting, sorry.
The very evening after I wrote my post bitching about Jay-Z's latest release, a post popped up in my Facebook feed notifying me that Jay Park's latest EP was out and giving me a link to where it was on iTunes. I clicked on the link, previewed the songs, and bought the ones I wanted--easy-peasy.
Then I wrote up an addendum to that post to contrast the two experiences, but I decided not to post it. I mean, we all know who Jay-Z is--people who know nothing about hip-hop know who Jay-Z is--and we all know that his album already sold a gazillion copies before it was even released. If you don't live in Asia, however, you've probably have never even heard of Jay Park.
So you know, he is a Korean-American singer and rapper who tried to go the traditional K-Pop route but ran afoul of his label and is now basically independent (he works with labels, but he's not owned by them the way Korean musicians so often are). Since he was born and raised in the U.S., Park really understands the way Americans use the Internet, plus his first language is English. He's really got it on the ball when it comes to social media and the like. When I was trying to figure out how I wanted to do my Block B Web site (NO, the domain name doesn't work yet, God damn it! I don't know what the fuck is wrong with Hover, but I am calling them tomorrow--AGAIN. ETA: OK, I called--apparently the problem was the "name servers," whatever the hell those things are. But the person was lovely and supposedly it will be working within 48 hours. EATA: OK, now it's functional), Park's Web site was the one I looked at. And he has a Facebook page that updates just often enough so that I know it hasn't been abandoned, but not often enough to annoy me--plus it provides me with convenient links to his new music the minute it is available for purchase.
And whaddya know, Park's EP debuted in the top 10 of iTunes' R&B list in fifteen different countries, including hitting #4 in the U.S.
In other words, a few days ago the #4 bestselling digital R&B album in the United States was by a guy you've never heard of. And was largely not in English.
Hey, I guess I get to make a post out of this after all!
I mean, think about it--who's the writer equivalent of Jay-Z in this day and age? Stephen King, Scott Turow--all the folks who did it the old way, who can coast off their existing reputations, and who can rely on large corporations to throw enormous bags of money their way regardless of the quality of their work. They do things a certain way, which makes sense for them, because they've already made it big. It's not a path that's actually available to someone who hasn't made it big yet.
But what Park has done? That focus on lowering barriers to entry? Making purchasing beyond easy for the consumer? Samples? So something indie writers can do.
And totally OT from this subject of this blog, but: Jay Park is an INCREDIBLE dancer. Incredible!
I noodled with the Trang and Trust covers to make them look more like each other, and then I started in on the Trials cover. That one's going to take some detail work, because it features White Spider legs.
Yup, Apple lost its e-book price-fixing case, big time.
Let's quote the judge!
“This trial has not been the occasion to decide whether Amazon’s choice to sell NYT Bestsellers or other New Releases as loss leaders was an unfair trade practice or in any other way a violation of law,” the judge wrote. “If it was, however, the remedy for illegal conduct is a complaint lodged with the proper law enforcement offices or a civil suit or both. Another company’s alleged violation of antitrust laws is not an excuse for engaging in your own violations of law.”
What was that?
“This trial has not been the occasion to decide whether Amazon’s choice to sell NYT Bestsellers or other New Releases as loss leaders was an unfair trade practice or in any other way a violation of law,” the judge wrote. “If it was, however, the remedy for illegal conduct is a complaint lodged with the proper law enforcement offices or a civil suit or both. Another company’s alleged violation of antitrust laws is not an excuse for engaging in your own violations of law.”
Huh?
"Another company’s alleged violation of antitrust laws is not an excuse for engaging in your own violations of law."
Wow! That's a concept that is...entirely familiar to me, but apparently quite novel to some.
Someone got very excited about one of the new Jay-Z songs, so I was going to give the album a listen, but it turns out that it's only released to Certain People, and I am not one of The Chosen.
I realize that was supposed to make me all excited about this album (OMFG! IT'S SO EXCLUUUUSIVE!!!! OMG! OMG! I HAVE NO SELF-ESTEEM! OMFG!), but frankly, it just annoyed me. I feel like Jay-Z's output is completely uneven these days, and this whole thing just underscores the impression I have that he's really kind of lost interest in music. I mean, if he's getting paid by corporate deals in advance of actual album sales, and money is all that matters, well, why should he break a sweat and make good songs? He gets paid the same for crap, and making crap's a whole lot easier.
And it turns out things aren't working out so well for The Chosen, either. The app is buggy and annoying, and it's asking for personal information, which people resent. Quoth that article:
As apps gain popularity, musicians and companies are feeling their way through the new rules of digital etiquette. Michael Schneider, co-founder and chief executive of Mobile Roadie, a popular supplier of music apps, says that requiring users to share their app activity on social media is especially problematic.
"Top of the list is don't force people to log in. I think that's wrong and it turns fans off," he said.
I would say it turns fans off, plus it turns off would-be fans who resent being treated like big, open wallets that some wealthy entertainer feels entitled to vacuum out at their whim. I don't much care for the music of Barbra Streisand or Justin Beiber, but I actively despise the way they treat their fans--it's money-grubbing manipulation worthy of any cult leader. I don't love Kid Rock's music, either, but I don't avoid his output at all costs because I can't stand the very idea of him, you know?
Obviously, I'm all for artists being able to make a living. But I think there's always a temptation (for authors as well as musicians) to treat fans like little minions who shall do your bidding, or like piñatas that you whack with a stick whenever you want some more money. And when you do that, and you discover that you have fewer fans than you did before, you can even delude yourself into thinking is a good thing, because those are your true fans. But in reality, what you are doing is 1. developing a personality disorder, and 2. finding people whose personality disorders further enable your own. Read Mommie Dearest if you want to know where that's going to take you....
Here's the new cover for Trust:
So, the Trang cover is pretty much done--I'm going to sit on it a bit and do Trust before I upload it, but here's what the full cover looks like now:
OK, I've been fooling around more with GIMP, and here's more or less what the front cover of Trang is going to look like now:
The text has an embossed look, thanks to GIMP's bevel tool--what I like about that is that it helps the text stand out from the background art. That allows me a freer hand with where I place things--before I had to be really careful because the text would just vanish into the artwork. The downside is that the Copperplate Gothic I was using before just doesn't bevel well, so it's gone.
Also you'll notice that my name is a lot larger now. Some would argue that my name should be larger than the book's title, but my title has five letters and my name has ten, so that's not going to happen with my limited design skills. But now you can read my name in the thumbnail, which is an improvement.
This is an (awesome) article in the Wall Street Journal on what is called hick-hop, which blends hip-hop with country music and delights me to no end. (Some of it's straight-up novelty rap--coughcough"Rodeo"coughcough--but some of it's true fusion, which is always cool in my book.)
What's interesting about it from a business perspective is how they've figured out how to sell it. They're using services like Pandora to literally map places where people like hick-hop, and then they're holding concerts and selling CDs there.
Selling CDs? Yeah, well, it turns out that country-music fans still buy CDs (you know, because CDs are so homey and traditional), so Wal-Mart was willing to try carrying hick-hop, and by George, it worked!
It's fascinating to me because not only does it once again prove that people don't just want to eat Big Macs no matter what the "experts" think, but it also shows the fallacy of one-size-fits-all marketing strategies: If you look at the music industry as a whole, CDs are a dead end, but if you look at the country-music industry, CDs are doing great. The more you know about your particular audience, the better off you're going to be. And if you don't know that much (perhaps because it's such a new genre), try to find out what fans of similar genres do and see if yours do the same.
Oh, yes, despite it all, I did make progress today--I recreated the cover for Trang in GIMP, minus the text (since the new title is going to take some tweaking). I feel much more comfortable working in GIMP now, I have to say. It's not the most intuitive thing, but it's very robust, and if you do it right you have a lot of flexibility.
I have been in a position all too frequently lately where I have to wait on someone else to do X before Y can happen. So I am going to remind myself that one of the main benefits of working for yourself is that you don't have to do that. Which is good, because I HATE IT.
P.S. I also recreated the Trust cover, minus the text.
No, the new domain name hasn't gone through yet, even though I was PROMISED last time that it would go through by now. Yes, I had to call again, even though I was PROMISED last time that that would be my last phone call. We're at the juvenile finger-pointing stage, which is always extra-delightful with tech people because they do it by throwing around a lot of nonsensical jargon, which all basically translates as "It's not my fault! Those other people are crazy, and it's their fault! Boo-hoo!"
Here's how it's going to work: If I don't have a useable domain name by the end of next week, I'll switch registrars.
The domain name finally went through--today as promised, but only if you live on the West Coast. The mapping should kick in soon (fingers crossed). Just glad it's over with--phrases like "No good deed goes unpunished" kept flashing through my mind.
I guess the lesson from this is to avoid buying a domain name if at all possible. It's not just more expensive, it's also twelve times the hassle!
So, I got an e-mail from Barnes & Noble that was all, "OMG!! You have to switch your books from Pubit to Nook Press!"
Now, I have had a problem with this ever since the whole Nook Press nonsense started: Why do I have to do anything? WHY? If Barnes & Noble feels compelled to change the name of their self-publishing program or add new features to it, why are they making that my problem? Why am I being asked to lift a finger, when anyone who has ever had any experience with business or economics will tell you that if you ask people to bestir themselves to make something happen, a sizable hunk of them just won't bother.
If you want people to do something, you ask them to opt out. If you don't want them to do something, you ask them to opt in. Barnes & Noble is asking me to opt in to Nook Press. Ergo....
But anyway, in the interest of at least appearing to be remotely engaged, I attempted to switch from Pubit to Nook Press.
And it won't take my password.
It says you can use your Pubit user name and password for Nook Press. I can log into Pubit just fine. But even being logged into Pubit, I can't log into Nook Press.
No, of course you can't move things into Nook Press from Pubit. Why would they make it so you can do that?
You know, if you haven't gathered, I haven't been having the easiest time these days. I've been distracted and upset and emotional, and I am just too fucking drained to deal with Barnes & Noble's dumb-ass bullshit this time around. I barely sell anything there anyway. I would feel more motivated if I thought there was a better chance that they might continue as a going concern, but I don't.
I may change my mind in six month's time, but for now--oh, look! It was so much easier to just delete my links to B&N and suspend the ads. Whodathunkit?
You know, getting this domain name set up was really a snap--no one owned MarySisson.com, and setting it up was a breeze. (Yeah, I didn't map it onto the Web site properly for a really long time, but that was my fault.)
Getting BlockB.com set up--oy. I had to buy the domain name, which is a few extra steps in the process, but the main issue is that in order to actually complete each extra step, I have had to call and follow up (sometimes more than once) with the two tech companies involved. All these steps are supposed to be automated, except that they're not, so you fill out on-line form #4,587,536, click "Submit," and then . . . nothing happens. Until you call. And call again.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised at this point, but I'm always struck by the irony of how completely technology firms are dependent upon actual human beings doing things like checking their e-mail in-boxes. The reliance on human beings wouldn't be so bad if it weren't apparently illegal for technology firms to hire more than one customer-service representative who actually knows what they're doing. You get the Lone Magical Dude, you're in luck. You get the Massively Stoned and Confused Dude, you gotta keep calling.
This has been all over the place, but hey, read the Wall Street Journal's coverage: Barnes & Noble is spiraling down. The future does not look bright. I'll just reiterate that if you start having problems with B&N not paying you, don't be quiet about it--let other writers know.
This is a post about NBA draft picks that underscores the perils of managing a one-time big payday. The majority of professional basketball players file for bankruptcy within a few years of retirement. It's just human nature to not deal very well with windfalls--it takes serious planning. And honestly, nothing says "Thank you" to Mom and Dad like not having to file for bankruptcy!
Since I'm a little better with GIMP now, I thought I'd work on making the cover font a little fancier.
My first thought was, Hey, why don't I go buy a nice, fancy cover font! So I went a-hunting, and I found a ton of very nice, science-fictional fonts.
Aaaannnddd...I decided not to use them. Not that they aren't really quite lovely, but the thing is, the Trang series is a very specific kind of science fiction, and I've run into trouble before confusing people's expectations. So if a really cool font makes it look like military sci-fi or high-tech sci-fi, well, I've been down that road before....
So I think I'll stay with the vaguely Star Trek-looking font, since that seems to work (and I really don't want to go with the many "I totally ripped this off of Star Trek!" fonts out there--it's just tacky). I'll just fancy up the letters a bit.
My Goodreads campaign (which, since March has been four ads) finally spent out. Only took six months.