It looks like free-as-a-marketing-strategy works: since Coffin Dodgers’ price tag reappeared, it’s sold enough copies to crack the Kindle top 100 in the UK. It’s currently sitting there at 91, and it’s number 1 in technothrillers and number 3 in humorous fiction.
I’m quite pleased about that.
Did you take advantage of yesterday’s Coffin Dodgers freebie? If you did, you weren’t the only one: some 3,515 other people did too. That’s in no small part due to the people who posted and tweeted about it – if you were one of them, thanks.
If you’re wondering why I did it, it’s a one-word answer: marketing. I don’t have any money to spend on advertising and I’m terrible at self-promotion, so the hope is that of the 3,500-odd people who got the book, a few of them will read it, enjoy it and tell other people about it. If they do, I might sell more books, or they might buy the sequel, which I’ve actually started writing now. Honest.
Worst case scenario? More people read my book.
* I have to admit that I’m surprised by the number of people who downloaded it in such a short time. I thought a few hundred people might go for it, a thousand tops. Isn’t the internet fascinating?
For no good reason I’m making Coffin Dodgers free for the next 24 hours. The UK version is here, and the US version is here.
If you get it and like it, I’d appreciate it if you’d leave a review on Amazon. You don’t have to, but if you don’t, then when I die I’m going to come back and haunt you.Икони на светци
Here’s a fun wee diversion: a writing analyser that takes your text and tells you which famous writer you write like. I got Douglas Adams, although it seems that if you put in any kind of tech journalism whatsoever it tells you you write like Cory Doctorow.
Simon Royle’s IndieView is a real friend to indie authors, and I’m happy to help with a tribute he’s organising in memory of Linda “LC” Evans. For one day only on 24th January, anybody who buys one of Evans’ ebooks can get another one free from a big selection of ebooks, including mine.
The deal’s simple enough: buy one of LC Evans’ books, choose your freebie and email the order receipt (take your credit card details out if they’re listed; you never know what cash-strapped authors are capable of) to the appropriate author. And, er, that’s it.
The list of free books is here, and while it’s still being updated you’ll see there’s already a really wide selection.
To celebrate and honor our friend, indie author, L.C. Evans, and her contribution to the Indie eBook revolution, we’re giving away a whole bunch of free books. Linda lost her fight with cancer earlier this month. We lost a friend and a compatriot. We’d like you to buy her books, read her books, and make her words live.
…If chick lit or romantic comedy is not your thing, authors who have been interviewed on the IndieView will give you one of their books for every one of Linda’s books that you buy. For every receipt you send through, you will also get a lucky draw entry. The winners of the lucky draw will get a bundle of ALL the books – free.
I found Coffin Dodgers on a couple of pirate sites yesterday, and it really annoyed me. Assuming it’s actually there – there’s no guarantee that just because a free download site says it’s got a book that it actually has the book – it means I’ve fallen victim to the wrong kind of copying.
There are two kinds of copying. There’s good copying, and there’s bad copying.
(This is a long post, so I’ve split it so it doesn’t overpower the entire home page)
An interesting post on the appallingly named tech site Pandodaily: Confessions of a publisher, written by an unnamed “industry insider”.
Amazon could probably afford to lose $20 million/year in their publishing arm just to put the other publishers out of business. I think that’s what they’re trying to do–throw money around in an industry that doesn’t have any, until Amazon becomes not only the only place where you buy books, but the only place that publishes books, too.
As of right now, Coffin Dodgers is number one in Amazon UK’s technothrillers chart. That’s quite good, isn’t it?
Sales are currently sitting at 2,323. That’s quite good too.
This is making up for a spectacularly crappy day.
Some interesting figures in this Guardian piece about new novelists:
Kate Pool of the Society of Authors confirmed that new writers could expect an average advance of £10,000 around 20 years ago: “Now they’re lucky to get between £1,000 and £3,000.” Research by the society shows that 75% of writers earn less than £20,000 a year and 46% less than £5,000.
As Ian Rankin says:
“The internet has pluses and minuses. It’s easier than ever to get your stuff seen by people. But it’s harder than ever to make a living from it. Look at the money that publishers are paying for new writers … less than they paid 20 years ago. They know first novels don’t sell many copies and, if writers decide … to sidestep the traditional publishing route and sell their stuff by themselves online, they’re having to sell it for virtually nothing – 99p.”
I’m not sure Rankin’s suggested tax breaks are the answer – especially at a time when library funding’s being cut all over the place – but it does demonstrate that whether it’s traditional publishing or self-publishing, most people aren’t making a living from it. The same, of course, applies to any supposedly glamorous kind of work: acting, being a musician, being an artist etc. By all means do it because you love it. But don’t do it because you think you’ll make money from it.
I spotted this little nugget yesterday:
Barnes & Noble said Monday that it will offer discounts on its Nook devices to customers who buy a digital subscription to People magazine and The New York Times.
For New York Times subscribers, it’ll offer a free Nook Simple Touch, a 6-inch e-reader that is priced at $99, or take $100 off on Nook Color, normally priced at $199.
It won’t be the last time an e-reader comes bundled with a digital subscription, especially as the devices are getting cheaper and cheaper. Tablets will inevitably follow – the Nook Color mentioned above is similar to the Kindle Fire tablet. I’m surprised Amazon isn’t giving free devices to its Amazon Prime members already.
The business model already exists: if you subscribe to cable or satellite TV, you essentially get the hardware for free; many mobile phones are free on contract, and so on. It isn’t hard to imagine somebody such as News International giving away a “free” Kindle Fire if you subscribe to the full-fat version of its digital service.
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