Bigmouth Strikes Again: Carrie Marshall's blog

Carrie’s books | Carrie’s band

Category: Books

Stuff I’ve read or helped to write

  • “Sprinkling the Internet on a bad business model does not magically make it a good business model”

    John Scalzi on dodgy ebook business models:

    This shit’s been around, my friends. It’s been around for decades, and writers groups and others who make it their business to warn aspiring authors about scams and pitfalls have been raising flags about it all that time. The idea that that because it’s now attached to electronic publishing, that somehow makes it different (and, more to the point, better) is highly specious, to say the least.

    Sprinkling the Internet on a bad business model does not magically make it a good business model. It merely means that the people who are pursuing a bad business model are hoping you are credulous enough to believe that being electronic is space-age zoomy and awesome and there is no possible way this brilliant business plan could ever fail. Or even worse, that they believe that being electronic means all these things, which means they are credulous. Which is not a very good thing to have as the basis of one’s business model.

    Scalzi’s post is relevant to most kinds of creative job, not just books. Creative industries are often seen as glamorous, and that glamour often blinds people to the reality of what’s happening when money’s being discussed. How many times have you heard musicians moan about their terrible record deals, the contracts that they signed not just willingly, but happily?

    you can’t blame the publisher for then taking you for every single thing they can. Because, remember, that’s their job. They don’t even need to be evil to do it; they just have to be willing to take every advantage you let them have. That’s business. This is a business negotiation.

  • 30,360 copies of Coffin Dodgers

    It’s been a while since I shared figures about Coffin Dodgers, so here’s an update for anyone interested in the ins and outs of self-publishing.

    Total sales of Coffin Dodgers are sitting at 30,360. That breaks down as 13,660 paid copies and 16,700 freebies; as more and more authors (and publishers) use free copies as a promotional tool, the power of the freebie is fading. When I gave away free copies in February I gave away 3,500 books and sold 8,978; when I did it last month, I gave away 948 and sold 364. Obviously Coffin Dodgers has been out for a while, so that’s a factor, but other people in the ebook game tell me that they’re seeing similar patterns with new titles.

    It’s possible to spot a few patterns in the numbers too. They plummet whenever Amazon does a big Kindle promo – who’s going to try unknown authors when people you’ve actually heard of are just as cheap? – and there are noticeable peaks and troughs after good and bad reviews respectively. Kindle borrowing is becoming a thing – last month there was one borrow for every 10 sales in the UK – and refunds remain a very small but slightly annoying thing (am I the only person who reads samples before deciding to buy?).

    I’m hardly rolling in cash here – typically I’ll bring in £100ish per month from book sales – but of course that’s cash I wouldn’t have at all if my book was just a manuscript sitting on a hard disk somewhere. It’s nice to see the book find an audience, and I’m still keen to finish the sequel.

    I do wonder about the economics of it, though. Like many new ebook authors I’ve found that free promotions are the best way to get much-needed visibility to drive sales, and I’ve found that pricing above 99p kills those sales dead. That’s fine by me: I don’t expect people to pay the same as they’d pay for a guaranteed hit such as the new Ian Rankin, and I’m not pricing so low that I’d need to sell 10 billion books to afford a loaf of bread. However, if free promotions are becoming significantly less effective (which they are) and name-author books are dropping dramatically in price (which they are – seven of today’s UK top ten Kindle books are just £0.20 each, including Life of Pi) then the “give lots away then sell lots at 99p” model could be doomed.

    That’s interesting, because at 20p – a royalty of about 7p per book, less VAT and other charges – you need to sell huge numbers of books just to cover your basic costs. Writers are usually the worst editors of their own work, and a quick scan through the Kindle pages demonstrates that they’re often pretty crappy cover designers too. If the going rate for an ebook drops to 20p, you’d need to shift 10,000 books just to cover the cost of your cover and a very quick edit. How many self-published books are going to sell in those quantities?

    It’ll be interesting to see how this all pans out.

  • Why you can’t trust user reviews: sock puppets don’t just review books

    Me, going on about the evils of the internet again…

    A big scandal’s kicked off in the world of books: big-name authors RJ Ellory and Stephen Leather have been writing fake reviews on the internet, bigging up their own titles and damning their rivals’ books.

    They’re not the only ones – John Locke appears to have forgotten to mention “paying for hundreds of fake reviews” in his “how I sold lots of ebooks” guide – and if you think it only happens with books I’ve got a bridge I’d like to sell you.

    Online reviews are utterly broken.

     

  • You are the hero

    I loved Fighting Fantasy books as a kid, and this wonderful MetaFilter post collates all the FF goodness you could possibly want from the internet.

    Meanwhile, this hilarious Tumblr collates many of the ways choose-your-own-adventures could end.

  • “New and similar to Coffin Dodgers”

    According to an Amazon.co.uk email, if you liked CD you’ll like Chris Brookmyre’s When The Devil Drives and Where The Bodies Are Buried, Iain Banks’ Stonemouth, and Bateman’s Turbulent Priests.

    Thanks to Jamie Thompson for sending it to me: he’s right, the recommendations are unlikely to be reciprocated…

  • Swallowed by Amazon: Waterstones’ Kindle plans

    I’m very proud of that headline, you know.

    Anyway! Waterstones! Kindles! Me! Techradar!

    Imagine there’s a serial killer at the door. He’s already killed and eaten the rest of the street, and now he fancies getting his gums on your bum. Do you (a) grab as many sharp things as you can to fight him off, or (b) invite him in but make him promise he’ll only eat one toe?
    If you’re Waterstones, the answer appears to be (b).

  • Amazon reviewers: just as reliable as professional critics

    Here’s an interesting one: a study that suggests Amazon reviews are just as reliable as newpaper ones, for non-fiction at least. I agree entirely, although I reserve the right to edit this post if people start posting one-star jobs…

    Although the study points out that there is “virtually no quality assurance” in Amazon’s consumer reviews, which can also be “gamed” by publishers or competitors submitting false reviews, they found that, nevertheless, experts and consumers agreed in aggregate about the quality of a book.

    Amazon reviewers were more likely to give a favourable review to a debut author, which the Harvard academics said suggested that “one drawback of expert reviews is that they may be slower to learn about new and unknown books”.

    Professional critics were more positive about prizewinning authors, and “more favourable to authors who have garnered other attention in the press (as measured by number of media mentions outside of the review)”.

     

  • My ebooks are on 25,000 Kindles

    A wee milestone today: I’ve shifted my 25,000th ebook. That’s over 11,000 sales and nearly 14,000 freebies, and it’s almost entirely Coffin Dodgers on the Kindle.

    I’ll wait until the end of the month to share the in-depth numbers, but it’s clear that freebie day number two hasn’t had anywhere near the same effect as the first one: while I gave away considerably more ebooks, post-freebie sales have been considerably lower this time around.

    There could be all kinds of reasons for that — Amazon changing its algorithm to make post-freebie books less visible; luck; the weather — but I suspect that the main reason is that since Amazon launched KDP Select, more and more people are offering free books, so it’s a strategy that’s subject to diminishing returns. It’ll be interesting to see whether Amazon is creating a market of people who’ll only read free books, or if the freebies are just a nice wee treat for people who buy loads of ebooks.

    Anyway. When I finished Coffin Dodgers, I would have been happy if you’d told me a few hundred people had read it. To have it on 25,000 Kindle ereaders and apps is mind blowing.

  • Coffin Dodgers is free today

    Oh yes it is. Here are the links: Amazon UK | Amazon US

  • 15,000 ebooks: a breakdown of the numbers and a couple of thoughts

    I promised I’d share some numbers when I delivered my 15,000th ebook, so here goes. It’s a long post so I’ll split it to keep all the figures off the front page.

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