Is It Time To Abandon Print?

by C.J. West

Last week I finally made the move and enrolled three of my books in KDP Select. This weekend my new book, Addicted To Love, will be free in the Kindle Store until Valentine’s Day.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with KDP Select, it’s an Amazon program that allows authors to make their e-books free on the Amazon website. Enrolled e-books are available for Prime members to borrow free. The authors receive a fee per borrow that’s determined at the end of the month based on how many books are borrowed. The catch for authors is that the e-book must be exclusive to Amazon for 90 days.

I’ve had excellent response to free books in the past and I hope this one will be bigger than anything I’ve done on my own. The reasons that a free book on Amazon reaches so many people go well beyond the fact that Amazon is the biggest book retailer in the world. Sites like EreaderIQ, Pixel of Ink, Ereader News Today, Kindle Nation Daily and others redisplay data from Amazon’s catalog. They reach out to a wide readership and let them know about free and bargain books that look interesting and Amazon provides the platform to deliver all those free books.

These sites above have all helped me by promoting my work.

How does this compare to my bookstore experience?

On my walk today I remembered a time when I was signing in an independent bookstore and a customer came up to the owner and asked what she could recommend in suspense. I was standing about 10 feet away with 5 titles spread out in front of me. One of my books had recently been optioned into development as a feature film. I’d known the owner of the store for a few years, coming back to sign a the store with each new release.

I was stunned when she walked past me and showed the woman books by brand name, bestselling authors on the shelf off to my left. The woman walked out with four books without ever speaking with me.

It’s hard to blame the store owner  for not recommending me. She hadn’t read my work even though I’d given her a copy personally. The scenario illustrates the difference between print and electronic books. In print, the bestselling authors are not only well known, but they also have a price advantage because they print and ship so many books.

On the digital shelf I can offer readers a book that is 50% less, sometimes 90% less than offerings by more recognizable names. That’s why I sell 100 e-books for every print copy I sell.

I asked myself today if I should give up on print completely.  That would remove one more headache from my plate and wouldn’t affect my sales in any appreciable way.

I came up with two reasons to keep printing books on paper. The first is mom. She loves talking about me and my books. She carries them around in her trunk and sells them to anyone who reads. She’s almost 70 and she’s not going to open a website and start linking to Amazon. Could I take that away from mom? I think not.

The second reason to stick with print is who is buying them. I sell signed trade paperbacks from my website and ship them all over. When the orders come in I recognize most the names. These are people that I’ve never met in person for the most part, but they have been supporting me online for years. I can’t write a book and not make it available to my most loyal supporters.

From a purely business perspective, cutting print would mean one less cover to produce. A whole lot less accounting at the end of the year and no orders to place or books to ship. I could spend a bit more time writing or marketing e-books.

But this is one decision I’m not ready to make.

Are you still attached to dead tree books?

The $2,400 Question

By CJ West author of The End of Marking Time 

Seems like an odd number right? Actually that’s my marketing budget for 2012 (well, most of it) and I’m giving it directly to readers to thank them for spreading the word about my work. This is something new for me, but I’ve been trying new things for years.

For those of you who can’t wait for the next 439 words to find out how to win your share of the $2,400, click here.

I’ve tried a lot of things over the years to reach out to readers. Some of them have worked. Some of them have been total flops.

Anyone remember The Million Dollar Home Page? Didn’t think so. Back in the days when I was focused on print books, I bought an ad there for about $250. If you click over, you can find the word SIN about two inches down from the Contact Me link. I’m scrunched in there between A free Xbox, a liquor add, and a dollhouse furniture gallery.

When I made the transition to e-books, Kindleboards was the place to be. Everyone was excited about e-books and after a few months in the discussion forums, I learned they were going to start selling ads. I quickly bought a week’s worth. By the time my ads ran it seemed that only authors were on Kindleboards anymore. It is still a great place to visit, but advertising there didn’t help me reach new readers.

In January of 2011, I made friends with Christian, the owner of eReaderIQ. This is a fantastic site that lets readers track the price changes in e-books they are interested in. Christian has developed some fantastic technology that works with amazing speed.

I was the first advertiser on eReaderIQ and I sold a boatload of e-books this January. It takes a lot of electrons to fill a boat! Seriously, I was delighted. EReaderIQ has been the brightest spot in my e-book marketing struggle.

Next I found the Amazon Kindle Page on Facebook. I gave away a few hundred copies of The End of Marking Time there and I made some great friends, but unfortunately as the page grew from 30,000 friends when I joined to over 1.4 million now, there is no longer room for conversation. E-book authors continually blast the page with promotions and the people who used to visit the page several times a day no longer visit. 

This is one of the sad realities of indie publishing. There are so many authors and it is so hard to reach readers that the marketing noise often spoils some of the best places to get to know other humans who happen to read fiction. The Amazon Customer Discussions forums is a prime example of this. The hostility to authors there has grown and Amazon has imposed restriction after restriction to keep authors from monopolizing the conversation.

So, if the forums are jam packed, and the venues that accept indie advertising are hit or miss, what is an author to do?

This year I’m giving my marketing dollars to the people who market my work best: readers. Each month I’ll hold a drawing for a Kindle Fire. Winners who already own an e-reader or would prefer something else can choose a $200 gift certificate to Amazon, BN, or an independent bookseller. My hope is that $200 is enough incentive to get people excited about the contest. At the very least I hope to make one new friend each month.

Anyone can enter by tweeting, posting on Facebook, or emailing their friends. Register here.

Do you have e-book marketing woes or triumphs to share? I’d love to hear them.