by L.J. Sellers, author or provocative mysteries & thrillers
I've been sitting on this news for two weeks, and I'm ready to explode. Amazon just offered me an 11-book contract! They bought my entire backlist of nine novels, plus the next two I’ll write. They're planning foreign translations, audio books, digital editions etc. It's so amazing, it's still not real to me. I was quite happy being a mid-list successful indie author, but this will definitely take my career to the next level. It’s exciting to realize my work will be translated into foreign languages and reach readers I never thought possible.
The only disappointing thing for my readers is that my next Jackson book, which I had planned to release in early July, won’t be published until the end of the year. Amazon wants time to produce new versions of all six of the Jackson novels and release them at the same time the seventh story comes out. It’ll be a grand debut! They also bought the first book in a new series I plan to start after I finish this Jackson story, and they acquired it on the strength of a one-paragraph description. Which gives me more confidence that the new series is a solid idea.
Even though this sounds like a sudden and unexpected offer, in reality, I submitted two of my standalone thrillers to Amazon last November. I didn't hear much except to get an occasional email from the editor apologizing for the delay and promising that he still planned to read my work. Then last week he emailed to say he was turning me over to a new editor. Four days later, the new guy called to say he’d read several of my novels and loved them. He also asked a bunch of questions about the Jackson series. That was when it occurred to me that they might be looking at all my work and not just the two standalones.
Considering the near misses I’ve had in my writing career, I shouldn’t have let myself think it was possible. But this was Amazon—not the Big 6—and Amazon had already changed my life twice. So why not believe it could happen a third time? The next day my editor—and new best friend☺—took my "project" to an editorial board meeting and it was approved. He called me afterward and made a wonderful offer. I was sitting in my car after dropping off my son, and I managed to stay calm and professional during the conversation. When I hung up, I had to fight the urge to cry. My greatest feeling now is one of relief—like the pressure is off me for the first time in years. I’m no longer alone in this endeavor, scrambling and writing as fast as I can to stay on top of the competition. I now have a supportive partner.
I expect some writers to criticize my decision to give up my indie status. Others will accuse me of making a pact with the devil. But I left my small publisher two years ago because I knew I could go farther and make more money if I were self-published. Now I’m making a similar decision. Amazon will take my career to a level I couldn’t reach on my own.
Last week I was talking to my friend Libby Fischer Hellman about the Microsoft investment in the Nook business. On Libby’s blog, Ruth Harris, Rebecca Crowley, and I join her in penning an open letter to Microsoft on how best to push the Nook business forward.
I want to expand on some of the things Libby and I talked about that could help Microsoft turn the Nook into a viable competitor for Kindle. I think we all agree that a healthy market is a good thing and that Barnes & Noble for whatever reason just doesn’t know how to sell electronic books as well as Amazon.
Affiliates
The most glaring place that Amazon outshines Barnes & Noble is in affiliates. The Amazon Associates program allows anyone to register and then send traffic to Amazon. When a book is purchased, the site referring the traffic is awarded a small commission. Sites like E-Reader News Today, Pixel of Ink, and eReader IQ make a fortune on affiliate links. Because they are rewarded, they send their traffic to Amazon.
Because of these sites, the community around Amazon is richer and more rewarding for readers and that makes more readers choose a Kindle over a Nook.
Indie Authors
Amazon has embraced indie authors in ways that Barnes & Noble has not. Compare the KDP Select Program and Nook First. KDP Select welcomes everyone. Authors can make their titles free and it is up to them to promote their own free book and find readers. Amazon relies on automation to scale the program and they reward the indie author and the reader with a platform that connects them both. The community (affiliates) also gets in the act because everyone likes free books and there are financial rewards for participation by the affiliates.
Nook First is Barnes & Noble’s answer. To be admitted an author must submit an application to a board that reviews selections. B&N will promote accepted books on their website, but the program can never scale the way KDP Select can and it is exclusivity means that the vast majority of authors cannot participate. B&N is excluding thousands of authors who are out hawking their books every single day.
These two programs are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to author relations, but they are representative of the philosophy of each, B&N is stuck in the bestseller mentality and Amazon is embracing the tidal wave of indie authorship.
How can Microsoft help?
Microsoft Word and EPUB
Millions of authors use Microsoft Word to author their books. It is simple to create a PDF file of any work by saving the manuscript as a PDF file. Since Microsoft owns the most popular writing platform, they could really enhance the Nook business by making a simple and powerful conversion product from Word to EPUB. Formatting books for electronic publication has become a business unto itself. If Microsoft could make it simple to create an EPUB file, authors would be more inclined to publish on Nook.
I think right now for most authors Kindle is the preferred platform because that is where the readership is. If Microsoft could make publication on Nook easier, they would be able to make some inroads with Kindle only authors. A side bonus to this is that authors could ship their books to (author) friends who have Nooks, so they could read the book comfortably during the review process.
Nook for Windows
Microsoft also owns the most popular desktop operating system giving them access to millions of computer users who are also readers. One of the hurdles to buying electronic books is the cost of the reader. Amazon has a free e-book reader Kindle for PC. By creating a product with a better user experience than Kindle for PC, Microsoft could sway casual e-book readers to choose Nook books over Kindle books.
Microsoft could and should include this product as an update to every operating system the produce and should make it standard for any new system sold.
It will be interesting to see what Microsoft’s financial muscle and technical savvy can do to lift the Nook brand. I foresee a heavyweight fight if Microsoft truly embraces digital publishing and takes it to Amazon head on.
PS. This week I released Thugbook, my first standalone short story on Amazon.com. Click over and dive into a new kind of social network. It's killer.
By Andrew E. Kaufman, Author of Psychological Thrillers
I’m hearing a lot of talk lately among
authors that the Amazon Select program is losing steam and no longer spurring the kinds of sales it once did. Many are reporting diminished numbers and poor results after their free giveaways. Rumors are spreading from blog to blog that on May 1st, Amazon abruptly changed its algorithms (The “customers also bought” section) so that free books are now given only ten percent weight in the rankings, in effect making ten free downloads really only equal to one sale. Also, borrowed books supposedly no longer count as sales where rankings are concerned.
I don’t know if all this is true, but a lot of people seem pretty upset. Authors are complaining that Amazon wants them to give away their books for free with no benefit to sales. They're threatening to withdraw their work from KDP Select and upload them to Smashwords. Others are trying to decide whether to stick it out with a wait-and-see attitude.
Many have benefited greatly from the Select program. I am one of them. My sales are still going strong, and I haven’t seen the diminished numbers others are reporting. I feel fortunate for that, but my suspicion is that while the free promos may have given me a good bump at the outset, what’s happening now is something entirely different. I never stopped promoting once the giveaways ended, and I've never relied on the Select program to carry me forever. I'm not saying that others have; I'm simply recounting my own experience.
But in the back of my mind, I've always wondered just how long the Select Effect would last. When it began, it seemed like a mad free-for-all, literally, and suddenly the market was flooded with free books. It only seemed logical that eventually, consumers might feel overwhelmed by it all, that they would grow tired, and yes, that the value of e-books might become diluted. After all, there are so many books and so little time to read them all. There’s no telling how many free books are sitting on Kindles now—and even worse, how many of them will ever actually be read.
I’m not a gloom-and-doom person, and I suspect that even if my sales weren’t doing well, I wouldn’t be one of those complaining right now. I still choose to see the glass as half full. Many authors are forgetting that even if they give away a lot of books and don’t see an immediate boost in sales, those are seeds that have been planted, and they’re getting the benefit of gaining new readers they never had before. I’ve learned that in this business, too fast never lasts, and that slow and steady wins the race. It’s how I’ve built my audience over the years. Besides that, there’s still the Kindle Owners' Lending Library, and at least for me, it’s been like having extra books up for sale—money in my pocket I wouldn’t normally have.
The thing is, I don’t think the Select program was ever intended to carry authors forever; I think it was intended to give them exposure, help get their books into new readers’ hands, and ultimately, help them grow their readerships, and I still think it’s doing that. What happens after is really up to the authors. It’s not Amazon’s job to do all the work so our books can sell—it’s ours—and it's not much to ask if we meet them half way.
The truth is, the free ride really isn’t over because in fact, one was never offered.
by L.J. Sellers, author of provocative mysteries & thrillers
The big buzz in the publishing world is the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against five major publishers and Apple for colluding to keep ebook prices high though an agency-pricing model. This issue affects writers and readers alike. The outcome will determine how much readers have to pay for ebooks in the future and will affect writers' sales and royalties.
Several organizations, such as the Author’s Guild and the Association of Author Representatives, have written to the DOJ supporting the traditional publishers—and their high prices—and have asked their members to write as well.
In response, indie author David Gaughran has penned a letter supporting Amazon and its low-priced ebook strategy as well as its support of writers through Kindle Direct Publishing. David is asking other authors—and readers—who feel the same to add their name to his letter.
I’ve signed it simply because the DOJ needs to know the Author’s Guild doesn’t represent most writers. In all honesty, the agency-pricing model benefits me because it keeps my competitors’ prices high, thus encouraging readers to try my less-expensive novels. But in fairness to readers, I support Amazon’s position, which is to keep ebook novel prices under $10.
My point here is to simply draw your attention to the letter (and issue), so you can participate if you choose.
I know it's a little bit late for Mother's Day, but my brother and his wife had a baby last week, which made me think of all the mysteries there are out there featuring mothers with new babies. Following is a list of some of my favorites. Please feel free to add yours in the comments.
Orgain, Diana. The Maternal Instincts Mysteries: Bundle of Trouble, Motherhood is Murder and Formula for Murder.
The series begins with protagonist Kate Connolly on maternity leave with her newborn daughter Laurie. She can't imagine returning to work after six weeks, but she and her husband, Jim, really need two incomes in the expensive city of San Francisco. When her mother-in-law hires a PI to find Jim's brother, Kate is decides to help him, and realizes that investigating is the ideal occupation for a mother.
Each of the three books in the series is juxtaposed with a month in Laurie's development. Kate is a charming and determined heroine, who truly believes that both she and her daughter will suffer if she has to return to her office job.
There are twenty books in Hall's delightful series about caterer Faith Fairchild, beginning with The Body in the Belfry
(1990), so I'm not going to list all the titles. (You can find all the
titles if you click on the author's name, above.) Faith is married to
Tom, an Episcopal minister who accepts a position in the village of
Aleford, Massachusetts. They have a five-month-old named Benjamin; and
Faith, who gave up a growing New York catering business when they
moved, is a bit bored by small-town life until she finds a body, stabbed
with a kitchen knife, in the church's belfry.
Faith has trouble settling into the small community,
as she just doesn't fit into the villagers' idea of what a minister's
wife should be. Her discovery of a young woman's body, stabbed with a
kitchen knife, in the church's belfry does not aid this perception,
especially when the bored Faith, who has a very well-developed sense of
curiosity, decides to find out what happened.
By the end of book three, The Body in the Bouillon, Faith is making arrangements to take over a local catering company, and also discovers that she's expecting. Daughter Amy first appears in book five, The Body in the Cast.
Waldman, Ayelet. The Mommy-Track Mysteries: Nursery Crimes, The Big Nap, A Playdate With Death, Death Gets a Time-Out, Murder Plays House, The Cradle Robbers and Bye-Bye, Black Sheep.
When we meet Juliet Applebaum, the former public defender is a full-time mom and pregnant with her second child. Her husband, Peter, sold a screenplay for an outrageous amount of money, so she doesn't need to go back to work. But even though trying to get two-year-old Ruby into the best Hollywood preschool is more cutthroat than the California justice system, Juliet is bored. So, when the principal is killed in what-may-not-have-been an auto accident, she decides to find out what really happened.
During the course of the series, Juliet has another child, the family moves into a bigger house, and she hangs out a shingle as a private investigator with former cop Al Hockey. Juliet is a wonderful character who struggles with her weight, and tries to stay sane while being a stay-at-home mom.
I'm trying to work through this new author balancing act. It has given me more than one nightmare.
My personal energy comes from creating a new story. From stringing words together that might make it worthwhile for someone else to read. I write for myself, yeah… but to be honest, I really want someone else to find an escape—some pleasure—when they read my words. I'm a sucker for affirmation. But right now, if I'm not focusing on the book that's already out there, I'm focusing on initial edits for the next one that are dragging me down. If only I could write well enough the first time around that I could read through it once, call it good, and ship it off to an editor who would find very little that needs improvement. Yeah right… whose dream did I just slip into?
With the publication of my first book, I suddenly find myself in a cyclone. There's a convergence of past, present and future that all relates to and hinges on my choices. How much time do I devote to all of the pieces that need some of my time?
My sales are about to offer me a break-even for the editing, cover design and interior formatting. But suddenly I find this amazing actor who I think would be perfect for an audio version for which I've had requests. And then there's that website presence we've been told over and over again we need and that I don't have the expertise to handle on my own. It's all money beyond what I want to pay right now. On the other hand, maybe there's part of it that would be a good investment. These items take more time. More consideration. More research. Less writing.
And then for a day my sales falter. I frantically try to figure out what I can do to "fix" things. Should I tweet more? Do I need to get involved with Kindle Nation? Would a trailer help? Is this a fluke or am I settling in to more realistic sales? (And while I'm here, small rant: some readers were disappointed there wasn't more romance. I never described my book a romance. There is no tag that purports it to be a romance. Not even a romantic suspense. The cover, the title? No romantic themes.)
In my heart of hearts (speaking of romance), I believe the best thing I can do to help RED TIDE get into the hands of more readers is to get my second book out there. But what do I know?
How do I manage this? What should my priorities be? Have you found a rhythm for your day?
We're barely into May,
and it's already a busy month for me. First of all, it's the month of my
wedding anniversary. C'mon, let's say it all together now: "Awww."
This year is our 20th,
which is traditionally celebrated with china, according to the people who keep
those kinds of lists. I don't need any china, however, and we can't afford to
visit China, so we're going to do the next best thing.
We're going to Carmel.
Back when we were mere
pups, Dale and I went to Carmel every year for our anniversary. This was
because I forgot our anniversary one year. Sue me, we were moving into our new
house and my mind was a bit of a jumble. I knew we were married May 16th, I just
thought it was the May that comes after June.
See? Jumble.
Anyway, we spent a few years getting pre-occupied with life, so we thought we'd try to get back to the beautiful Central Coast. We scamper off
next week to enjoy several days of sightseeing, wine tasting, and relaxing. But
in the meantime…
I finally got all my
ducks in a row and FREEZER BURN is now re-released, in paperback and e-book.
Re-releasing it was actually the easy part. My wonderful designer did a
kick-ass cover, as usual, I edited it again (story is the same, I just corrected
a couple of things), and I know how to format for Createspace and Kindle.
I'm using the Kindle
Select Program again. I feel horrible twinges of guilt that my Nook buddies
can't get a copy, but I truly did less than 10% of my sales last year on all
the non-Kindle e-readers combined. Plus the fact that Barnes & Noble tended
to be the last ones to pay me kind of led me to Amazon's mighty door.
But I digress…
The hard part was
re-doing the advertising. After all, FREEZER BURN has a new cover.
Then there was the
banner that I put up on my booth at my local fairs. I do a fairly nice business at my city (Placentia) events, since my mysteries are set in the city and my humor books are collected from columns I write every Thursday for the local newspaper.
And I have a lot of
bookmarks with the old cover - I probably won't replace them until I get low on
supplies.
I'm truly thrilled with
the new edition of my book, however, and tomorrow, I get to join a book club
and talk about HIT OR MISSUS.
Life may be busy, but it
sure is good!
OH OH OH, P.S. I forgot
to mention, in honor of my 20th anniversary (to a great guy, btw) ALL my
e-books will be available for free on May 16th. Mark your calendars. You heard
it here first. You can find them all on my Amazon page.
Guest blog by Jon Jefferson, the writer half of bestselling crime-fiction duo Jefferson Bass
Forensic fans are cut from a different cloth from ordinary folks—specifically, I suspect, from the rubberized fabric of body bags. When ordinary folks find out I write a series called the Body Farm Novels, they look squeamish and quickly change the subject. Forensic fans, on the other hand (and you know who you are, people!) tend to get a gleam in their eyes and say, “Cool. Can I take a tour?!” Unfortunately, the answer is “no,” except to people who have compelling scientific or law-enforcement reasons to go; not enough staff and too many liability concerns.
Eleven years ago, I was lucky enough to go; in fact, I spent two months there at the Body Farm — the University of Tennessee’s Anthropology Research Facility — with a television crew in tow. I was writing and producing two one-hour documentaries for National Geographic. The plan for the first one, which we titled “Biography of a Corpse,” was to follow a research subject, a donated body, through the entire decomposition process. Once we’d gotten permission — not just from the university, but from the partner of a recently deceased man — we started shooting.
In his old life, our star had had a name; in his new life as a research subject, he took on a new identity, known only by a number: he became “31-01”: the 31st body donated to the Anthropology Department in the year 2001. He was one of four bodies being studied, over the course of a year, by a graduate student who was researching how the presence of clothing changes the decomposition rate of bodies, an important question, since most of the facility’s decomp studies had been conducted with nude bodies.
We began filming 31-01 the moment he came out of the cooler at the morgue at UT Medical Center. The body bag was laid on the ground, unzipped, and carefully tugged from beneath him. He was a white-haired man in his seventies, but he had the body of an athlete, a pentathlete, to be precise. One of the photos his partner gave me showed him hurling a javelin, his arm and shoulder looking as chiseled as a statue’s. Lying on the ground beneath the oaks and maples at the Body Farm, he appeared almost to be napping. But that peaceful appearance would change, and change fast. Within seconds, a blowfly alighted on 31-01’s face. It would be followed, in the minutes, days, and weeks to come, by many thousands more, as nature’s recycling crew began reclaiming him.
The process wasn’t going to be pretty, so why had 31-01’s partner agreed to let us film it, and broadcast it worldwide? “He loved science, he loved the human body, and he loved teaching people about the body,” she told me in an interview. He’d actually made other postmortem plans for himself —he’d arranged to donate his body to a medical school — but the school wasn’t able to take his body, so he’d come to the Body Farm as a way to honor the spirit of his last wishes. And the donation came just in the nick of time for our National Geographic documentary. “I think he would have really liked this,” she added with a sweet, poignant smile.
Besides making frequent visits to 31-01 with the video crew — daily at first, when the changes to his body were most rapid — I also rigged a 35-millimeter camera to take stills of him at regular intervals. By the time he was down to nearly bare bones, I had hundreds of photos. We pieced them together to make a film, eight weeks of decay, compressed into a 30-second movie. There’s no dialogue, and 31-01 doesn’t stir from the spot where he was laid, but there’s plenty of movement: his abdomen swells from bloat in his first week, then collapses, his belly going slack and hollow; insects come and go in waves; his facial features dissolve, and the skull beneath the skin emerges. In my favorite frame of the film, a leaf hangs in darkness above 31-01 for a thirtieth of a second, its fall halted in midair by the camera’s flash: a freeze-frame snapshot of mortality, both corporeal and arboreal.
In the years since 31-01 shuffled off his mortal coil before my eyes — my wondering, watchful, grateful eyes —I’ve seen that 30-second film dozens of times, maybe even hundreds of times. Just now, in fact, I took a minute to watch it again. It always ends the same for 31-01, just as it will end for us all, sooner or later.
But I remember another ending, too: the ending I put on the documentary that chronicled his decay. It was a montage of other photos, taken when he was alive, intact, and vigorous. In these, he seems to be an action verb: he is hurling his javelin; posing in his swimsuit by a canoe, his arms akimbo, muscles flexed; perching atop of his woodpile, his face propped on his hands, a big grin on his face.
Today the bones of 31-01 are tucked beneath Neyland Stadium at the University of Tennessee, where the Anthropology Department is housed. He dwells in a city of the dead, kept company by nearly 1400 other specimens in the William M. Bass Donated Skeletal Collection. But in my mind, he’s very much alive, and I’m proud to consider him, in some strange and blessed and life-changing way, a friend for life.
Jefferson Bass is the pen name of Jon Jefferson, writer, and Dr. Bill Bass, renowned forensic anthropologist. Dr. Bass, founder of the University of Tennessee's "Body Farm," is an author on more than 200 scientific publications. Jon Jefferson is a veteran journalist and documentary filmmaker; his two National Geographic documentaries on the Body Farm were seen around the world. Jefferson and Bass have collaborated on two nonfiction books and six crime novels; their seventh novel, The Inquisitor's Key, was published yesterday. Read an excerpt.
For more on Jefferson Bass, find them on Facebook, read their blog, and follow along on Twitter. For current book-tour & blog-tour schedules, click here.
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