What's in the Works?

Courtesy of Pixabay

Pay no attention to that counter to the left. My deadline has passed and I'm not done. Of course, I've been busy. Life intervened and my son broke his leg, requiring a nurse. Then the anthology arose with the River City Writers and has taken up a lot of time, not only in organizing but in writing my own short story.

I'm working on that today while looking out the window at the gray and gloomy skies weeping rain now and then.

The smooth, well-oiled machinery I was in January is now creaking and in need of more oil. I totally wrecked my schedule. If you look back a few posts you'll see it. It was working so well, I was making progress. Then, wham....

I'm doing better now. I've started working on the short story. I'm working on creating some quiz question for half dozen YA novels for a Christian school for the fall session. I'm still nursing but less. I'm still doing bi-monthly writers' meetings and wrangling the anthology stuff. I'm exhausted, but I'm alive and managing rather well, all things considered. None of this is how I envisioned my retirement.

So, what about this short story? The working title is "The Reefs" but what was once a good title is no longer going to work. I see it as I continue to move forward. The theme of the anthology is Crossroads, so I've got to figure out a new title.

The story is about Jake McClure, who has bought a dilapidated restaurant somewhere on the Gulf Coast in one of the few remaining small towns... probably 20 yrs ago but no date will be mentioned. The renovations are finished, but when a local provides photographic evidence that he's done more of a restoration and provides tales of bootleg, gambling, prostitution, and murder, Jake begins to understand why the building stood empty for 30 yrs.

Isn't that nice? We'll see.

Sharing The Power of Free

I got a good article in my email today in Randy Ingermanson's newsletter, Advanced Fiction Writing E-Zine. Since he allows sharing of items in his newsletter, I thought I'd share this one here. 

Marketing: The Power of Free

A few months ago some indie friends of mine pointed me to a guest post on a marketing blog that claimed that giving away books is a bad idea. The title of the post was, “Why you shouldn’t give your book away.”

I disagreed with most of the article. You can read the post here if you like. 

It’s not my goal to attack anyone, so I’ve hesitated to respond. But I keep hearing variations on the same theme from different people. I keep hearing the same misinformation. It’s time to say something. 

The post begins with an analogy: “Why buy the cow when the milk is free?” 

Unfortunately, that’s a broken analogy. Here’s why:

Milk from one cow tastes pretty much like milk from another cow. Whereas a novel from one author can be vastly different than a novel from another author. That’s part of the charm of books—the author’s unique voice matters. 

Books aren’t like milk and authors aren’t like cows.

Three Misconceptions

The guest blogger makes several key assertions:
Giving away books devalues an author’s work. 
Authors who give away books are “desperate.” 
Giving away free books doesn’t make sales numbers climb.
I can’t agree with any of these claims. Let’s look at each one:

1) You don’t measure the value of an author’s work by the price of a single copy of one title by that author. Many authors have their books in the library where they can be borrowed free. That doesn’t devalue their work. Many authors give away review copies to book reviewers. That doesn’t devalue their work either.

A better measure of the value of an author’s work is the total revenue the author earns from all her titles. Many indie authors report an increase in their total revenue when they give away free copies of some of their titles. That’s a good thing, not a bad thing.

2) Who cares if authors who give away free books are “desperate?” 

Why would an author’s mental state matter here, and how would you prove it? This kind of claim is known as an ad hominem argument. Rather than using logic or hard data to discuss the effectiveness of giving away free books, the blogger is focusing attention on the author’s alleged emotional state.

3) Is it true that giving away free books doesn’t make sales numbers climb?

No, it’s false when you give away books correctly. I know quite a number of successful indie authors who get good results by giving away the first e-book in a series. 

Many indies are obsessive about their sales numbers and have collected mountains of hard data on this. While it’s true that they earn nothing on Book #1 in the series, the data shows convincingly that these authors earn a LOT more on all the other books in the series. 

Keep in mind that giving away an e-book costs you nothing. The net effect is a big win.

Why Giving Away Free E-books Works

Let’s look in detail at why giving away free e-books works. 

The purpose of giving away free e-books is to make it easy for your Target Audience to find you. (Your Target Audience is the set of people who would love your book if only they could find it.)

Now it’s true that lots of readers outside your Target Audience will download your book. But you don’t care about these people. They probably won’t read your book. If they do, they probably won’t like it. But your marketing is not aimed at these people, so they are irrelevant.

The important point is that many readers inside your Target Audience will download your book. They probably will read your book. If they do, they’ll LOVE it. (Remember what your Target Audience is.)

By giving away loads of free e-books, you massively increase the number of people in your Target Audience who find you. They read your book. They LOVE it. They read all the other books in the series—books that are “just like the first one, only different.”

This is a win-win-win situation.

It’s a win for your Target Audience—they read books they love. 

It’s a win for the retailers—they sell more of your books.

It’s a win for you, the author—you sell more books to people who love them. You also get lots of reviews from your Target Audience. You also get your Target Audience to join your email list so you can reach them again in the future.

There is no loser here. Free e-books are a wonderful way to make your books more discoverable by your Target Audience. That’s a big goal of any marketing strategy (though it’s not the only goal).

Hard Numbers

As I mentioned, giving away free e-books is a core part of the marketing strategy for many of my successful indie author friends. I can’t give you their numbers.

But I can give you mine.

A little background info: Back in 2000, I published the first of a series of three time-travel suspense novels, working with a traditional publisher. The books are set in ancient Jerusalem and are mainly of interest to Christian readers. The Target Audience for this series is small. 

Not surprisingly, sales were fairly limited. The books won some awards but they soon went out of print. They stayed out of print for about ten years. To all appearances, they were dead in the water.

In June of 2014, I rereleased the series (the City of God series) as e-books. I made Book #1 permanently free on all retailers. The other two have varied in price from $4.99 to $0.99, with $2.99 the price for most of the time. It’s been ten months since release. 

Here are the results as of this moment according to BookTrakr:
Book #1: 123,830 copies given away free.
Book #2: 5,194 copies sold, for a total of $10,429.
Book #3: 4,031 copies sold, for a total of $8,745.

Those are decent numbers. Not spectacular, but decent. They’re good enough that I can afford to write more books in the series.

The total revenue earned as indie e-books is already substantially more than the total royalties earned by the books when they were traditionally published. And the books will continue to earn money for years to come, because I don’t plan to take them out of print.

Furthermore, these books have gotten a substantial number of new reviews. As of this moment, Book #1 has 496 more reviews than it had on the day I released the new e-books. The reviews show that many of these readers are in my Target Audience.

The permafree strategy has enabled at least part of my Target Audience to find me. That’s cool. I could never have found them on my own. But they found me.

Your mileage may vary. I have friends who’ve done much better. I have friends who’ve done much worse. 

There are no guarantees in this business. Giving away free e-books isn’t an instant ticket to fame and fortune. It’s a way to help your Target Audience find your books. If they like what they read, then they’ll buy more. 

It’s not magic. It’s just a good sensible plan that works for a lot of authors.

You’re smart enough to know whether it might work for you too.

This article is reprinted by permission of the author.

 

Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, "the Snowflake Guy," publishes the free monthly Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, with more than 12,000 readers. If you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction, AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND have FUN doing it, visitwww.AdvancedFictionWriting.com.

WHAT IS IT?

It wasn't far to the shore and didn't require swimming, just a short stroll. Her companions had jumped out ahead of her and raced through the surf, disappearing into the trees before she had even pulled off her sandals. She shoved two bottles of water into her pack from the cooler and a bottle of bug repellent.

Flinging her sandals and backpack over her shoulder, she stepped out of the boat and into the knee-deep, warm, blue water and waded toward the beach, pulling the boat along behind her until it was securely beached in the sand. She turned back to pull the heavy anchor out and drop it in the sand.

She couldn't hear the shouting and laughing of her friends now and assumed they were deep into the surrounding jungle. It wasn't a very big island, so they couldn't go far. The staff at the resort on the larger island where they were staying said it was deserted and no one ever came here except to swim. There was nothing to do here so it held little attraction for the resort guest.

It didn't matter that they left her alone. It was nothing new. Generally when there was a party she ended up near the door, watching everyone else dance. Dropping her gear, she spread her towel out on the sand and stretched out, sighing. She was already slathered in lotion and now she just wanted to soak up the sun in peace and quiet. 

Projects Out My Ears

Despite being unable to walk for much of the last three weeks, other than short trips, and running up and down and back and forth to carry pillows, blankets, pills, food, and water or emptying the urinal I actually have accomplished a few things in the last three days. So, was I productive?

I was really sick on Saturday through Sunday and the foot was just horribly painful. So, I sat down as often as possible and put it up. While seated I worked on a crochet project I've been working on... well, let's just say a while. I'm nearing the point I can assemble the squares, I think. It was nice to get back to it. I could have done writing but after shoveling the snow, I had a bad spell with my back on top of the problem with the foot. So, I couldn't sit at the computer for long.

I watched a video that taught me to finger crochet and I loved it! It was so easy and I like the look of the swatch I made while I learned. Soon, I'm going to try to make something with finger crochet.

Today I worked all afternoon on The Long Summer Run. I'm still working on the ending and I don't know if it is any good, but the writing is fun. I would write a while and then crochet awhile. Mike seemed to need less today so it gave me a long stretch to work with.

Will I be finished by my deadline. (You can seen my progress on the left and the deadline.) I don't know. Probably not. I also have a short story I have to write before July 31. But I might be able to finish TLSR and while it is "resting" write the short story. We'll see.

Was contacted about creating some test questions for someone but that's a free gig as it is for the church school. I could put it in my portfolio? Maybe. We'll see how it goes.

If feels so nice when I can write. I have to do this more often. At the moment, I've got a lot of projects and so little time because I'm playing nurse and Mawmaw. Have you ever thought being bored might be fun? I've wondered.

The Morning After

Despite the heavy snowfall of the last couple of days, the day began with moderately cold temperatures and cerulean skies. Blinding sun bounced off a snow pack 7 inches deep. I know because I measured it. I love snow on sunny days and I went out just for a short time but was content to enjoy the glaring beauty from the warmth of my den.

One look at the drive though, and I knew that I would not be leaving anytime soon. My drive is maybe 75 feet and the snow that covered it was just as deep as the rest of the yard. My car would not be able to clear the snow enough to attempt to make ruts to reach the street. I've been stuck in this drive and in the street about half a dozen times over the years. None of them were a picnic and the last three times, I had no one to help me resolve the problem.

I've had a problem walking for a week now. I think a joint in the ball of my foot is inflamed. I have this red circle just behind my toes, in the center of the pad of my foot, that is so sore I can't touch it with my finger. Walking is not fun. I know I've been on my feet more with Mike's problem. I've tried to do things to help it but nothing I've done has resolved the problem. I dare not go on another course of steroids this soon. However, it doesn't matter. I picked up my shovel and raised the garage door.

I've lived in this town since 1988 and I've never had a single person offer to help us with anything, really, not a single person. I've had many people ask for help but none ever offered it. Since Jerry died, no one has ever asked me if I needed help with any thing. Admittedly, there are some folks I wouldn't expect to offer but gee whiz you'd think in nearly 30 yrs there'd have been one. Nope. If it weren't for Mike, there would have been many times I'd have been in serious trouble. There were times when he couldn't help either and I was in trouble. At the moment, Mike is laid up with a badly broken leg. So, today the job of shoveling is mine alone. 

I started by kicking two trails to the street in the areas I thought the wheels would go. Then, I got my shovel and started digging trenches in those areas, first one side, then the other. Next, I cleared the section between the ruts, every few feet. I'm eternally grateful that this snowfall was a "dry" snow. It was light and airy and useless for snowmen and snowball fights but much easier to shovel as a result because it doesn't stick together. 

Every time I have to shovel snow I remember that my husband died as a result of shoveling snow. When she saw me shoveling, Sarah tried to help me with a regular square point shovel but it was too heavy for her. Face it, 7 inches of snow is still a lot of snow, no matter how airy it is. 

She took her toboggan to the hill in front of the house, near the the street. When I was about two thirds along the drive when she stopped, turned to stare at me, and shock tinged her voice. "Mawmaw, are you praying?"

I kept digging. "Yes." 

She watched me a few minutes before she went back to playing. 

Eventually, after several stops to prevent my back from seizing up, I reached the street. I turned to study the results. I cleared 7 inches of snow from an area roughly 750 feet. When I looked out a few moments ago, I was pleased to see my assumptions were correct. The thin layer of snow left behind by my efforts is now melted and my drive is passable, I think. If I traverse it slowly I may not get stuck in the mud. If I do, I know where my shovel is... or it can sit there till spring.