News from the publishing world! Great Moments in Contemporary Publishing vs. Horrible Histories Author Terry Deary on Libraries. Methink it’s time to drop those useless traditional publishers! And give up on those traditionally published authors as well… 😉
Now we have… Joe Konrath on KDP Select. I still don’t think I want to try it, but maybe one day I will. I’m not in the “1million e-book sales club” yet – not even close. Not even in the 1000-ebook-sales-club, actually, although I might be over 100 sales. Okay, maybe 200. In 2 years.
Oh, and by the way, Smashwords got the reports from Apple. My December sales on the i-bookstores worldwide amount to… hold your breath… Mark Coker said it was a wonderful Holiday Season for Smashwords author on Apple… so can you guess? Yes? No? Warning – it’s a staggering number. Not.
And the sales on the i-bookstores for December for this humble author here are… 2! 🙂 One on Apple Italia (and it’s one of my colleagues who bought one of my Italian titles) and one on Apple Brazil (waves at unknown Brazilian who can obviously speak English or he/she wouldn’t have bought a Barbara G.Tarn title – which is perfect as I don’t speak Portugues! :D) Yep, I’m just like Joe Konrath! 😉 And Barnes&Noble still hasn’t reported its Xmas sales to Smashwords, so I have no idea how I did over there. But then, it’s mostly freebies that “sell” at B&N, so I don’t care much.
I’m also wondering if the sale of Johnny&Marian and Six Months was generated because someone followed the links on Sunday, downloaded a sample and a couple of days later decided he/she liked it and bought the books on the Kindle store… I know someone clicked on the links from the WP dashboard, but there was no sale until yesterday… so I’m assuming that’s how it went. But I’ve been wrong before. Not really trying how sales work, just wondering! 😉 And, whoever you are, hope you enjoy! 😀
Now, should I revise my e-book process, following Joe Konrath’s advice? True that I hadn’t thought about putting things in the order he mentions, and that 90% of authors don’t either, or I’d know what those books I downloaded on my Kindle months ago are about. But I don’t. Unless it’s an author friend or an ongoing series. Not going to change all the 40+ titles already out there, but I’ll keep it in mind for the new ones! 😉
Also, if you’re looking for someone to do the formatting for you, again you can follow Joe Konrath’s advice on ebook parts. Which reminds me I need to format a title for Barbara Sangiorgio, even if she’s not really selling much, but well… maybe my colleague will buy another title on the Italian i-bookstore so in a couple of months I can see another sale there! 😉
As for writing itself… last week was spent mostly on the translation and the revisions of The Death of Queen Amazonia. And as I had to help Mom with a project and she can’t handle Windows Movie Maker, I found very good excuses to postpone the writing of the new body switch. I should get started now, so I can have a first draft ready in a couple of weeks – then I’ll need a beta-reader again to put more flesh on the bare bones. I can already imagine it will be another novella. But then, even Johnny&Marian started as a short story, so…
When I’ll have completed the 3 body switches, I’ll do the print version with all of them bundled together. Now I better copy this on B.G.Hope’s page, LOL!
By the way, if your native tongue is not English, Mark Coker is looking for translators… That’s the Feb 17 news. I already mentioned I’d rather not do it, didn’t I? If you scroll down, on Feb.4, item #2 there’s a discount thingy for Nooks, so if you don’t have it and want one (and, I assume, live in the US or UK), go get it! 😉 Have a great week!
Barbara G.Tarn - writer 