Guest Post by Lisa L Wiedmeier. Amazon Promotion, Gone RIGHT!

Lisa L Wiedmeier, Author of Cheyenne, A Timeless Series Novel, Book One

Who am I? I’m just another indie author who took StoneHouse University's, Learn how to ‘Work’ the system, webinar and had huge success.

Of course this isn’t always the norm, however, for whatever reason I was able to use this as a platform to propel my YA book to #98 overall on Amazon.

Now, I hadn’t just been sitting around before I took this course. I was marketing myself to death trying to get anyone to take a peek at Cheyenne, my novel. It’s not that it wasn’t good enough; its just that it wasn’t getting the exposure to take it to the heights it deserved.

There are four platforms that StoneHouse suggests in the webinar and I was doing three out of the four fairly well, but it just wasn’t enough. What I was missing was the fourth, the Amazon connection. There’s a lot more than just listing your book on Amazon and watching it fall where it may. A whole lot more than I knew.

I’d had Cheyenne on Amazon since July 2011 and had sold about 500+ books. Not too bad since I’m unknown, but not enough to quit my day job either. My best ranking ever since listing Cheyenne was about 9,300.

Through following Aaron's extremely useful tips and advice, I began working on the Amazon connection. Now I’m not going to go into details here, as you need to take the course to get all your ‘duck in a row’ so to speak. But with following a few of his suggestions in the month of February I began seeing some small results.

Now there’s a bigger picture to all of this and it’s all in the seminar, but one of them was making sure that your book cover truly meets the audience. What I mean by that is make sure if you’re a YA book to have a YA cover. Now, I’d thought I’d done a good job with my cover, I was going for the retro look, but I missed it by a long shot. Yeah, here’s the before and here’s the after….

So the old cover wasn’t bad, but yet it wasn’t good either. I needed the new design to help catch attention and that’s exactly what it did… it caught readers attention.

So with a new cover in hand and being enrolled in the KDP program with Amazon, I decided to follow another one of StoneHouse’s webinar suggestions, offer my book for free.

I picked a Tuesday/Wednesday for the free promo after consulting with Aaron and began, Tweeting, Facebook and messaging just about everyone I knew to get the word out. My friends in turn began promoting it on their side as well. With that said, by the Wednesday afternoon of my free promo, I’d reached the ranking of #4 on Amazon’s ‘Free’ listing.

Shocked? I was! I’d never expected to see this sort of success and yet I did by offering my novel, Cheyenne, for free for two days. I had over twenty two thousand free downloads!

Next came the scary part, well scary for me in that I’d never done this before. I once again ran to Aaron and went over the after free promo pricing. Should I go with the .99 cent price point, or stick with the $2.99 that I’d been at previously… I kept the $2.99 price point and was in for a surprise.

So, let me run this down for you…. The month of February didn’t show me much love, I had a paid ranking of about 66,000. Not horrible considering there are over a million plus eBooks on Amazon. But by the time the free promo was over and I looked at my paid ranking on Thursday morning, I was at #3,900. Not bad you say? I was ecstatic, but it gets even better.

As the day progressed I gained even more ground, 2,000, then 952, then 458 and yeah my paid ranking kept going up! By Saturday I’d made it to #98!

As we speak I’m holding good steady ranking. Am I done yet? Not even close… What’s on the list next is the 10 Steps to a successful Blog tour #2. Took the first one and loved it, the second one is this week—you should join in!

The most impressive part of StoneHouse Ink’s webinars is that the data is all rolled up into a nice compact package that’s easy to understand and practice. Will it bring you success like I had? Who knows, but it’s worth a shot. I’m glad I took the course and I'd recommend it to every indie author I know.

You can follow Lisa on Twitter @lisawiedmeier
Or on Facebook
And on her Website HERE

Author Aaron Patterson: Blog: The Worst Book Ever.

How Much Should An eBook cost? Part #2

How Much Should An eBook cost? Part #2

eBooks are a big thing and will in time replace print books. I do not say this cuz I hate books or bookstores, I say it cuz it is the truth. You notice how I use slang here on this blog? It is cuz it drives some of you literary types nuts... hee hee, I got to have some fun or I will go crazy!

Sorry, that was a bit of a rabbit trail. Now to the main event.

In the last post we looked at pricing for fiction, and saw how it is not the money per book but the monthly income. This will change how you look at eBooks, how you market and plan your marketing.

So to re-cap, it is about volume and fans. Your worth as a writer is not in the per unit sale but the monthly income. And if you want to really get picky, your worth is in what you sell in a year and ten years from now. I plan to be around for a long time and what I do is what we call the "Long Look."

The Sweet Spot.

As one comment in the last post said, some sweet spots are different from others. Each book is different. Some sell well at 2.99 and some at 4.99, it is up to you to test the market. The other thing to consider is that the market is changing all the time. It used to be that a book at .99 would sell a ton but now not so much. Some even have worse sales numbers at the .99 price point. Why is that?

Well, because people look at things different. Maybe all the self-published books are priced low so the reader thinks if a book is low it will suck. We need to keep testing and find out where the market is and what it is doing.

Now what about non-fiction?

Non- fiction is so different and does not sell as well as fiction. Most books that are non-fiction are sold at an event or by hand by the author. Also NF eBooks have a different fan-base. They are going to be the last to change over to E.

But as we see with textbooks they are making the switch right now, soon all schools will use them, students will buy expansion packs to get the latest update but not have to buy the new book.

So how do you price a NF eBook?

Again, testing. But as a whole 5.99-9.99. You are not talking volume with NF so you need to look at it different. Even with some fiction if you have a small fan-base you might look at pricing it higher to get the most out of each sale. I have one author that has all her books at 9.99 because it is a narrow book. She does well at the higher price cuz not everyone will like what she writes.

If you write a book on how to sell a house, you might price it at 7.99. Look at all the other main stream books with your subject matter and try to under cut them, but look at apples to apples. If other books on selling houses are in the 9.99 range do the same but price it like 8.97. Not to much lower but just enough to get you noticed.

One more thing you can try is a blog tour. They are not done as much with NF but that is just why you should do one. Finding bloggers that review NF might be hard but you will be getting in front of the right readers. Look into sites that talk or blog about your subject and work with them. NF is also a good eBook to sell on your own website or blog as again your readers are not as many and you will want to save their email and contact info.

Ask for reviews.

NF most of the time is information and helps people. Ask people that have read to leave a review. This will help sales and add value to your book so the reader feels good about forking over more money for your eBook.

Tag yourself to other books and authors that sell similar eBooks. This goes for any eBook or book on Amazon. Learn how to tag and use the tool Amazon gives you. If you want to learn about tagging I have a post on it, just click HERE.

In the next and final post on eBook pricing I will look at all the literary arguments against low eBook pricing. From the you are worth more side to the you will ruin the market side. It is all just a different way of saying "I'm Scared of Change!" But let us look and ponder the bad side of eBooks.

Again, remember. You want to reach the most people(fans) and get the highest return (Money) out of each sale. The SWEET SPOT is there, it is up to you to find where it is. It is not what people are willing to pay but what they WILL pay.

Cheers



Author Aaron Patterson: Blog: The Worst Book Ever.

How Much Should An eBook Cost? Part #1

How Much Should An eBook Cost? Part #1

This is a big topic in the writing world. Most readers are open to paying a higher price if it is a well known author, but who does not want a cheap eBook?

I will take a short amount of time over a few posts to talk about eBook pricing in the fiction world and also in the non-fiction world.

First, we need to look at how we SHOULD look at eBooks and price/value. To think of a paperback as a per unit price/value is fine. But to take your value as an author with a per unit price for an eBook, is just silly.

The Big 6 want us to believe that price=quality. But the low priced books, (Indie or not) have shown that this is not the case. Price=Price. I say that if you have a high priced eBook you are greedy and a mean person, or maybe just hate puppies and little children. This is the truth of the matter, if you are a big publisher and have high priced eBooks you are ripping off the readers.

The Big 6 say we have low quality and I say they are greedy. eBooks are cheap, they do not cost a lot to put online and take little to maintain or manage. Where is the cost? Anyway... I could go on and on about this and we will explore it later. What should an eBook cost? As a Indie what should you price yours at and is there a better way of doing things?

Here is what you want.

Highest number of units sold:

Highest return:

If one has to give way to the other, you are doing it wrong. In the eBook world it is monthly return, not a per unit price. Look at how much you make per book per month. Not what you make per sale.

It is all about Volume baby!

So you want to price your eBook at the highest price, and still reach the most people. With some books this is 9.99 and with others it is .99.

If you reach 1000 people a month at 2.99 but can make more money at 4.99 and only reach 500 people, drop it back to 2.99. It is not about the money, (that will come later,) it is about building fans. So, if your reach more people every month, and your numbers stay the same or go up, you are in a good price per person rate.

Now if you have a book that is dropping in numbers,(Ranking or number of copies sold each month) mess with the numbers until you can stop the bleeding. The goal is to keep your book sales and numbers up.

I will give you an example. One of my books I priced at 8.99. I sold about 200 copies a month. I dropped it down to 2.99 and now sell 400-600 a month, I do not make that much more, if any, but I reach more people. Now, I have tried to sell this title at .99 and at that price, still only sell 600 or less. So I found my sweet spot, 2.99 reaches the most people and makes me the most money. I would make a little more at 8.99 but would have to give up the people.

Again, remember that to figure out your value as a writer with eBooks, it is not about the price of the book, but the monthly income. If Stephen King sold 100k eBooks at 14.99 the big publishers see that as a win. But if he would do it the way I am telling you here, he could sell 1 million eBooks at a lower price and make more money and reach more people. There is no loser except for the big publisher.

For any of you out there that still think I am giving away all my value as an author, that I am short selling my work, well... I say, are you full time? Do you want a good monthly income or do you want to sell a few books at a higher price to keep your pride intact? After all, that is what this is... pride, you want to think that you are WORTH a good high per book price, so will you let your own pride stand in the way of your own success? Because once you EARN the right, you like SK and other bestsellers can get a higher price as the fans will pay it.

We new authors, the Indie people have to build a fan base first, after that we can do more as we will have the fans to carry it all... and we will talk about will they pay more once they are used to the low price later...


Author Aaron Patterson: Blog: The Worst Book Ever.

"I Like Men," Guest Post by Chris Redding

It is funny to me to see women writers try to write men, and men writing women in fiction. There is that curiosity, a need to get into the head of the opposite sex. I write from a female POV about half the time and I find that I like it a lot more, and it seems, this is also the case for Chris Redding.

I agree with her, Men need to be Men. I hate TV shows that make men out to be wimps and controlled by their wife or stupid half the time. IMO what woman wants a little man who is stupid? What does that say for their choice? Anyway... I rant on, here is Chris.

I LIKE MEN

First I want to thank Aaron Patterson for having me on his blog today. He invited me after I made a comment here and I thought that was cool.

I like men. I like them to be men.

Not juvenile boys in comedies. Men. In all their flaws and warts and strengths and weaknesses.

For instance, I love the show Top Gear.
There I said it. And I’m not ashamed.
Not the lame American version. Those three guys have no chemistry together.
Nope, I like the original British version.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go check out BBC America or Netflix because you can get it on there. I’ll wait.

(Whistling. Checking Facebook and Twitter.)

Done?
Yeah, I know they trash Americans, but I’m not sure some of their criticisms aren’t correct.

I love that Jeremy is bombastic. I like that James is a little flighty and that Richard is earnest. I also like that they all get along and no matter what, even if they don’t agree, they are good-natured about it. Ahem.

Anyway. Why am I making this confession?

Because I write a lot about men. I do a workshop called Show Up Naked: Writing the Male POV. One of the suggestions I make to my workshop attendees is to watch Top Gear. (The British Version.) You will see how men interact when women aren’t around. Well a G version certainly.

And how do I know all this? I work around men. My department probably has 100 employees and I think there are ten women. Just the other day I related to the men a conversation among female friends about stockings versus not when wearing a dress. I posited that women dress for other women when if we dressed for men it would be easier.

Men like to see skin. End of story. All the men agreed.

Back to Top Gear. I love that the hosts are allowed to be men. Criticisms have been leveled at them for not having a female host. I think it would completely change the dynamic. I want them to be men. I want them to drive the cars fast and careen around the track. I want them to play jokes on each other. I want them to disagree and still be friends and the end of the show.

It’s refreshing.
Know what else I want? I want men to be allowed to be men in romance novels. I want them to be strong and weak, but in only the way men are. I want them to goof up and I want them to make up for it and when they decide they want the heroine, I want them to move Heaven and Earth to get her.

In other words, I want them to be real.

Is that too much to ask?


Chris Redding lives in New Jersey with her husband, two kids, one dog, three rabbits. She graduated from Penn State with a degree in Journalism. When she isn’t writing, she works for her local hospital part time.

On the web:
www.chrisreddingauthor.com
http://chrisredddingauthor.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/chrisreddingauthor
www.twitter.com/chrisredding

Buy links:

Corpse Whisperer
http://tinyurl.com/3qccjpt

The Drinking Game
http://tinyurl.com/3jc953b

Incendiary
http://tinyurl.com/3dh4y8o




Author Aaron Patterson: Blog: The Worst Book Ever.

Guest post: Death Before Breakfast

Gwyneth is a sweet person and a great writer. I remember having "The Talk" with her at the beginning of the year about marketing and online social media. She really took it to heart and went from the low 100k on amazon to the top 1000. Now this month she is set to blow out her all time high from last month! I am so happy for her and she has worked so very hard. Gratz and keep up the good work!


About Gwyneth Bledsoe

Gwyneth is the English author of Amazon bestselling eBook “Death Before Breakfast” of the British Detective Mystery genre, set in England and Paris, France. The Paperback version is also available on Amazon, as is the MP3 downloadable Audio Book. She is currently writing the sequel, “Death At The Races.” Gwyneth read avidly in her teens, especially Agatha Christie novels, so it is especially gratifying to find her book ranked #3 in bestselling British Detective novels, behind the #1 Sherlock Holmes and the #2 Agatha Christie collections. Gwyneth lived in England until her mid-twenties, until a sense of adventure and a job took her across the channel to Paris, France. She did not look back and continued on to California and now Idaho where she lives with her American husband and works for a Christian non-profit organization, helping churches help people.

Death Before Joy

It is with mixed emotions that I see my first novel, “Death Before Breakfast,” advancing rapidly up the Amazon rankings since mid-June, a significant time for me when our close-knit family sat by my mother-in-law’s bedside holding hands as she passed from this life to the next. I wished she could have seen the success of my book, but her passing has given me great pause to think more deeply about the implications of dying, an inevitable event that I write so readily about in my murder mysteries. Within days of her military graveside service, I was seeing the word “JOY” everywhere I went, and have come to the firm belief that she is experiencing eternal joy and that death was just a doorway into a greater experience of life. One day I would like to explore this concept in a novel, where perhaps death is just the beginning – a transition from one country to another where a different language is spoken, and amazing vistas await us, like the Tetons or The Grand Canyon, in contrast to the dirty tenement buildings of south London where I once lived as a student. You are invited to follow Chief Inspector Jack Lawrence and Sergeant Rodney Wilson as they weave their way from London to York to Paris in their search for a murderer, the identity of the victim and the writer of an anonymous letter. I write to develop characters, to introduce my audience to the English culture and to encourage other unknown writers to find a publisher and penetrate the e-reader market.

You can find me on Facebook as “Gwyneth Bledsoe, Author” and also at www.gwynethbledsoe.com.

Let's talk numbers.

Unless you have been living under a rock you know that Vincent Zandri has made some waves and is selling like crazy on Amazon. I wanted to go over the numbers with you so you can see what is going on and to get the inside information most publishers and authors will never give out.

Here is what we IE Vincent did. First, he is active on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, and other social media sites. He went on a blog tour for his book "The Remains" and the numbers did good but not anything to write the New Your Times about.

Next up was "The Innocent" for a blog tour. If you do not know what a blog tour is Google it. But in short, it is a tour of bloggers that review your book and post it all in a month time frame. Maybe one every other day or every day.

In January Here is what Vincent's books did. The Remains 100, The Innocent 50, Godchild 12. Now we see the next month after tour for Remains in February. The Remains 350, The Innocent 400, Godchild 30.

Tour for Innocent is on and here is what happens: The Remains 1000, The Innocent 22,000, Godchild 2,200. See how the tour one month after built this movement? Again, this is some skill and a ton of luck. These things cannot be planned but you do what you can and see what happens. With this Vincent ended the month in the top 10 on Amazon with The Innocent and in the top 50 for Godchild and top 150 for The Remains.

Now for last month. The Remains 7,000, The Innocent 80,000, Godchild 20,000.

I will take a moment to let this all sink in.

Hmmm, I like coffee, Coconut coffee. Yum.

Okay, we good?

These are not the exact numbers but very close and rounded. This does not include the UK or other eBook sites like B&N, just Amazon US. His print sales went up as well and we find that eBook numbers will tell us how the print book will do.

Now for these titles the price of the eBook on tour is set at .99 and The Remains is as 2.99. We changed The Innocent to 4.99 for this month as Godchild is now on tour. We are going to play with the numbers and see if the wave will hold. If it does well at 4.99 Vincent will make a paycheck that will be bigger than most publisher advances.

Vincent also has a new book coming out at the end of the month called "Concrete Pearl" This will add to his list and will also give us more to work with on the pricing cycle. We hope to run some on sale, get them up in the ranking and see if we can get more out of them at a higher price. I will let you know how it works at the end of the month.

The combo, Good Cover, Good Writing, Good Description and Good Marketing. Will it work for you? I don't know, but it can't hurt.