Read Joe Konrath's Post Entitled "Presumed Inane" and Dated 03.16.2012

Here's the link:  http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2012/03/presumed-inane.html

Joe makes valid points.  His reasoning is rational.  Whereas the flaws in Turow's (aka Author's Guild) interview seem fatal.  Over and over.

And I really like the cartel image. 

Amen to Joe for everything he said in this blog post, for filling in the blanks, providing links/examples, setting the record straight and standing behind Amazon.  Why all these Amazon rumors filled with negative press are flying now seems both late and odd to me.  Regardless of the timing of these attacks on Amazon, I'd like to add my vote on the Amazon side.

My Marketing Plan

1.  Keep writing great fiction and nonfiction.  

2.  Continue learning about my craft through books and/or classes and/or other authors.  

3.  Daily refilling my imagination with both life experiences and enjoying the wonderful entertainment of excellent movies and written stories.

That's it.

I realize my lack of marketing in my marketing plan seems to be a terminal error.  But it really isn't.

At the heart of it all, I believe a well-written book will find its intended readers.  At whatever speed.  The "if you build it, they will come" mentality.

On the flip side, marketing, IMO, is about increasing both the speed and the number of sales.  In other words, it is about making additional bucks faster.  Which is great if you can mold and mix your social media into doing that for you.  And everyone's situation is different, to me.  Therefore, the marketing must be different.  Which means you (or the expert you hire) still need to do some maneuvering of the components to get the right recipe for you.

I find it a tad frustrating myself, so I don't do it.  I just do not do it.  I'm not into torturing myself.

I prefer to wait one year or so while the readers find me, with nominal marketing efforts on my part, rather than making myself go slowly mad while I discern the marketing maze.  I've decided to chuck all that and do what is fun, thereby giving my days more peace, more freedom, less stress, less pressure.  

That said, there are two ongoing social media avenues that captivate my soul.  Pinterest, my newest one, is great as I find I am actually creating those dream boards I have been meaning to do for decades.

My older love is blogging, which serves some deep-seated needs:  my need to teach (in my teens, I first thought I should become a college math professor) coupled with my innate irrepressible need to share what I've learned from reading--the best of the best--for my fellow authors, whether traditional or Indie.

Last month, I took advantage of a one-time-only promo (per quarterly enlistment?) within Amazon's Lending Library by giving away my debut novel, Good Ole Boys, a love story, for the five days leading up to and including Valentine's Day.  You can view my earlier posts about that exhilarating (and exhausting!) ride.  Some 2096 readers here and abroad have an e-book with my name on it.  I'm still amazed.

I am reminded of a quote courtesy of Jim Rohn:  " . . . escape is easier than change."  Of course, to escape (literally or figuratively, as to be entertained) takes less effort on our part and shorter time frames.  Examples:  To watch one movie, two to three hours.  To read one novel, five or more hours.  To make drinking eighty ounces of water a daily habit, at least twenty-one days, if not a year (or a lifetime).

So, my focus this year is on novels (the escape/entertainment portion of the above quote).  Yours may be on self-help How-To books (the change part of the above quote).  Go your route.  Even a combo of both, as I did last year.

With novels in mind, it helps to have more than one to offer to your readership (so keep on writing).  See my earlier blog post on Joe Konrath's success.  Series or not, have something else to offer your followers.  It may take us three months to imagine, NaNo write, edit, polish and upload a new book, whereas it only takes five hours to devour it.  Much like cooking, the time spent preparing a meal is far greater than the time spent eating it.

But worth the effort still. 

So here's my theory.  After about a year, it seems that other Indie-published authors have been making some decent sales on their fiction.  Note:  my first novel released December 19, 2011, so I have a ways to go before I reach the twelve-month mark.  Meanwhile I'm focusing on getting more novels completed of my eight WIPs. 

I am willing to wait for that year, keep on writing, do minimal social media (the kind I really like and my personality seems made for), even if that means I take a day job here and there to make the freelance fees and book royalties meet my monthly obligations.

This works for me.  You need to detail what works for you.

Since March 27, 2011, I've uploaded six e-books (one fiction, five nonfiction, more of both on the way).  All the nonfiction works were created within 2011.  The debut novel was created around 2009 with the Final Edit done within 2011.  I hope to sustain or exceed this number of e-books released each year hereafter.

Again, I have a mind-set that may rock the status quo.  My books are not for everybody.  My books are not even for half the readers on this planet.  I happily accept this.  Of the estimated seven billion populating Earth, I don't need even one million readers to become self-sustaining (living totally off my writing royalties).  

In fact, if I did have one million readers (at the 70% royalty rate on a $2.99 sale, or about $2.10/e-book), I would never need to sell another book in my expected 120-year lifetime.  

If these up-and-coming readers total two million (this time all at the 35% royalty rate on a $0.99 sale, or about $0.34/e-book), I could still pay off my house and live quite well until age 100 or so--and never need to sell (much less write) another book.

However, I'm an author.  I write.  I cannot help but dream up new stories, engaging characters.  It is my purpose in life.  So I would continue to create, just with no worries ever about paying the mortgage or this month's electricity bill or finding the $3,000 to meet insurance deductibles.

Yes, I realize I don't have a celebrity lifestyle.  Still, you need to figure your "pay off" figure.  What would it take for you to have no bills except for utilities and food and gas for the car?  Knowing this can relieve a lot of stress.  Gives some much-needed details to your goal setting.

Plus recognizing that you don't have to connect with all readers, just your fans for your particular voice, for your select genre(s), allows you to breathe that sigh of contentment now.

Like the Bible tells us, our gifts will place us before kings.  So count your costs, then do what brings peace in your heart.

A Snapshot of Joe Konrath's e-Book Success

As authors, we know to write it now, get it out there and expect our payday later--much later.  And, yes, we cannot all pretend to reap the numbers of Joe Konrath, but we still have our hopes.  Whatever yours may be, here's a quick look at what Joe did and his earnings (per internet findings; my apologies to Joe if any of the info is incorrect).

To date, he has nineteen novels (purely written by him, whatever pen name used) which is what I'm tracking in this particular post.  So I'm not counting those books where he paired up with another author.  FYI:  He also has four short story collections:

03/01/2010 - Horror Stories - Assorted short stories, e-book

03/01/2010 - Crime Stories - Assorted short stories, e-book

11/11/2010 - Jack Daniels Stories - Assorted short stories, paperback

03/23/2011 - 65 Proof – An Omnibus:  Sixty-five Short Stories, paperback

The date shown above corresponds with the publication data given on Amazon.

From my research, Joe Konrath had his six Jack Daniels mysteries written, one per year, up to and including 2009 when he first began to upload his books to Amazon.  So he had a "backlist," multiple listings to entice new and newly addicted readers.  TIP:  Never stop writing.  Keep on creating those novels even while rejections are coming in.

Here's the Jack Daniels books and their "publication" date.  Sorry I don't know if that is the date of copyright/creation or whether they were actually published pre-Amazon.  Regardless, I'm just seeing how many books Joe had up to match against his earnings therefrom.

05/01/2004 – Whiskey Sour

05/01/2005 – Bloody Mary

05/01/2006 – Rusty Nail

05/01/2007 – Dirty Martini

05/01/2008 - Fuzzy Navel

05/01/2009 – Cherry Bomb

These are the other novels Joe uploaded to Amazon within 2009:

04/01/2009 – Afraid, horror novel, paperback

04/08/2009 – Origin, e-book

04/11/2009 - Disturb, horror thriller about medical experiments, e-book

04/12/2009 - The List, a police technothriller, e-book

04/12/2009 - Shot of Tequila - heist thriller, e-book

07/04/2009 - Truck Stop, a psycho thriller, e-book

He also offered Cherry Bomb in hardcover and e-book on 07/07/2009, but I'm just counting actual titles, not their form of publication.  Still, you can always keep those different formats in mind for later application with your own e-books--branch out into audio, paperback and hardback.

Then in 2010, Joe added three more novels:

06/16/2010 - Endurance,a horror novel by Jack Kilborn (pen name), e-book

06/20/2010 - Trapped, a horror novel by Jack Kilborn (pen name), e-book 

10/26/2010 - Shaken, e-book

Paperback versions of The List, Shot of Tequila, Disturb and Origin came out in July, October, November and November, respectively.

By 2011, besides Shaken coming out additionally in paperback form in February of that year, there were four more Joe Konrath novels on Amazon:

02/22/2011 - Shapeshifters Anonymous, e-book

02/22/2011 - The Screaming, e-book

07/27/2011 - Banana Hammock, a Harry McGlade adventure, paperback

11/22/2011 – Stirred, e-book

As of this writing, I have not found a new J.A. Konrath novel out yet this year.

His earnings are reported as being:

$    2,300/month as of January 2010 (first uploads in April 2009) from 12 novels offered
$  34,000/month as of January 2011 (first full year compared) from now 15 novels offered (total)
$100,000/three weeks as of January 2012 from his total library of 19 novels to date

Keep in mind he's doing e-books, audio, paperback and hardback, plus his books resulting from collaborations with other authors not to mention his short story collections, so all those are included in the earnings quoted above, with each book selling for a minimum purchase price of $2.99.  While almost all of his novels are in e-book format, only some become paperbacks, with less as audiobooks and even fewer in hardback.

Not bad.  Not bad at all.  I look forward to being able to report these numbers!  Of course, I need to get moving on my novel production, instead of my nonfiction books.  I'll have to work on that.

Starting right now . . . .

I Have a Theory . . .

I am not an expert.  I am only speaking from my own experience and data gathered as a result of the inquisitive right hemisphere of my brain.  So keep that in mind as you read on.

First, I currently have three nonfiction How-To e-books on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  The first two were uploaded March 27, 2011.  So none have been posted for three full months yet.  Still, I see some cause-and-effect events already.

Per my intuition, I need six books offered to increase sales as this number seems to perpetuate itself.  Granted, I am not yet living this theory to test it, but look at Joe Konrath for one example.  Check out his A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing blog at http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/.  And of course there is Amanda Hocking.  A quick search of Amazon.com shows ten books by Ms. Hocking.

Alternatively, Lisa Turner’s debut novel A Little Death in Dixie remains at the #1 spot in Kindle e-books even with the $0.99 sale price now upped to $9.39.

But I’m comparing apples to oranges here, with those novels against my nonfiction.  With one novel gaining success as versus my theoretical six needed.  Still, I maintain most authors will do well with six. 

Somehow I think novels sell better than nonfiction but don’t ask me how I “know” this—my gut just tells me it is so.  Still I AM selling my nonfiction, even in this depressed economy.  However, I am anxious to launch one of my “finished” novels.  I just need a couple uninterrupted months’ time to give it the extreme polish of a final edit.  Don’t we all.

Okay.  So now to the nuances of e-publishing.

After eight sales, I noticed my rankings within my particular genre (self-help, entrepreneur, etc.) may have been lower—due to more e-books being uploaded daily for sale—but that my overall ranking with each purchase within the Kindle Paid Store made my rankings climb higher.  It seems that the eight-sales-mark graduates the author into the next tier, if you will. 

If you will check out Author Central on Amazon, it states there are over 750,000 books in the Kindle Store.  Some other articles I found via an internet search indicate there are over 950,000 books offered in the Kindle Store.  Regardless, making just eight sales seems to put my rankings in the top one-third of the lesser total of 750,000 books.  Not bad.

Then there is the 1,000-sales club offered within Amazon/Kindle that seems to cause its own promotion of your book within Amazon.  Great!  Any time Amazon wants to market my books for me, I am ecstatic.  I look forward to the day when I can report ALL my books have exceeded the 1,000 mark in sales.

The Amazon site does offer avenues for self-promoting with its Kindle Boards and other routes.  I’m focusing on my writing and excluding all but the bare basics of marketing at this point.  I call it the Grand Experiment.

So, what should you get from all this? 

First, becoming published is just a matter of YOU deciding.  You can upload your JPEG cover and your Word document within a few hours (allowing you time to preview your Kindle conversion and fix any bad page breaks or strange symbols found).  Yes, even your first one should be done, depending on the book’s length, within three to five hours.

Second, only eight sales pop you from the newest-addition-to-the-as-yet-to-be-sold Kindle books to the top thirty-three percent sold.

Third, as you get other books converted and available for purchase, you ARE self-promoting just by the sheer number of titles that carry your name.  More chance of you being found via a search engine outside of Amazon even.

Fourth, the more time you let pass, the earnings seem to creep up (at first).  From a few authors’ articles on Indie publishing, it seems around months six to nine is when they broke through to compounded sales—either via ramped-up marketing efforts or a drop in the price from $2.99 to $0.99. 

So, finish those books.  Decide you are not only an author but a publisher and upload to both Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  Validate your writing by e-book sales.  Let them percolate along for a few months, cooking up a growing readership for you.

Then share with all of us how you did it!