My Kobo Experience

As an experiment, and a way of branching out a little, I decided to take one title of mine (Village Americana) and put it up on a site called Kobo Books. Recently they've added the Kobo Writing Life program, in where self-publishers can upload their work. I uploaded the book to both Amazon and Kobo at approxametly 10:30pm on April 7th. Let's see how these two sites stack up.


Uploading:

Amazon - Within just six hours, the title was already live.
Kobo - Kept checking the site constantly. Finally went live on 4/9. They have instructions for you to email them if it takes longer than 72 hours.


Ranking:

Amazon - While writing this post, the ebook is #96,228
Kobo - Ranking in three categories: Fiction, War - #619, Thrillers - #4093, Suspense - #3240


De-Listing:

Amazon - As far as I know, you cannot de-list a book.
Kobo - As soon as you click the button, boom, the book is de-listed.

Free Promos:
Amazon - If you sign up with KDP Select your book has five promotional days which helps promote your work.
Kobo - You can mark your title free anytime you want, with no three month exclusivity clause.


I think Kobo might be a good contender, but it will take some time for it to rival the top dog.

The Insanity of My First Book Cover

(WHAT HAVE I DONE?)

Covers are the biggest tool to getting your books sold. But as an eager first-time author, I was unaware of just how important a good cover can be. I explained, early in 2008, that if you want a good cover, pay someone to design the cover. Don't do-it-yourself unless absolutely necessary. Believe me, I know the pain of what a so-so cover can do. You may have written a story that is spectacular, original even.

But all the originality in the world will not save you from a horrible cover design.

I recently read a blogpost from Failure Ahoy! which inspired the post I'm writing now. I feel ya, Edward Robertson.

Let me show you the first cover I ever had the displeasure of making.

Here it is, folks. Yikes, there's a lot wrong with this cover. So let's go through it and I'll show you how I got totally blindsided with what I was doing.

1. Here's where I messed up. The way I had envisioned the cover was similar to a comic book or graphic novel. The only problem is, the series I wanted to create had only a few stories that were connected in some small way. They did a write-up in the local newspaper about me and how I planned to pen a twenty book series. Ambitious? Sure. Smart about it? No. I thought I should label each book in the corner  like it was a new issue every time.
2. The D.F. in the bubble stood for the series name which I called Deranged Flashes. Doesn't make much sense does it? I thought it did. So I wanted each one to be labeled this way.
3. So if I have D.F. in the corner, why would I spell out Deranged Flashes Series in the other corner? Also, if you look in the background you'll see black tiles with white grouting. Originally I wanted black bricks but couldn't find the image online and just settled with tiles.
4. In staying true to the comic book feel, the title is in a yellow banner. So already we have too many colors colliding together: Black, white, yellow, green, red. Even though the font of the title is the one I wanted, I have to admit, it is too big. I also put the label A NOVEL underneath it. Y'know, in case you didn't get it the first time round.
5. The main picture takes up about half of the entire cover and boy is it ever complicated. The man in the photo was my friend from grade school. I caught up with him in college, marveled at how much he looked exactly like my main character and asked if he could pose for the cover. So one day when he wasn't too busy I asked him to stand "menacingly" in a hallway that looked similar to a hospital corridor. I put the picture into simple photo editor, added a negative effect with a over-exposed print effect and then turned it blue. I thought each cover would look unique with a different cover scheme. The next book would've been brown with the third book being bright yellow. I don't know what I was thinking but obviously this whole setup does not work.
6. Lastly, my name, sectioned off in a border of white and in the same font which, looking back on it now, makes me cringe. I read somewhere that if you put your name in red it is more likely to be noticed and easy to remember. Well, how can that be when there are so many other things distracting you?

I messed up. I messed up royally. But that didn't stop me publishing this with iUniverse. The book was public for 3 months and sold 15 copies before I wised up and decided to pull it from production. Even so, the book is still available at amazon.

I tried messaging amazon to have it taken down but that went no where. Every so often I see the book for sale for 400 bucks. On eBay I saw someone was trying to sell it for 10,000 bucks. Granted, it was an early draft, not my best, and had a crappy cover. So why that much money? Well, as I said before, I only sold 15 copies, so I guess in some circles that makes the book rare. But to me it will always be a costly mistake.

When the opportunity to re-publish to kindle arose, I didn't want to be too hasty. So I put up a collection of short stories to start with. Then I began the task of re-thinking the cover. Since I colossally complicated the last one with too much over-thinking, I wanted to go simple with the new one. I wanted something creepy and yet mysterious. Something that looked like a movie poster. So, as I was reading this one book by N. Frank Daniels' (Futureproof), and I noticed how visually appealing the cover was and did some research into royalty free images. I must have looked at a hundred pics until I settled for the one I have now.

But I'm glad that I did. Not only does the cover show the world you are about to get into but it also has shades of blue, which was the color that continually drove the style of the story.




So do yourselves a favor if you haven't already: admit to yourself that sooner or later you have to spend money on a cover for your book. 

My Thoughts On KDP Select

I started publishing ebooks as far back as 2009. One of the many questions I had was how on earth would I be able to gain enough exposure and sell more copies? The biggest suggestion is to offer your books for free. So I have. I have taken full advantage of both Smashwords and Amazon when it comes to giving away free books. The only problem I thought I had was the exclusivity agreement that Amazon proposed. Three months is a very long time to wait to put your ebooks up on other sites. But, nevertheless, I tried it.

I tried it with all six of my titles.

Here's how many copies I've given away in all:

Smashwords - 4,274 copies
Amazon - 2,023 copies

Total: 6,297 copies

Does giving away free copies translate to actual paid sales?

In my opinion - Nope!

If anything, I think this helps you lose money. Both Free and 99 cents used to be good tactics to get your books out there. Sadly, that's not the case anymore. Sure, it is fun to get that little bit of an ego boost when you see your free title climb the charts...but that euphoric high is short lived once the promotions end.

The only thing that carried over was that I recieved one or two extra reviews and that's pretty much it.

So, for now, I think I'm going to drop out of KDP altogether and consider it just a simple experiment that didn't quite work for me.

After all, if exposure was key, I think I've exposed myself enough already.

Making the case for Self-publishing

Ever since Sue Grafton came out on her opinion about self-publishing, there has been a brush-fire of outcry from the ones who have decided to go the Kindle route.

Now, bear in mind, she's an author and author's, yes, can have their opinions. And she's written some great books. But I believe that someone has to make the case for self-publishing. So let's talk about it, seriously for a change.

What is Self-Publishing?

Wikipedia calls Self-publishing the publication of any book or other media by the author of the work, without the involvement of an established third-party publisher. The author is responsible and in control of entire process including design (cover/interior), formats, price, distribution, marketing & PR.

Now, understand, this is a big undertaking. One that involves a lot of thought and research and one that should not be taken lightly. But if you do decide to go this route, here are some things to consider.

1. It used to be that in order to self publish you either had to go Print-on-demand or find what they call a vanity publisher.

2. Print-on-demand is way more productive and the costs are low. Vanity publishers, not so much.

3. The latest edition of ereaders and reincarnations of ebooks has changed the way we receive books.

Stephen King in 2000, published a novella called Riding The Bullet on the internet. It became recognized as the world's first mass-market ebook. Possibly because of the success of RTB, he went on to publish another novella via the web in installments. That story was called The Plant. His ebook experiment generated thousands of new readers of his work. "We have the chance to become Big Publishing's worst nightmare," he said in one article by The New York Times.

But the self- publishing trend did not start with him. If you really went back into the dusty pages of history, you'd find one author who took a huge risk to make a big point of his work.

That author is none other than Charles Dickens.

This was in 1843, when his publishers, Chapman and Hall were disappointed with his lack of sales. They rejected a well-known story called A Christmas Carol. Ever heard of it? Dickens, never one to be told no, decided to produce the book himself at his own expense. And while he did not fare well with the profits, it gave him exposure, garnered some reviews and all of a sudden Chapman and hall started to take notice. The first print run sold 6,000 copies. The book hasn't been out of print since.

So does this mean Self-publishing is widely accepted?

Sadly, no. Now, understand, there are hundreds of people who have found success with publishing their works independently. Some have decided to take that success and sign with a traditional publishing. Some, after making the industry switch, decided to go back to self publishing because they enjoyed more freedoms.

Why did you Self-Publish?

I’ve been doing research on self-publishing since late 2005. I’ve seen the benefits of establishing an internet presence early so that people get a feel for you. But I’ve also researched the traditional side of the argument. Rather than waiting years after constant useless rejection slips, I chose to publish my work to gain a readership. Working at rejection, peddling my wares as a complete stranger to complete strangers makes no sense to me. And I say this because I’ve tried it. I’ve sent some stuff to magazines and contests with no reply. Literary Agents? I’ve queried thirty-one of them from New York. I’ve gotten a few bites of interest, requesting more pages but that’s where the connections ended.

However, once I did as much reading as possible on the subject, learned the ropes and learned how to go about this independently, I decided to try it out. And it works. I’m gaining readers, getting feedback. It’s much more involved. As I’ve gotten to know the writing community and interviewed several authors, they all seem to say the same thing. Self-publishing offers more benefits than traditional publishing. And most publishers are actually scouting some of these books published directly to the kindle.

I’m not looking for fame and fortune. I just wanna tell stories in this time period and deliver them to an audience now. Gray hairs have been popping up all over my head. I grew tired of waiting. For me, stories need to be unleashed in order to unclutter my mind.

What does being "successful" mean to you?

Self-publishing taught me a lot of things and I became engulfed in the fascination of cover design, formatting, back cover description and audio narration. It may be a lot of hard work, but I love doing every minute of it. It gives more of a legitimacy to the work. Author/Book Maker all in one.

Success to me means instant gratification. Writing, editing, designing, publishing. I love being part of a community that gives feedback and makes the whole experience of being a writer more interactive than it previously had been in the past.

The way I see it, I'm just a storyteller. I'm not looking for fame and fortune. I just want to have comfort in knowing I can tell a good story, have full control over the content and be able to hear someone say, "Hey, buddy, y'know that story you wrote? It was different. It really made me think. What else you got in that bag of yours?"

Making a living at it?

That will come in time.

Right now I'm just happy and content with writing.

Origin

1906 - Something is discovered by workers digging the Panama Canal. Something dormant. Sinister. Very much alive.

2009 - Project Samhain. A secret underground government installation begun 103 years ago in New Mexico. The best minds in the world have been recruited to study the most amazing discovery in the history of mankind. But the century of peaceful research is about to end.

BECAUSE IT JUST WOKE UP.

When linguist Andrew Dennison is yanked from his bed by the Secret Service and taken to a top secret facility in the desert , he has no idea he's been brought there to translate the words of an ancient demon.

He joins pretty but cold veterinarian Sun Jones, eccentric molecular biologist Dr. Frank Belgium, and a hodge-podge of religious, military, and science personnel to try and figure out if the creature is, indeed, Satan.

But things quickly go bad, and very soon Andy isn't just fighting for his life, but the lives of everyone on earth...

I just finished reading this title a while back and just had to give it my two cents. My hat goes off to J.A. Konrath, a Chicagoan, and a prolific writer.

I once attempted a story similar to this but there were some differences. One, it took place in the Nevada dessert when two rogue scientists try to dig to hell. Through their digging they find a demon encased in hardened magma. The demon's name is Rage and he is accidentally freed to wreak havoc on Vegas. Trouble is this idea was formed when I was a freshman in high school and, unlike some of my other ideas, this one easily slipped through the cracks. I wrote the summary on a slip of paper, tucked it away and hoped for the best. Now, since this Konrath has beat me to the punch, I'm happy to toss the idea away. Another book I don't have to work on.

Now on to the Review:

You could tell right away that Konrath did research in terms of religious theories and underground military bases. It shows. Although, I did have trouble picturing the facility when everything was laid out in arms. It kind of reminded me of LOST. The characters were believable, likable, and flawed in their own ways but there was one character I could have done without. The Doctor Belgium character had this annoying habit of saying a word three times at the end of a sentence. It was just overdone and added nothing to the story except for a higher word count. The twists and turns with Bub's plotting his escape was a constant tension maker throughout. It definitely had a feel worthy to Crichton's Jurassic Park but the ending, I feel, was a bit lacking. When hoping for a more powerful line, all I was left with was a short line that left me with a huh? At one point I looked at the back of my kindle. An old habit I have. When a book ends unexpectedly I have to look at the back, see if there are any more pages. But, hey, it kept me reading right up until the end so it did the job well. I give it 4 out of 5 stars.