Self-Publishing

Book Sales

28 December 2011
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Sales of my new novel, Amour et Vengeance (Love and Revenge), have been outstanding, at least in Tarrant County. Until I can get national publicity, it won’t be on the Best Seller list.

Best Seller Formula

11 July 2011
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How does a book get to the top of the “Best Seller” list?
It isn’t always because it is a good read. (more…)

Amour Perdu–First Chapter

20 June 2011
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CHAPTER ONE
Amour Perdu (Lost Love)
He should be happy.
Six months earlier his colleagues of twenty-five years had honored him for outstanding performance in running the engineering department.
He stood in front of almost one hundred fellow workers and their spouses like a blond Viking in a tuxedo. They had lavished praise on him to send him off to the great retirement airship in the sky. He and his team had helped design the latest fighter plane for the Air Force, the YF-16. But what now?” (more…)

Self Publishing–NY Times

20 June 2011
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This Sunday’s NY Times Magazine had an article about Amanda Hocking and her phenominal success in publishing her books on Amazon and all the other e-book outlets. She is selling 9,000 ! ! ! books every day.

There is more to the story, but it illustrates what a powerful change is happening in the publishing business. The Big Six (now the Big Seven–see Christine Rose) will have to change their ways or go out of business. I predict that the Big Six will be forced to reduce their people and their influence in the business. (more…)

Social Media in Self Publishing

7 June 2011
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 You have a novel or instruction book in your head. Everybody does.  Maybe you have even started writing.  Should you find an agent, finally get a publisher, etc.?

No matter where you are in the process, get Christine Rose’s  book Publishing and Marketing Realities. She gives one a real honest look at the book business–based on her experience. You don’t want to make the same mistakes she has made. I made different mistakes and am still contemplating more mistakes. It is a wild and changing business. The best advice she give is, that if you wish to get wealthy by writing a book, your chances are better if you just buy a lottery ticket every day. It’s a much easier and a smaller investment.

Self Publish–Editing

31 May 2011
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You can’t have too many editors when you are getting ready to self publish. But the caution is that you can pay big bucks and still not get the job done. Big name publishers have experienced editors in each area.

What is “getting the job  done?” I have found that someone who is a voracious, fast reader may give you great suggestions for fixing your plot but will miss the typo errors, like “in” for “on.”  Spell check doesn’t highlight these, so the brain of a fast reader makes the correction without consciously recognizing it.

If you are working in an area that you are not completely familiar with, say quotes in Spanish, get a native speaker of the language to proof read.

Self-Publish

24 May 2011
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Any new author who wishes to sell her book realizes in this new publishing world that ultimately only the author will be able to get her book sold. An author (even those who have an agent and publisher) will eventually realize that she must take an active role in selling her book. (more…)

New York Times E-books

16 May 2011
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I have done a study on the pricing of the twenty-five best selling fiction e-books listed in Sunday’s New York Times. The pricing is not shown so the results of my study are from Amazon.

My media consultant, Christine Rose, has suggest that the price of my e-book novel is too high at $9.99. So, even though I am not on any best seller list, I though I would see what price it took to get on a best seller list.

Of the twenty-five listed, all except two are priced from $7.99 (seven) up to $12.99 (seven). The two others are the number one best seller at $4.17 and the twenty-fifth at $0.99. The lowest ratings were three stars for #four and #five. These two are selling at the high price of $12.99.

The question is: Does the $0.99 price help get “Saving Rachel” on the best seller list? It probably does, since the book is only rated at three and one half stars. But a high price doesn’t seem to drive away buyers. However, I am considering lowering my price. I don’t expect this to get me on the best seller list.

Self-Publish Editing

10 May 2011
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I figured that I would have four or five typos or mistakes in my novel, Amour et Vengeance.

But even though I had nine people, four that I paid, one head of an english department, and two more professional editors, there were many more than just four or five mistakes. And more are pointed out each day. Having two foreign languages didn’t help.

Before you release your work to print, have it edited, reviewed, studied as much as possible, etc. The e-book version can be changed easily. The printed version is permanent. Unless you go into the second printing.

Self Publish E-books

3 May 2011
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Everyone has a book in their head. Sometimes the impediment is the idea that it is an almost impossible task to get a book into print.

These days, with just a little help, a writer can get her book into the e-book market in a few days. No need to print. There are services that provide e-book services, but since Amazon sells 80% of the books (so I have heard-anyone who knows need to educate me), a writer can get on Amazon very easily. And with a media consultant, a person can set up a web site and allow purchases from almost all formats for e-books.

I used Christine Rose to set up my web site. We haven’t tried all the possible formats, but they do appear on my web site, jfredbeckman.com or Amour et Vengeance. Take a look to see how it works.

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