Authors Electric

Back in the mists of time before the banking system wrought havoc on our economy I used to work as a freelance writer for a packager. If you don’t work in the publishing world you may not know what a packager is. Basically they find freelancers like myself, hire us on a flat fee basis to create a book. This book is then sold to a publisher or even publishers (if they sell the foreign rights) who then sell it under their own branding. It’s a great concept and at one time kept me very busy. The first book I worked on for a packager was a craft title. The concept for the title had been sold to a large publisher before I was even commissioned to work on the project. Typically, just days before the agreed deadline the publisher (in their wisdom) wanted an additional 12 pages. I began to panic. I simply didn’t have the time to produce that amount of additional content. My editor told me not to worry because she had content from a similar title she could use to fill these additional p...

I’ve been publishing ebooks for several years now, but I’ve never done anything specific to promote my books. I’ve always worked on the assumption that well written books with a good storyline will always find a reader. Over the years, I’ve made it a point not to use gimmicks, or promotional tools to increase the selling power of my novels, and I haven’t knocked myself out trying to improve sales figures, and I’ve been quite happy that my books are finding appreciative readers. However, after listening to a fellow author singing the praises of Kindle CountDown deals, and how it boosted sales, I was tempted to give it a try. First I had to find out how it worked, and here is the Amazon link if you want to have a look. The first thing I found out was that your book has to be in KDP Select before you can use this promotional tool, and as I only have one book in KDP Select, and that is my Crime Fiction and the Indie Contribution, it had to be that one. I prefer a wider di...

I've been asked a few times why I've self-published some of my books and the answer is simple - money. I'm what I would describe as a 'jobbing' writer. At one point I managed (just) to make a living from writing, however that changed when the economy took a nose dive. So I had to look at ways of bringing in extra income. Self-publishing seemed an obvious route to take. I knew the arguments against self publishing including: Perceived lack of quality Authors only self publish for vanity reasons You have to be everything: accountant, designer, marketing department etc. But I also knew that not all published books are a high quality (so as long as I had my books professionally edited they could compete against traditionally published books). Also many of the other jobs linked to book publishing I was already doing e.g. my accounts, marketing (publishers expect you to market your books). So I figured it wasn't really that much difference. However I've d...

It's been a busy busy month for me, formatting two new e-books and paperbacks for Blackbird Digital Books and the Authors Electric Anthology SPARKS.  SPARKS has reached the final stages and is nearly ready to go out into the world. First as a kindle e-book and then early in the new year as a paperback. I've enjoyed getting to know everybody in the group, through working with some of them and reading the best of everybody's writings in the anthology itself. The collective CV really is quite awe-inspiring. Earlier in the month I released Susie Kelly's fifth Blackbird title, Swallows & Robins - The Guests In My Garden . The tactic of putting out a pre- Swallows mini-collection of her work, The Magic Of France , and offering it at the lowest Amazon price-point has been working way better than anticipated. As I explained in my last post here ( What To Do When E-Book Sales Start Dropping - Panic ) we didn't make The Magic Of France to sell as a main title in ...

As fellow members of Authors Electric will know, I have a sometime tricky relationship with technology: it doesn’t always do what I expect it to, although pressing the wrong button might reasonably be regarded as just plain dim. Since technology and business systems have played a greater part of my working life in 2012 than in any other year of my career, I thought I would review the trials. THE KOBO ISSUE KOBO, bless ‘em. Are they really geared up for self-publishing authors? Their website is pretty, in a twee kind of way, but their customer care people don’t seem to have a clue what’s happening when you have a problem. In November, I uploaded the first of my Sprite Sister books. On the basis that it all went through okay, I uploaded the other five titles – except they didn’t upload. They got stuck somewhere. I had filled in and ticked all the boxes: have uploaded and re-uploaded my e-titles numerous times on Amazon, so it’s not unfamiliar. Then nothing. You ...