Authors Electric

            Do your squirm in your chair at the prospect? You should.  The APE’s a beast made up of three horrific parts. Each in undiluted form is toxic—even lethal—so let’s give thanks we seldom encounter them as concentrates. Most toxic of all: the ACCOUNTANT. In the pure state the Accountant would prefer to peddle widgets than slave over troublesome word-things; he’d rather have his teeth pulled through his dick than sit and write*. He’ll sit at his computer screen and monitor his sales all day, comparing his numbers with those of his foes. At night he dreams of oracles who tell him better ways to move the units he produces.             Only a little less toxic: the PRIEST , a beast who’s obsessed with perfection. He dreams of writing books that readers must put down repeatedly—to gather a tan in the sun of his style or savor a tryst with a fo...

Back in October (2012) I started to think about two picture book stories I hadn't got around to converting into eBooks. I had tried to get the books traditionally published but had found publishers were either cutting back or had completely stopped publishing seasonal books. Most were telling me that books that only sold over certain periods of the year didn't make them enough money. What was annoying was many had given positive feedback on Where It's Always Winter ( Amazon UK - Amazon US ) and The Perfect Christmas Tree ( Amazon UK - Amazon US ). So during November I converted both titles and placed them onto Amazon. Due to the typical Christmas madness and work commitments I was unable to undertake my normal marketing campaign for either title. However I've found both  titles have sold well. So well in fact that one title reached number 42 in the top Amazon short stories paid for section and is still in the top 100. I've had top ten titles on Amazon befo...

Last month I wrote about the steps I was following from an eBook recommended to me called 'Make A Killing on Kindle' by Michael Alvear. If you'd like to read my first steps click on this link . I rounded off my last post stating I would update you on my progress. Sadly I've not made a killing on Kindle. However I have learnt a lot and wanted to share some of that with you. Firstly (and no surprise really) the title and the search engine terms make a big difference. The book I decided to experiment with was not appearing on the first page when I searched for it on Amazon. Yet my other title was. So I changed the SEO terms and the title slightly. The book is now appearing on the first page. I've tracked sales for a month and discovered most sales are made at the end of the week and over the weekend. Again not a surprise as my titles are aimed at kids. So I am assuming adults download to keep the kids occupied over the weekend. I will continue to m...

Reluctantly, I am back to the marketing theme. Recently, my publisher had to close down (much to her regret) and so, with lots of help from her during the transition, I’m now a fully fledged Indie. And one of the first things I noticed when I saw all my books listed in the KDP sales charts was that one of them has regularly been selling over three times more copies than its nearest rival in the list. This could, of course, mean that it’s so brilliant that the rest are dross in comparison. But, until its nomination for the Booker proves me wrong, I know objectively that it’s no better or worse than they are. I should quickly add that I’m not talking of sales levels that would enable me to buy Mustique. But I do like the idea that some hundreds of people are actually reading my stuff. So I need to find out why that particular title is getting the attention and try to deflect some of it onto the others. And to do that I need to understand marketing strategies. But I don’t. Under...