Thoughts on ebook writing and publishing
After roughly a month since The Innocent's Progress dropped, I have some hard won lessons.
InnProg's current Amazon sales rank is #247,527 Paid in Kindle Store. It's been dropping steadily over the past month, since it opened in the 80,000 range. I hope that once some reviews come in it will bump back up. This wouldn't bother me so much, but Ora Le Brocq's Steampunk Erotica is currently at #104,583 in the paid Kindle store. Apart from her book launching in June, not September, I can't figure out why her ebook is selling so much better than mine. It's as widely distributed as mine, and doesn't have any reviews either.
I anticipated the problem of not being able to show or give people something physical to promote InnProg. Printed flyers with the cover image on the front and a blurb and positive quotes on the back helped a bit. Another issue is that a lot of people aren't familiar with the concept of ebooks, and don't know how to go about getting it or reading it. I end up explaining that you don't need a dedicated ebook reader, that you can get it in a familiar format like PDF or HTML. We're in the early stage of ebooks as an accepted publishing medium, due in no small part to the increasing availability of handheld and tablet devices, and people are still unfamiliar with them. They need to learn how to use it, until it is as familiar as renting a DVD and popping it in the player.
Ebooks won't supplant print books anytime soon, if ever, but they're not going away either. A friend of mine recently said she only wanted her unpublished book in print form. This struck me as rather short sighted: if she did get a publishing deal, would she turn down the additional revenue from ebook and audiobook editions? And many authors have released their books in audiobook or ebook formats to build awareness. Ebook publishing could give her exposure and some revenue, and not preclude a print edition.
In the meantime, I'm working on another Circlet Press submission, this one for an anthology of dystopian-themed stories. This is very difficult to work with, but I'm determined to submit something. My story draws on Orwell's novel 1984, Cavani's film The Night Porter and Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier, which is set in 1950s Britain after the fall of the IngSoc regime depicted in Orwell's novel. Setting the story well after the dystopian society has fallen is the best solution I could find to how to avoid eroticizing non-consensual acts. I'm using an alternating point of view.
Once that is done, I will write some short erotica pieces for the EveryNightErotica.com site, set in the same world as Innocent's Progress. This will promote the ebook and serve as new material should there ever be a second or print edition.
InnProg's current Amazon sales rank is #247,527 Paid in Kindle Store. It's been dropping steadily over the past month, since it opened in the 80,000 range. I hope that once some reviews come in it will bump back up. This wouldn't bother me so much, but Ora Le Brocq's Steampunk Erotica is currently at #104,583 in the paid Kindle store. Apart from her book launching in June, not September, I can't figure out why her ebook is selling so much better than mine. It's as widely distributed as mine, and doesn't have any reviews either.
I anticipated the problem of not being able to show or give people something physical to promote InnProg. Printed flyers with the cover image on the front and a blurb and positive quotes on the back helped a bit. Another issue is that a lot of people aren't familiar with the concept of ebooks, and don't know how to go about getting it or reading it. I end up explaining that you don't need a dedicated ebook reader, that you can get it in a familiar format like PDF or HTML. We're in the early stage of ebooks as an accepted publishing medium, due in no small part to the increasing availability of handheld and tablet devices, and people are still unfamiliar with them. They need to learn how to use it, until it is as familiar as renting a DVD and popping it in the player.
Ebooks won't supplant print books anytime soon, if ever, but they're not going away either. A friend of mine recently said she only wanted her unpublished book in print form. This struck me as rather short sighted: if she did get a publishing deal, would she turn down the additional revenue from ebook and audiobook editions? And many authors have released their books in audiobook or ebook formats to build awareness. Ebook publishing could give her exposure and some revenue, and not preclude a print edition.
In the meantime, I'm working on another Circlet Press submission, this one for an anthology of dystopian-themed stories. This is very difficult to work with, but I'm determined to submit something. My story draws on Orwell's novel 1984, Cavani's film The Night Porter and Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier, which is set in 1950s Britain after the fall of the IngSoc regime depicted in Orwell's novel. Setting the story well after the dystopian society has fallen is the best solution I could find to how to avoid eroticizing non-consensual acts. I'm using an alternating point of view.
Once that is done, I will write some short erotica pieces for the EveryNightErotica.com site, set in the same world as Innocent's Progress. This will promote the ebook and serve as new material should there ever be a second or print edition.