News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #11…
#69: Time is running out! You can buy the entire “Clones and Mutants Series” (Full Medical + Evil Agenda) for $5.98 by using the Smashwords coupon on my “Steve’s Writing” page. The coupon gives you Full Medical for $2.99 (normally $4.99) and Evil Agenda is already $2.99. This is a holiday sale only. Happy holiday reading!
#70: Have you introduced your children to eBooks yet? Want to be sure they’re not reading stuff you wouldn’t approve of? Check out my sci-fi thriller for young adults, The Secret Lab, only $0.99 at your favorite online retailer. If you like cats and enjoyed the young camaraderie in Spielberg’s Goonies and ET, you’ll probably also enjoy this novel. I’m sure your tweens and young teens will. It’s not Harry Potter in space—it’s the real magic of living aboard the International Space Station in the future. Enjoy….
#71: Tuesday’s NY Times had an article on how pBooks (hardbounds and trade paperbacks) are currently selling well in bookstores and that eBooks are not selling. Here’s my take: During the holidays many people eschew gift cards, preferring to give something tangible to friends, relatives, and loved ones. A hardbound or trade paperback is also tangible. The former even becomes its own box that’s easy to wrap. How do you give an eBook? Via a gift card! This is one negative for eBooks that I missed in my recent analyses. And with the gift card, there’s no telling whether your favorite reader will download that book that you thought he or she would really enjoy. I don’t know how to get around this perversity of human nature that requires a gift to be tangible. Do you?
At any rate, if your average mom and pop bookstore, or even your labyrinthinan Barnes and Noble superstores, think they can survive on pBook sales restricted to the holiday season, they’re delusional. I have no stats to back me up, but I suspect that most book purchases outside of the holiday season are made by readers that are buying their own books. In that case, a simple download of an eBook from an online retailer to their Kindle is probably the most cost effective and time saving way to proceed. Moreover, I know plenty of people that peruse the stacks at a bookstore and then either buy the titles they have discovered online or borrow them from their public library or a friend. Again, I have no stats, but I’ll wager the multiplying effect of book ownership is more than unity. People borrow books to read so most books have many readers.
#72: “You can’t judge a book by its cover,” says the adage. But many people do. What about eBooks? In some sense, the eBook cover is less important. Download a new eBook and open it up in your eReader. It rarely opens to the cover. Yet the eBook covers are still important. Those thumbnail cover images on Amazon and elsewhere catch the potential reader’s eye. Mr. Paws, the cat on the cover of my young adult novel, The Secret Lab, jumps right out at you, appealing to cat lovers everywhere. The body in Barcelona’s botanical garden on the cover of Evil Agenda tells the reader right away that this book is a thriller. The contrast between the peaceful Juan Valdes character and the bomb blast on the cover of Soldiers of God sparks a reader’s curiosity (this isn’t an eBook yet, but I intend to use the same cover, if possible).
For some reason, many readers have developed a prejudice that a plain vanilla book cover means plain vanilla writing. It’s a psychological quirk. It’s like thinking that a good presenter or debater is the better politician or scientist. I have reviewed many indie authors and noticed their skimping on covers. I’ve also noticed that a plain vanilla cover does NOT imply plain vanilla writing. Yet we often talk about the importance of a hook right up front in the first chapter of a novel. Isn’t the cover the author’s first chance at a hook? If you’re a writer, don’t skimp on that cover. Cover art and editing/formatting are important investments you should make towards your books success. (You’ll often be able to one-stop shop. For example, Donna Carrick, of Carrick Publishing, offers all three services—editing, formatting, and cover art for a reasonable price.)
#73: If you’re a writer, have you attended a conference lately? I have the impression that for most indie authors, attending a conference is a luxury they can ill afford. In my own case, I’m still struggling to break even. I can’t afford to attend a conference.
In academia I attended a number of research conferences. The way this worked was that the conference organizers would set aside a fraction of the attendance fees to finance scholarships for attendees that were “means challenged”—scholarships, fellowships, waivers, they were called various things, but everyone benefitted. The regular attendees benefitted from hearing fresh, new ideas and those with scholarships benefitted from mingling and discussing with the experts.
I’m not sure the same scheme would work for writers’ conferences. I might enjoy talking to Barry Eisler or Lee Child, for example, but I’m not sure I’d learn any new tricks in the short time I was with them. It used to be that attending conferences was a good way for a newbie to find an agent. Again, I like agents and would probably enjoy talking with them, but do I need one?
What do you think?
In libris libertas…
