The democratization of slush

[minervaK]

An interesting article by Laura Miller, NY Times Book Review contributor, over at Salon:

http://www.salon.com/books/laura_miller/index.html

I think she makes several hopeful points, especially for authors.

[Camille LaGuire]

Yeah, pricing is important - but I don't sell enough yet to really know what's a fluke and what's a pattern. I've sold most of my paid books so far for 99 cents - which is a way to get your book out there.

We'll see what happens when I put one of my mysteries up this weekend. It should be easier to sell, but it will have a higher price (2,99 in anticpation of Amazon's higher 70 percent royalty for books priced 2,99 to 9,99) and I'm still too new to this to count on anything.

(I also should say in all fairness - when I said "most indies I know are doing better" this obvoiusly includes only people who are willing to say how they're doing. People doing much worse may not even say anything, or be a part of a forum.)

[J W Nelson]

Interesting! Are people posting short stories, too? Serials?

[Eric Christopherson]

I've seen a few collections of short stories, and some novellas.

[Jim Thomsen]

I agree that readers with e-devices can easily pick out what they want from the slush pile.

I have a Kindle, and am particularly interested right now in reading self-published mysteries, thrillers and suspense novels — especially the kind that sell for 99 cents to $2.99, since that's the route I expect to be taking with my first novel.

How do I find those? Easy-peasy.

First, I look through new titles in the Kindle Store, read the summaries and make my choices.

Then I look at Kindleboards.com — a hugely popular reader venue — and check out other people's suggestions for good cheap thriller fare.

I also get some ideas from the Kindle Nation Daily blog, which I subscribe to via Kindle.

And J.A. Konrath occasionally singles out other e-authors who seem to be gaining some traction, and I've made some purchases based on recommendations made on his blog.

Some of the stuff proves to not be to my taste. But hey, I'm out 99 cents plus tax. I think I'll get over my disappointment.

But rarely do I find a self-published e-book that isn't good enough — that doesn't understand mystery craft, proper pacing, proper story development, etc. Some are better edited than others, but almost all display evidence of SOME editing.

In the end, I am open to a certain kind of book. And we find each other. And I'm hardly the savviest online person on the block. I mean, I didn't find Crimespace until a week ago, and I've been seeking out mystery-writer venues for quite some time. There are a LOT of holes in my online game.

The e-book market works. If you allow it to.

[Jon Loomis]

I think the best way to make money as a writer in this brave new world we're entering is probably to sell pseudonymous porn novels on Kindle. You could write one in a weekend, pretty much, and sell 'em by the tens of thousands. It's like the golden age of the 70's porn novel all over again. Yee haaaaaa!

[Eric Christopherson]

Got any suggestions for a nom de plume?

[Jon Loomis]

Well, I think they always have to be female, right? Because male sexuality as such is kind of gross and disturbing, but a woman imagining the same exact thing is edgy/sexy. How about Hydrangea Hypotenuse? It's not mine, so I can't take credit for it.

[B.R.Stateham]

Interesting that some writers can do their ebooks on Amazon and sell without any advertising, etc.l, while others can go through the same procedurs as well and not sell a thing.

Are we . . . again . . . back to the idea that sheer luck is the driving force for selling a book?

[Eric Christopherson]

No. Luck is always involved, but readers do have samples and reviews to read as well as book descriptions to peruse and book covers to look at. (Yeah, the right book cover can make a difference.) Oh, and then there's pricing.

[Camille LaGuire]

I think it partly is a matter of each person's definition of "not any advertising" and "not sell a thing".

For instance, I have been on the web for a very long time, and have done promotion for other things, and I'm also very interested in the new marketing paradigm. There are other people who have never started a blog before, and have never written any pitch that wasn't geared to an agent or editor. And there are other people who REALLY know their marketing stuff like I will never know.

If the three of us start in the same place, and do the same things - such as post an announcement on the Kindleboards - the super-marketer will do it much more effectively, I'll do it somewhat effectively, and the newbies to marketing will probably shoot themselves in the foot.

And nobody sells all that _well_ without working at it. So while there is a little luck involved (like the newbie happens to post that one announcement where a very vocal fan will see it and then pass the word), its more a matter of you make your own luck. Write a lot, write well and be ubiquitous. It's very hard work.

I reported the numbers from my experiment - which involved only minimal marketing. (Not advertising - that's a waste of money.) Today I uploaded my first mystery to Kindle and Smashwords, and that's where I'll put more effort into it. We'll see how that goes.

[Eric Christopherson]

It's Amazon's recommendation system that's the best ebook marketer going today. Nothing succeeds like success on Amazon.

[Camille LaGuire]

That's why it can be such slow going at first for people. The recommendation system needs a little data before a book gets much juice. (In other words, people need to BUY the book before the "people who bought this book also bought" kicks in.)

But it also means that sales accellerate rather than trickle away. Unlike the two week window you get in a bookstore with physical books, you have a whole lifetime to deal with marketing. You can leave it alone to do nothing for a year and then push the same way most people push a launch. (The internet likes "aged" items, btw, so that isn't a bad strategy.)