GOOD
#1. First, during the week, I apparently sold copies of both FINDING AMY, my newest romantic-suspense novel, and THE WEDDING GUEST, the Kindle Worlds romance novella. That was fast, although as I said last week, both books were priced at $1.99 at the time.
#2. I had an interesting e-mail from a young woman who is a grad student at an Illinois university, earning her Masters degree in English. Her thesis is on Titanic fiction and she chose my book, COLD APRIL, as one of the books she read. I was also pleased she said she enjoyed reading it.
Since I’m from Illinois myself, I answered all her questions and am sending her an autographed trade paper copy of COLD APRIL.
BAD
This started out good, when a friend who lives in Phoenix telephoned to ask if I would be the speaker at a writers’ club where she lives. She’s not a writer herself, but knows some of the members and told them about me.
The meeting at which I was to speak will be held on March 21, 2015, and I said I’d call her back. I postponed the decision to accept because I had a sneaky feeling March 21 was the date of the Spring Arts & Crafts Fair here, and the club I started seven years ago participates. I called the chairman and learned the fair will be March 20 and 21.
“Well,” thought I, “I have a great idea. I can do both. I’ll attend the Fair on the 20th and then DH and I can drive to Phoenix that evening so I can appear at the meeting on the 21st.”
Great idea lasted about twenty minutes. When I mentioned it to DH, he remembered that the spring Arts & Crafts Fair often falls on the same weekend as the Sun City Singers concert and he’s one of the Singers. He phoned the club president and then shared the bad news. That is indeed the same weekend. I called my Phoenix friend and asked, but she’s sure there’s no way they can move the date of that meeting. Woe is me.
FRUSTRATING
Of course my losing the opportunity to talk to writers and, perhaps, sell some books, is also frustrating. However, I was thinking specifically about my Amazon royalties for sales of my books. Yes, it’s nice to suddenly have money show up in my bank checking account, but, most of the time, I haven’t a clue which of my books was sold. The thing is I have eight books listed on Amazon, and the long number they show doesn’t match any numbers I have for my books.
Still, I did receive some money, and, yes, I’m grateful. No sad songs for me. All in all, it was a Very Good Week.
Hi Phyllis,
ReplyDeleteWhat you said about Amazon is interesting. First, I notice very little mention of other sources by authors, like Sony or Nook. Second, on the Kindle Direct Publishing bookshelf they have various reports and if you scroll down the page and maybe move to the right you'll see the dollar value. You can also look at other markets, i.e. Britain, especially in the case of FINDING AMY. If you use Createspace they have a similar dashboard. Sometimes the zoom size for the page hides valuable info that many don't know is there.
Good: I'm going to release A MORE PERFECT UNION this week
Bad: I'm overwhelmed with other factes of my life slowing me down (which is good, actually, for that well balanced human being)
Frustrating: I notice that Amazon's KDP isn't paying for lends when the reader reads less than 10%. Well, that's just about everybody and besides that Amazon (their grubby hands on more profit) forgot the enticement they made to authors to stay with them alone. It seems to me, we'll get less sales because of the lends and not get paid for the lends. I'll need to revisit KDP.
Bob
Bob:
DeleteCongratulations on releasing A MORE PERFECT UNION. I'll check it out. If you learn more about KDP lends, let us know. Sorry about other things slowing you down. Hope that improves.
Part of my problem with not knowing which book payments are for is because I publish through my husband's company which he started back in 2001 when POD took off and many writers began self-publishing (before Amazon). That means he gets all the sales information, (and has to search for it besides) not me. Some of his sales are for two other writers, even though six of the books he "publishes" are mine. Number seven coming up soon. Have a great day.