Links

Hi Everyone!

I still haven't managed to catch The Hunger Games (grr!). Maybe in a day or two? Still editing like crazy. I have one more psycho week of the day job (next week), and then things start to even out, leveling to a *much* more manageable load through the summer. (fingers crossed)

In the meantime, I'm just going to be the "link lady."

In case you haven't heard, Harry Potter ebooks are now available. The end of the article states: "E-book sales grew 117% to $970 million in 2011 compared with 2010"--good news for every Indie author, and Middle Grade (MG) authors are hoping the Potter books release spurs ebook fans among the younger set. All I have to say is: J.K. Rowling is hauling in some loot.

Susan Kaye Quinn has a great new post up: "How Indie Publishing has Changed My Thinking." It's a great reminder that ebooks are forever, and that it's okay to adopt a "slow and steady wins the race" mentality. This is especially helpful for me right now, because I'm desperate to get The Guardians Book Three released, and I have another YA contemp I want to publish before the end of the year. (deep breaths) Slow and steady. Slow and steady.

Susan mentions Kris Rusch in her post. Specifically this post: Scarcity vs. Abundance. There's a great analogy midway about traditional publishers operating in a "Depression-Era mindset," even though it's no longer necessary. It's long, but worth the read.

Apparently Barnes and Noble is rolling out its own version of "Amazon Select." It's called Nook First, and it works just like Amazon Select (exclusivity-wise), only with a 30-day stipulation rather than a 90-day. I haven't tried Select. The murmurings I've heard were that it was strong in the first weeks of its release. Now I'm hearing that authors are ready for the 90 days to end so they can remove their titles. I'm predicting a similar path for Nook First, but at least titles aren't tied up for three months. At this point, it appears you have to be invited to "pre-release" your books, so maybe this will work in the authors' favor.

Finally, there's a new What You See is What You Get ebook publishing platform available. It's called Vook, and while it's priced out of the range of the DIY e-publisher, it's going to provide some competition for Apple. 

All right. Back to the day job, then editing into the wee hours of the morning. It's nearing the end of the month, so my next post will probably be a "Numbers" post (March Sales). 

Enjoy your week!

~K~

The Hunger Games

Am still editing the Book That Will Never be Titled and/or Completed.

But . . . I had a fantastic weekend, and I revised my editing process to (hopefully) make it run a little smoother. It involves yellow and blue highlighting. As long as I can keep them straight, I'm good.

Meanwhile, in honor of The Hunger Games week, Susan Kaye Quinn is hosting a giveaway on her blog. Stop by, check out the prize packs and enter to win!

I *still* get goosebumps every time I watch this trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNxb28j5C1w&ob=av3e.

Can't *wait*. Won't be standing in line for the midnight premiere, but I *will* be seeing it in theaters (if I can pull myself away from the day job and this ms that doesn't want to be edited). Might make it my reward. Progress = movie night. :)

Have a great week! :)

~K~

Links of Interest

Okay, I promised you some links. 

Was going to expound on them, but, at this point, I'm lucky to get the links posted.

David Gaughran on Popularity Lists.

The Baker and Taylor/Smashwords Alliance.

Kris Rusch on Competition, where she says: "We should be willing to walk away when a traditional publisher offers us terms we don’t like."

 

Great post on The Writer's Guide to E-Publishing blog by Talli Roland: It gets Easier . .. Sort of.

(Where she encourages us to stop obsessing over sales figures and walk away from bad reviews.)

And speaking of obsessions: if you like to track sales data, you may want to sign up for Rank Obsession. It's in beta testing right now. (This is the brain child of Sarra Cannon's husband.)

It's super easy to use (Click on Sign In. If you have a Google account, it will recognize you as a new user and allow you to set up your login information. Then, just input the URL address of the books you want to track!). 

This is especially helpful when you're running an ad. You can easily see what kind of impact it's having via the graph feature. You can also sign up to be notified when a new review is posted.Too Cool. :)

There you go!

Enjoy your weekend!

KK

February Sales Numbers

Hi Everyone!

I'm coming out of hibernation because I owe you some numbers. :)

Total sales for February:

2,414 

Breaking it down:

The Guardian sold 289 Amazon US copies, 18 Amazon UK copies, 1 Amazon DE copy, and 24 copies on Barnes and Noble for a total of 332 (or 11.4 sales per day).

Cross My Heart sold 1,347 Amazon US copies, 292 Amazon UK copies, 58 Amazon DE copies, 2 Amazon ES copies, 1 Amazon IT copy, 132 copies on Barnes and Noble, and 18 copies in the Apple store for a total of 1,850 (or 63.7 sales per day).

Vendetta sold 214 Amazon US copies, 6 Amazon UK copies, and 12 copies on Barnes and Noble, for a total of 232 (or 8 sales per day).

You can tell numbers are coming down from the holiday rush, so I'm thinking they'll plateau again before summer (we shall see). I finally got my first Spanish and Italian sales, though, and I have no idea how I missed this (okay, it's been a crazy few weeks, so I do), but in January, Cross My Heart officially hit the 20,000 copies sold mark!

(throws confetti)

CMH is officially available on iTunes, now, so if you have an iPad or other iProduct, you can buy it directly from Apple.

Otherwise, I'm still devoting what little free time I have to revisions. It's safe to say the final Guardians book won't be a winter book, like I planned. It's getting there, though, so I'm calling spring.  If I owe you an email: Heart you! And you're flagged—will get back to you v. soon. :)  

I've also been collecting some links of interest, which I'll try to post on Friday.

I hope you're having a great week!

KK