50 Shades of Grey…some observations.
Posted by: annbenjamin on: May 25, 2012
No, I haven’t downloaded the books. Yes, I am waiting for the price to come down a bit. Why? Based on reviews, I don’t think the price point matches what I’m willing to pay. Anyway…the fact that cannot be denied, EL James and her trilogy is a runaway success. Kindle sales have been steady, media coverage has been fantastic, and for a book that started as fanfiction (yay!), I was curious. While my own material is not as salacious, I did want to check in and see what a (unplanned) commercially successful author did.
The website is basic, the covers are not spectacular, but one thing that I really liked was the soundtrack section. As an author who writes to music, is constantly inspired and motivated by music, I actually loved that she not only listed tracks, but also the entire playlist (and which scenes they corresponded to) via YouTube. I don’t see a lot of overlap between Ms. James’s work and my own, but the soundtrack idea is a good one and I’ll definitely be incorporating it into my own marketing upon release.
Additionally, should I strive to reviews like this one? The Columbus Dispatch also criticized the book but stated that, “Despite the clunky prose, James does cause one to turn the page.”
All the time.
Posted by: annbenjamin on: May 24, 2012
Your daily procrastination.
Posted by: annbenjamin on: May 23, 2012
Ever wondered what a bunch of words look like together? Well, someone came up with an idea to do just that. A bit more complicated than my description – here’s what the first chapter of the Fates projects looks like as a word cloud. Try it with your own WIP.
Gee, what IS my book about?
When it rains…
Posted by: annbenjamin on: May 17, 2012
In addition to much higher than anticipated sales of one of my titles, I received some other great news this week:
1. I’ve been communicating with a producer (she contacted me!) and after reviewing my work, she thinks one of my titles is worth bringing to the Disney Channel. Enter much excitement and spasaming on my side.
2. Awhile back, another blogger and writer in Qatar referred me to a contact at Qatar Explorer. When I didn’t hear back for awhile, I thought, oh well. Yesterday afternoon they sent me an e-mail, asking if I would like to start reviewing spas, restaurants and bars. Yes, please! If all goes according to plan, I’ll be enjoying a day pass at a nice spa this weekend. Travel / tourism writing has always been of interest to me, and I’m hoping its a gateway to write for HotelChatter (who I approached a few months ago to write reviews). My brain works this way: travel writing = hotel writing = potential sales for Room 702.
What was different? KDP Select (Second book, 1st free day).
Posted by: annbenjamin on: May 17, 2012
So, I’ve posted previously about my trials with KDP Select. Based on my expectations, I think I was off to a good start. With The Line and its various dates February – April, I saw a nice bump in the initial free offering (and was pleased how that bump carried over to the other books in the series). After the KDP Select service finished on The Line, I opted the next book in the series, A Fine Line, into the program. As I had a guest post yesterday on a YA blog, I decided to bring the two together. Guest post + free book (however, the free book was NOT mentioned in the post). I didn’t do much more advertising than previously – i.e., letting people know via various channels (facebook – only the fan page and not my much larger friend network, Twitter, and Tumblr). In fact, for a sleepy Wednesday in May, I didn’t have a lot of expectations.
How, then, is it possible, that I would have 4x as many books downloaded?
Literally, The Line “sold” around 1100 for its first free day.
A Fine Line is currently at 4356 for its first free day and there’s still time left.
In fact, A Fine Line is currently at #66 #63 in all Amazon sales (and still climbing?). The bump from the free version of A Fine Line has sent all of my books much higher than they’ve ever placed in the past three months.
I’m not complaining, I’m just trying to figure out EXACTLY what I did differently so that I can recapture magic with additional books.
Furthermore, as much as I love A Fine Line – I know it’s not my best work. I guess I’m excited that one of my new more contemporary books would hopefully have the ability to reach similar numbers!
Serendipity (aka Cape Verde).
Posted by: annbenjamin on: May 14, 2012
In the rough draft (and maybe even the 1st draft) of the Fates project, I had the characters do a major detour to Cape Verde (small set of islands off the coast of Africa). In the end, Cape Verde became a sad pit of time and momentum and got chopped out of the story. I was glad to see the plot streamlined, but had a lot of research and nowhere to put it. Enter Fates II. In my initial foray into the book, I needed a similar spot and without much compromise, was easily able to make Cape Verde the spot.
Even better, look at this location:
I mean really, the Super Friends could live here and I would believe it.
Now, I still need to do a bit of research on the lighthouse, but as of now – it’s a fundamentally perfect ‘real’ fictional location.
Love it when things come together without trying!
Continued reasons why I dislike iUniverse.
Posted by: annbenjamin on: May 12, 2012
Before e-books were the big thing, there was vanity publishing (“print on demand” or “self publishing”). Basically, anyone with money could (and still can) publish a book. I was one of those people. I don’t regret the decision – I had my own reasons for not going via a traditional publisher (maybe I’ll get into them later). However, I did make a bad choice on which of the vanity publishers I chose. Before there was CreateSpace (Amazon’s venture), there were limited options: Lulu, Blurb and iUniverse. I went with iUniverse (mostly because they did print on demand – and I didn’t want to be responsible for carrying around and distributing a bunch of books). iUniverse had distribution rights with Amazon, which was also major factor in me choosing them.
To date, there have been a number of issues (which also may be worth a post). As my sales are trending mostly towards e-books, I thought I was free of them – however, today I got an e-mail proving me terribly wrong:
Good day!
We are glad to inform you that your Book*, A Fine Line , has been successfully converted to a new eBook file format. This new eBook version, called EPUB**, is quickly becoming the new standard for the eBook industry. The new eBook file does not affect any previous eBook versions you may have for this book. iUniverse has submitted the new eBook file to our partner eBook vendors to increase the overall distribution of your book***. Your new eBook will appear on each vendor’s website after each company has had a chance to review and process the file****. Please note we cannot guarantee your eBook will be accepted by every vendor.
We will do our best to get your book included on as many sites as possible including future partnerships we are or will be working on. If you are curious to know which eBook vendors are carrying your new eBook file, we encourage you to search online using an online search engine*****. The results there will show you which vendors are currently carrying your title.
*Nice capitalization, guys.
**EPUB is in no way ‘new’ – for a company that should be leading on trends in the self-publishing industry, I’m actually sad they would use this in an e-mail to their customers.
***YOU NEVER ASKED ME – THE AUTHOR OF THIS WORK. And here’s where I get angry. Upon my own research, I chose to digitally list my books YEARS ago with vendors. And now iUniverse is going to try and get in the game, confuse readers by adding my book to the list of titles?
****I’ll repeat again, there should always be a chance for an author to OPT into these sorts of endeavors (see, Smashwords, who do this better than anyone).
*****Seriously?? That has to be one of the worst sentences ever. Also, duh!
I’ve written to them to ask they immediately take down my book from any 3rd party vendor and/or let me know how to opt out of this so called ‘service.’
We’ll see how it goes.
In which we start a sequel.
Posted by: annbenjamin on: May 11, 2012
This week I started the sequel to my Fates project. I didn’t actually mean to do it, but I finally (!) got inspiration for a good place to start and decided now was as good a time as any. And I’m really glad I did. As I’ve been looking at the original Fates project for the past two weeks or so (incorporating the new ending, adding a friend’s notes in), it seemed a natural place to pick up and start writing the ‘what happens next.’ At this point, unless some amazing agent comes charging in (highly unlikely), the Fates will be mine to publish and promote.
I’ve written sequels before – my YA series is a continuing set of stories set in the same fictional universe. However, with the Fates being much more involved, I’m glad to be writing the two in tandem. This is probably the point where I should realize that if I sat down and outlined the entire project, not only would my life be easier, the project would be more cohesive and easier to write. This is probably also where a more mature author would be researching editors to work with. While I do plan on sending the original Fates to a professional, I don’t want to waste their time or my money. Without the sequel, Fates I isn’t going to be 100% complete and there’s point on sending it to anyone.
The additional thing is, writing has never been work to me (editing is another story). Outlining seems like work. Maybe the level of my writing would be elevated if I did have a better understanding of where I was going, but for now, I’m going to sit back and see where my characters take me. On the cusp of hobby vs. and actual activity where I can support myself, I don’t mind letting myself get lost in a rough draft for another few months.
5,000 words down – 75-85,000 to go!
When verbs are difficult…
Posted by: annbenjamin on: May 10, 2012
Via Fuck Yeah Writer Leopard (one of my favorite Tumblrs).
