And now the real world impinges on my publishing schedule. Hot weather and renovations. The muses continue to haunt, though - new books, courses... "Life has no limitations, except the ones we make.” ~ Les Brown Metrics Subscribers: Total Subscribers - 2534 Heritage Subscribers - 71 Veteran Subs - 373 IF Subscribers - 2365 New IF subs - 15 New Non-IF subs - 0 Webform Subs - 4 Inactive - 16 Still dwindling. Need to ramp up promotion to get subscribers from other areas. Book Sales: Lulu has still not un-pooched its analytics and payments. They haven't gone under, but owe me a chunk of royalties. Request into Support... Books (pre-)published: The Girl Who Believed Tomorrow by J. R. Kruze Mary Roberts Rinehart: Short Mystery Classics Marion Zimmer … [Read more...]
The Great Writing Audience Challenge – Week 25 Results
And now the real world impinges on my publishing schedule. Hot weather and renovations. The muses continue to haunt, though - new books, courses... “Good decisions come from experience – and experience comes from bad decisions.” ~ Rita Mae Brown Metrics Subscribers: Total subscribers - 2556 Heritage subs - 71 IF subscribers - 2387 New IF subs - 15 New Non IF subs - 0 Webform subs - 1 Inactive - 21 Still dwindling. Need to ramp up promotion to get subscribers from other areas. Book Sales: Lulu has still not un-pooched its analytics and payments. They haven't gone under, but owe me a chunk of royalties. Request into Support... Books (pre-)published: C. M. Kornbluth: Golden Age Space Opera Tales Marketers & Writers - Scammers & Dupes A Pandemic … [Read more...]
The Great Writing Audience Challenge – Week 24 Results
Caught between writing new fiction, republishing new classic collections, republishing top sellers to Amazon, producing courses (and promoting them.) So much to do, so little time... “Your most important work is always ahead of you, never behind you.” ~ Stephen Covey Metrics Subscribers: Total Subscribers - 2631 Heritage Subs - 73 Total IF Subs - 2440 New IF Subs - 16 Non IF opt-ins - 2 Webform Subs - 5 Inactive - 41 Dwindling after a fashion but seems to have plateaued with both on-site/through-book opt-in's and newbies through IF/PW. Book Sales: Lulu has still not un-pooched its analytics and payments, so we'll wait until July 15 to see if they pull finger (or go under.) On the 15th, I should see if I got any sales from Ingram and Amazon POD this month... (All … [Read more...]
Truly stupid book marketing
Where "suckers are born every minute" is proved. OK, so I haven't written a blog post in awhile, particularly about writing and publishing. But I got this "nice" little intro in my inbox: When you enter a term into the Kindle Store's search bar, Amazon will display up to seventeen results on the first page: sixteen books and one featured brand. Seven of these items are typically marked as "Sponsored." They are shown to you because another author or publisher pays Amazon to do so. Have you ever done the maths on this? 7 out of 17 means that 41% of the page is Amazon ad space. GET THIS: IN 2020, NEARLY HALF OF THE AMAZON BOOK STORE IS "PAY-TO-PLAY." In most genres, it is no longer a question of whether or not to run Amazon ads but how to make them work. Yes, Amazon is a … [Read more...]
The Great Writing Audience Challenge – Week 23 Results
Published PMA: Science of Success Intro - and it came out quite nice. Published it, and another self-written book. PMA SOS took an enormous number of proofs to get the language modernized. My notes were pretty literal to my transcript, but that didn't make if flow well... “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” ~ Albert Schweitzer Metrics Subscribers: Total Subscribers - 2672 Heritage Subs - 73 IF Subs - 2464 New IF Subs - 27 Non IF opt-ins - 1 Webform Subs - 6 Inactive - 47 Dwindling after a fashion but seems to have plateaued with both on-site/through-book opt-in's and newbies through IF/PW. Book Sales: Lulu has still not un-pooched its analytics and payments, so we'll wait … [Read more...]
The Great Writing Audience Challenge – Week 22 Results
Mainly worked with the PMA-SOS books more. Worked up Hill's 1954 TV lecture series into a book - which gives us a concise overview of that huge Science of Success Course. Very nice on its own... “A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.” ~ Muhammad Ali Metrics Subscribers: Total Subscribers: 2598 Heritage subs: 75 Total IF/PW subs: 2498 New IF/PW subs: 34 New non-IF subs: 1 New On site subs: 4 Total inactives: 66 IF/PW continues to drop, meaning their list isn't expancing much, since the unsubscribes can't get back on through giveaways. Some increases coming from "back of the book" opt-in's. A long haul. IF/PW only leaves 4% of the IF/PW subscribers after a year following regular "list hygiene"- so this is … [Read more...]
