Did Amazon Do Something Right?
I was chatting via email to another writer the other day who was asking for some tips on getting his first book out there. The man was an English Lit professor and here he’s asking me for help with words. I found that ironic. But I shared what few tips I have. It boils down to writing a lot, accepting criticism, writing some more, making sure you find decent editors, and then doing some more writing.
I also touched on the reviewing process (part of the criticism speech) and how bad reviews can sink a book. I mentioned how Amazon is trying hard to eliminate bogus reviews, although they take some good ones along the way. I went on to talk about how my Vitalis series, when I sold them as novellas for $.99 a pop, were butchered by a couple of people that slammed them in reviews because I was allegedly trying to abuse Amazon’s system and being greedy. Nevermind that the price for buying the Omnibus is the same as it was for buying all seven novella length stories.
I had a possible epiphany while writing that. I took my novellas off sale after the abuse I received for them. Prior to the hateful reviews they were ranked in the top 20 and top 10 in their categories (sci-fi). Was it possible the bad reviews were actually bogus reviews written by other writers? In some cases I even had identical reviews on multiple books from the same person! It got me wondering, with Amazon’s push to eliminate bogus reviews would my novellas possibly stand a chance of being popular again?
With that thought in mind, I’m going to re-release my Vitalis novellas. Book 1, New Beginnings, will remain free. The rest will be $.99. Here are the links if you’d like to check them out – or at least try the first one (it’s free!).
Vitalis books:
Episode 1: New Beginnings
Episode 2: The colony
Episode 3: Parasites
Episode 4: Screamer
Episode 5: Squatter’s Rights
Episode 6: Evolution
Episode 7: Matriarch
or the Vitalis Omnibus (parts 1 – 7)
Vitalis: Resurrection, the novel length sequel
To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to read about him, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.
Good luck. I will be interested to hear the results.
Ha! You and me both! Not to worry, I’ll share my results (or lack of).
Amazon’s estimate is 91 pages for the first, which would make it about novella length, and customers were complaining about paying 99c for each when they were about the same length?
I guess those readers have never tripped over Dean Wesley Smith’s suggested pricing for indies: $2.99 for a short story of 4k-8k words. $3.99 for 8k-30k words, and up from there.
That’s exactly my thoughts. I’ve seen other writers charge $2.99 for shorter stories (or more), yet they had no bad reviews (at least not based on length). Thus my confusion! 1 day in so far and no blatant hate mail that I’m aware of. Then again, no major sales on them either. Fortunately, writing is a long distance game and I’ve learned to persevere!
I’ve sold 7500 shorts for up to $3.25 with no complaints. In fact, I didn’t receive so much as a comment on price vs. length until last year–and only one then.
Now that’s what I expect. You’re reaffirming my belief that a couple of special people, to protect their anonymity we’ll call them douche bags, took shots at my stories because they ranked highly and threatened the other individuals’ books.
I wrote a post today, because of yours. Okay if I link it to yours? (I have a tendency to curse sometimes, LOL)
http://feralintensity.com/2013/01/29/my-mind-she-boggles/
Absolutely! Love your post, by the way. It’s going to make me write another one too.
Done, and thanks! =)
Got a little something with some love sent your way coming up this week. I think I scheduled it for Monday morning.