My latest novel, Harry Seven, is now available on Amazon (ebook only – the paperback will follow in a few weeks.) For this week only it is available at the special introductory price of 99 cents ($4.99 or equivalent after that).
As my fourth novel I’m confident it’s my best yet. I really feel like I know what I’m doing now, rather than feeling my way forward through a process of trial and error.
Buy now at:
Amazon.com Amazon.com.au Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com.ca
My latest novel, Harry Seven, is finally complete.
Rather than going directly to self-publishing this time, I’m trying a program called Kindle Scout which gives Amazon customers the chance to vote on books to be published under Amazon’s own imprints.
Here’s the link. Check it out and vote away. Should it be selected, I’ll get a small advance (and major encouragement to keep writing) and you’ll get a free advance copy once the publication date is set!
As anyone who follows the business news probably knows, Amazon is in the middle of a major contract dispute with Hachette, one of the big five traditional publishers.
I’ve been watching this battle with great interest. I’m no disinterested observer, but firmly in the Amazon camp, not because I’ve been drinking the Bezos kool-aid, but because I can clearly see where my interests as an author lie.
Like the fox, the traditional publishers know many things, many of which are turning out to be wrong, but hey, it used to work, so we’ll just keep doing it, and whine like little children about how the world owes us a living, and don’t worry about screwing the consumer and authors along the way.
Amazon, like the hedgehog, knows one big thing, which is that long-term success comes from delivering maximum value to customers. To do that, they need to offer a better product (or range of products) at a more competitive price, and offering authors a much better deal is part of that strategy.
As an unknown author I get about as much marketing support from Amazon as I would from a traditional publisher, which is to say none. But every other aspect of the deal offered by Amazon is superior:
For all these benefits you’d think I’d pay some price, but my royalties are many times what they would be with a traditional publisher. It truly is a no-brainer.
Meanwhile, the scions of the publishing establishment, at places like the New York Times, and a favored few fabulously successfully authors are rushing to defend the status quo. Hachette has not shared one cent of the greatly increased profits it makes on ebooks with its authors, yet somehow these people want us to believe it has the high ground in this dispute. If their world was any more incestuous and self-serving, I think I’d throw up!
Amazon have just announced a new program, Kindle Unlimted. For $9.99 per month subscribers (US only for now) have unlimited access to books in the program.
The included books are basically those already part of the Kindle Owners Lending Library (KOLL), currently available for borrowing by Prime Members. Both Newton’s Ark and Fuller’s Mine are available under these programs. Fuller’s Mine is doing a steady KOLL business following the recent very successful free promotion on Newton’s Ark (5,516 downloads!)
If Big Publishing thought Amazon were giving them hell, they’ve just turned up the heat. Time for the publishers to start innovating or die. Going to the barricades to protect old business models, which seems to be their strategy right now, will only delay the inevitable.
My one criticism of Amazon is that they could have done a better job of communicating with authors. There’s very limited information on how author payments for Kindle Unlimited will work. I think it’s similar to KOLL payments, but I really had to dig around the KDP website to find anything.
I’ve just published an updated version of Newton’s Ark. Look out for a free promotion soon.
The new version is about 6,000 words longer. The redraft keeps the story intact, but incorporates all the writing lessons I learned in the process of writing the sequel, Fuller’s Mine, to tell that story more effectively.
I also took the opportunity to drop in a couple of additional hooks to the later story!
If you previously purchased a Kindle version, you should be able to download this updated version at no cost. If you purchased an epub version (iBooks, Nook., Sony Reader) drop me an email at the contact address on this blog and I’ll send you a DRM-free update.
The updated paperback version will be available in about two weeks.
Great news today for my Australian readers, Amazon has just opened an Australian Kindle store.
That means my books are now available for purchase in Australian dollars. Not only is the price lower (e.g. AUD3.99 for Fuller’s Mine vs USD3.99) you can avoid paying the credit card companies another 3% in foreign exchange fees, and I get a 70% royalty rather than 35%. Talk about a win-win.
Here’s the links to the books on the Aussie store:
Note that the new prices may take a day to flow through.
After what seems an interminable wait (at least to me), Fuller’s Mine has finally been released!
Right now it’s available on Kindle. The paperback is not far behind.
Amazon have just announced a new program known as Kindle MatchBook which allows publishers to offer Kindle versions at a discounted price to customers who have purchased a hard copy version of the book.
For past and future buyers of the paperback edition of Newton’s Ark, the Kindle edition will be available for free.
The same deal will apply to the sequel, Fuller’s Mine, due to be released this month.
If Richard III had been an author, I’m sure that would have been his most famous line, uttered moments before they killed him and buried him under a future car park.
There are now more than one thousand copies of Newton’s Ark in the hands of readers. That’s good news.
The bad news is that a grand total of 11 people have left a review on Amazon.com (but with a gratifying average rating of 4.6 stars).
At 99 cents a copy I’m not doing this for the money, I’m doing it because I want to share something I’ve created with other people. Fortunately I’m fairly sure most of those thousand copies have been read, so I suspect the real problem is that people really, really don’t like writing book reviews. Who would have thought, huh? I read recently of an author who offered his book at a significantly discounted price in return for a promise to leave a review. Turns out only 9% of those who promised to do so actually did.
Did I mention that people don’t like writing book reviews? So I know I’m swimming upstream here, but if you’ve read Newton’s Ark and enjoyed it and haven’t left a review, please, please do. I would love to know what you thought of it.
In fact even if you didn’t like it please leave a review. Even if you hated it. I mean that sincerely.
Ideally, be specific about what you did or didn’t like. That’s important for two reasons. First, if gives me something to work on for those things you didn’t like or to keep doing for those you did and second, what didn’t appeal to you might not be a big deal to someone else and vice versa.
dahillauthor 