Trying KDP Select

With sales basically being non-existent, I thought I'd try using 2 of the 5 days I have for entering my book into the KDP Select program. But before I move onto the rest of the post, I want to say that I'm probably not making the best move here in making my work free when I have nothing else out there, especially when it's a short story. So, I don't advise people to follow my lead. I'll explain why I'm doing it and why I think you should wait until you have more than one eBook available. Also, I'll make another post over the next few days, where I detail the results of making my short story free.

Why I'm using the free days:

Okay, so . . . I've basically only managed to sell five copies. I didn't expect to sell many copies, however. Unknown + short story = not likely to sell in my view.

Now, I was going to wait until I had another story available, before using some of my free days. The reason I haven't waited is because I thought reviews (if I receive any) for this work might come in handy for future sales and for any future projects. Also, it gets my name out there, though I realise readers may forget me, especially with no other story available. Next, I may get feedback that I can apply to my next story, as writing is always a learning process. When a piece is published, it's done, aside from technical corrections possibly being made. If you do make content changes, then you risk the people who like it already disliking the new version. But that doesn't mean you can't apply feedback received to the next work, if you agree with said feedback. Also, while I don't really expect this with The Dead Should Stay Dead with it being a short, giving it away for free might spur some sales after the promo ends. With my financial situation being what it is, I felt it's best to see if the promo helps with sales, so I'm going to chance it. Sadly, I won't have other titles riding the success though if any comes my way.

Why you should wait until you have another story available before using KDP Select:

You should wait because if readers enjoy your story, then it's possible they'll seek out more of your work. This could translate into a sale. But if they find nothing else available, then there's no sale and they may eventually forget your name (I'm not saying there's definitely a high chance of this, as it varies from person to person). Basically, if you wait until you have more than one story available, then it's possible your free story's downloads and popularity will have an effect on all of your published works.

So, that's why I think it's best to wait and not follow my lead.

I'll make another blog post when I have some results to share.

Also, here are the links to my story that will be free:

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Short Story, The Dead Should Stay Dead, Now Published & Sales Rank

Well, my short story, The Dead Should Stay Dead, has been live since Saturday. It can be found world wide on Amazon and I've got 3 four star reviews, plus one five star review. I also have three likes.

Here's the nicely designed cover that my good friend and editor put together for me:

I know it's different from the old cover I intended to use, but I had to scrap that story idea. And I've learnt not to talk about projects now until they're practically done, so no one ends up being disappointed if something doesn't get finished. It would be much easier if I planned and didn't have high standards, really.

Anyway, the story can be found on Amazon, world wide, with these being the UK and US links. Please see the story on the store for the story's description and word count.

Now then, I have a bit of a surprising story to tell and a caution for fellow writers publishing for the first time on Kindle. My initial debut rank was 64,000 and odd in the UK. That was with one sale. With another sale, it shot up to 24,000 and odd, plus it entered the top 100 in one of the categories. #39, I believe, for books > short stories > horror (so it was competing with paperbacks and not just kindle eBooks). The highest it reached with one extra sale, Bodicia's I believe and her blog can be found here (I really appreciate you buying a copy and I'm glad you enjoyed it if you read this), is #17. With it being in the top 100 for a category, you'd expect high sales right? (one sale in the US translated into a 146,000 sales rank or so, I think, highest being 116,000, but I think it was 146,000)

Don't. Because I'm now sure I've only had 3 sales, plus one in the US.

How does the Amazon sales rank work then? When you first publish a story, it will shoot up the ranks with one sale. The UK sale rank is especially susceptible to this, with the UK being a smaller country than the US and therefore not having as many sales in the store. Now, your story's recent sales are compared to those of others within the same category and, indeed, within the entire Kindle store to determine the rank. Updated every hour. But the sales rank for new books without more sales will drop more quickly than it will for older books. Why? Because older books are more established and the sale rank is partly based on historical sales too. Older books won't be as affected by more sales either, I believe, if they've had a lot in the past.

So, again, all of this is to say 'don't get excited' if your book shoots up the chart once it's newly published. I've learnt from the experience and I wanted to prevent others from getting all excited when it's likely you don't have many sales. Also, I think there's a delay with sales updating on your records, but I'm still sure my figures are right now. However, with all this said, I must admit there was some satisfaction in beating the sales rank for some of Stephen King's works, although it was only briefly. ;)

So, with four sales, where does it leave me? It leaves me in the same spot I was always in, especially as I never expected many sales nor did I expect a short story to sell well. I'm going to keep on writing, building a backlist, but as it seems there is no demand at the minute really, I don't have to feel pressured to keep publishing. It'll give me time to build up a backlist. That said, I still want to encourage people to take a chance on my short story, as long as you read the description and know how long the eBook is. And as long as you can stomach some gore or enjoy horror. I think I've done a good job on it, because -- believe me when I say I have high standards -- I wouldn't have published it if I thought otherwise.

In the afterword and about me, I've said that I'm not a genre writer, but you can probably expect the next few titles to reside within the horror genre. That is still true, but as I don't want to be pigeon-holed, it is possible the next story from me won't have any horror elements. Ideally, I want a backlist that offers something for every reader. I've got a list of projects I want to work on now and it depends on which I finish first. In addition, as I mentioned above, I'll be keeping quiet on what they're about and I won't be showing covers in case there's disappointment if I don't finish them.

Finally, I would want the next story I publish to be at least novelette length, which is 7,500 - 17,500 words. So, you'll get more bang for your money, though I'll charge slightly more (probably set a price point for each category: short story, novelette, novella and novel). However, every story from me will be the length it needs to be. I won't be artificially extending them to reach a word count. That's part of the beauty with eBooks and self-publishing really, you don't have to write to a specific word count to please publishers. And while the pricing is mentioned, the US version of The Dead Should Stay Dead should be $0.99. If it's more, I don't know why. It's a fault on Amazon's end and I might need to contact them. So, if it is showing as more than $0.99 for people actually in the US, then please let me know. I already view $0.99 as too much to ask for, for a short story. So, it is not my intent to rip you off. I wouldn't have included the extras either if I didn't want to try and give value for money.

And lastly, I want to thank the people who have bought my short story and for the support shown. It means a lot to me.

One last plug as well, with links to my story (and again, check the word count before purchasing, please):

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Plot Teaser For Upcoming Ebook

I sent my short story to my editor earlier, so now the first stage of the waiting game begins. The second stage of the waiting game is when the story's submitted to Amazon.

So, with the story now done and there's no turning back, I now feel comfortable giving a brief plot teaser for the main story (a flash fiction piece is also included).

The Dead Should Stay Dead, which is a horror story:

Susan lives apart from her estranged husband, thanks to a car accident that killed their seven year old daughter and drove a wedge between them.

Susan is desperate to get her daughter back, her life not worth living without her. So, when a new shop opens in Alpine (a small, fictional town), she visits it in the hope that she may find something to bring her daughter back as the shop sells odd curiosity and magic items.

She does find something, but will it actually bring her daughter back to life?

I'll end the teaser there.

As for providing a teaser for To Take A Life, I'm afraid that's not possible due to the story's short length. If I said anything, I'd give the details away. But I do want to say it's not a horror story like The Dead Should Stay Dead and can be read by anyone. A major theme it deals with is the loss of a child like the main story (but grounded in the real world, unlike the main story).

Lastly, I'm going to need to redesign the cover sadly, I feel. The reason why should become apparent if you do read the ebook, as the cabin I had on the original one isn't really a big part of the story. So, hopefully I'll find another good cover. I really wish I wasn't such a chaotic writer.

On Editing: Part 2

I wasn't happy with the previous post on editing. 1) It was long-winded. 2) It came to my attention that the example I'd used didn't make much sense, which is fine, considering it's still in the early writing stage. But still, it shows that writers are often too close to their own work and it annoyed me that I didn't catch it.

I hope to rectify both of the above issues with this post.

So, let's take a look at how we can edit the new opening paragraph (two now actually) so that it's tighter:

Self-loathing. Robert knew all about thatself-loathing.

He stood by his car, parked outside the village cafe (Quick Fix), and viewed his new home. A manor which loomed in the distance, a relic from last century, with its back againsto the sea. It had only just sunk inHe'd only just realised that he owned the entire Pendleton Estate. And the manor was just what he needed. He could hide there from civilisation without risk of being disturbed and write.

That is a few words tighter. It makes sense. It's not perfect, probably. For starters, while it's tighter, I'm not sure I want to take out the 'Self-loathing' sentence fragment. I probably will, but I'm not 100% sure yet.

Anyway, let's take an example from a polished work now, which are two sentences from To Take A Life, which'll be published in the short story compilation when it's done (though I'll be having it edited by someone else before it's published, so there might be differences in the final version):

And then you find yourself wonderingquestioning if God existedthere was a god. If He didexisted, why would He let her die?

There wasn't really anything wrong with the previous version before I edited it. However, I realised I could say the same thing with less words without losing my style. That is why I made the changes.

Style is important, by the way. Never cut so much that your style is lost. It's a balancing act between cutting and trying to decide what should be more wordy for style reasons. Like, you might just be a more wordy writer than me. Lord of the Rings probably wouldn't have achieved the acclaim it has done if Tolkien had been told to cut down on wordiness. His books aren't for me, but that doesn't make them bad or him a bad writer.

For instance, if I may quote a certain passage from Lord of the Rings, chosen at random:

'For some time he had sat silent beside Bilbo's empty chair, and ignored all remarks and questions.'

Now, if I were to rework it:

'For some time, he had sat silentbeside Bilbo's empty chair, and kept to himselfignored all remarks and questions.'

Or:

'For some time, he had sat silentbeside Bilbo's empty chair, and ignored everything and everyone.' (Bit more clunky actually, in my view, with the two ands, but it's tighter.)

Or:

'For some time, he had sat silent beside Bilbo's empty chair, and kept to himselfignored all remarks and questions.'

However, while those three passages are tighter after being changed to how I'd write them, would you agree that there's a distinct difference in style there? What makes Tolkien Tolkien is gone.

And some people love him because of his writing style. Some people love him because of his world, stories and characters.

If the writing was made as tight as possible, it wouldn't be the same book. And it'd be like it was written by a different writer.

Again, I will reiterate that it's very important to develop your own style (whether for individual works or your work as a whole) and to not feel like you need to conform and always keep everything as tight as possible. The beauty of writing is the vast anount of different writing styles, language use and stories out there. If we were to all conform and keep our writing as tight as possible, then we may as well all write the same way.

What matters is keeping things as tight as possible while 'working within the confines of your own style' so that your style/voice is maintained. And this, to me, alongside editing to make sure everything is clear and reads well, is the most important part of editing. You can over-edit and basically lose any semblance of the unique style you have.

(And this was still long-winded. I'm trying to get the hang of blog posting, but at least the examples made sense this time.)