Where Creativity Meets the Marketplace
Platform strategy, book bundles, and the evolving indie author toolkit
I hope you all had a moment in the hustle and bustle of the Thanksgiving holiday to express gratitude for those people and things that enrich your lives. I’m particularly grateful for you, dear readers. I have wanted a career as a writer since I was about 15, and I’m so thankful that I can open my laptop each day and create books that readers enjoy.
One focus of this newsletter is to write about the intersection of business and creativity. It seems like every day there are new tools and new ways to sell books. When I was at the Novelists Inc. conference I met the guys from Curios, which has been selling audio for creators for some time. Recently they began selling digital files for writers, with an interesting business model. I pay a subscription fee each month ($5) and I retain 100% of all sales revenue.
Amazon, on the other hand, pays me 70%. I’m experimenting with three special bundles, only available at Curios. I want to see if I can convince my readers to try his platform with me.
And if I can’t sell at least one audiobook or one e-book bundle, then I’ve only lost $5 and a few hours of my time. I was heartened to learn in his recent newsletter that author and thought leader Johnny B. Truant has moved his whole catalogue to Curios.
Readers still have two weeks to grab my special Dog’s Kitchen bundle, with autograph, extra pictures, and bonus short story.
You can also pre-order the e-book print edition at Amazon or your favorite online retailer. Because the book is available through Ingram, which distributes to bookstores, you can order from any of them as well.
With the upcoming release of Dog’s Kitchen, I’ve moved Dog of Deliverance into Kindle Unlimited, which means I’ve had to remove it from all other online stores. Dog’s Kitchen will probably follow the same pattern – wide sales for the first few months, then into KU to capture page read income (KU page read money is about 1/3 of my income, but I hate to inconvenience or lose readers who don’t worship the big Zon.)
I also moved a bunch of my MM romances into KU. You can now find Five Fun Gay Romances: GayLife.com, Mi Amor, In His Kiss, The Russian Boy, and The Catbird Seat in one volume. The individual books are also available in KU if you missed one of them.
I had lunch with a childhood friend in town for the holidays recently, and saw Wicked For Good with a snowbird friend. Lately I’ve been reading a lot of Jane Austen pastiches—books that begin with Austen’s world and then go off in magical directions, usually with dragons!
Joyce Harmon has a five-book Regency Mage series about Mary Bennett, and Maria Grace has a 15-book series which starts with Elizabeth and Darcy and then expands, called Jane Austen’s Dragons. Right now I’m zooming through Spellbound at Pemberley by Abigail Reynolds, first in the four-volume Fitzwilliam Darcy, Mage series.
All these series are in Kindle Unlimited, so I’m really understanding binge-reading behavior!
With love and gratitude,
Neil
