Sales and Freebies – Mine and others

Don’t forget to check out my latest Indie Author sales and freebie page http://www.coreyjf.com/indie-sales-promos-and-freebies/ You will find my novelette The Sexton and the Reaper is free until May 1st. On a related note, get Egret the Elephant: Volume 1 before Volume 2 comes out in May. — Sale! Get Egret the Elephant:Volume 1 for $9.99 or the eBook for $1.00

Just follow these links to get the discount. For the paperback click http://gum.co/NBIc/egretv1pb1 For the eBook, the link is http://gum.co/ZWPUJ/Egretv1epub18675

While supplies last, if you purchase Egret through http://gum.co/NBIc/egretv1pb1  get a a free Egret bookmark.

Egret the Elephant: Volume 2 – Sneak Peek

As I have mentioned, Egret the Elephant: Volume 2 will be out in May! I have been looking over the proofs from my very talented new artist, Ami Charnoff. I can’t resist showing a little sneak peek.

11779_10200465923665027_1469107481_n

Of course if you haven’t gotten Volume 1 yet, now is the perfect time since I am running a sale! Forget Amazon and B&N. Buy it from me direct and I will throw in an Egret Bookmark (while supplies last.)

Paperback normally $15, now $9.99 http://gum.co/NBIc/egretv1pb1

eBook normally $2.99, now $1.00. http://gum.co/ZWPUJ/Egretv1epub18675

While I am a big fan of eBooks, I recommend the paperback to truly appreciate the imagery and to keep little sticky hands off your iPad.

Indie Sales Promos and Freebies

The publishing industry is rapidly changing. Many people such as myself have chosen to reject the Traditional Publishing Houses. There are many reasons for this, including: shrinking advances, low royalties, and little marketing done on their behalves. While I never personally queried an Agent or Publishing House, regardless of talent, it can take an extremely long time, if ever, to get picked up. Even then you are likely to make less than had you published yourself. This is because technology has leveled the playing field with print-on-demand services such as Lightning Source and Amazon’s CreateSpace and of course the exploding eBook market.  Authors can directly upload their ebooks to Amazon Kindle, iBooks, B&N, Kobo, and others. Now authors can get between 35% and 70% of the sale of their digital books, which is significantly higher than traditional deals. They can even completely cut out the middleman and sell their products themselves.  I certainly try and push as many of my sales to my own website as possible, paying only transaction and processing fees. Now I know a lot of Indies have gotten a bad rap for poor quality work. Thankfully that reputation has been changing. I have to admit, I was once in that camp. I thought how can even a talented writer produce quality work without editors, copyeditors, formatters, and artists.  Well, once again the world has moved on. There are some incredibly talented people out there freelancing their services to Indie writers. I can’t say their isn’t crap out there, but the same can be said of the Traditional Houses. I have probably put down more traditionally publish books than I have finished. Thankfully Indies that are putting out crap don’t tend to survive long in this market. What I am hoping to do with this page is offer a place for Indie authors to promote their work. Every week I will list books from a variety of genres that are on sale or free for all or part of that week.

http://www.coreyjf.com/indie-sales-promos-and-freebies/

Egret the Elephant: Volume 1 – Promotion codes

If you want to skip my ramblings and explanations, the promo-code links are at the bottom.

I just spoke to Ami, the illustrations are coming along very well for Egret the Elephant: Volume 2. My May release date looks to be very likely. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am trying to move some of my sales away from the big online retailers such as Amazon and B&N to my own website. If you are security minded, don’t worry, all transactions are process through Gumroad.com’s top notch secure server.

To be perfectly honest part of the reason for this is simple business. The old way I made/make decent royalties on  Amazon sales. Sadly since Createspace, my official imprint is owned my Amazon, I make less than  satisfactory royalties on other sales, such as through B&N. This only holds for physical books, since the eBooks I published separately though all of the major dealers.  But even eBook sales have their disadvantages through Amazon Kindle, iBooks, B&N Nook, and Kobo. Kindle only offers their 70% royalty rate on eBooks 2.99 through 9.99. If you want to price lower, like I did for my Novelette, you’re stuck with a 35% royalty. iBooks is great in they give you a 70% royalty rate across the board, and unlike Amazon, they don’t also tack on a bandwidth fee (even if minor). But sadly while it is my second best sales source for eBooks, it is still not popular enough to really compete with Amazon sales. B&N Nook sales are even lower than iBooks, and Kobo is practically non existent. Though I here Kobo is good for Canadian authors as they have a huge market share up there.

So with paperbacks, I get my books just over cost, plus shipping. So I obviously make a much higher percentage than even on Amazon. In fact I am able to offer a promo-code for Egret the Elephant: Volume 1, selling it at $9.99 and still make more that I make on Amazon when it is typically priced at $14.99.  I won’t even discuss the differences between the other outlets. But here is an advantage to buyers, besides the great promo price, while I am doing pretty well for a new writer, my sales aren’t so staggering that I can’t sign copies of the books I sell directly. So I added a field if you want it made out to a specific person or with a specific message. Also if you are relatively local to the Potomac, MD area, I added a pickup shipping option which is obviously free.

With eBooks, since I get basically the entire profit, minus the transaction fees from Gumroad, I can be a lot more flexible with sales. Currently there is a promo-code for the eBook of Egret the Elephant: Volume 1, which reduces the price to $1.00.  I don’t have that same flexibility with the online eBook providers without taking a major hit in earnings. I have the book set up in ePub format, which is pretty much readable by any smart phone or tablet. I am happy to offer it in other formats as well, just send me an email to corey@coreyjf.com with your requested format.

So since Egret the Elephant: Volume 2 should be out in May, I really wanted to give people the opportunity to pick up a copy of Volume 1 first, without nearly wiping out my revenue stream. By the way, there is always the option of paying more than asking price through GumRoad, there is even the option of going back after the fact to add more later.

So just follow these links to get the discount. For the paperback click http://gum.co/NBIc/egretv1pb1 or if you clicked through the product page via my website, just enter egretv1pb1 into the promo-code field. For the eBook, the link is http://gum.co/ZWPUJ/Egretv1epub18675 or if clicked through the product page, just add Egretv1epub18675 to the promo-code field.

Side note – I do not believe in Digital Rights Management (DRM). It doesn’t stop piracy and only frustrates paying users that want to read books on more than one device, or share it with a spouse.  So these are unprotected files. I do ask that you don’t upload them to a file sharing site or mass distribute them in anyway. Thank you!

 

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox

Join other followers: