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!