Book Club

[gardenman]

"I took my novels down temporarily. I'd rather offer them for free."

That's what I love about Kindle Direct Publishing. I can offer a free book each week. Every Wednesday I make a book free, and the free giveaway runs through Monday. Some weeks only a couple of books move for free. In other weeks many will move. I gave away over 800 in one exceptional week. You never know what will happen. It's fun to watch and see which books move and when and try to figure out why.

Spoiler alert! There is no "why" that I'm aware of. The same book may give away two copies one time and then a few months later when it's rotated in as a free book again it'll move hundreds. The next time back to two or three. It's pretty random what happens. I tried promoting a giveaway on multiple free book sites one week and moved just seven copies. Without promotion, the same book had moved over fifty on a previous giveaway. 

The free giveaways do move an occasional book after the giveaway, and they do generate KENP (Kindle Edition 
Normalized Pages read by Kindle Unlimited Subscribers.) 
And if you're lucky, you'll get a review or two from a book giveaway. In general, I get one review for every hundred books given away. Free giveaways cost me nothing and get books into the hands of readers so no harm, no foul.

[rissajaneen]

Check out Sara cannon youtube channel called heart breathings.  She is a self published author on amazon and makes a lot of videos about her writing process.  I also recommend the Nanowrimo app.  This app lets you set goals and track your writing progress and connects you to other would be authors.

Good luck!

[Pink123]

@gardenman  You never made any money on writing with or without a publisher on your written books?

[gardenman]

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@Pink123 wrote:

@gardenman  You never made any money on writing with or without a publisher on your written books?

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I make some money. Most months it's what I call fast food money. It's enough to buy me a meal at Burger King. The good news is I don't lose money. A lot of writers fall into a trap of spending $5,000 to sell $500 of books. "Sure, I lost money, but it's getting my book out there!" You don't have to look around long to find writers who spent $50,000 or more on promotions and advertising to get back just a small fraction of that in book sales. It's very easy to keep throwing money away and never get a return.

The facts and figures on book sales make it an insane business to get into. Traditionally published books on average sell 3,000 copies. (According to the folks at letterreview.com.) That's with the full power of publishing houses behind them. And that average is skewed upward by best sellers that sell millions of copies. Most authors just sell a handful of books. Something like 94% of traditionally published authors never get to publish a second book. It's estimated that just one in a hundred to one in a thousand books traditionally published makes a profit for the book publisher. Some make big profits, but the vast majority of books lose money. (I haven't lost a dime and I make a little each month.)

Between book sales and giveaways, I've got somewhere around ten thousand copies of my books out there. My average review on Goodreads comes in at 4.41 so people like my books. I was a semi-finalist (then the top fifty of five thousand general fiction novels) in the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. One of my books was picked by Jason Chen for his 2016 political thriller StoryBundle. 

The reality is that most writers write as a hobby and to get their stories out there. If you make money, great. Just don't expect too much. The odds of success are remote. (You probably stand a better chance of winning Publisher's Clearing House.) Many writers assume they'll strike it rich. Most are wrong. Write because you have stories to tell and hope for the best.

[Spurt]

@gardenman 

Congrats on the recognition you received on your books!

My brother writes books on fishing through a big publisher, (he's had 11 published) and like you he said he really doesnt make any money, BUT with his craft he gets invited to speak all over the U.S. and Europe and all expenses are paid for him and his wife by various fishing clubs.  He just got back from an all-expense paid trip to Italy, he got to speak, fish and sightsee.....it made a pretty nice vacation.......

Another friend writes children's books and publishes them and they are on Amazon.  She wants to become a full time writer but we tried to tell her it's difficult to earn enough to make a living on writing, but its a good hobby, and its something she enjoys doing. 

We went to a cat show last weekend and of course in addition to seeing beautiful cats of many various breeds, they also sell cat themed clothing, jewelry, knickknacks, and cat toys of course----AND EVEN BOOKS---there was an author there selling her cat themed cozy mysteries, I love cozy mysteries and bought a couple of books to read during the NFL dolddrums!

[gardenman]

@Spurt 

Thanks. Congratulations to your brother on his success. The best approach to take is to write stories you want to read. Whether it's fishing, cats, or whatever. If success comes, great. But don't count on it coming. It can happen, but it's the exception rather than the rule.

[Spurt]

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@gardenman wrote:

@Spurt 

Thanks. Congratulations to your brother on his success. The best approach to take is to write stories you want to read. Whether it's fishing, cats, or whatever. If success comes, great. But don't count on it coming. It can happen, but it's the exception rather than the rule.

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@gardenman 

Yep, I agree it's ---"do what you love, and love what you do---!" That's the way it should be with any area of interest. Since my brother has retired, his fishing and writing  keep him busy....and his wife is his photographer, shes very good at that......

My brother got his start when he started writing a few columns for an outdoor magazine, and they encouraged him to write a book, and so another hobby began----he was more interested on sharing his knowledge than making money...good attitude....

[Group 5 minus 1]

Everybody is. 

[Trailrun23]

I wrote a non-fiction book many years ago while I was working for an ISD. I was about to sign a contract for publishing with Random House. It fell apart when my employee said they would own the rights to the book since I wrote it while I was an employee.

My neighbor who lives behind us writes web-publised books. She has been doing it for years and seems to enjoy it. I don't know how profitable it is.