It’s here! Charlotte Collins: A Continuation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is now available on audiobook at Audible.com and is coming soon to iTunes!

This is the first audiobook I’ve produced, and I was quite nervous about finding just the right person to narrate it. So I was beyond thrilled when I connected with Anne Day-Jones, a British actress who has had numerous TV and movie roles and voiced video games as well. You can read more about her work here.

Because of Anne’s talents, the audiobook truly came to life. Her narration goes beyond mere reading. It’s as if I’m somehow watching my characters even though I can’t see them. Her voices for the Charlotte, Maria, and Mr. Basford gave their characters so much depth and emotion, but I also loved the voices she used for the older, more humorous characters. Mrs. Card is a particular favorite.

Thank you, Anne, for all your hard work bringing Charlotte into a new venue, and I’m so glad you agreed to voice “Maria Lucas” and Caroline Bingley as well.

I hope you will all enjoy the audiobook!

Riding Fear Free: Help for Fearful Riders and Their Teachers

Laura and Jennifer, Photo by Cheri Steele of One Oak Farm

Isn’t Darcy pretty?

Here we are again:

On the Trails at One Oak

But I digress.

I am slowly catching up on work, but I’ll hit the highlights.

• At Fault is updated in all ebook versions, including the Southern Fraud Thriller Box Set.
• The paperback updates of At Fault are in progress but will take longer due to the proofing time required. The paperback will be off sale temporarily.
• The audiobook version of Charlotte Collins is still in the validation stage. I expect it to be on sale in the next week or so.
• The audiobook version of “Maria Lucas” is back from my awesome narrator and will be available soon.
• I am behind on all email. I’ll get back to you soon.

I hit this button more than I realized in At Fault.

When the first reviewer mentioned that there was a different level of swearing in At Fault than in the previous two books in the Southern Fraud Series, I didn’t think much about it. Then another reader mentioned the amount of swearing on my Facebook page. This morning, I found another review that mentioned swearing in Absolute Liability. Three is a pattern, and so I decided to look more closely at the language I had chosen for the Southern Fraud Thriller series.

That’s right, I counted the swear words in each book. I’m not going to break it down word by word for you because that would be boring, but after a count, it was clear that At Fault had twice as many expletives as the previous books.

I never intended my books to be “clean” mysteries with no foul language, violence, or gore, and I am comfortable with the precedent set by Absolute Liability with regard to language and description. Bad guys swear; cops swear; that’s the way it is. But I do believe that because the books are in a series, I set up expectations in book 1 that needed to be followed in all subsequent volumes. Readers should expect the same type of language and descriptions in all the books in the series based on what they read in the first novel, and I had inadvertently given them something different in book 3.

This morning, I edited At Fault so that the language matched the precedent set by the first two books. In fact, it now has fewer swear words than Death Benefits. I apologize for failing to maintain the precedent I had set and promise to do better in the last three books of the series.

Updates to the ebook versions of At Fault and the box set of Southern Fraud Thrillers are in progress, so please check for them at Amazon, BN, and Kobo in the next 48 hours. Updates take longer at the other retailers, but they should be there in the next week or so.

Warning: Math Ahead

In April, I had promotions on books in both genres, both different and both successful.

First, the ladies at Indie Jane and I had a group $.99 sale, pooling our marketing power for the benefit of the whole group. I had low expectations for this promotion because I have offered Charlotte Collins for sale at $.99 in the past and never sold enough to make up for the lower price. I credit the strength of my friends’ books–Attempting Elizabeth and Loving Miss Darcy (Brides of Pemberley)–for pulling Charlotte Collins up to its highest sales rank ever, making it into the top 1000 for the first time ever. It also had its strongest month in terms of sales.

This example shatters a longstanding myth. In the trad pub world, your book gets one month to prove itself in terms of sales, and then it’s done and removed from the shelves. But with indie pubbing, your book has all the time in the world, and you can slide down the bestsellers lists and climb them again years after the book is released.

Second, I promoted Absolute Liability at Amazon, BN, and Kobo using BookBub. I priced Absolute Liability at $.99 and lowered the other two books in the series to $1.99 even though they were not officially part of the promotion. I paid $460 for the promotion and earned it back through sales of AL in less than 24 hours, and sales of all three books continue to be strong even after raising the prices. Thanks to this promotion, Absolute Liability can now add BN Nook Best Seller to its existing title of Amazon Kindle Best Seller. The Nook edition hit number 10! And on Amazon, it topped out at 114 on the Kindle Best Sellers list, made the Movers and Shakers list, and went to number 1 in Mystery Series and 4 in Women Sleuths. Sales of the other two books also soared.

This promotion finally answers the question “How do I get my books seen at BN?” Here’s one answer: use BookBub. This provided enough visibility to raise my sales at BN across the board. It also provided some visibility at Kobo, but far less than at the other two venues. I will use BookBub again.

The conclusion? Advertising works, but you have to find the right venues. Some of these promotions may not cost a dime, but sometimes you have to be willing to risk some money. If you decide to try BookBub or other venues, let us know how they work for you. I’ll keep you posted on future promotions too.

Pistols at dawn!

Every few months or so, proponents of traditional publishing and fans of indie pubbing engage in a steel-cage death match. This month’s edition has been entertaining, mainly because of the extra fun vitriolics.

Here are a few articles for you to consider:

• Hugh Howey wrote this piece on the virtues of self-publishing.
• Chuck Wendig responded with this.
• Meanwhile, Scott Turow, president of the Author’s Guild, released this statement and then in an opinion piece proclaimed the death of the American author.
• Barry Eisler responded with this scathing indictment.
• Then, Eisler went on to anger trad pubs with a presentation at a book convention, which resulted in some interesting Twitter responses.

Then everyone under the sun started talking about it.

Entertained yet?

Seems like everywhere you look, someone is up in arms over something someone said about their momma.

Here’s how I look at these dust-ups. They’re informative. Read them in order to keep up with what’s going on in the industry, but for heaven’s sake, use your head and interpret like Spock: without getting emotional about it. It’s important to keep up with the news and changes to publishing, but it’s not important to jump into the fray and defend your opinion to the death. Sure, say what you think, but don’t let it descend into name-calling. (Although it is entertaining to watch, so on second thought, go ahead if that’s what you want to do.)

I’ve got nothing against traditional publishing. I’m neither yearning for the “prestige” of a deal nor standing at their doors with flaming torches. Heck, if the right company offered me the right deal, I’d consider it. I’d go hybrid under the right circumstances. (Hear that, Amazon? Call me.) But I’m also not going to sit around, twiddling my thumbs and waiting for that offer to come, and I’m not going to feel bad about it. I’m going to continue earning my own living using the means available to me and not waste time getting caught up the drama.

At Amazon, BN, and Kobo

Amazon
BN
Kobo

Is marketing advice leaving you frustrated? Me too.

So far this year, various self-publishing experts have recommended the following courses of action for garnering success in the indie publishing industry:

1. Don’t buy advertising. I wrote a post about it here.

• J. A. Konrath, Mark Coker of Smashwords, and Dean Wesley Smith all advise against spending money on ads.

2. Don’t create an author platform. Stop blogging. Don’t engage in social media like Facebook, Goodreads, and Twitter.

• L. L. Barkat says blogging is largely a waste of time for experienced writers in 2013.
• Konrath has a blog, but doesn’t do much with Twitter and Facebook.
• Here Jane Friedman suggests that first-time and aspiring narrative driven authors in the traditional publishing world might want to desist, but indies should probably keep it up. However, this news seems to be spreading as thought she suggested that everyone stop. Here is her definition of platform, which again, she still recommends that indies build.
• Jody Hedlund says blogging is a waste of time too, but she’s still going to continue.
• Elizabeth S. Craig urges writers to focus on writing before platform building. Sensible advice.

Okaaaaaaaay, so if it’s a waste of money to advertise and a waste of time to have a platform, blog, or use social media, then how do I get my books in front of readers? How do I get my books seen? What avenue of marketing is left to me if everything listed above is a waste of time?

On the surface, it seems that the general consensus for marketing in 2013 is to:

1. Allow retailers to take over the bulk of marketing using their internal marketing algorithms (Customers Who Bought Also Bought feature, free bookstore promotions on Kindle Select and/or Kobo, etc.)
2. Keep writing and publishing more good books. Sensible advice.

But what happens when you realize that some retailers’ internal marketing is better than others? That some retailers do next to nothing to make your giveaways visible to readers? Oh, and they don’t even have a way to tell you how many you’ve given away? That at certain retailer websites your book cannot even be found in generic searches of the keywords you chose? That your books cannot be seen on some retailer sites unless readers already know they are there? Oh, but no blogging or social media or ads!

Well, you’re screwed.

The truth is that the publishing industry is constantly in flux. Algorithms change all the time. No one, not even the experts, has a clue how to deal with marketing from one day to the next. Forget these big year-long predictions and pronouncements.

Here are my thoughts:

•  Watch what the “experts” do and ignore what they say. Look at my own marketing plan from December; not 6 months later, and I’m already rethinking my strategy, so I’m certainly not accusing anyone of being purposefully deceitful. But with the rapid changes in the industry, I cannot imagine that one piece of advice is going to work forever (or even a month). Even the experts are going to have to change, and if their changes are successful, then I want to emulate them.
• Blog (if you want to). I am not going to sit here and tell you that you have to do anything. If you don’t want to blog, don’t. But note that in the above links, most of the people who said blogging was a waste of time continue to do it. (See advice above.) I believe blogging is important, especially for indies, because by nature our industry is highly individualized. Blogs are a great way to share data and marketing successes and failures.  Sharing information helps everyone.
• If you choose to blog, have realistic expectations. Tailor your blog for a purpose. If you want to reach readers, then your content will be different than if you are trying to write about your publishing experience (as I am). I know that my blog is unlikely to reach readers, but that is not its purpose.
• Don’t fall victim to the premise that once you begin a blog you have to keep it up forever. Many of the articles referenced above describe blogging as if it were a Tar Baby. Once you get your fingers in it, you can’t let go. Once you start a blog, you’ve got to post X number of days a week or else! Well, that’s bull. If you discover that your blog isn’t doing what you want, then stop. Change it to a static site and be done with it. No harm, no foul.
• Use social media (if you want to). If the idea of Twitter makes you cringe, then don’t use it. But for me, Facebook and Twitter have been consistently strong marketing tools.
• Experiment with advertising. Many of my old faithful advertising venues have shown declining success over the last six months, so I had intended to opt out of paid ads. But after realizing that I still need some outside source of visibility, I decided to keep experimenting with new places. JA Konrath is generally not a fan of advertising, but he tried BookBub recently and has since used it again. He also says that it worked for him. So I’m trying that.
• Embrace change. It’s inevitable and it’s fast. If you find something that works, keep doing it until it doesn’t work anymore and then change immediately. Look, the cold, hard truth is that no one is ever going to find a magic marketing bullet. Ever. It’s not gonna happen. This industry is changing too rapidly, and that means we have to change just as fast in order to keep up.
• Keep trying. I believe that the people who ultimately succeed will be those who never, never, never give up. They will experiment and try new things. They will abandon what doesn’t work and take up what does. They will keep writing good books and selling them at good prices. They will be grateful to their readers and remember to say thank you.
• Focus on books first. The one piece of advice that is constant throughout all those articles is to focus on books. Keep the main thing the main thing. Remember that your marketing efforts–no matter whether you chose to buy ads, blog, or use social media– mean nothing if you have no worthwhile books to share with your readers.