Heavy and Light Tales

Okay. My new little short story collection is live on Smashwords, and will probably be uploaded to Amazon Kindle later today.

I'm experimenting with pricing. Since I don't expect much in the way of sales, this is priced at $2.99, to get that 70% return from Kindle sales (if any).

The other thing I must do is remember to include at least 'Addendum to Dog' in the 'shorts' listing for Kindle.

Going through my old stories I realized some of them are fairly good. Some small rewrites, an extra sentence or two in some, seemed to give just a bit extra zip, and of course some pruning too. One longish speech in 'the Shot'is gone without any loss.

I'd intended to use the same cover image as on the paperback edition, but couldn't find the digital version anywhere. Instead I used a photo of a very spiky plant.
Not too happy with the title font and placement, that should be a bit lower, further from the top edge. Will have another go at that also, later today

Sherlock Sales, book covers, Dead Road

I have the cover with St.Materiana's Church seen through the lower gate, and the Dead Path, on the Smashwords version. The Litch Gate is the other name for this gate, because bodies were carried along this route. Traditionally, these Dead roads were left unobstructed so the souls of the dead could fly directly to hallowed ground. So very appropriate for a story involving a zombie. This is quite an eye-catching image, even if you don't know exactly what it shows.
Saint Materianas is in Tintagel, Cornwall, and is a very old church.
I have the anonymous cemetery on the Amazon version. Tumbled gravestones in hues of grey and green, fairly spooky.
Whether the cover influences sales (much) is very hard to judge.
I know, I know, big yawn, who cares about the miniscule sales of a very short ebook? Obviously I do, and so --
As of yesterday, Friday 3rd there'd been 6 sold by Amazon.com during June, which would be 2 per day. Since it went 'live'during the evening on May 18th, there were 10 sold on .com & 2 on .UK, so a bit less than 1 per day.
Forget about Smashwords, nobody goes there to buy, it seems. Fellow writers, certainly, and there've been 14 'sold' there, 13 with use of the coupon. Now, the other retailers they supply might be different, but it'll be a while before it gets out to them.

Another Ad experiment

My daughter, Penny, has put out a Facebook ad, this time targeted at UK, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, people who read and like adventure books. This one was based on a pay per click model, instead of simple pay per impression. Cost of $10.00

Results are 16 clicks from 20,000 exposures, so a much better ratio there; I think she just sent them to smashwords site, as she said the actual book address was too long. During the time it ran, 1 book was downloaded, as far as I can tell.
Total downloads from smashwords now 15, all free with use of the coupon(GR96T)which is good until Sunday 13th.
I have posted on several threads on Kindle Boards,got included in the free books thread run by knbr - this may have drawn several of the downloads on the 6th &7th, and of course on Facebook, Kindle, Authonomy, Slushpilereader and Authors on Show. Also signed up for a first page critique at http://yourfirstpage.blogspot.com/ and posted the first chapter of Eland Dances on http://nightreading.ning.com/ for critique/comments.

Amazon pricing

When I put In the Valley stories up on Amazon for sale as a Kindle e-book, I priced it at $1.99 US. However when I searched for it on Amazon.com it came up with a price of $3.99; I contacted them to ask about this large price jump, and this morning received this reply

Hello Philip,

Your Kindle book is listed at a price of $1.99. Please note, all items available in the Kindle store are listed in U.S. dollars (USD), and the availability and pricing of titles from the Kindle Store varies by your home country or region.

If you're browsing in the Kindle store from a location outside of the US, you may see a price higher than what you listed on the DTP web site.

There are a number of reasons why prices for Kindle titles may vary from region to region, including taxes and other operating costs. We understand your concern about prices, and we share that concern -- we will continue our efforts to reduce costs and offer the best possible prices to customers in every region. We hope you will continue to use our platform for sales in the US and internationally. Also, note that the royalties will be based on the list price you provide on your DTP dashboard.

I hope this information is helpful. If you have any further question, please feel free to send an e-mail to dtp-support@amazon.com.

Thank you for using Amazon DTP.

Did I answer your question?

The question is answered, but I can't believe that with the Canadian Dollar almost equal to the US Dollar, a doubling in price can be legitimately explained as they have. Probably the answer is that they see an opportunity to make money on a very flimsy excuse - notice that 'royalties will be based on the list price you provide on your DTP dashboard.'
In other words, they will pay me 35% of $1.99, and keep the remaining $3.29 for themselves. Wow!

Now published on Amazon

Just finished uploading 'In the Valley Stories' to Amazon, for sale on their Kindle reader. Have also removed Amazon as a sales channel from Smashwords, so they will sell on all their other outlets and I will sell directly on Amazon. Same price -$1.99- just a slightly bigger cut this way.
It will take about 48 hrs for approval, and then it will be available there as well. Amazon has about 170 times as many customers as Smashwords apparently.
Have also registered with the Canadian authorities as a Publisher, and will be getting ISBNs to use - about 5 business days, so late next week.

The ad is still running on Face Book; at 12.40 am Friday they record 59,000 impressions, and 11 clicks, for a cost of $11.+

Kindle Boards

Joined Kindle boards this evening - another way to spend time not writing. Right now I am concentrating on building a web-presence with the idea of maybe actually generating interest in my writing.
So far quite a bit of effort for miniscule tangible returns.
Interesting though, virtually meeting people from all over, mosly fellow wannabe writers of course. Some interesting blogs out there, of course some of those are now on my Links page.

published on Smashwords

I have put a 20,000 word short story collection on Smashwords; title 'In the Valley'; They convert works into all current e-reader formats, including for Kindle (Amazon) and for phones.
Priced at $1.99 which is the minimum Amazon will sell anything for.
All those stories have just been sitting in my computer, doing very little, not being read, so there's little to lose.