Tag: books

Self-Publishing: Reviews

LittleFears54 Comments

Now here’s a thing. I don’ know if this is a unique issue for me, or if it effects everyone. I have found with every single book release I have done, I have tried offering digital editions to you, my subscribers and followers, for free. Inevitably the Amazon freebie hunters always end up with copies and always, usually on Good Reads, they leave me a negative review.

Capricorn got a bad review for being weird fiction, January got a bad review for being just groaners and Spiders got a DNF review from someone moaning it was just jokes. In each case, I have been left scratching my head asking, if they could read even half the book, why couldn’t they read the synopsis? Go figure. To quote a Huffpost article:

Don’t trash the book because it wasn’t what you expected. Unless the book was misrepresented, it’s your responsibility to understand what you’re buying before you buy it. Trout Fishing in America isn’t really about trout fishing, and Fear of Flying is not for nervous travelers.

The Do’s and Dont’s of book reviewing on Huffpost: https://goo.gl/Wnt39W

Anywhos! For the book writers out there, this time I asked you, the subscribing rabble, to leave a review every time I posted about the free book offer. I got twelve reviews on Amazon. Currently at 4.8 stars. The one negative review I got was from a freebie book hunter, complaining about it all being puns. On Good Reads, there’s more freebie hunters and fewer people who know me.  If it wasn’t for Jan’s review, I would have 2.5 stars. That’s the difference you guys have made. Thank you.

For those 11 reviews, I gave away around one hundred free ebooks on Kindle over five days. I don’t recognize more than half of the people on Good Reads who currently have me listed  ‘as reading’. So I don’t know how many freebie book hunters got my book and how many subscribers got my book.

Sales wise, I have had one sale either paperback or digital every day since I stopped offering it for free up from one per week before Spiders release. Water could be muddied there as I didn’t do an ounce of promotion for the prior three months dealing with my home issues. Then I suddenly did five days of heavy promotion. There’s also a mix of books being sold. It seems January and Capricorn have had a wee bump in sales from Spiders release.That makes sense and I have heard from a lot of authors, you need at least three books on sale before you get regular and consistent sales. For something as specialized and super niche as the Little Fears presents books, I believe a sale a day is good. My books are expensive. I am not yet famous. I can’t offer novel value prices of $2 a book.

Prior article, Self-Publishing Earnings on Amazon: http://wp.me/p8dNOZ-zJ

There’s something else to learn from one review. Richard Yates questions whether what I do is flash fiction or a cartoon. I don’t know myself, to be honest. For those that followed my stories before I created the Little Fears, I wrote stories on their own and drew completely unrelated doodles and posted them elsewhere. There never used to be any connection between them. I know flash fiction circles hate jokes being called flash fiction. Y’all know I’m not gonna listen to that crowd’s opinion though right?

Richard did make me think. Now both January and Capricorn are released from Kindle Select I am looking for expanded distribution for them both. Maybe I should be turning my attention to the digital comic distribution platforms instead of just book platforms. Good thinkin’ Richard!

Do you take anything from this?

I don’t know if any of that is either helpful or relevant to any of you. I do know I have a lot of people hoping to self-publish who read this blog though, so I figure any data or experiences are helpful aye?

If you want to read a few reviews, there’s a couple more below.

Ashlee G from Creative Writing Review: https://creativethinkingwell.wordpress.com/2017/08/31/little-fears-presents-a-review/

Richard Yates review: on Read A Damn Book: http://readadamnbookwithrfy.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/read-damn-book-046-spiders.html

If you want to buy any of my books, hop on over to Amazon.

USA Editions: http://amzn.to/2frKA6e

UK Editions: http://amzn.to/2y6t8v0

And if you have any questions, y’all know I try to help by email or comments. Ask me anything about my book writing and publishing process and I will try to answer.

Cheers!

Self Publishing Earnings on Amazon

LittleFears38 Comments

Self Publishing Earnings on Amazon

I have been asked on social medias, how much I earn from my Little Fears presents series of books. My month to month earnings is not worth discussing as they had a total collapse over the last three months while I was trying to get my shiz together. The question is more aimed at how much I make per book sale.

When you publish on self-publish Kindle Direct Publishing, you get the options of how your book’s printed. Full-colour white paper, black and white cream paper and black and white on white paper. You can also choose the size and shape of the book. Unfortunately, because I have colour pictures I need to choose the most expensive options. In addition to that, the file size affects the cost of the digital edition.

My earnings and sales prices are:

Digital edition sale price; £4.99
Royalty that I receive per sale; £1.72

Print edition sale price; £12.
Royalty that I receive per sale; £1.91

That’s not that much compared to the price of the book, is it? That’s for around 100 pages, full colour, 5.5 inches by 8.5 inches.

Are you writing a novel?

I have dicked about with prices and uploaded novel style books a few hundred pages long. So, if you are a fiction writer and want to self-publish in standard black and white ink on cream paper, this next bit applies to you.

For a 200 page book with black and white ink on cream paper, my earnings would be:

Digital edition sale price; $0.99
Royalty that I receive per sale; $0.30

Digital edition sale price; $2.99
Royalty that I receive per sale; $2.09

Print edition sale price; $9.99
Royalty that I receive per sale; $2.12

I figure most of my readers are American, hence the dollar prices for the cream paper editions.

There are no costs involved in self-publishing that is not optional. I would advise getting an editor to read your work. If you cannot afford or do not want an editor, get at least five people to read your book looking for errors before you publish. Your eyes and mind can only pick up so many errors in your book. A fresh set of eyes with a different perspective helps. Also, run your book through Grammarly. Several times and always after every big edit.

image of little fears presents spiders book 3, a book of flash fiction and short stories

Find this post helpful? Shimmy on over to my Amazon authors page where you can buy all three of my books in digital or paperback, January, Capricorn and Spiders.

USA: https://goo.gl/r64kH4

UK: http://amzn.to/2wAgZPr

Want to support the Little Fears so we can continue telling you new daily groaners and horrors? Hit me up on Patreon.

https://www.patreon.com/littlefears

Cheers

Little Fears presents: Spiders – Free for 3 more days

LittleFears10 Comments

Little Fears presents: Spiders – Free for 3 more days

Hey, there rabble you still have three more days to grab a free Kindle edition copy of spiders. Links are at the bottom of this post. The rest of this post will cover the closure a book can bring.

The Little Fears books give me closure on 3-4 month blocks of stories.

I had a comment from Phil Huston the other day, “Tell me. There is joy in putting a project on the shelf? “

Yes. For me there is. I like finishing projects. My end date moves all the time for every project, but generally, I like to conclude things. Finishing a project gives me a tremendous sense of freedom and excitement for the next project. The Little Fears as they currently stand have enough tales written to keep posting one new story a day until 2024’ish. About 2,000 stories left to publish. I’d like to get to get the Little Fears to 2027. A full ten year run of Fears daily tales!

When I created the first book, January, it was about 96 stories long. Three months of stories. It felt like a good length book. At the time it also allowed me to, well, literally close the book on the first three months worth of Little Fears. Mentally that enabled me to get on with putting together Capricorn and Spiders. The next book in the series will be Hydra. Self-contained as are the previous books, but with a running theme of Hydra seeking his identity. Imagine being told you only existed as a hope or a dream. Well, that’s all Hydra is. We can explore that idea of the unknown identity, even in classic Fears style. The following book, Grey Moon, centres entirely on our three favourite women, Fuen, Yuffie and Reala. All are working in a bar on the road to the afterlife. 90’ish stories that each flow into each other.

After that, we visit a post apocalyptic landscape, where we met a new rabble of Fears. Again, 90’ish tales forming a single story throughout now told from multiple perspectives. Lots of the usual Fears humour and along with it, some, drama flash fiction. After that another set of 90 tales, this time following a pun filled Little Fears murder mystery investigated by DCI Lily and Inspector Sally.

The point being in all this is that as the Little Fears move on on this site, the direction changes a few times. Always in 90’ish story blocks which take 3-4 months each to publish online as one story per day.

Ambling back to the original quote, with January, Capricorn and Spiders, they gave me closure on a 3-month block of stories. In the future, the Little Fears books will give me closure on a complete story arc. For someone who likes finishing projects and moving on, yes, putting those books on the shelf does bring me joy.

Have you got Spiders yet?

If you haven’t grabbed your free copy of Spiders yet, you have until Sunday! Take the links below. Want a copy on your local Amazon and can’t find or buy it? Let me know in comments. If you leave me a good review, please do let me know, as I cannot place Amazon reviewer names to blogs. Would be nice to give you an acknowledgement in a post here.

USA Edition: http://a.co/gOujd5z

UK Edition: http://amzn.eu/33sberu

Again, I am going to ask, if you grab a copy and enjoy it, please don’t forget to leave a review. They really help!

Cheers

(Original Spiders release announcement, with Synopsis and details here.)

Little Fears presents: Spiders – Free for 4 days on Amazon

LittleFears10 Comments

Little Fears presents: Spiders – Free for 4 more days 

You’re going to see another 3 of these posts. An uncharacteristic spammy thing for me, but hey, this books three months overdue and technical issues, haha! Release week of the new book and CloudFlare nadgers up. Meaning, nobody can respond to this blog post or anything on the Little Fears website, in any way through apps. Classic Little Fears luck! The issue will be resolved by the weekend. Bear with us.

So, yes, OK, the book has been released! I have reviews on this one, thank you! A good solid shout out to Jan O, who has already left me a review! Cheers Jan! Linky to her website. To Brian Thomas (I think I know who you are) and Love2Earth, if you’re out there and reading this, get me a link to your websites. I’ll give you both a shout out too. Same to anyone else who gives me a good review as it goes.

To everyone else who follows me, Spiders is free to buy on Amazon until Sunday. There aren’t many ways bloggers can give something to their readers as a thank you for being awesome. But this is something I can give you. An opportunity to get the digital edition free. Hit the links below to the digital edition, hit buy, and you can read them on any tablet through the Kindle app or Kindle device.

USA Edition: http://a.co/gOujd5z

UK Edition: http://amzn.eu/33sberu

Again, I am going to ask, if you grab a copy and enjoy it, please don’t forget to leave a review. They really help!

Cheers

(Original Spiders release announcement, with Synopsis and details here.)

Little Fears presents: Spiders – Free for 5 days on Amazon

LittleFears30 Comments

Little Fears presents: Spiders

Well, thank feck for that! Finally, Spiders has been released! Man, this book was meant to be out back in June. The big things in life have been taken over by other big things, and honestly, I’m at least three months behind where I should be on everything. Now my house is finally decorated, I can get back on track a bit. That post I made a few months back about things I had in the pipeline for Fears, that’s getting caught up.

The first big thing this week is, of course, the release of Little Fears presents: Spiders. The third book in the Little Fears series. It’s entirely self-contained, with 94 humorous tales published on this site over the last three months. The digital edition is also free for the first five days of release.

I don’t do sales down the line. I always feel that’s a kick in the teeth to fans that have paid full crack for something, to see it then half price or free the following week. By giving the digital copy away free for the first five days of release, that’s only going to go to the Little Fears followers and subscribers. They, you, are the people who should get a free copy. Not some random Joe who spots a sale on in six months time who’s never followed anything I have ever done.

If you enjoy the book, please do leave a review on Amazon and consider buying the paperback edition for a friend who may enjoy my humour. Little Fears books, best served with lovely full-colour paper with fresh book smell.

Synopsis

If anything is going to save the Little Fears from awful punch lines, it is not Shadow eating a sandwich. In Spiders, Great British groaners are the order of the day as the assembled Little Fears make their way through 94 tales of hospitals, food, steps, night sight telescopes and revenge. Rabbit eats a password book; Spider goes to the hospital; Fish multi-tasks; Lady observes X; Sprite has a chain reaction. Written and posted with scruffy illustrations daily on LittleFears.co.uk. These brief vignettes (50 to 100 words) chronicle the continuing adventures of the Little Fears. With only a sense of whimsy and a deep love of old British comedy, Spiders will make you groan, cry and laugh until a bit of wee comes out, in a truly original, unoriginal, work of art and fiction.

USA Edition: http://a.co/gOujd5z

UK Edition: http://amzn.eu/33sberu

Again, I am going to ask, if you grab a copy and enjoy it, please don’t forget to leave a review!

Cheers

Receiving Bad Reviews

LittleFears95 Comments

Nobody likes a bad review. Thankfully with January, I received mostly positive and balanced reviews. A belated shout-out to Great Northern Book Owl.

Capricorn, however, was an entirely different kettle of fish. I have received six reviews so far across the web. All bad. The best was a 2-star review that said most of the tales didn’t make sense. Fair do’s, I understand my writing is incredibly British. Weird fiction and horror tales mixed with British oddness aren’t going to be for everyone.

The other five reviews were all one star. Two reviews just left me one star with no comment. The other three left one-star reviews because Capricorn wasn’t my usual puns. Despite there being no mention of humour anywhere in the description of the book, with a synopsis emphasising horror, they are reviewing a book they got for free and moaning because it’s not humour? Are you kidding me?

So what am I meant to do in this situation? Six bad reviews, not one single good review for Capricorn that I have seen yet.

I start writing the next book.

Out of all six reviews, only the 2-star review had something useful to say. I take that as constructive criticism. ‘Because it’s not more of the same’ is not constructive criticism. I accept my writing isn’t for everybody. If someone doesn’t like a book or film, you can’t argue them into leaving a good review. So instead of burning energy chasing them, I shall spend that energy writing the next book. Figure out the next marketing strategy. Get doodling new illustrations. Work on getting the third book, Spiders, out in May.

I have also headed back to Skillshare, looking for new writing courses. Turns out Monika Kanokova has created a new class, The Beginner’s Guide to Self-Publishing: Publish and Sell Your Nonfiction Book.

I took her original class, An insightful guide to becoming a freelancer some time ago and quite enjoyed it. Although she writes non-fiction, the new class still has good information, and have nabbed a few interesting bits to take with me to the release of my next book.

In the meantime, if you’d like to read the better reviewed January, or give the horrors of Capricorn a read, click the links to purchase either on Amazon. Kindle digital editions are £4.99 and are under the links below.

January USA – $15.54   /   January UK – £12.00

Capricorn USA – $15.54   /   Capricorn UK – £12.00