Wednesday Blog Hop, ROW80 Update, and a Question...

Well, it's Wednesday again, which means a short post to welcome visitors from the Blog Hop, provide a quick update on my ROW80 goals, and try to keep the conversation interesting by posing a question for my visitors...

Question first. Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Steven King all released novels in serialized form; what do you think are the advantages or disadvantages of a novel being released a chapter at a time in electronic form these days? Here are some specific issues: Free, or paid? And if paid, a one-time up-front fee, or a per-installment fee? What about format? Would you read it if it was released as a blog (readable online or on the Kindle, for example) or do you have another suggestion for formatting? And finally, interval... One chapter per week? More or less material, more or less often?

Am very curious to hear your thoughts on the subject. As an author, I think a serialized release would help keep me focused on on track with the writing of a novel, and might help build publicity in advance of the full release. Now, a quick update on ROW80 (if you don't know what that is, click here for details) - highly recommended for all writers!

Finished one overdue item on my book proposal, and hit a fitness goal (run a 6-minute mile) but still overdue on completing the sample chapter for the book proposal, and now overdue on editing the 100-some pages of my translated non-fiction book.

So, still running behind on the book proposal front, and will be dangerously close to missing more deadlines soon. Unfortunately, I'm in the middle of a round-the world trip (writing this from Tokyo) and the preparation for that has thrown my writing schedule a bit off. Nonetheless, I'm confident that I'll be on track at the end of the 80-day period...

Looking forward to seeing how everyone else is doing, and hearing your thoughts on serialization.

Best regards,
Edward

Wednesday Blog Hop Topic: The 99 Cent Question

Welcome to my fellow Blog-Hopper's and other readers. In an attempt to answer Melissa Foster's question, today's post looks at the math behind why I believe that 99 cents is the right price for self-published short fiction, but not necessarily for other e-books.

I recently did a survey of 25 magazines that currently solicit short stories for publication. These range from well-known magazines such as Asimov's Science Fiction, Harpers, and Women's World, to smaller 'zines offering with a religious, local, or literary theme.

The results are as follows. First, the odds of a story getting accepted by any of these magazines? Only 3.3 percent. Then, if a story is accepted, it's an average* wait of 9.5 months before the story is published. And finally, there's the payment; about $173 per 3000-word story.

Contrast that to a short story such as Seven Lives to Repay Our Country, or Happily Ever After. In each case, they were 100% certain to be published, and there was no wait time. The payment received is 35 cents per copy sold, and reviewing my sales figures for both books, the sales figures show that I can expect to sell 5-15 copies per month, with little or no effort at promotion.

This means in the 9.5 months I'd be waiting for a story submitted to a traditional magazine to be printed, I'll earn around $32 - about 20% of the what I would have made by selling the story. Within 3-4 years, I'll have earned more than I would have made by publishing through a traditional magazine, while still retaining all rights to the story.

So, from my perspective, 99 cents is a perfectly reasonable price for a short story, from a business math/statistics perspective. It's also a sum that most people are used to paying for a single "chunk" of entertainment value - a song download or a movie rental.

On the other hand, let's say I write a longer book, or aggregate several short stories into a collection. In that case, I would never considering selling such a work for 99 cents, because it would have the effects of causing readers to ask "Why should I buy one short story for 99 cents, when I can buy a book with 4 stories by the same author for the same price?"

For novels, story collections, and how-to guides, I believe the $2.99 price point is perfectly reasonable for self-published authors; and I do believe there's a maximum level beyond which e-books should not be priced, as well. The cost of electronic distribution is extremely small, so why should I pay $14.99 or more for an e-book? I believe that pricing e-books between 99 cents (for short works) and $2.99 - $9.99 for longer works would give customers great value, and still allow best-selling authors to be rewarded at a greater rate for the same word count as a less notable writer. I also believe Amazon should do away with the $2.99 price point to determine royalties (books below $2.99 only net their authors 35% in royalties, whereas those priced at or above yield a 70% payment.)

I would be interested to hear your thoughts, and if you know any writers who might be interested in the mathematical analysis shown above, please share this post with them. As always, word of mouth being the best advertising, I'd ask that you Tweet, Like, etc - and I'll be sure to return the favor!

Best always,

Edward

*The term "average" used here actually refers to the "median", which is the "average of the average," and adjusts the output to reduce the effect of "outliers" - very high or very low data points. Sorry, fellow math geeks, but I used the term "average" because more people will understand it in that light.

Blog Hop Wednesday, Number 1

There's lots of things that I could write about this week, but today I'm putting up another little note about blog hopping. A big thank-you to Sharon over at Beck Valley Books with her Wednesday blog-hop, which I've done a few times since starting self-publishing.

One of the reasons is that when I'm going through the blog-hop links on Sharon's site, about 50 percent of the time I'll land on a page whose leading post isn't about the blog hop, and it can feel a bit awkward, as sometimes I don't feel it's relevant to post a "Hi, I'm your newest follower!" comment on a completely unrelated post.

That said, I've seen some lovely, fun and inspiring leading posts in my explorations today - thanks to the Nelsens (Heather & Matt), and Dawn for making my "best of" list this morning!

Anyway, whenever I do the Wednesday Blog Hop, I plan to try to put up a page like this, which while not strictly focused on the subject, ties in to some extent, and offers new viewers a friendly "landing site" to start their commentary from.

So, for those who are writers, or are interested in this writer's thought process, why blog hop? Like other forms of promotion, it is an expenditure of time, time that is not spent writing or doing other things, which begs the question, is it worth it?

As one of my goals in the course of releasing my latest short stories, and several more in future months is to discover the best (and worst) things a self-publishing short story author can do, (so that I can write a how-to guide on successfully self-publishing short fiction in the e-book era) it's a reasonable question to consider, since few of us are full-time writers, and time is our most limited and valuable possession. You may win a monetary lottery, but you will never be granted an extra million days to live.

So far, my answer is, yes. I have made a few virtual friends so far, and expect that I will make many more. I have gotten a really amazingly insightful review from Mel at The Reading Life that allowed me to engage with his readers and inspired me to read Ibuse Masuji's "Black Rain" - an account of life after the bomb in Hiroshima, which all Americans should read to appreciate the truly horrific nature of our Nation's twin nuclear attacks on Japan. And finally, I have made the acquaintance of TToria, my favorite fun Brit book blogger, who has been really helpful in promoting both of my current stories, "Happily Ever After" (FREE 'til Friday here for UK Kindle readers, and here for US Kindle readers) and "Seven Lives to Repay Our Country" 99 cents on Kindle in the US, or £0.86 for the Kindle in the UK.

Thus, for those on the fence about whether to hop, or not to hop, my advice is to emulate frogs, bunnies, and kangaroos everywhere.

Have a great week,

Edward

Blog Hopping...

You learn a great deal about promotion as a newly self-published author. There are a lot of modern methods being used, and I'm slowly figuring them out, often with a bit of trial-and-error. It's been an interesting enough experience that I'm actually writing a book on the topic to help others navigate the path from publication through promotion more easily, but that's a topic for another time!

Here, I'd like to thank Sharon over at Beck Valley Books for introducing me to the concept of "blog-hopping", where authors and readers are encouraged to visit writing-related blogs, follow them, and post comments.

This is my second week doing Sharon's blog hop, and although I'm a bit limited for time (what with moving out of my apartment, packing for my upcoming trip across Indonesia, etc) I still have enjoyed checking out a few other pages, and have already got several new followers out of the process.

If you're an author, I recommend this as a way to get your works out in front of more readers - if you're a reader, it's a great way to discover new authors!

Happy hopping!

Edward