Sherri Cornelius

The first two stories I e-published, I didn’t do any promotion aside from tweeting and facebooking and blogging. And really, not a lot of that. They were short stories, and I intended them to be free from the beginning. This in itself ensured they would be downloaded. People like free stuff.

With SKIN AND SCALES I decided to go a different way. First of all, I decided to charge a book price for it and see what happened. (Very little, of course.) Second, I put it straight into KDP Select instead of offering it on Smashwords first. The benefit of KDP Select is that Amazon Prime members are able to borrow the book for free, but the author still gets a small royalty. I had no borrows on the short stories while they were enrolled, but I thought people would be more likely to borrow a book. (Apparently not my book.) Third, I intended to publish it quietly and just let it sit unpromoted, but I got caught up in the excitement, especially when my mom virtually shoved a couple of twenties in my hand for a Facebook ad. So I tried it, expecting nothing but an education and receiving what I expected. It was an interesting and enlightening experience. The results were definitive, and I quit before I hit $20.

So now I think what I need is some reviews. My theory is that any review is good for business. Even a solid 3-star review would indicate that people were reading it and it isn’t completely awful. A 1-star review would keep people engaged and on the page, though I presume I would need a couple of higher stars to counteract it.

TOMORROW only, April 10, SKIN AND SCALES will be free for download on Kindle. This serves a two-fold purpose: to allow the folks in my acknowledgements to get a free copy and to garner a few reviews. I hope everyone who reads it will at least throw a couple of anonymous stars up there. Don’t be shy! If one person breaks the ice, others will follow.

If you don’t read weird stuff but still want to support me, you can recommend the book to your weird-loving friends. If you don’t have a Kindle but still want to read it, you can download a reader for your computer or smart phone here.

Thanks for all your support!

BVA has been proofread by a reader with fresh-eyes. Hopefully this will be the day I finalize it and get the ball rolling on the peripherals, like the front and back matter, and make some good progress on the pesky cover. Lofty goals for a single day, especially when I have two DVDs of Downton Abbey waiting, not to mention much housekeeping.

At least I don't have Castleville to distract me anymore. It's felt like housekeeping for a long while, And I finally got the nerve to block it. I thought I would miss it, but when it pops into my head it's a relief to be able to dismiss it and move to something else. So much of this modern Internet-centered life is habit, and I've found my attention span leaving me. I have trouble reading a book or focusing on a home project long enough to get it done. How am I supposed to build back into writing if I can't think about it for more than ten minutes?

The attention span isn't the only symptom, though. It's also lazy thinking. I'm used to taking in other people's creative ideas now, and I have to remember what it's like to call up my own new ideas. Working at the library is helping a lot with that, and I wonder if I would even be considering a re-entry into writing if it weren't for the stimulation I've found there. The atmosphere nurtures open discussion of problems from all level of employees, giving me the opportunity to practice thinking of creative solutions. And looking at all those book covers has prodded my sleeping writer, the dreamer who five years ago knew she would one day see her own book on those shelves.

I think this time my approach to the business side of writing will be different. Shoot, it already has been. I'm trying new things that I wouldn't before for fear of hurting my career. But trying something new and failing doesn't hurt a career, stagnation does. Quitting does. Fear does.

But we all know this.

This time it's been a slow build, going at my own pace and trusting that I'll be at the right place at the right time for the path that is right for me.

 

 

The past couple of days have been pretty cool. Since I put my short story on Smashwords, it’s been downloaded over 60 times. I find it unbearable not knowing how many are friends and family, and how many are strangers. So far I’ve had a review on Smashwords from Allie, and several have supported me by sharing my link on Facebook and writing short reviews to go along with it. Thank you all! In a few days it’ll go into Smashwords’ Premium Catalog, which means it will be distributed to online retailers. It’s been a fun experiment.

So the next step is to get it on Kindle Direct. I uploaded it yesterday, but it’s still under review so it’s not available yet. While I’ve put it on Smashwords for free, Amazon makes you charge a dollar minimum. I’ve got to figure out if I want to charge for the Smashwords version as well, but I don’t think I want to do that yet--I might have to charge and then give a coupon to make it free, because of Amazon’s terms of service.

Even if I don’t make a dime from online publishing, I’m glad I did it once. I’m now more secure in my knowledge of how publishing works, and the thrill of having work out there has erased most of my concerns about imperfection. And the thing is, I’ve found you can’t truly understand epublishing from just studying it or reading blogs—you have to dig in. I’m surprised at how not scary it is on this side of clicking “publish,” and while I thought I would feel more pressure afterwards, it’s actually been quite freeing.

I have a couple of books that couldn’t find homes with traditional big publishers (and a couple of small presses), so I’d been considering going with a small-but-successful online publisher like Damnation Books and others.(You might remember I edited for DB’s sister company, Eternal Press.) After all, they have a customer base all ready, free editing and cover design (free for me), and they pay for the ISBN. On the other side, self-publishing lets me keep a bigger chunk of the profits, and while I can’t afford to buy ISBNs right now, I could probably trade editing services with some trusted friends. And after making the cover for Mon Petit Ami myself, I think I might enjoy making others.

But I don’t have to decide right now. I’m not very good at taking incremental steps—a stumbling block to my writing career up to this point—so it’s time I learned. I’m slowly making a plan.

So what’s your experience with self-publishing?