Why Didn't I Win a Box of Slade Books?

"Why didn't I win a box of priceless Slade books?"

I know. I know. It's a question millions of people are asking themselves right now. Along with questions like "Is Brad Pitt in love with me?" "Should I floss" and "Did dinosaurs walk the earth at the same time as humans?" (the answers in order are: Maybe--is your name Angelina?; Yes, and brush, please; No...unless you're living in a movie).

Last month, in my clever newsletter, I had a contest that said: "Win a bunch o' books. To win just reply to this email with a creative answer to this question: "A+Y= X""

Of course, you have to subscribe to the newsletter to win! Maybe that's why you didn't win. Rectify that by clicking the amazing link below. The newsletter comes out 4 times a year and there's always a prize. Plus, your IQ will go up. Free IQ!

http://eepurl.com/kEDdb

Here are a few of the entries:

"Arthur + YA = Xcellent"
--Alan

"Art + Youth = Xcited teens."
--Janet

And the winner, by both volume and creativity, was:

" A + Y = X. Hmmm! Reeks of algebraic equation. Shudder! Please Art, you are appealing to one whose mathematical career ended with an ignominious exam result of 19%. And it's Saturday! I could wait, I suppose. Wait until my brain wakes up. The problem is my mathematical brain never woke up. So I'm doomed, utterly doomed. The storeroom stash will never be mine.

Deep breath, courage, Clo. Must carpe the diem, no matter what the cost in the mathematical or even grammatical failure department. Hmmmm and other sounds indicating heavy thinking and the occasional slurp of lemon and ginger tea.

A must equal Art (please note the upper case A. This Art is also very creative but is not, in and of himself, an artistic endeavour, at least I don't think he is, and never in a grammatically incorrect sentence, of that I am certain).

But I digress. If A equals Art, Y must equal You. Is it therefore possible that X equals the massive storeroom stash? Alright! I've cracked it. Art + You = storeroom stash or should I say Storeroom Stash, considering the importance of said stash? Wait up, here's a dilemma. If Y equals You, then You isn't Me. That means Me, Myself and I will not win the Storeroom Stash because collectively we don't equal You.

Hmmm (= more thinking and slurping) And eventually a lightbulb, not a Kodak, a lightbulb moment occurs.
You must equal someone you gift the stash er Stash to. If that is indeed the case then I have the solution.
My #2 son turns 17 on 27th April. The very day that Art of the uppercase A announces his winner.
It just so happens that #2 son is almost as much of an Art (o.t.u.A.) fan as his poor demented mother. It also happens that his p.d.m. is off to an auction today and will probably blow his birthday present money on a Victorian commode or an overstuffed chaise longue. Even if his p.d.m. is somewhat abstemious in her auctioneerial dealings, a Stockroom Stash of Slade would make the most stupendous birthday present.

So to conclude yes, finally. Arthur, wake up, I'm concluding. Slurp tea in the hopes of attaining clarity.
Clearing of throat.

I conclude that Art + #2 son = Storeroom Stash of Slade. There! Sound the trumpets. Alarums and excursions throughout.

PS Was there a word limit on this contest?"
--Clo

Whoa! Congrats to Clo who received a box of signed books, a few comics (which I wrote, not random comics), and audiobooks.

You could be a winner, too! Oh gosh, you're already a winner. You could be more of a winner...

Look at all the books waiting to live in someone else's house...

Art

Odd Questions that Authors Get (hilarious answers free): III

AH, more questions that authors get...with perfectly rational answers. Q: Is it okay if I come to your house and watch you write? A: Is it okay if I give the FBI your address? By the way I've moved to Antarctica. Turn left when you see the marching penguins and you'll be there. Don't worry about dressing warm.

Q: Are you sensitive to bad reviews? A: No. No. No. No. No. NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

A: Oh, you're a writer? What do you do as a job? Q: Writing is easy and doesn't take much time and is really more of a hobby, so I spend the rest of my hours as a serial killer. What's your address again?

Q: What is the most fun about being a writer? A: I get to wear pajamas all day. A: My only boss is my muse. A: Playing jokes on people by naming characters after them. Like my friend Cheryl who complained that I never named any characters after her. So I invented Cheryl the Sasquatch for one of my books (true story).

Q: What is the worst thing about being a writer? A: I wear pajamas all day. Even to readings. A: My only boss is my muse but she's seven feet tall and smokes cigars and demands 20,000 words a week and bacon. How much bacon is there in the world? A: A real Sasquatch showed up one day. Her name was Cheryl. She was not happy that I turned her into a comical character. She was very good at MMSA (Mixed Martial Sasquatch Arts). I was not.

Comically yours, Art

The New iPad...and a writer's life...

Last Friday, being a dutiful Mac cultist, I drank my iCool aid and headed down to my local Mac store to buy the latest version of the iPad, creatively titled The new iPad. I already owned a first generation iPad (which I blogged about here) and had found it absolutely essential to my life as a writer. I waited for the 3rd generation because I was looking forward to the rumoured retina screen (a fancy way of saying a very high-def screen) and the camera (which was lacking from the 1st generation iPad). I bought the 32GB white wi-fi, because I thought that would be enough storage space for me and I don't need a G4 connection. Wireless is most everywhere (and I do have portable Mifi wireless when needed).

The Screen

Let's start with the screen. It's amazing. There, we're done with the screen. Okay, I'll leave it to others to explain exactly how many pixels it takes to make your eyeballs vibrate with explosive colour. But side by side it's very clear how much more "high def" this screen is. The icons for the apps have no pixelation. Does that make them easier to tap on? Nah, but it somehow makes them see more real. Netflix looks clearer. Movies sparkle. Youtube is ... well, still full of freaky videos. But they're even clearer and grosser now.

Reading Apps:

I'm an ebook-a-holic (along with a paper-book-aholic and an audiobook-a-holic). My apps on my iPad for reading (and buying books) are as follows: Kindle app, Kobo app, iBooks, Nook, Nook for kids, Play Books, Stanza. These apps are pretty simple so I didn't notice a big difference in the speed in which they open. There is a difference in the fonts and how clear they are now to read. And I am especially impressed at how much more colourful the picture books that I have on my iPad look. Nothing replaces a "real" picture book, but the images on the iPad do leap off the page (Especially in Splat the Cat). I do have a few kids books apps that were designed for the iPod and I never noticed a big difference in clarity when they were on my old iPad, but now that I have The new Ipad, the blurred edges of the images becomes very obvious. So reading is even more of a pleasure on The new Ipad as long as what you're reading has been optimized for the iPad (though if I'm reading an ebook I often choose my Kindle because it's smaller and I'm not tempted to zoom around the internet). The new iPad is heavy enough that I usually have to prop it against my legs when I read.

Facetime and Skype

This machine is brilliant for using both these communication programs. The speaker on the back is able to put out more volume than the 1st generation iPad so it's easy to hear whoever you're Facetiming with and the mic seems to pick up fine. One could easily use this to Skype with a classroom just sitting in your reading chair or out in your back yard (assuming there wasn't much background noise). And, last night, my wife's bookclub was discussing Meg Wolitzer's latest novel and she was kind enough to do a Skype visit with the book club. It worked perfectly and in the hour and a half talk it burned 18% of the battery power. I set up a battery-powered speaker so that she could be heard clearly. I was tempted to set her up on a chair and put a coat around her, but decided that would be silly.

Social Networking/Web browsing

There isn't much difference between the iPads. I still use Hootsuite for most of my social "outreach": twitter and Facebook, that is. Things are faster, of course. The biggest difference is that Google+ is more accessible on this machine. Again surfing around the net does appear to be a smoother experience. I don't know if it's the extra speed of the machine or that there are more and more websites optimized for the iPad now.

Keynote

I still use Keynote for my school presentation. This is by far the best aspect of the iPad for me. I can carry all of my presentations with me, and all I need extra is the VGA connector. No power cords, at all.  I connect my iPad to the projector and plug in the sound and the iPad does the rest. I'm very impressed at how it runs everything I can throw at it: book trailers, mp3s, and SFX all embedded in my slides. I use my iPod Touch to run the presentation from the front of the classroom. And I can do a whole day of school visits without having to charge up. I don't miss the days when I had to lug my laptop and my projector and, sometimes, even my screen. There isn't a big change in how Keynote runs on the new iPad. Which is good, because it was running fine before.

Pages

If I'm doing any writing on my iPad (and I do a little, usually with my wireless keyboard) I use Pages (which is my main word processor on my iMac, although I do all my first drafts in Scrivener). It's perfectly functional on the iPad, though obviously the screen is smaller. Apple's iCloud is effective, automatically updating documents between different iPods and iPads, but if I make a change on my computer it doesn't appear on my iPad. I have to upload it to icloud.com (simple drag and drop) and the new file appears on my iPad. I do hope someday there is full synchronization between all mac devices, of course. But this is workable.

PDF's

I teach an online class through the New York Times Knowledge Network. One of the things I was curious about was whether or not I'd be able to mark papers while I was on the road with my iPad. It turns out I can. I download the document, convert it to a PDF using Pages, then use an app called iAnnotate PDF to do all my fancy mark ups. It has  handy highlighting and note-making features. Plus you can circle words in red just using your finger. Such fun! Then I can email it to my student and hope they don't weep when they see all the marks.

So that's my first impressions of The new iPad, so far...

Art

The Power of Twitter (91,000 people may be looking)

Last month I uploaded a post about "A Year of Selling Ebooks" (read it here, it'll change your life!). It was my 3rd most popular post. As per my usual modus operandi, I posted on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.  Here is the tweet that I came up with for twitter:

"Well, I've been selling ebooks for a year. Here are my stupendous results! ow.ly/95zkC #kindle #amwriting #kobo RT plz"

I tweeted variations on this message over three days adding in different hashtags so that it would be visible to various groups. I also used an "owly" link so I could track how many people clicked on that specific link and what countries they were from. I do keep track of stats just so I can get a general impression of what sort of impact my posts are having. It's impossible to know how many people saw this tweet but I did keep track of how many people retweeted it. It was retweeted 46 times by other twitter people (you have my eternal gratitude). And it reached:

91,000 people!

Well, that's how many people were following the various people who were kind enough to retweet my tweets. As we all know only a small percentage of them would see the tweet and an even smaller percentage would click on the link. The results that I could measure were that I had around 3000 hits on my Blogspot blog. I also sold 20 or so books on Amazon in the space of those few days (it was only selling 5 or so in the same time period before I did my blitz). And I gained about a hundred twitter followers.

Was it worthwhile? Absolutely. It got my name out there a bit further. It's proof to me that what people are looking for is information, not so much "sales" (my tweets with a more direct "buy my book" message get very few hits). And having new followers is always invaluable.

Art

P.S. I bet you're dying to know what my 2nd most popular post was. Well it was: How to Write Novels and Lose Weight.

P.P.S And my most famous post is... Treadmill Desk: How to Make Millions and Write More Weird what you become popular for, eh?

Funny Answers to Odd Authorly Questions II

These are inspired by a few questions I've been asked...actually some of them are real...

Q: I have this great idea. If you write it, I'll split the money with you, 50/50. What do you say? Answer #1: No. Answer #2: No. And don't come to my parties anymore. Answer #3: I'll think about it. What? You're a brain surgeon? Well, is it okay if I perform half a brain surgery on you before we begin? It shouldn't take long.

Q: What's your address? Do you have any children? What are there names? A: You're scaring me. And I think you meant "their names."

Q: Will an agent steal all of my money? A: No. In fact an agent will make you more money. But you have to get the right agent. There's an easy formula for figuring out whether an agent is the right one. E=MC2 x .15% x worldwidesales x your talent quotient / the chance of a Hollywood movie - your personality quotient + your agent's personality quotient x luck. Easy to figure out, eh? Oh, but make sure you don't get the wrong agent. A small percentage of agents will take 15% of your life force and use it to feed their gerbils. Good luck!

Q: How long does it take to write a book? A: 60,000 minutes to start with. That's if you dedicate a minute to each word in the average book. You also have to dedicate a minute to each sentence. That's another 8333.33 minutes. There's another 65,000 minutes for rewriting each word. Add 2500 minutes for computer malfunctions. Then another 4700 minutes for fretting about characters you're going to kill. And 2700 minutes killing them. Only 250 minutes for crying about them, though. I mean, really they were getting on your nerves. Add in the minute that you hover over your email with the MSS attached before you press send. That's 143484.33 minutes. Or about 59.785 work weeks. Maybe add in about 2467 hours of depression if your book is rejected. Then start all over again.

Q: Will I make a million dollars if I publish an ebook by myself? A: Yes. You only have to sell 1 a day for the next 487,804 days. If you sell two a day you'll make the money in half the time.

Art

A Glorious Year of Ebooking

Welcome Curious Readers, I am posting here about a whole year of selling self-published ebooks. Many wonders will be revealed to you. Many non-wonders, too. There may even be inadvertent rhymes (at no extra charge).

To recap. Exactly a year ago I began putting my out of print backlist up for sale on various ebook vendors (Smashwords, Kindle, iBooks, B&N, Kobo...). I've been religiously (or obnoxiously) blogging about it ever since. Here are the books I have available.

Yes, Dear Readers. You are correct. Those links are clickable (though depending on what country you're in, you may not be able to buy the books). Each one of my ebooks that you purchase saves the life of a butterfly in Guatemala. Oh, and the money helps me to buy porridge for Oliver Twist. He's looking skinny! Now that my clumsy and somewhat cheesy sales pitch is done let's continue examining the glorious year of ebooking.

Last month, January, was my best ebook sales month yet with 1785 copies of my ebooks sold. Most of the sales were generated by DUST which was selling for the modest sum of $1.49 and twice was in the top 25 for horror on Kindle. The jump in the charts was the result of making the book free then switching it back to paid a few days later (I posted about that process here). I also added another book Northern Frights Omnibus. This book collects all three Northern Frights novels into one volume (which only took a few minutes to do, one of the nice things about ebooks).

That's a quick look at last month. Now here are the overall numbers month by month for this stupendous adventure:

From this chart you can see that sales go up and down and up and down but seem to be trending upwards right now (more on that later). DUST sells by far the most copies because it crosses over from middle grade to YA to Adult (somehow) and has twenty 5 star reviews on Amazon, which helps prospective buyers decide to click that little button (I love that button). But every other book counts and is a sale I wouldn't have made before. You may also notice that The Hunchback Assignments series is only available in the UK (Random House sells it in the US and I'm only tracking my self-pubbed books here). It is selling as much as the Northern Frights series even though the Fright books are available worldwide. Again this book crosses over from YA into adult (a little). The majority of the books sold above have been at either .99 cents or $1.49. The remainder at 2.99 or up (so I can get that 70% royalty). The total books sold in twelve months is...drum roll... 6353.

What you want to see a graph? I am graphically at your service.

Aren't graphs amazingly exciting? The blue colour on the graph is DUST, the other colours belong to the remaining books. Ah if only they all could sell as much as greedy guts DUST. What's that? You want to know how much income I made? Well the questions you ask make me blush, I tell you. Blush! But here it is. For the 6353 copies sold I have earned $4907.02. That's right I'm a thousandaire! That breaks down to about .77 per book (considering my royalty on a paperback is about .70 cents, that's not too bad). And way back when I first blogged about this little experiment (see here)  I said I'd be happy with $1000.00. Obviously, I'm nearly five times as happy (plus so far my costs have been $500.00 for the covers and $200 for advertising--the covers will total about $1500 over time because I am good friends with the artists and they agreed to be paid in installments). The artists, by the way, are Derek Mah and Christopher Steininger. Go check out their sites. It will do your eyes good.

This month will not see as many sales as last month. February is usually slow and there was a big bump in January because of all those new Kindles being sold. Also, I have been switching my books from free to paid and that only works so many times before you stop rising up the charts...so that "engine" won't be on my side. I've also raised my prices because I wanted to have lower prices for the first year as an introduction and price the books higher now that my "name" is out there. But the highest is $3.49, which really isn't much for a high quality book--or even one of my books. Plus, I only have to sell about 4oo copies of DUST at 2.99 (2.05 royalty for me) to make the same amount of money for as I received for the 1638 I sold last month at $1.29 (50 cents royalty to me). There must be 400 readers out there who like to be scared!

I won't be posting monthly anymore. In fact I'm going to be doing my best not to even watch my sales until the end of each month. This is my best time to write and that's what I want to concentrate on. But if anything of interest pops up, I'll be sure to blog about it. Thanks for lending me your eyes (and your brains). I do appreciate it.

Art

P.S. if this blog has been helpful to you, please tweet about it or mention it on any of the other various social media out there. And remember, if you buy a book you will save a butterfly (of course some clod will just travel back in time and step on it thus altering the universe and the timeline forever, but we can't control that).