Records may break

What a difference a month makes for my sales. From a lackluster July to a booming August. Sales of DROP OUT have skyrocketed over the last week as well as my other adult books. Right now I’m on par to break my all time sales month of last January. Strangely though, my sci-fi/fantasy books are not selling well this month. Perhaps, kids are gearing up for school and losing interest in spending their ‘endless summer’ reading fiction. I don’t know. I do know that more and more people are buying ereaders whether adults or children. And how do I know this? Because everyone I know is buying one or plans on buying one. For an indie author, that’s music to my ears. I envision a day when millions of my books will be read (even if people get them free) and thousands of people will want to read my next works. I know what everyone is thinking, ‘why do it if you don’t get paid?’. I think for me, I’ve reached a level in writing where I am satisfied just knowing my stuff if out there for people to enjoy. I’ve gone the corporate route with publishing, had a NY agent, sent thousands of queries, proposals, and outlines to make a sale, and yet what gives me the most pride and joy is when someone emails me and tells me how much they enjoyed my work, not how much money I made off them. I think that is the ultimate reward for any artist: appreciation. So, if I break my own sales record this month that would be amazing, if I don’t, that’s okay, too. I know that last month more than 6,000 of my books were downloaded, and to me, that’s pretty cool.

Saying goodbye

As I say goodbye to KDP Select, I must say that it has been a good ride. My last two free promotions yielded a combined 5,764 books given away that resulted in a surge of paid sales that is still running with momentum. I am now down to the wire with giveaways because I only have one book left that still has promotion days and only two others that are still on KDP Select, and they are about to expire. One the flip side, Smashwords just announced a huge deal with libraries that will allow Smashwords distribution. Smashwords is turning into a huge indie publisher and has been getting good write-ups in the NY times about its success. I’m glad I got in on the ground floor with this site and now have all eight of my published novels in the Smashwords premium catalog. Though the vast majority of my sales still come from Amazon and Kindle, I foresee a future where Smashwords publishing will play a huge role in my sales. Though it hurts now to lose all that KDP Select offers, I’m thinking long-term author survival here and logic dictates that I move out from just one publisher. I commend those authors who stick with KDP Select, for it is a good starting point, but alas, I must travel on. A few other interesting things going on in my struggles to hit it big time are that the literary agency who is interested in me still hasn’t responded, though I did send a requested 50 page sample so it may take some time. My latest novel, IMAGINATION is slowly coming to an end. I’ve gotten over the dregs and am now gleefully writing, filling in the plot, and adding grit to the characters. I still anticipate a late fall completion. And my blog and related blog sites on Author’s Den, Linked in, and such, have now reached the quarter-million hit mark. That’s right, 250,000! I only hope my post have some interest and give a little insight into the writing life and I’m not boring everyone to death.

http://www.neilostroff.blogspot.com

Last chance!

Hello everyone! Hope all are having a great day! Now is your last chance to get DROP OUT absolutely free! Promotion ends soon.

Leave this life exhausted.

DROP OUT

When the Twin Towers fell, Nathan Cruz saved the lives of dozens of strangers but the one life he could not save was that of his pregnant fiancé. Wracked with survivor’s guilt and unresolved goodbyes, Nathan drops out of society where he lives self-sufficiently on a houseboat in Florida. A twist of fate lands him into the home of Miriam Kanter, a young, fiercely independent woman with a shocking secret. Alone together in the midst of a raging hurricane, Nathan discloses the nearly unbearable sorrows of his past and finds strength to piece his shattered life back together. Being with Miriam, he feels the connection he’d been missing, stirring up feelings buried long ago. But will Miriam’s own life cut short and plunge Nathan back into his world of reclusive isolation?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005FX0K7U

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005FX0K7U

Enjoy!

Read a story that will stay with you long after you finish it – FREE! Get your copy now!

After overcoming incredible personal tragedy Nathan Cruz meets a terminal, young woman who helps him find the strength to piece his shattered life back together.

DROP OUT is a beautiful tapestry of life, love, and acceptance that is moving, romantic, and real.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005FX0K7U

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005FX0K7U

Agent – yes or no?

I was recently contacted by a prominent NY literary agency who shall remain nameless at this point about possible representation. They got wind of me because of my constant promotional efforts and then explored a little deeper into the kinds of books I write. They have not said they will definitely represent me but want to see more samples of my writing and my future projects. I am having a tough time trying to decide what to do about this sudden interest in me so I’ve listed the pros and cons of having an agent at this point in the game. First the pros: It will open me up to a higher level of the industry; also, I may get a large advance (though advances are rapidly disappearing), I can tell all my friends I have a big-time agent… that’s about it. I’m sure there’s more, but that’s the gist if I don’t have to worry about contracts, clauses, and timeframes. Now the cons of having an agent: I can’t write whatever I want and must adhere to what someone else will think will sell, I can only put out a book a year even if I write more, I have to wait a minimum of two years for a book to go through the publishing process before it even gets on a shelf, (if bookstores still even exist at that point), my royalties will be less than half what I make now, I have to wait for committees and meetings and budget proposals before I even know if my book will be published, it will only be published if the house thinks it will make them money— I’ve had enough! Although it is as alluring to sign with an agent as it is to eat the forbidden apple, I must confess I think I’m done with the corporate BS for good. When I was signed with Gary Heidt at FinePrint Lit and then Signature Lit., we came close to signing a deal so many times my heart just couldn’t take it anymore. The last straws for me was when SILENT INVASION was rejected, not because the editor didn’t think it was good (he said it was great) but because their marketing department said it wouldn’t appeal to girls age 9-12. Another editor (the VP of Random House Children’s Division) requested and read AFTER in one night. He got back to Gary the next day praising the book, but said he had no idea how he would get it passed the dozens of hurdles needed to publish when the story was so non-mainstream. He rejected it. Sitting here, thinking back to those heartbreaking days and thinking about the joy I feel every time I see another of my books sell on Kindle or Nook, I just can’t justify signing away my artistic freedom to reaffirm my ego. I see the future of authors working with traditional publishers and I don’t think it’s as rosy as some would like. I think I’ll stay indie, thank you.

What next?

I finally finished putting my hardcopy corrections of IMAGINATION onto the file version. It was a grueling seventeen hours of nothing but eyestrain and sore back and fingers, but alas, it was all worth it. Now, it’s smooth sailing until the manuscript is complete. I have four chapters that are outlined but need to be written and I have two characters that I have to flesh out their backgrounds a little more, but otherwise the basic book is done. It always feels strange to me when I’m nearing completion of a project that has taken nearly a year to create. Usually fear is the first emotion and that’s for two reasons. First, as all writers, I fear the manuscript will suck (pardon my bluntness), and the second, the most pervasive fear, is what am I going to write about next. For me, an entire novel will come in one five minute burst of inspiration. Usually, I get about ten of these bursts before one really sticks with me. The certain golden idea will come and stay in my mind day after day and night after night until I begin the writing process. It always starts with a very brief summary of the story I want to tell and the characters I want to have in the book. Then I usually write a few really bad, quick chapters to see if I like the characters and want to continue. If I get twenty pages into a beginning the story will probably come to fruition. But what if that never happens again? What if I finish IMAGINATION and that’s it. Kaplooey. No more inspiration and no more books to write. I sometimes wonder what I would do with all that time on my hands. I wonder what hobbies I’d pursue or activities I would participate in. I wonder how my wife would feel if I spent an extra twenty hours a week by her side? Probably drive her crazy since she’s grown quite accustom to my writing schedule. Yep, that pervasive fear that IMAGINATION will be the last book I ever write can be consuming at times. But then, I remember the folder marked ideas and the hundreds of pieces of scrap and notebook paper scribbled with plots, subplots, and characters who have yet to come to life. And my fear dwindles… but just a little.

http://www.neilostroff.blogspot.com

Results!

The free promotion for DEGENERATES has ended and here are the results. Copies given away to U.S. and Canadian customers is 1,678. Copies given away to U.K. Kindle owners is: 586. Copies given away to all other countries that can purchase from Amazon: 48. Of my other seven books that are for sale right now, during the four day free promotion period I saw sales increase by an average of thirty-five percent. All in all, I’d say it was a successful promotion. Between that promotion and the promotion for AFTER done at the beginning of the month, I gave away nearly four thousand copies of those two books. Though my paid sales for this month are lower than last month, I anticipate a pretty big increase if just a small percentage of my free promotion books draw in new readers. As far as my latest novel IMAGINATION goes, I’m at the one stage in finishing a novel that I hate most; copying my handwritten notes and corrections from the hard paper copy onto the computer file. I find this to be a detestable task that saps my energy and burns my eyes. If only I could pay someone who could recognize my scratch. On the bright side, this stage of my novel writing process indicates that the newest masterpiece is nearly finished. I do believe I will make my deadline of an early fall completion.

Promotion

I’m in the midst of another free giveaway promotion, this time it’s for DEGENERATES. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007FFN5LY This is the first time I’ve given away one of my thrillers and you know what? It’s flying off the shelves. It’s only the second day and the promotion goes until Sunday and I’ve already given away almost a thousand books. I’m happy to do it too, because I have two other thrillers FROSTPROOF and PULP that are written in the same style and have that same eerie, creepy, Stephen King-don’t-know-what-freaky-thing-is-going-to-happen-next feel. If any of the thousand-so-far readers who have downloaded the book like it, you’ll love my others. As I’ve said in the past, the free promo has been one of the best ways for me to have gotten my books out there. I almost always get a bump in sales of my other books when I do one. But sadly, as I’ve posted, I am taking all of my books off the KDP Select program. Being exclusive to Amazon is great and the perks are great, but I really think millions of readers buying Nooks and other ereader devices are too valuable to dismiss. So far Smashwords distribution to these outlets has yielded me about ten percent of my total royalties this year, but I hope to increase that through a heavy marketing campaign I’m planning in early to late fall when IMAGINATION is complete and published. Until then, get your free copy of DEGENERATES while you can, for soon I will have no more free giveaways. Enjoy the suspense.

Sleepless night.

Please enjoy DEGENERATES for free until Sunday! And have a sleepless night : )

DEGENERATES

Brutal slayings in the quiet suburbs of Philadelphia have detective Aaron Miller on edge. Residents are readily falling victim to a cold-blooded serial killer who is absolutely vicious, torturing and murdering at random and for sport. As pressure mounts to stop this psychopath, Aaron becomes increasingly frustrated by the lack of evidence. As his own life begins to unravel, a chance encounter leads him to interview the employees of City Café. He notices the shadowy figure washing dishes in the back. What happens next places the group in grave danger and leads them into a horror that will change everything about their lives.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007FFN5LY

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007FFN5LY

Winning

As I checked my email this morning I was pleasantly surprised to find out that my novel. DROP OUT http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005FX0K7U has won today’s Indie Book of the Day award. http://Indiebookoftheday.com . I’m not too familiar with the website but it seems like it has a lot of followers. I’m also not sure who nominated the book but if that person or persons reads this blog I’d like to say thanks. As I’ve always written, making it as an independent author requires exposure, lots and lots of exposure. I’m hoping this award will introduce a slew of new readers to my novels. I’ve already noticed a slight increase in sales. Once again, thanks for the award.

Author freedom

I got another one of those terrifying e-mails from Kindle Direct publishing saying they have discovered INSECTLAND for sale at other online booksellers. And as anyone who publishes through this promotion knows, you have to be exclusive to Amazon.com for 90 days. Violating this can lead to the expulsion of your book not only from the promotion but also from Amazon and Kindle. That would be a huge blow to my market audience of Kindle and Kindle Fire owners. Worried I might lose this book, I quickly checked the stats. I had enrolled the book in early March and had hit the automatic renewal button. It showed a new start date of June 7^th. Fine, I thought, my 90 day exclusive was up nearly two months ago. I have nothing to worry about. Then yesterday, I got another email from KDP saying that INSECTLAND was still on other websites and that it would be withdrawn from the promotion. I was a little flabbergasted and a little pissed. I read the rules and had followed them. I didn’t publish my books anywhere else until I was certain the 90 day period was up losing who knows how many Nook and Kobo sales? I bit the bullet because I believed that KND Select along with publishing for Nook and various other ereaders would turn out to be the best bet in the long run. I didn’t understand what was going on so I decide to post the question of why, after my 90 day exclusive is up that I’m getting my book pulled from the program, on the KDP forum to see if anyone else was having this difficulty. I got two great responses and here they are:

If you are enrolled with kdp select the conditions are that they have exclusivity. You cannot publish any other e versions of your book until the 90 day period has finished. By auto renewing you are agreeing to another 90 day exclusivity!

You said you renewed? Then you start all over with the 90 day exclusivity. The only way to get out of the exclusivity clause is to non-renew on your bookshelf.

There’s the reason. Whereas I thought after my first 90 days were up I’d have free reign to do what I wanted. Finding this out was very disappointing, mainly, like I said before, because I wasted three months on exclusivity instead of marketing to everyone. Though, every author has their own individual goals on who they want to sell to and how, I decided to withdrawal all of my books from the Select program. I want my books out there all over the world and available on everything with a screen. I know not having the free giveaways option may make me have to market harder, but I still think author freedom is worth it.

We all die. But what happens after?

Now you can find out for free! For the next two days AFTER is absolutely free on Amazon.com! Thanks and enjoy.

AFTER

When Nick Murray dies mysteriously he enters an afterlife like nothing he had ever imagined. There are rules, regulations, and beings in positions of great power. The devil craves this power and will do anything to attain it, even use his evil influence to start a global war on Earth. The devil intends to collect billions of human souls and turn them into a massive, afterlife zombie attack force.

Nick’s soul is dropped into the body of a deceased army commander in the hopes of stopping the apocalypse. But an unexpected turn of events lands him face to face with the ultimate adversary where he discovers a terrifying truth. How can you destroy something that is already dead? Fostered to be a celestial super hero, can he prevent the devil from damning for eternity all who ever lived?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0050Q8D8U

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0050Q8D8U

Also, check out the AFTER Facebook page.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/AFTER-Publicity-Page-Substance-Books/323339104383846

Organizing the chapters

So begins one of my favorite aspects of writing a novel; organizing the chapters. This is when I take each separate character and their plotline and read it all in one string instead of being spaced out in the book. This allows me to flush out any inconsistencies and make sure the story stays true and along the proper path. I first did this when I wrote DEGENERATES http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007FFN5LY. That book has so many characters and plotlines that it was nearly impossible to keep track of everything. I literally wrote seven separate stories, one for each character, before melding them together to form a coherent novel. This is what I’m doing right now for IMAGINATION. Once I get the characters in order, it’s just a matter of connecting them with a few key intro sentences and, wallah, the book is nearly complete. Why do I say “nearly”? Because I still do two more final reads. The first final, I’ll read half the book in one sitting at a relatively slow pace looking for any mistakes or errors no matter minute or insignificant. The next sitting, I will read the second half, looking for the same things. Then I put the book aside for one week give or take a day and concentrate on marketing and promoting, putting the manuscript totally out of my mind. Then comes the final read day. I’ll plan it on a day when I know I won’t be disturbed and have nothing pressing to do outside of the house. I’ll wake up early, get a steaming cup of coffee, settle into my comfy chair in the sunroom, place my laptop computer on my thighs, and read as much as I can before my eyes bug out or I stop for lunch. I’ll read the book like someone who bought the book; fast and looking to be entertained. I’ll only pause if something really terrible stops me. If I do have to rewrite a paragraph and shift some things around during this phase, I will start the entire process over again, reading from page one. I’ll do this until I can read the entire book in one sitting without stopping to fix anything. Sound like a long process? It is. I’ve written entire drafts of novels faster than it took me to consider the book finished after re-reads. You might say I’m a perfectionist, but I’m really not. For me, finishing a book is like setting a child out into the world. I want the book/child to be the best it can be and shine far above all the other competition. So, as I take another sip of coffee and look over these pages, I won’t know if IMAGINATION will be done in a week or a year. Let’s hope it’s the previous, I’ve got lots more new books to write.

Word-of-Mouth

Okay, so here we are entering the second week of July and my sales have remained relatively stagnant since the Fourth of July. I’ve explored all the free promotion sites, and forums and threads. I’ve placed sponsorships with Kindle Nation Daily, Kindle Fire Department, Kindle Boards, and various smaller indie websites. I’ve manage to write on average three blog posts a week and have over 170 followers (thanks everyone) and almost 200,000 hits. I’m active on Authors Den, Goodreads, Shelfari, The Book Marketing Network, and various other websites for writers. I participate on Facebook, Twitter, Linked in, Booktown, Bookblogs, and numerous other social media outlets… so what do I do now to boost sales? Pray to the book buying Gods to make me go viral? Pay thousands of dollars for a publicist and go forth unto the living and market directly to humans? Or simply keep doing what I’m doing and hope that eventually my dues will be collected and it all will pay off. I’m at the point in my writing career where the biggest book buying will probably come from word-of-mouth. With eight books out there now and three more on the way within a year, I can only hope that word-of-mouth will propel sales. I’ve gotten nothing but rave reviews for my novels and these are from actual unbiased buying customers that I don’t know. My friends who do buy my books also tell me how much they enjoy them. I get emails and comments from total strangers who love my stuff and style. So, what do I do now? The agony of word-of-mouth promotion is that it can take a long time for it to gain momentum. But then suddenly, poof, you go viral and everyone wants your stuff. Suddenly, you’re rich beyond your wildest dreams and selling tens of thousands of books a day. You buy vacation homes, and boats, and fast cars. You sit in a big house overlooking the ocean and tap out stories, happy beyond your wildest dreams. Yep, that’s what the right word-of-mouth can get you. Now, if I only knew how to get people talking. Any ideas? Check me out on Indie Spotlight today! Of course they got the wrong cover so that’s not good. That’s free advertising for ya. http://www.theindiespotlight.com/

The future

Lately, I’ve been contemplating the future of writers in today’s high technology society. What will become of us and the books we write? Will the paperback go the way of the compact disk? Will publishing houses disappear the way most record labels have? Will the paperback book become a lost art? I don’t know, but one thing I do know is that there will always be writers and there will always be stories to tell. What is uncertain, is what medium will sell those stories. I have several theories on what may happen in the not-to-distant future. One, and something we can all agree upon, is that ebooks will replace traditional books to a large degree. People will carry libraries of their favorites in a nearly weightless ereader the size of a sheet of paper or less. And we all know how easy it is to pirate a book and place it for free all over the internet. So, how will a writer make money? I’m nearly certain that book advances by major publishers will be non-existent within five years. I have two theories. My first, is that authors will have websites that people can join and then read the author’s books. For instance, I would charge say, 99 cents a month to read all the books I have and continue to put out. No one would really own the books but they could read them everywhere and on all types of devices. This would work extremely well if you had a large following. Imagine thousands if not tens of thousands of people paying .99 cents a month. That’s a lot of scratch. My second theory on the future of authors and their books is perhaps an author will offer their ebooks for free on websites or even as stand alone novels. The twist, there would be ads on both the site and in the book. The product would be free to the reader, but companies would pay to advertise alongside or in between the pages. This could generate quite a bit of revenue if the book became big. Imagine charging a certain sum for advertising per month and then switching it up between advertisers. Again, that’s a lot of scratch. As I see it, the traditional book industry of buying a single paperback from a single author through a bookstore or website will soon become ancient history. But for the author, this opens up a whole new way of getting the world to notice you. We’ll see what the future holds.