Well, this last week has been a roller coaster of a ride for the whole world. With the onset of COVID-19, people around the globe had to adjust their lives as we attempt to pull the reins in on this pandemic. One thing I can say I am truly thankful for is the ability to still be able to work. Because of the solitary nature of being a writer, it is business as usual. Many people around the world, however, do not have that luxury as their lives have been upended because of the virus.
I don’t want to spend my whole time talking about the coronavirus. However, I will say that the sky is not falling and life will continue, whether you have a three year supply of toilet paper or not (that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It just goes to show that thinking plummets to an all-time low during these kinds of situations because of panic).
So, what exactly has been going on behind the scenes here at RIU HQ?
Well, one of the big ones is that the cover for the third book in the Blackson trilogy is finished. The sneak peek to look at Blackson’s Redemption will happen in the next couple of days for those who are RIU Elites. For others, you will simply have to wait until the book comes out. I’m excited about it as we get ready to roll out Book 3 in the Poltergeist Files.
In audiobook land, as I mentioned in my post last week, The Forest, the second story in The Dark Corner miniseries, has been submitted and is still awaiting approval. The book was submitted on March 4 and has been sitting in the queue for two weeks. I’m going to go ahead and write to them on Friday to see where they are in the process of approving the book. In the meantime, production on the next story has begun and will be finished by the end of the week. That’s onto the editing stage and uploading that book as well. So expect news next week that The Gift is also completed.
Another major change: Blackson’s Revenge was in a $.99 promo until yesterday. Now anyone who has been paying attention knows that I launched it at $.99 and has been at that price point ever since. But I mentioned to those who are on my mailing list (there were only a few of you) that this was the last time it would be at that price. I wasn’t saying that as a marketing gimmick. I was for real. That $.99 introduction into the series is no more and you can now get that book for $2.99. Unless something else happens, it’s going to stay at that price point for quite a long time.
Why did I decide to increase the price to a series starter? There were a couple of reasons.
I am on many mailing lists when it comes to my publishing business. One of those lists is at Kindlepreneur, the website of Dave Chesson who puts out KDP Rocket. Last week, I received in my email inbox a link to a decent article at that site that talked about read-through (the likelihood that someone is going to continue to read through your series). In that article, it also talked about how to price the first book in a series. It’s a good article that I’m going to bookmark and is validation for what I was going to do anyway.
Which brings me to a second reason.
The second reason I decided to raise the price of the first book is simple. I think it’s worth the $2.99 price tag. The article nudged me in a direction I was already going in terms of my marketing endeavors and how I was going to approach my business as a whole. I’ve been doing small things like that in 2020 I will continue to do so.
For example, as most of you know, in the past I used to give away books. I won’t be doing that anymore and haven’t for a while. The only ones who get my books for free are those who are part of the RIU Elites. I have decreased the number of promos I am a part of because many of them require you to give away a free book which I don’t do anymore.
What I do is give away 33% of the book. If you read that much of it then there’s a good chance you’re going to want to read the rest of the book. If you can’t get through the first 33%, chances are you’re not going to be interested in the book anyway. This has been successful in helping me manage my mailing list as well as pull in people who are really interested in my work instead of people who just want to get a free book. Since I am not in Kindle Unlimited and plan on really establishing myself as going wide (not making myself exclusive to Amazon through Kindle Unlimited or any other means), free books will be a rare commodity in the RIU.
There some other things but I’m going to leave those for next week because this entry is already a little long in the tooth and I want to work on that other element before I decide to talk about it more once I have some time to get acclimated.
So that’s it for this fourth week of the Wednesday Writing Journal. I’m your host, Easton Livingston. And I will see you in the Tapestry.
