I decided to offer the books in another form on Amazon.com to see if I could get more quantities going on, and to offer something to people who weren’t comfortable sending me a check personally. I wanted to offer brand spanking new books with the option for an autograph to the customers.

That was my intention, because when you order books from createspace as an author, you get a bit of a discount. I thought it would be enough to offer the book for $5.99 (plus shipping, which is what I’m offering it for direct from me) with an option for the autograph, but Amazon charges a bit for listing in the marketplace.

I found out all said and done that with their percentage taken away, I would actually be losing money by selling new copies for a dollar cheaper than amazon’s new price. When all is said and done, and the extra hassle of shipping the book is taken into account with an authograph, I had to list it at the same price as a new book (which essentially it is, with an autograph). If I listed it lower on Amazon, taking into account their cut, I’d make approximately negative money when all was said and done.

That’s an important lesson for trying to open up new options for the customers: it’s very difficult to know how much things will cost, and how much you can take it down when dealing with online marketplaces such as amazon. However, that shouldn’t mean you should not list things with the offers like the one I have listed.

Because the more options that people have when purchasing your books, the more chances you have to sell. And it always is important to take a gander at the bottom line on pricing so you are getting at least your time’s worth out of it. I think that’s the most important advice I can give you when it comes to new options for your books: check the bottom line to make sure two things: A. you’re not losing money by opening up a new venue, and B. you’re getting your time’s worth out of it.

Keep on writing!

This is the second of the three things I want to talk about regarding self publishing, and something that is a bit of a sore spot with me. The bottom line is this: YOU AS AUTHOR have to let people know you’ve got a book out there!

There’s no way around it. I noticed the uptick mentioned previously when I advertised my book on my other blog with a simple “BUY MY BOOK” link list at the top of the sidebar. That, and an occasional comment left on facebook got a lot more people informed. Now, of those lots more people, only one or two bought books, but this was a huge plus: I had sold none the year previously.

So advertising: you’ve got to do it. Me, being from Minnesota, it is difficult to talk myself up, or to toot my own horn if you will. I don’t like talking about my achievements or things I’ve done for the reason that it may offend someone and sound like bragging. Here’s something I realized though: no one who doesn’t know you will give two cents worth of their time if they aren’t aware of what you’re doing. Hell, I’ve got a doctorate now, and even the people I KNOW and talk to regularly aren’t too well informed on that.

The long and short of the point I am making is that when you self-publish you’ve got to put on more than just the author hat. You’ve got to go and do as much as you can via whatever means necessary to get the word out. For me, given the amount of time I have, that was usually via my blog or facebook. However, I’ve got Myspace and twitter as well…and those are huge venues in order to get the word out because people who are friends of friends will be able to see posts at times (dependent on your privacy settings of course). There are other methods, of course, that I am in the throes of testing, and I will let you know how those do as soon as I’ve got some hard data in.

But the best advice I have for this is that if you want to sell books, you need to get the word out. Heck, stand on a corner with a billboard if you must (provided you have the necessary permits from your city/county) but the only way you are going to sell to strangers is if they hear about your work.

That’s all for now, you keep on writing!

Through monday. Turns out that my alma mater has a program at their library where grads can borrow books.

Consequently, regular posting (or as regular as I can get) will resume on Monday (even though it is a federal holiday).

That’s all for now, you keep on writing!

Now, as I mentioned earlier today, in the last three weeks I have sold more books than in the last year and a half. Some may see this statement as bragging, but when the sum total of books you’ve sold is sitting at a number less than ten in the last year and a half, it’s just a statement of fact.

Anyway, what did I do differently between then and three weeks ago? Three things: pricing, advertising, availability.

The first thing I want to talk about is pricing. I had set it at 10.99 when I first published it. The first couple months sold a few copies, but then I ran out of friends with available funds. I also then promptly got caught up in dissertation writing and few things garnered my attention, but more on that in tomorrow’s post. I want to focus on pricing.

First things first: why was it set at 10.99? That is expensive for a paperback, even now, and especially (in my mind, anyway) for one that was only 160 pages. However, when createspace started up, there was very little other option for me if I wanted to sell it on amazon and make more than a nickel a copy (which would not make it very much worth my time). When all was said and done, I seem to remember the 10.99 giving me a royalty payment of $1.

Now, of course, the plan was never to get rich on this book. It was to raise awareness, to try something new, and to pave the way for a sequel (THAT’S where I’ll get rich, heh heh heh!). So a dollar royalty struck me as relatively reasonable. Of course, at that time the price that they were charging was a bit astronomical per copy of book and 10.99 is where it sat.

Then in class in December, one of my students noticed the book and told me he was going to order it. I told him to hold off, because I wanted to see if I could lower the price a bit (hey, I remember being broke). So, for the first time in about a year, I went in to check the options.

Now, I knew createspace and pumped me up to the pro-plan, but I didn’t realize how much had changed in the pricing options since I had first heard they did that. I went in and noticed that I could lower the price of the book to 8.99 (about an 18% decrease). Since then, I’ve sold three books.

Now, it may be too early to assume that the drop in price was the reason for all three of those sales, but it certainly contributed. This is something to think about for self-publishing: measure how much the author thinks his/her time is worth versus how much the author thinks people will pay for the book. For me, it’s always been about the one dollar mark for this book. I think that is a good return for the work I’ve done on the book, and a good way to get into the market. I could be wrong, and to try and sell more, I may be forced to lose even more if I crunch the numbers again (which I will be doing monthly now).

And that’s just me. I worry about some people who think “hey I can make money!” with their writing, but then overprice the book and nothing sells…then they stop writing. This is a mistake. I’ve been writing for the last 6 years on a blog for free. Actually for negative numbers, since I’ve paid hosting on the thing. That may also inform my thoughts on getting paid for writing, and the fact I’m sharing my advice for relatively free: I’m used to it.

But that’s the long and short of it on pricing: balance the concept of what the work is worth against the concept of what the readers will pay for it. And honestly, maybe I haven’t found the magic balance point yet…but that’s the plus of what Createspace is giving me: a control over things like that where I can keep trying to find it with minimal loss of cash on either their end or on mine.

Something to ponder for your own writing.

That’s all for now, you keep on writing!

So, it’s been a while since I updated this blog.  For that I apologize, but for the last two years I was neck deep in something that the natives call “school.”  But that’s more or less done now, and I have a PhD.

If you self publish, you may want to consider very seriously the price that you’re listing the book at.  I started off listing it at 10.99 because that was the only way that I as an author could have made $1 on each book.  It has since changed, and Createspace has been putting me on their pro-plan.   Essentially this means that I get more per book. Now, I’d sold nothing between August of 2008 and September of 2009.  In september and october, I sold a sum total of two copies, to friends who had caught up to me on Facebook.  I changed some things in December, and I sold one copy then, and have sold 2 copies in January.

Now, you’ll obviously notice that I’m not going to get rich and retire any time soon, but it got me thinking about three things any self publisher should do for the books.  I’ll update the next few days on what those three things are, and get into depth on what I did to help them.   So, stay tuned.

That’s all for now, you keep on writing!