Don't Order One--Thousand of Anything!

 I recently received a small order of my latest book, A Gentleman and a Scholar, the ninth book in the Longleigh Chronicles. I pre-autographed them which saves lots of time later and slapped an autographed by author sticker on the cover. I finally ran out of the 1,000 stickers I had ordered fifteen years ago.  Basically, this means I've hand sold about the same number of books, though some are still in storage. By this time, however, they barely stuck to the covers and often popped off so I was back to saytng, "Yes, it is autographed" as if my signature would ever mean anything in a hundred years. I vowed to only buy a hundred more.  But discovered that although cheap, they only come in 1,000 piece packets. Amazon offered many shapes and styles, but I will never use them all. My daughter is now writing YA SF and if she gets published, I will give her at least half of these or more.

I also purchased 1,000 elegant business cards with my name and full contact information on them, and I mean all, phone number, e-mail address, street address. No, fanatical fans did not track me down though occasionally I'd get a nice note when a person had read one of books and liked it-if only they had dropped a review instead. It did make my day until a spoil sport told me they only wanted to get a free book out of me. Mostly, I got a bunch of annoying phone calls from people who wanted to sell me things. It seems folks would walk through an event picking up cards and selling the information. Even the old Yellow Pages called telling me I could get a lot more painting jobs if I advertised with them. My card said I also painted. I had to explain I did not paint houses, only on canvas, for fun not money. Though I still have 500 cards left, I give them out only sparingly to people who ask for them. If I move or change my phone number they will end up in the trash.

 My e-mail address and blog are listed on my book cards. I used to order 250 of these with each new book that came out because it was the best price. They have the book cover on one side, a blurb on the other, and a listing of all my titles plus the basic contact information. These have been useful, but believe me, 100 of each would have been plenty. I used to include an ISBN number but when one of my publishers went under and I resold the book, I had to throw all of those cards out since the book was recovered and the ISBN no longer correct.

     Swag-readers at events love free swag-and seldom buy a book. Save your money. Even now I have a few foam footballs left from an order of one-hundred and posters I used to give away with the purchase of a book (boy, did that fail). I've had friends who bought 1,000 cheap pens with their names imprinted on them only to find the ink ran dry after a year or so, and they had to be thrown out. My personal favorite swag is an emery board, useful and doesn't go stale. What I am saying is don't go overboard buying swag in your first flush of publishing fame unless you do strike it rich.

My books are not self-published but put out by small e-presses which lately are dropping like the autumn leaves. So far my two still exist for now. I order my books to sell at events from them and do not get any for free which is why I am cheap about giving them away. Still, the self-published often ask me how many copies they should order. I always tell them 100 as that is the extent of your friends and relatives who will buy your first book, but not likely your second, and many will not read it at all. Way back I did order 100 copies of each new book.  I did sell out my first, Goals for a Sinner, my best, Queen of the Mardi Gras Ball, and another entitled A Taste of bayou Water of which I had only ordered 50. Most of the others still have around thirty each laying around in boxes in the storage area ten years later. Now I only order a dozen and will reorder if needed. E-publishers would rather sell e-books. My orders are print on demand. They don't exist anywhere but in my back room and a few available on Amazon, also PODs or used books for ridiculous prices. Contact me and I will sell you one for $20 which includes postage, all but the latest which are $25 because the price of paper has has gone up so much.

Now, I was taken to task by a friend who self-published a memoir of growing up in a small town in the 1950's.  It was well written and had photos of her family. She went ahead and ordered 1,000 copies and sold them all for over twenty dollars each. Why? Every person in that small town wanted to see if they had been mentioned. For the most part, they weren't. It was a very personal story and only notes some stores of which she had fond memories which are now gone. She reordered. Who knows how many are her storage area now. I end by cautioning, don't buy 1,000 of anything.

 

Check your Sales Entries

      This one is for authors who have their publications up on Amazon. Don't we all! From time to time, look at your entries on this venue and others. I have thirty-six books in print. Once a day, I check my up and down status which really means nothing other than someone might have viewed your page. It doesn't mean a sale though you can tell if this happens if you suddenly have a huge status change for the better. My sales page is so cluttered with sponsored ads (paid) that I sometimes have trouble finding my own titles which now runs to three pages because of all the extra ads. I don't know about others, but I rarely respond to any of these ads and some are so far from what I write, I wonder why Amazon placed them there. For a year, I tried sponsored ads which are very reasonably priced though I rarely saw them appear anywhere. Instead of gaining readers, I lost them with four of my books going to No Sales Report which had never happened before. Two were part of my long running and modestly successful Sinners Sports Romances which always sold previously.

     So, I took a look at these entries on my page and found some glaring errors. Sister of a Sinner, one of my shorter books, was listed for sale for $26.45 in soft cover while other titles printed around the same time were $16.00. A used copy was also listed for $26.45, ridiculous when this book is still in print and can be purchased for $16.99 online from Barnes and Noble. No wonder it wasn't selling. I did report this-no answer, no change in pricing. It was also listed as a fantasy which it is not. The young woman in the story does see auras, but despite her special skill, she is kidnapped and rescued by one of the Sinners team members. Well, maybe that is a fantasy but not the kind most people envision.

     Moving on to another in the same series, She's a Sinner, about the first woman punter in the NFL. I predict this will  happen soon. The cover has a woman who really could be a kicker, not some fantasy league babe in a skimpy uniform. The soft cover is fairly priced at $14.99--but it is also offered as a mass market paperback for $53. I wish I had mass market books, but all of mine are print on demand and still in print for $14.99.  Who would pay this ridiculous price for a used book. My only idea is a money laundering scheme. I did report this.  The mass market offering was taken down, only to pop up again a few months later where it still remains. They seem only to target this one book out of my thirty-six over and over. Still can't figure out why. But, do check your entries for such scams.

     I used to post monthly, but can't really see the point anymore as I rarely get any comments though I do get a small number of views and love seeing where these views come from. Today, I had one from Kazakhstan and a large number from China which seems odd but interesting. Possibly, someone is using my blog for other purposes, but I am not computer literate enough to know. So for now, goodbye to my single reader in Kazakhstan.

The Pitfalls of Writing a Long, Long Series

      I love to write series.  My Sinners Sports Romances has now come to a conclusion after fifteen books spanning two generations on the lives and loves of a football dynasty. Sales for this series simply disappeared two years ago for no reason I could discover whether it was the TikTok scam to get free books or as one editor told me, my books were too old fashioned. Young people today want highly emotional one person narrators who spend most of the books trying to solve one problem rather than third person narratives that are often funny, i.e. my books.  Strange, when I first began writing I was told readers no longer wanted first person narratives, funny or not. The book I had offered at the time was Mardi Gras Madness. Eventually, it sold along with Courir de Mardi Gras with three POVS and Queen of the Mardi Gras Ball having one. They remain among my bestsellers and are easy to vend at authors' events but I haven't written anymore. Trends come and trends go, and one of those trends might kill a long running series.

      I wrote four books featuring bull riders that petered out after four books.  I had planned two more. They are still in the back of my mind, and some of the characters have done cameos in other books so they do live on.  Currently, I am working on a ten book series, The Longleigh Chronicles, Regency set historicals that are only now catching on as I finish up book nine. I found that as I worked on this ninth book, I'd forgotten some details as I went along. Fortunately, all of my books are stored on my desk top computer (and a data stick and a Toshiba external drive). I can go back into those files and verify some character's eye color or the name of a servant, etc. that I'd long forgotten. I also keep a list of characters in a paper file with their characteristics written down just in case of computer failure.  As the series expands, I need to keep track of the children born, age, and appearance. It takes a good memory and many backups to write a long series.

    Then there are the things I never considered important.  In Queen of the Mardi Gras Ball which takes place in the 1920s, the heroine buys several Picasso paintings that her bully of a husband hates. She loses everything to get a divorce and starts life over in another town. I forgot all about those Picassos until a reader asked me what happened to them. Gee, I don't know.  Her ex might have slashed them or given them to the maid to sell.  Perhaps they are still in the attic of the house on Prytania Street where Roz once lived.  Interesting question. Maybe they will turn up in another unrelated book some day.

     Once I finish the Longleigh Chronicles, I don't know what I will do.  Perhaps some single titles.  Maybe bring the Longleigh offspring into the Victorian era. I have no idea right now with the tenth book still to write. I am sure something will come to me as I cannot fathom giving up writing, successful or not.