Playing the system

I admit here and now that I'm no supporter of the idea of giving away books (and nor are any of our authors). Yes, it is founded on a good idea - the notion of giving free samples to customers in order to entice trade. My uncle used to be a rep for a chocolate company and he'd have boxes of sweets to give out to shopkeepers to 'try' (in the comfort of their own home, of course). I know for a fact that this ‘generosity’ ultimately resulted in lots of sales.

Don't make publishing a game of chance

I'd say the same for the modern book giveaways but just look at it from a customer's point of view. The average reader simply wants a (good) book so, unless they're seeking out a specific title or author, why should they do anything other than pick a freebie. After all, that same book could cost as much as $10 tomorrow (probably not but it could).

The sad fact of life is that there are just too many blasted books being given away for your novel to be noticed once it stops being free.

Based on the theory that goes 'if you can't beat them, change the rules', when you're looking to write a new book, make sure that you download all the top reviewed freebie books in your field. You'll need to do this over the space of about a week so that you don't miss any important ones.

Having got the books, quickly analyse them. How do they begin? How many principal characters? Do the books generally have happy or sad endings? What about the locations?

Because of the range of different genres, it's impossible to come up with an exhaustive list of questions but you get the idea. Find out what makes these books tick. Grab 20 or 30 and really see what the common thread is - that's what you're going to gain from this exercise from a writer's perspective.

Having done that, now look at the covers. For this part you can also go to the paid-for books but obviously don't download them unless you really want to buy them!

How many words do the titles have? What words keep appearing? How many images are the covers made up of? What do they have in common? Where is the title - top, bottom or middle? What about the author's name?

This sounds like a lot of work. True, but it's nothing like as much work as goes into writing a book. Given that all the invaluable research I've set out here shouldn't cost you a red cent, what can be the excuse for not doing it?

Not only that, the days of so many freebies to choose from has got to be numbered and they’ll soon disappear along with the incredible wealth of information that's currently a mere click or two away.

Any Subject Books acts as a conventional publisher of e-books and POD's as well as providing a full range of services to the self-publishing and independent author. Not sure which applies to you? Follow the link to the publishing services page.

Something for nothing? (Part 2 of 2)

Continued from last week ...

I hear a lot of nonsense about giving books away in order to get reviews and I'd just like to clarify that one while I'm at it. It's estimated that less than 1% of buyers bother to leave reviews and, of course, there's no guarantee that they'll be good. It's nice to see that Amazon have finally added some commentary in the reviewer's box advising against commenting upon Amazon's own services. I've already blogged about seeing 1-star reviews for products which have been delivered late or in damaged packaging (i.e. nothing to do with the author or manufacturer).

Have a cigar
 

I'm equally sure about Amazon knowing this percentage and, if the algorithm's got any sense, it'll be looking for anomalies in the percentage of sales resulting in reviews for a specific book. If that rises above a certain level (4 standard deviations above the mean I'd suggest), the reviews are likely to get scrutinised for ‘sock-puppet’ tendencies.

In any case, there are plenty of books which have made it to the top with lousy reviews and even more ones with cracking reviews that never see the light of day.

Continuing on the subject of nonsense, I'd like to dispel another little myth and that's the one about DRM which, for those who don't know, stands for Digital Rights Management and is intended to protect electronically-delivered goods (such as e-books) from being ripped off. I can tell you now that it's a very easy matter to get through the DRM blocking and so gain full access to the book's make-up file. Thus a book can be downloaded in mobi (Amazon's Kindle) or ePub format and, even with DRM, be turned into a Word document or HTML within a few seconds.

Having done that, the content can be used in any way the hacker sees fit.

As I've also blogged about, I belong to a commercial writing site from where I've taken on the odd job. In the last two years, there's been a phenomenal growth in spinning - the act of taking a document and, through the replacement of proper nouns, verbs and adjectives, turning it into an (almost) unrecognizable document which effectively says the same thing as the original. Spinning software is readily available and spinners (the workers) are cheap to hire. Thus a book can be downloaded, ripped off, spun and resold for no outlay (or virtually no outlay) whatsoever.

That could be your book. Think about it for a moment.

The long arm of the law won't reach them

It's no good consoling yourself with the notion that you'll just get hold of your friendly ambulance-chasing, pro-bono, bloodsucking legal-beagle either. Firstly you've got to spot the rip off (it may not be on the original book site - it might be a downloadable file from another website) and, having done that, you've then got to track down the author. My guess is that you'll be thrashing around in a thick fog. Even if you do catch up with the 'thief', you've got to find a way of punishing them. Well, good luck. I've had my stuff ripped off far too many times and never once been able to get anything done about it.

Opting out of the freebie days and ensuring that your book always has to be paid for in hard currency is, of course, no protection against this happening but it does discourage. A few dollars may not be much to you but it's more than a day's wages to the typical spinner. When there are easier pickings to be had, they're going to target those books instead.

I've no doubt whatsoever that some people have benefited from following the giveaway route but I've also spoken to many who haven't. This, of course, begs the question "How many of those who succeeded by using free giveaways would have done so regardless?". Every author must make their own decision and I'm not wanting to tell anyone what to do (or not to do) but I am urging caution and for you to go into the arrangement with your eyes open in just the same way as you might regard our anonymous benefactor whom I described at the outset of this article.

If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.

Clive West is an author himself and understands what it's like to be a writer. He also runs a book publishing company alongside his wife and fellow author. Any Subject Books is always pleased to hear from new authors.

Something for nothing? (Part 1 of 2)

If a complete stranger tries to give you something free of charge, what thoughts would normally go through your head?


• There's a catch
• Something is wrong with it
• The thing's been stolen
• It's got no value

Don't believe all you see.

Yet, despite this instinctively suspicious reception, authors are forever being encouraged to give away their books in return for enhanced rankings and thus more sales in the long term. It's a nice idea but, like communism, it's largely doomed to failure because of the inherent self-seeking nature of the human race.

If there's an easy way of making money, someone will give it a try. That's a simple fact of life.

So, what do I have against the freebies?

For those who don't know, the principal (although not sole) source of free books is that made available by authors who've signed up for Amazon's KDP program. This 'allows' them 5 promotion days (when they can give their books away for free) in a 90-day period. It's carefully controlled and 5 days is the maximum for everyone. The author decides which days and then does all the pre-promotion awareness-raising. In return, Amazon's algorithm gives a partial credit (how much is a carefully guarded secret) for every book that's given away. The result is that, after the promotion has terminated, the book is left floating at a higher level than before its free promotion.

There is one other salient fact to be taken into account. During the promotion, the book's normal ranking is suspended and it is given a temporary 'freebie' one instead. At the end of the promotion, the book's 'permanent' ranking is recalculated and that determines the mid-term visibility of the book.

But what does all this mean in terms of sales?

The answer is a mixed bag as it depends on the permanent ranking before and after. Given that there are millions of books available now with thousands more being uploaded every day, it's obvious nonsense to think that every promoted book is going to get into that magical top ten thousand with its more or less guaranteed sales. However, if you believe everything you read in the writers' groups, you could be forgiven for thinking that there must be a hundred thousand books in the top ten thousand.

If you see such things (like I do all the time), restrict any comment to “Uh-huh. Really? Well done”, and hang on to your cynical and suspicious instincts for all that is holy to you. Everyone has an agenda and, if you’d just discovered the magical elixir or the formula for the alchemists’ touchstone, would you go blabbing the formula to all and sundry? Exactly.

You want to gamble?

I could be even less charitable by saying that if I do something foolish, I’ll feel a lot less of a fool if I’m surrounded by fellow fools who’ve made the same mistake. Read Aesop’s Fable of the fox without a tail.

Returning to the mathematics of it all, if your book started off by ranking well then the promotion day is undoubtedly going to give it a boost. You've presumably got a readership already and a good promotional day will only serve to consolidate your position.

Going into the freebie day with a low-ranking book is another matter. Unless you've somehow managed to get loads of publicity, all you're going to do is to give free copies to people who don't mind taking a chance on an unknown author if the book doesn't cost them anything. There won't be enough of those to make a difference and your hard work will almost certainly go unrewarded and unnoticed.

Continued next week …

Clive West has written a novel, a collection of short stories and two non-fiction books. He now runs a publishing company called Any Subject Books along with his wife, also an author.