I’ve got a lot on the To Do list today. I talked about some of it.
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Wow, congratulations on the downloads! I had to laugh because it also occured to me that you’re about to have 5,000 people asking you when the next book is coming out! That said it’s cool that you’ve found so many new readers for your works.
Regarding foreign markets, have you thought about looking into making the rounds of the UK podcast circut (if there is such a thing?) I’m kind of amazed at the difference between a lot of authors’ US and UK sales, and that’s one thing that might be missing from their UK presence.
If you want to get your books into major European publishers, I’d try just sending copies of your books to them, along with a cover/query letter mentioning sales numbers. A well-done printed book gets *much* more respect than a manuscript, and your sales figures should really up the level of respect! If you’re trying to figure out which imprints to approach, just search that country’s Amazon for translations of US or UK authors that you’d like to be grouped with, and see who is publishing them.
One thing about having the books translated yourself, a lot of the big publishers have their own proven, translators that they would want to use. It’s also hard to believe, but foreign rights agents really aren’t agents in the US sense. They are just a middleman who will draft a contract for an interested local publisher. They don’t actually shop your books around. They just sit there until a local publisher discovers your book on their own, and then do the contract.
Wow, great news on the new readers for Ravenwood! They will definitely be looking for more.
On the Nook and turning the page. I don’t swipe across, I lightly tap the lower right corner to turn. That might be even quieter. You can tap anywhere along the right side of the page, I think. Back is tapping on the left side. There is no page-turning feel with it, but it’s there for the really lazy sorts. 🙂 This is the Simple Touch model.
Yes, Nate, great news about how much interest “Ravenwood” has generated for you. That will doubtless translate into some additional sales for the other books as well as a waiting crowd for those upcoming sequels in the the Tanyth Fairport series. Thumbs up!
I believe I was one of Amazon’s first 1000 customers. I even talked to Jeff on the phone back when he still had to do that sort of thing. I was stationed in London, England. I got there before the WWW part of the internet was anything and Compuserve was the biggy service. I was desperate for books from somewhere other than the Mom and Pop book stores in England. I had to call on the phone to explain that shipping to an FPO address was only shipping to New York from his part and the Military handled the rest. After 30 min on the phone with Jeff I started getting my books shipped to me. That was great!!! I left there in 1997 and nothing had changed as far as book sales were concerned at that time. Change comes slow to people that really don’t see a need to change. Large super markets had just started and there was a very large backlash aganist them. High Street was the place to shop not some stupid super market. The strange thing was that they were years ahead of us in cell phones and small satilite dishes back then. Things may move slow but move they do and sometimes they lay low for a long time then just burst on the scene. Can you self publish at Amazon UK? May be an option.
I’m already in Amazon UK and all the others including France, Italy, Germany, and Spain.
I really need to think about this one. It has the potential to be crippling if it’s handled wrong.
Not taking the deal leaves me the most options.
If you wanted to go the self-pubbed way in a foreign market, I would consider finding the translator of SF books that have been well-reviewed, and hiring that person. That way, you could ensure that the translation was first-rate.
Let me add my congratulations on the success of your “KDP Free” experiment. I’ll also add that you’re much gutsier than I was. When I did it, I was constantly torn between excitement that so many copies were getting out to the public, and the knowledge that every uptick on the numbers represented one more person that would never actually buy it (and that was after only one day). 🙂
I’ll be very curious as to how a three-day run works for you. Keeping my fingers crossed for you. Best of luck.
BTW, you mentioned that you hadn’t done anything to promote your free days for Ravenwood. If you didn’t know already, something that likely made a difference for you is the fact that the website “Pixel of Ink” listed Ravenwood on their site, and their email blast on the 26th. They seem to have a huge audience, and I would guess that probably had a rather large impact. I also saw DigitalInkSpot and a few others pick it up from that point and Tweet about it. Looks like you have plenty of advertising. 🙂