You may have missed my previous mention of this, so let's recap: almost any* piece of writing I release in future is going to be sold, not given away.
Thanks to the meteoric rise of ebook publishing, this is a hell of a lot easier to accomplish than it might have been even five years ago. It's almost literally click-and-publish now. That's great news for folk like me. All my efforts, all my hours and days of writing can be easily converted into a format that can be sold to you directly and discreetly. Heck, if you want a paperback book, you can get one.
Apparently though, I'm late to the party - real late. I went for a casual search on Amazon tonight and found absolutely boatloads of Kindle books with tags like 'transgender', 'crossdressing', 'erotica', 'hardcore'... and so on.
Here's what I find interesting though: a lot of these 'books' aren't even that. They're barely short stories. Many of them are less than 5,000 words in length - I've written multiple chapters in Housesitting that are more than 5,000 words in length. The first chapter is over 5,000 words! I've got transformation scenes that are almost 2,500 long!
And many of these 'books'... are selling at 99c each.
That's not my plan. I plan to complete a novel (arguably, I already have) and I plan to sell it at a similar price to what you'd pay for a paperback (of a similar size) in a bookstore. I aim to give you damn good value for money. Trust me, there's very little 'fluff' in what I'm writing.
But I'll tell you this; it's damn likely I'll put some of my earlier, shorter pieces (Beneath the Veil, Psych, maybe Her Smile) online for sale soon. Why wait? Time to dip my toe in.
I would love to hear your opinions on this. Are all of us just chumps? Should every mask fiction author be selling their work, rather than just giving it away? Let me know here in a comment or by email.
* Anything that doesn't involve characters created by others. In other words, none of my fan fiction (which is, ultimately, is what BBSSG is) will be sold.
While 'FREE' is still one of my fave 4-letter ('LOVE" being my absolute favorite.) words, I do find value in the entertainment provided in your writing and am likely to invest in that entertainment.
ReplyDeleteMaybe re-release a few of your better short writings to develop a taste and demand for your genre. (...and maybe a snippet or two from Housesitting to build appetite and excitement...)
Being worth every penny you paid, those are my thoughts.... PLL ------ Dee
One problem might be that they can be found for free on the web already, so people may not buy.
ReplyDeleteI think Joe Six-Pack and Tanya Allan might be good models for price and marketing style.
I think established writers could build up an audience and then start selling fairly well.
Since you mentioned Psych, how is The Babysitter coming along? For some reason, I am more interested in that story, probably since my appetite has been whetted with Psych.
Dee - re-releasing the short stuff is the plan now for ebooks, initially. (Those are actually on the Maskfiction group too, though.)
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, snippets of Housesitting... although not big ones.
Chepito - I'm not expecting much (if any) money from short stories, but I was just sort of stunned to see that there is a market for it. It's not that every erotica tale on Amazon is a novel - most of them aren't. What seems to be happening is that people very much like the authors who frequent the Maskfiction group are churning out titles for Kindle at a rapid rate. There's some wisdom in that. And I need to establish myself there. Also, it's good practice.
I assume Joe Six-Pack and Tanya Allan are authors you've read? Any good?
Last but not least - Babysitter is fine, in fact it's close to 75K in word total, but it's probably only about 2/3rds finished (I'd say Housesitting is about 3/4 finished right now). I will absolutely finish The Babysitter, but I have to be disciplined about finishing Housesitting, otherwise I'll get distracted and it'll sit undone. More on that later though. Keep reminding me!!
Oh and FYI, happy as I am that you liked Psych, don't take it as a real prequel or any indication of what Babysitter's like. It's written in a different style, from a different viewpoint, etc etc. It was really a writing exercise that sort of seemed to get out of control!! But I am glad you liked it. :)
BTW if you ever wonder what else I have in the works I've been pretty transparent about it (perhaps too much!!). Read my label 'projects' here on the blog to see more: http://ghostlywriter.blogspot.com/search/label/projects
I read Tanya's stuff when it was free, I think many of her stories tend to have a similar theme/conclusion and are a bit repetitive. They are however, usually novel-length. However, she announced that she sold something like 11,000 Kindle books to date, maybe after a year or 2?
ReplyDeletehttp://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/blog/41097/my-11000th-ebook-sold
Joe Six-Pack sells stuff on http://sixpacksite.com, a bit more variety in themes and endings. Novel-length.
They both seem to be doing well in paying the bills with stories, although I don't think they're swimming in royalties.
Fascinating! Thank you so much, Chepito! I'll be honest if I could 'pay the bills' with book sales I'd be very happy... I doubt it's going to happen any time soon but who knows? Thank you again for the links!
ReplyDeleteI'd say one thing they have in common are that they seem to churn out a lot in terms of quantity, and they also have a stable of older stories that are available for free, I guess to draw in fans? Of course their books always give away an excerpt as well.
ReplyDeleteI'd say they are also a bit formulaic--I'm not sure if they spend as much time developing characters and storylines as you do. This is probably a reason why they can churn books out at such a fast pace. And how they maintain sales, I guess--notice how Tanya says she better get a new book out soon since the sales have started dwindling.
It looks like if you read Tanya's blogs, there are some bits of advice and whatnot; I can't vouch for the quality of said advice, since I haven't read it and I'm not an aspiring writer, but maybe there's something there.
Yeah, the 'give 'em a few for free' plan works very well. Arguably I've been doing that for years but I can see myself doing it again in future!!
DeleteExcerpts are auto-generated on the Kindle store, although that worries me a bit - some of my best stuff can be in the first 10% - but I can probably figure that out.
I don't know how much crossover there will be between the Masking Writer group and people who would buy the stories as ebooks. I suspect there are a lot of potential buyers who don't know about Masking Writer. It seems that part of being a good-selling author (in any medium?) is to have a steady flow of work, so that people remember your name and expect to see more from you. Self-advertising is important too - get your name out there, wherever it is potential readers might be.
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