Shine

[OBRIB01]

By "ads" I'm guessing he either means having his books listed in the little book scroll that suggests other books to you when you're looking at another book, or the emails that Amazon sends out with a half dozen or so books they want you to take a look at. I've definitely seen books that I'm interested in checking out via both methods, although not THESE books, because I keep up on the website and know about them before Amazon has a chance to point them out to me.
And speaking of that, one potential issue with book sales is that, even though I "follow" Dale on Amazon's site, it's usually at least a week, and I've seen it as long as THREE weeks, between the publish date and actually getting an email from Amazon notifying me of the new book. That's got to be bad for sales, yeah? I mean, following an author is meant to let you know when new books show up, so when it doesn't DO that, it kind of defeats the purpose. It isn't just Dale's books that I see that from, either, so don't think Amazon's out to get him - they seem to be out to get EVERYONE that way.

[PS Power]

I haven't, historically, done much with advertising, since most of it doesn't actually work at all. I'm trying a campaign again, with Amazon, right now, however. There have been no sales through it, but it HAS cost me some money. (So, great for the Zon, not so much for me, so far. That's all advertising though. You take your chances, trying to become visible.)

So, you may or may not notice ads in different places.

The emails are, as far as I know, beyond my control.

I was wondering for a while if Amazon were just ignoring my works for some reason (say, I don't know, that they didn't like my rather soft and fairly liberal politics as presented in the books, or I put out to many works in too short of a time for their system to handle...)

From investigation and listening to other authors, some of whom were best sellers over all on Amazon, many times... It seems that the answer is their KU program. More exactly, that it cut sales of books (expected. That's kind of how the program works, after all.) and then scammers figured out how to work the system, which had two main effects...

1. The funds from KU dropped a lot.
2. The reads from KU also dropped a huge amount

Most of the reads from KU are going to people scamming the system with what amount to fake books (that contain literal nonsense. I'm not talking BAD books here. Real fakes that are designed to get through the system well enough to allow click farms to take in hundreds of thousands of dollars a week from the system!) and other scam tricks that, for some reason, Amazon is either not able to fight right now, or they are having real trouble with.

(Or, of course, they don't care to, but it is clearly hurting their sales, overall. A lot of authors have fled the KU program already. I've been considering it, honestly. I think that I can do good business over at Kobo and the Apple Store, as well as Barnes and Nobles, if I come in with nearly a hundred titles that haven't been offered there before in a pattern that impresses their system...)

The big problem is that most of my works are going to be stuck in Amazon for months. Plus, making the change is a huge work commitment. Several months of work, just for that, possibly losing money the whole time. (After all, the reason I was in Amazon KU in the first place was because that was where the money was. It may be possible that this SNAFU on their part (the scammers, so it isn't really Amazon, to be fair about it) has simply made it so that very few Indie authors will be able to survive until it is fixed.

So, for the time being, I'm doing what I can to get up into the top 100 over all. Short of doing that I might not be able to keep working at a writer full time. (Luckily, I have some other irons in the fire.)

[MarciaA]

Get bookbub daily, today this ad was on the bottom! Yay!!

[PS Power]

Yes. It's part of my Post Christmas advertising push attempt.



Fingers crossed?

[MasterfulZora]

Finally got around to finishing shine. I like what you did with the ending, it sets the tone of the forum well and provides a reminder and some motivation for reviews without it seeming pushy. Nice work

[MarciaA]

It was again at the bottom of book bubs page as an ad! Actually read the blurb about the book and your third person bit. “Grin” nice!

[PS Power]

I realized that I have to actually become part of the story, since that's the coming trend. Celebrity authors, instead of just books...

I have little clue as to how to get that done, but hey, I'll think of something. Maybe a strange, but distinctive hat, or odd glasses?

Face tattoo?

(No, not that one.)

[Mojo]

This is one series that I can see continuing on long after the last book in the multiverse is published.

[PS Power]

The rules of the "Multiverse":

1. The realities and line walkers exist.

2. The big arc is about the "war" which will be taken care of in the next book coming out. I should have it finished 9rough draft) in the next four or five days. One way or the other, the war is coming to a close. Kind of.

3. Shine will be mainly happening after the end of the grand arc. The big difference? The enemies aren't trying to destroy all of reality.

Which will be the norm, from this point out.

4. I will be doing more stories in isolation. (Which just means normal. For instance, the Keeley Trilogy, "Once a Demon" which is the next project coming up, will attempt to introduce the whole world she is in from a good starting point. You will get more out of it if you've read the other books, but won't need to in order to understand the plot.

The story will, by and large, focus on the world that Keeley lives in. (Which is undergoing massive changes that no one saw coming...)

[Mojo]

Looking forward to your Keeley book!