Day: August 6, 2013

Sneak Peek: Horded

Today we have a sneak peek from Horded, the second book in the Kingdoms Gone fantasy series by author Frances Pauli.

Maera is a woman torn between the debt she owes her people, and the selfish yearnings of her own heart. Tal is the lowest gobelin, the cursed brother of the horde’s greatest warrior. When he stumbles onto a legendary castle, however, he believes his luck is about to change.

Together, they are the only ones who can save Tal’s brother, the one person they both love and the only thing they can agree on. If they fail, the castle will fall into enemy hands. If they succeed, they’ll have to stand together against the full fury of the gobelin horde…

This book is available from Amazon and Amazon UK.

Here is an excerpt from Horded…

Continue reading “Sneak Peek: Horded”

How to Stop Selling Books Immediately

July 2013 was one of the slowest sales months I’ve had. I didn’t sell very many books last month. In fact, when the final numbers are tallied, it may turn out to be my worst month ever. There are excuses, I mean reasons, and I’ll get to those, but let me whine, I mean pontificate just a little while longer.

When I’m asked how many books I sell I like to say that I sell books every single day, and up until July that was almost always true. But, during the past month I had two days where the numbers on my sales reports did not change. Now, I realize I’ve been a very lucky guy and there are authors who haven’t been as fortunate as I have, but I’ve kinda gotten used to a certain consistency, and last month it just wasn’t there. For two days my sales dashboard remained dormant and no one downloaded any of my three books. As my author friends know, this also affects your rankings on Amazon. With each hour of non-sales, my rankings got farther and farther away from the coveted top 100, 1,000, 10,000 spots. My usual ranking for my most popular book, My Temporary Life, is in the 10,000 to 40,000 range but I watched as it fell all the way to the 80,000 mark. Fortunately, it didn’t last, and the numbers started increasing after the short delay, and my rankings climbed back up. Continue reading “How to Stop Selling Books Immediately”

Tips: Adding a Banner to Your Website

Guest post
by RJ Crayton

I was recently perusing the web when I ran across an author website with a thin blue banner that said, “Connect with me on Facebook.” When I clicked it, it took me to the author’s Facebook page, which I decided to like.

I thought this was pretty cool and would be a good addition to any author’s page. The bar allows you to put the information you feel is most important for readers up top to see. What’s important could be joining your mailing list, connecting on Facebook, following on Twitter or something else entirely different. With many of these bars, once users have seen it, they can click a button to minimize the bar from view, so it’s not a distraction as they peruse the rest of your site. Continue reading “Tips: Adding a Banner to Your Website”

Smashwords Now Offers Preordering, But Is It for You?

When I heard that Kobo was gearing up to let authors upload books on preorder status, I didn’t know that Smashwords would soon be leading the charge on most of its premium channel distributors.

Yes, Mark Coker and company are now offering preorders, but in a public beta test. The big news is that you don’t have to be James Patterson’s staff of assistants or Hugh Howey to make your next book available for preordering. Continue reading “Smashwords Now Offers Preordering, But Is It for You?”