Author: Stephen Hise

Stephen Hise is the Evil Mastermind and founder of Indies Unlimited. Hise is an independent author and an avid supporter of the indie author movement. Learn more about Stephen at his website or his Amazon author page.

Cute Pictures of Puppies and Kittens

Jeeves! Where the devil are my bath salts?

Every once in a while I see someone bemoaning the fact that nothing they do on their Facebook page gets any attention unless it’s a cute picture of a puppy or kitten.

You can put a lot of fanfare into a book announcement, post an opinion poll, ask for help with something, and all you get is the sound of chirping crickets. But post a picture of a cute little animal, and whammo – near instant virality.

I have a theory about this. It seems to me that the appeal of puppies and kittens cuts across the lines that otherwise divide people. Race, age, gender, and income level just don’t apply. You don’t have to live in a certain part of the planet, speak a certain language, do a particular thing for a living. Continue reading “Cute Pictures of Puppies and Kittens”

Indie News Beat: Bye-Bye Apple Pie

Ladies & gentlemen, boys & girls, friends & neighbors, cherished colleagues & valued frienemies, it is time once again for the Indie News Beat.

That’s right, we do the heavy lifting so you don’t have to. We scour the internet, sometimes for 15-20 minutes, finding all the news that’s worthy of your attention.

Chris James is still at large. If you see him, call our hotline. Do not attempt to apprehend him yourself. He’s very disarming and will not only escape from you, but will have you making him tea and knitting him sweaters. Perhaps I’ve said too much. Continue reading “Indie News Beat: Bye-Bye Apple Pie”

The Amazon Petition

Glenda Wallace of Gautier, MS has posted a petition on change.org. The subject of the petition is Amazon’s refund policy, which allows people to return eBooks within seven days for a full refund, whether they have read the book or not.

Glenda frames the argument so:

“Customers know within a certain number of pages whether or not they wish to continue reading the book. Seven days is excessive. There are too many people admitting that they abuse the policy simply because Amazon allows it.”

I understand people getting rankled about that, especially if they’ve had a lot of books returned and suspect people may be abusing Amazon’s position on returns. I want to point out yet once again, that I am no Amazon fan-boy. I am deeply worried about their domination of the marketplace. But there are a couple of problems with this petition.

First, my spidey-senses tell me that the number of people currently abusing the system just to read free books is probably pretty small. At least, it’s probably small now. Once this issue picks up some publicity and more people realize they can return the books they’ve read without suffering any consequences, do you think that number will increase or decrease? I suspect it will increase. I fear that drawing attention to the issue will actually worsen the problem of abuse (stipulating it actually exists).

Second, returns have always been a problem for publishers. That’s just the way this crazy business works. Those lovely brick-and-mortar stores accept boxes of books from Random Penguin Solutions, et al, with the understanding they can return any unsold copies.

As independent authors, we are also the publishers of our books. I don’t think Amazon is screwing us over in this deal. I think they’re treating us like grown-up publishers. Maybe we should act like it. That’s my two cents. The petition is HERE if you feel differently and want to sign up.

The Reader Survey

Being an indie author has a lot of benefits. One weakness though, is that we do not have extensive and reliable data on consumer behavior around which we can configure our marketing strategies. Most of our efforts to position our wares are based on anecdotal successes reported by other authors (i.e., here’s what I did that worked for me), or just groping about in the dark trying to find anything that works. It would be nice to have more information.

Bestselling author Marie Force headed up a reader survey effort that has yielded some interesting results. You should click over and read the whole thing, but I’ll tell you the bits I thought were most interesting: Continue reading “The Reader Survey”