E-book Updates
Congratulations to bookblather, who won my last ARC of The Snow Queen’s Shadow [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy]. I went with random.org to pick a winner, because there were way too many clever, funny, and touching entries. My thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway.
#
In two months, Goblin Tales [Amazon | B&N | Lulu] has sold 193 copies on Amazon, 80 on Barnes & Noble, 30 through Lulu, and a handful on iBooks, Kobo, and Wizard’s Tower Press. So we’re looking at a total of between 300 and 400 books sold.
The commission on the print edition at Lulu is tiny, but even so, that means probably close to $700 for the book. At this point, it’s selling about one copy a day. Not huge, but that means $50-$60 each month if sales continue at that rate.
So as I mentioned yesterday, I’m planning to do two more collections. I’m thinking about doing six stories instead of five, and moving the price to $3.99. (Sixty-seven cents a story doesn’t seem unreasonable to me…) I don’t know that these will do quite as well as the goblin-themed collection, which tied directly into my published novels, but we’ll see.
The first collection is tentatively titled Kitemaster and Other Stories, and would include:
-
Kitemaster
-
Blade of the Bunny
-
Untrained Melody
-
Spell of the Sparrow
-
Over the Hill
-
The Creature in Your Neighborhood
The second is currently nameless, but would probably follow the same _____ and Other Stories pattern. For this one, I’m looking at:
-
Ours to Fight For
-
Sister of the Hedge
-
Deliverance
-
Heart of Ash
-
Bloodlines (Maybe)
-
Gift of the Kites (Maybe)
I’ve e-mailed an artist about cover art for Kitemaster, but haven’t heard back yet. (This happened with Goblin Tales, too — I contacted one artist and never got an answer. Very frustrating, though I’m delighted with what I got.) Ignoring my own advice, I may take a stab at cover layout myself, but if I can’t pull it off, I’ll hire a pro to do that for me. I’ll probably post cover drafts again so folks can offer feedback too, because that was incredibly helpful last time.
Things I’m thinking about doing differently this time around:
-
I may not do a print version. I know that will disappoint some people, but it was a lot of work to prepare Goblin Tales for print, and resulted in relatively few sales. I like print myself, and may eventually get to this, but it will not be a priority.
-
Possibly going through an aggregator instead of uploading to each site individually. But maybe not, since I’m a control freak.
I don’t have a schedule yet. Snow Queen comes out in exactly seven weeks, and I’ll be putting most of my energy into promoting that. So the collections may be closer to the end of the year. (On the other hand, knowing me, I might say they heck with it, dive in and obsess for a week or two, and get it done sooner…)
So that’s the plan. Any thoughts or advice? Love the idea? Hate the $3.99 price point? Are there stories you’d like to see reprinted that I didn’t include, or anything you’re particularly looking forward to?
james Beal
May 17, 2011 @ 9:49 am
I thought the following post might be useful In the Ebook Dep’t: “A Wind from the South” and strange sales behavior.
On the story list I would have to see what I have via fictionwise to see what I was missing :). Its a real shame that fictionwise seem to have died since the take over.
Colleen
May 17, 2011 @ 9:53 am
I started out quite pleased to read that you were planing to publish short story collections, but now I’m just disappointed that you won’t be publishing in hardcopy. I’m pretty old-school about my book preferences. I’m fine with buying electronic copies of works that I also own in dead-tree edition, but I’m very reluctant to purchase electronic versions only. I can’t share e-books with my mother (or mother-in-law), I can’t “curl up with a book” with them, and they don’t have nearly the visual appeal. I also can’t read them easily when the power is out for days at a time because of the latest ice- or snowpocalypse or the latest hurricane (we’ve had both).
Jim C. Hines
May 17, 2011 @ 9:57 am
Colleen,
I do understand that, as I said above, and I hope you also understand that I simply can’t afford to invest that many hours in a project — time away from my other writing, not to mention my family — when the return on that project doesn’t even come close to being worth it.
Jim C. Hines
May 17, 2011 @ 10:00 am
Thanks, James. I’ve seen some of Duane’s updates, and that’s an interesting bit on the price point. I don’t want to go too high with this, but I figured I’d experiment and see what happens.
Re: Fictionwise, check quickly — I’m probably going to pull my stuff from there soon. I think I made a few bucks there last year, and my contract with them required exclusivity, meaning I couldn’t include Blade of the Bunny or Spell of the Sparrow in my own collection until I tell them to take ’em off the site.
I never saw huge sales through Fictionwise, but they’ve definitely dried up over these past few years. It’s sad … I remember when Fictionwise was *the* big place to get your reprints posted.
jonathanmoeller
May 17, 2011 @ 10:02 am
Nice.
Once you have all three out, I’d suggest staggering the price a bit – like, lowering “Goblin Tales” to $0.99 while keeping the other two at $3.99. When I have enough books out later this year, I’m going to try something like that and see what happens.
Also, I read “Goblin Tales” – the final Libriomancer story made me LOL. All it needed were some Twilight jokes!
Jim C. Hines
May 17, 2011 @ 10:05 am
Thanks, Jonathan! Does it help if I tell you that the first chapter of Libriomancer (the book) will feature my protagonist vs. several sparkling vampires? 🙂
Colleen
May 17, 2011 @ 10:21 am
Hi Jim,
Oh, I absolutely understand it. Your time is money, and more importantly, your time has other demands that rank higher on the list of Things That Matter. I’ll just miss out, and be sorry for that. I’m not sorry that your son gets the attention he needs, your charities get higher visibility, or your books are better-edited and tigher-written before they go to major print runs.
Jim C. Hines
May 17, 2011 @ 10:25 am
Thanks for understanding.
I’m a little touchy about this, which I think is mostly due to some of the comments I got the first time around when I talked about maybe just doing Goblin Tales as an e-book. I think a lot of people did understand, but I also got the sense that a few felt like I was spitting on my readers by not offering both.
Your comment didn’t come across that way. But I’m kind of bracing myself…
Colleen
May 17, 2011 @ 10:32 am
::laugh:: There are a lot of us who are sticks in the mud about e-publishing. I’ll post on LiveJournal about that once in a while.
You’re not spitting on your readers by offering books one way and not another. You are logically conserving your time and effort in a way that nets you the most “bang for your buck” for smaller productions. (One act plays rarely show up on Broadway.) Heck, your fans should be pleased that they get these extras. Back in the days of only dead-tree editions, many fewer stories saw the light of day at all anyway, for reasons of cost, market share, and advertising.
And speaking of advertising, honestly, if I weren’t reading your blog, I wouldn’t have known about Gobling Tales at all. (And yes, I did order it in hardcopy, not e-book.)
jonathanmoeller
May 17, 2011 @ 11:05 am
“Does it help if I tell you that the first chapter of Libriomancer (the book) will feature my protagonist vs. several sparkling vampires? :-)”
You, sir, may have just made a sale.
Jim C. Hines
May 17, 2011 @ 11:17 am
My agent and I queried a few publishers about doing a collection, but didn’t get any bites. And you’re right, in the old days, this would likely mean no collection at all.
I can understand why, too. The numbers on Goblin Tales wouldn’t be worth it for most publishers. But with the changes to e-book publishing, I can sell a smaller number of copies and still have it be worthwhile.
As for advertising, yay! It’s nice when that works 🙂
D. Moonfire
May 17, 2011 @ 4:16 pm
One approach is, after the ebook comes out, ask one of your rabid fans to do the typesetting on the hard copy version.
Leslie
May 17, 2011 @ 4:46 pm
I’m pretty much a die hard print fan also. BUT, I have stacks of books all over my house and I’m out of shelf space, so I’m getting much pickier about what I actually buy. And $3.99 seems like an extremely reasonable price, so I’m thinking I could pick these up in digital format. I’m still deciding whether I want a Kindle or perhaps an iPad since I could then have books from a variety of vendors, but I’ve downloaded the Kindle App for my computer. I have a Sony eReader, but it’s currently languishing in a drawer because I don’t really like it.
May 18, 2011 Links and Plugs : Hobbies and Rides
May 17, 2011 @ 9:44 pm
[…] Jim C. Hines on E-book Updates. […]
SF Signal: SF Tidbits for 5/18/11
May 18, 2011 @ 2:27 am
[…] Fiction (Write what you know).Alina Klein on The Physiology of Foreshadowing. Jim C. Hines on E-book Updates. Cemetery Dance on The Full Dark, No Stars Covers That Might Have Been.The Clarion Foundation […]