This is part 2  to the audio book creation posting.

Part 1: Creating The Audio Book On Audible.com
Part 2: After Signing your audio book talent
Part 3: Your Audio Book is Live

In the end, 23 talented individuals auditioned for the audio book version of D’mok Revival: Awakening.

During this process I realized how little audition text you need to provide to actually tell if someone is right for the part. My big take-aways included:

1. Include the introduction to your book
2. Include sections with multiple characters that interact and converse
3. Keep it only to about two pages of script

I was blessed that nearly each one of them did 10 minutes of audition time.  This is unheard of and made me feel so foolish, not to mention guilty when they didn’t get selected.

I reviewed each one, then sent the top submissions on to a team I assembled from series fans and friends. After gathering and weighting their feedback Kyle McCarley rose to the top of the list.

I sent a personal message to each and every person that submitted an audition.  I wanted them to know I greatly appreciated their effort. Due to the ACX agreements, they can now use that audition in their portfolio as an example of their work.  I completely understand and support this concept.  They put the work in after-all.

I was shocked when each person that I sent a reply to replied back saying how rare it was for them to hear anything when they were not selected, much less genuine gratitude and thanks. I felt both proud and saddened by this.  Authors–APPRECIATE everyone you work with. It’s part of being a professional (even if you, like me, are just entering this space).

Using ACX.com I send an offer to Kyle. We discussed a few details and decided not to go the profit sharing approach (that Amazon wanted to contribute $1000 up-front towards). We agreed to a per finished hour rate that works for the union he’s in. Based on our discussions he rejected the initial offer and I drafted the next one based on the agreements we discussed. He accepted the new one and we were off.

Kyle shared his approach and process to doing an audio book. I won’t share in detail but I wanted to offer at least some insight as to how to work with voice talent.

1. Review of the manuscript
2. Creation of the character list and samples of the voices for each
3. Clarifications of how to pronounce names and addressing of any grammar issues found
4. Sample 15 minutes

This is the stage we’re at today.

He’s been amazing to work with. Also, despite having spent thousands on editing, he’s finding a shocking (and rather embarrassing) number of issues in the book.  I’m thankful for how detail oriented he is, along with his amazing process. I’m going to update both the soft-cover manuscript for future prints and the ebook version on Amazon immediately.

In the next week I’ll get the first 15 minutes.  I’m really looking forward hearing his version of it.  It will be interesting to experience reviewing 10 to 11 hours of audio and providing feedback to him.

More to come!

P.S.  Book 2’s manuscript is in the hands of my internal review team. More soon on that as well!

This is part 1  to the audio book creation posting.

Part 1: Creating The Audio Book On Audible.com
Part 2: After Signing your audio book talent
Part 3: Your Audio Book is Live

————————————————————————————————————–

The two questions I heard after releasing my soft cover book on August 3rd were:  1) is there an ebook, and 2) is there an audio book.  The ebook was very easy to do.  As covered in earlier posts I found the right tool, and was able to do all the formatting, leveraging of my existing cover artwork, and re-purposing of my text to create the ebook for no additional cost.  The audio book path wasn’t nearly as clear or as cost free.  However, I’ve found the experience thus far to be very straight forward and convenient.

While doing research towards an audio edition I came across Audible.com (also known as ACX).  They’re actually owned by Amazon (go figure). I’ll say from the first moment I hit the site I was impressed with how intuitive it was to work with them.

I wasn’t sure if I would be limited to an Amazon only distribution like I am with my ebook (to be a part of the Kindle Direct Publishing program).  It turns out ACX also distributes on iTunes along with Amazon.  PERFECT.  You are locked into a 7 year agreement with them, but that’s fine by me (though it does seem a little long).

I was curious how the work would be done and costed out. I discovered there’s a measure called “pfh” (per finished hour) that dictate how many hours your final recording will be.  I’m told that, on average, it takes 6 hours of recording the production to equal one hour of final recording. The compensation expectations are clearly listed for each narrator in “pfh.” Most of the narrators I talked to had producers and editors they worked with so, in the end, you literally have your audio book to post. We’ll see how that holds up as I move forward.

The average rates for pfh were between $100-$200, or $200-$400 for more experienced voice talent. I honestly didn’t see any hire than the $400 mark, and only two at $50.

If you go with an exclusive distribution relationship with ACX (again on Amazon and iTunes), you can choose to do a revenue share model. In this approach those that created the audio book get ongoing 50% of your royalties from sales.

If you do an exclusive relationship you would be placed on an escalator royalty rate of 50-90%. If it’s non-exclusive it drops to 25-70%. The final percentage depends on total units sold.

Why isn’t it 100%? Keep in mind that, like with Amazon and ebooks, ACX keeps a portion of your sales as tribute for hosting and providing customers and the download capabilities.  Again, 100% on-board with this. It’s totally worth not dealing with the headache of storage, network bandwidth for distribution, etc.

After creating a login I was able to jump into their extensive catalog of voice talent, each with bios and a portfolio. There’s even a detailed search that lets you hand-pick the list.  A few of the parameters include: gender, accent, reading style, cost, etc. It’s fantastic. I quickly found a number of potential narrators that I really liked.

I went to add my project to their catalog of works. I was able to put in my ISBN number for D’mok Revival: Awakening and it found it right away. I clicked the “this is my book” link, and it populated all kinds of information.  I added some data about what I was looking for, and took three sections from my book and created the audition script each person would read from. After posting, it was a matter of hours when inner ACX messages and auditions appeared.  I also went through their library and found 15 others that I specifically liked and used their “request audition” feature to send my interest to them.  Within days of starting this process I had 13 great auditions.

I didn’t want to rely only on my ears to select the narrator. There are a number of people that have contacted me about the audio book.  So I reached out to them and asked if they’d like to review the auditions and provide their feedback on who they’d like to hear.  After all, the book will be around 10 hours of audio (~93,000 words). It’s important they like the voice!

I considered male and female options. It’s possible for a woman to be the narrator but it would be a specific type of confident (more of a military woman) voice that could carry it.  I kept thinking the narrator needed to represent Mencari in essence. For the most part the book is from his perspective, so I guess that’s where that intuition came from. But the narrator isn’t Mencari, so that’s why a woman could work.  I also wasn’t sure about how a man reading all the female parts would sound.  Yes, I realize classic theater was like that, but we’re not in the middle ages anymore. I also considered the option of have one man do all the male parts, and one woman all the female parts. After inquiring to an audio shop (one of my in the ACX catalog of resources) they said it was certainly possible but it could double the hourly cost since there’s more resources (narration and production) needed. I also considered what I’ve come to know as “an audio play” where each character has a unique voice. Given 2 voices double the cost, I’m not going to venture down that path at this point.

I will say this, selecting a voice (much less “The right voice”) is a thrilling activity!  It’s fun reviewing voices, requesting they do auditions (using the ACX system), and getting back their version of your audition script. A few of them nailed the “voice in my head” with respect to dramatic pauses and depth of presentation. You can quickly tell who’s “just reading,” and who can “feel” your material. I imagine this is very similar to how casting goes for television and movies. THRILLING!

One of the potential narrators informed me about a program ACX has that could assist in the creation of your audio book. You petition them through a simple email.  If they like what they see and believe in the project they’ll offer a stipend of money to those that produce your product at NO COST to you. They are literally investing in the creation of your book on their platform. This is also intended to encourage their innovative “Royalty Share” model. I wasn’t sure about my odds of being accepted given it’s Amazon and huge.  I tried anyway, and BAM I was accepted!

Their investment is a major emotional booster to me. It’s like getting a 5 star review from a highly qualified reader!  The other aspect of this program is the book needs to be done within 60 days of me accepting someone’s audition and them accepting the production offer. At this rate, it would mean the audio book could be out as of February. That’s exciting too.

So how about the final cost to end-listener? I’ve done some research on Amazon and iTunes.  It appears an inexpensive audio book is somewhere around $6.99. And average cost is between $10-$12.99, and the upper ranges around $20-$25. Continuing my low-price, low bar-to-entry approach, I’d stick with the $6.99.  Again, I’m not looking to make money.  I’m making an investment in market share and awareness. I’ll continue my research and talk to my readership to tune the price before launch. But that’s what I’m thinking right now.

I can completely see how much work I’m going to have to put into this yet.  For instance, coordination with the narrator helping them to understand names, personalities, etc. I’m hoping they’ll do a read-through before they do the audio component.  I have to find out what “their process” is once the person is selected. I’ll also need to review what’s done and request adjustments if needed. Of course, that assumes I can. The actual production contact with specifications is a bit of a question mark yet.

I’ve been telling those that auditioned I’ll have a decision within two weeks or so. Even with Thanksgiving that gives me and the review team some time to figure things out.  I know there are some very strong submissions already, ones that I could see myself going with. That doesn’t mean new ones aren’t needed or would be out of the running.  I’m just staying that keeping to the two weeks to select a voice talent IS possible even with what I have so far.  🙂

I’ll write more as things continue!  Of the two versions, this one is the most fun. Perhaps it’s because the audio format takes the content off the page and bringing it to life? Regardless, it’s a lot of fun.

As we approach the holiday seasons and Black Friday/Cyber Monday promotions may be a great idea to help move your book.

I’ve already mentioned I’m taking advantage of Amazon’s new promotion option of price adjustments (as opposed to the free promotion they originally offered) starting in December.

As I fulfilled a recent physical book order a string of thoughts came to me:

•  I have 1600+ printed copies of my first book yet
•  I’m in an awareness building promotion campaign for my series yet
•  I’m still financially supporting early distribution versus making money from the series

I signed the first copy, and then decided to throw a second (unsigned) printed copy for free along with a personal message to the purchaser.

In the personal message I thanked them for the purchase, and encouraged sending me direct email with their thoughts about the book.  I also mentioned that since we’re approaching the holiday season they could give the second book as a gift.  Alternatively I suggest they could also donate the book to a local school or community library.  I ended with a side note that Amazon.com reviews are welcomed and greatly appreciated.

At worst, the book goes into the trash (and I NEVER know that’s what happens).  At best it goes to another potential fan of the series, or into a library where multiple people could enjoy it!

It also demonstrated my good will, and sincere interest in spreading the story over making buckets of money.

I found myself curious about what the purchaser would do with the second copy.  I really liked the concept.

As a next step I jumped on my D’mok Revival: Awakening page on Facebook and pulled together a quick post about the special holiday offer.  From now until December 1st, any physical book purchased (up to two) gets a second book free of charge.  I included a link to the physical book on Amazon.com.

Then I used some money to promote the post to general Facebook users (NOT to my friend’s friends).  As a side note, promoting to your friend’s friends tends to make people mad and unlike your page.  But, using the other option Facebook offers, advertising to anyone on Facebook that fits the profile I define, seems fine.

I’ll post back later with the results of this promotion.  But, I think the core concept of it is solid (for someone with a new series in an awareness building campaign that has extra books to move).

A writer’s style continues to evolve day-over-day. The manuscripts I wrote nearly a decade ago read and feel like something I did in elementary school. Even with all the guidance from my editor and feedback from fans from book one, there’s still plenty of room to grow.

I’m currently reading the Harry Potter series from J.K. Rowling with my son Derek (who’s 6).  It’s fascinating how we can equally enjoy the story, even if I’m picking up more details than he is.

She has a simplicity to her style that really flows. Sprinkling in little facts and tidbits about a store or a personality quirk really bring the locations and characters to life.

Interestingly enough, she also uses a page turner device at the end of every chapter making you wonder what’s going to happen next. Many times my son was begging to “read just one more chapter tonight.”

Another thing she does very well is keeping a scene focused. She smoothly takes you from background information to the action, moving you towards the major drama for that chapter. In fact, it almost feels like every chapter is like a mini-story with a general setup, build-up, major drama, and then hook to the next loop. The convention really works.

Is she the best literary model of all time? Probably not.  However, the millions of books sold world-wide shows she did something very right.

As I continue forward, preparing the second manuscript for publication, I’m keeping her techniques in mind. It’s not so much that I wasn’t leveraging her approaches, but rather I want to refine them to be as effect as hers.

For those wondering how book two is shaping up, I’m currently revisiting the last three chapters of the book two. I’m also working with Glenn Clovis, who did the Awakening’s artwork, on book two’s cover. Everything’s on schedule for release in 2014. Originally I mentioned summer, it may be sooner!

“Kindle Countdown Deals” are actually pretty cool.  In the past Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) only offered free promotions.  You’d get 5 days for every 3 month enrollment period. When you did this, you royalties went to zero, but you got great promotion via Amazon for using it. The hope was after the promotion so many people would have downloaded your book that they recommend it to others and they come in later and purchase it. For the record, this has not gone away.

Amazon’s new and additional approach allows you to specify a time range, number of price adjustments over that time range, and starting price. Then, it determines how many days (or hours) during your promotion to charge an adjusted price based on starting price and number of desired adjustments.  It really does all the work. You get a very clear summary before saying “create this promotion” for the exact dates and resulting prices.

What’s great about this is even if your discounted price goes below the magic $2.99 number your royalty won’t be impacted by it.  If you follow all the KDP rules and have a price point above $2.99 you can earn a 70% royalty. Otherwise, you get 35%.

They also have a new section of their website (http://amazon.com/kindlecountdowndeals) to promote your book!  Just because this exists it will get used, which means your book has a higher probability of being seen (and hopefully purchased by your target market).

There’s one qualifier to being able to use this.  Your price has to be stable for at least 30 days before you can use the countdown.  In my case, I just did a FREE promotion.  So I can’t use my new promotion until December! You also have to end your promotion 16 days before the end of your KDP enrollment period.

I nearly forgot to mention the real-time performance monitoring system. They’ve integrated it into the reports that are already out there.

Overall, this is AMAZING and I can’t wait to see the sales results.  For more information check out: https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A3288N75MH14B8

Those that have worked in mobile and social games can appreciate the concept of virality, that tipping point where when you send it to one person, they send it one person, who sends it to other people, which continues to fork broadly.  Facebook ads use their meta-data on users to help target most likely targets for your ad.  You can target your friend’s-friends, or the public at large. Interestingly enough, it costs slightly more to reach your friend’s friends than the general public.

The good news is you no longer have to throw large sums to do a Facebook campaign.  You can actually throw ANY amount at it.  If you want to reach a few thousand people, you can do it with $10.  That’s pretty cool.

Now, the messages have to be crafted to attract the right people and convince them to click.  This is standard pay-per-click strategy stuff.  Don’t just “promote” a general post.  Instead, craft it along the following:

– Two-Three SHORT, punchy sentences

– Get their attention and enable them to identify your message is right for them (Like Science Fiction?)

– Get the product name in (D’mok Revival: Awakening by Michael Zummo.)

– Get quickly across the value proposition (Top 20 Science Fiction Saga on Amazon)

– Include an action statement like “Get it now!” (This is the call-to-action)

– Include a time-boxing to create urgency “Today only!” or “On Sale Today!”

– Image of the product will help

Example

Like Science Fiction? Get D’mok Revival: Awakening by Michael Zummo, on Amazon’s Top 20 Science Fiction Alien Invasion stories. On sale today: $2.99!

The better crafted your message, the more your target will be able to identify it as important to them.

In order to determine pertinent information and the appropriate call-to-action, you need to understand where in the consumer sales funnel you’re trying to hit.  If your series is new and no one knows about it, a general awareness campaign may be better.  In this case, send people to a free preview of your book. If you’re trying to appeal to those that know about your story but have yet to purchase it, perhaps a more sales focused message will help convince them like “On Sale Today.”

The bottom line is this: be deliberate about your messaging. Know what your goal is. And try to track your progress.

For instance, if you have a URL going to your site add a tracking tag on the end like ?tracking=Nov2013Promo.  This does not hurt the URL and creates additional information in your server logs (or Google Analytics) for you to see how many people really followed THAT promotion.  If you’re going directly to Amazon, I have yet to find a good way to trace it, other than watching your actual purchase numbers and trying to make weak correlations between the promo and the sales.  This also doesn’t help you track the long-tail purchases that happen as a result of your promotion but after it ended, or the resulting word-of-mouth traffic it generates that leads to later sales.

This isn’t an exact science, and it’s different for each book and market. Try things out knowing you’re going to evolve your messages, links, and even targets over time.

When you’re a member of the KDP (kindle direct publishing) program you get 5 free offering days for each enrollment period (90 days).  They can be individual days, a block of five days, or any combination in between.

One drawback is you cannot select which Amazon can see the promotion.  If you set one up, ALL the Amazons (the internationals) get the same promotion.  I really would love to do targeted international promotions to areas that don’t have traction yet, but at this time you can’t.

Leading up to my promotion D’mok Revival: Awakening was moving between being 20-40 in rankings in the Space Opera and Alien Invasion categories. I had a brief peak at 18th. Remember, based on sales, this number adjusts constantly throughout the day (somewhere between every 1-3 hours).

Be aware that once the promotion begins, you completely drop out of the PAID rankings and get pushed into FREE rankings.  When you go to the “top 100” list for any category you will see two tabs: Top Paid 100, and Top Free 100.  I just want to reiterate, this means you will disappear from the previous list no matter what position you previously earned (because you have no new sales).  You will, however, appear now in the Top FREE listing.

I decided to try two days of free promotions to see what would happen.

Within a few hours D’mok Revival: Awakening went directly to number one in the FREE Alien Invasion ranking. It also went to #3 for FREE Space Opera.  In the US Amazon, I ended up with over 224 downloads a day (on average). That exceeded, by far, any single day sales to date.  This includes the 105 softcover editions sold over four days at Comic Con Chicago 2013.

What I didn’t think about at the time was the international implications.  I was happily surprised to see how well the free promotion worked in other territories.  Here’s the breakdown of the international Amazon’s when the promotion concluded:

us  449

uk  60

de  14

fr  0

es  0

it  1

jp  1

in  1

ca  5

br  0

mx  0

That’s 531 new readers!  AMAZING!

Now people may say, “aren’t you exhausting your market?”  Or “but shouldn’t you have just wait to get paid for those?”

Everything is a trade-off.  First of all, I’m not going to exhaust the science fiction readership.

Secondly, this is the first book in an unknown series from an unknown author. My goal isn’t to make millions, but rather to share the story with as many people as I can. It’s all about exposure and market penetration. It’s really more an “awareness” campaign.

In fact, I’m not making money at all.  Even if book one continues to sell electronically it could take a few YEARS to get back my investment from the editing, book printing, conference attending, and other marketing I’ve done to date.  That’s A-Okay with me. I believe in the story and since I have a fulltime job outside of writing, it’s do-able for me.

Lastly, those that download a FREE book may not have paid for it (even at the $2.99 price-point). However, if they like it, these people may recommend it to friends who may purchase

What happened after immediately after the promotion did unnerve me a bit.  I was worried that once I fell out of the PAID listings I’d lose a key promotion opportunity of being in the rankings which would negatively impact sales.

As predicted (and this IS how it works), when the FREE promotion came down I returned to the PAID rankings.  Since I had no paid purchases, I wasn’t far outside the top 100. I’ll admit I panicked when I didn’t see a single category ranking when I went to D’mok Revival: Awakening’s Kindle product page.

It’s important to keep in mind that, as long as there have been sales for your book, the Top 100 list isn’t your only point of exposure.  There’s the up-sell listing (“those who bought this also purchased:”) area, and the ebook “Recommended for you” emails that go to Amazon customers.

By noon I was back in the 60s for PAID Alien Invasion.  Three days later, I’m back in the range I originally was in before the promotion. So, everything appears to be going well.  Now, there were some outside promotions happening on Facebook and at Comic Con New York 2013 that may have helped in the rebound.

My next blog post will be about those other promotions and the results.

Amazon has been an excellent choice for the D’mok Revival series. The first two months have been amazing.  I wanted to share a little bit of what I’ve learned using their Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) platform.

#1 SIMPLE TO USE

Once you’ve signed up, you get a publisher’s interface featuring reports, KDP sales options, and access to the publisher community.

If you want to change prices, add promotions, etc. you go either into your book product details, or the KDP Select options.

If you want to ask questions to the community at large, you go into the forums.  As long as you read the “primer” posts out there people are typically friendly.  Don’t just blindly ask a question without researching it first.  People are NOT friendly when a quick read of a FAQ or primer would have answered your question.

There’s also great ways to monitor your book’s progress.

#2 Reports

There are three core reports offered:

1)      Month-to-Date Unit Sales

2)      Prior Six Weeks’ Royalties

3)      Prior Months’ royalties

The Month-to-Date Unit Sales report allows you to see how many sales have come in so far this month.  The information provided includes: Units sold, Units Refunded (yes, I’ll get to this), Net Units Sold (Units Sold minus refunded), Free Units-promotions (from KDP promotions you can setup), Free Units-Price Match.

There can be up to a reported 5 hour lag in sales registering. Nevertheless, it’s a great tool to keep track of things.  I actually take the data and put it into an excel document.  It allows me to see daily and hourly sales trends for my series.

Prior Six Weeks’ Royalties allows you to see a rolling six weeks of royalties earned from your book(s).  It’s typically generated at midnight on Saturday of each week. The information includes: Week Ending, Title, Author, ASIN, Units sold, Units refunded, Net Units Sold (Units Sold minus Refunds), royalty percentage (%35 or %70), Average list price, average file size (of your ebook that they store and serve), the Average offer price (which can very depending on cheaper prices found on the internet), Average Delivery Cost (for storage and transmission of your ebook file), and the resulting Royalty earned in US dollars.

Keep in mind, you only get six months. So if you want to trend this information, copy and paste it into an excel document.  Also, there are 11 Amazon stores (US, UK, DE, FR, ES, IT, JP, IN, CA, BR, and MX).  You get individual views of this report for each one.

Prior Months’ Royalties provides a rolling 12 months of royalties. This is generated on the 15^th of each month.  Unlike the other two, it creates an excel document you can download.  The format of document is a little overwhelming.  It provides the following information: Title, author, ASIN, transaction type (35%, 70%, or KOLL: Kindle online lending library—I’ll get to that in a bit), Units Sold, Units Refunded, Net Units Sold or Borrowed, Percentage of Borrows, Average list price, average offer price, average file size, average delivery cost, royalty.  These columns are available for each of the 11 Amazon stores.

Because this is another rolling report, be sure to copy it down to your computer and store it.  Once the information is gone, it appears to be gone.

#3 What to expect with Sales

Amazon does a great job of promoting your book in personalized emails with new and hot books to their user base. Since you’re book has the proper category tags, you know Amazon will send information about your book to the right audience.

If you have a well written book, it will get noticed and downloaded. As it becomes more popular your  seller rank and book position will improve.  To find this out, go to the kindle version product page for your book.  Look in Product Details.  You’ll find “Amazon Best Sellers Rank” and any earned category positions there.  At one point D’mok Revival was ranking in three categories.  Right now it’s just one.  The numbers jump around every hour or two.

According to the publisher community at large, 300 books sold monthly is average for a well written work.  How fast you reach this average, or how long it lasts depends on the popularity, and target market.  Right now I’m around 375 and climbing.

#4 What to expect with reviews

The coveted reviews are hard fought to get. Marketing shows that 17 reviews appears to be the tipping point for people believing ratings.  However, that doesn’t mean get your family and friends to put up great reviews the day after your book goes up.

The community at large says there’s about a 750 readers to one review average. As crazy as that sounds, it appears fairly accurate.  If readers see a ton of reviews early on, they will get suspicious and despite a five star rating could walk away from your work.  Also online shoppers have tuned into reviewer quality.  They check to see who the reviewer is, what they’ve reviewed in the past (if anything), etc.  There are also coveted Amazon reviewers that hold “rank” due to the number of reviews and number of times other shoppers have given their review a “thumbs up.”  Reviews are not enough, it’s the quality of the review that will make or break your book in this important social aspect.

Leverage your social media outlets like your book’s Facebook page to ask those that have finished your book to post reviews. It may help, especially if they purchased it from Amazon and the all-important “Amazon Verified Purchase” tag goes on it.

Right now I have 4 reviews.  Hopefully I’ll get more, with greater detail about what the person liked and didn’t like.

#5 What to expect with returns

YES, there are returns even with an ebook that cost someone $2.99.  The average is somewhere between 3-6%.  It’s hard not to take that personally, but you can’t. If you have more than that rate, you should seriously look at your work. Check the composition, the description to make sure the book is properly representing itself, the meta-data used to categorize your work and get the proper target market to you, and scour the reviews for anything that could explain why those returns are so high.  I’m sitting around 1.6% and I’m very happy with that.

There’s another interesting wrinkle with returns. Amazon allows people to return an ebook for a full refund up to a week after purchase.  They “could” read the book and just return it.  However, this doesn’t appear to be a systemic problem, otherwise you’d see your return rates much higher.

#6 KOLL

The Kindle online lending library is for Amazon prime members.  Any prime member can borrow an ebook for any length of time for free.  Sure, this isn’t a SALE for you, however, you get compensated for the length of time a book is checked out. It seems like a pretty good deal so far to me. It’s an option you can set in the KDP options area for your book.  I highly recommend it.

#7 Word of warning

Ever stare at a pot of water waiting for it to boil? Having access to near-real-time reports on your sales, and being able to go to your kindle version product page to check your rank can become obsessive.  AVOID THIS. Check daily, or a few times if you’re really excited.

Understand your figures will swing up and down. Your rank will rise and fall. It’s how Amazon and internet sales go. I’ve personally been a little too observant of micro-trends (read as obsessive), and I’ve seen that times of day, stock reports, holidays, etc. all dramatically impact how many copies are sold.

What’s important is overall trends, not the detail of each transaction.  Use this data for promotional materials (e.g. D’mok Revival broke the top 20 in the Kindle Alien Invasion category), gauge how effectively your marketing is resonating with the market.  Just don’t dwell on it.  Trust me, it becomes like a game to check it and hope things ticked up higher… Sometimes I got very disappointed when my rank fell versus going continually up.

What did I learn from Comic Con

Here are some of the more important items I learned at Comic Con.  Great event!  I certainly want to do it again.  I also sold 105 books and 30 ebooks when no one knew who I, or D’mok Revival, was!

#1 It’s an incredible event that you want to be at to reach science fiction and fantasy lovers.

#2 Candy works great to attract people near your booth

#3 You have to start the conversation and reach out. Say “Hello” or ask if they like Science Fiction (or whatever your topic is).  Otherwise people walk right on by. You have to play the role of an extrovert, even you are not one (and I am not).

#3b Have your story ready.  It’s your elevator pitch, you 60 seconds to tell someone about your story.  Believe me, if you don’t have one at the beginning you will at the end.  It’s an amazing “market research” opportunity to hone your message and see what works and does not work with your direct target market.  I certainly have my elevator pitch and story explanation down now!  That in itself makes the convention worth the booth price.

#4 Have something clearly posted with the highlights of your story.  A few words that get across the “ooooh” factor in your book.  This lets people anonymously (and safely from a distance) see if what you have is interesting to them.

#5 Display your price clearly, especially if you’re inexpensive for a soft cover book.

#6  Display information about your ebook version, especially if it’s on Amazon and inexpensive.

#7 Have a VERY flash visual to attract people (this is the only one I got right, next to the candy).  My cover art (Thank you Glenn Clovis) literally turned heads and brought people who had no idea who I was, or what the D’mok brand was to come over.

#8 Do a panel it’s great visibility, gets your name out there, and helps the community grow!  There were over 65 people at the panel, and many came over to talk and purchase a book after.  I’m still talking to some of them via email after the fact.

#9 Get to know the people with booths around you.  It’s an amazing networking opportunity, like the connection I made with the Stan Lee Foundation (AMAZING).

#10 PA announcements done with Comic Con promotions can be hard to hear.  I wouldn’t recommend you paying for them

#11 About 13 people came up following the registration bag flier I paid for with Comic Con promotions.  Unless you have a pretty big ticket item, or are well known, hold this technique off for later.  As Brittney pointed out to me, it’s like using a direct mailer, and those have pretty low returns on investment (with attracting people).

#12 I had about 5 people talk about the video reel slot I paid for with Comic Con promotions.  Honestly, it was great visibility and despite the lack of mentions, I would still do this again.  It’s a great value, and gets you out there during the con.

#13 Have a flier or business card for people to take.  They may not have time right now, or money right now, but want your product.  Giving them a card to take with email and URL gives them a chance to do it later.

#14 Be nice to the Comic Con folks and they will be nice back to you.  Things can get intense and very last minute–so be ready and roll with it.  It’s worth it.

#15 Do not rely on “bongo hot spot” or other facility wifi connections.  They get saturated very quickly and your devices will become unusable.  Make sure you have network access through your mobile carrier.

#16 “Square” (squareup.com) is an amazing and simple credit card reader.  You get the hardware free from the company, the software is free and intuitive.  The only draw back is you have to have an active network connection for it to keep working fine.  We used 2 ipads and a galaxy 4 smart phone.  The one login consolidated all the records into one sales listing and provided amazing trending reports (peak hours, etc.).