It's taken them 3 days, but the Kindle Daily Blog report is updating right now (12.06 bloody am!) and all my blogs that had doubled in subscription size have now returned to their previous numbers. I guess I should have been more suspicious than I already was by the fact that they had all exactly doubled.
So now, I'm watching half my blog subs disappear (I'm refreshing it every 5 minutes to watch the toll of doom.)
Just heartbreaking.
_______________
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Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters
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Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
Do Not Make This Mistake In Your Marketing!
I read the FilmScore Monthly message boards on a regular basis. (http://filmscoremonthly.com/board/threads.cfm?forumID=1)
In addition to talk on film scores, people "in the business" post their new sound track releases.
One such individual is the producer of soundtracks and cast albums, called Kritzerland. Normally when he makes an advertising post on the board (or indeed, when anyone does) he references the name of the movie or show, or at the very least the name of the composer. He makes his post early, and by even 3 hours later, there are a dozen people saying, "Gonna order this," and so on.
Today, his post title was "New Kritzerland to Give Your Wallet a Rest"
The rest of the post was an advertisement for the new CD release.
There were only a handful of replies, each one puzzled at the title. "What a lousy way to promote a title!" was the gist.
Kritzerland has just responded, saying that the post title was a joke - since most people on the boards buy soundtracks rather than cast albums. Still seems kind of stupid, the more so because on his blog (which I also read, for my sins, as he's a 60 year old, straight man who writes in the most pretentious way possible) he said that this title really had to do well.
It's not going to do well from the FSM board, and he seems to have deliberately gone out of his way to assure that by using the most bland and un-eye-catching title imaginable.
(Kritzerland being an old hand at this, I think he's moving to repair the damage. He'll be emailing various of his friends on the board, asking them to make posts on a regular basis to ensure that the thread stays at the top of the message board, as indeed, it had been in danger of disappearing off the front page of the message board because no one was interested in it - thanks to the post title.
_______________
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Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters
Rush Limbaugh Report
In addition to talk on film scores, people "in the business" post their new sound track releases.
One such individual is the producer of soundtracks and cast albums, called Kritzerland. Normally when he makes an advertising post on the board (or indeed, when anyone does) he references the name of the movie or show, or at the very least the name of the composer. He makes his post early, and by even 3 hours later, there are a dozen people saying, "Gonna order this," and so on.
Today, his post title was "New Kritzerland to Give Your Wallet a Rest"
The rest of the post was an advertisement for the new CD release.
There were only a handful of replies, each one puzzled at the title. "What a lousy way to promote a title!" was the gist.
Kritzerland has just responded, saying that the post title was a joke - since most people on the boards buy soundtracks rather than cast albums. Still seems kind of stupid, the more so because on his blog (which I also read, for my sins, as he's a 60 year old, straight man who writes in the most pretentious way possible) he said that this title really had to do well.
It's not going to do well from the FSM board, and he seems to have deliberately gone out of his way to assure that by using the most bland and un-eye-catching title imaginable.
(Kritzerland being an old hand at this, I think he's moving to repair the damage. He'll be emailing various of his friends on the board, asking them to make posts on a regular basis to ensure that the thread stays at the top of the message board, as indeed, it had been in danger of disappearing off the front page of the message board because no one was interested in it - thanks to the post title.
_______________
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Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters
Rush Limbaugh Report
Friday, March 18, 2011
Whose Body A Success!
My annotated version of the Dorothy Sayers book Whose Body? (which is in the public domain) has sold better than any other work I've published.
Through 18 days in March, it's sold 19 copies.
In a sense...no big deal.
The price is 99 cents, all I thought I could ask considering that there are 6 other Kindle versions of the book, all at 99 cents. Even though I was providing annotations of practically every paragraph, a substantial amount of work in itself, and I had toyed with at least giving myself an extra 25 cents, I didn't.
So if I sell one copy of Whose Body? a day for a year, that will be 365 copies. My royalty per copy is 33% - 35 cents. So I'll make $127.75 a year.
Not a lot of money.
But I'm looking at quantity. I'll shortly be publishing other annotated books, and charging just 99 cents for those as well. Eventually I'll have enough so that, in the aggregate, I'll earn a resasonable sum of money each year.
And the annotation process also teaches me stuff I can use in my blogging empire, so there's no wasted effort.
So yes, I have to say that Whose Body is a success.
_______________
Subscribe to our other blogs on Kindle:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters
Rush Limbaugh Report
Through 18 days in March, it's sold 19 copies.
In a sense...no big deal.
The price is 99 cents, all I thought I could ask considering that there are 6 other Kindle versions of the book, all at 99 cents. Even though I was providing annotations of practically every paragraph, a substantial amount of work in itself, and I had toyed with at least giving myself an extra 25 cents, I didn't.
So if I sell one copy of Whose Body? a day for a year, that will be 365 copies. My royalty per copy is 33% - 35 cents. So I'll make $127.75 a year.
Not a lot of money.
But I'm looking at quantity. I'll shortly be publishing other annotated books, and charging just 99 cents for those as well. Eventually I'll have enough so that, in the aggregate, I'll earn a resasonable sum of money each year.
And the annotation process also teaches me stuff I can use in my blogging empire, so there's no wasted effort.
So yes, I have to say that Whose Body is a success.
_______________
Subscribe to our other blogs on Kindle:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters
Rush Limbaugh Report
KIndle Blog Reports
The monthly blog reports for February are out. I was pleased to see that once again I'll get almost $300.
(Not as pleased as I would be if I'd be getting $600, which I would if they hadn't reduced my blog prices arbitrarily from $1.99 to .99, but I suppose I've beat that dead horse enough.)
It was just interesting to see, though, how many blog subscriptons I'm being credited with for February, as opposed to how many blog subs my daily report tells me I have. My Limbaugh blog, for example, as I told you a week or so ago, had jumped up - on the daily repot - in the space of a day from 500 subs to 1,000 subs, without benefit of intervening trial subscritpons.
I doubt if I had 500 subs in the course of 15 days from the end of Feb to Mar 15...I must always have had most of those subs during Feb as well, and probably Jan, too.
But, so I'm getting credit for them for March, presumably. I look forward to seeing just how many subs I'll be credited with in the next monthly report.
_______________
Subscribe to our other blogs on Kindle:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters
Rush Limbaugh Report
(Not as pleased as I would be if I'd be getting $600, which I would if they hadn't reduced my blog prices arbitrarily from $1.99 to .99, but I suppose I've beat that dead horse enough.)
It was just interesting to see, though, how many blog subscriptons I'm being credited with for February, as opposed to how many blog subs my daily report tells me I have. My Limbaugh blog, for example, as I told you a week or so ago, had jumped up - on the daily repot - in the space of a day from 500 subs to 1,000 subs, without benefit of intervening trial subscritpons.
I doubt if I had 500 subs in the course of 15 days from the end of Feb to Mar 15...I must always have had most of those subs during Feb as well, and probably Jan, too.
But, so I'm getting credit for them for March, presumably. I look forward to seeing just how many subs I'll be credited with in the next monthly report.
_______________
Subscribe to our other blogs on Kindle:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters
Rush Limbaugh Report
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
System "latency" - or just an Incompetent Software Design?
Yesterday my Rush Limbaugh Report blog jumped up by 300 subscriptons - all in the paid column, without benefit of an intervening "trial subscription."
Today, it's up by 200 more subscriptons.
Apparently this is what's called "system latency." THese are subscriptions I must have had for several months..and they're only being credited to my account now?
My Kindle Blog Report has jumped up by 100 subscriptions, my Weight Loss Without Tears blog has also jumped up by 100 subscriptions (give or take one or two), all again without benefit of that intervening trial subscription.
I had blogged a couple of months ago about how half my subs vanished - when it came time to pay me for them, but not on the "daily report" - but had returned by the next reporting period.
Now I'm being given anywhere from 500 to 200 extra subscriptions that I must have had all along.
But...what can you do?
It's the uncertainty I don't like. For all I know they can take these subs away from me tomorrow and say, "Oh, it was just a glitch in the program" = which it may well be. I wouldn't be surprised.
I won't know until i get the actual monthy report, for Feb, anyway. If these sub numbers are correct for March, I should get a healthy piece of change in April...
But the amount of money I should have been paid and wasn't for the last two months at least...kind of annoying.
On the other hand (I have so many hands) it's money I wouldn't be making if Amazon wasn't offering this service, so I always have to temper my complaints - because these blogs make nothing on the "outside" = it's all due to kindle income.
Today, it's up by 200 more subscriptons.
Apparently this is what's called "system latency." THese are subscriptions I must have had for several months..and they're only being credited to my account now?
My Kindle Blog Report has jumped up by 100 subscriptions, my Weight Loss Without Tears blog has also jumped up by 100 subscriptions (give or take one or two), all again without benefit of that intervening trial subscription.
I had blogged a couple of months ago about how half my subs vanished - when it came time to pay me for them, but not on the "daily report" - but had returned by the next reporting period.
Now I'm being given anywhere from 500 to 200 extra subscriptions that I must have had all along.
But...what can you do?
It's the uncertainty I don't like. For all I know they can take these subs away from me tomorrow and say, "Oh, it was just a glitch in the program" = which it may well be. I wouldn't be surprised.
I won't know until i get the actual monthy report, for Feb, anyway. If these sub numbers are correct for March, I should get a healthy piece of change in April...
But the amount of money I should have been paid and wasn't for the last two months at least...kind of annoying.
On the other hand (I have so many hands) it's money I wouldn't be making if Amazon wasn't offering this service, so I always have to temper my complaints - because these blogs make nothing on the "outside" = it's all due to kindle income.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Just How Trustworrthy Are the Kindle Blog Reports?
The daily blog report didn't update at all yesterday. Today, it's updated, and the numbers are very strange.
I know they've got the fine print at the bottom of the report "Subscription activity shown is based on snapshot of past data and may not match the final monthly subscriptions report against which payments are made due to factors such as system latency, cancellations and billing issues."
But that doesn't explain how the numbers could have changed as they've done.
Two days ago my Encyclopedia Asimova subscriptions were 0 - 8. Today, they are 0 -13. Where did those extra 5 subscriptions come from since there was no intermediate subscriber step? My Seaborn oceanography blog now is at 6-47, instead of 7-31 just two days ago.
Well, I just hope I can trust the numbers that are there today.
Why is this so puzzling? Because the Kindle books you sell on Amazon - that report is updated instantaneously. And if you're an associate - as I am - and someone buys a book from your site using that link- that report is updated daily and never misses.
So I don't really understand why the Kindle reports are different, except they must be all sorted from a different place - somewhere in India, I have no doubt, and they were cheap on the software so everything has to be inititated by hand or something. Otherwise why would reports be a whole day late, and then show such skewed data? (In particular since if you go to each blog's subscription page, most of 'em haven't moved at all.)
But again, that's a change, too. It used to be that if you put up a new blog, as soon as it became active, and you subscribed to it just to make sure the feed worked, etc., within two hours that subscription would show up on your subscription page.
But the last few times I've done it (for blogs I thought were failures...but then, I was trusting the reports to be accurate...now I regret having abandoned them so soon!) that subscription never shows up.
As a blog reviewer of other blogs, I subscribe to three or four blogs every other day, and I've gone back to a few of those two weeks later and the fact that they had at least one subscription has not registered, there are no numbers at all.
Well, I've ranted about this probably at least once or twice a month for the last two months...but today the discrepancy between two days worth of reports over three days is really shocking. My subscriptions are up, up, up according to today's report, so I hope this is the one that's accurate.
_______________
Subscribe to our other blogs on Kindle:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters
Rush Limbaugh Report
I know they've got the fine print at the bottom of the report "Subscription activity shown is based on snapshot of past data and may not match the final monthly subscriptions report against which payments are made due to factors such as system latency, cancellations and billing issues."
But that doesn't explain how the numbers could have changed as they've done.
Two days ago my Encyclopedia Asimova subscriptions were 0 - 8. Today, they are 0 -13. Where did those extra 5 subscriptions come from since there was no intermediate subscriber step? My Seaborn oceanography blog now is at 6-47, instead of 7-31 just two days ago.
Well, I just hope I can trust the numbers that are there today.
Why is this so puzzling? Because the Kindle books you sell on Amazon - that report is updated instantaneously. And if you're an associate - as I am - and someone buys a book from your site using that link- that report is updated daily and never misses.
So I don't really understand why the Kindle reports are different, except they must be all sorted from a different place - somewhere in India, I have no doubt, and they were cheap on the software so everything has to be inititated by hand or something. Otherwise why would reports be a whole day late, and then show such skewed data? (In particular since if you go to each blog's subscription page, most of 'em haven't moved at all.)
But again, that's a change, too. It used to be that if you put up a new blog, as soon as it became active, and you subscribed to it just to make sure the feed worked, etc., within two hours that subscription would show up on your subscription page.
But the last few times I've done it (for blogs I thought were failures...but then, I was trusting the reports to be accurate...now I regret having abandoned them so soon!) that subscription never shows up.
As a blog reviewer of other blogs, I subscribe to three or four blogs every other day, and I've gone back to a few of those two weeks later and the fact that they had at least one subscription has not registered, there are no numbers at all.
Well, I've ranted about this probably at least once or twice a month for the last two months...but today the discrepancy between two days worth of reports over three days is really shocking. My subscriptions are up, up, up according to today's report, so I hope this is the one that's accurate.
_______________
Subscribe to our other blogs on Kindle:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters
Rush Limbaugh Report
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Trying to Get Ahead of the Game
When you're trying to make you're living as a writer...particularly as a writer of Kindle blogs and books, you've got to do everything you can to get ahead of the game.
I have 31 blogs - of which 23 have less than 10 subscriptions. Now, when my blogs cost $1.99, it was worth it to keep them going, even if I had 1 to 9 subscirptions. Those 60 cents per subscription added up.
Then of course a couple of months ago now Amazon decided to arbitrarily drop all the prices of my blogs from $1.99 to 99 cents, and that was a bit of a blow. Took me severalweeks to recover, frankly, as I'd just seen my income, which was starting to look quite promising, chopped in half.
Nevertheless, 30 cents also helps, which is why I'm still doing all my blogs even though most of them don't seem to be worth it.
The reason I'm continuing these blogs is because they serve multiple purposes. I'm an annotator of books, and most of my blogs deal with history or the sciences, and the information I learn in researching blog posts can also be used for my annotations.
I do experiment with a few blogs, and if they don't prove popular I remove them quickly - I tried a football and a golf blog, and neither one took off. I thought a ghost hunting blog might be popular, but that isn't going anywhere, either.
I also thought that, with the popularity of Sarah Palin, that blog would be popular, but that subscription base remains steady at about 15. So I maintain it, even though it's very disappointing. 15 subscribers a month = $4.50 a month. Not much, but enough to go on with.
_______________
Subscribe to our other blogs on Kindle:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters
Rush Limbaugh Report
I have 31 blogs - of which 23 have less than 10 subscriptions. Now, when my blogs cost $1.99, it was worth it to keep them going, even if I had 1 to 9 subscirptions. Those 60 cents per subscription added up.
Then of course a couple of months ago now Amazon decided to arbitrarily drop all the prices of my blogs from $1.99 to 99 cents, and that was a bit of a blow. Took me severalweeks to recover, frankly, as I'd just seen my income, which was starting to look quite promising, chopped in half.
Nevertheless, 30 cents also helps, which is why I'm still doing all my blogs even though most of them don't seem to be worth it.
The reason I'm continuing these blogs is because they serve multiple purposes. I'm an annotator of books, and most of my blogs deal with history or the sciences, and the information I learn in researching blog posts can also be used for my annotations.
I do experiment with a few blogs, and if they don't prove popular I remove them quickly - I tried a football and a golf blog, and neither one took off. I thought a ghost hunting blog might be popular, but that isn't going anywhere, either.
I also thought that, with the popularity of Sarah Palin, that blog would be popular, but that subscription base remains steady at about 15. So I maintain it, even though it's very disappointing. 15 subscribers a month = $4.50 a month. Not much, but enough to go on with.
_______________
Subscribe to our other blogs on Kindle:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters
Rush Limbaugh Report
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
I think I've cracked it this time...
Uploaded my Annotated Whose Body by Dorothy Sayers and its been available for sale for 2 weeks now. Had 3 purchases in the last reporting period, 10 so far this month.
That's by far and away the best I've ever had any of my offerings do (which has been pretty damn disappointing, I can tell you.)
Of course there's one problem. I'm only charging 99 cents for the book, so even if I sell 365 copies a year, that will only earn me a 35 cent royalty on each book, so $127.35 per year.
That's because the book itself is in the public domain, there are already 6 copies available on the Kindle, and they're also only 99 cents. Although my book is worth more, because t's annotated, I didn't dare charge more.
I'm currently annotating another public domain mystery, which I hope to have up for sale in another couple of weeks.
So what have I cracked? Well, quantity. There are a few classic mysteries in public domain, I shall annotate each and every one, and charge only 99 cents for the result. I won't make a fortune off them, but at least I'll make a steady income.
And get my name known as an annotator.
_______________
Subscribe to our other blogs on Kindle:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters
Rush Limbaugh Report
That's by far and away the best I've ever had any of my offerings do (which has been pretty damn disappointing, I can tell you.)
Of course there's one problem. I'm only charging 99 cents for the book, so even if I sell 365 copies a year, that will only earn me a 35 cent royalty on each book, so $127.35 per year.
That's because the book itself is in the public domain, there are already 6 copies available on the Kindle, and they're also only 99 cents. Although my book is worth more, because t's annotated, I didn't dare charge more.
I'm currently annotating another public domain mystery, which I hope to have up for sale in another couple of weeks.
So what have I cracked? Well, quantity. There are a few classic mysteries in public domain, I shall annotate each and every one, and charge only 99 cents for the result. I won't make a fortune off them, but at least I'll make a steady income.
And get my name known as an annotator.
_______________
Subscribe to our other blogs on Kindle:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters
Rush Limbaugh Report
_______________Subscribe to our other blogs on Kindle:Seaborn: Oceanography BlogStar Trek Report: Space SciencesVolcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure HuntersRush Limbaugh Report
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
It's a puzzlement
edited...
Whose Body, the Annotated Edition
About a week ago, I had uploaded Dorothy Sayers book Whose Body, the Annotated Edition, for which I charge only 99 cents. This book is in the public domain, and there are already 5 99-cent books available. Mine of course is annotated.
I'd thought about charging $1.99, because I put a lot of work into those annotations, but had then decided that I couldn't charge that much. The book is perfectly understandable even if you don't know the subtle nuances that my annotations reveal...so I figured the only way to ensure sales was to charge what everyone else was charging.
And, of course, I haven't gotten the results I hoped for. I seem to sell one book a day - that's 33 cents. Well, if I keep selling one book a day I'll be happy, but of course you never know! I've got three or four pamphlets published for several months, that haven't sold anything!
Anyway, the book looks very professional, because I did convert it from text to an html file using Mobipocket creator (which you can download for free.)
So now, I've got paragraph indentations, whereas before, I just had double-space gaps in between each paragraph. So it looks a lot nicer.
Of course I still can't figure out how to get photos to show up in Mobipocket, but I'll be persevering with that. And as for a linked table of contents! Ha!
_______________
Subscribe to our other blogs on Kindle:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters
Rush Limbaugh Report
Whose Body, the Annotated Edition
About a week ago, I had uploaded Dorothy Sayers book Whose Body, the Annotated Edition, for which I charge only 99 cents. This book is in the public domain, and there are already 5 99-cent books available. Mine of course is annotated.
I'd thought about charging $1.99, because I put a lot of work into those annotations, but had then decided that I couldn't charge that much. The book is perfectly understandable even if you don't know the subtle nuances that my annotations reveal...so I figured the only way to ensure sales was to charge what everyone else was charging.
And, of course, I haven't gotten the results I hoped for. I seem to sell one book a day - that's 33 cents. Well, if I keep selling one book a day I'll be happy, but of course you never know! I've got three or four pamphlets published for several months, that haven't sold anything!
Anyway, the book looks very professional, because I did convert it from text to an html file using Mobipocket creator (which you can download for free.)
So now, I've got paragraph indentations, whereas before, I just had double-space gaps in between each paragraph. So it looks a lot nicer.
Of course I still can't figure out how to get photos to show up in Mobipocket, but I'll be persevering with that. And as for a linked table of contents! Ha!
_______________
Subscribe to our other blogs on Kindle:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters
Rush Limbaugh Report
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