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SkipJack Announces Upcoming McKay Release

skipjackpublishing enhanced logoFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 2016

SkipJack Publishing Announces Upcoming Release of Debut Author, Marcy McKay

Texas – Award-winning author Marcy McKay and SkipJack Publishing announce the January 21, 2016, release of McKay’s literary suspense novel, Pennies from Burger Heaven (ISBN 978-1-939889-33-1).

About Pennies from Burger Heaven: Eleven-year-old Copper Daniels is homeless and alone. She spends her nights sleeping beneath the cemetery’s Warrior Angel statue for protection, and her days battling the mean streets of Remington, Texas, hell-bent on discovering what happened the night her Mama disappeared. While Copper and her rag-tag group of friends find danger at every corner. Only two things are certain – her Mama’s really missing and someone’s truly trying to kill Copper.

In the tradition of The Lovely Bones and Room, Pennies from Burger Heaven tells a dark story through the eyes of a child. With wit and wisdom, Copper Daniels will steal your heart, then break it in two.

Awards for Pennies from Burger Heaven:

*2010 First Place – Writers’ League of Texas, Best Mainstream Novel Competition

*2010 First Place – Frontiers in Writing, Best Mainstream Novel Contest

*2010 Winner – Frontiers in Writing, Overall Best of Show

Praise for Pennies from Burger Heaven:

“Against the gritty backdrop of an inner-city ghetto rises the unforgettable voice of eleven-year-old Copper ‘Penny’ Daniels, offering poignant and heartbreaking insights into the horrors and trials of homeless life on the streets, finding heaven where you least expect it, and help in those you never thought to ask.”

– A.G. Howard, New York Times Bestselling Author of the Splintered Series

“Debut novelist McKay infuses Pennies from Burger Heaven with wit, charm and moxie, so much so that the achingly beautifulness of Copper Daniels’ life sneaks up on you. All of this wrapped around a mystery that is fast-paced and rife with tension, with a satisfying series of twists. Can’t wait for the next Burger Heaven novel.”

— Pamela Fagan Hutchins, author of the Kate & Annalise mystery series

Biography

Marcy McKay knew she wanted to write stories the moment she read about Oompah Loompahs in fourth grade. She’s an award-winning short-story author and copywriter, as well as a freelance journalist and creator of Mudpie Writing blog. Her work has appeared in Writer’s Digest, The Write Practice, Write to Done, Positive Writer and Jane Friedman.com. Marcy lives in Texas with her husband and two teens, who all still like her…most of the time. McKay is a member of the Writers’ League of Texas and the Texas High Plains Writers. To connect with her, please visit www.marcymckay.com, on Facebook, or Twitter.

For further information, please contact:

Eric Hutchins

P.O. Box 219

Burton, TX 77835

T: 713-855-4872

[email protected]

www.SkipJackPublishing.com

Good Help’s Not Hard to Find

abbey
Abbey: Branding, Promotion, Marketing
Bobbye
Bobbye, primary publishing assistant for SkipJack authors
Candi
Candi, primary PFH assistant for publishing

If one follow’s the lead of Harlan Coben (skilled and successful thriller writer), then an author should plow every cent of their revenues in their first five years of publication back into promotion, to build their brand and longevity. If I’m not mistaken (and tell me in the comments if I am), Harlan also did a book tour cross country to meet indie book store owners.

I like Harlan’s thinking.

Definitely in years one and two we re-invested in me and in SkipJack Publishing and our fledgling school of authors. And we visited 43 of the 48 contiguous states on book tours to stores both chain and indie and to libraries and even RV parks and coffee shops.

But a weird thing happened in year three. In year three we started making too much money to spend, at least at first. It snuck up on us. and it made me very, very happy because I hated feeling like an expense to our household.

As often happens, the workload increased as the income increased. More PFH and SkipJack books. More promotions. More at stake. More to manage. Eric kept impressing upon me that we could recreate PFHs to do everything but write PFH books (because we are not interested in becoming the James Patterson of the indie book world, ahem). I resisted, because I a) am a control freak b) didn’t want to train people, lose them, and retrain new people over and over c) can do it faster myself because I can read my own mind 😉 d) liked making a profit for a change and e) am a teensy bit anti-social.

Then one of our SkipJack Publishing authors, Ken Oder, came to us seeking author services: the ones he needed, in the way he wanted them, when he wanted them, and without making it a hassle for him. He told us he wanted someone who could do it like Eric and me. Then another of our authors, Rebecca Nolen, needed help we didn’t have the bandwidth to provide. Well, the only way to make that happen for them was to hire and train our own folks. About that same time, a great book and author, Marcy McKay, fell into our laps, and despite our vow to each other not to take on any more work, we stopped and took stock. If we hired help, could we solve the problems for PFH and the other SkipJack authors as well as make it possible to say yes to this incredible book and new author?

Yes, probably.

But that begged the question: what was it we were trying to do with SkipJack anyway? Eric and I put our heads together to reconsider and came up with this: We are trying to create a non-traditional publishing company where we provide an avenue to authors of magnificent books to publish with our brand yet maintain complete autonomy. We want books that are mysterious, thrilling, and suspenseful, that are not inconsistent with a life of faith—whatever that faith may be, and whether questioning or not. We had planned this as a “retirement gig” that bloomed ten years from now. We got lucky, and it bloomed quicker. Ready or not, now was the time.

So we put an ad in our small town free paper. It cost forty-two bucks and ran for a week. I mentioned on Facebook that I had capitulated and was going hire an assistant for SkipJack. Ten days later we’d had thirty applications. THIRTY APPLICATIONS for a job in a Nowheresville town of 500 people as a “publishing assistant.” It was crazy.

We met with four of the candidates, although many more were great. Three were just right, though what they were just right for took me by surprise. Two were perfect for the job we had envisioned, and each wanted to work part-time, thus equalling one full timer. Both are authors and have a burning desire to learn this crazy world SkipJack publishes within, and how to do it successfully. The third was a wild card, someone who had spent years in indie music promotion and booking, but lived five miles away and was looking to reinvent a part of herself. She didn’t fit the job we’d advertised for, but she did fit something else: visioning, branding, growing, looking for the new ways to monetize that we hadn’t pursued yet.

So . . . instead of one publishing assistant, we ended up with three new employees! (See our whole team, HERE) With our potential excess capacity, we can even provide author services to non-SkipJack authors, on occasion. And it’s been fun and exciting and, yes, it’s been hard because I’m trying to learn how to run payroll through Quickbooks and put together job tasks and projects and teach people how to do them and review work and answer questions and finish my book. Eric tries to squeeze a meaningful contribution into his busy travel and work schedule for his day job. I’m not complaining. I’ve enjoyed it. I get to do what I love full time. I am occasionally a wee bit stressed 🙂 but I love it and can see the possibilities for the future.

I still wish I could clone me. The writing part.

But maybe if I just closed Facebook occasionally that would happen organically?

Pamela

Pamela Fagan Hutchins writes overly long e-mails, award-winning and best-10006025_10152294921092604_1598429323_oselling mysteries, and hilarious nonfiction and chairs the board of the Houston Writers Guild. She is a recovering attorney and investigator who resides deep in the heart of Nowheresville, Texas and in the frozen north of Wyoming. Pamela has a passion for great writing and smart authorpreneurship as well as long hikes with her hunky husband and pack of rescue dogs, traveling in the Bookmobile, and experimenting with her Keurig. She blogs on writing, publishing and promotion at Skip the Jack and on her beleaguered family and much-too-personal life at Road to Joy. She also leaps medium-tall buildings in a single bound (if she gets a good running start). Check out her USA Best Book Award winning novel, Going for Kona, her permafree mystery (and series lead), Saving Grace, her writing/publishing/promotion Bible, What Kind of Loser Indie Publishes, and How Can I Be One, Too?, and her newest mystery, Earth to Emily (Emily #2).

 

Amazon Crossing Launched for Translations Submissions

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Been thinking about using Babelcube.com or retaining a translator to create your foreign translations? If so, me, too. And I still may. But in the meantime, I learned yesterday that Amazon has launched Amazon Crossing for translations.

Here’s the deal: you pitch your book, they decide whether to partner with you on it. I haven’t seen any other details on it, and if you have, please let us know in the comments, below.

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So I gave it a shot and submitted Saving Grace yesterday. Fingers and toes crossed!

What about you guys? Think you’ll submit? Have you already had translations done, and, if so, how did you do it and how did it go?

Pamela

Pamela Fagan Hutchins writes overly long e-mails, award-winning and best-10006025_10152294921092604_1598429323_oselling mysteries, and hilarious nonfiction and chairs the board of the Houston Writers Guild. She is a recovering attorney and investigator who resides deep in the heart of Nowheresville, Texas and in the frozen north of Wyoming. Pamela has a passion for great writing and smart authorpreneurship as well as long hikes with her hunky husband and pack of rescue dogs, traveling in the Bookmobile, and her Keurig. She blogs on writing, publishing and promotion at Skip the Jack and on her beleaguered family, and much-too-personal life at Road to Joy. She also leaps medium-tall buildings in a single bound (if she gets a good running start). Check out her USA Best Book Award winning novel, Going for Kona, her permafree mystery (and series lead), Saving Grace, her writing/publishing/promotion Bible, What Kind of Loser Indie Publishes, and How Can I Be One, Too?, and her newest mystery, Earth to Emily (Emily #2).

Nook Promoting Indies? Who’d’a Thunk!

You know how I said Kindle Unlimited was the subject of this week’s planned post? Well, it was. Until I got an e-mail yesterday that was even more interesting. First, the backstory:

Two years ago I did 70 Barnes & Noble events in ONE YEAR (and that’s not counting the other 80 events I did at other stores/venues), most of them in a 68-day period during my 60-Cities-in-60-Days Book Tour. Nearly every one was a test in patience, perseverance and pride—as in the swallowing of it. Our hope was that in addition to the orders B&N was placing of my novels to stock their warehouse that we could convince them to stock them nationwide in their stores by showing great sales in a short time frame across a broad geographic range. My Nielsen numbers kicked ass.

But B&N didn’t bite. We learned why: paid shelf placement. And we couldn’t afford what the big boys paid. Basically, I was of the great unwashed, an indie, a loser. B&N made deals only with the special people who had lots of money.

Now, 95% of my sales come from e-books. I make no secret of my royalties or the cost of making them, so I’ll share here as well. That tour, including the Bookmobile we bought and the in-depth PR we did that made the tour worthwhile in terms of brand impressions, was a 150k capital investment, in a year in which my royalties were 2k per month. Yep, it was expensive, and I’ll never do it again. We do smaller tours each year: less intense, and far less expensive. And we take our rolling billboard of book covers, the Bookmobile, to events frequently. My books are still available in print online, and POD returnable at bookstores and are 2% of my sales. I just don’t worry about investing time or money anymore to achieve more. And I won’t, at least until it gets easier (see last week’s post on Jamie McGuire and WalMart, HERE).

In the last 12 months, my royalties averaged 16k monthly against 2.5k monthly expenses. Sweet. And only 5% of them come from B&N’s Nook. Honestly, we think we’ve done well on Nook. Saving Grace has ranked as high as #7 overall there as a paid book. At any given time indies like me are 55% or more of the top 5000 genre bestsellers on Nook, per http://authorearnings.com. We think we’ve just seen Nook’s market share decrease, that’s all.

What I haven’t seen much of from B&N Nook is promotion of my novels, as opposed to Amazon Kindle where they regularly promote them. It’s worth noting that Kindle promotes more if you’re with a publisher or third party who enters a paid arrangement to promote your book, but if you are making Amazon money, they’re savvy and will push your book, unwashed or not.

Nook, not so much. At least with my books.

Until yesterday. Yesterday I got this out of the blue e-mail (you may have to zoom in to read it):

nook request

 

What?? B&N asking to promote an unwashed indie?? Don’t they know I’m not special??

(I said yes to them, of course).

Granted, this is not a direct promo to readers hovering over their Buy Now buttons, but it’s still pretty cool to be promoted indirectly through screen captures and video of their products.

An indie. Being used to promote B&N’s devices. Yes, the day has come.

The takeaway, for me? If you show up (go broad distribution) and keep pursuing the basics (5 Rs: reviews, ratings, rankings, recommendations, and readers)  to drive sales, EVEN B&N/Nook will eventually give you a hand

Has Nook ever promoted any of your books? What form did it take? Was it effective? What do you think stimulated it?

Pamela

Pamela Fagan Hutchins writes overly long e-mails, award-winning and best-10006025_10152294921092604_1598429323_oselling mysteries, and hilarious nonfiction and chairs the board of the Houston Writers Guild. She is a recovering attorney and investigator who resides deep in the heart of Nowheresville, Texas and in the frozen north of Wyoming. Pamela has a passion for great writing and smart authorpreneurship as well as long hikes with her hunky husband and pack of rescue dogs, traveling in the Bookmobile, and her Keurig. She blogs on writing, publishing and promotion at Skip the Jack and on her beleaguered family, and much-too-personal life at Road to Joy. She also leaps medium-tall buildings in a single bound (if she gets a good running start). Check out her USA Best Book Award winning novel, Going for Kona, her permafree mystery (and series lead), Saving Grace, her writing/publishing/promotion Bible, What Kind of Loser Indie Publishes, and How Can I Be One, Too?, and her newest mystery, Earth to Emily (Emily #2).

Groundbreaking Indie Print News: The Big Gaping Questions Remain

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No matter how you approach it, Jamie McGuire’s new deal with WalMart is groundbreaking. Jamie left her sweetheart Atria deal to go indie—for happiness/control reasons, I hear—and parlayed the success of a (traditionally published) novel into a trilogy that has resulted in landing one of her indie books on WalMart’s shelves in select stores.

A CreateSpace print book with a CreateSpace ISBN, no less. CreateSpace, an Amazon-owned company that does not allow returns. Amazon, the mortal enemy of brick-and-mortar book sales.

This is a first-of-its-kind deal for an indie. It’s huge. HUGE. If your hesitation about going indie was print book distribution, that wall just tumbled at least part of the way done especially when you consider that most traditionally published authors don’t get in WalMart, or even in B&N, and if they do, their shelf placement doesn’t drive sales.

Yet WalMart’s website flatly states that a) it won’t work with “self published” authors and b) it only works through a third party book merchandiser.

In the comments to Jamie’s blog announcing the deal, Jane Friedman (http://janefriedman.com, publishing mastermind) asked her about these issues: will WalMart require her to allow returns? who bears the cost of those returns? did she have agent assistance? did she work through WalMart’s point of distribution third party, Anderson Merchandisers. So far, Jamie hasn’t answered her, and from what I can tell, no one has spilled the beans on the deal anywhere else, yet. (Please indicate in the comments if you’ve learned more) I’d also ask what her margin is on these books. Frankly, though, shelf placement is about promotion, so if I were her and the return issue wasn’t going to bankrupt me (next paragraph), I’d go in for next to nothing in margin.

So on the one hand, this deal is groundbreaking. On the other, it could be quite costly to Jamie, if WalMart requires returns that she bears the cost of, unless they negotiated reasonable numbers of books ordered so as to not out-order demand.

Because that’s been the problem in the past for indie authors. I had my novels in B&Ns, Hastings, and indie stores around the country. My Nielsen numbers rocked. But the bookstores over-ordered so hideously (after we begged them to be conservative–why would they not–I bore the cost of their over-ordering, not them) that ultimately the returns made it a wash, and when combined with the effort it took to manage the process, we decided it wasn’t worth it to me. I used Lightning Source/Ingram since many B&Ns refused to order my books even after repeat customer requests, when they were with CreateSpace, which is a) Amazon and b) POD non-returnable. Many would order them from CS, though; it was store-dependent. Some still wouldn’t order even through LS, because the books were still POD, albeit returnable. B&N stores: nation-states at their worst. Maybe that’s why they’re announcing declines again this quarter. But I digress.

Did the ground just shift here with Jamie’s deal? Yes. The impossible became possible. We still don’t know how much, though, so we can’t opine of whether the possible is probable, profitable, or prudent for most of us to pursue.

Only time will tell, because Jamie’s not. Yet.

Congratulations, Jamie McGuire. And from one indie to another, THANK YOU. I can’t wait to see what you and other groundbreakers do next.

To learn more about options to get your indie books in print and in stores, check out my book, What Kind of Loser Indie Publishes, and How Can I Be One, Too?

For a great read on Jamie’s deal and the implications, check out Hugh Howey’s Creating Space: The Wayfinder.

Next week’s planned post: Kindle Unlimited.

Pamela Fagan Hutchins writes overly long e-mails, award-winning and best-10006025_10152294921092604_1598429323_oselling mysteries, and hilarious nonfiction, chairs the board of the Houston Writers Guild, and dabbles in employment practices resources investigations from time to time. She is passionate about great writing, smart authorpreneurship, and her two household hunks, husband Eric and one-eyed Boston terrier Petey. She blogs on writing, publishing and promotion at Skip the Jack and on her beleaguered family, and much-too-personal life at Road to Joy. She also leaps medium-tall buildings in a single bound (if she gets a good running start). Check out her USA Best Book Award winning novel, Going for Kona, her permafree mystery (and series lead), Saving Grace, her writing/publishing/promotion Bible, What Kind of Loser Indie Publishes, and How Can I Be One, Too?, her newest mystery, Earth to Emily (Emily #2).

 

Amazon Giveaways: An Update

A few weeks ago, I blogged on giveaways on Amazon and Goodreads. For us, Goodreads was an ongoing strategy, but Amazon was completely new. Pamela Fagan Hutchins tried it for her mystery Heaven to Betsy.

The promo ran for one week, which was the set period and not something that could be changed. That matches the time periods Pamela uses on Goodreads, though, so it was a good comparative.

Pamela gave away 20 books and had 2000 people enter. The readers received a paperback sent directly by Amazon, so while it wasn’t signed, Amazon handled fulfillment. The cost of the books to Pamela was full price, unlike when she does Goodreads giveaways and is able to buy at wholesale prices. So while she spent more, she did less work.

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The 2000+ entrants was two times as many as Pamela generally gets on Goodreads. However, she gave away twice as many books. She ran a giveaway where she gave away one book for each hundredth entrant. When she does it again, she plans to make it every 200 to 300 entrants, and experiment with the parameters.

Pamela had hoped to give away 30 books and to get 3000 entrants. However, it did not appear that Amazon picked the giveaway for promotion, which is what it would have taken to get that many people to enter. Plus, entrants had to follow her on Twitter, and that condition was a bar from some. An Amazon author page follow would be a much better condition, in our opinion, especially given Amazon’s recent move into letting authors craft messages about their new releases for Amazon to send to their followers.

The biggest benefit by far of the Amazon giveaway was Pamela’s ability to send custom 140-character messages to the winners and to the losers. It allowed her to let them all know that the first novel in her interrelated series was always free in e-book form, as well as provided the chance for her to ask for honest reviews. With Goodreads giveaways, she is able to include a message to the winners in book shipments, but to send messages to the authors gets kind of spammy as they aren’t necessarily fans or friends, plus they would have to be done one by one, a laborious and time consuming process.

For the benefit of being able to send these messages, Pamela felt that the Amazon giveaway is the better deal, especially as she experiments with the parameters of the giveaway itself, even though it is a little more costly. She does plan to continue Goodreads giveaways, though, as they drive reviews and rankings on Goodreads where book influencers hang out.

Has anyone had good experiences with either type of giveaway? If so, we’d love to hear about them in the contents.

Eric

New and Nifty Feature: Author e-mails to Amazon Followers

One of the most serious drawbacks to driving sales on Amazon (in the past) has been that an author can’t directly promote to her Amazon readers. It’s in the best interest of both Amazon and the author that the readers most interested in the author receive information that leads to future sales. Amazon has done its own promoting to its customers at its sole discretion until recently. To benefit from this type of promotion, an author had to generate robust sales and strong and numerous reviews. I can still remember clearly the first time I learned Amazon had emailed customers about one of my books. It was like winning the lottery. Heck, it still is. I’ve had most success with it recently when I put my books up for Kindle pre-order (although the pre-order strategy overall is not as impactful as it was in the past; read more on that, HERE). Here’s an example of the randomly wonderful e-mails Amazon sends, from August 13 (not in conjunction with a pre-order, but a week after a new release):

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Those Amazon emails are great, and they drive sales, but the followers of an author have indicated that they want to hear more about the author, and recently Amazon starting giving these followers (and the authors) what everyone really wanted: personal new release emails from the authors to their followers.

It helps to know what I mean by follower: Followers in this instance are people that have clicked Follow on the author’s Amazon page, and thus to hear from Amazon when the author has a new release. Amazon knows who those people are and how to contact them, but the author does not. Yet if anyone wanted to hear from the author personally out of all the people that shop on Amazon, these would be some of them.

So, for the first time ever, here’s what I got from Amazon last week when I released Earth to Emily (Emily #2):
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My reaction: O M G!!!!!!!

Um, YESSSSS!! So I drafted the message I wanted my followers to get, and here’s what Amazon sent me:

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I saved you the “Read More” text (you’re welcome)! And I just now saw the typo. Ay Carumba. Next time I’m running the text by my editor!

Here’s what followers got:

 

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I wish they hadn’t had to click to get the message, but . . . Amazon is moving in the right direction, so I’ll quit kvetching.

Or maybe I won’t. Now, here’s the drawback: there’s been absolutely zero reason to promote Amazon author page follows in the past. I have 12 books out. I’ve followed my own Amazon author page since the beginning. I’d never received an email (to my knowledge) as a follower. If I only published on Amazon, maybe I would have promoted it, but I publish in wide distribution, so instead I promoted my webpage with links to all my retailers. Yet 60% of my sales come from Amazon, so all of a sudden, I’m rethinking this and trying to decide how to gently introduce my contacts to the urgent need for them to follow my Amazon author page. I take that back. My contacts hear from me in many ways. They don’t need this follower new release email from Amazon. I need it to go to the Amazon customers I don’t already know, and I can’t promote my own Amazon author page to them for that very reason. Only Amazon can.

Dilemmas.

I guess I should still promote to my contacts and ask them to promote it to theirs, and hope for some social networking magic.

Meanwhile, though, I’m thrilled about this development/feature. I hope this acknowledgement of the desire of readers to hear from authors is a trend Amazon pursues enthusiastically.

I’d be really interested in your thoughts on how best to promote your author pages in the comments below . . .

Pamela

Pamela Fagan Hutchins writes overly long e-mails, award-winning and best-10006025_10152294921092604_1598429323_oselling mysteries, and hilarious nonfiction, chairs the board of the Houston Writers Guild, and dabbles in employment practices resources investigations from time to time. She is passionate about great writing, smart authorpreneurship, and her two household hunks, husband Eric and one-eyed Boston terrier Petey. She blogs on writing, publishing and promotion at Skip the Jack and on her beleaguered family, and much-too-personal life at Road to Joy. She also leaps medium-tall buildings in a single bound (if she gets a good running start). Check out her USA Best Book Award winning novel, Going for Kona, her permafree mystery (and series lead), Saving Grace, her writing/publishing/promotion Bible, What Kind of Loser Indie Publishes, and How Can I Be One, Too?, her newest mystery, Earth to Emily (Emily #2).

 

Has the Amazon Ranking “Algorithm” Changed?

Amazon ranks product sales within categories on its website. That includes books. Amazon allows pre-orders (pre-sales) of e-books by both traditionally published and independent authors. In addition, traditional and independent authors both promote their books through non-Amazon sites and sources.

A few months ago—April 2, 2015 to be exact—I released Heaven to Betsy. I offered it for pre-order, as I had for my October 2014 release, Going for Kona. Amazon had just made pre-sale of e-books available to independent authors in the summer of 2014, so I had not been able to offer it on my previous books. This month, August 2015, I offered  Earth to Emily for pre-order. Here’s how the sales went for each:

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Because in the past pre-order sales dropped on release date, they impacted rankings tremendously, helping a book possibly attain “Hot New Release” status with Amazon, which propelled more sales and better rankings. With all the books I’ve offered for pre-order, Amazon also sent out announcement e-mails to those people who had bought my books before. So it’s been a pretty big advantage to get your e-book up for pre-order.

When I sold 213 pre-order e-books of Heaven to Betsy for its April 2, 2015 release, the result was that it was #18 in romantic mystery and nearly cracked the top 1000 overall on its first day of sales. That’s a bestseller, folks. It looked like this:

h2b new release rank

But it wasn’t a “Hot New Release,” so we tried harder for E2E, even though we’d started to hear rumblings of changes to the algorithms, that indie authors pre-order sales no longer counted on release day, and that promotion ranking spikes were being “smoothed”.

I sold 685 E2E via pre-order. Over three times as many as I sold of Heaven to Betsy. On release day (August 6), its ranking fell from 8,000 to over 11,000. Yes, you read that right. By the 2nd day the rankings started climbing and ultimately it reached #37 in romantic mystery on day three and cracked the top 2000. It did not make it as a Hot New Release. Obviously. But why was its rank so much lower than H2B‘s with triple the pre-orders? (First, a look at the screen shots: E2E‘s rank on its day three peak; overall sales at the end of day 3, August 8; the romantic mystery rankings—which included four of my novels, so I can’t complain too much; the free download rankings, which my Saving Grace led; the author rank, in which I was #30 in category.)

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It turned out that it was true that Amazon is smoothing the impact of spikes caused by promotions and pre-orders, in favor of sustained sales. A longer averaging period, if you will. Pre-orders counted, for indies, at the time of the sale rather than on release day. Why else would H2B sell only 566 compared to E2E’s over 800 in the same period, and H2B be ranked 15 while E2E was ranked 37?  That’s not evil, really, but it does decrease the impact of the enormously successful Bookbubs and the BookSends, and, yes, the pre-orders, for indies.

Now we have the data to prove the change between April and August of 2015, but we’d hoped we wouldn’t, that we’d have data showing the opposite, because we certainly hadn’t seen it dramatically with our promotions, so we hadn’t been sure. In retrospect, that is probably because we were already selling a good number of books, steadily, but our May and and summer promos weren’t as “spikey,” if you will.

Rats. Like I said, though, I can’t complain too much. I’ll still complain a little though. Because 213 pre-orders was such a success, we really had counted on great things from 685 pre-orders, thus it was a tremendous disappointment, and, strategically, we would have run more paid promotions on days 2-7 for E2E had we known of Amazon’s algorithm change. By the time we figured it out, it was too late to book the promotions, so the rankings fell.

Hell to Pay (Emily #3) is coming out in 2016, so we’ll just have to see what we see then, vis a vis pre-order impacts. I’ll still do pre-orders, just a compressed period for them. I want Amazon to send that e-mail to all my readers. 🙂

Have any of the rest of you seen a smoothing of spikes in your rankings on Amazon, post promotion, or post pre-orders? I’d love to hear your experiences, and so would my readers. Please do share in the comments below.

And over the next few weeks, I am posting on two purely positive new developments on Amazon, I promise: Amazon giveaways and Amazon new release author emails to followers.

Pamela

Pamela Fagan Hutchins writes overly long e-mails, award-winning and best-selling mysteries, 10006025_10152294921092604_1598429323_oand hilarious nonfiction, chairs the board of the Houston Writers Guild, and dabbles in employment law and human resources investigations from time to time. She is passionate about great writing, smart authorpreneurship, and her two household hunks, husband Eric and one-eyed Boston terrier Petey. She blogs on writing, publishing and promotion at Skip the Jack and on her beleaguered family, and much-too-personal life at Road to Joy. She also leaps medium-tall buildings in a single bound (if she gets a good running start). Check out her USA Best Book Award winning novel, Going for Kona, her permafree mystery (and series lead), Saving Grace, her writing/publishing/promotion Bible, What Kind of Loser Indie Publishes, and How Can I Be One, Too?, her newest mystery, Earth to Emily (Emily #2).