Ads

I wasn't expecting a huge amount of revenue when I signed up for ads from Google but, so far, I have recieved absolutely nothing from that fine organization yet my blog is festooned with bra ads (why bras?) and I get nuttin'. My advice: keep your site clean.

Internet and radio exposure

Well, it took a long time but I finally recieved a favorable review, with a link to Amazon, from Dean Barnett, of Hughhewitt.com:
http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:O2RptWDOiTAJ:www.townhall.com/blog/page2+greenwich+mean+time+dean+barnett&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=3

And Faith Middleton, of Connecticut's WNPR, apparently mentioned the book favorably (I missed the shows but a friend tells me I was mentioned twice in the past week). Sales ranking at Amazon before the link and mention were between 967,000 and 1,000,000 plus - they've jumped to between 87,000 to 45,000 now. These aren't copies of books sold, mind you but, rather, where a book stands in comparison to other books' sales. So Dean Barnett jumped me over 950,000 other books. That may translate into 10 sales - who knows? But it's still huge. The hope, obviously, is that word of mouth will carry the book beyod Greenwich, where I've sold several hundred copies, into the great beyond. We'll see. In the meantime, I received a whopping $85 direct deposit from Amazon so there are 10 Amazon buyers already. Slow going, but fun.

An intrepid customer of Booksurge extracted email addresses from a mass mailing and contacted all (?) of us, asking if we had problems with the company. In some ways, I do: formatting errors being the main one. I corrected errors in galleys and the seem to have created new ones. But there are many things I am pleased with. I've now read a number of complaints about the covers of various author's'books but mine is just fine. That's probably because I supplied my own art work. I took a digital picture of the beach where my novel is set and sent it to my cousin's wife, Ellen, who is a professional artist. I commissioned a painting of the photo, for a fraction of what she normally charges - thanks, Ellen, and asked here to add a tipi or two and, "oh yeah, can you add some sort of Indian art-work horse?"
She obliged, had the resulting painting scanned by a friend of hers and sent me a CD which I then supplied to Booksurge. The result was, in my opinion, just great. Go to Amazon and see for yourself.

So yes, there are still kinks in the Booksurge system but there are also some parts that work very well.

The books are here! The books are here! Okay - November to August - I had faster service from my real publisher. But 500 copies arrived by truck. This isn't quite good news- I ordered 200 copies in November, figuring on selling 150 at a local outlet (not an unreasonable expectation - they sold at least that many of my first book) and using 50 copies for promotion. Unfortunately, before they shipped I received an email from Booksurge asking me to confirm that I'd ordered 500. I didn't check, stupid me, assuming that Booksurge has acces to the same information I do. If someone orders direct from, say, Amazon, I receive something like $7. I was charged $5.6- for these copies, I have to give 1/2 the cover price to the outlet selling them, which means I make $2.40 per. I'm cutting my own throat here.

But we all move on. More later.

Author's copy is finally in hand- arrived yesterday, via UPS (one day delivery, free-pretty good). I read it again and it still holds up. Two typos, six formatting errors (hard returns) and one minor, I hope, plot inconsistency, all of which are my fault. The formatting errors were hard to spot on a computer and, although BookSurge recommends printing the document out on 11X17 paper (the size of two pages), fixing any errors found would have forced another month of delay. So I can live with them. The plot problem is found in just one paragraph, near the end of the book, a hold-over from an earlier draft where I was going in a different direction. I'll pass the book along to a few readers and, if they don't get thrown by it, I'll live with that,too.
Now we wait to see how long it takes to get the copies ready for distribution and sale. Still not up on Amazon, but I'm checking every day.

Well the "author's copy" was finally shipped yesterday via UPS. Once I review that and approve, I'm told that I'll be ready to publicize the book because, supposedly, there will be books available to sell. I awate with bated breath.

Still nothing. Here's the latest promise, but no action, from my account rep.


Hello Chris

I have contacted the person over the expedited ship list to get a target ship date. I would have thought it would have already been printed but we are moving production facilities at this time and things are somewhat backed up for the time being. As soon as I hear anything I will let you know. Once you get this copy let Melissa and I know that you approve the author copy and we will release your book order. These usually take about 4 weeks to print, and about another week to ship. Usually books update on Amazon within 2 weeks, so I would think it will show up at any time. Usually you can find it first with the ISBN and then the other search mechanisms are updated, so I would try searching with your ISBN (I did today and it did not show up, when you put in, take out the dashes).

Progress

Well yesterday, frustrated, I sent my account rep a link to this blog and my mutterings about Book Surge. Got this response later that day:

"Hello Chris

Your status is now complete and your author's copy has been ordered. I have put this on our expedited shipping list hoping to get it in your hands sometime next week. Once you approve the author copy, notify me, and we will release any preorder you may have had."

Should have posted months ago.