People Ask ‘When’.

Posted on June 2, 2016July 2, 2024 by D. L. Keur

People ask me ‘when will the next [book title] sequel come out’?

Well, here’s the thing. I’m not sure. I’ve got sequels completely drafted, yes. I’ve got full manuscripts ready for the re-writing phase, yes. I’ve got new stories begging to be written, and writing them doesn’t take me that long since I can produce a 90k novel in less than thirty days.

But.

There’s a lot of effort to releasing a novel. There’s a lot of hard-earned money–my money–that has to be spent to launch another novel. There’s even more time–my time–to be devoted to that launch. And, when, out of more than ten thousand ‘downloads’ of just the eBook version of one title nets me less than twenty-five cents per downloaded book because the majority of those eBooks were stolen and continue to be stolen, why should I put more books out to suffer the same fate?

I could go the DRM route, but that wouldn’t solve the problem. I admit I made a HUGE mistake in using Smashwords for two of the titles before bringing them back to Amazon’s Kindle Select program. But even the KS eBooks are out on the free download sites. They get there within hours of release.

Of course, I could spend my day writing cease and desist orders to all the sites presently carrying my titles, but, tomorrow, all those sites will have removed my titles and those sites’ databases containing my titles will have moved to new addresses, so I’ll have to start all over again.

No thanks. I’ve got better ways to spend my time.

So, I’m not sure I will release any more novels. What’s the point? It certainly isn’t paying the majority of my expenses, even the cost of producing those novels. It’s not rewarding me in any way. It’s just providing content for scammer sites and making me resent the people who steal from me.

Inspired Because of a Conversation

Posted on May 23, 2016July 2, 2024 by D. L. Keur

I had an interesting experience today. A lonely friend arrived to perch in my dining room for several hours. Luckily, I had pretty much finished what I had on my ‘must-do’ list for the day, and two computers were engaged in rendering their assigned duties, so, while I wasn’t thrilled to be held captive by his needs, it didn’t hurt the day’s productivity. And, in fact, I guess it spurred me to break out Apophysis and set up some parameters, then render them out on my new machine. The results were satisfying, and I may use it as a cover for one of my books.

What I found interesting was realizing just how prone to cognitive dissonance are we as a species, how pervasive that condition, and how much we deny it in ourselves while criticizing others for exhibiting its symptoms. And, all the while, reality, at its absolute expression, simply is.

So, here, as the result of, both, that conversation, and the lack of time to apply myself to the one ‘wanted-to-do’ project planned for the day, is this image, which I call Reality 5/23/2016.

Self-Promotion Does NOT Work. Really.

Posted on May 18, 2016July 2, 2024 by D. L. Keur

How many of you self-publishing authors see repeated promotions of one author and the latest book by that author coming out of publishing’s Big 5 in your social media streams? I’m guessing ‘not’. You might see a few pre-release promo-s and one or two during the book’s release week, but that would be it.

On the other hand, how many of you self-publishing authors see repeated promotions by some one or another self-publishing author about their books in your social media streams? I’m guessing ‘a lot’ …unless that self-publishing author happens to be highly successful. Then, you rarely see promotions from them. What you WILL see are others sharing the news that that successful author has just released another book. And therein lies the key.

The most effective promotions are those proliferated by fans of the author, not by the author themselves. And they don’t flood your streams.

Take a clue and stop flooding your streams with self-promotional posts. It doesn’t work, and, in fact, it’s counter-productive. It just turns potential readers OFF.

Surprise! The One-Liner Five.

Posted on February 24, 2016July 2, 2024 by D. L. Keur

I blinked. Double blinked. Sipped coffee. Blinked again. Decided to check…. Really?! REALLY?!

“Yep,” said Amazon.com.

Blinked.

My sleeper…well, one of my sleepers, but I don’t much count the SF…actually garnered interest … and a five-star, one-liner review that says a LOT, coming from a pleased reader. YESTERDAY.

I’m still blinking. And I haven’t even released this lengthy ‘thing’ I’m doing on the novel–a thing that takes a lot of work and a lot of painstaking attention to ‘where was my intent’.

To Inherit a Murderer, (Book 1: The Ward) actually garnered a five-star review. And it’s been selling copies. Wow! Totally WOW.

Makes me happy. Because the book’s been sleeping for a good long time with only the most occasional of reader. The last review before yesterday’s was in the summer of 2015.

Now, I don’t get a lot of reviews from my readers. Not for OHL (Old HIckory Lane) and not for my C. J. “Country” James novels. They sell well, but their readers don’t review. To have To Inherit a Murderer garner a review, though, well, that’s like a MAJOR DEAL. To me.

Wow. Made my day yesterday. Unfortunately, I was so busy patching databases due to a plugin update fault that I couldn’t spend the time to gloat. So I’m gloating today.

HAPPY!!!!

Popular Misconconceptions Purposely Contrived and Cultivated

Posted on February 23, 2016July 2, 2024 by D. L. Keur

I can be a controversial irritant. I know this. Still, I have a lot of people who, while afraid to admit it out loud, totally agree with me. And, privately, they applaud me for saying what they feel they can’t. That they won’t publicly support my saying it isn’t necessarily a sign of cowardice. It is a sign of fear–fear of crowd scorning, of cyber bullying, and of ruining their smiling, online, positive images purposely designed to try to gain market traction.

Yes, I do get groans from some of them, too, even the ones who agree with me. I get outright disfriending and snarling responses, private and public, from those who don’t. But you know what? The groaners and the muck slingers don’t bother me and don’t deter me. That I irritate them tells me that I cracked the plastic veneer.

Occasionally, I get a response that bears attending. One such came from my old publicist, who still, it seems, keeps tabs on me. Lately, he sent me applause with one hand while lecturing me about inadvisability with the other hand, admittedly typing with his thumb from his Smartphone, “so I’ll make this brief.” Since I’m “in business” to sell my books, he suggests, “Wouldn’t it be prudent to rein in posting [my] opinions,” opinions that are, as he puts it, “often counter to popular misconceptions purposefully contrived and cultivated?”

That one made me blink. I immediately noticed the lack of qualifiers and quantifiers–normal. But for him to outright say what he did was astounding to me. This is a man who is, at all times, cautious in his every action, deed, and word.

‘Popular misconceptions purposely contrived and cultivated’–yes, exactly.

And why are misconceptions purposely contrived and cultivated in the public at large? Profit and power.

Sad, isn’t it? The public, the people, are being purposely fed artfully contrived misconceptions, and they swallow them whole. It’s ‘whole cloth’, completely fabricated and false, completely contrary to their best interests, proliferated by the blind who have been sold on the process. And I ain’t talking about U.S. or world politics, here, though the same applies. I’m talking self-promotion, the selling-my-book business, the World Wide Web, social media. and effective marketing strategies.

The sighted blinding the credulous.