I have been hip-deep the last couple days in updating covers and links for all the M.L. Humphrey books. Turns out I have 23 of them. And even though the covers are a bit basic, it still takes time to redo the font on all 23, do a few new covers while I’m at it, and then generate new ebooks and load those everywhere.
Which means I’ve been tempted to procrastinate and popped into various forums or FB groups or blogs. And, seriously….Some of the things people are saying…
And since I really don’t want to upload more files right now, let me address a couple of them.
The first one went something like this: “Don’t bother wondering what’s wrong with that book because you’re already past your 30 day cliff on Amazon so all hope is lost.”
Say what? Are you kidding me? Sure, I’ll grant that a book that does well immediately has a better chance of getting and staying sticky at a good rank on Amazon. But…
First, Amazon is not the only game in town. So there are plenty of other vendors out there to sell your books on that don’t have this “new is better” churn mentality.
Second, even on Amazon you can still make money on a book after the first thirty days. My first-in-series romance made four times as much last year as it did the first two years it was out. On Amazon.
How? AMS ads. (Because I didn’t really advertise that book when it came out. Live and learn and all that.) And releasing a book two.
Which means it is absolutely worth considering whether your blurb, cover, price, or writing can be fixed to make an existing book sell better. And if you can make one of those fixes without spending a lot of time or money why not do it?
(Just remember that if people can’t see your book all the changes in the world aren’t going to help. So if people aren’t actively looking for what you’ve written, you’ll need to follow those changes up with at least an initial promo boost, if not sustained advertising.)
The second one I saw today was something along the lines of “Before AMS existed the world was fair and readers were able to choose the books they wanted rather than the books that were advertised to them. Now good books get lost because of that dirty AMS advertising.”
Hahaha.
The world was never fair.
There were always authors advertising.
Do you think that every single book was put in Amazon’s emails to its customers? No. Do you think there was some magical time when every customer who went to Amazon and asked for “legal thrillers” was shown every single available book and took the care and time to evaluate each of those books on their merits and only chose the “best” one? No!
And that top 100 list in each category was never some rotating display of all available books. It’s always been the 100 best-sellers in that category. Period. Not 100 best books. 100 best sellers.
Oh and then there was the person a week or two ago who basically equated anyone who uses AMS ads with ruining indie publishing and being evil.
Seriously.
I realize there is a lot of angst out there right now, but come on people. Maybe, just maybe, if you find yourself using the words “all” and “always” or “never” and “no one” or “everyone knows” or declaring that the world is about to burst into a ball of fire and we’re all doomed, doomed, doomed it’s time to step away from the computer.
Go outside. Dig your toes in the grass. Breathe deep. Accept that life is change. That it’s never fair, but sometimes quite doable. Quit flailing around for things to blame. Quit reaching back for something that’s already gone. Assess where you are. Assess where the world is. And move forward as best you can.
And if that doesn’t work, change direction and try again. It’s all you can do.
Now back to file uploading. Woohoo! Life is exciting, what can I tell you?
M.L. Humphrey 