April 2019 – M.L. Humphrey

AMS and Pricing And Experiments

About a month ago I decided to take my romance novels out of Kindle Unlimited. Not because I necessarily expected them to sell on the other platforms, but because I just grow sour on KU and how it operates at times and I think there’s a growing schism in self-publishing land that somewhat revolves around KU and I’d rather be on the “people pay for my books specifically instead of borrowing them because what the hell” side of things.

(No judgement here on anyone who chooses or feels differently and not saying that there aren’t authors in KU who have name recognition and a loyal fan base, there definitely are. If you’re making money at this, go you.)

Anyway.

One of the things I try to do when I advertise a book that isn’t in KU is to also only target books that aren’t in KU. I do this because I think it cuts down on the number of clicks without buys that my ad gets because I’m not attracting buyers who are looking for a title to borrow.

When I was going through the list of authors who’ve been good targets for AMS ads on that first romance novel, I noticed that many of those authors were priced at $6.99 in ebook. My price on that novel at the time was $4.99.

Now, if you were to go to any of the author forums and suggest that you wanted to list your romance title for sale at $6.99 as a self-published author, you’d be laughed out of the building. Who on earth is going to buy a self-published romance novel at $6.99 when they can buy a box set of twenty romance novels for 99 cents? The market just doesn’t support that. Maybe you can get away with $4.99, but $6.99? No.

Well…

It turns out there are some readers out there who will buy a self-published novel at $6.99. And that I can still run successful AMS ads on a romance novel that’s not in KU at that price point.

I’m not burning up the charts by any means, but the outcome I’m seeing is pretty much the same as when this novel was in KU and priced at $4.99. In the 30 days before I pulled the novel it had 13 paid sales at $4.99 and 21,000 page reads. (Keep in mind this is a novel that’s been out for over four years and where I only have two titles out under that name and the last novel was published two years ago.)

In the 30 days after I pulled the novel it’s had 28 sales at $6.99.

The only problem is that the ad doesn’t result in borrows/buys as often as when it was in KU at a lower price, so I’m not sure the ad will continue to run. AMS likes success and if you fail to hit that level that it deems successful, you get shut down.

I do think, though, that this highlights an important issue to think about with respect to AMS. There are a number of moving parts to running an AMS ad. One is how much per click you have to bid to have your ad shown, another is how much you have to pay for clicks on your ad, another is how many clicks to a purchase or borrow, and another is how much you make on a purchase or borrow of your book.

All four of those factors come into play in determining whether you can successfully run AMS ads long-term. It’s easy to bid really high and get visibility on a title. You might even get sales. But if you’re paying $1 per click and it takes 5 clicks to a sale and you only earn $2 on that sale, you’re very nicely losing yourself $3 per sale of your book. If you instead make $5 on that sale, you’re at least breaking even.

It seems counter-intuitive, but sometimes raising prices makes your ads more profitable. At each price point there is very likely a differing number of clicks that will lead to a sale and if you can find that sweet spot where the number of clicks needed is smaller relative to the income from a sale, you can increase profitability even if sales or the number of readers go down slightly.

Of course, you have to back that up with a good product, too, or long-term a poor customer experience will take you down. But that’s a whole other discussion…

I should also add here that when I looked at prices for fantasy novels that the price point I was seeing a lot of was $9.99, but I just couldn’t bring myself to try it, so even I have my psychological stopping points when it comes to pricing ebooks. (I put those books to $7.99 again because they actually do alright there and that is yet another pen name I am not actively adding to at the moment. Sigh.)

A New Release (or Six): Mail Merge

It’s been a busy week. I know better than to do this to myself, but I just released six new titles. The big one is Mail Merge for Beginners, which covers how to create customized letters, envelopes, and mailing labels in Microsoft Word using an Excel-based list of entries.

And, because it’s a pretty short and sweet guide, it’s only $2.99. So if that’s something you need (I certainly used mail merge back when I was working as a secretary at my dad’s little sign shop), then check it out.

It will also be available in paperback for $7.99. The paperback is up on Amazon now, but not yet linked to the ebook–that should happen in a couple days–but it will come up in search. It will slowly make its way to anywhere else you like to buy paperbacks in the next couple of weeks.

In addition to the mail merge book, I also just released five titles in a series called Easy Word Essentials. These books take specific topics from Word for Beginners and Intermediate Word and present them as standalone topics. They cover text formatting, page formatting, lists, tables, and track changes.

So if any of those topics are of interest and you haven’t already bought the two main Word titles, then those might be worth checking out as well. Each one is $2.99 and the paperbacks are $7.99. Same situation as above, the paperbacks aren’t yet linked on Amazon but can be found with a search and will be soon. They will also make their way to other platforms over the next couple weeks.

Easy Word Essentials

And now I can go enjoy my Easter and get back to proofing the next cozy mystery. Those murders don’t solve themselves, you know. 🙂 Happy holiday and/or family time to you all.

Copyright vs. Plagiarism

In the comments on the last post I made about copyright, onereasonableperson asked about plagiarism and how that fits into all of this. For example, can you plagiarize an idea or is it only plagiarism when you copy someone’s exact words (which is generally where copyright comes into play).

I had my own gut feelings on the matter, which is that you really need to be copying words not just taking an idea and putting your own riff on it, but I also knew that there have been some pretty big scandals that alleged plagiarism that weren’t for exact word-by-word copying. So I went digging.

(And I’m hoping that Dave Higgins, who is an actual lawyer, will jump in on the comments here with some further insights. When in doubt, listen to the lawyer.)

Here’s what I came up with:

Plagiarism is not a legally defined term. It is an ethical and moral issue and generally defined within the context of an institutional code of ethics. For example, in academic writing using the ideas of another academic without acknowledging their contribution is a big no-no. Hence the large number of footnotes and citations in that kind of writing.

(See Wikipedia.)

Because it’s an ethical issue not a legal issue, the definitions of plagiarism do in fact include ideas. Here’s Merriam-Webster’s definition of what it means to plagiarize:

“to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own : use (another’s production) without crediting the source” or “to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source”

The problem is, this is easier alleged than dealt with, especially in trope-heavy genres like romance or LitRPG. When does it move from following a standard progression of story elements to essentially copying the creativity of another?

When this question came up on the other post, my immediate thought was that Cassandra Clare had been sued at one point by Sherrilyn Kenyon for “plagiarism” for essentially too much similarity in terms of story elements between their series. I found an article about it in Slate that you can see here.

But when you go look at the actual court filing, which is posted here, you’ll find that the actual lawsuit alleged copyright and trademark infringement that impacted the value of Kenyon’s property (goodwill).

So while the ethical allegation was one of plagiarism and that’s what showed up in headlines when the case was filed, the legal allegation had to be for copyright and trademark infringement because those are the legal standards that come into play.

And, to add to this point, you can see in this post here on Clare’s website that the copyright portion of the case was eventually dropped from the suit (likely because there was no word-for-word copying that occurred, but that’s just my personal speculation).

Also, according to that post, the trademark portion was eventually settled. In other words, it wasn’t litigated and so can’t be used in any way to show a point where common elements between novels or the marketing of those novels becomes grounds for a trademark violation.

You can see this copyright vs. plagiarism issue play out again in the recent situation involving Cristian Serruya. Here’s a post where Courtney Milan (a highly competent lawyer in addition to being a talented author) tells other authors how to address the situation.

Note that the first item recommends making a report of an ethics violation to a membership organization (RWA) where Serruya is a member. But that the second item goes back to copyright.

In the Serruya case there was word-for-word copying of other’s works, so that made it very clean.

If there hadn’t been word-for-word copying then I suspect that would’ve made the legal basis for challenging her very difficult, but she would’ve still been crucified in the court of public opinion because authors and readers don’t appreciate seeing someone take someone else’s work and try to pass it off as their own.

I remember a situation a few years back where someone had taken an erotic short story and rewritten it in their own words, but kept everything else about the story the same. (I honestly thought the rewrite was better, but that’s just me.) It wasn’t a copyright violation. It wasn’t a trademark violation. But it didn’t matter because it upset a large pool of authors who made it their mission to go after that author until the book was taken down. (And the author name probably permanently blackballed.)

There was another situation a few years back related to an author who’d done very well in urban fantasy and then someone came along and published a book that basically copied the intent and format of their blurb, named the main character after the other author, and copied elements of the other author’s book. Once again, lots and lots of uproar over that one. It didn’t destroy the second author’s career, but it certainly blackened their name. I looked just now to see if there was a lawsuit filed and am not finding anything, although I know the first author did discuss doing so and that their publisher’s legal team was involved but I can’t even find discussion of it now, so I assume that one was settled as well.

Heck, I’ve run into this one myself where someone took a blurb on one of my books and basically switched the words around just enough to not be copying what I’d said while still saying the exact same thing. If I’d had a big, voracious following for that book it would’ve been ugly for the person who did that. Because I didn’t they just got the side-eye from me.

So bottom line for an author: Legally it’s going to come down to copyright, trademark, or, as Dave mentioned in the other post, moral rights. Ethically and in the court of public opinion it’s probably best to find your inspiration from a wide enough variety of sources that your book doesn’t look like a thinly veiled copy of another’s work.

A Little Lesson on Copyright

I just saw someone who should know better ask if a work becomes public domain (i.e., available for anyone to publish and make money from) if an author markets that work without registering the copyright with the copyright office.

NO.

I put that in large, bolded letters because that comment was horrifying to me. That’s the kind of comment that leads to an author stealing another author’s work and not understanding what they’ve just done.

So let’s talk copyright real quick.

First, at least in the U.S., the official source of information on this is the U.S. Copyright Office. Here’s a nice FAQ they have available. If you are a creator of any sort of artistic work, read it. If you intend to sell any sort of artistic work, read it. If you want to share someone else’s artistic work, read it.

So, let’s summarize a few of the answers available on that site:

A work is under copyright protection as soon as it is “fixed in a tangible form that is perceptible either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.”
Copyright covers “original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture. Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed.”
Copyright registration is voluntary. A work is protected whether you register the copyright or not.
You don’t even need to use a copyright notice on your work to have copyright protection.
But if you want to bring a suit for copyright infringement, you do need to register your copyright.
Depending on when you register a work you may be eligible for statutory damages and attorney’s fees if someone infringes your copyright.
The U.S. has reciprocal relationships with a number of countries to honor one another’s copyright registrations, but that is not universal. There are many countries who do not acknowledge copyright protection.
If someone reproduces, distributes, performs, publicly displays, or makes a derivative work of someone else’s copyrighted material without permission, that is considered an infringement of the original author’s copyright.
There is a fair use exception to copyright infringement. It is “permissible to use limited portions of a work including quotes, for purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports.” (However, be very careful with song lyrics. There is no number of words that are deemed safe. It’s based on context.)
Works do eventually fall out of copyright and into what is called public domain. When a work is in the public domain others can publish it or write derivative works based on it. A work published today would be under copyright protection for at least 70 years and likely longer than that.
If you want to protect a name, title, slogan, etc. that does not fall under copyright, but may fall under trademark protection.
When you register a copyright that registration information is publicly available. You also have to submit a copy of the “best” version of the item that is available at the time.
If someone infringes your copyright you can file a civil suit against them. Also, “in cases of willful infringement for profit, the U.S. Attorney may initiate a criminal investigation.”
“Uploading or downloading works protected by copyright without the authority of the copyright owner is an infringement of the copyright owner’s exclusive rights of reproduction and/or distribution. Anyone found to have infringed a copyrighted work may be liable for statutory damages up to $30,000 for each work infringed and, if willful infringement is proven by the copyright owner, that amount may be increased up to $150,000 for each work infringed. “

In summary. Don’t mess with another person’s creative work. With respect to writing, that means don’t copy someone’s blog, don’t take sentences they’ve written and use them in your own work as a “homage” if you don’t have permission, don’t steal their book and publish it as your own, and don’t download books off some sketchy site where someone is “sharing” their version of a book. All of that is a big no-no.

Just because someone doesn’t choose to go through the time and expense to officially register their work does not let you off the hook.

Same goes for photos you find on the internet. If you didn’t take the photo or arrange to license the photo for your own use, not yours to use.

If you’re a writer, read through that FAQ I linked to above. And if you really want to dig in buy The Copyright Handbook from NOLO.

A Quick Excel Copy & Paste Trick

It’s been a while since I shared an Excel trick on here and this is one that didn’t make it into the books although I do find it useful.

As a refresher: If you want to copy an entry and paste it into other cells, an easy way to do so is to click on the cell with the information you want to copy, use Ctrl + C, then highlight the cells where you want to paste that information and use Ctrl + V or Enter.

Another option if the cells where you want to copy the information are located next to the cell with the information you want to copy is to highlight the cells you want to copy, left-click on the bottom right corner and drag down or drag to the right.

(If there’s already data in other columns and you want to copy downward you can just double left-click instead of click and drag.)

I tend to use the click and drag option a lot, but it fails me sometimes, especially when I want to copy date information because it gets too clever.

For example, in a lot of my sales tracking spreadsheets I add a column for month and a column for year and then need to copy that down however many sales entries there are for that vendor for that month.

When you click and drag with month and year information, Excel treats the data as a series by default and does the following:

Excel Copy Paste Default

I wanted every entry to be April 2019, but Excel in its wisdom advanced the month and the year by one for each row.

It turns out you can fix that by clicking on the Auto Fill Options image at the bottom right corner and changing it from “Fill Series” to “Copy Cells.”

Auto Fill Options

You then get what I actually wanted:

Excel Copy Paste 2

Another way to copy the exact same value to multiple cells in Excel is using Ctrl+Shift+Enter. Highlight all of the cells that you want to have a specific value, then enter that value in the first cell of the highlighted range, like so:

All Cells Highlighted

Then instead of using Enter, use Shift+Ctrl+Enter. The value you input into the first cell will be copied to all of the highlighted cells.

It only works for one value at a time, though. So in my scenario above I’d have to do the month first and then have to do the year separately.

Both of these tricks work in Excel 2013, which is what I’m working in, so I’d assume they work in all versions of Excel beyond 2013 as well. They may or may not work in prior versions of Excel.

Edited to add that now through June 29, 2019 you can get a 15% discount on any of the ebook versions of the Excel Essentials titles on Barnes & Noble by using promo code BNPEE15.

Save Me From Myself

First off, an excellent (IMO) post by KKR to share: Business Musings: Outrage Fatigue which kind of dovetails with where I am mentally this morning.

I just walked away from writing a response to someone who had posted on a writers’ forum and is clearly not all there. (Anytime someone posts incredibly long posts with lots of CAPITAL LETTERS and exclamation points and rants about how the world or someone else doesn’t get them, walk away. That is not a discussion to have because that person is not operating in the world you are.)

This person had made a throw away comment about not being able to check out their competitors’ books without buying an ereader and (heaven forbid) paying for the books. I was going to point out that, at least with my books, they should be available through the library. (Sometimes you have to request it with the library but the option is there to do so, both in ebook and print. I’ve had libraries in New Zealand pick up my fiction, for example.)

But then I realized that the ten minutes I was taking trying to frame my answer to this person in a way that wouldn’t trigger another long inane screed was time I was wasting and could be spending elsewhere, like on writing the next book. So I walked away.

This is a frequent occurrence for me. I see a conversation I could be a part of and even sometimes write a response and then…I realize that’s just a waste of my mental energy and my time to engage. I’m sure there are people who think they’ve “won” that argument because I didn’t respond. Not with me. I just figured life is too frickin’ short to have that argument with that person.

Almost every day I ask myself why I bother even going on writing forums. I’ve been at this long enough I’m kind of set in the way I’m going to do it even if it’s not the optimal choice. Since I’m no longer in that mode where I need all the information to figure out how it all works, the forums have a lot less value for me.

And yet I still at least lurk and often get tempted to post.

Why? Why?

(Probably because when you’re only conversations on a given day are with your dog and your not-exactly-positive mother, you need some sort of social outlet. But, seriously. Writers forums are not the way to do it.)

(Of course, neither were skydiving forums. I suspect any online forums are about 90% annoyance 10% “I’m glad I read that”, at least as far as I’m concerned.)

But it’s like a drug addiction. Easy to say you should quit, but really hard to do so.