The Best Week Ever. Payment Scheduling.

So how do you top the best week ever?  Sit down and write your next book, that's how.  My first two books, Requiem and Guardian sold a lot of books last week.  I won't lie, more books moved in those days than the last 6 months combined.  Requiem sold 134 books and received 40 borrows from Amazon Prime members and Guardian sold 39 copies with 8 borrows.  173 books and 48 borrows.  Borrows kind of have me scratching my head on where to fit them in the grand scheme of things.  People didn't buy the book, but I do get paid for each borrow.  So on the business end, it's like a rental.  One question I get asked a lot is "How many books have you sold?"  That used to be easy, right now about 112 books since June.  No one asks, "How many books were rented?" so i'm not sure if I should include them in my numbers yet, however there is actually a lot more because I quit trying to keep track of live sales because the reporting tools just suck and it became a whole lot easier to just record the numbers from the remittance statements.  So when someone asks how many books I've sold,  I tell them, "I've been paid for 112ish".  Also, I'm not going to pay taxes on money I haven't received yet either.

If you haven't published a book before one of the things you will need to get used to is the payment schedule of royalties and advances.  I won't go into traditional publishing, but I have read that they still mail checks out from England and if the row boat makes it across the Atlantic, you might see a check once a year if you managed to earn out your advance.  I use Lightning Source for print and Amazon for e-books.  Both are good and pay out monthly.  Both are bad because Lightning Source is three months delayed and Amazon is two months delayed. But it beats Smashwords pay out schedule of once a quarter.  Downside of delays is obvious. You don't get your money.  For example, back in November I had a sell out book signing at Barnes and Noble.  I have yet to see a dime from all of those books ordered and sold.  I should see it sometime in February.  Same goes for my best week ever on Amazon.  March will be the "Best paycheck ever" month.

Payment schedules get even worse when you add layers of distribution.  Smashwords pays 4 times a year remember.  They use Lightning Source for print.  So if the first week of January is your best week ever and I had sold hundreds of paperback books.  Lightning Source wouldn't pay Smashwords until April.  Smashwords would have just payed out for Q1, so you would have to wait till the end of Q2 for Smashwords to pay you.  Six months delay.  Ouch, I hope you didn't quit your day job because you finally started selling books.  The publishing forums are rife with posts and people claiming that Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, Lightning Source etc are stealing their money, holding it hostage, blah blah blah.  But it's funny to read about and point at people who get upset from this because they stepped into a business they don't understand.

I am working on my next piece already.  Come Monday of next week, I will blog about it's progress.  If I maintain my word count, it should be done by the end of February.

A mountain of books and questions answered.

It was Christmas all over again at my house.  UPS just dropped off my book order from Lightning Source.  I had almost sold out of my personal copies of Requiem so I ordered in another round along with my first order of Guardian.  If anyone wants to buy a signed copy, use the buy now links under the cover pictures to the right.

A few blog posts ago I talked about the new KDP Select program and gave my thoughts.  It has been about 20 days now since the program launched.  Much more information has come out.  Several more discussions and a reader posed the following question: "What would a new company have to do to win you and everyone else over?"

The main sticking point on this question is if you use the KDP Select option from Amazon, you have to grant 90 days exclusivity.  No selling your e-book anywhere else (physical books not effected).  Tens of thousands of books got pulled from all other stores and are now exclusively on Amazon.  So how would an existing company like Apple or Barnes and Noble, or a new online retailer "win me over"?  The simple answer right now is, they can't.  It's a numbers game and always will be.  Amazon has a good 75% of the e-book market.  Think about this.  Amazon has three times what everyone else combined has.

There are things in my opinion, every company needs to improve.  Sad thing for competition, Amazon has the best tools right now and they suck.  Here is a list of improvements every e-book retailer needs if they are going to work directly with content providers.

1. Calender tools.  Simple scheduler so I can make adjustments to product descriptions, prices, pictures in advance.  I should be able to set a time and date to make book one and book two go on sale at the same time when book three launches, as well as change the product description to represent the sale, how long it will last and why.

2. Previewer.  This is important in my opinion.  Right now when you upload a new book somewhere, its just a mess of fill in the blanks, submit and hope it comes out OK after a 2-48 hour wait.  Nothing sucks more than finding out your line breaks and carriage returns did not carry over when you cut and paste the product description in.  Great, now I am locked out for potentially two days before I can edit and fix it, because the book is pending or in some other review state.  God forbid you fat finger a price change of 99c and it comes out $99 and you can't fix it for a day and a half.

3. Social media.  Amazon gets this one better than others.  But you should be able to link up Facebook, Twitter, and Blogs.  There is no reason for these not to be there.  Visibility helps.

So even if a new company came along and had all these things right and offered 99% royalties, I would still have to stay with Amazon because that is where everyone shops for books.  It would be like trying to make a social network and pull users from Facebook.  Amazon would have to self destruct somehow first and I just don't see that happening.

Requiem is free to download on Amazon.  If you haven't downloaded your copy yet, click the cover art on the right and grab it now.

Guardian has been sent to the printers.

I just finished uploading Guardian to Lightning Source today.  I spent all of Monday tweaking the pages, headers, styles to fit the proper format.  Even adjusting the lines per page.  Today, I sat back down and went over it all again to make sure I hadn't missed anything.  I have learned a lot about typesetting after launching Requiem.

When I went through the same process with Requiem, I had missed a few things and it cost me around $100 and delayed things by an additional week.  Lesson has been learned so hopefully when I get the proof copy of Guardian next week, it will be ready for approval and distribution.

On a side note, I would like to thank everyone who went to my Facebook page and hit the like button.  I was able to secure a unique Facebook URL.  www.facebook.com/sbjonespublishing

I can use this new URL on promotional items and the like, and it makes it easier to remember and post.

I am going to keep today's blog short.  If anyone has any questions about Lightning Source or the process of uploading your title to them. Ask in the comments section.  Also I have a bunch of new screen captures of the conversion process to make your word doc kindle and nook ready.  I think I will post that guide in a few days, or next week so look forward to that.

Taxes, Interviews, and Positive Thinking.

First I would like to let everyone know that Action Adventure Inc Blog has a short interview posted about myself and my first book Requiem.  It is interesting to read it myself even though I answered the questions only 21 days ago.  When you are learning and growing as an indie author, your perspective changes almost daily with each new experience or lesson learned.  At the one year mark, I will have to go back and re-read my blog and comment about what I see and how I changed as an author and person.  I found this picture to be funny after searching Google for "interview".  The desk lamp looks like it has been stabbed into the guys neck and the girl reminds me of MTV's Daria trying to figure out what is going on with her classic strait face.

Taxes taxes taxes.  Well, the bright side to taxes is that if you have to pay them, then you made money.  So I should look forward to the time every quarter when I have to sit down and do taxes.  The taxes today is for sales tax.  When I set up SBJones Publishing, I needed a sales and use tax permit number and one of those tax exemption numbers you need to buy things without tax.  This was something that was required when I set up my Lightning Source account for the paperback book.  This lets me order my own book and not pay taxes on them, but I have to collect it from my customers.  I purposely priced my book to $14.15 so it comes to an even $15 when I sell it online through my blog, or in person at a book signing or other encounter.  I don't have to worry about sales tax on books sold through B&N or Amazon because they are responsible for sales tax and all I get is a commission subject to income tax.  I know some of you are wondering how much taxes I have to pay.  Are you ready?  I have to send in a total of $31.45 of collected sales tax this quarter.  Between my two book signings, blog sales, and other paperback sales, I personally sold 37 paperback copies of Requiem.  If you want, you can always hit that "Buy it Now" button on the right and add to my tax burden if you want.

So the other day I was drinking beer with my editor and she was complaining about the fee's involved with having a VISA machine.  I had to agree, they were depressing and that is why I am a big fan of Square.  Then there were the complaints about banking fees.  Again I had to agree.  Once the rant was finished I said.  I can only hope one day that the fee's and limitations become an issue.  In fact, they should be goals you try to attain. For example, if you exceed $5,000 sales in a single day.  Square will only deposit a maximum of $5,000.  You will have to wait a day to get the rest.

Oh darn.  The day I sell 334 or more books in one book signing or event to break the $5,000 mark and I have to wait an extra day to see the rest of my cash is one I can't wait to happen.  And if it becomes to big of a hassle, you can call Square and explain and they will raise this limit.  The day I have to call Square because cash is so backed up that $5,000 a day just isn't enough to get caught up is another happy day.

My bank has a similar setup.  Cash deposits of $5,000 or more are subject to a fee.  Guess I will just deposit $4,999 and come back the next day to deposit the rest.  What a rough life it would be to have to visit the bank every day to make a $5,000 cash deposit.

So with that good news, I have to do some self promoting here.  That spike in sales I talked about last time after I had my book signing.  Requiem came so so close to breaking into the top 10,000 of the Amazon ranking. 10,630 is where it topped out at.  My bingo card has a square on it that says its under 9,000 on it.  (a joke for the it's over 9,000 meme).  That square is going to get crossed off!

Congratulations to the latest winners of the Requiem eBook a Day Giveaway.  It's almost over with only three more to give out so time is running out if you haven't signed up.


Sept 23 Mav
Sept 24 Kathy Jones
Sept 25 Andy Maestas
Sept 26 Kim Miller
Sept 27 Purna Thanandabouth

Second Book Signing Results.

I missed my normal Tuesday blog day due to an illness so I am making it up today.

On Saturday the 17th, I had my second book signing for Requiem down in Hagerman Idaho.  As I mentioned before it was at a flee market that is held every Saturday.  I'm pretty sure that most people who have had book signings have them at book stores, libraries, or maybe a coffee shop.  Well, I would have to say this signing was a huge success.  I sold 7 signed copies of Requiem when I was there.  That might not sound like a lot, but remember the post cards I had made?  I gave away over 50 of them signed and dated.

I need to go on a tangent here about the postcards.  One of the nice things about them, and this is goes double when you sign and date them.  People perceive them to be of value.  First, this means that people are unlikely to walk away and toss them in the trash, or worse on the ground somewhere.  Think about it. How many times have you seen cheap paper fliers of some sort being handed out at an event or fair, only to see them filling the trash cans or blowing around the ground.  Next, they turned everyone who carried them around, into a walking advertisement for me and yes, I had people stop by to chat because they had seen people with the post card.

Back to the book signing results, I had an abnormal spike in online sales.  To be specific, Lightning Source reports five paperback orders in the last 7 days, and a spike of an extra ten e-book sales from Kindle and Nook.  Now its possible these are unrelated, but I highly doubt it.  So now from this one book signing at a flea market resulted in 7 signed copies, 5 paperback internet sales and 10 e-book sales.  That's 22 sales!

Let me say it again.  22 sales from a book signing at a flea market.


Congratulations to the following people in the Requiem e-Book a day Giveaway for September.  If you haven't signed up, there are still 8 chances to win.


Sept 14 C.S.
Sept 15 Amy Andrews
Sept 16 Clark Edwards
Sept 17 Mike Bingham
Sept 18 Robert Callen
Sept 19 Antonio Del Toro
Sept 20 Reed Doyle
Sept 21 Dirk Walker
Sept 22 Jerry Guinn

One Success at a time.

One of the nicest things about being self published, is the fact that your success is directly related to the effort you put in.  It's also not tied to anyone else's time tables or agendas.  When I look back to March and remember the things I had in mind for The Eternal Gateway trilogy, having my book for sale in a book store was a listed goal.  Knowing that I would be taking the eBook route it wasn't very high up on the list.  When I made the paperback version of Requiem, I went with Lightning Source.  I liked that it was tied to Ingram and they were the POD company cutting out all middle men like Create Space or Smashwords.  Well, over the weekend after a few weeks/months of hard work and social engineering, Requiem is for sale at Barnes and Noble.  Not the web site.  The brick and mortar store you have to walk into.

It's not the best photo of me, but that's not the point.  No major publishing contract, no years of rejection letters.  Just hard work and my book is right there, on the same shelf.

This coming Saturday I will be having my second book signing in Hagerman.  There is an Arts and Crafts show and a Car Show going on at the same time so hopefully the increased foot traffic will result in more exposure and sales.  Vista Print offered 100 postcards for free (I had to pay for shipping).  I had them made up to sign and hand out to people who own eReaders and would still like something signed from the author.  They look great with the cover on one side and the back has the blurb, isbn, website, email etc.

Last week I made good on my writing goals as well.  Guardian more than doubled in size from 16,000 words to 35,000 words.  It felt really good to see it grow.

Congratulations to the following winners of the September Requiem eBook a day give away.  The month is almost half over so if you haven't signed up yet. There is still time.


Sept 7, Philip Brennan
Sept 8 Luis Stands
Sept 9 Jaime Winterwerb
Sept 10 John Russell
Sept 11 Bart Webber
Sept 12 John Leavitt
Sept 13 Steven Black

4th of July and my second proof.

Normally I blog on Monday, but it was a holiday so I spent that time soaking up as much solar radiation as I could.  Its good for Superman so i'm pretty sure its good for me too.  So what does an international selling author do on a holiday summer weekend?  (Thank you person in the UK for buying my book.)  Why they live the dream that's what they do.

The above picture is a little lagoon that is upriver from my parents place in Idaho.  It is only accessable by boat and there are a lot of rocks in that area of the river.  Rocks that every year mangle someones boat and this year was no exception.  Note to boaters.  Aluminum props break and can be replaced.  Stainless steel props don't break, but break drive trains and engines.  I took a PhotoSynth Picture of the lagoon as well.  The boats did not come out well because they moved while I was taking the shot, but it is cool non the less.

Back to the book world.  I received the second proof from Lightning Source for the paperback version of Requiem.  The chapter heading mistakes have been removed, and I increased the gutter by 0.08in.  It did make the book "longer" by a dozen pages or so, but it looks a lot nicer and easier to read the inside margin at the beginning and end of the book.  Later today I am going to give Lightning Source the green light and order my first run of books to sell/give away to those waiting without e-readers.  I am going to have to practice signing my name as SB Jones to.  I better start going to bed early for that.

Paperback proof

I received the paperback proof of my book the other day.  It looks good and it feels good to hold a physical copy of my work.  Lighting Source so far has been a great company to work with if you are going to do things on your own.  It took less than a week from when I uploaded the files correctly to having the proof in my hand.  There were a few minor corrections that I need to make to the interior, reorder a proof with changes and it should be ready to launch.  So my guess is this time next week, I should be approving the print and ready to order copies for myself to sell.  Before it shows up elsewhere via Ingram's catalog, that could be much longer.

This brings me to a topic for this blog post.  Selling books vs selling eBooks.  When I started my trilogy I had planned on both eBooks and regular books to be sold.  The idea of traveling around the country or world to shake hands and sign my name for fans seemed about as Hollywood as it could get.  Four months into writing, editing, formatting, researching etc. this is pretty un-realistic financially.  Well...  At least it is for now.  When it comes to numbers, selling a single copy of my book myself produces the greatest return.  If I were to attend a conference or book signing, I would have to sell 1.5 books an hour to make minimum wage.  That doesn't sound too hard.  But if you do the research, selling ANY can be hard.  For every person who had a good book signing of 10+ copies, there are 1000 that didn't sell.  I am still looking forward to setting up some signings in my local area and perhaps outside of that if I can combine the trip with something else like a vacation.

I think however that until the paperback shows up on Amazon and other online stores I will focus on selling the paperback online myself with either an e-bay store or just a simple PayPal account and email me if someone wants a signed copy.  I already have a good list of people who want to buy the paperback because they do not own a e-reader device.  Also by offering to sign any copies through my own store could be a little bonus.

This leads me to a marketing question for everyone reading.  In the end, I do not want to charge anymore for the book than I have to.  I priced the paperback at $14.15 so with Idaho sales tax it comes to an even $15.  This is for my own convenience on making change.  So at $15, what do you see as a more attractive buy?  A discount off the cover price and you pay shipping, or paying full price for the book and "free shipping"?  In the end math regardless of choice it will be $15.

Final review before it is go time!

I wanted to get peoples opinion on my revised front cover art as well as the back cover before I upload Requiem.  Let me know what you think, good or bad.

Barring any unforeseen catastrophe, book one of The Eternal Gateway series, Requiem, should be uploaded to Amazon's and Barnes and Noble's web site this coming Monday the 20th.  Print versions of the book will take a little longer before they are available.

I finally got my account approved with Lightning Source.  This was an interesting process.  Unlike Amazon or any other web site, Lightning Source's process was extensive.  I started on Monday, so it took 4 days to get my approval emails this morning.

Lightning Source required more than a simple username and password.  I had to have all of my business information, tax exempt numbers, proof of ISBN numbers etc.  The start of the process was fairly simple fill in the blanks, then the process ended.  A day later I received an email with a questionnaire to fill out with an new account rep.  Once that process was approved I had to go back to the online app and fill out several pages of information and I had to talk to the account rep in person at one point.  In the end I had to print out 4 forms, fill them out, and fax them back.

Aside from the better part of a week to get through, it really wasn't all that complicated as long as you had the information they requested and I did.  I can see why so many people go through a middle man service like SmashWords or CreateSpace.  In the end, if this takes off, I predict I will be better off.  By working with the printer directly it cuts out one more middle man leeching off of my hard work and research and I still get the benefit of Ingram's distribution channels.