I still don’t know if the reports were updated for the hours of that reporting glitch, but here’s what I do know: 268 copies were downloaded for free, with the UK having roughly 50% of what the US did. There were even a few downloads on the DE and IT sites (first step on those!). No  borrows yet, but then, I’m really not expecting any.

All in all, I’m rather pleased with those results. My main goal was to find more possible readers; it doesn’t matter when they read it, because the rest of my titles are linked to their Amazon pages at the back of Resurgence. Even if they read it a few months from now, they can find the rest if they liked it and want to give another title a shot.

If they don’t read Resurgence, well…it was an older title, and a short short at that. It earned its expenses back a while ago, so it’s all good.

My two main goals were met: I’m now getting first-hand experience with the Kindle Select program, and have the possibility of gaining new readers.

Resurgence is exclusive to Amazon through April 28th, and that is also the date of my last free promo day for it. It’s priced at 99c, and is free for Prime members to borrow until then.

I’ll pop in a weekly update on it from here on out, but to be honest, I’ve decided how I want to use the Select program for myself, so will continue to opt in carefully selected titles in the future for a single 90 day run.

The only ‘new’ titles that will go into the program will be shorts that are companions to series (not any actual series titles), and they will be released everywhere after that single 90 day run.

Other than that, I’m planning to put Moon Children: Dark Cravings in once the sequel is ready to be released everywhere. There’s a collection of older shorts I’m thinking of putting together for Select too, as a ‘taste sampler’.

I think it’s a useful program, if used with careful consideration.

Curious, I checked to see if it had managed to climb onto any of the free Top lists. It had; was #43 in the US, and #16 in the UK for SciFi>Adventure. Nifty.

Another glance at the sales report showed a UK sale of Arcane Solutions, and I wondered if that was related to the free promo.

Then, nothing for HOURS. Apparently, the reports suffered a major glitch that affected many people with titles in the Select program who were running free promos. Reports didn’t begin updating again until around 1 AM CST, Feb. 2nd.

Well, shoot. So much for daily tracking. It’s probably my fault the reports broke. Stuff like that occurs around me, LOL.

I checked the other Amazon sites, and found that it was ranked #9 in the same category for Germany, and #11 in Foreign Language>Short Stories. Pretty cool!

Resurgence has had a total of 126 downloads as of this time. That does not include downloads during the hours the reports were glitching, and does not include any DE site downloads. My DE report is still showing the ‘no sales’ bar.

Since Resurgence was unpublished before the DE site was added, I know it didn’t have any kind of rank there prior to the free promo.

I should also note that rankings aren’t showing today. They were showing, here and there, this morning, but at some point, I guess Amazon turned them off on listing pages. It was said that new reviews aren’t showing either.

All in all, I’m rather pleased that an older title is getting a little action, even if there’s no guarantee those who downloaded it will actually read it.

The free promo for it continues through Saturday.

He responded to a forum discussion and ended with the following: “There will always be people lined up to buy crap. I don’t want them buying my books. They wouldn’t understand them anyway.”

I explained that he was using us as a test pool and gauging reaction in order to write ‘controversial posts’ to increase traffic to his blog, and mentioned that he doesn’t write literature, but genre fiction.

He called me a ‘spiteful child’, ‘the village idiot’, and then accused me of stalking him around the ‘idiotweb’ for nefarious purposes.

Dude, really? You made a big stink among romance authors. Thanks to Twitter and other sites, I *know* several romance authors, and hey, *I* write romance too. With the number of bloggers who bashed you over your opinion of romance novels, it would be odd if I hadn’t heard of you!

This is a perfect example of someone who is an asshole who claims perpetual victimhood, since people figure out that’s what he is PDQ – an asshole.

If you don’t agree with him, then you’re a low class idiot who couldn’t have a thought even with help. Or you’re a nefarious stalker out to do him harm.

Because accusing people of stalking you with an intent to harm because you act like a dick on the internets ALWAYS works to garner sympathy for the so-called victim.

Note: I’m not mentioning his KDP forum handle or his name because I’m not going to purposefully send traffic to his blog or his books on Amazon. I advised everyone on the forum to ignore him, and after that exchange, am doing so myself there.

I just thought I’d beat him to the punch, because I’m sure he’ll post something about people being too stupid to get his work, or claiming I’m stalking him. That’s just the sort of guy he is.

Daughters of the Lore: Resurgence was a 2009 release, so it seemed like a decent choice for the required 90 days of exclusivity.

If you’re a Prime member, you can borrow it for free. If you’re not a Prime member, it’ll be available for free download on February 1st, with other days yet to be scheduled.

Still can’t quite see putting anything brand new into Kindle Select, but I am curious as to whether having something in it will affect my sales in a positive way.

It went live late last night, and so far, no borrows. However, others who’ve been in the program say that borrows died off the last few days of December, so that may be a common event. I plan to keep a close eye on it, and will share what happens.

Instead, what I decided to do was offer a coupon for it, so that people could pick it up for 99c at Smashwords during its first 9 days out.

There’s a total of 9 titles planned for the series. See what I’m doing there?

Anyway, my thinking is this: If I set the price at 99c, then just about the time the 9 days is up, it’ll begin going live at all the other distribution sites for 99c. Which would mean, since Amazon price matches, it would stay at 99c until Smashwords partners updated the price change.

Yeah…NO. I have a free novella that I unpublished over a year ago that is still available on B&N. A YEAR, y’all.

So it’s on Smashwords and Amazon with a price of $2.99, and I have that coupon code for 99c on every mention of it via my sites, Facebook, and Twitter.

No one’s used the coupon code. Not once.

Those who’ve bought Arcane Solutions have done so at the full price.

Me no understand.

Don’t get me wrong, I totally appreciate it, but I just don’t get it.

You do know that if you own a Kindle, you can buy ebooks for it at Smashwords too, right? I buy all my ebooks between Smashwords and Amazon for my Kindle.

Sure, you have to download the file to your computer, and then to your Kindle, but it works and reads just fine. Plus, your .mobi file from Smashwords is DRM free.

So…now you know, right?

The coupon code is ‘ED84F’, and you can click right here to visit Arcane Solutions at Smashwords.

After over two years, it’s finished and waiting to be read. This began as my 2009 NaNoWriMo novel, but has come a long, long way since then. Which is good, because frankly, that first draft sucked rotten eggs. If you grab a copy, hope you enjoy it!

Arcane Solutions, first in the Discord Jones series. Available at Smashwords, Amazon, AmazonUK, AmazonDE,AmazonFR, AmazonIT, and AmazonES with more sites to come. Use coupon code ‘ED84F’ to purchase it for 99c from Smashwords until February 3rd. Regular price is $2.99.

Rescuing under-aged vamp bait and retrieving stolen possessions is all in a day’s work for Discord Jones.

When a gorgeous, lying bastard of an elf hires her to find an ancient book, danger takes on a whole new meaning.

The book holds an unbelievably powerful spell, and ‘favored prey of demons’ becomes an unwelcome addition to her resume.

A novel of 70,589 words.

Out of those 10, three have earned out their expenses and are making money now. The other 7 are still in the hole on their expenses.

The 13 that aren’t currently available for sale consist of 11 retired, and 2 that have accrued some expenses, but aren’t ready to be sold yet. Two of those retired didn’t earn out their expenses.

The other 9 earned out their expenses and were making money. They were retired either because I decided that they sucked (the original 3 Shadow Connor stories), or because they were 99c-$1.99 short stories and I’ve pulled them because I’m not offering anything with a cover price of less than $3.25 for now (except first in a series titles, which will be $2.99).

For the five After the Fall titles I have available, Hunter’s Edge (novel) is the only one that’s making money. The other four still need between 53-80 sales to finish earning out their expenses.

Deadlands Hunt, my Western paranormal romance (werewolf cowboys!), is currently my worst performer. Which is interesting, because it’s also my most reviewed for sale title, and has good reviews. I think the fact that it’s a ‘sweet’ romance (no on page sex scenes) has hurt its chances. Chase and Amethyst are private people, all right?

The Contract Bride short (retired) and Rift: A Wolven Tale (novelette) are tied as my best earners.

I used the phrase ‘making money’ in place of profits, because the sales for those which have earned out expenses isn’t yet profit. Rather, those sales are starting to cover my ‘paycheck’ – my wage for the work I did writing, etc. on each.

And they have a long way to go on that, before they actually start turning a real profit. The good news is, I’m finally beginning to get paid for them! Yay!

Possibly more interesting news is that most of those now making money haven’t yet sold over 100 copies each. Between lower expenses thanks to self-publishing, and my chosen pricing schedule, they don’t have to sell many copies in order to break even on expenses and start making money.

I’ll be releasing my 24th title soon (Arcane Solutions, #1 for the Discord Jones series), which will skew the data to 11 available, 3 earning money, and 8 still earning out expenses.

It’s my 2nd ‘real’ novel length work (over 70k), and with its total expenses at this point, will need to sell 580 copies to earn expenses back and break even. I don’t have it back for final edits yet, which will add to my time spent working on it, but right now, I have 351 hours invested in it.

Basically, another 4,260 sales required for me to receive a paycheck for it, or over 4800 copies sold before it begins earning an actual profit.

Based on my experience so far, that means I can expect to see it begin earning a profit in 2149.

Doesn’t seem to make much sense writing the other 8 titles for the Discord Jones series, when I put it like that, huh? That’s about 20-30 years after it moves into public domain!

On the other hand, for those of you who have asked about my having print books for sale, CreateSpace has decided to stop charging for the Pro Plan upgrade.

That means it’ll be less expensive for me to release paperback versions, so they should be available far more quickly than I originally planned. Thank you, CreateSpace.

I do believe that’s it for me right now. Keep your eyes peeled for Arcane Solutions‘ release!

Basically, book sales haven’t been so great since about August. There was some pick up in September and October, but along came November and back into the gutter they went. And stayed.

How bad do they suck? I’ve sold 4 this month. Sold 9 last month.

Oh my yes, my sales do sucketh the bad right now.

Of course, I may have more sales that I don’t know about just yet, since not all of the Smashwords partners have sent in reports through the end of the year. I’m waiting for 1-2 months’ worth of sales reports to even see what my total sales were for 2011.

With the help of my beta readers, I’ve been trying to get Arcane Solutions ready for final editing, and I think it’s there. However, my expenses for it are going to total just about $1,200, and I ain’t got it right now.

I could ask for donations, I suppose, but I don’t like getting something for nothing, so what I’ve done is post the first part of another story, The Companion, up here on my blog in an effort to do some fundraising for expenses.

I’ll put a new part up each time a total of $10 in tips is made. Everyone who tips receives a free copy of The Companion as an ebook once it’s released. Doesn’t matter how much the tip is, you’ll get a free copy.

Right now, it has received one tip of $5, so is halfway to the second part being posted. People have been great about retweeting the link to it on Twitter, which is much appreciated!

To be honest, I’m feeling pretty discouraged right now, and it’s affecting my drive to get anything accomplished. I’ve written maybe another 2k on Near Dark, which was voted as the next story I should finish, and I’ve finished a first draft of the end of The Companion, so that I have the whole story and won’t have to rush to finish it if people get interested and posting it speeds up a lot.

I’ve been an indie for four years now, with this month being the start of my fifth year. I’d hoped that by now, most of my titles would have earned back all their expenses, and that I’d be making a little profit. Obviously, that hasn’t happened, and I’m taking a good, hard look at how possible my 2012 hopes are.

If my sales stay in this mega suck zone they’ve hit, there’s no way I can afford to release a new title every month. At this time, it looks like Arcane Solutions and Near Dark may be the only titles released this year. I can’t keep pouring money into my business at this rate, and since I’m not going to quit, the only option is to really curb the expenses by not releasing a lot of titles each year.

Which sucks, because more titles equals bigger backlist, and bigger backlist usually equals more sales. Or so they say.

But ya do what ya gotta do, right?

I gotta write, but I gotta make money doing it, since it costs me money.

Anyhoo, if you feel the urge, go read the first part of The Companion. If you like it, toss a tip in.

If you don’t like it, check out my books (where to buy them is at the top of every page!) and see if there’s something that catches your eye. I will hug you for the sale. Virtually, of course. Ahem.

A regular topic is reviews. An author posts that they just got a negative one, others respond in various ways, depending on their particular stance on negative reviews. Some will hurry to ‘defend’ their fellow author, down voting the negative review and/or leaving a comment on the review, whether the review had valid criticisms or not.

The topic came up again today, and I jumped into the discussion. After learning a bit more, I posted the following (edited a bit to make more sense in a blog post).

Reviews aren’t for authors. They’re for readers.

However, they can be useful to authors because a fresh pair of eyes and perspective can pinpoint mistakes that weren’t caught during writing, revisions, and editing.

Don’t take reviews personally.

I know that sounds dumb, because it’s your book that you’ve sweated and slaved over. Our books are our babies, and a negative review is like some stranger walking up and telling us our newborn ‘sure is ugly’.

It’s hard, and requires a lot of practice, because it always hurts when someone says something negative to someone else, I don’t care who you are.

But we’re authors.

We’re putting our stories out there specifically to let strangers read them. None of us are perfect, getting everything so right that every person who reads our stories is going to rave how wonderful they are.

That’s impossible. There’s the whole subjective thing.

When you get a negative review, go to your friends to vent privately. Doing so publicly usually only results in a lot of people thinking you’re a baby who can’t take criticism.

Of course, that opinion isn’t fair if you have a valid complaint. Say someone has made it their mission in life to give all your books a 1 star rating and push the message that you sacrifice puppies or something.

But even that kind of thing is better handled out of the public view. Work behind the scenes to get that person’s reviews removed. All you’re doing when you say anything publicly is adding fuel to the fire.

Other reviewers see someone’s review getting down voted, or comments left by other authors attacking that reviewer (and any disagreeing comment by an author is attacking a reader), they jump in. A pitched battle between authors and reviewers begins. Those NEVER end well for the authors.

Authors just lose potential sales.

A bad review isn’t the end of the world, and won’t necessarily kill your book’s chances of being purchased. Acting like an ass – and it doesn’t matter how hard you try to not come across like one, there will be people who feel you are – will do far more harm to your book’s potential.

You cannot tell readers how to feel about your books.

In short form:

• Behave like a professional (actually, better than some of the ‘professionals’).
• Don’t react emotionally. If it’s an obviously personal attack (‘this author sucks so bad and I wish she would die in a fire’), deal with it behind the scenes.