A yelp of pain escaped when his fist smashed into my face. Knees hitting the ground, I caught a heavy blow to the temple and collapsed face down.

My arms were yanked back and wrists cuffed.

Man, Maureen’s going to be pissed in the morning. Fortunately, my hair hid the spreading grin.

Maureen’s my Girl Friday and best friend. She thinks I work too much and has made it a personal mission to regularly drag me out to clubs for fun. Her order is always the same: Leave work at the office and relax, Shady.

Tonight, I’d failed more spectacularly than usual, but the consolation prize was the shocked expression she’d worn, watching me leave with him. Maureen, or Reen as I call her, has an unhealthy interest in my sex life.

Okay, my lack of one.

My attacker began dragging me up the steps of an old farmhouse. His name was Charles Watson; Number Five on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, due to his hobby of rape and murder. The last count I’d seen put the number of victims at twenty-seven. He had stuck to his M.O., which was a club pick up and a drive out to a secluded location.

Too bad I was his choice for tonight’s menu.

Once inside, he shoved me so that I fell onto an old mattress. It lay in the middle of what may have been a cozy living room once, but was a rotting wreck now.

Rolling over, testing the cuffs, I watched as he crossed to a tool box lying near a boarded up window. “Like it a bit rough, I’m guessing.”

“Aren’t you the brave little bitch?” Watson knelt on one knee, opening the tool box to survey the contents. After a few seconds, he selected something. Turning, he held a Bowie knife up so that its blade shone silver in the stray beams of moonlight sneaking through cracks in the old place.

“Nice. I enjoy good showmanship,” I congratulated him.

Watson sneered. “Being brave won’t do you any good.”

I shrugged. “You’re sort of missing something here.”

“What would that be?” He began walking towards me, obviously not worried about any kinks being thrown into his plans for the evening.

“I am a bitch.” The snap of the cuffs’ chain sounded like a shot. Holding my arms up and grinning, I added “Wolven bitch.”

Astonishment spread across his face. I memorized it, to save for later enjoyment. Lunging up, I kicked the knife from his hand and spun, driving a fist into his face. Watson stumbled backwards, tripped over the tool box and fell flat on his back.

A leap ended with my crouching over him, the scent of fresh, hot blood filling my lungs and stirring my wilder instincts. Eyes on his, I slowly leaned closer to lick some from his chin. “Mmm.”

You’d think a guy who enjoyed rape and torture would have a stronger stomach, but Watson’s eyes rolled up and he went out like a light.

“Are you kiddin’ me?” Disgusted, I stood and nudged his side with the toe of one boot. “Not much of a challenge, were you?”

With a sigh, I squatted and hefted him in a fireman’s carry. The Feds and local law could scope out the crime scene. They’re welcome to it; I just bring in the bad guys.

Carrying him outside and to his car, it never crossed my mind that capturing a Most Wanted was going to change my life.

Not once.

________________
© 2010 G L Drummond

What do you think? Does it work? Not work? If not, why? Constructive criticism welcomed.

Note: Comments are moderated to prevent spammage. Non-spam comments will be approved when I see them.

Writing is a career, and getting paid for doing it is part of it.

There are things we have to do to make a go of it, to build an audience, if we have no intention of going the traditional publishing route.

One of those things is showcasing our work in the hope of finding readers who will enjoy it. Readers that will become supportive fans, which of course will hopefully translate into ‘buyers’ for our story products.

We may choose to offer free stories for online reading, or free ebooks. People will bypass purchasing a book, regardless of its finished form, if they can’t thumb through or browse it in some manner, rather than plunking down a chunk of change for it, sight unseen.

I know this, because I’m a reader. I thumb through books at bookstores, and check out samples online before making the decision to buy any book.

‘Free’ doesn’t mean we’re releasing those stories to the wilds of public domain for people to use however they may feel they are entitled to.

Writing is personal. Stories come from our imaginations. The characters in them are our children.

We choose to share them in certain ways, but they belong to us.

Just because that’s true, it doesn’t mean we’re selfish, money grubbing hard asses.

It means that they are our creations and no matter how much or in what fashion we share them, they belong to us.

Not because of laws that say so, but because stories, art, photos, software and any kind of creation wouldn’t exist if someone hadn’t imagined it and then decided to create it.

That is the truth and something that, no matter how hard others may try, cannot be taken away from us.

Copyright infringement and illegal distribution can’t take that away. Plagiarism attempts to, but can’t.

What those do take away is our lawful right to control how our works are distributed in line with current laws granting us such rights, and who earns a portion of the pie we’ve slaved over to bake just right.

Before anyone brings up the First Sale doctrine, let me point out that it prohibits making copies. It gives rights only in regards to a single, lawfully obtained copy. It only allows resale or other relinquishment of ownership of that single, lawfully obtained copy.

Having said that, here’s for readers – not book pirates:

I don’t view sharing a lawfully obtained copy of one of my ebooks with a few friends as piracy. You share when you like something enough to, or because you think your friend will enjoy it.

Readers are the reason I prefer not to have DRM on my ebooks. The purpose of my writing is to entertain, and putting something on there that prevents you from being entertained when you’ve purchased an ebook doesn’t do anything for either of us.

It frustrates you, and it impairs my ability to attempt to earn a living from my work.

Readers are the people I won’t ever file a copyright infringement suit against, because you’re merely doing what has been a long standing, socially accepted tradition: sharing the love of reading.

The emergence of digital books shouldn’t put an end to that ability to share. Your sharing is done in a limited fashion, and with my permission as the copyright owner to do it with any lawfully obtained ebook of mine you have.

I’ll bend over backwards for my readers and potential readers. Not just because I want to make some money from writing, but in hopes that I’ll get an email saying someone really enjoyed a particular story, or comments on one of my sites, or trip over someone mentioning this or that one on their blog.

I’ve stated before that money isn’t the only form of compensation to be had as far as I’m concerned, and it’s not.

However, giving permission to readers to share an ebook they purchased doesn’t mean I’m handing off my rights to those ebooks.

It doesn’t mean I’m giving permission for any person who comes across one to turn around and throw it up on a file sharing network, to put it on their own site, or to attempt to resell it.

I’m not.

That’s not sharing the love of reading; that’s trying to gain something for nothing. It was pointed out elsewhere that those who provide the networks and download sites are earning money from advertising placement, or by offering their services as ad free if you pay for it.

They are making a profit off the work of others. Whether book piracy is damaging the potential for sales or not, no one is entitled to make a profit from the works of others without an agreement in place between them and the owners of those works.

So justification about doing it without financial gain is flat out bullshit. Maybe you, the singular book pirate, aren’t collecting any money on the deal, but you’re enabling others to do so, and you have no right to.

It is illegal to make copies of work under copyright, and to distribute those copies without the permission of the copyright owner of the works in question.

Doing so is breaking the law, and people who break the law are known as criminals. If that hard fact causes you to gasp in outrage, take umbrage, start screaming about how unfair copyright law is and start cursing those who point it out, you’ve got a lot of damn nerve.

You are the ones doing something illegal. Authors attempting to protect their work have the legal right to do so. Authors aren’t the bad guys, no matter how many take down notices they send out.

Though some could try being a little less hysterical about the matter. Getting hysterical doesn’t do any good.

The thing is that writers, whether traditionally published or not, are affected by book piracy in negative ways.

It’s not just the possible lack of sales numbers that might result; it’s a feeling of violation that others feel perfectly entitled to take something they created and do whatever the hell they want with it just because they can likely get away with doing so.

It is a form of mental/emotional rape, and leaves writers feeling victimized. There is no justification for that. None; and that may explain why some authors do rant hysterically about book piracy.

That may sound harsh, but it’s a harsh world with some people who feel entitled to whatever they want, however they can get it, and to hell with everyone else.

It’s been said that publishers and authors will just have to adapt to the changes and learn to deal.

No. Really?

I agree that we do, and have begun experimenting with ways to continue to earn from writing. Because honestly, and though it may not be a great loss to anyone, if I’m not making at least a little money from all this effort I put into writing, learning more about writing and honing my skills a bit sharper with each story, I won’t be putting them out for anyone to read.

Neither will many other authors. Several have stated exactly that.

The problem with piracy, other than being illegal, is that it is driving a wedge between the people who have the most to gain by sticking together: authors and readers.

Readers are getting lumped in with the book pirates by a lot of authors, and they’re getting tired of having book piracy shoved into their faces constantly. Of having some authors go ballistic if any mention of sharing ebooks with friends comes up.

I don’t blame them; I’m pretty sick of it myself, though for probably slightly different reasons.

If any of my ebooks that aren’t specifically licensed by me for free sharing end up on pirate sites, I will send a takedown notice.

Not just because my permission to distribute wasn’t asked, or because my copyright is being infringed, but because piracy is illegal; I will not knowingly aid and abet anyone in the breaking of law by ignoring it.

Ignoring it implies consent, in my personal opinion.

It won’t stop piracy, and I doubt anything will, unless the point is reached that there’s nothing new available to pirate. If that point ever is reached…well, it’ll be so far into the future, why should any of us care, right?

That was sarcasm, by the way.

It might appear that my opinions flip-flop on this issue, and they have to a point, as I’ve learned more about the matter.

But these are pretty much my final opinions on it at this time:

I am not an author backed by a big publishing house. I’m an independent, so anything done that harms my ability to earn from my work isn’t a jab at Big Business or the Man. It’s not showing support for me as an author. It’s a jab at a single person who’s just trying to earn a little extra money doing something she loves.

I have the right to give certain permissions to certain people; to withhold those permissions from others in order to protect my work, and thus, my ability to earn compensation for having done the work. Also to control how those works are distributed within the boundaries of the laws governing such rights.

Choosing to exercise those rights doesn’t make me the enemy of anyone except those who want to take those rights away from me or trample all over them.

Piracy is illegal; I won’t imply consent by ignoring it.

Readers are precious, and I will bend over backwards to show my appreciation to them. For them, I will make lawfully obtaining my books as simple a process as possible, and do my best to see that nothing interferes with their ability to share any of them that they might enjoy enough to do so with other book lovers.

Having said that, I think I’ll put it up on a permanent page as a manifesto of sorts.

And if any of what I’ve written above pisses you off, guess what?

That’s your problem, not mine.

One thing I’m as entitled to as the next person is having opinions.

Personally, I immediately switched all my titles as shown: Do not enable digital rights management.

Hit the ‘publish’ button, and now they’re all DRM free at Amazon. It only took a couple of days.

Since people are still talking about Kindle versions of ebooks being DRMed, I think this has slipped under the radar. Most of those who choose Amazon as a distribution platform likely aren’t aware they now have a choice.

Just thought I’d try spreading the word a bit.

Basically, this is a test of a new sort of ‘business model’.

I will release a free to download, sponsored/ad-supported version of Resurgence in PDF, DRM free format with a Creative Commons license (free to share/attribution/non-commercial/no alteration/deriatives) if there are people willing to donate to make such a version available.

The donations will be my compensation as the author.

Resurgence is a short story/longer flash fiction piece of 2, 263 word count. It’s sci fi/fantasy.

Compensation amount is $ 113.15 ( five (5) cents per word).

Donate $5 or more, and you’ll be listed at the front of the sponsored version as one of the people who’ve made it available for free download. Your name and/or web site link, whichever you choose. The sponsored version will be available here, at my imprint site, and at Smashwords, and hopefully on other people’s web sites shortly thereafter.

The unsponsored version will remain available for purchase for those readers who’d rather not have ‘ads’ in their ebooks (it’s only 99 cents at full cover price).

If the response is good, I’ll do the same for more titles with different sponsorship options.

Do you want to set Resurgence free? Donate!

Keep in mind I have downloaded mp3s from indie groups that have sponsors, thus allowing them to offer those mp3 files for free download, so I have had a brush with the concept.

I’d offer a limited number of advertising spaces for a fee, then release the title for free download, having been paid for my work and time in producing the ebook.

The idea being that anyone who downloaded it might go visit the advertisers (or should we call them sponsors?), and then purchase something from them.

Because well, if they didn’t, then I’d have more trouble finding sponsors for the next ebook, wouldn’t I?

And there’s the first con: showing a return on the sponsor/advertiser’s investment.

Will readers visit their links?

How will tracking be done to know that they are visiting from links in my ebook, so that the sponsors/advertisers know their investment is paying off?

Second con: not all digital readers and ebook formats are created equal. That means that graphics driven advertising won’t likely be available in all formats. The way around that is to only offer text ads.

Graphic banners and the like are what catch people’s attention the most, in my opinion. I know they bug the crap out of me when I visit a web site that’s monetized with them. They’re distracting, eye-catching and that’s why they’re used. Irritating to some of us or not, they draw attention.

Will sponsors/advertisers be content with text ads?

Third con: Authors have been conditioned to expect to be able to earn from sales of books for longer than a few months or a year or two. Some traditionally published books go through several re-printings; the author can expected to earn beyond their advance, have at least a trickle of earnings coming in for possibly several years from a single title that proves popular.

It’s not guaranteed, of  course; but they can see it happen.

Which makes placing a single price on a title for the purposes of figuring out what to charge for advertising extremely difficult and possibly a sticking point for many authors/publishers.

How to handle that? Well, place a limit on how long the ad stays in the ebook file. Say $30, 30 downloads. Or $30, 300 downloads. It’d be a matter of trial and error on that.

Problem there? Finding new advertisers to take the place of the older ones that have decided it’s not working for them and don’t renew their ads. Authors/publishers would have to be constantly hustling to keep that ad space filled, and to be replacing the ebook file each time an ad space was retired or replaced with a new advertiser.

That’s a lot of work, and I don’t know of anywhere but small digital presses where you can limit the number of copies available.

Fourth con: Free ebooks aren’t welcomed at some of the larger distribution sites (Amazon, etc.) unless they’re from the larger, traditional publishers, because those distribution sites don’t earn anything from them. They want their cut too.

Which could lead to having to pay a fee in order to list your ebooks at those sites; another expense most ebook authors can’t afford to have on a regular basis.

Other problems associated with this idea that I can think of:

How do you price such ad space?

Do you limit the time the ads are included in the ebook file?

What about the fact that one distribution site that does allow free ebooks also keeps every version of each ebook file available for those who’ve ‘purchased’ it so that they can pick which version they prefer to download?

Formats? Which do you select to make the ebook available in that will continue to provide a one click link to the sponsors/advertisers?

Finding advertisers/sponsors willing to test the idea out at the start.

My thoughts:

Me? I’d be happy to set a price on each ebook, find advertisers/sponsors to split that price, and consider myself paid for each title.

I write quite a bit, and have several unfinished stories I would finish, knowing I’d earn something right up front as each was completed and ready to go.

My problem would be setting that initial price.

I know that currently, I can expect my sales to jump in number every year, with the addition of a few new titles each year. So while I may not be earning a lot per title, and it might take 3 or 4 years (or a lot longer) to even earn minimum wage for the hours and effort spent producing a title, my earnings are still increasing on a yearly basis from my writing efforts.

Let’s say I do set an initial price I consider fair compensation or spend hours figuring out one for a title.

How many ads will readers put up with before word gets around to not download my ebooks because of ads, or to go hit a file sharing site to get an ad free copy someone’s created of them?

My distribution platform would likely be limited to Smashwords, which does allow free ebooks, & my own web site(s). At least for a while, until some of the others decide having free ebooks by independent authors is a draw instead of a drawback.

Is that going to be enough traffic/downloads to keep the sponsors/advertisers interested?

My most popular free ebook, Shades of Gray, has been downloaded 1,611 times since 7/29/09. Roughly 8.7 downloads daily, just at Smashwords.

My other two free ones also at Smashwords? Only 208 and 180 times in the same time period. Point being, authors can’t even guarantee a certain number of downloads when ebooks are free to readers.

I personally keep coming back to the ‘setting a price per title in order to determine ad fees’ point. That’s really my sticking point on trying out advertising in ebooks.

We don’t know how many copies we might sell if there’s a cover price set. I averaged roughly 30 per title last year, and that was a 400% increase in sales from 2008 (with only 4 new additions to my title list in 2009).

There are so many factors to consider, it’s not remotely funny. Gives me a headache trying, to be honest.

I’d honestly rather be paid for my work than have tiny ‘royalties’ trickling in every year on each title – even though it appears I could somewhat reasonably expect those ‘royalties’ to increase yearly, as long as I keep writing and producing new titles.

Sigh. Let’s not even get into what sort of sponsors/advertisers I might have to approach, since many of my titles are ‘adult’ (language, violence, sex). Free or not, I imagine distribution would become next to impossible, except on my own sites, if all the ads were also adult in nature.

Any thoughts from wiser heads on how to work this idea out to a successful conclusion? Meaning, successful for authors, readers and sponsors/advertisers?

Be glad to hear other opinions!

I was raised that if you wanted something, you worked to earn it.

The one time I faltered from that, at about age seven over a package of bubblegum, I was not only made to publicly humiliate myself, but got my ass busted for stealing, grounded and given extra chores so I’d have plenty of time to contemplate the sin that earned all of that.

It was a lesson I took to heart, and I seriously doubt that I’m the Lone Stranger in learning it.

Growing up, one of the most excruciating punishments for wrong doing my parents devised for me was to ground me from reading for enjoyment.

I was one of Them: a four-eyed little bookworm who preferred my nose buried in a book, imagination being sparked by what I read, to socializing or playing.

I’m still that four-eyed bookworm, just older and taller now. I have developed the ability to socialize, make friends and not stay stuck in my imagination all the time.

But I still believe that if you want something, you work to earn it.

My ass will sting in reminder if I remotely contemplate doing otherwise. As a result, I go without a lot of things I’d love to have.

There’s something I want, and I’m working long, hard hours to earn it.

I want people.

Not just any people, but readers.

You see, I finally began writing to fulfill a dream I had as a child. It’s only been a few years since I grew serious about pursuing it.

I want to entertain people the way I was and am entertained by other authors. I want to create characters you’ll fall in love or hate with. To make you laugh, cry or say ‘oh no, she didn’t!’ and hurry to turn the page to see what happens next.

Those of you who will read my stories and react like that are out there. I’ve already found a few of you!

But doing this, I also have to consider how the time I spend at it affects the rest of my life and the people who share it. I’ve discovered that I personally need to justify it, so I place a value I think is reasonable on some of my stories and try to sell them.

Today, my S/O asked me why I keep writing if I’m just going to get worked up over things like book piracy, distributors taking enormous cuts of my earnings and such.

“Because I love to write and need to.”

He said, “So earning from it isn’t the important thing or a goal.”

“Yes, earning is a goal and important to me.”

See, while I may write because I love it and need to empty my imagination out on a regular basis to keep from being interred in Happy Acres Sanitarium, I share what I write in order to entertain and earn.

I have a box full of stories no one will ever read. I wrote them solely for my own enjoyment, and don’t need to share them to have that enjoyment.

The stories I put out for public consumption are written with entertaining more than myself in mind.

They’re fun, but they’re also work. A lot more of my time and effort goes into them. And it’s not unreasonable to expect to earn something when you work, right?

You have the choice to buy or pass by.

What I’m supplying may not be what you’re demanding.

That’s life.

I’ll keep working to earn those readers I want.

But I have learned some things with that stumbling along in the past two years and when I see certain opinions or advice, I’m irked by how simplistic or off base it is.

Case in point: I’ve been participating in a discussion here.

One commentor said pirating isn’t stealing, it’s copying.

My reply:

Actually, it’s illegal distribution and copyright infringement, if my understanding is correct.

Whether it’s actual ’stealing’ or not, it’s considered by law to be illegal.

Loaning a physical book to a friend isn’t stealing – because of the First Sale doctrine on physical objects, once you purchase a print book, it’s yours to do whatever you want with.

But ebooks aren’t physical books, they’re digital files. You can’t ‘loan’ a digital file, you have to copy it to make it available to that friend.

A physical book is gone from your possession until your friend returns it. An ebook file is still in your possession and your friend has a full copy as well – which is distribution without permission of the copyright holder, thus illegal by law.

Authors/publishers have long accepted that a print book is out of their control once that first sale is made.

But ebooks are the proverbial horse of a different color. Both readers and many authors/publishers want to pretend they aren’t. That they’re just a more convenient form of books.

Which they are; but with that convenience of less cost to produce, collect and store also comes the convenience for those who decide to illegally distribute them for whatever reason they have.

It’s not surprising authors and publishers get so angry when they learn their books are being downloaded for free, and see each download as a financial loss.

DRM isn’t the solution. Consumers complain it implies they’re all criminals, and writers that do use it are trying to protect their work and ability to earn an income.

Scanning books or putting them on file sharing downloads also isn’t the solution.

Both are just causing a widening division between authors and readers.

I wish there was an easy solution, but there’s just not at this time.

Another said he’d stop downloading books when publishers stop shafting authors.

This was my reply to that:

As an independent author/publisher, I’ve been following the whole Ebook piracy saga with much interest.

I don’t considered a pirated copy to be a lost sale, because as was mentioned above, a lot of people who download books have no intention of paying for something they know where to get for free.

However, I also agree that the cover prices of books have been steadily increasing over the last couple of decades, and that has had a major effect on my ability to purchase books as a reader.

They’re just too damn expensive to buy many of in any given year any longer.

Even so, the remark made above in the comments about “I’ll stop downloading books when publishers stop shafting authors”?

Allow me to play Devil’s Advocate:

You’re contributing to the shafting of authors, because traditional publishers likely view pirated copies as a loss to their bottom line, and want to make that money up somewhere.

You’re contributing to higher prices, because again, they want to make that loss up somewhere.

The lack of availability in digital format mentioned as one reason people download books is a good point.

However, because book piracy IS growing and IS a hot topic, publishers AND authors are reluctant to put titles out in a format that makes it even easier for those books to be pirated.

So piracy basically contributes to lack of digital availability, higher Ebook cover prices and authors getting shafted over their share of Ebook profits.

/end Devil’s Advocate

I’m not too worried about Ebook piracy. I’m not a well-known author, I don’t depend solely on my writing to put food on the table, clothe my kids, pay my bills, etc.

I used to worry about it, because everyone was freaking out about it, but after some thought, I decided the worry was just getting in the way of writing, and if I kept worrying, I might end up quitting.

So I don’t worry about it. =)

A couple of other commentors seemed to feel I was complaining about sales and profit based on my input.

I am a bit: I think most distribution channels take too much of a cut for mostly automated listing of submissions. There are exceptions, and changes on the horizon, but really…demanding 50% or more of the cover price from people who are providing you content for your customers? Whose content you use as an advertising draw to sell highly priced ereaders to your customers?

Come on!

And it was suggested that ‘paying Amazon’ was a choice made for wider distribution. Well, duh…but not just that. The same commentor said to take out a loan to pay for editing/proofing/etc. and to stick a PayPal button on your own site, sell through it.

I’d hazard the guess that the influx of new authors are mostly people hoping to supplement their existing income a little with book sales. Going into debt doesn’t help that, now does it?

And your average reader isn’t going to spend hours hopping from author’s site to author’s site searching for something to read. They’re going to go where it’s convenient and easy to find/browse books: Amazon, B&N and such sites.

Not putting your books on those distribution channels is pretty much cutting off your nose to spite your face. Your website is highly unlikely to ever draw the traffic and potential buyers in a month that Amazon or the others do in a day.

I’m curious about pricing. Readers have been pretty vocal that $10 is as much as they’re willing to pay for an ebook. That’s the demand, and there’s literally thousands of authors willing to supply it.

But the growing division between readers and writers worries me. I think about the future possibilities.

Readers demanded $9.99 titles as advertised from Amazon. Now Amazon reportedly takes losses on sales from traditionally published ebooks to supply that demand, because traditional publishers sure as hell didn’t cave on their pricing.

What if ebook piracy continues to grow to the point that the majority of authors raise their ebook prices in order to make up those ‘lost sales’?

Will we see a battle of wills break out? Authors mimicking those Amazon protestors by setting higher prices, readers boycotting those authors, and piracy increasing even more? To the point that some authors just give up and quit? Find something to do that isn’t so damn stressful?

I don’t know. It’s going to be interesting.

What do you think?

In other words, you couldn’t distribute your title there for $10 and at Smashwords or elsewhere for $5.

On January 15th, the wording of that particular section was changed to:

(b) the lowest price at which you list or offer any digital or physical edition of the Digital Book on any website or other sales channel;

And that change came about after DTP forum postings asking for clarification on the previous wording, as some authors want to offer their titles at lower cover prices on their personal sites/blogs.

Reasons for doing so should be obvious: most of us are trying to build a readership, and we earn more per sale selling direct through our own sites using PayPal or something similar as our payment processor than we do selling through the various distribution channels like Amazon, B&N, Smashwords, and so on.

I’ve seen some authors who have ebooks available on Amazon for $7-$10, and those same titles available through Smashwords or their own site for $5.

Quick look at the royalties possible:
Title for $7 -
Amazon: $2.45
Same title for $5 -
Smashwords: $4.10

Author’s site: $4.55 to $4.70 (using PayPal, Standard or Micropayment fee schedules)

In effect, any independent or publisher could be dropped from Amazon’s DTP program if Amazon were to seriously police that particular TOS and catch those offering lower cover prices elsewhere. I doubt the big traditional publishers have to worry about that.

Depending on what percentage of their sales results from Amazon, that could really harm independents’ revenue stream. Which for the majority of independents, is probably pretty miniscule anyway.

Since Smashwords brokered a distribution deal with Amazon, we’ve had the opportunity to opt our titles in and receive a 42.5% royalty rate on sales through Amazon, vs. the 35% standard royalty rate received by direct distribution through the DTP program.

Since our titles are available through both sites, I opted them in for distribution to Amazon via Smashwords to receive that higher royalty rate.

Problem was, no one knew how Amazon was going to handle that, having authors opting their titles in via Smashwords when they were already in the DTP program.

Well, we’ve gotten an answer – sort of.

Today, Amazon announced that they’ll be offering a 70% royalty rate for Kindle editions – that’s 100% increase!

But wait, don’t get too excited just yet.

There are conditions:

• The new royalty rate won’t come live until June 30th. I haven’t found an explanation of why such a long wait to implement it yet.
• It’s only for titles priced $2.99 to $9.99.
• And the kicker: it’s only going to be for U.S. published titles. So you independents in other countries are pretty much SOL (at least for a while) unless you sign on with a U.S. based press.

Back to the cover pricing issue for a moment.

With this royalty increase, Amazon has made pricing a bit less difficult to decide on. The main reason you’d set lower prices elsewhere was that giant 65% cut they were taking.

So now, following their TOS about not offering your titles for lower cover prices elsewhere won’t be a problem, right?

But, what about your titles that are priced under or over their set limit to receive that new 70% royalty rate?

Well, sign on with Smashwords and distribute such titles to Amazon through them. Get that 42.5% instead of 35%.

Simple, really.

But I’m still bothered by the fact that Amazon can kick you out of the DTP program if you offer your titles for less on your own personal site/blog.

Traffic & revenue greedy, much?

In order to build a readership, an independent tries to draw traffic to their site/blog so that readers can get to know them, have the chance to do a little ‘try before buy’ by offering excerpts, short stories, freebies, etc.

Offering your titles for a lower cover price or promoting by doing limited time discounts should be something an author can choose to do without worrying they’re going to get tossed from one of the big retail distribution sites.

It’s a draw, a marketing ploy, a promotional effort…and shouldn’t it be our right? After all, I highly doubt any author’s site receives the traffic Amazon does on a daily basis, so ‘harming’ Amazon sales isn’t likely.

No matter what sort of revenue split any distribution platform offers, authors will normally earn more per sale from sales made through their own web site or blog.

Such sales are highly unlikely to be many for the majority of independents. Our sales are going to come from the places where readers know to go look for ebooks.

I think it’s something like 55% of my sales are from Amazon. Because of that, I’m not willing to risk being kicked out of the DTP program.

With the previous wording of the TOS, and the brief discussion on the DTP forum, I’d thought offering a limited discount for Moon Children: Dark Cravings through my own site would be okay.

Unfortunately, my chosen shopping cart plugin sort of crapped out, so I had to move it to Payloadz. Which is a retail distribution platform, and I didn’t even think about that until this morning.

This morning, I changed the price for it to $1.99 at Amazon, which it’s directly distributed through, and at Smashwords, where I’ve had it opted in to secondary distribution to Amazon.

At Smashwords, the changes are instantaneous. At Amazon, you have to wait 24-72 hours, or even longer, before changes go through, which makes it a bit hard to stick to their TOS there.

Sigh.

Anyway, I am glad to see Amazon is finally raising the royalty rate. I imagine many authors are.

At least the U.S. based ones.

I have five: Feral Intensity, the House of Craze, Shadow Connor, Night Has Fallen and Project Foxfire, which is shared with my writing buddies/fellow KKP authors. Some of these plugins are also in use on Katarr Kanticles Press.

Generally Useful:

• Flexi Pages – A page navigation widget for your sidebar, which drops down to show sub-pages once their parent page has been accessed.
• WP-Cumulus – This is the niftiest tag cloud widget out there, in my opinion. You can edit the size and colors to fit your site. I’ve spotted others’ remarking on how they can watch it with fascination; I know I like watching/playing with it.
• If You Liked That – Recommends related posts.
• Recently Updated Pages – Shows a list of pages you’ve edited.
• WP Super Cache – speed up your page loading quite a bit with this plugin.
• WP Widget Cache – If you’re going to use widgets, it’s probably a good idea to use this plugin. The more widgets you add, the slower your pages will load. This helps prevent that.

Promotion/Interactivity:

• All in One SEO pack – Set your keywords, post title and short description for each post for crawlers to archive.
• Vote the Post – Matter of taste on this one, but it allows readers to rate your posts and shows the rating for each wherever you set it to (top or bottom of post). In your admin area, you’ll be able to see a list of all posts and the voting stats.
• Subscribe to Comments – Exactly what it says. Allows readers to subscribe to the comments of posts they want to follow the discussion of.
• Cute Profiles – Check left to see this one in action. Good way to keep some information off your sidebars, Cute Profiles allows visitors to contact you via email, to find/follow/friend/subscribe to your YouTube channel, Twitter, Facebook and some other sites.
• Sociable – Make it easy for readers to share your posts via various social media sites, like Twitter, Facebook, Digg, FriendFeed, Reddit, etc.

Writing:

• If you’re posting web fiction or excerpts from your works in progress, Organize Series is very useful to make navigation between the parts simple. You can put a sidebar widget that shows what series you have, how many posts in each, that they can click on. Creates a page listing the series, and places a list of each chapter/part on each post of the pertinent series.
• Organize Series Publisher adds to the awesome by allowing you to schedule series posts in advance.

Some writers like to share their progress or be spurred by public accountability to keep working on them.

• ProgPress is one way to show your word or page counts. You can have multiple instances, place them in posts, on a page or in the sidebar by sticking them into a text widget.
• Dave’s Whizmatronic Widgulating Calibrational Scribometer is another choice. I’d use it just for the name! It’s a sidebar widget; the plugin author is currently working a new version to allow more than one instance of usage.

Both are great plugins which let you edit title, counts, what unit of measurement you’re counting by and your goal.

Next up, we have onsite promotional tools:

• Max Banner Ads – Place ads in your posts or in the sidebar. You can use Adsense, etc. or graphic ads. I use the sidebar widget on Project Foxfire to list our titles and link to their Smashwords listing pages. I’ve also installed it on this site, and can choose to place a banner advertising my books in posts (check out the end of this post for an example). Very easy to use.
• WP-125 – Create a graphical ad block of six 125×125 images that link to wherever you choose. I use this one on KKP for our Featured Title sidebar area.
• Create an on blog store with WP eCommerce. Easy PayPal integration, automatically creates the needed main pages for you and secure digital downloads. Customers can download from their account page & receive an email. Scratch this one. Guess the last update to it messed something up. Download links to customers no longer work. Haven’t found the solution yet.

Perhaps you’re looking to build a private or paid subscription site?

• Members Only will hide your blog pages completely until registration is completed. I’m using it on Shadow Connor to prevent revisions and drafts from being crawled by search engines and splashed all over the nets.
• For a paid subscription site, Memberwing Membership Site is the way to go. I’m using it for the House of Craze. The free version requires you to manually set up each new user’s account. Premium version automates that. Set up graduated membership levels/subscriptions and use PayPal easily.

The last plugin is one I’ve found recently, called Cube Points. A site that allows registration is needed. Members can earn points for logging in daily, commenting and posting. You can set the points earned amount for each, and reward ranks for earning a certain number of points.

Redeeming points for goodies is an obvious  draw, and the plugin authors are working on a ’shopping cart’ for it. Members can also donate points to one another, or even buy points. It’s a fun, ’sticky’ draw.

Try them out to add a little ’stickiness’ to your blog and make onsite promotion a snap. :)

 Powered by Max Banner Ads 

• Paranormal – Ghosts, spirits and psychic phenomena.
• Supernatural – Demons, angels, miracles, unexplainable by science religiously related stuff.
• Preternatural – Vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters and other not human sort of critters.

Because those have been my personal definitions of the above, I was a little surprised when I noticed that some readers who’d purchased Dark Cravings from Amazon had tagged it as a paranormal romance.

My reaction was pretty much ‘Huh?’

I mean, there are werewolves and vampires in it, not haunted houses or psychics.

So I sort of checked around and discovered that pretty much any book with any non-human type characters that have a romance as part of the story are categorized as paranormal romance.

I thought ‘okay, I guess’ and went about my merry way.

But there are weird things that strike me as stuff to muse upon, and so I’ve mused over that for a few months now.

I would personally term Dark Cravings as more of a dark urban fantasy. The existence of vampires and werewolves isn’t common knowledge, hence the urban bit. The main character has had some pretty awful events occur in her life due to certain werewolfish circumstances, and the vampires aren’t your average suavely debonair types, which is where the ‘dark’ bit comes in.

There is a romance in there, yeah. But it’s not what I would personally describe as a paranormal romance.

I read a story in a magazine a long, long time ago. I can’t remember the title or the author’s name, so if the story sounds familiar to anyone, please inform me of one or the other. I want a copy of it for my bookshelves!

Short version: Married couple goes on whitewater rafting vacation, husband drowns. He returns to haunt his widow, who eventually becomes romantically attached to a male friend or co-worker who has been supportive and is interested in her.

Ghost of husband causes new love interest to fall down some stairs and break his neck, then possesses the body so that he can be with his wife again.

Now that, my friends, is a paranormal romance!

My question is this: when did paranormal, supernatural and preternatural all become lumped together as the exact same thing?

Dark Cravings should be tagged as a preternatural romance,  rather than paranormal romance, since no ghosts, demons or psychics are involved.

Who started this trend of lumping all three together? Though I guess there’s not really a giant difference between paranormal and supernatural?

Am I being overly picky here? Probably.

I decided to look up the definitions of each and also to check out Wikipedia to see what other people had to say.

Definitions:

Paranormal – of or pertaining to the claimed occurrence of an event or perception without scientific explanation, as psychokinesis, extrasensory perception, or other purportedly supernatural phenomena.

Supernatural – adj.
1. of, pertaining to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law or phenomena; abnormal.
2. of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or attributed to God or a deity.
3. of a superlative degree; preternatural: a missile of supernatural speed.
4. of, pertaining to, or attributed to ghosts, goblins, or other unearthly beings; eerie; occult.
Supernatural – noun
5. a being, place, object, occurrence, etc., considered as supernatural or of supernatural origin; that which is supernatural, or outside the natural order.
6. behavior supposedly caused by the intervention of supernatural beings.
7. direct influence or action of a deity on earthly affairs.
8. the supernatural, a. supernatural beings, behavior, and occurrences collectively.
b. supernatural forces and the supernatural plane of existence: a deep fear of the supernatural.

Preternatural –adjective 1. out of the ordinary course of nature; exceptional or abnormal: preternatural powers.
2. outside of nature; supernatural.

Huh, so their definitions give the impression they can be interchanged with each other on the whole.

Wikipedia’s turn:

Paranormal is a general term that describes unusual experiences that lack a scientific explanation, or phenomena alleged to be outside of science’s current ability to explain or measure. Notably, paranormal phenomena also lack scientific evidence, as detectable but not well explained phenomena such as dark matter or dark energy are not commonly called paranormal.

Supernatural
Not to be confused with Preternatural.
For other uses, see Supernatural (disambiguation).
The term supernatural or supranatural (Latin: super, supra “above” + natura “nature”) pertains to being above or beyond what is natural, unexplainable by natural law or phenomena. Religious miracles are typically supernatural claims, as are spells and curses, divination, the belief that there is an afterlife for the dead, and innumerable others. Supernatural beliefs have existed in many cultures throughout human history.
Characteristic for phenomena claimed as supernatural are anomaly, uniqueness and uncontrollability, thus lacking reproducibility required for scientific examination. Supernatural themes are often associated with paranormal and occult ideas, suggesting for possibility of interaction with the supernatural by means of summoning or trance for instance.

The preternatural or praeternatural is that which appears outside or beyond (Latin præter) the natural. While this may include what is more commonly called the supernatural, it may also simply indicate extremity—an ordinary phenomenon taken ‘beyond’ the natural. One may have, for example, a preternatural desire, a preternatural curiosity, a preternaturally acute ear (sense of hearing), or even preternaturally big ears.
The term is often used to distinguish from the divine (supernatural) while maintaining a distinction from the purely natural. For instance, in certain theologies, the angels, both holy and fallen, are endowed with preternatural powers. Their intellect, speed, and other characteristics are described as beyond human capacities but yet still finite.
Some examples of preternatural creatures in fiction include fairies, werewolves, vampires, zombies, and the Chupacabra.

See that last? And where it relates ‘supernatural’ to ‘divine’? Understand why I feel rather confused here?

Paranormal isn’t the same as Supernatural, but Supernatural can also be Paranormal.

Preternatural isn’t to be confused with Supernatural, yet according to the dictionary, they’re pretty much interchangeable with one another.

Basically I guess it comes down to there not being as much of a distinction between the three as I’ve always personally thought, and yes, I’m being too nit-picky over it.

That happens from time to time.

What do you think? Do you feel there should be or is a clearer distinction between the three?