Tuesday, June 2, 2015

My So-Called Writing Life ~ @oddlynn3 #LynnCrain #amwriting



This week’s column will be two fold. I’m going over ebook pricing and me as well as some other thoughts. Or why I think I’m a lazy writer sometimes.

First, this has been a hot topic for many of the groups I belong. Indie authors all are trying to find that magical ebook price. The one that gives them a fair royalty while pleasing the reading public.

If you listen to some readers, they feel that everything should be free. Well, that’s like not paying them for whatever they do for a living. I fear that those people are living in a fantasyland and not in the real world. Personally, I would love to live in the world of John Lennon’s Imagine but don’t. I have to live in the one when I make money to pay my bills.

Some authors go high, then low for a while and back to high. Understand that high is no more than $2.99-5.99 a book. For most of the vendors we deal with, that gives authors a pretty good royalty per book. Some authors play around with pricing to make sure that they get exactly the same royalty, or close to, worldwide. That’s too much effort for me, so I price my book within my standard based upon word count.

When I first started this indie publishing gig, I decided to make it as simple as I could and went back to something I’d learned long ago about word count. We know that everyone has their idea about what makes a short story, novella, short novel, novel, or long novel. Short stories and novellas commonly appear in magazines while the others will appear as standalone books of varying lengths.

And yes, for me, it is as simple as that. Here’s the way I price my books:

0-10,000                   $0.99
10,001-20,000         $1.49
20,001-30,000        $1.99
30,001-40,000        $2.49
40,001+                    $2.99

When I get to 50K and over, the book is evaluated on the genre I’m going to put it in. So far, I not had anything over 40K in my Indie work. But I will. MOF, those things are coming the end of this year and next. I haven’t decided yet but I will keep my stories competitive.

Now, I’m sure you’re wondering why I call myself a lazy writer. Well, because in many ways I am. I look for trends, watch Netflix and do a variety of things all to keep my mind fresh and agile. I want to know what’s hot, what’s not and how to make it all work for me.

I follow leads given to me by other authors on how to promote and get my name out there. I’ve done a Facebook party and can’t wait to have my own. I’ve done my own Thunderclaps. And I can’t wait to do more of these to get me out there.

However, I also haven’t written as much as I should and in my mind, that makes me lazy. Sure, I could tell you that life happened. Well, life happened to you but that doesn’t make you stop doing things. Sometimes it does me and that’s the laziness in me saying to hide my head as it will be better tomorrow.

Not.

I forget who said it but the passage ‘Never leave for tomorrow what can be done today’ is true. Who knows? Tomorrow may never get here. Something bizarre may happen and you’ll never fulfill those promises you made to readers or yourself.

Following innovation is never lazy. Not doing something with that innovation is. Not writing because of life excuses is. Sure, there are truly some things that life throws at you and you can’t ignore them. Last year, my Dad died and something died in me as well. It made me lazy and practically full of excuses because I got slower with getting things done.

But something happened on the year anniversary of his death. I woke up to him talking to me and telling me once again he was going to kick my butt for not doing what I should be doing. I needed to quit wasting time and being lazy. My Dad loved my writing and in some ways that’s enough for me. His belief in my talent and the possibility of me getting everything I ever wanted needed to be addressed. I could write a minimum of 1000 words a day. I could write more. I needed to write more. The time for laziness had ended.

Nothing much exciting is happening this week. One last push on my latest re-release, Night of the Blue Moon and that’s it. It’s writing and creating and doing those things mentioned above. After all, I don’t want my ass kicked.

See you all next week. Until then…

Lynn 

4 comments:

  1. Loved this post! I feel like I'm a lazy writer. I need to get more books published. And agree with you about people wanting free books. It's hard being an Indie author and in my case, paying for formatting, covers and editing, but also wonderful to have control over my books. I also enjoyed seeing your pricing break-down for the word counts. My Amish books sell the best and $3.99 seems to work well for them. When I release a new Amish book, I price it at $4.99, then drop it when a new one is available.

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    1. Thanks for stopping by Diane.

      I too need to get more books published and it is hard to do all those things necessary to get books out in a timely manner. But I'm like you, I love the control and there are more things we can make sure are done to our satisfaction.

      Wonderful strategy with your books. I've never checked out any Amish books out but maybe I should.

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