I’m on the road this week, and have no deep thoughts about writing, marketing, and so on. So here’s some random observations and near-end-of-year things to consider.
Have you been keeping track of expenses and income for tax purposes? If not, now is the time to go back and pull your numbers together.
The numbers of posted new reviews and ratings have dropped in Amazon. Several people have reported fewer reviews and ratings appearing there, but steadier numbers elsewhere. I’m not certain if it is reader fatigue, or if it has become more awkward to do a rating on your e-reader, or people cracking the files to side-load them onto other devices and not going back to the ‘Zon to leave a review, or what. It might be an algorithm change.
I found a new source for pre-made covers (just add text.) The new ownership of my previous source added features that are great IF you already know how to work in Photoshop or Gimp, and stopped answering questions about saved covers and earlier orders. I needed to learn if the old language about sales numbers still applied, and if, so, how to get in touch with those artists in order to pay the additional fee, should I sell enough books to hit that point. I asked three times, and have not gotten a reply. The new site is user friendly, and the artists I’ve worked with are quite willing to make font style, text placement, and font color changes, for which there is no charge. The prices are a touch higher, but still quite reasonable.
How have you done on meeting your goals, if you set some? I didn’t but managed to produce a lot more than I’d anticipated. Writing as an escape led to sellable words.
I have more and more readers asking about alternatives to the ‘Zon. At the moment, I’m still not ready to jump ship. However, the changes on Amazon’s end about leasing vs. buying, and the increasing difficulty of making a backup of purchases is giving me pause. (This applies to music as well. I left iTunes for music purchases over this very thing.) If/when I start a new series, I may go wide with it. I know this will cost me some sales to people who are on tight budgets.
Dark fantasy romance, epic fantasy, and romantasy seem to be pushing other subgenres of fantasy off the shelves in the regional B&N. Oh, and cozy romantasy appears to be growing in shelf share. A depressing number of the romantasy books are M/M or F/F in ways that feel forced and non-romantic. I picked up several other books that sounded promising, until I reached the GRRRRRRL POWAHHHH!!!! paragraph on the cover copy. Straight-up non-romance urban fantasy seems to appear more in the foreign literature section, with a growing number of Japanese fantasy cafe and book shop cozies. I’m not sure if this is just because of what has been sent to the store, or if this is a trend worth tracking more closely.
Mad Genius Club 
2 responses to “Potpourri”
In my experience posting a rating on Amazon has not got any more difficult – at least if you are reading on a Kindle. Nothing has really changed – you still just get to the end of the book and it’s then hard to avoid getting presented with the ratings page. Posting a review requires more effort, but I suspect that many (most?) ratings come without a review, especially for popular books where there is little point in reviewing as no one is likely to read your comments amongst the mass of other peoples efforts.
As for people stripping DRM and converting to another format, I find it hard to believe that this would move the needle. I do strip DRM and save in Calibre just to assert my ownership of the books I’ve purchased but I’ve never felt the urge to use a non Amazon e-reader (and I strongly suspect that the great majority of readers have no idea how to do this, even if they wanted to).
Has anyone reported a drop in Goodreads’ ratings? If you’ve linked your Kindle to Goodreads the ratings automatically propogate there, so there should be some kind of similar reduction. Maybe Amazon is trying to reduce fake reviews and, as normal, is hitting the innocent along with the guilty?
Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat —
If you review or rate a book, you are giving a writer something that doesn’t even cost of ha’penny, but its value is much greater.