Kindle Unlimited - 10 days in

Ok. I don't know what the reimbursement rate for Kindle Unlimited will be. That being said, it's been a huge difference maker for sales.

Because I'm a geek, I did a couple of graphs for the month of July (to date.)

The Before Kindle Unlimited (July 1 - July 18) borrows was hovering at 5%. In the 11 days since (July 19-29), my borrows have skyrocketed to 36%.

That's one heck of a movement. Also, despite what some other writers say (David Gaughran, Rachel Aaron), I find it hard to believe my reimbursement rates won't come down. I moved a lot of books using borrows, and I can't be the only one. Still, I'll find out in about fifteen days, won't I?

Clearly, borrows increased. But did it cannibalize my paid sales? Because then, I'd be less happy.

So I crunched some more numbers. (Remember, I have very limited data to work with. Less than one month of sales information is hardly an appropriate sample size.)

Short answer. No. My # of units sales sold per day hovers at the same mark it always has.

Slightly longer answer. The data isn't clean. I ran promos in the July 19-29 period that taints the results. No promo was run July 1-18.

Anyhoo. It's early days yet, but I'm solidly encouraged.

In which I talk about Kindle Unlimited - and other things

There's been much hand-wringing on the Kindle boards about Kindle Unlimited. It's the end of the world as we know it! Here's what I think.

- It depends on who you are. Are you a big name author, able to draw readers to your books on the sheer strength of your name? Ok. Kindle Unlimited is probably a bad deal for you. Your challenge isn't to find new readers.

But mine is. I'm constantly trying to find new readers. There's a whole lot of readers out there who read erotica, but have never heard of me. I want to find these people. I think my books are good - I'd like them to take a chance and read one. Which makes Kindle Unlimited a bit of a goldmine for me.

- It depends on what your books cost. Prior to KU, the reimbursement rates on borrows was about $2, the same price as royalty on a $2.99 book. That reimbursement rate is going to go down, for sure. But will it go down to $0.35? Somehow, I doubt it, which means that I'll make more money on a $0.99 borrow vs. a $0.99 read. (Your $4.99 book? Yes, you'll take a hit on it.)

- You can make money by increasing the royalty price per book, or by increasing the number of books sold. KU dramatically increases the latter. (I've never seen as many borrows as I did over the weekend. I couldn't' have done that on my own.) Sure, some readers are people that would have otherwise bought your book, but the way I see it - Kindle Unlimited dramatically expands the market. These are new readers. New readers are good.

What I've done so far? Nothing. I'm taking a wait and see approach. But this might change the writing of the next few projects. I might spend some time writing some 10K, $0.99 books, just to tap into that market in a broader way.

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I followed this link through Twitter. Author Virginia Nelson talks about writing. I couldn't disagree more. 

I don't write my stories in a vacuum. Writing is my response to the real world. Hiding from the real world in order to write? Don't do it. Make some time for writing, of course, but the best material is found through living life. 

Please. Attend the picnic. Go to that birthday party. And eat some fucking cake, while you are at it.  

Well hello there!

Yes, it's been almost a month since I posted. Bad Tara.

I'm sure I'm not the only writer to struggle with getting it all done. When I focus on marketing, I neglect the writing, and when I focus on the writing, I neglect the marketing. But in the end, if I don't write, I have nothing to publish, and so, rightly, the writing takes precedence.

So, let me update you about what's been going on, writing-wise.

- Recovery got written and published. Yay! That completes my Doctor Dom series. 

Writing series is definitely, at least for me, harder than writing a stand-alone story. You have to stay with your characters so much more, you have to define them better, you have to make their lives interesting for that much longer. More twists, more turns, but still trying to keep it real. It was hard, but I'm pretty happy with Recovery, and I'm glad I did this. (All the Doctor Dom books together clock in almost 150,000 words, which is massive for me.)

- While we are still on Doctor Dom, I combined 1+2+3 into a Sequence One book. 

Nice bonus, no extra writing, but I still added a book to my catalog. Another side benefits of writing serials.

- I wrote and published the Virgin Returns Home, which completes the Adventures of Suzie and the Alien series. 

Also yay! Originally, I was writing the Alien books as stress-relief in the middle of the much harder writing that was Doctor Dom. It was a little weird and a little campy, filled with sex of all kinds, but with a story to pull it together. (Side note: I've got to be invested in the story, else I don't care about the sex. I'm sure I'm not the only one.)

The last story though, that was just pure romance. (Though with a lot of sex.) You really do see the relationship between Suzie and Bob evolve to where they genuinely start caring for each other. When Suzie makes the decision to return back to Earth, well - buy the book and find out what happens.

- I sent out a free story to my mailing list. Storm. Episode 1: The Hottest Guy in Hollywood. 

Didn't get it? Want it? I send out Episode 2 of this story at the end of August, so subscribe to the mailing list today, and you'll get to catch up when I send the next episode out. (Prefer instant gratification? It's available for free on Literotica, and available for sale on Amazon.)

That's all the good. Now, the stuff that's less good.

- I'm struggling with my current story.

I'm really finding it difficult to define who my hero is. I know his back story. I know what he does. But I'm having trouble giving him a narrative voice. I've thrown out almost 9,000 words to date, and throwing out more words appears perfectly possible. Ugh.

- I'm stuck on Slathaar. 

Mostly with Slathaar, it's mind-space. I've got some tight (though self-imposed) writing deadlines, and I'm just not finding the time to think about Slathaar. Honestly, if I were smart at all, I'd ease up on the writing deadlines and just work on Slathaar, because Slathaar fills the creative well, and the other stories drain from it. (Hmm. I wrote that, and as I wrote that, I recognized how true that really was. Need to ponder.)

Right, that's long enough for a post, don't you think? Off I go to drink more coffee.