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And The Hand Finally Closes Around Our Throat

20K views 220 replies 54 participants last post by  Corvid 
#1 ·
I noticed something odd about the release of my most recent book Bloodwing. So I went to investigate. If you'll recall my current plan relies on rapid releases, because that's the supposed key to wealth and riches on Jeff's yellow brick road of opportunity and pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. Well, my plan lasted a total of sixteen days. In that time I published about 57,000 words of new fiction. Fortunately I was smart enough to hold on to my rights. I don't trust anyone anymore and I'm about to explain why.

Here's my first book, The Praetorian Imperative, published July 20th, on the 51st anniversary of the Apollo Moon landing:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=B08DDFXT6R&ref=nb_sb_noss

I use this URL for a very specific purpose. This is the URL we normally use to check and see if our books are in the right categories. Over there on the left are the dropdowns for each store. Here's the link for Bloodwing

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=B08F6MQ473&ref=nb_sb_noss

Now then, when you compare these two pages, you will rapidly discover a problem. (I did this logged out to prevent any shenanigans). When you examine the drop down for "Kindle Store" you'll find that the second book appears in various browse categories. Meanwhile the first book (which has identical keywords) appears in none.

Funny how this automated system can produce two totally different sets of results for two books (with identical metadata that are even in the same SERIES) that are right next to each other in my bibliography, isn't it? If my book isn't in any browse categories, then it won't get a sales rank, now will it?

You'll then find the second book (published three days ago) is absent from either new releases list, while the first book (published sixteen days ago) is on page nine of the 30-day list.

This isn't the first time I've discovered this. During my last investigation, it turned out books wouldn't appear on the new releases list until they've had at least one sale and have a sales rank. This, of course, creates the old "keep the poor people in their place" paradox: you can't be on the list until your book sells, your book won't sell because it's not on the list.

If you will go back and re-examine the links in the URL for the second book Bloodwing, you'll see that the page insists it also appears on the 30-day and 90-day lists. Except it doesn't, despite the fact it was published 72 hours ago. At least it doesn't appear before its series mate, which went live sixteen days ago. I took the liberty of looking up the "hot 100 new releases" lists in all SEVEN browse categories. Only the first book appeared at #70 on the list for two-hour reads. Neither book appeared anywhere else.

This is the 30-day military science fiction new releases list:

https://www.amazon.com/s?i=digital-text&bbn=158591011&rh=n%3A133140011%2Cn%3A154606011%2Cn%3A668010011%2Cn%3A158591011%2Cn%3A6157856011%2Cp_n_date%3A1249100011&dc&fst=as%3Aoff&qid=1596653602&rnid=158591011&ref=sr_nr_n_16

The #4 book on the list is called Direct Fire. Must be one hell of a book too. 55 5-star ratings. Top 1000 in the store. Only problem is it was published 15 days ago. The book right after it Forgotten Empire, in the number five slot, was published 27 days ago.

Both are in Kindle Unlimited too but I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong (God knows nobody on this site is bashful) but this accounts for the very last avenue any author had on Amazon for organic visibility, absent some wild-ass random search result. If there is no organic visibility on Amazon, then it makes no difference at all how fast books are released, which means no matter what an author does, or how hard they work, they will get no sales on Amazon unless they bring their own readers. Amazon is not going to provide you with even one opportunity to put your book somewhere it might be seen unless you drop some cash on the table, even if you write two books a month.

In other words, you can't just pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Getting favored treatment is mandatory. You cannot earn it. You must be chosen.

The other thing we can conclude from all of this is there are criteria for appearing on the "new releases" list that have nothing to do with whether your book is a new release. Actual new releases are locked out until those criteria are met (we have no official word on what those are) while the clock runs. Authors are left to guess, and what better use of an author's time than to speculate and experiment with "solve a puzzle, win a prize" on a site they don't control? It reminds me of people who believed there was such a thing as SEO while they fretted day and night trying to untangle the mixed signals they got from Google's search results. Then once they figured out how to get their sites visible, Google changed the rules and locked them all out again. These people were invited to believe that deplatforming is new. It isn't. De-platforming is something these sites have been perfecting ever since they put their plans in motion to centralize control and lock the people who built the Internet out. Yes, I sound like Jerry Maguire. You'll recall Jerry Maguire won.

Now I've sent an e-mail to KDP to inquire about this, and I'm sure I will get a very polite non-response. The bottom line here is that publishing a book and getting it in front of a buying audience has become a video game. It's us against Amazon, with our interlocutor doing everything in its trillion-dollar power to keep our books from getting to readers. Amazon wants exclusive rights. They want control over our pricing. They want to slap a $0.00 price on our book and whore it out for pennies while we send hundreds and thousands of fresh new customers to their site night and day. What do we get in exchange for all this? Practically nothing. Amazon takes what they like and then sits on our money for two months.

I'm not an elite. I'm not entitled to visibility or the privileges of being chosen. Neither of my books have sold at all, at least on Amazon. Did Amazon notify my "followers" (lol) I had two new books out? Apparently not. If you go to my book's pages you'll find Amazon isn't advertising anything on those pages. They're completely bare. See if you can guess why? Why would you advertise on a page where you know there will never be any traffic?

BY THE WAY:

I still have the stats from the last time I was stupid enough to spend money on AMS ads. I know exactly how many people visited the Amazon page for Dawnsong: The Last Skyblade over a four month period. You would be shocked to know how few people actually showed up on a site with millions and billions of customers.

I also now know with certainty why my LitRPG, non-fiction, romance and fantasy books didn't sell. Amazon just turned them off because I'm a military science fiction author. The robot doesn't understand anything else, so those hundreds of thousands of words I've written in other genres? Eh, toss 'em. The robot doesn't care about your hard work. All that matters is what number is in the database column labeled "morlock author type."

Amazon has decided that I shouldn't have a writing career. They have decided they are not interested in selling my books (unless I'm innovative enough to just hand them 30% of my gross in exchange for nothing) I was kicked out of a promising technology career in my mid-30s. I was kicked out and left to the streets when my uncle and felon grandmother stole my mother's house from me. Now I'm being kicked out of being an author after nine years of hard work. If I want a writing career, I'm going to have to build it myself, because when I try to work with others, I get lied to and cheated.

If you have a writing career in mind, and you are relying on Amazon, there are some things you should know: 1) You have a job 2) Your job is to send traffic to Amazon 3) You may receive an optional paycheck 4) You are subject to termination with or without cause 5) You work for a robot.

You are part of the new breed of corporate dream employee. You agree to occasional paychecks or no paychecks. You require no benefits or job security. You can be thrown out on the sidewalk on a whim. Your elite corporate paymaster controls the money and all your property. You will have a four-inch-wide leather strap tightly cinched around your neck before you are hauled up on the ever-accelerating treadmill to run for your life. When you collapse from exhaustion or die you'll be thrown in the trash to make room for the next slave.

I've written for Amazon for nine years and sold thousands of books. I still can't afford to go to the dentist.

Now go to this page:

https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/

See right there under the video where it says "reach millions of readers on Amazon?" (This page hasn't changed at all since I signed up for KDP in 2011)

What they fail to mention is you are responsible for the millions of readers.

Amazon isn't getting another minute of my time.
 
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#27 ·
I didn't have a mailing list, a reader group, or anything at all for my first three or four years in the business. i'd sold probably 500K books by then. And my stuff has always sold well in audio with virtually no push from me. People see the cover and the title and the reviews, and they click, I guess.

Again--just because it doesn't work for everybody, and just because mailing lists and ads CAN help, doesn't mean there's no such thing as organic sales.

The new releases list in any genre is ONLY the Top 100 books published within the last three months in that genre. It doesn't include every book in that genre.

Rapid release is one method to try to achieve more sales. It doesn't work for everybody, because--and this is the main thing--NOT ALL BOOKS SELL. It also isn't necessary. Many authors sell great without rapid release. There are a number of paths that CAN work. That does not mean they WILL work.

The main question I'd have is this. How does believing what you believe help you? It seems to be simply angering you. How is that useful? What could you do that might help you more?

One thing most successful authors do is--take a good, hard, cold look at what you're putting out there. What isn't quite good enough? What could be better? How do your books, really and truly, stack up against the best sellers in your genre?

Maybe you don't have enough distance for this. Ask an honest friend! Better yet, ask ten. That's what I did before I first published. I learned so much from my brutally honest friends. I still learn a lot from reviews, from straight-out asking readers. Not just what DOESN'T work, but what DOES work. Do more of what you do well.

But meanwhile, if your first books have crappy reviews, is there a pattern to them? If there is, it's not that readers don't appreciate your genius. It's that your books HAVE A PROBLEM. (And potential readers look at those "intro books," and they'll think--nah. Despite what people sometimes say, readers don't hate 5-star reviews! They like high reviews that say something genuine.)

One solution is to take those books down, FIX the problem, and republish them. Then take what you learned from fixing them and apply that knowledge. Find a better hook. Package better. Work on your promotional strategies, so that when your book DOES get in front of readers, they are intrigued enough to click, and when they read the Look Inside, or better yet, an excerpt right there on the product page, they want to read that book.

Or you can decide it's too much work for too uncertain a reward, and just stop. Write for yourself for a while. Remember what you love about it. See if a few months or years bring you more perspective and more life knowledge to put into your books. Heck, I didn't start writing fiction until I was over 50. Most of what my readers like about my stuff, I'd never have been able to produce until then. I'm a whole heck of a lot smarter about life than I was when I was in my 30s, I'll tell you that.

Some writers do great in their 30s. More power to them! Like I said. Many paths. Everybody has to forge their own.
 
#28 ·
Shane Lochlann Black said:
If it were possible to achieve sustainable sales growth without mailing lists or advertising, none of the top-selling authors on this board would be spending money on them. Yet every single one of them does.

Case closed.
It could just be that, if you can get organic sales with no mailing lists or advertising, you're pretty much guaranteed to get far more sales WITH mailing lists and advertising.
 
#30 ·
Shane Lochlann Black said:
I'm just trying to make my way in the universe. But I've proven there's no such thing as just writing books and organically building a readership on Amazon. It cannot be done. I defy anyone to prove otherwise. If you accept that challenge, then you must demonstrate to these fine people the exact mechanism by which your book becomes visible to readers without a mailing list, an established readership or advertising.

The debate is over.
Even if you were right, why do you expect Amazon or any other platform to give you success for free with no work on it? Why does Amazon or any other platform has to owe you or anyone else free organic distribution? They don't!

No one is entitled success and don't blame Amazon or BookBub or anyone else for it. There were people succeeding on Amazon organically before, now there is less and less of that. Sad. But what's the point of bitching about it? Build your own email list and get the first sales from there and Amazon algos will then start helping. Simple. Don't like it? Quit or quit complaining about it.

You're super negative at this point. You're not looking for objective test results, you're just looking for any detail to prove yourself right and show that Amazon is evil... You're blinded by anger. Just happy to prove your own point... Throwing out challenges to prove you wrong and not listening to those who do post different stories to yours, going around blaming whole forum for failing as authors etc You're super negative. Maybe it's time to seriously look in the mirror and ask why you're so angry at the world? Maybe it's less to do with Amazon as you and everyone else on this forum have an amazing opportunity to self-publish and not wait for anyone's approval, to build an email list of fans who appreciate your work and then sell to them and then get benefits of that.

We still live in the best age to be alive as a Creative! Appreciate it and maybe your times will get better and easier. Or don't and live in permanent angry depression that doesn't help you succeed in life more at all. Your choice.
 
#31 ·
why do you expect Amazon or any other platform to give you success for free with no work on it?
I don't. And let's be fair. 30% of my sales go to pay for whatever I get. Nobody's asking for or expecting a free lunch here.

Why does Amazon or any other platform has to owe you or anyone else free organic distribution?
Nobody said they did. But again, let's be fair. The signup page for KDP still says "reach millions of readers on Amazon." It hasn't changed in at least nine years. If just one of my books was actually seen by say, two million readers, I could retire the next day.

No one is entitled success
No one said they were.

and don't blame Amazon or BookBub or anyone else for it.
Nobody is blaming anyone. I simply pointed out the new releases list isn't a new releases list and Amazon confirmed it.

There were people succeeding on Amazon organically before
If this thread has accomplished nothing else, it has conclusively disproven the organic sales myth. It is no different than the "revenue share" model so many people attempt when collaborating on a creative project. "Join us, and when the product ships we'll all share the revenue!" It doesn't work, no matter how many times it's tried. If it did work, every major developer, producer and publisher on Earth would be using it because it would save them millions of dollars a month in payroll, insurance and taxes. They don't use it. Why? Because it doesn't work. The end.

If organic sales worked, nobody would spend money on mailing lists or advertising. Yet they all do. Why? Because organic sales doesn't work. The end.

You're not looking for objective test results
Not any more. Rapid release is pointless if my books are locked out of the new releases list.

going around blaming whole forum for failing as authors etc
I'm blaming no one. I am simply pointing out a fact that was later directly confirmed by KDP support.

Then we're back to the accusations of bitterness and anger. Let me tell you a story. If you kick a dog every day on the way to work and then one day you show up to work in an ambulance because the dog bit your [Uranus] out, who is in the wrong? I'll give you a hint: it's not the dog.

People get bitter and angry when they are lied to. And they have every right to be bitter and angry because lying is wrong.

The Lie: If you write a lot of books and publish them all really fast, the magic algorithm will notice you and carry you aloft to live among the angels.

The Truth: If you write a lot of books and publish them all really fast, you'll have a really long list of invisible books.

If you stop lying, they'll stop being bitter and angry. It really isn't that complicated.
 
#32 ·
I am not talking to you at this point, Shane, because you are not listening. But maybe somebody else needs to hear this.

Every. Single. Successful author started out in exactly the same place. With a book. Maybe they sold it to a tradpub, either easily or after a lot of slogging. Maybe they published it as an indie. Maybe they were wide. Maybe in Select. They all found a way to get their book out there. Maybe they spent money on advertising, and maybe they worked with a network of other authors and cross-promoted each other's books. Maybe they did some of all of that. Maybe they hit big out of the gate and kept going. Maybe they hit big and then stumbled. Maybe they made a lot of mistakes early on and got better at all of it--at writing, at packaging, at promoting.

Publishing, no matter how you do it, involves an endless series of tiny microdecisions. Nobody makes all the right ones. The trick is to, first, have the talent, or develop the talent, to write books people want to read, and then to make enough right decisions along the way to get those books into enough hands that you build a career.

Nobody gets it all right. Nobody is owed one single solitary thing. NOBODY (except maybe one of those scammers) promised that all you had to do was write books and release them fast, and you'd succeed. NOBODY, not Amazon, not Nook, not iBooks, not Google Play, not your publisher, promised that your book would magically be SEEN by all the millions of POTENTIAL readers out there. All you can do is give it your best shot, try and do it better next time, and repeat. For as long as it takes. Or until you decide to spend your time and energy on something else.

Why do something that makes you mad and doesn't give you the return you want? If I tried day trading and lost my money, I'd quit day trading and get a regular job. If I tried art but couldn't paint anything people wanted to pay for, I'd paint for fun like 99.9% of people do and ... get a regular job. There's no difference. It's an opportunity, that's all, and one I feel lucky to have. There are no guarantees.
 
#33 ·
NOBODY (except maybe one of those scammers) promised that all you had to do was write books and release them fast, and you'd succeed.
Provably false.

https://www.amazon.com/Rapid-Release-Write-Publish-Profit-ebook/dp/B07MYJT332



NOBODY, not Amazon, not Nook, not iBooks, not Google Play, not your publisher, promised that your book would magically be SEEN by all the millions of POTENTIAL readers out there.
I know what "reach millions of readers on Amazon" implies to me. Perhaps you have some alternative interpretation.

What I do know is this: there is no level of talent that will sell books without advertising, a mailing list and an established readership. The debate is over.
 
#35 ·
It's a New Release Best Sellers list.
That is correct, and wouldn't it be thrilling if it were labeled as such?

If it was list of every single book that had been released in the last thirty days, it would tens of thousands of books long.
Heavens to Betsy! Tens of thousands of books!? Whatever would we do? If only we had machines that could organize and store large amounts of information!
 
#36 ·
This needs to be addressed too:

I didn't have a mailing list, a reader group, or anything at all for my first three or four years in the business.
Obviously you are far more talented than the rest of us. You have the power to sell invisible books. For us mere mortals, we need a business plan that doesn't rely on magic and fairy dust.

The new releases list in any genre is ONLY the Top 100 books published within the last three months in that genre. It doesn't include every book in that genre.
Yes. We know that now. It would be nice if it were labeled as such, but I'm afraid I've run out of wishes.

How do your books, really and truly, stack up against the best sellers in your genre?
They were written by someone who doesn't spend six figures a year on advertising. Do you consider Chris Fox to be talented? Think he sells better than me? (Hint: he does) Think he's a better author than me? (Hint: He probably is) Go look up what the man spends on advertising. He's a talented and capable guy. Shouldn't have any trouble selling his books at this point, should he? Yet for some reason he spends north of $120k a year on ads. See if you can guess why?

How does believing what you believe help you?
Because it prevents me from wasting time on sales strategies that don't work. Rapid release not only doesn't work, it can't, and I have conclusively demonstrated why it can't work.

I write about it here in the hopes it will save the next author the time and trouble of pursuing any sales strategy other than having a mailing list, ads and an established readership. Do not waste your time trying to outmaneuver the system. If you think you can beat the system, you will probably be surprised to learn the system beats back.

If you want to win football games, you do it with blocking, tackling and holding the goshdarnn ball properly. Yeah, those aren't sexy, but they WIN FOOTBALL GAMES EVEN IF YOU AREN'T TOM BRADY. You don't win football games with 99-yard kickoff returns.

If you want to win football games, and your strategy is being Tom Brady when you aren't Tom Brady, I've got news for you.

Anyone my age will remember the Oakland Raiders of old. They were the ugliest football team on the planet. They didn't have any spectacular flashy athletes. They didn't have boatloads of talent. But they won Super Bowls and they were World Champions. The reason is because they executed on fundamentals like having a running game and an offensive line that could block. They had some of the greatest special teams play in the history of the game, and if you stand quietly on the field in Oakland you can still hear the sweat coming off opposing offenses when they faced that silver and black defense.

I may not be the most talented writer alive. I may not have the golden touch when it comes to marketing. That's why my approach to book selling is smashmouth football. Three yards and a cloud of dust. I'm through launching the ball into the end zone hoping someone on my team catches it.
 
#37 ·
Rapid release is an idea in the book Rapid Release, which has sold fairly well. But Amazon never promised it would work (nor, I assume, does the author), for every book. I'm pretty sure the same percentage of authors selling well on Amazon are about the same percentage that are able to make a living from TRAD PUB book deals. We can't all be successful authors any more than we can all be doctors or laywers, or CEO's at IBM. It's not because Amazon is racist, hates Indie authors, or only shed's a golden light on certain books. It's all computer and algorithm driven! That means there is a chance, that even if a book is weak, it will sell - and the opposite is true. Even if it is strong, it might NOT sell. Of course, the odds go way up if you have superior talent or a timely book.

"If you build it they will come". Well, yeah, maybe. Amazon came, they built it, and there are millions of readers just surfing around the book pages. Getting your book seen by those millions of people is your problem, not Amazon's. It can happen organically, but you have to have a superior product 99% of the time. They built it, so I do some writing, I do some advertising, and I profit. And, since I have a little success at Amazon, I refuse to send any more of my novels to TRAD PUBS since they don't want to play with me! I'm taking my book and going home (to Amazon).
 
#39 ·
I just wanted to say a quick thanks for posting your results on this.  Sorry to hear that things didn't pan out with the rapid release, but it's useful for people out here to hear your experience with that system.  I'm a casual guy with this stuff, and I'd be happy to always be casually writing odd things, and doing it pretty slowly, so for me this post has been like getting the results from an experiment I will never run.  Will I ever be a rapid releaser?  Probably not.  But now I have a little more info about the new release list than I did before, and I appreciate it.
 
#40 ·
Shane Lochlann Black said:
Provably false.

[links removed]
I haven't read the book you linked, but I listen to 6 Figure Authors and they don't make the claim you're attributing to them. They advertise rapid release, and advocate doing so. They never said it results in organic traffic on Amazon. They said it rapid release allows for better conversion on early books in the series, and lower advertising costs overall vs spreading releases out. This is very different from your claim.
 
#41 ·
Shane Lochlann Black said:
Heavens to Betsy! Tens of thousands of books!? Whatever would we do? If only we had machines that could organize and store large amounts of information!
Your visibility would go from zero seconds to two seconds. And visibility for authors who are driving traffic and producing revenue for Amazon would drop to that same 2 seconds.

How does that help anybody?

The current merit based system seems better than a time based system.
 
#42 ·
Musings and spoutings on podcasts does not constitute either proof or fact.

To look at why some of these people have had success with methods discussed (not just rapid release--any methods), you need to look at the complete picture. Their genre, their predisposition to working in a particular way, how their previous work was received. You also need to look at the work involved.

One thing I do agree with in a way, and that is that organic visibility on Amazon (or anywhere else, really) is not something you should worry about, assume or even aim for. It's something out of control, and like fame, it is more likely than not to disappear. So it's better to operate your business without assuming that you'll get it, ever.

Take control of your own audience. In a way, that's what you're doing with rapid release: making sure that when people who read your first in series, they have somewhere to go next and don't have to wait months for the next book. You're forgoing having releases in the time when you're writing all these books. This is a problem if you don't work fast. The podcasts concludes exactly the same thing. It does not make sense for everyone to do this.

But. Above all, you must have series where people like book 1 and that people want to continue reading. If you have that, frankly, any method will be profitable.
 
#43 ·
I find the OP a fascinating study in someone who speaks passionately and with an air of authority but has absolutely no grasp of the business side of publishing. Write your book but then switch hats an become a business person. That doesn't mean complaining about the system. Work with it. If you don't like Amazon (and I like that they've allowed me to write full time, make a significant income, and do what I love to do), then publish wide, but know you'll have the same visibiiity issues there, only with a smaller audience. You can launch a new name in the current climate and succeed. I've been publishing since 2013, but love to experiment and I did it last year. Stop talking, start listening, and work to improve, but making universal statements that are simply wrong does those who don't know better a disservice.
 
#44 ·
Patty Jansen said:
Musings and spoutings on podcasts does not constitute either proof or fact.

To look at why some of these people have had success with methods discussed (not just rapid release--any methods), you need to look at the complete picture. Their genre, their predisposition to working in a particular way, how their previous work was received. You also need to look at the work involved.

One thing I do agree with in a way, and that is that organic visibility on Amazon (or anywhere else, really) is not something you should worry about, assume or even aim for. It's something out of control, and like fame, it is more likely than not to disappear. So it's better to operate your business without assuming that you'll get it, ever.

Take control of your own audience. In a way, that's what you're doing with rapid release: making sure that when people who read your first in series, they have somewhere to go next and don't have to wait months for the next book. You're forgoing having releases in the time when you're writing all these books. This is a problem if you don't work fast. The podcasts concludes exactly the same thing. It does not make sense for everyone to do this.

But. Above all, you must have series where people like book 1 and that people want to continue reading. If you have that, frankly, any method will be profitable.
I'm just about to start reading your three year plan, the first I purchased some time ago. I don't know what is in it yet, but if you don't mention the changes that have taken place you might be a good person to do that. it sounds like a lot more up front money is needed now than was needed in the past.
 
#45 ·
absolutely no grasp of the business side of publishing
Ironic that you criticize others' knowledge while you simultaneously contend authors can sell books by osmosis and telepathy.

making universal statements that are simply wrong does those who don't know better a disservice.
That is correct, and the current undisputed heavyweight champion of universally wrong statements is that someone can build a readership by publishing really fast.

Again, if organic sales were sustainable and led to revenue growth, Bookbub, ads and mailing lists would be obsolete.

They aren't, so it isn't.

This discussion has been going on for years. So far nobody has described the mechanism by which a new book becomes visible to readers without advertising, an established readership or a mailing list. The reason they haven't is because there is no such mechanism. These are all facts. Confirmed facts. They are no longer in dispute. The debate is over.

Home Depot is one of the most successful retailers on Earth. Build one at the exact halfway point between Barstow and Baker, California and it will go out of business in six weeks no matter how many sales they have. Nobody is going to drive 40 miles out into the goshdarnn desert to buy 2x4s.

Telling people otherwise is cruel, destructive and misleading. Further it is grossly unfair. Now, if you want to believe in magic fairy dust by all means do as you will. Your books will remain invisible and will not sell no matter how talented you are and no matter how much you spent on your cover. I defy you to prove otherwise.
 
#46 ·
I'm really thankful to Amazon for giving me the opportunity to share my stories. I'm also happy that rapid releases don't get the desired mileage, and thanks to Amazon yet again for attempting to maintain a merit based system. This is good for quality of books published as against quantity. This also gets rid of the  harmful influence of the speed gurus who have made a big business by writing how to write thousands of words in an hour books. Do they practice what they preach everyday?
 
#48 ·
Shane Lochlann Black said:
That is correct, and wouldn't it be thrilling if it were labeled as such?

Heavens to Betsy! Tens of thousands of books!? Whatever would we do? If only we had machines that could organize and store large amounts of information!
A list with tens of thousands of books on it is going to be virtually useless. I would love it if the lists were a little longer - say the top 250, or even the top 500 - but anything beyond that is likely going to be a waste.

And as for the name, it is called the Amazon Hot New Release list. So even though it doesn't specifically say it's the top 100 books, the title definitely implies that it's not just every new release in the whole store.
 
#49 ·
Shane Lochlann Black said:
I never said I was owed anything. I buy my readers. Just like you do.
Well, I don't know how your fiction's doing, Shane, but I can tell you your kboards posts rarely disappoint. They're compelling, and compulsively readable. I don't mean that snidely, either, I genuinely enjoy your musings - even when I disagree.

I believe someone wise once said it's best to write when angry (or perhaps it was, 'emotional'). In any case, it seems to work for you... that is, if you are - in fact - angry. Regardless, I wish you and anyone reading this thread the best, whether you're doing rapid releases, advertising, both, or none of the above.
 
#50 ·
P.A. Woodburn said:
I'm just about to start reading your three year plan, the first I purchased some time ago. I don't know what is in it yet, but if you don't mention the changes that have taken place you might be a good person to do that. it sounds like a lot more up front money is needed now than was needed in the past.
I don't get this response. Crummy cover and crummy editing have not been tickets to hot sales since, oh, 2012. All the rest, don't get too carried away. Just never spend more than you earn. That's all there is to it. You don't "have" to spend big on ads. At all.
 
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