Saturday, May 3, 2008

A second book by Halloween?

When you're trying to sell a product you think of as many ways as you can to attract customer interest. Of course, there's nothing like a highly desirable product that sells itself, right? But then, even an intriguing product like Amazon's Kindle has to be priced right to generate huge sales. Amazon claims the Kindle sells as fast as they can get it, but I know they won't sell to me until the price takes a big nosedive.

I have several things in mind to increase sales of Flight. One, of course, is to lower the price. I cut the price the other day then noticed Amazon had tacked on a "sourcing fee" equal to amount I had lowered it, $2. I intended the $2 reduction to benefit customers and boost sales, but Amazon has scooped it up. They've scooped up nothing so far. I've contacted CreateSpace for an explanation. I really hope it's a mistake.

[If it's not a mistake, it might be a penalty for not using BookSurge for creating and editing the book. I did everything through CreateSpace -- another Amazon company -- but BookSurge apparently doesn't like people bypassing them. In doing a Google search I found discussions about that and about certain books getting hit with huge sourcing fees that Amazon claims are difficult to obtain. But my book had been with Amazon for a month without a sourcing fee. It's in stock, requiring no additional work on their part that I'm aware of. And I perused a list of other CreateSpace books for sale on Amazon and couldn't find any that had a "sourcing fee." Quite possibly all the books I looked at took the pricey path through BookSurge. At any rate, I'm hoping Amazon removes the penalty fee on my book. It benefits no one.]

Another thing that would help sales is good reviews. I've mailed complimentary copies to several people hoping for a good word somewhere but so far nothing. I will continue looking for potential reviewers.

Third, it would help if my book were paired under Amazon's "Better Together" promotion with another that sells well, so . . .

Why not write another one myself? I'm tentatively planning a nonfiction book based on the research and writing I've been doing on money and banking.

Both books would have a better chance if they were ready for the year-end shopping season. Having them both "Better Together" by Halloween would be ideal.

Yet another possibility is to contact traditional publishers. With the popularity of Revolution, which has moved up to No. 1 on Amazon, I might be able to get one or two of them to take a look at mine.

An early George Gershwin song from the musical "Miss 1917"

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