Tracking Amazon Rankings

Okay, I admit it, I'm addicted to tracking my story's rankings on Amazon (and checking sales). I don't know why precisely, but I like to see when one of my stories drops below the 100k mark. That's an indicator of sales, but not an indicator of major sales (you have to drop down into the 10-20k range for decent sales and the 1-5k range for good sales, and the below 1k rank for sellng like hot cakes).

Honestly, however, the sales rankings on Amazon mean nothing to a writer. Not really. Those rankings, according to noted authority James D. MacDonald over on the Absolute Write forum, are for the readers to allow them to judge the popularity of a book they might be thinking about purchasing.

Personally, I'm beginning to think it's a mistake to put rankings up at all. It's definitely a mistake for a writer to obsess over them and fret about them.

I mean, if you walk into a brick and morter bookstore, you're not going to see books arrayed in some kind of artificial ranking system. You'll see bestsellers, new releases, and books laid out for special sales or holiday seasons, but you will never see a ranking number attached to those books or see them placed on the shelves in any specific order.

What the Amazon rankings do is tell a reader "Hey, this book is popular". The idea begins with the assumption that a reader cannot judge for themselves what book they're actually looking for. In essence, Amazon's ranking system assumes the reader is stupid in my opinion. The rankings, made by some arbitrarily mysterious algorithm, can even be "gamed" (and have been) by savvy or clever marketers. The rankings are not, as is commonly believed, based solely on sales alone (though they probably should be), but Amazon won't tell us what the rest is based on. A guess can be made that it's partially sales, partially searches, partially value, etc., etc., all of which factor into the algorthm that spits out an arbitrary number that the writers can obsess over the numbers and the readers can make entirely arbitrary decisions about the work without even sampling it.

The fact is, the only numbers that should matter to the writer are sales - and they shouldn't matter all that much. Stories either work or they don't. It is impossible to predict whether a story will sell or appeal to readers or not (believe me, some of the stuff I thought was my best work has so far flopped worse than a freshly-caught trout on a rock).

Amazon's rankings might be intended to attract readers, but I think readers should think for themselves. Only you know what you like. Amazon can make suggestions based on what you've purchased or searched for previously, but they can't tell the reader what they like any more than the writer can predict what the reader is going to like and buy.

Be your own person. Read what you want. Do not let Amazon or anyone else try to steer you in any particular direction as a reader.

As a writer, forget those rankings. They're not for you. Look at your sales instead, but don't obsess over them either. You've got better things to do.

Like writing your next piece.

Get busy.

25 Things Writers Should Stop Doing

I stumbled over this great post by Chuck Wendig posted by John Helfers today on FaceBook so I'm linking to it. Lots of great advice in this one and I'm guilty of doing a lot of them myself.

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2012/01/03/25-things-writers-should-stop-doing/

The Battle of Christmas

A horror poem for the season.

###

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the halls
Something evil was stirring, but not in the malls.
Twas at the North Pole all covered with snow
That it all started with no one to know

The elves felt it first and first were to fall
A sickness among them that started to crawl
And one by one they started to blow
To kill one another and redden the snow

That wasn't the end as the reindeer came next
As elves fell upon them with teeth, claw, and axe
Comet went first, then Cupid and Vixen
Till all that were left were Rudolph and Blitzen

Bravely they fought in retreat to the Shop
Where Santa and others with fear were fraught
As two mighty reindeer killed elves by the lot
But step by step were forced back to the Shop

Within the Shop only Santa could think
As dozens of elves brought the whole kitchen sink
Rudolph and Blitzen were doing their best
But a whole day of fighting had measured their best

Within the Toy Shop sat Santa's sleigh
A little red cart just a few feet away
If Rudolph could reach it away they could fly
But elves were before them, behind them, and sly

Then Blitzen told Rudolph and Santa he'd hold
Elves in the snow till the sleigh could be rolled
Out of the Shop and up into the sky
Guided by Rudolph's sole bleeding eye

Though wounded and bleeding brave Blitzen attacked
And countless were the elves that he racked
Rudolph fell back and shed neither tear
For Santa stood there aquiver in fear

Covered in blood and wounded in stride
Brave Rudolph listened as old Blitzen died
Then facing the old man he said with a snark
This is for you you worthless old fart

Into the sleigh he pushed the old man
And under the harness he pushed his own van
A few moments later ahead of the elves
The little red sleigh leaped above the ice shelves

But by the time they reached the first of their stops
Poor Rudolph knew it'd all been for naught
For Santa was sick with what felled the elves
And Rudolph was nearing the end of himself

And when Santa slipped down the first chimney so free
It was with evil intent and malevolent glee
And Rudolph stood by on the roof with the sleigh
Knowing next year there'd be no going this way

###

Infection & After Action Report On PubIt! (B&N)

Or they soon will be (24-72 hours).

I waited an awful long time to get things working for the B&N Nook, but I have a bit more incentive now. They're another outlet for sales that I've left neglected for far too long.

This gives me Smashwords, Amazon, and now Barnes & Noble as sales points fir my work.

Yea, me!

Short story "Infection" Published

My 5600 word short science fiction/horror story "Infection" has been published on Smashwords and Amazon for the Kindle. Price is $0.99.

"Infection" is a story of love, loss, and hope in the midst of catastrophe.

HATCHINGS Added To Amazon Prime

As an experiment I've placed my 80k word hard SF novel HATCHINGS in the new Amazon Prime listing for the Kindle. If you're a Prime member you can download the book for free whereas it's $3.99 regularly for Kindle.

I'm not doing this out of the goodness of my heart. As I said, this is an experiment, and I'll get a percentage of a pot that Amazon has created for books in the Prime listings for each time the book is downloaded.

So, if you want to read a hard science fiction novel with giant insects, action, and adventure for FREE, become an Amazon Prime member and download HATCHINGS. Recommend it to your friends too.

I want to see how this book does over the next 90 days as a Prime listing.

In addition, if you've read any of my stuff, why not drop by Amazon and leave a comment or review? Good, bad, or indifferent, I won't mind (well, I might if it's really scathing, but I'll bite my tongue and withhold any retort)? Comments and reviews are important to writers and maybe more so to reader's. I know a few folks out there have read my stuff (sales figures and a check from Amazon every so often proves that), but my work needs more reviews.

Hunted, for example, just sold another copy, but no one's reviewed it yet. For such an exciting story I'm surprised at this. HATCHINGS sold 3 (yeah, not a huge number, but it's still sales) copies last month, but not a single review. After Action Report has sold dozens of times, but hasn't been reviewed or even comment on. The only review has been for Code Of Law, which wasn't exactly my best effort, and it got 3 stars.

So, go become a Prime member and download HATCHINGS for free. And drop by my G.W. Ellis page and leave some reviews for my other work too.

C'mon, I dare you.

How To Embarass A Writer

I recently had a poster on another website forum email me, essentially asking for advice, but one of the things the poster said in their message damn near made my hair stand on end.

I quote,

I downloaded a sample of Hatchings, and it seems to be a very American contribution to the British school of Guy N Smith, Graham Masterton and James Herbert. Good show, old chap, haha.

Now, of course, I denied being anywhere near as good as these Masters. In response, the poster stated,

Right, right, I meant 'in the vein of the Brits', not quite 'on the level of' :), although there's really not much difference between what I read of your style and Smith's. In fact yours may be a tad better, but he had the luck of entering the field in the middle of the 70's horror boom. Like entering the romantic werewolf field today, I guess.

If you want to embarrass a writer, this is an excellent way to go at it. Its incredibly flattering, but there's no way I believe I'm anywhere near as good as Masterson, Smith, or Herbert. I'm getting better, but I'm not there yet.

I do find it interesting that the poster noted that my work appeared to be a very American contribution in the same vein as the British Masters he cites. My early upbringing was in a household in the middle of Ohio with a very Scottish patriarchy, a very close relationship to England, and a matriarchal lineage that was also very English and German. There've been times I've been caught slipping into accented conversation when I didn't even realize I was doing it. In addition, for years I used certain wordage in my writing that was very English without even realizing I was doing it wrong for an American audience or in accordance with American English.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a proud American and I'm proud of my heritage.

I just never quite realized how deeply that heritage had actually affected everything I do.

All writers have heritages. Our stories, our characters, our mannerisms are based in our heritage, probably on a much deeper level than we realize. We show a certain face to the outside world, but our stories are dredged up from deep within our psyches. There's a point where we cannot distinguish what's in our psyche and what's flowing from our fingers in our stories.

Please, forgive us. We too, are products of our heritage.

And because I'm a product of my heritage, it's both embarrassing and incredibly elevating to be compared to, or placed in the same vein as, certain Master writers.

Mostly embarrassing right now.

Veteran's Day

One more thing - if you know a vet, thank him and shake his hand.

Today is the day to remember that, in the words of the Billy Ray Cyrus song, "All Gave Some, Some Gave All".

I'd also like to recommend the video "Waltzing Matilda" that's circulating on YouTube and the video from 3 Doors Down (I think) for "We Are One" that should also be available on YouTube.

Remember the veterans in your own family especially, but remember them all.

All gave some. Some gave all.

God bless all veterans everywhere.

Two New Short Stories

Two new short stories, Hate Music and Hunted, were posted to Amazon for the Kindle and Smashwords for all other platforms earlier this month. They are both currently available for $0.99 each.

Hate Music is a 1thousand word science fiction story set in my Fire On The Suns universe with a darkly humorous twist.

Hunted is an 1800-word horror story with action so fast and furious it will leave you gasping for breath.

I should have Infection, a 5 thousand word horror story, available by the end of this month (it just needs a final review and editing pass).

Work is progressing on Porter's Way, a western/horror short story (that's trying to turn into a novella) set in a world where magic and the Old West co-exist (but this ain't Deadlands, folks), Fire On The Suns (my military space opera novel based on my FOTS game universe) which has reached 55+ thousand words, and an as-yet untitled short story featuring the Devil being grilled by a talk show pundit on his relationship with God. That one's up to about 2 thousand words currently.

I've temporarily ceased working on The Midnight Box, a Quentin Dallas short story due to "issues" with the legendary source material. Still, I might pick it back up after the first of the year along with the novels Gated and Third Pulse, both of which I expect to finish next year.

To-date, I've finished and published 1 novel, 10 short stories, and a collection since late January when I started this 5-year project. I intend to finish at least 1 more novel and 2-5 short stories between now and the end of the year (my goal was 2 novels and 12-15 short stories when I started this thing). I've noticed that my productivity appears to have increased as the year has progressed and I'm putting up better, more polished, much more professional work as I go along.

Give me 4 more years and I might even be decent.

New Collection On Smashwords/Kindle

I just put my first 6-pack of short stories up for publishing via Smashwords and Kindle for $2.99. You'll get 6 stories for the price of 3, a couple of them in previously-unpublished form.

The book "The Light Of An Oncoming Train: A 6-Pack Of Short Fiction" ought to be available from Amazon for the Kindle in a couple days. Smashwords might take a bit longer.

Remember

Today is, as I'm sure everyone knows by now, the 10th Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. I remember where I was and what I was doing. Do you?

There's little that I can say that hasn't already been said by pundits and those who survived the attacks already so all I'll say today is remember.

Remember the heroes who went into those buildings while everyone else was going out. Remember the heroes who fought to take back a hijacked aircraft. Remember the heroes who worked themselves to exhaustion trying to save anyone they could in the short time the victims might have had. Remember the heroes who somehow organized the largest waterborne evacuation in history, bigger even than Dunkirk.

Remember the victims who died that day through no fault of their own, struck down by others who only wanted to hurt and kill as many Americans as they possibly could.

And remember that there are still people out there, diabolical, evil, desperate people who still would do anything they can to hurt and kill as many Americans as possible. They remember us.

As we remember our fallen heroes from that day, remember as well the men and women who have fought and died and been injured in the years before and since 9/11 to protect us here at home. I remember them and I stand beside them should the call ever come for me to do so.

Remember, and honor the heroes for the sacrifices they've made and the sacrifices yet to come. In this way we honor them and pay them the enormous debt we owe them all.

Writer worries

I worry that my first novel was my last one, the only one I had in me despite the fact I've got 2 or 3 others in various stages of competion.

I worry that I can't complete several short stories because my day job is sucking the life out of me.

I worry about my next idea not coming soon enough to write it fast enough.

I worry about the rent and the electrical and the cable and the $900 of new medical bills I recently acquired and the condition for which remains untreated.

I worry about not being able to write with hands crippled by arthritis.

What I don't worry about? The fact that the next story idea will come, that I can write it, that I'll get through the occasional doldrums, that writer's block is fleeting and imaginary, a figment of my own procrastination, that every day is an opportunity to improve and grow, that my stuff will sell, that I'm not good enough, that I cannot fail because I won't let myself do so nor will the people who read my stuff, that I can pay the bills next month via my day job, but one day my writing will pay those things for me, that I have a future and part of that future includes me as a writer.

It's called hope.

It's a simple 4-letter word, but it's more powerful than almost any other 4-letter word other than love which it is closely related to. Hope is stronger than hate, stronger than lust, stronger than words far longer and far more recognized. Hope is what drives every human being to strive, to drive, to continue on when dark clouds threaten and the wolves are at the door.

Hope is why we write.

Hope that we can express ourselves such that someone else "out there" might, just might, one day understand.

Hope that we might one day, somehow, some way, make a living writing.

Hope that, by some miracle, fortune might shine upon us one day and we will find that voice and be able to express it such that we know we will have said something important.

Hope that we might, one day, entertain even one single other person.

Hope that we might leave something of ourselves to friends, to family, to people unknown, who will remember us long after we have gone on to the big office beyond.

Hope that some small piece of us remains when we're gone.

Hope.

It's a simple word. A 4-letter word.

But it's a writer's word.

Every writer ought to have it framed over their desk so they can look up at it when the doubts come.

Hope.

It's a conjure word too. It has the ability to conjure a writer to roust himself out of the worst depression, the worst pain, the worst doldrums, the worst of anything you can imagine and drive him back to the keyboard or the pad and pen/pencil.

Hope.

It's a writer's word.

Emblazoned it on your heart and over your hearth and in your mind.

It's your word.

Amazon Kindle Royalties

Yup, you read that right - Amazon Kindle Royalties!

I've got the check sitting right here beside me right now.

It's not an amazing amount, only $12.95 for the period February-April of this year, but it's my first royalty check ever for my fiction work. Someone out there's paid to read my stuff.

That is exciting and exhilarating and scary all at the same time.

It means that I have to create more stories for people to read because I can't make a living on this.

But maybe, just maybe, I've got a chance at this after all.

I started this endeavor earlier this year with a 5-year plan. I'm slightly behind schedule on that plan almost 8 months into it, but receiving this check today has bolstered my hopes and dreams once again. I'm a long way from the finish line of this plan and there's a lot of work, and a lot of learning, left to do yet.

Bit you know what they say - "Money talks, and bullshit walks."

Well, here's money talking. Amazon's been paid for my stories and now they're paying me as promised. I've made more sales since April so I know I'll be receiving more checks in the future.

This is no longer an experiment, no longer a plan, now it's a business.

It's time to get to work.

HATCHINGS Now $0.99 for Limited Time Only

For anyone who's interested, I just dropped the price of my SF novel HATCHINGS to $0.99 for a very limited time period only (till the end of the month at the latest). It'll be available from Kindle by this time tomorrow (gotta' republish & review every time you change pricing for Amazon for some reason) and is available for all other platforms via Smashwords.

FOTS Website Back Up

My old gaming website for Fire On The Suns (FOTS) is back up after a multi-year absence thanks to some good friends who secured the domain name and held onto it until I could get back to it.

You can find the site at www.fire-on-the-suns.com

I've also secured the domain name for GWELLIS.com and will soon make that my primary author site.

I'm looking forward to republishing a large number of items from the old days when my game was going strong and new items that never got off the drawing board. I've got at least 2 novels and a couple of standalone indie games designed by friends from way back too that might actually see the light of day in the future.

It may be that my old desktop publishing company Ellis & Company Piblishing could be raised from the dead due to Smashwords and Kindle.

All hail indie publishing!

HATCHINGS Is Live On Amazon

Actually the book went live on Amazon for the Kindle last month on the fifth.

I just delayed posting a blog here because I was busy elsewhere.

Mainly at my day job, where I work as a department manager in electronics. Anything to pay the bills. There've been quite a few changes in my life since April including a new apartment, putting my mother in a nursing home, and all the attendant bills that that requires. The last couple of weeks I've been plagued by a swollen right hand causes by an infection in the joint in my right index finger. Needless to say, this has made writing much of anything really difficult the last two weeks.

But enough about me even though it's all about me, let's talk about my book.

Or not.

I seem to have gotten Dragon NaturallySpeaking working adequately and I'm using it to write this blog post. I'll also be using it to write my story "Porters Way" which is a western horror fantasy mixed genre intended to be a short, but will probably end up somewhere above 10,000 words. Right now it's standing about 3500 words, but it's really kind of a fun story to write. The genre mix is something that I did back in the days when I played RPG's, but it's never something that I really intended to try to write until now.

Actually, considering everything that's going on in epublishing right now it's looking more and more like RPG publishing might be an economic opportunity. I used to write some killer adventures. At one point in time I even had my own RPG. Of course I also had the game Fire On The Suns (FOTS) and wrote half a dozen rulebooks and supplements for it as well as a couple of spinoff games. FOTS is still going strong in some limited areas on Yahoo! Groups, but it's definitely a fringe market. There are a number of opportunities that someone familiar with the publishing could utilize to break into the RPG market using Kindle, Smashwords, and PubIt!. Most recently I have been asked to assist a fellow writer in formatting her work so she can get it up on Kindle. I'm going to do this at no charge, of course.

Yog's Law: Money flows to the writer.

I've also learned what the problems were with putting some of my stuff up on Smashwords which prevented it getting into the premium catalog. Turns out was a formatting error which was difficult to find or track down in OpenOffice. Once I was able to track it down and kill it, everything went up fine. I spent 15 years doing epublishing, or what was called desktop publishing back then, so I often know a little bit about formatting some of this stuff. My format for Hatchings for CreateSpace went through flawlessly except for my cover which I need to do a minor correction for. Hopefully by next month, I'll have a POD version of Hatchings available.

Well, that's about it for this post. I really do intend to post more frequently, but the demands of my other jobs like writing, finishing up some stuff, and of course paying the bills, tend to prohibit me from getting here as often as I would like.

IT IS FINISHED

I finally completed the final edit of my first novel HATCHINGS this morning. I've posted it to Smashwords and intend to post it to Amazon for Kindle tomorrow morning.

I'll post here when everything goes live.

This has been in the works for 4 years. I first write the first draft between January 1st and April, 2007. Sixty-five thousand words were written in 35 writing days. The rest of the time was taken up by research.

The edits have taken me thevrest of the time.

It's like a tremendous weightbas been lifted from my shoulders.

I have other works to attend to and they're all calling me for attention.

HATCHINGS Has A Cover

The Amazing Artist Ronnell Porter created this cover for my book HATCHINGS and uploaded it to me today (or at least I got it today),



I am absolutely thrilled with this cover as it nearly depicts an image straight from a scene in the book.

Final editing for HATCHINGS will be done in the next 2 weeks and the book should be available by the first of Aprilb(providing I get off my lazy duff and do the final edits).

An Act Of Faith

Many people probably wouldn't believe it if you told them that writing is an act of faith. In fact, most people would probably scoff if you told them that you wrote and indie-published as that act of faith.

They don't believe that you can succeed if you're not a J.K. Rowling or a Stephanie Meyer or a Larry Niven kr any of a thousand others.

They don't BELIEVE.

Writing is an act if faith.

You set your sights on telling a story that's going to entertain someone and you work your heart out on that story. Then you send it out into the world to sink or swim.

Some stories sink, some swim. Some win Olympic Gold.

But every time you sit down to write a story that's an act of faith.

It doesn't matter if you believe in God or Alah or Buddah or whatever, when you sit down to create you sit down to act with a faith that something you're going to do at that moment is going to do and e something good - if not now then sometime layer.

I've got major life issues facing me right now, and I've been told in the past that I'm not ready, and will not be for years, professional publication. I have stress on my day job and I have stress at home. It all affects my writing and my personality.

But I know I will get through this. I have faith.

And every time a writer sits down at their keyboard and types a story, that's an act of faith in that they are good enough, that they have what it takes, that they have the chops to succeed.

You do. I do.

It takes work and it takes faith.

Believe and you'll get there - with time and work.

Very few things happen overnight, but the sun rises every single morning. Your morning (and mine) is only a few hours away at most.

Sales Reports

Wonderful! I finally found the sales reports for my Amazon sales. They're not amazing, but they're sales.

For 02/02 to 03/01/11

After Action Report - 7 sales, 1 refund so 6 net sales
Any Minute Now - 2 sales
Knock On Wood - 2 sales
The Light Of An Oncoming Train - 2 sales

For 03/01 to 03/08/11

After Action Report - 2 sales
Code Of Law - 2 sales

Not impressive, but I bet they'll build. I've only been doing the Amazon thing for about a month after all.

Total royalties - $6.30

Hey! That's beer money!