Let's Talk About Paper.li

This morning, when I was busying myself with all of my various websites, I logged into Twitter and saw this under my "interactions" tab.

I've gotten these paper.li things before - this one is probably the 3rd or 4th one. And, up until today, I never really questioned them, though I did find it strange that so many people seemed to have their own daily newspaper (because really, who is going to read an entire newspaper run online by a nobody?). I've always just gone to the site, looked for what they used off my blog, and closed out of it. Nothing more.

I did the same exact thing with this paper.li notification that I've done with every other one - I went to the website and searched for what they used from me (usually entries off of this blog). In this case, this person had posted a link I randomly decided to post on Twitter yesterday, which was this old preview of Family History: Part 1.

In the past, most of these Paper.li papers were related to things like writing and self publishing, so I never questioned it.

This one, however, seemed geared towards genealogy.

Let's face it - even though Family History: Part 1 and Part 2 contain something of an extensive genealogy, the book itself is just a work of fiction. And when most of the articles on this particular "paper" seem more related to, say, actual genealogy (and not fictional families), then I started to wonder.

I took a look on Twitter, too - this guy and I were never following each other, nor did we have any similar followers. Suspicious!


So, naturally, I did what any "modern-day sleuth" would do, and I consulted Google. A quick search of just "paper.li" led me to this blog post - "Paper.li: Clever Curation or Spammy Automation" by Adam Toporek.

"The first time I was mentioned in a Paper.Li I didn’t understand what had happened. It showed up in my Mentions stream on Twitter that I and a few others had made “The ____ Daily” and were part of the “Top Stories.” I thought the person who had mentioned me had read something of mine and liked it enough to tweet about it. I promptly thanked him for the tweet, but little did I understand that the gentleman in question most likely had no idea who I was or what I had written."

So, you mean to tell me that I'm not actually special?

"I had been picked up by the automated service Paper.Li." 

Automated, you say? Well then, I guess that answers my first question.

"For those who are not familiar with Paper.Li, it is a content “curation” system that publishes multiple Twitter and Facebook feeds and makes a newspaper of sorts."

To be honest, I'm not quite sure I understand the point, taking stuff written by others and posting it all in a newspaper collage of some sorts, but to each his own, am I right? 

Posting to your Paper.Li whatever happens to be in the #smalllbusiness hashtag stream when the Paper.Li runs is not curation, it’s topical aggregation.

Oh, kind of like how this guy posted my months-old "Family History" preview post to his genealogy paper?

If you want to know more about Paper.li, I recommend not only reading the rest of Toporek's blog post, but also taking a look at the comments: where this particular writer is saying, "No, Paper.li has no value," others disagree and add in their two cents as to why.

Does anybody here have anything to say about Paper.li? If so, feel free to comment on this below - I want to know what other's experience has been with this particular website.

Happy Pi Day!

3.1415926...

...that's actually all I know.

Some brief information on Pi (if you don't know): Pi is the ratio between the circumference and diameter of a circle. As in, if you were to take the diameter of a circle and wrap it around a circle, it would take 3.14 times to create a full circle.

Pi is also involved in pretty much every calculation involved in a circle - area, circumference, and volume (of 3-Dimensional shapes) and is overall quite a useful number.

Hooray!

The really awesome Pi day won't come until March 14th, 2015 (3/14/15). The really really awesome Pi day, however, passed us by years ago - 3/14/1592.

Anyways, I also have a few random, miscellaneous announcements to make: firstly, being that the blog Flurries of Woods made Family History: Part 1 their "Book of the Day."

Secondly, and far less importantly, is that one of my posts made the front page of Reddit's r/askreddit. The post itself? Right here. And no, I've totally NOT been watching "Happy Days" these last few days. NOT AT ALL.

Sunday, Monday, Happy Days....

My Personal KDP Select Experiment, Part 2

First off, to anybody paying attention, I'm sorry I haven't posted anything since March 4th. All things considered, it's been something of a hectic week, and I just haven't made time for other things. For those interested, tl;dr: Applying for badass smart-person job in research for the summer, application requires a lot of work, oh, and I got a new iPod. (Not that the latter has anything to do with anything.) Don't worry - I've made hardly any time for Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and even The Night Life.

Anyways, on Sunday, I made a post about how I put everything (excluding Chapter 1 of The Night Life)up for free just to see what happened. I managed to post some preliminary free download numbers, but, because of a glitch in the system, they weren't the final numbers.

If I remember correctly, the glitch was fixed at about 5:00 MST.

Anyways, numbers:

US Downloads

• Family History Part 1: 425
• Family History Part 2: 361
• The Dowry: 95

UK Downloads

• Family History Part 1: 26
• Family History Part 2: 28
• The Dowry: 23

Germany Downloads

• Family History Part 1: 4
• Family History Part 2: 5
• The Dowry: 1

If I recall, Family History Part 1 made it into about ~#33 in Contemporary Romance, while Part 2 was ranked at about ~50-60 in the same category.

If you read Sunday's post, you'll notice that nothing changed dramatically from expected. However, the part that was unexpected were the sales that followed.

You see, I'd gotten so used to nothing in a day, that what happened immediately after the free downloads stopped was somewhat shocking.

12 people bought Family History Part 1 and Part 2 on Sunday.

Squeee.

I thought that the downloads would continue, but alas, that wasn't meant to be.

On Monday, one copy of Family Hisotry Part 1 and Part 2 was sold.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, one copy of Part 1 each day.

And now? Nothing.

So it goes.

My Personal KDP Select Promotion Experiment.

First off, I would like to thank everybody who commented/gave me feedback on the KDP Select Promotion Survey results. The post caught fire, and even after it left the front pages of Reddit and Kindle Boards, it still continues to get views pretty frequently, which is amazing.

Also, considering it was so popular, I'll probably look into doing another poll sometime later this month. Obviously, people enjoy numbers and pretty graphs.

Just to get an idea: this weekend, I got three new followers on my blog, 3 comments on the blog (very rare for me), a few more on Reddit and Kindleboards, and ~500 views on the survey post on Friday (and many more yesterday). Also, the link was retweeted about four or five times on Twitter (also rare for me), and I received another like or two on Facebook.

Again, I can't thank everybody enough, especially those who spread the link around.

Anyways, yesterday, I did my own personal KDP Select Experiment, one that probably won't interest everybody as much, but is nevertheless interesting (at least to me). I put everything - meaning The Dowry, Family History Part 1 and Family History Part 2 up for free. Of course, there were some qualifications, to make sure that one didn't get more exposure than the other.

• I told nobody - this was completely unadvertised.
• All books were free on March 3rd, 2012.

Also, here's what I expected to happen.

• The Dowry, of course, would kill in the free downloads (just like in the past).
• Family History: Part 1 would get about a third of the downloads of The Dowry.
• Family History: Part 2 would get hardly any downloads.

The results were not what I expected. Not at all.

The reason I assumed that The Dowry would do so well is because it's always done the best during free promotions. Of course, maybe I just happened to put it up during all the right time frames; however, you can't argue with facts. The first free promotion I ever did, I did with The Dowry, and it got over 800 downloads between the US, UK, Germany, and France. The very next day, I put Family History: Part 1 up for free, and it received a measly ~250 downloads. When I put Family History: Part 2 up for free a few weeks later, it received even fewer downloads.

(An aside: if I learned anything from my KDP Select poll, it's that I suck at giving away books, at least compared to others.)

What actually happened (and note, apparently, Amazon is a little slow on the uptake today, so I'm actually STILL having people download things for free! Tsk tsk, Amazon!)

In the US:

• Family History: Part 1: 332 Downloads (as of 10:55 am MST)
• Family History: Part 2: 287 Downloads (as of 10:55 am MST)
• The Dowry: 85 Downloads (as of 10:55 am MST)

In the UK:

• Family History: Part 1: 25 Downloads (as of 10:58 am MST)
• Family History: Part 2: 27 Downloads (as of 10:58 am MST)
• The Dowry: 19 Downloads (as of 10:58 am MST)

Germany:

• Family History: Part 1: 4 Downloads (as of 11:00 am MST)
• Family History: Part 2: 5 Downloads (as of 11:00 am MST)
• The Dowry: 1 Download (as of 11:00 am MST)

Those results are very different from what I expected. My only real hypothesis for why this might have happened this way is because people were excited to see they could get an entire series free, and not just one or the other. Plus, I actually only just put The Dowry up for free last Saturday (in the US, it received about 219 downloads), and maybe most people who were going to get it had downloaded it already. It's tough to say.

Either way, I'm pretty happy with the results. I'm even okay with the fact that people are still downloading the stories for free (but seriously, tsk tsk, Amazon). More exposure for me!

January Sales Reports

Today is February 15th, which means that I was granted the privileged of seeing my first monthly sales report. Hooray! And...tl;dr: I'm not a millionaire. But that's okay, because Family History: Part 1 was only published on January 4th, 2012. It would actually be pretty silly to expect to make that much money off a single $2.99 title in less than a month.

Now, for some actual statistics...

Total Amount Earned in Amazon US: $29.30
Total Amount Earned in Amazon UK: £9.94 (~ $15.58)
Total Earned in January 2012: ~$44.88

Many of you are probably thinking, "That's not very much at all!" But again, keep in mind that these numbers represent totals from less than a month of publication. Additionally, it is worth noting that, at the moment, I am exclusively published on Amazon. I'm not planning on continuing this exclusivity deal, though that is another post for another time.

Now, allow me to do a quick-and-dirty breakdown by title.

Family History: Part 1; US

• 5 Units Sold at 70% Royalty: $13.00
• 1 Unit Borrowed: $1.60
• 331 Units Downloaded Free

Family History: Part 1; UK

• 4 Units Sold at 70% Royalty:  £7.04 (~$11.04)
• 88 Units Downloaded Free

The Dowry; US

• 11 Units Sold at 70% Royalty; 4 Units Returned: $14.35
• 867 Units Downloaded Free

The Dowry; UK

• 2 Units Sold at 70% Royalty:  £2.64 (~$4.14)
• 111 Units Downloaded Free

Family History: Part 2; US

• 188 Units Downloaded Free

Family History: Part 2; UK

• 47 Units Downloaded Free

The Night Life: Chapter 1; US

• 1 Unit Sold at 35% Royalty: $0.35
• 138 Units Downloaded Free

The Night Life: Chapter 1; UK

• 2 Units Sold at 35% Royalty; 1 Unit Returned:  £0.26 (~$0.40)
• 33 Units Downloaded Free

Granted, it must be noted that KDP sent out a mass email tonight about sales reports not all being correct. From what I understand, the amount of money I earned this month should be correct, though I do believe there might be a few free downloads missing. However, for those who are in the loop who are thinking, "So why is it that YOUR sales reports are correct?", I figured I might as well throw in this little addendum to calm your nerves.

What I'm Expecting

• I honestly think the fact that I got any sales at all this month was somewhat of a fluke. I'm not expecting these numbers again, at least not for awhile. 
• However, since I have recently received two reviews for Family History: Part 1, I am hoping that I somehow see a jump in sales because of this.
• In terms of sales, I'm expecting to maybe average around $20 total, between the US and UK, per month. Maybe. (Like I said, I strongly believe that this prior month was merely a fluke.)

What I'm Hoping For...

• Most Importantly: I'm hoping to have The Night Life up for sale sometime around August. 
• I would be tickled if it became my best-selling novel. Of all of them, I believe this one deserves it the most.
• Money-Wise: I want to earn enough money from my writing that I can order a load of $100 bills, just so that I can fill a large room with said money and throw money all over myself while screaming, "I'm rich! I'm riiiich!" Realistically of course, I don't ever see this happening. :)

"Family History" Book Covers Done in MS Paint.

I Just Got My First Review. Eeeek.

Okay, so it's a 3-star review.

Personally, I'm totally cool with that, though. Because to me, 3-star reviews still mean that they liked it, or at least they thought it was okay.

Considering I wrote Family History Part 1 and Part 2 two years ago, though, and had not really looked at them too much since, I'm good with that. I know that I've gotten better. I also know that not everybody is going to like my writing. In fact, I'm surprised anybody's liked it enough to buy it. Especially The Dowry. I'm dreading the day somebody finally decides to review that book...*shudder*.

But honestly, I would rather have a mix of good and bad reviews. There's this one guy on my twitter who is constantly boasting about how his book has something like 27 Five-Star reviews. I clicked the link to his book to see if it was true. It was, indeed true, but there was something else missing - other reviews. That's right, his 27 5-Star Reviews were his only reviews.

Honestly, that just makes me feel like he has a generous extended family or an extensive group of friends.

Anyways, here is the link to Family History: Part 1 with the review. I'll post the text below:

KT Hall's Family History Part 1 is a generational tale about Collie Barrett and her descendants and how they deal with an old family curse. The story begins with Collie and her brief but passionate sexual encounter with a stranger. She gets pregnant from this encounter with Marie. Marie grows up to become a beautiful albeit naïve girl who, like her mother before her, finds herself with child and an uncertain future. 

It's easy to mistake the novel, which is set in the backdrop of 19th century England, as a historical romance. It's not. Far from it. Even though the bulk of the book deals with romantic love, the characters are complex and do not adhere to any kind of stereotype that you might find in romance books. Collie for instance is a strong-willed woman who is quite intuitive about people. Yet, her daughter, Marie, is almost the opposite. It's revealed in the book that while she thought she was pregnant with her beau's child, it was in fact his cousin that she had unwittingly been sleeping with. 

The writing is focused and does not meander. You can tell that KT Hall is a precision writer who values control. In fact, it might be too controlled. The story is divided into different time periods that almost read like thinly connected vignettes. This is a good thing if you like reading snippets of what life is like in 19th century England. However, in this case, you won't know it without the chapter titles. The author does not take the time to world-build so you're left with little to discover about what life was like back then. The characters all talk like it's Midwest USA, 2012. Maybe that's a point, if not the point. Some readers will like it because it's postmodern. For me, at least, it's a distraction and therefore at times it pulls me from the story, particularly when a character refers to someone as a "guy". Would it have killed the author to at least use some English slang--not all the time but at least once or twice--to create verisimilitude?

As for the family curse: I don't think it's ever intended to be a mystery. In the first few pages, you'll find out what it is. And yet, the author never truly delves into it. Perhaps, again, it's because the story doesn't end with Part 1.
Still, despite these shortcomings, the book is an enticing read, one filled with intrigue. When you read this book keep in mind that it's the journey that matters not the destination. It is, after all, just the first part of an even bigger story. I can't wait to find out what happens next.

...my favorite part was "KT Hall is a precision writer who values control."


Yay for first reviews!

Family History: Part 1 is now $2.99 on Amazon.

At first, I thought that all of this fuss over pricing was a bit of rubbish. I've seen it all over the place - blog posts dedicated to authors musing over "raising prices". Forum posts with the theory behind the "99 cent" zone. Just the other day, I read about somebody who lowered their novel prices to $2.99 from about ~$6 per book, and found that risk paid off. when it came to sales.

Initially, I was planning on making both "Part 1" and "Part 2" at $2.99 each, just because. But, after some thought, it seemed better to try $3.99, just to see what happened. So far, not much has happened. So, I figured I would lower the price, just to see what happens. I'm not expecting much, but you know, it's an experiment.

Enjoy.

Bring it On: Why Isn't My Book Selling?

I suppose I'm in desperate need of some advertising.

That, or I just need a little more gumption. However, I am proud to announce that I did do a fair number of Organic Chemistry problems this afternoon. We're going over reactions of alkenes.

So, perhaps it's not gumption I'm lacking. After all, I did just agree to a trade: a review for a review. Also, I think I'll be nice and post that Redditor's book here. Not that it will benefit him any.

Speaking of which, would anybody be so kind of to review a book of mine?

I digress. Despite the start, this actually isn't a "I'm a new writer and I'm not a best seller!" rant. (However, how fantastic would it be to be a best seller two weeks in? I would be jumping for joy!). No. Actually, I'm writing this because I am confused. Why? First off, let me note: I haven't sold a book since Saturday, and Chapter 1 of The Night Life, though free, has had only about 120 downloads in 4 days in Amazon's US store. For comparison, The Dowry had about 750 downloads on the day I made it free.

If you're reading this, you're either thinking, "But KT, what's up? You've only been published for three weeks! Why so impatient?" or "Who are you? I just stumbled on this by Googling SOPA!" (Alas, that ship seems to have sailed with Blackout Day.)

Really, though, I'm confused because other people say it's good.

From Kindle Boards:

KT:
Your blurbs and samples are too good not to draw heat.
They are tight. They pop.
(Are you having us on?)
Give it another day or two.

Also:

I took a look over your books; they both appear to have great covers, and the sample chapters were well written and interesting. 

And from Reddit:

...this book looks interesting. I loved the sample. I think I'm going to buy it.

Okay, that all seems well and good, right? Sure, it's only three people (I actually had one or two more buried in Reddit comments), but still, if three people are personally messaging me to tell me that the book seems interesting and they loved the sample, what about the people who see it and say nothing about it?

Oh, look, a suggestion appears!

I did notice that you haven't got any reviews up however. I was selling one book week basically until I got three or four reviews up; you really want to reach that 'five' number. Ideally they should be four or five star reviews... and I honestly prefer a scattering of fours (which is all I've gotten), since I think that means they're being critical.

So, is that what it's going to take, eReaders? You want me to solicit people for reviews? Well, if that what it's going to take, then bring it on.

 

"Family History: Part 1" on GoodKindles.

I ran across this site on Kindle Boards, and like always, I decided to give it a whirl. Check it out!

The Dowry: Now Available on Kindle (And Kindle Select!)

Click to Start Reading

Following the murder of Alexandre Thalo, the most powerful and prominent man in a small English village, Edward Thalo finds himself suddenly desperate to find himself a wife to produce heirs for his large family fortune. When a poor village farmer offers his pretty young daughter, Edward seizes the opportunity for marriage, fearing that he may otherwise leave the Thalo family fortune unclaimed.

Elizabeth Savage is reluctant to marry Edward Thalo, especially after she happens upon a gorgeous young servant by the name of Joel Barrett, who cannot resist the urge to court her, even after her marriage to Edward Thalo.

A romance filled with suspense, secrets, and treachery; The Dowry details the lives of Edward Thalo, Elizabeth Savage and her two sisters, and the servants of Edward Thalo, William and Joel. Each one of them holds a deep secret that threatens to destroy the lives of their makeshift family in a time where they are controlled by the mentally unstable, money hungry mongrel, Edward Thalo.

A lot of people seem to have luck with Kindle Select, so I have added The Dowry onto Amazon and am currently just hoping for the best. That's all I can do at this point, right? That is, that's all I can do when I'm still at the stage of getting excited by a few more page views. Just so you know, two people viewed this page last night.

How do I get an audience without much advertising? So far, all I've done is post links in forums and whatnot. They say blog tours help, but who in the world would "host" me? I'm an amateur, a kid, basically. I mean, I would let somebody guest post in a heartbeat, but that's just because I think that would definitely be pretty sweet. That, or maybe I'm just desperate.

Anyways, I hope you all find The Dowry an enjoyable read.

Family History: Part I is Now Available on Amazon!

Please, check it out, share with your friends: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006T89E7W.

Seriously though, I'm proud of myself for doing this much. Part II will be up somewhat soon (hopefully), but it's hard to say when. Of course, I would love to sell at least one copy before putting the second book up there, which, honestly, who knows how long that could take? Honestly, it could take months, that's right, months, to even sell a single copy. In other words, I'm not exactly hopeful. I'll post to Reddit in a few days and see what happens there, etc. But, for now, it's just a game of waiting, watching, and plugging away.