by john | Oct 27, 2010 | Poker, Real Life, Vegas, Writing
But this is what you get. And you’ll like it, too! Or not, but you probably won’t be pissed enough to tell me about it if you hate it.
So most of October has been spent getting Hard Day’s Knight ready to go, and yesterday I got home to find a box full of books waiting on me! So the book is available from Amazon and via CreateSpace, with ebook coming in November. Place your orders now by clicking here. I’ve booked a table selling books at a local Halloween carnival for Friday night, a NC Writer’s Network meeting next weekend, and a comic book convention in Raleigh on 11/12-14. So feel free to stop by any of those events and see me, too! I’ll have copies at each event to sign for folks, so either bring your copy or buy one at the event.
Speaking of buying, the lease was running out on the Element after almost four years, so I traded it in a couple weeks ago. 
The dealership bought me out of the lease, which was great since I was 10,000 miles over the lease (with 6 months driving left), and I picked up this beauty. She’s a 2008 Chevy Silverado with all the electronical type gadgets, and only 55,000 miles on her. She rides like a dream, and has a ton of room in the back seat. It’s a shortbed, but that’s all I need for the errands I run around the house. So far I’m loving it.
Last week saw me in Las Vegas for a conference, and wouldn’t you know it, I had a little time to play the Venetian noon tournament while I was there. Some of you may recall my epic 20-way even chop performance in that same tournament last December. I followed that up with a 7th-place finish, good for $500 (and $30 in prop bets!). I got really lucky once whe I cracked Kings with my Jacks after all the money went in preflop, then got really unlucky later when my Aces got cracked by Kings. I was crippled, but quintupled up on the next hand when I flopped a boat in a 6-way limped pot. So I made it all the way to 7th before I ran pocket fives into pocket tens and headed off to dinner. I played a little more over the week, ending up about $350-400 for the trip.
I of course used my winnings to book my flight to Vegas for December, and I’m looking forward to seeing all my degenerate friends again! I get in on Thursday and fly out on Monday, and I’ll be staying at the MGM. I also have a trip to NYC the weekend before to celebrate Suzy and my 15th wedding anniversary. We’re using Marriott points to stay at the Marriott Marquis in Time Square, and we’ll see American Idiot and something else while we’re there.
So that’s what’s going on here – now go buy a book!
by john | Oct 1, 2010 | Fiction, Vampires, Writing
I know, I’ve let this blog languish while I was off writing other things, like silly vampire novels. And now my blog feels like the sponge mop in the Swiffer commercials. So sorry, I suck, but the first draft of the vampire novel is finished. It’s going to be called Hard Day’s Knight, and will be the first of a series called the Black Knight Chronicles. It’s a snarky, somewhat comic vampire series based around a pair of geeky vampire detective. I’ll paste in an excerpt below.
If you’re here because you found the link through Amanda Hocking’s Zombiepalooza blog, then my nefarious plan has worked! BWAHAHAHAHA!!! Sorry. Anyway, thanks for stopping by, and I hope you’ll poke around a little. My first novel, The Chosen, is available from Amazon, on the iBookstore, and from Lulu. There’s a sample on The Chosen tab, check it out. Let me know what you think. I’ve got some live events coming up as well, so if you’re anywhere near Charlotte, let me know and come out and say hello.
So here’s a sample of my next book, Hard Day’s Knight, available in November wherever independent books are sold.
Chapter 1
I hate waking up in an unfamiliar place. I’ve slept in pretty much the same bed for the past twenty years, so when I wake up someplace new, it really throws me off. When that someplace is tied to a metal folding chair in the center of an abandoned warehouse that reeks of stale cigarette smoke, gasoline and harbor water – well, that really started my night off on a sparkling note.
My mood deteriorated even further when I heard a voice behind me say “It’s about time you woke up, bloodsucker.” I mean, seriously, why do people have to be so rude? It’s a condition, like freckles. I’m a vampire. Deal with it. But we can do without the slurs, thank you very much.
“Go easy on the bloodsucker, pal. I haven’t had breakfast.” Was what I tried to say. But since my mouth was duct-taped shut, it came out more like “Mm mmmm mm mmm-mmmmmmm, mmm. Mm mmmmmm mmm mmmmm.” My repartee was gonna need an assist if I was going to talk my way out of this. Of course, if my mysterious captor had wanted me dead, he’d had all day to make that happen, but instead I woke up tied to a chair. I tested my bonds, but I was tied tight, and whatever he had bound me with burned, so it was either blessed, and he was devout, or it was silver. My money was on silver. The true believers are more the stake ‘em in the coffins type than the kidnap them and tie them to chairs type.
“I think, bloodsucker, that since I’m the one with the stake, I get to call you whatever I want. And you, as the one tied to the chair with silver chains, get to sit there and do whatever I say.” My captor moved around in front where I could get a good look at him. I knew him, of course. It’s never the new guy in town who ties you to a chair, it’s always that kinda creepy guy who you’ve seen lurking around the cemetery for a couple weeks. The one that you’re not sure if he was there to mourn or for some other reason. And of course, it was always some other reason.
I’d seen this guy hanging around one of the big oak trees in my cemetery, near the freshest grave in the joint, for a couple of weeks. I never thought much of his wardrobe until now, but in retrospect he was wearing almost stereotypical vampire hunter garb. Black jeans, black boots, long black coat, wide-brimmed black hat. Christ, I bet he owned the Van Helsing Blu-Ray. I swore then that if I ever got the chance, I was eating Hugh Jackman’s liver. No, we don’t usually eat people, but liver’s liver, and I was pissed. I had been caught and trussed up like a Thankgsiving turkey by a skinny twenty-something who watched too many bad vampire movies.
This kid was white, about twenty-three, with mousy brown hair and looked like he played too much Call of Duty instead of getting a job. His skin was paler than mine, for crying out loud, and I’m dead! He was a hair over six foot, weighed maybe one-forty soaking wet, and either had an asthma inhaler in his front pocket or was happy to see me. God, I hoped it was an inhaler.
“Mmmm mmmmm mm mmm mmmm mm mm mm?” I asked, which was supposed to be more of a what do you want me to do type of query, but my mouth was still taped shut. The kid reached forward and ripped the tape off, taking a layer or two of skin with it. “OWWW!” I yelled, straining against my bonds. “You little rat bastard, I swear to God I am going to drink you dry and leave your body on the lawn like an empty bag of flesh!”
I admit, my similes need work.
“I don’t think so, bloodsucker. I think you’re going to do anything I tell you to, or I’ll just leave you tied up there to starve.” He had a point there. It’s not like there were very many people who would miss a vampire, and I hadn’t yet figured out how to get loose from whatever silver-lined bonds he’d created.
“Alright, what do you want?” I asked. Might as well find out right now if he wanted something simple or…
“I want you to turn me,” he replied. The look of hope on his face was a little pathetic, really, but there was a determination there that was disturbing. This was not going to be easy.
“No.” I wanted to get the short and simple part out of the way first, then we could move on to the lengthy explanations.
“Why not?” Wow, from zero to whiny little bitch in .4 seconds. If I’d ever had any thoughts of actually turning this scrawny little zit-farm into a vamp, they would have just evaporated.
“Because I don’t turn people. Because this life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Because I don’t know how to turn people. Because you’d miss all those romantical sunsets you probably write mediocre poetry about. Because it’s not fair to the ecosystem to add another predator. All of the above. None of the above. Pick a reason, kid, any reason you like. I’m not turning you.” I started to look around for another way to get out of this mess, but it didn’t look good for our hero. Or at least my hero, and it’s my story.
For a skinny little gamer-geek, he’d done a good job tying me up. I guess that’s another thing we can thank the internet for – unlimited access to fetish porn has improved the knot-tying ability of men who can’t get dates. I couldn’t exactly see my hands, but by straining around, I could see that my ankles were tied to separate legs of the chair with those plastic zip-ties you get in the electrical aisle. I could see a silver necklace wound around each tie, and by the way my wrists felt, he’d done the same thing there. The chair was the standard metal folding type, the kind that gets sacrificed in countless professional wrestling matches. So I was pretty well neutralized. The silver sapped the strength from my arms just by the contact, and I couldn’t get enough leverage with my legs to do anything useful. I looked up to try and Jedi mind trick my kidnapper, when I noticed two things – one – he was wearing polarized sunglasses, which was a neat idea, although ultimately useless against my mental abilities, and two – he was crying.
“You have to turn me!” He wailed, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I don’t have anything left, and this is the only way I can think to get by.”
I couldn’t believe it; I was actually starting to feel sorry for the guy. “Okay, kid. Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong and I’ll see if I can help.”
“No one can help, but if I were one of the Undead I could help myself.” I swear I could actually hear him capitalize undead.
“You know that’s kinda my job, right? Helping people that can’t help themselves. Kinda like the A-Team, without the Mohawk and the van. Reach into my shirt pocket and grab a business card. I promise not to bite you, and as you know we Undead cannot tell a lie.” Total bull, but I’ve often found with people dumb enough to romanticize the whole vampire thing that a little mendacity goes a long way. He reached into my pocket and took out a business card. It had my name, James Black, and cell phone number under a logo that said “Black Knight Detectives, shedding light on your darkest problems.” Neither the company name nor the stupid slogan was my idea. And I prefer Jimmy.
“You’re a detective?” I nodded. “And you think you can help me?”
“Well, I can’t really know that until you tell me what your problem is. So why don’t you untie me, and we can talk about this like a pair of reasonable people?” I put a little mojo into my eyes, and he started towards me with a pair of wire cutters in his hand. And that’s when things went to hell.
Want to know what happens next? The book comes out next month!
by john | Sep 9, 2010 | Real Life, The Chosen, Writing
So here we are, looking for insight into the mind of the self-publishing bazillionaire.
Keep looking, I’m still working on breaking even.
But I’m getting close. I ran the numbers for you a few posts ago, so we won’t go into that again, but we’re three weeks from the removed from the release of The Chosen and I’ve made $140 from the book so far.
Stunning, isn’t it? Now before you get all disheartened for me, there’s another $8 in Kindle revenues coming my way, and I haven’t gotten any reports from the Apple store yet, and likely won’t for a while, because those reports have to trickle down to me through several different accounting departments. So let’s call it $148 in revenue so far, of which roughly $30 goes to my editor (remember, she’s on commission with a cap).
I spent $521 on making the book happen, and I’ve recouped 28% of the cost of the book in the first three weeks. I’m pretty happy about that, actually. I know the real dollars and cents aren’t huge, but I figure by the end of the fall I’ll have covered the costs of development and production, and then will begin making money. Which is a pretty quick return on investment.
I saw something posted on the KindleBoards today that really summed up how I feel about the measuring of pennies that I’m doing right now. Someone posted something, and I’m too lazy to go look it up for attribution, that said that we’re looking at a tortoise and hare situation here. Serious writers will work on developing their backlist and promoting their work, while people who are looking for a quick buck will publish one book, get discouraged by the numbers that I posted above, and fade away.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to make a quick buck (or barrel of bucks). But I know that The Chosen isn’t going to be a huge best-seller. It’s not genre enough to be a fantasy novel, and it’s too genre to be a literary novel. It’s the kind of book that people don’t know how to categorize, and that means that selling the book will be all on me. And I’m okay with that. At the Arts Market last weekend, I told people that the book had a “no-suck” guarantee on it. If they bought the book, read the whole things, and hated it, I’d give them their $10 back. This served as a good ice breaker, and I don’t expect anyone to actually ever take me up on it for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that the book is pretty good. But it’s not marketable enough to be a huge seller. So I’ll learn a lot of lessons about publishing, and as the vampire novel comes together (a little less than halfway through) I can capitalize on the experience.
And maybe make a few bucks in the process. If you haven’t bought your copy yet, what are you waiting for?
by john | Aug 30, 2010 | Writing
So if you want to get my book, The Chosen, on your iPad or iPhone and don’t want to wait until it’s available in the iTunes store (sometime in September we hope) here’s a post for you!
And if you don’t want to buy my book, but still want to put other e-books on your iPad, this will help with that anyway, and because I’ve given you such life-affirming advice that made the sun peek out from the clouds, birds sing and your car’s exhaust smell like lilacs and rose petals, you’ll go buy my book anyway.
So here’s how to put PDF files onto your iPad or iPhone in a few simple steps.
1) Buy your favorite new book in PDF format. Click here to do so.
2) Open iTunes.
3) Add the PDF file to your iTunes library. It should automatically show up under “Books.” If it doesn’t, drag it over there.
4) When you open iBooks (if you don’t have that app, go to the App Store and get it, it’s free) you will see a new tab that says “PDF.” Click that, and you’re ready to start reading.
There you go!
by john | Aug 23, 2010 | Real Life, Writing
So I don’t have any idea if anyone is interested in a breakdown of what it costs to self-publish a book (and the answer is not $0), but I’m going to give you a breakdown anyway. We’ll ignore the cost of time, because with any artistic project your time is basically given away for free. The four months it took me to write the book and the months it took to edit and polish are gone, and we can’t really assign a worth to them. So ignore that for the moment.
Let’s look at labor for people I hired to help on The Chosen. I paid $200 for the cover design, and that included a bunch of revisions, resizing, color changes and multiple formats. I think I got a good product for the fee, and since the fee negotiation was basically me calling up a friend and saying “Can you do this for $200?” I can’t really argue about it. I’ve poked around a little and that seems to be middle of the road for cover design.
The ebook formatting is costing me $150. I have no idea how much time I’m paying for, but I’m paying for a specific set of skills that I don’t possess and have zero interest in developing, so that seems like a fair price to me.
I’m paying my editor a commission, and because she’s a relative she was willing to work on spec. I’ll have to sell a bunch of books to get there, but eventually she’ll make $1,000 for her work. And she worked her ass off for weeks on this project, so I think that’s a perfectly fair fee for her services.
Ordering proof copies so far has cost me $130. I screwed the pooch and ordered 5 copies for reviews from Lulu of an early version, and then realized I had incorrectly set the margins and my books all looked like ass. So that was $70 down the drain. Then I got a proof that I liked, but needed to make a couple of tweaks. Then I moved over to CreateSpace to get the book listed on Amazon and get cheaper author’s copies, so I needed another proof from there. $20 each by the time they’re shipped. The first proof was missing page numbers, so I had to get another one. It should arrive today, and if I like it, I’ll order my copies to have at signings and things.
Author’s copies. If I use Lulu, they cost me about $9 each. Since I’d like to make about $5 per book, I’ll be selling them for $15 online after Lulu’s free shipping offer expires. Until then, the book is $20, because you get free shipping and the overall cost to you is the same. So buy today and I get an extra Happy Meal!
But if I buy my author’s copies from CreateSpace, they cost me less. Waaaayyyyy less. Like $4 each. So that allows me to sell copies at signings for $10, and hopefully move the book pretty well. That would put me at a competitive price point to what people are spending for a paperback book, so that should be a good price. But I have to have books on hand to do that, so once I get a proof I like, I’ll probably order about 50 copies.That’s another $175 by the time I pay shipping.
Getting listed on the Amazon Kindle and iPad won’t cost me anything, and the book will be available through all of Amazon’s distribution channels using CreateSpace’s Pro publishing package. That cost another $40, but the discount I get on author’s copies makes that worthwhile in the first order, so it’s almost free. Except for the whole part where I have to pay for it.
So at this point I’ve spent, or committed to spend, right at $1,700 to publish my first novel and get myself 50 copies. I think it’s a fair investment, especially since once the ebook gets going I’ll get $2 per ebook sold without any additional fixed costs. So sell a thousand ebooks, and I’m in good shape. So tell all your friends to buy the book, or hell, if you have any rich friends in the film business, they can buy the rights!
by john | Aug 22, 2010 | Real Life, Theatre, Writing
Well, kinda, I guess. From time to time I’ve led workshops on all sorts of things over the years, almost all of them having to do with theatre in one way or another. As all of you know, I enjoy the sound of my voice, and with an ego like mine, I can’t help but think that my pearls of wisdom will do the peasants before me some good in their lives. Unfortunately for those of you who want to tame my ridiculous self-image, other people keep feeding that delusion.
This week the company I work for hosted a Lighting for Worship workshop in Atlanta. We had 18 attendees from a dozen or so churches listen to a day-long series of lectures on experts in the worship lighting field. We’ve done this twice before, and I think this was the best attendance we’ve had. It’s also the largest city we’ve done one in, so that stands to reason. We’re doing it again in Greensboro next month, so that should break even more attendance records. We brought in in real experts (and me) from all over the country for this thing, and imparted some great information to the attendees, and did some good PR for us and the vendors that showed up. So I spent all day Wednesday and Thursday in work mode, focusing on what I was teaching and how to fine-tune the delivery.
Then yesterday I shifted gears entirely and worked with the newbies in the cast of the Renaissance Festival on character development. I spent an hour with them on physicality, paying attention to their surroundings, creating a backstory for their character, the difference between their role (the job) and their character (the person they’re trying to create). The goal was to get the newbies into mid-season form at the beginning of the season, to make for a better experience for the customers. I had a lot of fun and got some great compliments on my workshop, which is good since I’m already signed on for two other weekends of more advanced instruction.
Then this coming Thursday I shift into another mode entirely as I spend the evening at a local Mont Blanc pen store reading Mark Twain for a literary festival they have each year. They wanted somebody to read Twain for the people at the reception, and they agreed to pay me a little bit, so I’ll be reading selections from Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn and some of Twain’s short stories while people look at pens that cost more than my entire wardrobe.
Book sales are picking up, word of mouth is starting to spread a little and Otis pimped my book on his blog, which always helps. I’ve gotten a few responses from folks that will let me do a blog tour stop on their site, so I’ll be kicking that off in September. Probably after Annie opens, because that’s going to tie up a lot of my time in the coming weeks. But feel free to hustle on over to my Lulu storefront and buy your copy now, because the free shipping offer ends Monday, August 23rd.
by john | Aug 19, 2010 | Writing
Today the world ended. Well, not really, but certainly we reached a big point in the world of e-readers, the magic sub-$100 price. Sears is selling the Sony e-reader for $99.99, which a lot of people (I dunno, experts? whatever) have decreed as the magic number that will change the world and make e-readers and e-books really take off.
I think those experts are late. I think the magic moment happened a few months ago, with the release of the iPad. No matter how cool it is that the Sony reader is available from Sears for a hundred bucks, I think it’s largely irrelevant to people who weren’t already interested in buying an e-reader, and wanted to buy it from Sears. And who are those people, exactly?
No matter what you think about products from the Turtleneck Brigade (and in the interest of full disclosure, I drank that Kool-Aid a long time ago), their marketing is monstrous. They’ve sold over 3 million iPads in the first few months the product was on the market. And all those people that bought iPads are just figuring out that they can read books on it, and they don’t have to buy those books through iTunes. So while it’s cool that the Sony reader is cheap, I think it’s just one more piece of the pie in the emergence of e-books.
And don’t bother telling me how much you love books, and will never buy an e-reader, and will only ever buy books in analog format. Because I won’t believe you. You also told me that albums would always be better than digital music and that you couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to carry an mp3 player around with them. Then you got an iPod and never went back. So while I know that books will always be around, the e-readers are going to be an ever-increasing part of our book-selling world, especially since there are apps for most smart phones now that can be e-readers.
So if you’re looking for a cheap e-reader, check out the Sony unit. If you’re looking for an e-reader app, check your phone’s app store. If you’re looking for a great book, buy mine!
by john | Aug 15, 2010 | The Chosen, Writing
Because that’s the word you use when you’re starting a journey, right? And in our vernacular, it’s become the word for the end of one thing and the beginning of another. So yesterday the transition happened, very quietly, from potential to actual in my status as a novelist. When I got the proof copy of the paperback edition of The Chosen, and it was a good proof, I decided that now the real work begins. Writing the book was fairly easy – I battled all the built-in distractions of living in this century with all these toys, chained myself to the keyboard and wrote the damned thing. Then came the editing, which was less painful by the addition of my niece Dianne. Then came the cover design, by Lindsay, and then the proofs.
Now I have to sell it. I’ve booked a pair of signings so far, and am trying to decide on a plan for a book release party. I’m also working up a plan for a blog tour, and would love it if those of you out there with blogs would open up your sites to me for a day to post about the book and the process of self-publishing and self-promoting. If you’d like to promote the book on your site, feel free to swipe the image below and link to my Lulu Storefront. Any love you can give would be appreciated. If you buy the book, and like it, I’d love it if you’d send me a note to that effect because once the ebook goes live on Amazon (hopefully September) I’m gonna need reviews to promote it there. I can’t offer payment for reviews like some big publishing houses do, but since I’d probably buy you a drink the next time I saw you anyway, I’ll offer up a free drink in exchange for a review.
I’ll be signing at the NoDa All Arts Market in September, and at the Newberry Oktoberfest in, well, October. Hopefully I’ll have more dates to announce here soon, but you can also keep up with all Chosen-related news on the Facebook page I set up for the book. So go order your copy now, and let me know what you think!
by john | Aug 14, 2010 | Real Life
So this year, at 37, what do I think of life in general?
It sucks getting old and fat all at the same time. I can’t do anything about the one (except die, and I couldn’t bear to deprive you all of my wit), so I’m trying (again) to reduce the other. Ten pounds in a month may not seem like much, but it’s really quite a lot. I figure now that I’m continuing to try to lose weight it will slow down, but if I can drop five pounds each month, that will put me close to goal weight in a year. And since it took me two years to put this much weight on, if I can lose it in half the time, I’ll be thrilled. I’ve kinda reconciled myself to fighting with my belly for the rest of my life, because I like food and I don’t like to exercise. That combo means that I’m going to be going up and down pretty much for the duration, I need to just limit the swings. So if I can get back down to around 210-220, I’ll be happy bouncing around there. I’d love to see the first number in my weight be a 1 again, just once, but I’m not gonna sweat it.
One thing I’m trying to work on is balance. I’ve spent the last several years (and if we want to be honest about it, my whole life) bouncing between obsessions. Theatre to poker to weight loss to work to writing to poker to cycling to whatever. Well right now I’m trying to do less of a lot of things so that no one thing co-opts all my time. I’m trying to write for at least half an hour a couple times a week. I’m trying to focus on work when I’m at the office, and ignore it when I’m not. Poker has become an enjoyable social activity, rather than something I spend hours every week on. So I’m working towards balance. I’ll let you know if I get there.
I still have hopes that I can turn writing into the career eventually, and getting The Chosen out is the first step. I’m checking the mail every day for my proof copy so I can make it available for purchase, and begin the process of promoting it and trying to sell a few copies. I’m thinking of doing a promotional blog tour for the book, where I pop in on blogs of readers and friends and do a guest post about the book. If you have a blog, and would be willing to let me have a post there to promote my book, drop a comment and let me know. Who knows, I may even put up a post on Pokerstage about it, since that site still gets a little traffic each month.
I’m 37 and not sure of where I’m going with my life. So far it’s been one long string of happy accidents and fortunate outcomes. So since I’ve made it this far without a plan, I see no reason to make one now. Thanks for coming on the ride with me, I’m glad you’re here.
by john | Aug 10, 2010 | Writing
This was in my email box last night, and it was pretty exciting –
Shipped on Mon, 09 Aug 2010 via Mail
All items in your order have been shipped.
In This Shipment
===========================
1 of The Chosen by John G. Hartness (Printed)
This is my proof copy, so hopefully by the weekend I’ll be ready to release it for print and purchase. For a limited time, in a sheer profiteering ploy by yours truly, the book will be $20. After a little while, probably September, the price will drop to $15. These are paperback prices. I’m still waffling on the hardcover price, but most folks don’t buy hardcover anyway, so I’m only moderately concerned.
Here’s the reasoning behind starting off at a higher price – you’re going to pay roughly the same amount out of pocket regardless.
Right now, and through the rest of the summer, Lulu is offering free shipping on any orders over $19.95. So if I price my book at $15, they tack on $4 and change in shipping, and you pay about $20. If I price it at $20, you get free shipping, and you pay about $20. This way you pay the same amount, give or take a buck, and I get the extra cash, which I think we can all agree has no real downside, right?
Now as to the ebook pricing, here’s my reasoning behind the pricing. I want to sell a buttload of books, and I know that isn’t going to happen with hardcopy print-on-demand services. People that don’t know me aren’t going to spend $15-25 on a first novel by someone they’ve never heard of. And there are a lot more people that don’t know me than people that know me. So since a lot more people that don’t know me are buying e-readers nowadays, my best path to reach those people is to market an ebook and price it cheaply.
So why $2.99 and not $1? Because I get more than double the cash at the higher rate. Amazon pays 70% of the purchase price to the author on books over $2.99, while paying only 35% of the purchase price for books under $2.99. I don’t know why, but that math puts me making about $2/book. I’m good with that. I only need to sell 50,000 books at that rate to pay off my mortgage. I don’t really expect to sell 50,000 copies of The Chosen, but what’s the point in making goals if you’re going to make little tiny goals?
So why is it going to be more expensive on iTunes than on Amazon? The path to market is different. To get a book listed in the iTunes store, they recommend using a third-party aggregator; someone that has a contract with Apple to provide them with digital content. Those people provide a service, and they charge accordingly. So to pay the aggregator, and make sure iTunes gets their cut, and still leave me making my $2/book, that adds a buck to the price. But frankly, you can get the Amazon Kindle app for the iPad and buy your book at the cheaper price, and the app is free. So eventually iTunes will wise up, or not, since the same thing applies to albums and they still charge more for albums on iTunes than on Amazon, so more power to them making as much as they can.
So there’s the pricing strategy for The Chosen – if you buy a print copy this summer, you’ll pay a higher cover price but get free shipping. If you buy a print copy this fall, you’ll pay a lower cover price but pay the difference in shipping and I don’t get the money :(. So watch this space for updates, hopefully this weekend we’ll see a launch announcement!
The dealership bought me out of the lease, which was great since I was 10,000 miles over the lease (with 6 months driving left), and I picked up this beauty. She’s a 2008 Chevy Silverado with all the electronical type gadgets, and only 55,000 miles on her. She rides like a dream, and has a ton of room in the back seat. It’s a shortbed, but that’s all I need for the errands I run around the house. So far I’m loving it.
