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Let
me share a couple of potentially links to start out this month. The
first is an interesting account of how one self-published author is now
making $1200 on his books, mostly from Kindle. Per year? No! You might
look at this, raise your eyebrows, and think that $1200 sounds like a
pretty good month to you. But this figure is not sales for a month.
Wow! That’s a really good week. But, no, this author is pulling in
$1200 on a daily basis. That’s over $400,000 per
year. Read the article at JAKonrath and find out how he
pulled this off.
Of course, as a Christian
writer, your prospective market is much narrower than a secular writer.
You face the choice to write for God, or to write for money. Hopefully,
you will choose the former path, and He will bless you for your efforts
someday, though it might not be monetarily.
Another site I ran into recently
is a new publisher. You might want to check it out if you need help
getting your book into print: http://www.plainandsimplebooks.webs.com/.
I read a self-published book a
couple of years ago, and I really liked it. It was written by Casey
Telling, a friend from the Pacific Northwest whom I had met at a book
signing party for a group to which we both belonged. It bears a
distinct title: Into the Blood of the Sun. Here’s
the synopsis:
Content to live a simple life, a
young woman, raised in an academy for girls, is suddenly faced with the
truth regarding her heritage. Those who know her background and latent
powers secretly orchestrate her life and education to prepare her for a
dangerous future. But despots, fearful of any of her line, strive to
eliminate or manipulate her. Despite the daunting terror of the choices
she must make, her only hope for deliverance is to go Into the Blood of
the Sun.
And here’s the review I wrote on
Amazon.
Unique this book is not. The
story of the battle between good and evil is the dominant theme in the
history of mankind. Alliances, both false and true; battles, fierce and
bloody; and powers, mystical and mighty, are the same elements found in
Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, etc., etc., etc. Why do we read the same type of
plot over and over again—with different names and different locations
and a few unique traits among the characters? Because this story is the
essence of humanity.
Casey
Telling has created some unique characters in this tale that has no
dearth of violence. At times it is hard to associate someone who
delights in the conquest of others with goodness, even if they are on
the good girl’s side. Violence may be a necessary evil, but it is not
something to be glorified. Personally, I do not enjoy gore, but I
enjoyed this book in spite of the ample presence of graphic
descriptions of decapitations, dismemberments, etc. The importance of
the Creator versus the Dark One conflict precludes any subtlety to the
spiritual aspect of this novel. This is definitely a case of the Go(o)d
guys versus the (D)evil guys. Into the Blood of the Sun
is a self-published book, but it is better than many traditionally
published books I have read, including the quality of the editing.
Casey
is making this a six-book
series called The Chronicles of Esmeraldia. He has published book two.
Book three is almost ready for the market, and four and five have been
written but not finalized. One of the major problems Casey faces in
marketing is the price of his books. The route he has taken through
Lulu forces him to charge what seems to me an exorbitant amount
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for his
work. You can buy almost three of my books (on my Website) to one of
his. If you’re facing a similar problem, check out the column on Snow
Fall Press.
Kindle is the answer to such a dilemma. Selling for $2.99 you can reap
70 percent of the proceeds and there are no costs of books involved, so
that is pure revenue. See my column on how to get your book on Kindle
at http://christianfictiononlinemagazine.com/apr-10-biz_pod.html.
Casey is an almost invisible
authors, producing quality material in anonymity. Could someone in that
same position be the next Tolkien or C. S. Lewis?
With the flood of new writers
into the arena and the cutting back on the number of titles traditional
publishers produce, the little guys don’t get much of a chance. Many
publishers require authors to go through an agent. Query letters
received from unknown authors are many times relegated to agents’ slush
piles, where some bored subordinate has wades into the floodwaters and
weeds out anything that isn’t perceived as a potential big seller for
the home team.
This is why I’m a champion of
self-published books. Sure, self publishing gives the profane, the
self-deluded, and the inept an opportunity to pin a badge on their
chests proclaiming that they are a published author. The beauty is that
no longer do wonderful works of literature and messages from God have
to wither and die on the vine in the manuscript stage. With
self-publishing, these authors can let the readers, not the publishers,
decide the books’ merits.
The problem is getting readers’
attention so they will taste and see if the book is good. The purpose
of this column and my radio show is to bring some of those people to
your attention. I interviewed Casey on my BlogtalkRadio show, Wielding
the Sword of the Spirit.
Last month I featured a blurb
about Lynn Dove. You can listen to my interview with Lynn on Blogtalk
Radio HERE .
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