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William F. Brown

Action Adventure Thrillers

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e-book publishing

New Covers for 3 of My Suspense Thrillers – Check ’em Out!

October 22, 2016 by William F. Brown Leave a Comment

NEW COVERS!  I decided to try some Sponsored Products ads on  Kindle and submitted six of my eight suspense, thriller-novels, which have been out on Kindle for an average of two years. The ads per se consist of the cover and a small blurb of text. Well, the “Thought Police” in far away India took offense and rejected five of my six covers. Wow! What did I do wrong, I wondered. Full frontal nudity? Gruesome Zombies? Blood and Gore? Kiddie Porn? Nope. My books are action adventure suspense novels. Some have Cold War, WW II, Delta Force, or Middle East subjects.  Why, pray tell, did the Thought Police reject them? Well, one had a gun on the cover. No guns! One had a WW II theme and had a small swastika, a US Army, and Hammer and Sickle behind a U-boat. One had a swastika on a WW II German airplane. They don’t like nationalistic symbols. They might offend someone.  Another had a rifle sight and a cross hairs. I protested and argued to no avail. Cain’t fight city hall. He who has the gold, make the rules, I guess. So, reluctantly I bit the bullet and had my wonderful cover designer, Todd Hebertson, come up with some new covers that would pass muster in far away Mumbai or Delhi.  Wow! The net result is I have some really neat new covers. These were approved, but don’t expect me to thank the Thought Police anytime soon.  Here’s the first three of the new covers, let me know what you think.

You can check out my other suspense novels, read a few chapters, see some of my other writing, and the status of my next book at my web site   http://box5462.temp.domains/~billbro4    Check ’em out!

new covers
Burke’s Gamble
new covers
Thursday at Noon
thriller novels
Amongst My Enemies

Filed Under: My writing blog Tagged With: Action Adventure Books, e-book publishing, How writers write, My writing blog, Mystery and Suspense Thriller, Suspense Fiction, Thriller Novels, Writing blog

Kindle Unlimited: The New Paperback

September 26, 2016 by William F. Brown Leave a Comment

Amazon rolled out the Kindle Unlimited program a little over two years ago. While they continue to tweak it and it does have its flaws, I think it will prove to be the most revolutionary step in publishing since the e-book itself, and perhaps since the first paperback was published in 1939 by Pocket Books. They priced them at $0.25 each, at a time when a reader’s choices were $2.50 – $5.00 hardbacks for the wealthy, library books for the literate but less wealthy, the Book of the Month Club, and Reader’s Digest, which surprisingly is still doing fine today.  Pocket Books priced the first paperbacks at $0.25 with the expressed intention of bringing affordable books within reach of the masses. Naturally, all of the major publishing houses laughed at them, as they have at nearly every other innovation since the Gutenberg printing press. Their reaction to paperbacks was a precursor to their reaction to e-books. That lack of innovation has always been at the heart of the publishing house’s problems. Within five years, however Pocket Books had sold over 100 million copies, and no one was laughing anymore.

Kindle Unlimited
William F Brown
Suspense Thrillers

The economics of book prices are interesting. The first Pocket Book paperbacks came out at the end of the Great Depression. A postage stamp cost $0.03, gas cost $0.10 a gallon, and bread was $0.5 a loaf. At $0.25, it was roughly the same as a gallon of milk, or a pound of butter, chicken, or coffee. More importantly, they were priced at about 10% of the cost of a hardback book. That was a lot of money back then, which is why hardback books were mostly found in libraries. According to government statistics, inflation has totaled 1589% since then, which means that 1939 Pocket Book would cost $4.22 in 2016 dollars and that hardback around $42.20.

Think about that for a moment. First, that 10 to 1 spread between hardbacks and paperbacks hasn’t held up over time. The average paperback today is more like twice that and new paperback releases are normally in the $10-14 range. Meanwhile, the average new hardback still manages to stay under $30, so that 10 to 1 spread now is more like 2 or 3 to 1. While a new, big name e-book in the Kindle store comes out at $10 to $14, the price doesn’t stay there for long. After about 6-8 months, they are normally discounted to the $6 to $9 range, still, in a 4 or 5 to 1 spread to the hardbacks, and the average e-book on Kindle costs less than, roughly equivalent to that $0.25 Pocket Book in 1939 dollars. In fact, many readers only buy the Free or $0.99 e-books on the Sale pages, making Kindle the equivalent of the old public library for the frugal among us. One conclusion you can reach from these numbers is that e-books have had a larger effect on hardback book prices than they have had on paperbacks.

The growth of e-book readership has been phenomenal. Technically, they were first “invented” in the 1930s, but they only reached any level of popular use in the past 20 years, following the introduction of the Sony Reader in 2006, and the first Kindle in 2007. Today, over half of all adults own some type of reader or tablet. More significantly for authors, Amazon now sells 65% of all e-books and 85% of all self-published e-books. In 20 years, the e-book and Kindle have grown to become the twin, 800-pound gorillas in the publishing industry, but their biggest impact may be yet to come.

That comment brings us to the Kindle Unlimited subscription service, which Amazon launched in July, 2014, initially to compete with Scribd and Oyster from HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster. At that time, the three services had similar sized libraries to choose from; but like everything else, Kindle just seems to do it better. Kindle Unlimited’s offerings have now grown to over 1 million books. Scribd and Oyster have grown as well, but none of the three offer their first rank bestsellers as part of their subscription services. If you are a reader however, and go through three books or more a month, at $9.99 per month the Kindle Unlimited subscription service is a no-brainer.

True, the Kindle Unlimited library only includes books that are part of the Kindle Select program and “exclusive” to Kindle, which unfortunately is less than half of of their total library, primarily the better, self-published books. Unfortunately, it does not offer many new releases, books that were brought out by the major publishers, or books from front line authors, except their old ones. Still, for $10/ month, there are a lot of good books available for an avid reader, and Kindle is now experimenting with ways to expand their book availability options to Kindle Prime. 

For authors, the question has been whether to go exclusively with Kindle Select and get your books eligible for the Kindle Unlimited program, or stay out and try to market them through the other independent e-book publishers such as Smashwords and others. My writing friends have gone either way depending on how much they dislike or don’t trust Amazon. I understand those feelings, but my writing income has doubled as a result of the Kindle Unlimited “Nominal Pages Read,” and it now provides 60% of my books sale income, so don’t let your suspicions or emotions pick your own pocket. More about that in my next blog piece.

William F. Brown, is the author of 8 action, adventure, suspense novels on Kindle, Kindle Select, and Kindle Unlimited. To read about them or subscribe to the blog, go to my web site, http://box5462.temp.domains/~billbro4

 

Filed Under: My writing blog Tagged With: e-book publishing, Kindle select, Kindle Unlimited, My blog, My writing blog, Writing blog

Writing Blog — Kindle Unlimited: The New Paperback

March 14, 2016 by William F. Brown

Kindle Unlimited – I believe that the Kindle Unlimited program which Amazon rolled out a year and a half a year ago will prove to be the most revolutionary step in publishing since the e-book itself, and perhaps since the first paperback book was published in 1939 by Pocket Books. They priced them at $0.25 each, with the intention of bringing affordable books within reach of the masses. Naturally, all the major publishing houses laughed at them, as they have at nearly every other innovation since the Gutenberg printing press. Within five years, however Pocket Books had sold over 100 million copies, and no one was laughing anymore.

Kindle Unlimited, My Writing Blog, Book review, thriller novels, action-adventure,
William F Brown
Thriller Novels

The economics of book prices are interesting. The first Pocket Book paperbacks came out at the end of the Great Depression. A postage stamp cost $0.03, gas cost $0.10 a gallon, and bread was $0.5 a loaf. At $0.25, it was roughly the same as a gallon of milk, or a pound of butter, chicken, or coffee. More importantly, they were priced at about 10% of the cost of a hardback book. That was a lot of money back then, which is why hardback books were mostly found in libraries. According to government statistics, inflation has totaled 1589% since then, which means that 1939 Pocket Book would cost $4.22 in 2016 dollars and that hardback around $42.20.

Think about that for a moment. First, that 10 to 1 spread between hardbacks and paperbacks hasn’t held up over time. The average paperback today is more like twice that and new releases are normally in the $10-14 range. Meanwhile, the average new hardback appears to be just under $30, so that 10 to 1 spread now is more like 2 or 3 to 1. While the new, big name e-book in the Kindle store came out at $10 to $14, the price doesn’t stay there for long. After about 6-8 months, they are normally discounted to the $6 to $9 range, still, in a 4 or 5 to 1 spread to the hardbacks, and the average e-book on Kindle costs less than, roughly equivalent to that $0.25 Pocket Book in 1939 dollars. In fact, many readers only buy the Free or $0.99 e-books on the Sale pages, making Kindle the equivalent of the old public library for the frugal among us. One conclusion you can reach from these numbers is that e-books have had a larger effect on hardback book prices than they have had on paperbacks.

The growth of e-book readership has been phenomenal. While they were first “invented” in the 1930s, they only reached any level of popular use in the past 20 years after the Sony reader came out in 2006 and the first Kindle in 2007. Today, over half of all adults own some type of reader or tablet. More significantly for authors, Amazon now sells 65% of all e-books and 85% of all self-published e-books. In 20 years, the e-book and Kindle have grown to become the twin, 800-pound gorillas in the publishing industry, but their biggest impact may be yet to come.

That comment brings us to the Kindle Unlimited subscription service, which Amazon launched in July, 2014, initially to compete with Scribd and Oyster from HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster. At that time, the three services had similar sized libraries to choose from; but like everything else, Kindle just seems to do it better. KU’s offerings have now grown to over 1 million books. Scribd and Oyster have grown as well, but none of the three offer their first rank bestsellers as part of their subscription services. If you are a reader however, and go through three books or more a month, at $9.99 per month the KU subscription service is a no-brainer.

True, the KU library only includes books that are part of the Kindle Select program and “exclusive” to Kindle, which is about a third of their total library, mostly good, self-published books, and “last year’s” books from the front line authors. Still, that’s a lot of good books for an avid reader.

For authors, the question has been whether to go exclusively with Kindle Select and get your books eligible for the Kindle Unlimited program, or stay out and try to market them through the other independent e-book publishers such as Smashwords and others. My writing friends have gone either way depending on how much they dislike or don’t trust Amazon. I understand those feelings, but my writing income has doubled as a result of the KU “Nominal Pages Read,” so don’t let your suspicions or emotions pick your own pocket. More about that in my next blog piece.

William F. Brown, is the author of 8 action, adventure, suspense novels on Kindle, Kindle Select, and Kindle Unlimited. To read about them or subscribe to the blog, go to my web site, http://box5462.temp.domains/~billbro4

 

Filed Under: Business History, Good fiction writing, Kindle Unlimited Books, Kindle Unlimited Thrillers, writing blog Tagged With: Business History, e-book publishing, Kindle select, Kindle Unlimited, New Kindle Books

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