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This guy is named Ercilio and...

6/27/2012

...as it happens, he needs a new boat. Oh, sure, you've noticed that he already has a boat and you're right. Working 10 hours a day, he's built a boat transportation service but now he needs a newer, better boat. "In this way, he will be able to transport his customers in a very safe manner and will be able to improve his income and continue fighting to make his greatest dream come true: to be able to provide his children with a profession and for them to be very proud of him."

That's according to Kiva.org. The good people at Kiva are going to take our tiny $25 donation, add it to enough other donations to total $575, then turn it over to Caja Rural in Peru -- and Ercilio gets his boat.

In time, we'll get our money back -- probably. There's roughly a 99% repayment rate. This is our seventh Kiva loan and, so far, we haven't been stiffed yet. If you're at all interested in doing such a thing, this is a good time to do it. The philanthropic Omidyar Network has offered to donate $100,000 if the Kiva community loans $1.5 million out by June 30th. Weirdly, if you're new to Kiva and this kind of thing, they'll even provide you a free $25 loan to offer someone like Ercilio. We don't know how it works but free + helping others = not a bad thing.

Plus, Ercilio could really used a new boat.

* * *
So how did our eReaderIQ ad work out? We're not glad you asked. The morning of the ad, we checked the Amazon rating for Aly's Luck: #446,249. We should have checked the number the night before, we'd forgotten to do so -- again, we're lousy at the promotion game -- but it seemed vaguely in the ballpark. An hour later, we checked again: #446,943. Yes, we were actually LOSING sales as the ad continued. (We weren't really; it just felt that way. Other books were selling, our title wasn't, and our rating reflected this.) So we did what every right-thinking person would do. We quit checking the numbers.

By the following morning, we were willing to look at the sales ranking again. Our number had improved to #137,954, its highest rating ever but still leaving us with a loss on the cost of the ad. That could change if one of the buyers gives the story a rave, tells his millions of Twitter-ites, and a flood of buyers swarm the Amazon site...but, really, what are the odds?

This isn't just a hypothetical question. We wondered: What are the odds that Aly's Luck will become a smash hit? We went to the toy section at the local store, shook up their Magic 8 Ball and asked. The response: Better not tell you now.

You know what we wanted it to say?

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For fifty bucks, we'll test your IQ...

6/21/2012

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…or, rather, we’re spending a fast $50 to test our IQ. Our eReaderIQ, that is.

As family and friends (that would be you) know, we do a not-terrific job of promoting our books. We'd be better if it wasn't such a struggle. Bloggers and book reviewers have been burned by so many bad self-published books, they don’t want to see ‘em. The handful of folks focusing on the indie/self-pub world are overwhelmed by submissions begging emails and can barely begin to carve into the humongous pile of offerings placed in front of them.

As writers, we want to trust in Dean Wesley Smith’s philosophy: Don’t spend your time trying to sell your work, just write the next book. Given enough time, every writer will find an audience. The problem with this theory? Some of us have to make a living while the audience dawdles, occupying itself with Fifty Shades of Grey.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

While Fifty Shades was busily collecting tens of thousands of readers, we saw a lovely, talented writer abandon her craft for the world of retail. She’s busy folding sweaters because her four novels and two novellas collected good reviews at minor sites and were rarely purchased. And this writer busted butt to sell her stuff, doing readings and store signings, and knocking on doors both real and virtual. If effort was all that mattered, she’d be golden.

Us? Based on our lackadaisical promotional activities, we’d be scrap iron. It’s not that we don’t want to promote our books…no, wait, that’s exactly it. We don’t want to promote our books. We’d rather keep scribbling while the Magic Promotion Genie comes along and gives our books a big shove. So far, the Magic Promotion Genie is a disappointment. Turns out, the MPG is reading Fifty Shades of Grey, too.

So we thought we’d try something different. When the corporations at B&N/Smashwords/Amazon combined to send us a chunk o’ change in April, we thought we’d use a piece of it to buy a bit of attention for one of our books. We did this even after a fellow writer told us that internet ads for books don’t work. Because what if, just once, things worked out differently?

We contacted a nice man at eReaderIQ and he quoted us a livable ad price (or, at least, less than our April royalties): Fifty smackeroos. We like eReaderIQ, go there at least once a day, and we occasionally notice the ads at the top of the screen. Usually don’t notice ‘em but, y’know, sometimes. Once, we even bought a book from an advertisement. But, you’ll notice, we go there. Daily. We bought a book. Once. If our response is typical, the average advertiser is totally screwed.

What are our odds of success? A writer friend (and one who advertised on eReader ) thinks we’ll struggle to see any results. He suggested we pick our most popular novel; we picked our newest, Aly’s Luck, instead. He told us to price it at free if we wanted to attract readers. We priced it at $2.99. (Hey, we put our heart into this book.) He said we wouldn’t have a good return on our investment. We told him we appreciated his advice. He told us, “You’re doing it all wrong.”

Which actually worked for us. So far, doing it all wrong seems to be our entire life strategy.

If you’d like to see the crash as it happens, the ad runs on Saturday, 06/23/12. Our Amazon 'paid' sales ranking for Aly’s Luck as this post goes on line is 401,844 -- and will likely be tens of thousands higher by the weekend. As you can assume, a smaller sales number = a more successful pitch. A higher sales number = we’re totally screwed.

The betting line in Vegas? Not good.

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Finding the right person isn't easy

6/13/2012

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…whether it’s in life, in love, or while hunting for a narrator for your YA audio book. As you’ve probably forgotten, we were searching for the perfect person to be the voice of Ann Lippens, Girl Detective. In the past couple of posts, we've mentioned how we’d come close (but no cigar).

We thought theprocess would be easier than it was. We were disheartened. Not yet willing to give up, we reached out to a couple of additional vocal actors, we received their audio auditions, and we sat down to listen.

These auditions were the best yet, by far. Smooth, professional, nice stuff. Even though they didn’t quite catch the sound of a 17 year-old teenager, the actresses were almost perfect….

And that’s the rub, isn’t it? Is it better to take nearly-what-you-want or should you hold out for exactly-what-you-want? More importantly, is exactly-what-you-want even available – especially on a 50/50 royalty basis?

We weren’t sure that perfection was achievable but we knew it wasn’t right to say “maybe” to any of these good people. We’ve been writers long enough to know that maybe sucks. Some time ago, one of our stories in After Things Went Bad dropped onto the ‘maybe’ list of a hardcover science fiction anthology being edited by a big name science fiction author. The story lingered in limbo for months…and we didn’t know it because the editor didn’t drop a hint that we were still under consideration. After we withdrew the story, he told us he'd been holding it for possible inclusion in the tome (the implication being, of course, that we were close but -- what if something better came along?). At that point, we didn’t care. We were tired of being a maybe. You either love the work or you don't.

Since we liked the auditions but didn't love 'em, we knew what we needed to do. We emailed the pair of narrators, told them quite honestly that they were great but not right for the role, and considered shelving the whole thing. Then one last audition arrived, the version promised by our last possible actress, the one who promised an audition in two weeks.

From the very first sentence, she was perfect. (Not that Renée was surprised. Renée thought her audio samples rocked and she'd mentioned it a few times. But a sample doesn’t = a finished product so he refused to be impressed. He is now.) We were delighted to offer the contract, our actress was delighted, and we’re working together. Per ACX rules, we were given a listen to the first fifteen minutes of the thing – and the tiny bit that didn’t work was played with, changed, and plays very nicely now.

So, yep, we're pleased. Because, when it comes to listening to audiobooks, we're satisfied whenever a vocal actor manages to bring a book's characters to life. We're happy if somehow the reader makes the book sound even better spoken than written.

We’re happy.

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"A three letter word ending in X...

6/6/2012

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…and it’s better than S-E-X,” according to our friend, Nan.

She’s speaking of ACX, the Audiobook Creation Exchange outfit. Having just heard the audio version of her self-published thriller, Nan was more than a little excited when she called. When she spoke with us, she was probably indulging in a little hyperbole – or her husband, Chuck (not his real name) (his real name is Warren), is just not as much fun in bed as you might think.

The point is, Nan is quite pleased with her oral experience so far. She stumbled across ACX; made her novel available for taping; provided a short segment for narrators to audition; sent messages to five different voice actors, receiving three auditions; selected her reader; and, now, she’s only a piece of cover art away from making the product available for sale. Easy peasy.

Fun fact: According to the Urban Dictionary – the term “easy peasy” comes from an ancient television commercial for Lemon Squeezy dish detergent. No, we'd never heard of Lemon Squeezy dish detergent, either, but now we want to own a bottle.

At this point, Nan doesn’t know if there’s money to be made in audiobooks or not. But there is the potential of a few more bucks in the bank account and that’s good enough for her. Good enough for us, too. After all, if it wasn’t for the potential of earning enough jack to buy a cup o' joe at Method Coffee, self-publishing would wither and die.

So we thought we’d jump into the game. Because our lovely young niece listens to books no matter where she goes, we thought we’d start with a novel intended for MG readers -- Something Wicked. Despite good reviews and the occasional fan letter, the book's e-sales are lagging (despite the higher price, paperback sales pretty much match the e-numbers) and we hoped an audio version might find a receptive audience.

Preparing an audition script from the opening of SW – easy peasy – we signed up for ACX and posted the book on the ACX site for any interested narrators. Like Nan, we sat back and waited for the auditions to fill our inbox. Like Nan, all we heard was...

*crickets*

We’d been too optimistic, hoping the world would rush to our door. So we pulled ourselves together and started listening to audio samples, trying to find the just-right person to make our book come to life. Since SW is the story Ann Lippens, girl detective, we focused on actresses and found some terrific talent. Since Nan had found five potential narrators, we did the same, sending each of them our pitch.

Not much later, we’d heard from the first actress. She was traveling out of the country, wouldn’t be able to provide an audition tape until later. Maybe much later. So we were one down.

The next day, we received two auditions and had the promise of a third in another couple of weeks. Two days later, the last narrator contacted us, providing her take on our work. Hey, with three auditions in hand, we felt pretty good about the process. If things worked out, we might not need to hear the two-weeks-from-now audition, much less the effort from the woman going to Spain.

Finding a quiet place, we sat down to listen to the talent.

Our first actress definitely had possibilities. Her voice was light, pleasant – “This is a voice you could listen to all day,” one of us remarked – and clearly professional. If there was any concern, it was almost a weird one: the voice was so smooth, there was never any sense of drama. Even as our story's first victim fell from a cliff, doomed, she sounded more bemused than frightened.

Not perfect for our needs but this was definitely a good start. Still, bottom line, we had strike one.

Our second actress was good, too, but we suspected she would be. Her credits as listed on ACX list was impressive and, if true, she clearly had chops. She zipped through our pages easily, quickly...and maybe too quickly, providing a 3-and-a-half minute version of our 5-minute audition. She also made an interesting acting choice, sounding pissed throughout the audition. This time, as our victim fell to her death, she sounded like she couldn't wait to knock the crap out of the rocks below.

Again, not perfect, but interesting. However, strike two.

Our third narrator had the kind of husky, dark voice that was immediately attractive. Breathy, her words oozed sexuality. If Ann Lippens had been a teenaged bar slut, she’d have been golden. (One of us liked her voice so much that he wanted us to immediately write a story about a sexy teenaged bar slut who maybe liked the guys on the football team a little too much. The other one of us disagreed.)

Do you even have to ask? Strike three.

Worried that we'd only begun and already struck out, we approached another pair of narrators. But, again, we've rambled a bit too much for today. More next time.

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This guy is named Ercilio and...

For fifty bucks, we'll test your IQ...

Finding the right person isn't easy

"A three letter word ending in X...

Come on in! This

Renée & Harrell

It's about time you got here.

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