I mean, it all evens out in the end, and preorders actually cut into your sales rankings, but I've become so dependent on those big chunks of cash in the beginning of the book's life cycle that I'm kind of afraid to go back to selling the old way.
Right now Amazon is showing some humanity and restoring preorders to those of us--which turns out to be a lot of more authors than I had imagined (and is it wrong to be relieved by that?)--having trouble creating on cue right now. So while I've got my preorders back--and not knowing what the future holds--I'm hedging my bets and listing several books for preorder WAAAAAAAY out there. As in for this time next year.
Will it really take me until the end of May 2021 to write The Movie-Town Murders? I don't think so. I sure hope not! But life--as well as art--seems uncertain right now. So I'm just guaranteeing myself a few preorders over the coming year, just in case.
Which is a long way of saying, DON'T FREAK OUT OVER THESE DATES WHEN YOU SEE THEM. I'm not really going to give up writing for a year. I'm just extending those lead times as long as I can. I can push them forward without penalty--and I will!--but pushing them back is where the trouble begins.
Anyway, here's one of the new covers for the Secrets and Scrabble series. This one is for SCANDAL AT THE SALTY DOG.
Haha! That is SO perfect!! I'll bet there are LOTS of scandals at the Salty Dog! (Salty Dog happens to be my favorite adult beverage:Gin and grapefruit juice, salted rim on the glass 😛)
ReplyDeleteI've never had one! I need to remedy this! :-D
DeleteJosh I always pre order your books and I don't care if you miss the release date. I pre ordered Bell Book and Scandal in Dec 2019, Amazon cancelled the pre order on13 May but it's now back available to pre order but the price has increased! I don't think this is very fair.
ReplyDeleteHi there!
DeleteThank you for reordering! I appreciate it. I promise you the price has NOT increased a single penny. I know this because the preorders elsewhere remain in place and the price is the same. In fact, the 60K novels are ALWAYS priced at $4.99 for the pre-release. They later are bumped up to $5.99-6.99 regular price.
Is it possible you've confused that price with the pre-release price for the shorter novels and novellas? Those are always $3.99.
Hi Josh thanks for responding. I am in the UK and the pre order was priced £3.87 in Dec 2019 and is now priced £4.07 That is a price increase of 20 pence. As I said before this doesn't seem fair. Anyway you remain my favourite author I this genre and 20pence will not change my opinion on that score. Stay safe
DeleteAhhhhh! I see what you're saying. The pricing on the platforms outside the US are automatically populated, so I had no idea there would be a change on any given currency. I agree, it doesn't seem fair. I'm not sure why it's happening, given the US price didn't change--and the other prices are calculated off the US. :-/
DeleteHi Josh maybe it's because here in the UK we no longer have to pay tax on books, so this should have reduced the prices of all books but Amazon don't appear to have altered their prices accordingly. I only hope they have passed on the price increases to the writers (ie,the tax money previously paid to the government).
DeleteHmmm. Well, I think we can take it for granted, Amazon will not pass any extra profits onto writers! :-D
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