Category Archives: Storm Season
I have made a Decision
(And yes, I know, I haven’t posted here for yonks. That is going to change, believe me.)
I’m making some business changes here at Chez Cameron — namely, no more free first in series books. Over the last five years I have given away 27,969 free downloads of Empress of Storms and 9,767 free downloads of Storm Season on Amazon alone. The reasoning behind this was, if I made the first book in a series free, it will prompt people to download it, read it, love it, and buy the rest of the books.
Yeah. That hasn’t quite worked the way I’d hoped. Mind you, I do get the occasional burst of purchases where someone gets the rest of the series, and that’s delightful. But I haven’t made nearly the number of series sales that I’d hoped for with this stratagem.
So, as of today, I’m setting both books at $3.99 on all platforms. That’s still a helluva deal in a world where ebooks are regularly $9.99, but more importantly it acknowledges the undeniable fact that readers are more likely to read a book that they actually pay money for. It’s easy to stuff your Kindle/e-reader with free books, but how many of us actually get around to reading all of those books? If you actually purchase something, however, there’s more impetus to read it than a book you got for free.
And that’s my in with these readers — get them to read the first books in the Olympic Cove and Two Thrones series, and hopefully they’ll buy the rest of the books in each series. We’ll see.
Mind you, I’ve also sold 6,625 copies of Empress of Storms since 2015, which just about squeaks it into bestseller country. It will be interesting to see how long it takes me to crack 7K copies sold.
Looking Back at June
I’d mentioned in an earlier post how I changed my book costs in Amazon’s Canada and Australia markets to be numerically identical to my US prices (e.g. if a book costs US$4.99 here, it costs CAN$4.99 in Canada and AU$4.99 in Australia).
I checked my end-of-month numbers and whaddya know—I had 355 downloads of Storm Season from Canada thanks to the Stuff Your Kindle/eReader Day, AND I’ve had 5 purchases for Olympic Cove books, including one complete read-through of the series except for High Tide (but that read-through happened yesterday so I’m hoping they’ll come back for High Tide).
As for Australia, I had 252 Amazon downloads of Storm Season from Australia due to SYKeD—no sales yet, but an Aussie author on TikTok said that she’s going to spread the word about my lowered prices so we’ll see. But it’s not fair for Amazon to have all the bennies so I’ve also gone into Google Play and Draft2Digital and changed my book prices for Canada, Australia, and New Zealand there as well.
TL;dr—This has been my best-selling month this year to date thanks to SYKeD, changing book prices, and the release of High Tide, and I’m hoping to bump that up even more next month with the release of Hurricane Warning and the omnibus edition of Olympic Cove.
And the numbers are in
I swear, changing my Amazon book prices in Canada and Australia was probably the smartest thing I’ve ever done.
When you publish a book in Amazon, you choose a price for the book. You then have two options—Amazon will set the price in all of its other markets based on the US price. This has been a no-brainer so it’s what I’ve been doing. And my Canadian and Australian/NZ sales have been non-existent, which struck me as strange because those are two big markets for English language books.
Until I read an article that said people who let Amazon set the price for their books in Canada and Australia/NZ are pricing their books out of the market. Most Canadians are willing to pay CAN$4.99 for an ebook, but Amazon had been pricing my ebooks around CAN$7.99 because of the conversion rate, and Australia was getting hit even worse.
So I went in and manually lowered the .ca and .au prices for all of my books to make them numerically identical to my US prices (e.g. if an ebook cost 4.99 in the US, it now costs $4.99 in Canada and Australia which appears to be average for the market).
The proof in the pudding came last week when I participated in Zoe York’s Stuff Your Kindle/eReader Day with Storm Season (Olympic Cove 1). The idea with this is to set one of your books free for a day (or a weekend) and let romance readers pick it up with the hopes that they’ll like it so much they’ll buy your other books. Granted, the bulk of readers are only picking up free books, but a small percentage of them will read through a series, and that can add up to decent income and new readers who will want your other books.
Anyhoo, I just checked my numbers for the weekend and not only did I give away a BUTTLOAD of copies, I’ve also been getting significant read-through of the Olympic Cove series. And whoop, there it is—someone in Canada is reading the rest of the series. This, after not making a single Canadian sale all year.
I need to check on average book sales in other foreign markets and see if I need to make adjustments there as well. My primary sales come from the US and UK, with a handful of French and German sales here and there (and someone in the Netherlands who’s reading through the Olympic Cove series—thank you, whoever you are). But there are a bunch of other Amazon markets—if my books are overpriced there as well, you bet I’m gonna adjust prices to make them more competitive.
Happy Anniversary to Myself
According to Facebook today is my eleventh anniversary as a published novelist. Eleven years ago today Evernight bought Storm Season, setting me off on this crazy adventure.
So much has changed since 2013. I lost one cat, gained two more, became an indie author and started writing MF romance as well as MM romance, went through financial tribulations, and had cancer last year. I also wrote a total of seventeen novels (sixteen as Nicola and my alternate history mystery as Melanie Fletcher).
Which is actually pretty good for someone of my generation. Yeah, I know Millennials and Gen Z can churn out tons of books a year because they have the energy and drive to do it. But for someone who is in menopause and is already missing a couple of body parts, seventeen books (eighteen if you count Shifter Woods: Claw since it’s 42K words which puts it into novel class) is something of an achievement. Of course that number would have been nineteen or twenty, but My Adventure With Cancer ate a good third of last year along with four teeth, five lymph nodes, and a strip of my jawbone.
So I’m busy playing catch-up this year and trying to finish those three books as well as the ones scheduled for this year, all while looking for contract tech writing or instructional design work because this house desperately needs a lot of repairs and I’ not making enough money from the books to pay for all of it. Oh, and I’m waving off my drunken slattern of a Muse who keeps popping up with new books ideas while I still have at least six to finish first. And yes, I’m completely aware these are First World problems and there’s a genocide going on and I’m incredibly lucky and should just shut up and be happy about my anniversary. I know this, truly.
It’s just that to me, money = time. I don’t want to be filthy rich—I do not have the temperament for it. I just want to have enough money where if the washing machine starts leaking or the refrigerator stops dispensing filtered water I can call a repairman instead of looking up ways to fix it myself, because that takes me away from writing. I want to have enough money so that I can pay for expensive CT scans and my medical insurance deductible for the year without fretting about how I’m actually going to cover that bill, because that takes me away from writing (as an aside, if anyone needs cover art done my schedule is open and I’m ready to make something amazing for you). I want to have enough money to put solar cells on the roof with a battery so that if this summer is as hot as last summer I won’t constantly be worrying about the grid going down, because that takes me away from writing.
The ironic thing is, if I cranked out a bunch more books I’d make more money and a number of these problems would be eased. So I probably should shut up and get back to work.
I Am the Queen of Organization
I was serious when I said I’m going to start thinking like the small business owner I am.
I already have spreadsheets for my income and expenses so I just have to update those tomorrow with the month’s numbers. But I now also have three separate punch lists in Excel—one for Belaurient Arts, one for Belaurient Press, and one for general Belaurient business, all items with Due By dates and switches to indicate whether or not they’re done (and if not, what has to be done to get them finished. Because sometimes Stuff Happens™).
In addition to the punch lists I have a schedule for formatting books and setting them wide, and once that’s all done by the middle of June I’ll haul my recording equipment into the master bathroom closet and start recording audiobooks (yes, you’re finally getting audiobooks from me. I figure I did a podcast for years, did voiceovers for various training projects, and according to people who have listened to me at cons I give good reading so I may as well do them myself).
As for today, I formatted Storm Season, put it wide, and got started on formatting Breaker Zone (why oh why was I using such huge chapters back then? It is a puzzlement) before I had to run out and pick up some stuff, then make dinner. Once I post this I’m going back upstairs to knock out Friday’s episode of Crystal Blade for Vella, then at 11:30 PM I’ll publish tomorrow’s episode.
And I dunno if this mindset is impressing people, or I’m being rewarded by the universe, or what, but I have sold ten books just on Amazon in the last week. Since my series are no longer in KU and actual sales are the only way I’m making money on the ‘Zon, this is cheering.
On Monday We Write
And other writing-related chores, which for me means refreshing Amazon ads for Shadow of the Swan and Storm Season (I freely admit that I’ve been using ChatGPT to give me ideas for ad blurbs, which I then heavily tweak to get the result I want) and checking on the FB ad I started on Saturday for Esposito County Shifters: OE. Clicks on that are pretty good and I’m waiting for updates on Smashword’s Daily Sales report to see if there’s any happiness on the sales front.
Some nice people in England also bought a copy of ECS:OE and three of the novellas this morning, so whoever you are thank you for that.
In Crystal Blade news I’ve reached the midpoint of the book where Crystal makes a moderately shocking discovery about her parentage after being banished t0 the hunting lodge where she was born. Needless to say, the Buff Lords are not happy about this and Fallon has been dispatched to keep an eye on her and rescue her if necessday. More importantly, Crystal’s also been set a rather tasty task by the empress to prove her heritage, and it’ll be interesting to see how many people figure out the answer before I reveal it in the book.
I will give one hint here: 3-D printing. Heh, heh…
2019 Holiday Blog Tour – Nicola Cameron
Hello darlings, and let me send a big shout out to Cameron Allie for organizing this wonderful blog tour! Today I’ll be giving away copies of my Olympic Cove series (Storm Season, Breaker Zone, and Deep Water) as part of the festivities, so don’t forget to leave a comment here or on Cameron’s blog and tell me what’s your favorite thing about the holidays!
- What is your favourite Christmas song?
All I Want For Christmas Is You - What food do you most look forward to over the holidays?
Proper homemade fruitcake, soaked in dark rum – it’s delicious! - Do you have a holiday beverage you like? Alcoholic or non-alcoholic?
My mom used to make an alcoholic holiday liqueur called glögg — we used to call it Swedish Rocket Fuel. My BIL had a big glass of it and wound up sleeping through Christmas. As for non-alcoholic bevvies, eggnog is always a favorite. - Is there a book you like reading at this time of year?
No, but I do like listening to the Patrick Stewart version of A CHRISTMAS CAROL while I’m cleaning. - Do you participate in Boxing Day shopping? Is Boxing Day a tradition in your country?
The husband is English so I know what Boxing Day is, but we don’t really have it in the States. - Do you get your shopping done in advance or leave it to the last minute?
I try to get it done in advance – that way I can focus on trying to finish up projects before the end of the year. - What’s your favourite Christmas movie?
Scrooged. - When do you decorate your house?
It depends – sometimes it’s the day after Thanksgiving, but last year was insanely busy and I didn’t decorate the house until a few days before Christmas, and that was only at the husband’s prodding. - When you were a child what was the best Christmas gift you remember receiving?
A Barbie Dream House. That was awesome. - Is there a unique holiday tradition your family keeps?
See #3. - When do you open Christmas presents?
Christmas morning. - What’s your favourite outdoor winter activity? If it doesn’t snow where you live what makes it feel like Christmas to you?
I live in northern Texas so we don’t get a lot of snow. Favorite outdoor winter activity is raking the leaves.
I’m Still Here (oh, and please buy my books — I have an A/C repair to pay off)
Sorry about the radio silence — between trying to get various books formatted and out (my very first romance novel Storm Season has been re-released with a new cover and re-edited content, AND it’s on sale for 99¢ — go take a look!), the increasingly scary situation going on with our current administration, the #GetLoud crusade against bookstuffers and assorted scammers, me taking a jewelry fabrication course, and assorted other things I’ve been a little busy.
The latest event was our downstairs A/C unit going out over the weekend — as it’s been flirting with triple digits here in the clavicle of Texas, this was not a laughing matter. The repairman came today and we now have cool air again for just a shade under a grand. *sigh* So if you need something entertaining to take your mind off things, I currently have five titles on sale for 99¢:
- Storm Season (Olympic Cove 1)
- To My Muse
- Red Robin and the Huntsman (A Two Thrones Novella)
- Empress of Storms (Two Thrones 1)
- Shifter Woods: Howl (Esposito County Shifters 1)
To My Muse will be coming off sale on 7/1 and Degree of Resistance will be taking its place, so if you haven’t read my hilarious romcom yet go get a copy while it’s still ridiculously cheap.
But not all is doom and gloom around the Cameron manse. The #GetLoud campaign, spearheaded by the brilliant Suzan Tisdale, Heather C. Leigh, Bianca Sommerfield, and David Gaughran, has finally generated enough complaints and bad press that the Big River are now taking down bookstuffers. Not all of them are gone, mind you — I still counted at least three in the top 20 of Romantic Comedy a few minutes ago — but the ranks are definitely looking different now. And if Amazon sticks to their guns and doesn’t let these people create new accounts (which according to their TOS is what’s supposed to happen), we may actually have a respite where KU has real, legitimate novels in it again.
At least, until the stuffers figure out a new scam. Which they will, because they’re unethical hacks who simply want to make money. In the meantime, however, I’m going to experiment and put Red Robin and the Huntsman back into KU for three months because it’s not really selling wide, and if it attracts readers in KU that might persuade them to check out the rest of the Two Thrones series (the next book, King of Blades, should be out in November, BTW).
Also, I’m finishing up Shifter Woods: Snarl (see cover at left) and that will be out on 7/10, so mark your calendars! The final novella in the current series, Shifter Woods: Scream (which is Deputy Jane’s story — the eagle shifter finds herself mated to a hot tiger shifter AND a half-elf zoologist in a crossover with Siobhan Muir’s Cloudburst, Colorado series), will be out sometime in September, and then I have to think about a plot for a full-length Esposito County Shifters novel. One possibility is Caleb and Laurie finally getting married — that is, if she can take time out from her new big story and he can deal with a group of religious preppers who are trying to set up a compound in the county. All of the characters from the novellas will be in that one, and I can build from there.
The one where I’m on USA Today’s HEA blog
Or as I like to put it, SQUEE!
USA Today’s Happy Ever After blog has me on today with an interview talking about To My Muse, where I get my ideas from (everywhere), what distracts me (five cats), and what I looked like back in the 1980s (there’s a picture. I warn you). So if you want to know what makes me, me, go on over and check it out!
In other writing news, the rights to Storm Season have reverted to me and I’m bringing out a re-edited edition of it next Tuesday, including a spandy new cover! I’m also distributing ARCs for reviews tomorrow, so if you’re a blogger/reviewer and you’re interested, DM me with your preferred ebook format/email or fill out the form here.
And finally, I’m putting the finishing touches on Shifter Woods: Snarl. The plan was to have it out by 6/12 but it got bumped by Storm Season, so you can expect to see it on 7/4. I’m experimenting with the common wisdom that Amazon promotes you more widely if you bring out a title every 30 days, so that’s what I’m going to do for the rest of the year. Right now, the schedule is:
- June: Storm Season (Olympic Cove 1)
- July: Shifter Woods: Snarl (Esposito County Shifters 3)
- August: Behind the Iron Cross (historical MMF)
- September: Uncertainty Principle (Pacifica Rising 2)
- October: Shifter Woods: Scream (Esposito County Shifters 4)
- November: King of Blades (Two Thrones 4)
- December: Two Thrones holiday novella
It’s not as insane as it sounds — Storm Season is already done, SW:S is a novella and almost done, Behind the Iron Cross is 80% done, and I have the plots for all the other books and novellas already worked out. Let’s see if I can pull this off!
#SexySnippets: Intersection
Sexy Snippets are seven sentences, taken from a work in progress, or published book, brought to you every Sunday. And now, allow me to present a tasty little scene from my SF cyborg romance Intersection (Pacifica Rising 1), out at the end of January 2017.
Ben smiled as he settled in between her thighs, tracing a finger along her dampness. “We did this back at the park, didn’t I?”
Evie nodded, too excited for words.
“Goddamn it. That’s one thing I really wanted to remember, too.” He leaned down to kiss the soft curls on her mound. “Suppose I’ll just have to make some new memories, then.”
Powered by Linky Tools
Click here to view other Sexy Snippets, and follow Sexy Snippets on Facebook and Twitter.
Nicola Cameron Writes 