Authors - your Amazon book page is your main shop-front.

The significance of seemingly insignificant facts.

While it may be only the cover image and title that has attracted some customers to your novel, once your book is published on Amazon, potential readers can garner lots of information from that single page about you, your book, your style of writing, its review star rating, and the publication standard - be it traditional or home-grown. These are aside from the pertinent facts like page count and price.

   When browsing a book’s page, price for me, is the first thing I check out. Personally, I don’t buy e-books that retail around $10 or more.

    I then consider the number of star reviews the book has received and the value of the stars. I regard 4 and 5 stars at about the same value and don’t usually read more than one or two of the printed reviews. Keep in mind that a newly released book with only 5 star reviews might be the result of friends and relatives being the first customers who feel obliged to boost the writer’s ego. An occasional low star review amongst many does not concern me. But if the low star reviews outweigh the higher star counts then I want to know why.

   I always read the author’s Bio(graphy). It provides an insight into the personality of the person behind the pen – their sex, age, background, nationality and interests. Can I align with that writer?

    I then scroll down to the facts Amazon provides about each book such as the date of publication. Is it a new release or has it been around for years? What is the page count? Some books have less than 100 pages, others have over 500.

    Next I check out the publisher. Has the book been traditionally or self-published, though it is not always easy to determine.

   For me, the main factor which will determine if I will buy is the “Look inside” facility. Most e-books on Amazon have this option available – just click on the cover thumbnail.

    Scrolling through a few pages provides a facsimile of how the book will present when opened on your Kindle or reading device. Correct or poor formatting is immediately obvious. Poor spelling, punctuation and syntax indicate the book has not been well edited. Finally, by reading the opening chapter the potential purchaser will know if he/she likes the writer’s style and if the opening pages have grabbed their attention and made them want to read more.

    For any author, writing the book is the main. Having the work edited and formatted comes second. Then throwing together a Bio and Blurb for Amazon is often the last chore the author is confronted with.

    But the Amazon web page on which your book appears is your shop-front and it is the information that appears there that has most bearing on whether a customer decides to purchase your novel or not.

    Just my thought for the day.  

A tip for self-published authors - Having trouble selling your titles?

Are your E-books slow to sell?
Have your titles flat-lined?
If so, here is a proven tip to breathe life back into those dead books.
A few months ago, I noted the sales of some of my self-published e-books had fizzled to only a handful each a month.

Offering Freebies or Countdown incentives was not the answer. So, I decided to repackage three of my historical fiction titles by combining them as a Box Set through Amazon Kindle.
With a purposely designed Box Set cover, I presented the three stories under the umbrella of YORKSHIRE GRIT, a title that reflects the stories’ settings. After uploading the manuscripts to KDP, I offered the Set at an attractive price ($4.99 US).

For two months, this Box Set has performed well, particularly on Amazon UK, selling over 300 copies a month returning £2000 (approx. $4000) over 8 weeks. I am currently selling a dozen copies a day – a result which has both surprised and pleased me.
With very little effort it is possible to breathe life into titles that are otherwise dead in the water.
If you have titles which are in danger of going under – why not give it a try?
You can find YORKSHIRE GRIT here for US readers or here for UK readers.

The three titles in the Box Set are SEA DUST, THROUGH GLASS EYES and THE BLACK THREAD. These are all still available individually and as paperbacks through LULU.
Margaret Muir is author of seven novels and two other books. Nautical Fiction stories in the Oliver Quintrell Series are published under the by-line M.C. Muir.

Yorkshire Grit

Three gritty stories, set in the north of England, from the pen of author, Margaret Muir.
Though the author now lives in Tasmania (Australia), her roots were firmly set in Yorkshire soil.
Her historical novels, set in the difficult days of the late 1800s, reveal the darker side of family life and the struggles that confronted young women at the time.

Book 1 – SEA DUST – Tells of Emma’s torrid life in Whitby with a cruel husband. The escape she plans for herself and her young son and an eventful voyage to the far side of the world.
Book 2 – THROUGH GLASS EYES – A family saga, much of the intrigue revolves around the theft of an expensive doll.
Book 3 – THE BLACK THREAD – Set on the Leeds Liverpool canal – a story of treachery, deception and murder.

The three e-book set is available at a greatly discounted price on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

Set of three E-Books - Oliver Quintrell Trilogy

With the continuing success of the Oliver Quintrell nautical fictions series, the author has released a Box-set which combines the first three e-Books in one. Though each book is a stand-alone story, it is good to read the early adventures in sequence. The Box-set is available from Amazon Kindle.

Book 1 - FLOATING GOLD - a seemingly impossible mission, cloaked in mystery, takes the ship deep into the frozen waters of the Southern Ocean where intrigue, murder and near-mutiny threaten the lives of everyone aboard.
 
Book 2 - THE TAINTED PRIZE - heading south again to locate a missing Royal Navy frigate, Captain Quintrell navigates the Magellan Strait and makes a shocking discover before heading north to the coast of Chile and Peru. Aside from several encounters with the enemy, unexpected and disturbing occurrences make this an unforgettable story.

Book 3 - ADMIRALTY ORDERS - Captain Quintrell is ordered to Gibraltar to give assistance to the garrison and colony. Hemmed in by strict quarantine regulations, the dangers which unfold are more insidious than either the French or Spanish fleets. What Book 3 lacks in battle action it makes up for in its handling of the human toll from the colony's battle with an unseen enemy - malignant fever. 

Jebel Musa - the southern Pillar of Hercules on the Strait of Gibraltar.

Following on from the Trilogy, THE UNFORTUNATE ISLES is Book 4 in the series.
When given permission to leave Gibraltar, Captain Quintrell heads across the Atlantic. Putting into the Azores - better known as 'the Fortunate Isles' - to careen the ship, captain and crew have the misfortune of crossing tracks with a sadistic and tyrannical pirate who follows him across the pond. Can they escape the villain and finally serve retribution on him for his evil deeds?

Having reached Rio de Janeiro, the captain awaits sailing orders. Unexpectedly, he is ordered to return to England in the company of a British man-of-war. THE SEVENTY-FOUR is Book 5 in the series. While the enemy sails the seas, Captain Quintrell soon discovers that danger also lurks below deck.

All books are available individually as E-Books or paperbacks from Amazon.

Publishing your book with Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) - my experience

Print books are fine but they are expensive.
When my books were first published by Robert Hale Ltd, London, they were produced in hardback.
The recommended purchase price in Australia was $54 dollars. But who is prepared to pay that amount for a novel written by an unknown author.
Copies even cost me (as the author) $35 to buy a copy.

Today, e-books are sweeping the market - and I say 'good on them!'

Through Kindle, e-books are selling for anything from zero to $10.00 and more.
Authors who publish independently can set their own price and have the opportunity to promote their books with freebies ($0) occasionally.

I think an attactive price is $2.99 or $3.99 and, although I have bought a couple that have cost $9.99, I have subsequently felt a little cheated and wrtten to the publishers saying that I felt their prices were too high.

Having taken the bull by the horns, I have decided to convert all my books to the Kindle KDP e-book market. They will sell exclusively through Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

But another problem with indie-produced books is that some look very amateurish. The editing is poor and the formatting leaves you feeling dizzy.

Because of this I opted to pay to have all 5 of my books formatted professionally.

I chose to use Custom-Book-Tique
The company is in Canada (and I live in Australia), but that has no bearing.
Maggie, the proprietor, is helpful, efficient, but most of all, the range of services she offers is broad and her prices are very competitive.

Having sent my first WORD document manuscript to her, I was delighted to find the conversion completed in a couple of days. And the presentation of my book on my Kindle reader is first class.

I believe e-books are the way to go. But whether you have been traditionally published in print by a leading publishing house, or you are a first time budding writer who believes their work is worth publishing, I encourage you to go ahead, but get some professional help both in the editing and formatting before offering your books to the world.

The pics are of two of my book covers which I designed myself using Power Point. I will post on images shortly.