In Today’s Journal
* BO-55 is Live
* Ten Important Things
* Of Interest
Blackwell Ops-55: Neil Speck | Tempting Fate
is live everywhere for $5.99 or at my online discount store for $5.
Although Tempting Fate is set in the Blackwell Ops crime thriller world of professional assassins, it’s more of a suspenseful romance than a crime thriller. In that way, it’s similar to A Most Unusual Day.
And of course, A Most Unusual Day is currently still posting free in serials over on Stanbrough Writes. There are only four or five chapters to go, but you can still read the whole thing free if you want.
Ten Important Things
Yesterday, a writer who’s also in Dean’s “40K” workshop asked me a few questions. I thought my response would make a good TNDJ post:
1. One caution on Dean’s workshops. In every class he presents, he speaks to the most basic, beginning writer. So if you’re beyond that stage, often the first whole week of a 4- or 6-week workshop is a mostly boring introduction.
Note that he does occasionally drop a gem without realizing it, so listening to the first week is usually worthwhile. Overall, is it worthwhile to pick up only “a gem or two” from an expensive workshop? Sure. But it would be a lot more worthwhile to pick up the same gem or two from a book by the same author on the same topic. Which leads me to…
2. When Dean offers a book as well as a lecture or class, I recommend buying the book every time. (For example, he keeps hyping his Writing Sales Copy workshop, but I strongly recommend buying the paperback instead. Mine is dogeared, and it’s everything you’d ever want to know about writing sales copy, including clear, concise examples, all for under $15.)
3. I write short fiction, though not as much recently as I used to. I currently have well over 300 short stories and around 30 collections.
I price individual short stories at $2.99 onD2D and Amazon (to get twice the royalty rate, per Dean’s practical advice years ago—advice which he has now altered a little).
My 5-story collections go for $3.99 (but $3 on my discount site) and my 10-story collections go for $5, $6, or $7.99 depending on overall length. I don’t offer individual stories on my discount store. Too much work for too little return.
4. For direct sales I don’t personally use or recommend Shopify. If I was wealthy enough to hire someone to manage it and upload all the stuff for me, I would also be wealthy enough to afford Shopify and I might use it.
I use and recommend Payhip instead (one of the direct sales platforms Dean refuses to talk about). Payhip doesn’t have all the sometimes expensive and unnecessary bells and whistles Shopify offers, but I like it and it works well for me.
5. For direct sales in my world, I have my publisher site (StoneThreadPublishing[dot]com) and Payhip. On my publisher site I have all of my novels, novellas, and collections broken into genres (and with menu items).
You can also set up your website through Payhip, but again it isn’t your platform. I recommend owning your website.
When you click (for example) Blackwell Ops on StoneThread Publishing you’ll find a page with the 180×270 pixel thumbnail image of each cover. But when you click any cover, it takes you to my Payhip store where you can see the HUGE cover, read the description (sales copy), and (if you want) buy the book.
You can see another example at The Wes Crowley Saga. Clicking any other menu item will lead you to other examples.
6. Woo Commerce (I’ve heard) is another good option. BUT… remember that over time you’ll be making your website heavier and heavier (slower to load) with all the covers you’ll have to upload, etc. And despite what the various web hosting places say, there is no such thing as ‘unlimited’ bandwidth.
For example, that’s why I don’t offer the free, fully searchable PDFs of the TNDJ archives on the Journal website for direct download. No room. So I have to tell folks if they want them they’ll have to email me for them. Then I send them out manually via email.
7. ALL of my websites are on WordPress.org. I pay a webhost (EntirelyDigital.com) once a year to host my main site (HarveyStanbrough[dot]com). All of my other sites (HEStanbrough[dot]com, StoneThreadPublishing[dot]com and a few others) are subdomains under that main site.
The web host has a “cPanel” through which you can do a one-click installation of Word Press on your domain. I won’t use any webhost that doesn’t give me the control of a cPanel.
Note: I recommend staying AWAY from JustHost, BlueHost, and a number of other web hosts for various reasons, chiefly poor or nonexistent customer service or the fact that they’re a proprietary platform. Been there, done that, felt like a moron, didn’t go back.
8. I STRINGENTLY DO NOT recommend WordPress[dot]com or GoDaddy[dot]com or any of the other ‘web builder’ sites like that. They’ll nickel and dime you to death. At some of them, you’ll even pay extra just to have your own domain name, and some (or all) of them are proprietary, meaning they aren’t YOUR platform.
So they could conceivably (and legally) claim ownership of anything you subsequently upload to “your” website. Always read the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy before you commit to any of those.
9. Everything takes upkeep. I just rebranded all the Blackwell Ops covers. Two days ago I uploaded all the thumbnails to StoneThreadPublishing, and yesterday I uploaded all the larger covers (2000×3000 pixels) to the individual book pages on Payhip.
All of that takes time away from writing. I’ll do more rebranding and uploads and all of that another time.
10. Start Now, Today, to Build a List of Readers. I’ve said several times on TNDJ that I’ve never built a list of readers. But it finally dawned on me that had I started when I first said that, I’d have a great list today. So I’ve decided to start a separate newsletter just for readers and others interested in my writing. Of course, it’ll take years to build.
So don’t be me. Start growing a list TODAY of readers and people interested in your work.
Hope this helps.
Back tomorrow with a few words on Writing vs. Publishing.
Of Interest
Paid Newsletter: Smart Income Stream or Expensive Distraction? This is by Penny Sansevieri, a bonafide marketing expert, so it’s probably pretty good.