In today’s Journal
* Wow
* I might have mentioned
* Topic: Update—Keep Abreast of Your IP
* Daily diary
* Of Interest
* The numbers
Wow. Already July 31. How’d that happen?
We accomplished a lot at StoneThread Publishing in July with learning about licensing (and a ton of other things). Personally, as a fiction writer, not so much. I wrote upward of 40,000 words this month, but only around 7,000 of those were fiction. (A very far cry from my 110,000-word fiction months, eh?)
We at STPublishing also made huge strides on getting my IP inventory under control and uploaded roughly a ton of stuff to a new (to me) major venue—Google Play—with much more to come.
The thing is, with the inventory being mostly under control now, it will be an easy matter to keep it that way by adding to it as I write each book in the future.
We’ve also laid out a short-term, two-year plan (essential in business).
1. We’ve been through the Licensing Learn Along together. We’ll continue to learn together through the Licensing Transition. Plus both of us have separate access to Kris Rusch’s Patreon account for additional information.
2. We’ll continue to bring our IP inventory under control now (around 300 IPs). At this point, we’re only beginning to work through the short fiction. I can honestly say I’m glad I didn’t have more IP when all of this hit.
3. We’ll complete the actual transition of our publishing LLC (StoneThread Publishing) in concert with Dean and Kris doing the same at WMG. I can’t think of anyone better to learn from and emulate. We’ll both also be studying the Advanced Business Class lectures.
4. As the transition of our business should be close to complete just before the next Licensing Expo next year, we’re planning to attend that together.
5. Then we’ll attend the Master Business Class next year (2020). Mona’s good with business, and I’m good with networking.
And of course more will crop up as we go. And during all of that, I’ll be turning out new IP. (grin)
Is this a truly wonderful new world, or what?
***
I might have mentioned this a few days ago (too lazy to look). Two things you absolutely must have to start or increase sales are
* a good, genre-specific book cover (study a range of recent bestsellers in the genre on Amazon or in your favorite bookstore, and
* excellent sales copy (I recommend DWS’s book How to Write Fiction Sales Copy.)
Once you have that, if you don’t know anything about marketing, I recommend an exciting new resource. See “Self-Publish Strong” at http://selfpublishstrong.com/. Pretty sure either I or my business manager will be taking a few of Andrea Pearson’s courses.
Topic: Update—Keep Abreast of Your IP
A couple of days ago, I got a reprieve from an admin tasks. I found that I can’t upload my short story collections to Google Play for a week or so.
While prepping my Short Story Collections spreadsheet, I remembered my wife had mentioned a couple of my collections were already on Google Play. (Unlike me, she actually uses her phone as more than just a phone.)
I seemed to remember uploading those titles to Google Play some years ago, but I couldn’t remember much more about it. So I went in and looked at the listings.
There were two collections already there. And the PUBLISHER was listed as “XinXii”. Weird.
Okay, that sounded an alarm. After all, I’m trying to build my StoneThread Publishing brand. So when did I give these other guys permission to call themselves my publisher?
It started coming back to me.
XinXii.com is yet another aggregator, based in Germany. I opened an account with them some years ago. I seemed to remember uploading a few titles (two?), but I soon lost interest in them because I couldn’t get a feel for their payment policies and didn’t feel good in general about them.
But apparently when I left them, I didn’t close my account. Which led me to think maybe I should double-check the account. So I found my log-in information, brought up the site, and logged in.
Wow, was I surprised.
Apparently I opened the account back in early 2015. And I uploaded not two, but TWENTY-THREE books to them, including the two my wife had mentioned, some other collections, all of my (then) Wes Crowley series, and a couple of other novels.
Why the other 21 books weren’t also already on Google Play, I have no idea. But I’m glad they weren’t. I’ve already uploaded all of those novels to GP myself in the past few days, and I was on the verge of doing the same with the collections.
You can’t sell the same title through two different publishers (two different ISBNs) in one store.
I didn’t spend much time looking over XinXii’s site this time around. I remembered that I didn’t care much for them as an aggregator. That’s why I left them and moved on.
I DID notice I’ve earned a whopping $4.23 from sales through them over the past almost 5 years. Which still hasn’t been paid.
I decided they can keep the $4.23. It’s an inexpensive price for a lesson.
Okay. At the moment I use D2D, Amazon and Smashwords. I’m also at a crossroads, looking over a few other aggregators to expand my reach. But these days I’m looking them over v-e-r-y carefully.
* I’m reading the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
* I’m checking royalty rates and payment methods.
* I’m looking actively for any red flags. Like them claiming (on Google Play) to be the publisher and thereby detracting from StoneThread Publishing.
So I moved methodically through my XinXii account and removed each title. Afterward, I closed the account.
Now I’ll wait a week or so for those two XinXii titles to clear off of Google Play. Then I’ll upload all of my short story collections to GP myself. Under the StoneThread Publishing banner.
Much later, after I’ve checked out StreetLib and PublishDrive, I’ll take another look at XinXii too. I’ll apply my checklist for aggregators:
* What major new (to me) markets (stores, nations, etc.) do they reach that others don’t?
* What marketing tools or assistance do they offer?
* How easy or difficult is their upload process?
* What are their royalty rates, payment methods and payment schedule?
* How easy (or difficult) are they to audit?
After all, it’s been five years. Maybe XinXii has changed.
I certainly have.
***
Rolled out at 2. Not a lot to report today beyond the stuff above and below. Today I’ll read some more, and as always, maybe write.
I take comfort in knowing the words and story will be there when the time is right.
I did spend about a half-hour babysitting my little girl and the other lady cat before the sun came up this morning. They were insistent about going “ow-si” so I got my flashlight, a cup of coffee, and went out with them.
Talk with you again tomorrow.
Of Interest
According to CrimeReads, yesterday, July 30, 1935 (a scant 84 years ago) the first paperback books were released by Allen Lane and his new publishing house, Penguin.
I happened across this old but still timely post from DWS (complete with a comment by our own Michaele Lockhart). See “The New World of Publishing: The Real Price of Traditional Publishing” at https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/the-new-world-of-publishing-the-real-price-of-traditional-publishing/.
For another older but still relevant post, see “Copyright Law Class Sing-Along!” at https://writerinlaw.com/2014/01/09/copyright-law-class-sing-along/. Bookmark it, and read the posts that follow it. The “course” runs through “Copyright Class 10 Infringement Part III.”
See “Panic Attack” at https://killzoneblog.com/2019/07/panic-attack.html.
See “A slightly different look at reviews” at http://prowriterswriting.com/a-slightly-different-look-at-reviews.
Check out “The Fictorians” at http://www.fictorians.com/. Browse the site. You might find something helpful.
Fiction Words: XXXX
Nonfiction Words: 1090 (Journal)
Total words for the day: 1090
Writing of ()
Day 1…… XXXX words. Total words to date…… XXXXX
Total fiction words for the month……… 7399
Total fiction words for the year………… 358737
Total nonfiction words for the month… 33870
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 218070
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 576807
Calendar Year 2019 Novels to Date…………………… 7
Calendar Year 2019 Novellas to Date……………… 1
Calendar Year 2019 Short Stories to Date… 1
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 43
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 194
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31