Is it a Race?

Zestful Blog Post #101

Usually I put up just one post here per week, on Thursdays. Last Saturday, though, I wrote a post about a promotion I was running for my novel Damn Straight, and promised to give you a report. I’ll do that, then I have something else to talk about.

I consider the promotion—five days free on the Amazon Kindle Select program—a  success. Data:

This was the second or possibly third time I put the book for free on Kindle. I know the first time, the book got between two and three thousand downloads, with minimal word-spreading. Subsequent free offerings of the same title never do as well, but I wondered what would happen now that a few years had passed. (The reason for the promo was the big LPGA golf tournament, formerly known as ‘The Dinah’. Damn Straight is set at that tournament, and I like to watch it on TV every year.)

The promo started at 12 a.m. Saturday, Apr. 4, 2015. I put up notices on Facebook, Twitter, a couple of Yahoo groups, and this blog.

Amazon Bestsellers Ranking: By 10:50 that evening, the book was at #665 Free in Kindle store, and #1 in LGBT Mystery & Detective, and #1 in Lesbian Fiction. It stayed at #1 in those two categories for four days, reaching #344 overall on Monday, Apr. 6. It might have climbed higher, but one can only spot-check these things. On Wednesday, Apr. 8, the last day of the promotion, the book was at #936 overall, and #1 in LGBT Mystery & Detective, and #3 in Lesbian Fiction. (9:34 a.m.)

During the first two days, the downloads were the most at 438 and 565, then dropping off every day thereafter. Total downloads: 1,446.

As I write this on the morning of, Thursday, Apr. 9, Damn Straight’s rank in the Paid Kindle store is 99,737, and #59 in LGBT Mystery & Detective.

What you look for after such a promo is a sales bump for that title and others. And in fact, the other four books in the series all climbed into the top 100 in LGBT Mystery & Detective at some point or other during the promotion. Holy Hell is #42, Easy Street is #60, at the moment.

So basically it’s worth it to keep the free promo going for the full 5-day period, because even though the book’s overall rank and number of downloads slipped dramatically after the first two and a half days, it went to and stayed at #1 almost the whole time in its narrowest category.

OK, now on to other stuff. Over the past few months, I've written about my publishing history. I’ll continue to share what I do, whether it’s a promotion and its results, a new published work, whatever. But I’ll also talk about discoveries I make in writing techniques, reading, and living. Like-a what follows.

[Photo by ES]

I once saw a photograph of two young girls poised on the starting line of a footrace. One girl's eyes were fixed anxiously on the man with the starter's pistol. The other girl's eyes were brightly locked on the finish line in the distance. Which girl do you think won the race?

One could say that micro story is about competition. But I see it as being, at its core, about performance. In You've Got a Book in You, I sought to help writers cast aside doubt and fear and just pour it out, trusting your own natural talent and creativity. If you’re anxious about the parameters—the starting gun, the query letter—that stuff’s gonna get in your way. But if you focus simply on the joy of doing—running fast, writing well—you’ll achieve. And you’ll be satisfied with your performance, whether you win a particular race or not.

In a way, the first girl was already running, while yet poised for the gun. The other girl wasn’t going to be really running even after the gun sounded.

It’s paradoxical, it’s Zen, and it’s true.

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Promo Experiment: Damn Straight Free

Zestful Blog Post #100

Apropos to my missives on marketing lately, here’s a special I’m running, followed by some early feedback:

The special (text I posted on FB this morning):

Grab a freebie on Kindle: In honor of this weekend's major LPGA tournament, the ANA Inspiration--formerly known as the Kraft Nabisco, formerly known as the Dinah, after Dinah Shore, 'the Tennessee Thrush', who founded it, the Lambda-winning DAMN STRAIGHT is free on Amazon Kindle. The weekend is still known as 'The Dinah' among SoCal golf cognoscenti. Lotsa parties in the Palm Springs area. (The course is Mission Hills in Rancho Mirage.)

DAMN STRAIGHT is set at the Dinah, where our heroine Lillian Byrd falls for a professional golfer with some dark danger going on in her life. What can Lillian do but try to help? This read 'will keep you up til dawn,' according to Whitney Scott on Booklist.

The feedback:

This is, I believe, the second time I’ve put this book up for free; the first was about 3 years ago, I think. I was happy with the results then, though off the top of my head I can’t remember how many total downloads. It was in the several thousands.

As soon as the special went live at midnight this morning (Saturday Apr. 4), night-owl readers (and possibly some non-nightowl overseas ones) started snapping it up, slowly, then with more gusto. 30 copies were downloaded in the first six hours; the total is approaching 90 now. Promo done so far today: One post on Facebook, one on Twitter, and now this blog. I’ll put up notices on a couple of Yahoo sites I’m on, and this blog will be automatically fed to my author pages on Amazon and Goodreads.

As I write this, just after noon on Saturday, the book’s ranking:

·         #5,410 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)

o    #5 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender eBooks > Mystery & Detective

o    #18 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Lesbian Fiction

The price will stay free for a few days. Not sure when I’ll cut it off, but it will be back to full price at least by Thursday, because I can only put it for free for a total of five days per three-month period on Amazon Select.

Will let you know more in Thursday’s blog.

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Breaking Through

Zestful Blog Post #83

If you’ve been following this blog, you know I’m writing a series of posts about my publishing history. Herewith today’s installment:

4) Breaking Through

Weary of querying agents who failed to recognize my brilliance, I set about querying publishers directly. This ruled out the biggest ones in New York, who only took agented submissions. I queried some of the smaller mainstream publishers, but none were interested. How to get through that brick wall between me and publishing success?

The leading LGBT publisher at the time was Alyson Books, named after its founder, Sasha Alyson. The editors there were discriminating, they paid advances, and they published most of the top authors. Unsurprisingly, their authors’ books sold well and won awards, most notably the Lambda Literary Awards, aka the Lammys.

A rung down from Alyson, for my purposes, was Naiad Press, a women-only concern that published broadly (OK, pun intended), did not pay advances, but published some significant books and fostered many a career. A number of authors started out with Naiad, then switched to Alyson once they became better known. The co-founder and publisher, Barbara Grier, was committed to the feminist/lesbian literary cause. She was outspoken, loved and feared, she was a good businesswoman, and many authors and readers are grateful to this day, years after her death.

I felt that Holy Hell and the sequels I intended to write, would be a good fit for Alyson, so logically I should have approached them first.

But was I logical? No, I was insecure. I had felt the slings and arrows of outrageous rejection. I believed that Naiad, which in my opinion published lots of crap along with their good stuff, would surely go mad for the quality of writing in Holy Hell. I wanted the sure thing. So I sent in a query, and as I expected, received a letter of interest asking for an exclusive look at the whole manuscript. I sent it.

[Gotta break it…]

A few weeks later the phone rang. My partner, Marcia, answered it. “I'm calling for Elizabeth Sims,” said a gruff voice on the line. “This is Barbara Grier. Do you know who I am?”

“Yes, I do,” answered Marcia. She ran to tell me.

Barbara Grier herself!

Surprised, flattered, and thrilled, I closed the door to my office and took the call.

“Hello, Ms Grier.” I picked up a pen and made notes of the conversation, having gotten into the habit of doing that for important business calls.

“Well, you have some talent,” she began without preliminaries. Her tone was not, however, one of encouragement. She sounded like a woman suffering from a grave disappointment.

Barbara explained that she gave the manuscript to three of her “readers”, as was her protocol. Their report: one felt “lukewarm” about the book, the other two were frankly thumbs-down.

“It's just not a good book,” she said bluntly.

I felt dismayed but not crushed. I listened carefully, determined to glean whatever wisdom I could from this highly experienced publisher, who cared enough to phone me and talk. Maybe she'd suggest I make some changes and submit it again. “You obviously don't understand how to write a good lesbian novel,” she went on. “You don't understand what women should be reading. This main character of yours—”

“Lillian Byrd,” I interjected.

“She gets herself into all these dangerous situations—I mean really life-threatening situations—and that's not the kind of message women should be hearing.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“I see.”

The whole point of Holy Hell was to let Lillian learn things the hard way, thus entertaining my hoped-for readers. But the book's black humor was completely lost on Barbara and her staff. I realized that she and I were unlikely to find much common ground.

Barbara paused, and I got the impression she was referring to some notes. “She goes into these dark alleys, I guess. Right?”

“Right. It's a crime novel.”

“She gets shot!”

“Right.”

“That's stupid! That's just stupid to have her do that!”

At this point I had to bite my finger to keep from laughing. Barbara paused, as if waiting for a response. But I couldn't think of anything to say. I certainly wasn't going to try to defend my work to someone who was so profoundly missing the point.

“Well, let me give you some advice,” Barbara said at last.

“Yes, please do.”

“You should find a writing group. Like I said, you've got some talent, but you have a long way to go.”

“Mm.”

“We publish a lot of lesbian books.”

“Yes, I know.”

“We don't give advances, and frankly, I've never seen a book that deserved one. But our books sell. Our hottest-shit writer, Claire McNab, makes a good living! You could too, if you learned a few things.”

After hanging up, I let my laughter out. The conversation had been so ludicrous, and Barbara's belief—that women shouldn't read fiction about a woman who blunders into dangerous situations—was so stunningly idiotic, so patronizing, that laughter was the only possible response.

I opened the door to my office and went to find Marcia.

“She hated it!” I announced.

Marcia, seeing me smiling, thought I was joking.

“No, she really hated it.” I related the conversation.

“She called to tell you that?” Marcia couldn't believe it. We dissolved into laughter together. How bizarre! How insane!

After that, I decided to go to the top of the quality heap, Alyson Books. They read my query and asked to see the manuscript. I sent it, they loved it, offered me a contract (with an advance!), and published it.

Before the book went to press, I inserted a scene near the end in which Lillian Byrd's ex-girlfriend scolds her for getting herself into such awful trouble. She uses the same words Barbara Grier said to me in that phone conversation. Just my private little f*ck-you to Barbara, though I doubt she ever saw it.

Holy Hell saw three printings between 2002 and 2006, and has continued to sell steadily in e-book form. (I’ll soon release a new edition of the paperback.) Holy Hell's sequel, Damn Straight, won the 2003 Lambda Literary Award for best lesbian mystery. I wrote two more books in that series, Lucky Stiff and Easy Street, before deciding I wanted to break into the big time.

That story next time.

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[Brick wall photo by ES.]