Kevin's Watch

drew wrote:The only question I have, is is it worth ir?

I mean, I love submitting stories, and having Joy tear them apart ...

But how many copies are being bought and read?

The last time I heard, there were less than ten copies bought of 2007...have the numbers gone up at all?

drew, as far as I know, outside of just mentioning the anthologies here on Kevinswatch, there has been NO effort to promote any of the books. If sales are a motivation for submitting to the anthology then I suggest we lift a proverbial finger to let people know about it.

I really wish we could do FanFic. I am working on set aside, Part III. I completely understand, and accept why we cant. but it just sux.


Count me in for a submission this year though.

aTOMiC wrote:

drew wrote:The only question I have, is is it worth ir?

I mean, I love submitting stories, and having Joy tear them apart ...

But how many copies are being bought and read?

The last time I heard, there were less than ten copies bought of 2007...have the numbers gone up at all?

drew, as far as I know, outside of just mentioning the anthologies here on Kevinswatch, there has been NO effort to promote any of the books. If sales are a motivation for submitting to the anthology then I suggest we lift a proverbial finger to let people know about it.

I think (correct me if I'm wrong, Drew) this question isn't about sales as a motivation so much as "If I bother to write and submit something, is anyone actually going to read it?" Fair point, in my opinion.

Its worth it to me. A few people will read it, and I get practice writing, rewriting and editing, so thats fine for me.

iQuestor wrote:Its worth it to me. A few people will read it, and I get practice writing, rewriting and editing, so thats fine for me.

That's fair enough. I'm just saying I can see where Drew's coming from (if I've understood him correctly).

CovenantJr wrote:

iQuestor wrote:Its worth it to me. A few people will read it, and I get practice writing, rewriting and editing, so thats fine for me.

That's fair enough. I'm just saying I can see where Drew's coming from (if I've understood him correctly).

Well the remedy is the same whether it has to do with sales or reads. The only way more people will be exposed to any of the Anthology books is if we do more to raise awarenes that they even exist. One way is to purchase ISBN numbers for them and register with on line book stores.
I can't stress this enough, for those of you who believe the Anthologies are not worth participating in because they don't reach enough people, my answer is simply that more people will read the books if more people know about them. There is professional quality that goes into each volume and they are all worth the price of purchase. The only verifiable reason they haven't sold well thus far is because it has pretty much only been we participants that know to look at them in the first place.
However this is all just my opinion. I can ask Dan Pigeon to endorse them...if you think it would help.

aliantha wrote:You and dAN could get another book out of #3....

What have I done that you could make a book out of? And what is this #3?

aTOMiC wrote:

CovenantJr wrote:

iQuestor wrote:Its worth it to me. A few people will read it, and I get practice writing, rewriting and editing, so thats fine for me.

That's fair enough. I'm just saying I can see where Drew's coming from (if I've understood him correctly).

Well the remedy is the same whether it has to do with sales or reads. The only way more people will be exposed to any of the Anthology books is if we do more to raise awarenes that they even exist. One way is to purchase ISBN numbers for them and register with on line book stores.
I can't stress this enough, for those of you who believe the Anthologies are not worth participating in because they don't reach enough people, my answer is simply that more people will read the books if more people know about them. There is professional quality that goes into each volume and they are all worth the price of purchase. The only verifiable reason they haven't sold well thus far is because it has pretty much only been we participants that know to look at them in the first place.
However this is all just my opinion. I can ask Dan Pigeon to endorse them...if you think it would help.

I vote we buy ISBN Numbers and Ask Joy if Calderwood books would be interested in advertising them -- I think that is an awesome Idea.

Drew, Cov Jr -- Hey, everybody wants to get something out of it, and we arent all the same. I understand completely if the lack of broad readership is a downer for you, I do understand.

edit: I pm'ed Joy (DragonLily) about this idea....

You need to bear the finances in mind if you are going to do that:

The only legal way to buy ISBNs in the US is from Bowker https://commerce.bowker.com/ . They sell in blocks, the smallest block being 10 for $245.00. To get them one has to register as a publisher, for a fee of (last time I looked) $64.95.

I would offer to share one of our ISBNs with you, but our ISBN on it would legally make us the publisher. That would mean we decided what stories get included, took more editorial control of the writing, and it would sell from our site. It would need to make us some profit to make up for the loss of time I would have spent on other books. (It would also be the only way I could spare the time to edit A4.)

I'm sure that's much more than you bargained for!

It is an option, but not one that I expect would be attractive to you. You are all used to it being an independent project.

Btw, Drew, whatever happened to The Unwanted?? I love that story.

iQuestor, thanks for the pm. I hadn't seen this thread was here.

I want to see someone write Tom's idea of the computer mind template.

So: if we become our own publisher, then we have to commit to doing at least six more of these things, in addition to A4.

Total cost of ISBNs for 10 anthologies, including the publisher registration fee: $309.95. Or about $31 per anthology. If we keep the current sales price -- what are we selling them for, about 12 bucks each? I don't remember off the top of my head -- we'd have to sell 3 copies of each book to break even. Which I *think* we have done, even at our abysmal sales rate so far. (TOM, correct me if I'm wrong.)

I'm just sayin' that it's doable. That doesn't say anything about where we'd come up with the cash.

And it sounds like we're going to lose our editor. Unless we "turn pro"....

As for me: I'm in it for the writing practice. With the anthologies, at least I'm writing one story a year....

Another technical question, when you become a publisher, do you tie up the rights? For how long? Print or electronic or both? When CB published a few of the stories from the A2 & 3 we contracted the electronic rights to those stories.

Rights agreements go into a contract. Do you want contributors to be contracted?

Sorry to raise complications. These are the practical things that arise when you become a publisher. They aren't insurmountable, they just make things less flexible.

Joy

I've had stories in two of the three anthologies so far; as long as there is Anthologies, I will participate...but I was saying, wat's the point in even putting one out, if there aren't even as many sales as there are authors?

I mean, we can all go through the editing process and just post the stories on the Watch, if no one is interested in actually reading the books.

BUT if people ARE intersted in reading the books, then I'm (still) all for it.

Advertising on Joy's site ...not a bad idea...what about advertising on THIS site?

We get what, at least five new members a week? Why not mention something about it in the signing up process...or another mass email?

Dragonlily wrote:Btw, Drew, whatever happened to The Unwanted?? I love that story.

I kind of freaked out about a few things, with the idea of you publishing it.
Perhaps we should talk.

drew wrote:I've had stories in two of the three anthologies so far; as long as there is Anthologies, I will participate...but I was saying, wat's the point in even putting one out, if there aren't even as many sales as there are authors?

Well that is an interesting observation. If all of the authors of the Anthologies aren't willing to purchase the books then why would we expect anyone else to buy them? On the other hand as I've pointed out before and drew has echoed, we need to raise awareness of the books one way or another.
There has to be something we can do. If there was a nice carrot waiting for the authors (beyond simply having their work published) like submitting the books for high profile critical review or if we could somehow talk an established author to give us some feedback. Sure we'd love to get SRD to have a look at them but if not him maybe someone else. If we're reluctant to spend money then we need to think out of the box and come up with some interesting ideas. I'm in this for the long haul. If we have Anthologies then I want to help make them a reality, including writing and contributing stories.

aTOMiC wrote:

drew wrote:I've had stories in two of the three anthologies so far; as long as there is Anthologies, I will participate...but I was saying, wat's the point in even putting one out, if there aren't even as many sales as there are authors?

Well that is an interesting observation. If all of the authors of the Anthologies aren't willing to purchase the books then why would we expect anyone else to buy them? On the other hand as I've pointed out before and drew has echoed, we need to raise awareness of the books one way or another.
There has to be something we can do. If there was a nice carrot waiting for the authors (beyond simply having their work published) like submitting the books for high profile critical review or if we could somehow talk an established author to give us some feedback. Sure we'd love to get SRD to have a look at them but if not him maybe someone else. If we're reluctant to spend money then we need to think out of the box and come up with some interesting ideas. I'm in this for the long haul. If we have Anthologies then I want to help make them a reality, including writing and contributing stories.

Atomic -- to this end:

1. Lets continue to talk with Joy about ISBNs and having CalderWood books take them, if She is willing, that is. -- we can come up with the dough.
2. Advertise the Anthologies on this site: to newbies, etc.
3. start a dissection thread, perhaps in the writers circle -- have people sign up for a story and go through it like we do the chrons.

All awesome ideas, IQ. I'm all for it.

The dissection is certainly an excellent idea. Good thinking.

Yes, I like the dissection idea.

If CB published the series starting with this next one, there would not be any charges to the authors or the group. There would be a contract for each author.

We would be happy to have the advice of the submissions committee (sincerely), but we wouldn't necessarily agree with all their choices.

A professional publication is quite a different animal from the group self-publication we have been enjoying these past years. It wouldn't necessarily increase sales by a lot, either. There is a new book published every two seconds -- that's a big slate for readers to choose from.

My personal opinion about the ISBNs is that you don't need them. Simply promoting the series on KW is likely to be the most effective move. Those of you who have websites can do the same. I wrote about them on my LiveJournal. Maybe Romeo would consider including on SRD's website a description of the growing writers' group on KW that has developed because of a love of SRD's work. It is praise to SRD, that he is inspiring a new generation.

CB can certainly put a link on aliantha's and iQuestor's book pages to the anthology that offers the story in print. I'll write to our sitebuilding partner about that.

Joy

Dragonlily wrote:CB can certainly put a link on aliantha's and iQuestor's book pages to the anthology that offers the story in print. I'll write to our sitebuilding partner about that.

And perhaps to the anthology that includes Ghostblood on the North Star page?

CovenantJr wrote:The dissection is certainly an excellent idea. Good thinking.

then lets do it!

should we start with AIII>?