I enabled Matchbook in Amazon. I thought it just automagically did that when you set up a print version, but there was a box I had to tick off. It isn’t in the forms you walk through to publish – it was in a pull down menu.
The first two books of the series April and Family law are so BIG they are relatively expensive in paper, so I set it for the e-book to be free with them. They are both over 500 pages and there is now way to get the cost down and make anything.
I currently don’t make a cent on April if it is a 40% sale and FL I think was like 26 cents. I make a little at 60% and I’ve spent several thousand getting it done right.
If I get some more follow-on books up I’ll consider setting these books at no profit – as loss leaders to sell the other books. You are welcome to tell me what you think about my pricing.
“Friends in the Stars” F.L.#5 is out to readers.
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If anyone wants a signed copy they are the same price as Amazon. By the time I pay for them to ship it to me and put it in my own box and take it to the post office and mail it to you I’m making about the same as I would if you bought it from Amazon. If I thought I was going to be swamped with a hundred I wouldn’t even do it.
I’ve had some trouble getting a perfect book. If you wait a bit you will get a better copy.
I am still waiting on minor fixes to the “April” cover and intend to carry over a re-edit with better punctuation to the paperback. By the time I do the rest of the books I will have learned how and have it perfected from these first two.
Even after I removed the font that was giving me trouble from my computer it still showed up in the print version. Apparently because it was embedded in the PDF. I uploaded a .docx file and it appears to be finally fixed in the online preview.
My apologies the product is not perfect yet.
There were paragraph indents missing in two chapters and I’ve fixed that.
Very soon there is going to be a edit to improve punctuation using Grammarly.
“Friends in the Stars” F.L.#5 is out to readers. ??? where???
Beta readers. The folks who tell me I am an illiterate basket case and correct all my gaffs.
😉 Gaffes.
See?
With ebooks the way they are you buy a paper book to collect a physical copy more than read. You need to make a profit to make it worth doing. Loss leaders are marketing gotta try it to see if it pays. I’ve been reading SiFy since the 70s, started April early in the series, it was the first books that I ever wanted to reread. I have since reread April and FL multiple times. I hope you are considering April as an audio book series. I understand the up front cost and longer payback, but I hope FL audio shows it’s worth it.
Keep up the good work and keep them coming, you are on the short list of my favorite authors.
I was offered a deal with an advance for the Family Law books audiobook rights – The first one is near earning out the advance and I’d be happy to offer up the April series to them if they want. I’m not going to bankroll it myself.
I don’t think the April or Family Law books would do that well as paperbacks today, because for the most part their target audience would have moved to electronic formats. These days I only get paperbacks when I can’t find a book in as an ebook, and then I end up rarely reading those books because its just so much more convenient to read on my tablet than go find a specific paperback. I think most readers of Sci-Fi would generally be quite comfortable with modern technology and have similar feelings, so like Jeff Harris said paper backs would be more of a collectable item, than something you buy to read.
Also have to consider asking the people doing audiobooks of Family Law if they would be interested in the April series, to see what kind of deal they would offer on that.
I’m sure you’ve covered this in previous posts but I just wondered how I could become a pre-reader for your books, I love your vision of the future as well as the details of the physics and engineering involved. Please keep up the good work, you’ve got an audience.
I’ve got about as many as I have time to review their corrections right now.
So ebook out to public in about 2 weeks?
1 week for beta readers and 1 week for consideration of replies.
I like the new cover on April. Ordered the paperback to use in selling your series’ to friends.
I like the idea of a dead tree (paper) option. I really like the idea of you offering a paper edition at a price that makes you happy ($25 to $30?) and then throwing in the ebook version for free. I don’t know why no one’s doing this – seems like the best of both worlds.
I mostly buy ebooks these days, however all my favorite old-school authors I still buy in hardback as soon as they come out – David Drake, Wen Spencer, Lee & Miller, etc. I’d certainly add your name to that roster if I could.
Ebooks are soulless. You can’t easily share them. When your battery dies so do they … when the power goes out for a few days try lighting some candles and reading your dead tablet. You can’t look at your stuffed bookshelves and say, “I’ve read all those.”
People can still read paper books that are centuries old – I happen to own a few. Fifty years from now every current electronic format will be obsolete and inaccessible … don’t believe me? Try running any piece of software from even 15 years ago on a modern machine. Anyone (besides me) got a five-and-a-quarter floppy drive any more? A three-and-a-half? Hell, millennials probably don’t have a clue what I’m talking about and foolishly believe that all their current data will be eternally accessible.
So yeah, print ‘em up. I love your stories and want you to keep writing more, so of course I want you to make money at it. Charge what you need to make it worth your while – I know I’ll be tapping the Buy Now button.
Family Law is $18.99. April $16.99. Seems like people have gotten used to mass market paperback prices. Trade paperback is the same size as hardcover. At least in these first two BIG books I’m going to include the e-book free.
Will you sell signed copies?
I’d be happy to. I don’t have credit cards set up, and probably won’t for awhile until I have more product. If you have PayPal you can pay me that way and I’ll send out copies for the Amazon price. Postage included.
I expect to have an April cover up with a few minor improvements a about a week if you’d like to wait. I’m waiting until that gets done to order a box of books.
Eventually I will get hard cover. Working on getting them all up in trade paperback.
Add me to the signed-copies-list please 🙂 for once I’m glad I haven’t canceled PayPal
Sarah Hoyt made most of my covers. She will fix up the April cover after Libertycon next week and I’ll order a box of those books. My e-mail for PayPal is the same I use here (by my name) and I’ll post prices soon. I am going to get a Shopify account and clickable link on my site withing the next couple weeks too. I’m going to ask the lady who maintains my site here to clean it up and remove things I don’t use and consolidate some features such as comments. Tell me when we do this if you want books personalized or just signed.
Perfect, though I think I would prefer a copy of Family Law. If that’s possible, I’ll send the funds right over. Thank you!
I have a box of F.L. coming. Will watch PayPal.
Hmm maybe it’s just me but I can’t find your email address on here. Please add the address to this post. Thank you!
Mr. Chandler,
Amazon is the 500 lb gorilla of the industry, but have you also looked at Barnes and Noble? They sell fewer books than Amazon, but they may offer a better return on each copy sold. It might be worth the effort of checking them out. It must be possible to sell on both platforms.
Thomas DePrima used to sell on Amazon, then suddenly stopped. I’d thought he’d stopped writing. Then I found a half dozen new novels at bn.com. I downloaded the Nook app just to buy his books.
I’ll buy your books wherever you put them. April and Family Law are some of my favorite series.
I had books listed on B&N back when I had a publisher. They sold no volume for me at all. I gave Amazon an exclusive in order to qualify for the KU lending. KU has paid much better than B&N. KU Paid me about $46,000 last year and I have no hope of getting that from B&N. I don’t expect B&N to exist in 5 years. They just got sold to a hedge fund and I expect them to cut cut cut until they sell their real estate off at the end and they are gone.
Thomas DePrima sells Mobi from web site.
http://deprima.com/novels.html
Mac – I encourage you to price your paper books at a profit AND include the eBook rights.
I had almost 3000 books, most paperback in my home, until a storm destroyed my parts of my home. Unfortunately, the insurance covered everything, except the books. They considered it excessive and above my limits without a special rider. Which is beside the point.
I would gladly paid a premium of 10% to be able to buy both. Today I only buy eBooks because they are “backed up”. If I tried to buy both, it would be 180% of the Amazon print price. As I said, I would gladly pay 110% of the print price which is usually 20% more than eBook.
Make all you can.
See what I said to Big Ben… Oh, and most people who sell well in Kindle tell me they sell about 3% of their Kindle volume in paper.
If I promise not to send in corrections, could I be a beta reader?
😉
Wow can’t wait for book. I was curious what the insurance company thinks is excessive. I read a book a day. the best I buy a real book and add to my collection as I had days in the candlelight to read a book after a snow storm. And God forbid on of the many possible apostolic books come true what would I do with no April or fl. My books keep me sane. Haahaa
Just ordered them both, I hope this helps support more paper from you Mac!
I’ve been trying to not that kid in the back of the car that keeps asking “are we there yet”, ever since I read book 5 out to beta readers… it’s been soooo HARD, but after a week figure I would crave so I started to reread. can’t believe how many time I’ve re-read this series. thought might skip some but read all four. You write to damm well. so with love and hope with understanding I’m an addict for your work…..When will Book Five be Out?????????? yes my name is Kevin and I’m a Mackey Chandler addicted
Well said, me too except my name is Cheryl
For taking credit cards both PayPal and square will do what you want. I like square as they seem a bit less likely to mess with you than paypal. Square is pretty painless to get started with. Though to be honest paypal isn’t much harder. I have a personal paypal account and one set up for my business. Also have a square account. Having both gives redundancy if one of them starts messing with me.
any eta on fl 5?
Sorry – waiting on the cover mostly. I’m ready too.
any way to release with plan cover then add the cover when done? as I said above am addicted to your writing and need a new fix…the waits killing me all my Favorite authors have books commuting out this month. NC Read, Laurence Saunders, and Peter Grant. you four plus Michael Chatfield ten realm series end of summer witch I hope means July. Having my 5 top authors due with books at same time would sound good, but knowing there due any day and checking dairy killing me. my luck they come out same day.
I don’t want to do that. It looks pathetic to have a blank cover.
I understand, but I buy it just with a stick figures. put many times I find some new author when he has a new book in a series. it’s the cover that makes me click on them and look up book one. once again love your books. hope get cover soon. ps I do like the new covers on the earlier books.
Any idea when we can expect FL5?
Any day – as soon as I have a cover.
It’s been several days, any idea how long it’s going to take to get the cover?
Mac– How much would you want for a full set of your April and Family law books in paperback signed — Thank you P.S. what is your paypal id to send it to?
I have KU, but I have bought all the April series as well as FL. I re-read them all the time. Make all the money, Mr. Chandler, as long as you keep writing! Will there ever be an April 11?
Started already. There is still a gap to Family Law to fill in.
Sorry I never saw this post. Wasn’t ignoring you.
Please provide your April Series and Family Law Series in paperback! There are people in prison that are asking (weekly) if the series are in paperback yet. They are not able to read on Kindle. I was able to send the first books but haven’t seen anymore in paperback.
I’d love to. The process is rather hard. I’ve paid two different people to format for print and neither produced acceptable results. I’m trying to get to the skill level to do them myself but am not there yet. The covers are also much more difficult to get accepted for print. Honest – when I can I will.