glenkrisch

Brother’s Keeper, now an Amazon Bestseller!

glenkrisch — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 15:47:00 +0000

Since wrapping up a 2 day free promo over the President’s Day weekend for both Brother’s Keeper and Loss, I’ve been anxiously waiting to learn if the titles recevied a healthy KDP bounce. The titles had over 30,800 free downloads, so I was hopeful. I only found a couple of examples of higher download totals, and 10k+ downloads per title is generally the key to having success when the title reverts to paid status.

Well, Brother’s Keeper cracked the horror top 100 yesterday afternoon. And then it started to climb. It gained momentum by the hour, and when I turned in last night, it was #13 in horror, and #470 overall.

When I woke this morning, it had reached #7, and in the last hour, it hit #5. I’m quite happy, but now I’m hoping my novella gets “sticky” and stays in the top 20 for a nice long stretch. It’s weird feeling apprehensive when I have a story at the best ranking I’ve ever had.

If it weren’t for the success of Brother’s Keeper, I’d be doing backflips over the KDP bounce for Loss. It started gaining momentum around the same time as Brother’s Keeper, and currently sits at #50 on the Amazon paid horror list.

Here’s a screencap. If I didn’t see it myself, I don’t know if I’d believe it.

Kindle Giveaway Results: I’m Dumbfounded…

glenkrisch — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:03:13 +0000

I decided the President’s Day weekend was a good time to run a giveaway on Amazon. After listing LOSS and BROTHER’S KEEPER as free of 48 hours, starting on Sunday, this is the result so far (for those who can’t see, the titles are #1 & 2):

That’s just the horror list. I don’t know if releasing both titles at once is making the titles surge. I’m sure it’s not hurting any.

Here’s the overall list (BROTHER’S KEEPER sits at #4):

LOSS is further down the list, sitting around #21 overall. The only marketing I’ve done so far is a few emails sent to a few websites that announce giveaways.

When I did a giveaway the week of Christmas, the downloads totaled around 6200 over five days and across 5 titles.

So far, in about 30 hours, my current giveaway has totaled about 19,600 downloads. The numbers stagger. I don’t know what they mean. I saw a surge in sales after my Christmas giveaway ended. I’m cautiously optimistic about what will happen once Tuesday rolls around.

If you want your free copies, here are the link:

Brother’s Keeper:

Loss:

http://www.amazon.com/Loss-novella-psychological-horror-ebook/dp/B006TZ8Z4S

The Nightmare Within

glenkrisch — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 00:40:00 +0000

The Nightmare Within.

The Nightmare Within will only be $.99 for a short time. Get your copy today!

Spectral Inversion, my new poem, podcasted

glenkrisch — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:49:25 +0000

The publisher of my upcoming story collection, Dog Horn Publishing, just started up a podcast called the Dogcast. It features spoken word, creative noise, interviews, and much more. My poem, “Spectral Inversion” is in podcast 02 at about the 6:40 mark. It’s free to listen, so please click through and have a look around!

http://soundcloud.com/dog-horn-publishing/dogcast-02

Yeah, I write poetry, too. I only recently returned to the form after not producing more than a handful of poems in the last decade. It’s a welcomed return. It’s familiar territory, but after so many years away honing my craft with fiction, I feel like I return with a keener ear for the nuance of poetry, and with a stronger sense of imagery. I’ve still only produced a half-dozen or so new works, but I hope to collect the ever-growing pile at some point in the near future since they all border a common theme. The title of the volume will be named after the long-form poem I’ll write to wrap it all together. The title is tentatively: The Scalding Pool.

Famous Monsters of Filmland reviews Where Darkness Dwells

glenkrisch — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 01:04:14 +0000

This is a cool review from the ultimately cool Famous Monsters of Filmland. From reviewer Peter Schwotzer:

“Glen’s storyline was really interesting and fresh, his depiction of a small coal mining town during the Great Depression was very believable. There is a bleak atmosphere to the story as he paints a somewhat depressing picture of the town of Coal Hollow, but there is also a sense of hope, community and self worth within the characters that adds a touch of realism and depth. It is readily apparent that he did a lot of research on this time period and it definitely pays off.”

Read the entire review at the link.

http://famousmonstersoffilmland.com/2012/02/02/book-review-where-darkness-dwells-by-glen-krisch/

Also, my awesome readers continue to send in their entries for my $200+ giveaway. The promotion ends on February 8th, so make sure you act quickly to get on my entry list. Details are here: http://glenkrisch.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/book-launch-week-brothers-keeper-the-200-giveaway/. I’m from Chicago, so I’m a firm believer in stuffing the ballot box. The more entries you have, the better!

Book Launch Week: Brother’s Keeper, the $200+ giveaway

glenkrisch — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:35:01 +0000

Brother’s Keeper Book Launch Week $200+ Giveaway!

Win Amazon Gift Cards during the book launch week for my new novella, Brother’s Keeper.

Simply purchase Brother’s Keeper (for just $.99!) and send me an email at glenkrisch at gmail.com with a copy of your receipt. Forwarding the Amazon confirmation email works just fine. You receive additional entries for Facebook wall-shares, Goodread adds & recommendations, tweets, blog mentions, etc. The more you spread the word, the better your odds of winning. Let me know how/where you’ve spread the word so I can keep track of your entries. Be creative, just drop me an email after your sharing efforts.

Now for the Prizes:
4 $25 gift cards
1 additional $50 gift card if it reaches the top 50 horror
1 additional $100 gift card if it reaches the top 10 horror.
1 additional $50 for every day it remains in the top 10 horror.

So go to it!
http://www.amazon.com/Brothers-Keeper-a-novella-ebook/dp/B0073WV30Y/

Can you tell I’m excited about this story! I hope you take a peek; if you like end-of-the-world stories, this one will stick with you. If you’ve read any of my work, you know I don’t follow standard cut-out plots with cardboard characters. Brother’s Keeper is no exception.

Thanks so much for your support!

Book Launch Week: Brother’s Keeper, a novella

glenkrisch — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 01:21:15 +0000

I wanted to have my new title available earlier today, but there was an issue with uploading it. Well, that’s all resolved and Brother’s Keeper, a novella, is now available!

US:

http://www.amazon.com/Brothers-Keeper-a-novella-ebook/dp/B0073WV30Y/

UK:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brothers-Keeper-a-novella-ebook/dp/B0073WV30Y/

I’m very proud of this story. Writing the rest of the planned trilogy of novels will take up a lot of my writing time during the next year+. But it’s time to tell this tale. It’s been brewing in me since 1993. That’s when, while on a college trip, we entered the town of Alexandria Missouri. It had just been wiped off the map by the great floods that summer. Mud streaked the remaining teetering walls of the meager downtown to the second floor windows. You can read more about the historical context here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_of_1993

I’ve toyed with the storyline on and off since then. The story has grown, evolved into something far greater than a devastating flood. The events of the story now encompass the entire world and the end of civilization. I’ve written other stories in the mythos, most notably “Gleaners” which appeared in the South African publication Something Wicked #9. “Gleaners” details events during the second novel in the trilogy, a book that takes place five years after the first. An excerpt of that story, and some cool interior artwork can be found here:

http://www.somethingwicked.co.za/archives/something_wicked_9/gleaners.html

If you’d like to read the entire short story, it will be included in my upcoming short story collection, Through the Eyes of Strays, which will be published by Dog Horn Publishing (U.K.) in the Spring of 2012.

If you want to read a sample of Brother’s Keeper, I’ve posted the first chapter here:

http://glenkrisch.wordpress.com/brothers-keeper/

A little more than a year ago, I wrote in silence…

glenkrisch — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 09:16:31 +0000

Before I started my indie journey, I did things the old-fashioned way. And no one, except for a few gate keepers who prevented my publication, had read my work. Now, the silence is gone. I write knowing that readers, not publishers or editors, will eventually read my work. It’s exhilarating, and a bit scary, but ultimately what I’ve always wanted.

I recently asked Kealan Patrick Burke if he could… I don’t know… if maybe he could write a comment, a short two sentence approval of my work…

This is what he wrote:

“Every new book by Glen Krisch is a reason to celebrate. Seeming to come from out of nowhere, he writes with the kind of assured, lyrical style that makes other writers salivate. Count me as one of them. He knows what makes a story tick. He knows the value of character. And he knows how to scare you. And he does it all like someone who has been writing since before King was King. Mark my words: The future for Krisch is going to be a bright one, and I’m hard-pressed to think of anyone who so completely deserves it.” — Kealan Patrick Burke, author of The Turtle Boy and Kin.

That’s going to make the day job a little more tolerable today.

On ebook pricing: analyzing the poll results

glenkrisch — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:07:29 +0000

Votes are still coming in for the ebook pricing poll I started the other day. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s here. On the surface I see that 13.52% of voters won’t pay more than $2.99 for an ebook novel. That seems like a high percentage and the figure makes me pause. But then again, the higher price points garner much higher percentages of votes.

I could conclude that I should raise my prices to the $5.99, since that was the level at which most people voted. Doing so eliminates all of those people stuck in the middle ground, the people who won’t pay more than $3.99, let alone $4.99. Who knows? I might sell just as many copies at $5.99 as I do at my current price point of $2.99. But I see those middle ground percentages (the combined 29.74% of votes), and I pause even longer.

So, to capture as many readers as possible (and isn’t that the goal of most writers?), I’m going to experiment with the price point for my novels of $3.99. My 2-in-1 novel omnibus TWICE AS DARK, I will sell for $4.99.

I feel strongly that my work is of a quality that will support the higher prices. At a quick tally, my average review score on Amazon is 4.63 based on 46 reviews. Many authors who have done freebie blitzes have complained at the poor reviews these freebies generate. If anything, my review scores have risen. Many of the people who have downloaded one of my books have gone on to pay for my other works.

Also, I like the idea of being able to run short term sales that would otherwise be impossible at everyday bargin-bin prices.

There are so many reasons why the higher price makes sense. I just hope my readers agree with me. I’m not done with this topic. One person mentioned a well-known blogger who recently discussed ebook pricing. I will address that blog soon, once I get my thoughts in order.

Thanks to everyone who voted!

On ebook pricing: Vote in my new poll

glenkrisch — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:24:37 +0000

Even though on the surface it seems like an easy decision, the pricing of ebooks can be tricky for an indie author. Too low, and your quality book can be dragged into the mire of trunk novels and the other dreck that should never see the light of day. Too high, and you risk putting off potential readers who have never read your work. I’ve blogged about this topic before, when I was new to the epublishing revolution. My conclusions were that you had to stay between $.99 & $2.99. After more than a year on my indie journey, I still don’t know what the right price is for my books. Many indie authors (Konrath, Crouch, Dean Wesley Smith, David Wisehart, etc), are experimenting with pricing anywhere from $3.99 to $7.99. Wisehart is selling a ton of copies at $7.99.

I figure, if I lose a few sales over the course of the month, I’ll probably make up for it in Amazon borrows. What is an indie writer to do?

That’s where the readers of this blog come in handy. I need as much feedback as possible on what is appropriate to charge for an ebook. I’m seriously considering changing the price of my novels to $3.99 or even $4.99.

Please vote on this poll, and if you’d be so kind, leave a comment or three. If you can share this post with other like-minded people, perhaps I can get a consensus on my dilemma.