editorassistance Newsletter

Editor Assistance

August 31 2015 Editor Assistance Newsletter


Greetings and Salutations -

The autumn issue of Mused is ready for its typo hunt! If you have a few minutes please take a peek at the testing-only version of our upcoming issue. Even if you only have time to glance at a few poems, every set of eyeballs helps!

http://www.bellaonline.com/review/issues/fall2015/tableofcontents.html

I also wanted to relay a cautionary tale, to help you with your own self-publishing projects.

I've written a number of book series. In each series I offer the first book for free to lure in readers. A free book is the #1 marketing tool an author can use on the web right now. Then that book drives the reader hard into books 2, 3, and so on. Those subsequent books are where I earn my income (or proceeds for a charity).

One of my novella series is a six-book series. So book 1 is free, then books 2 to 6 are for-pay. I also sell a bundle which includes all six books. I always offer a bundle for my series once I complete them. Some readers like standalone books and others like bundles. It's good to reach both types. I charged $6.99 for that bundle.

Amazon got it into their head to set that bundle's price to **FREE** - two months ago - but because they never alerted me about the change and I've been insanely busy, I never noticed. It never occurred to me to go back through my library and see if any prices had magically changed on their own. It was sheer luck that I was looking at something two days ago and realized with shock that the bundle was being downloaded for free.

I immediately wrote Amazon to ask them to fix it. They said they were price matching a book on iTunes and linked to it. Turns out they were price matching the entire bundle to book 1's entry. Yes, book 1 is free. Just as book 1 is free on Amazon, too. But just because book 1 is free doesn't mean the entire series is free :).

I wrote back yet again to lay out the situation far more clearly and asked for a manager. I was told one would get back to me by end of day Monday. When I checked last, the price had indeed been set properly to $6.99.

I have a feeling that those two months of income are wholly lost. Even though it's Amazon's fault they mis-set my price, and they gave it away for free without my permission, they have bigger lawyers than I do. So undoubtedly they figure there is little I can do to try to reclaim that money. Which is, of course, right.

So I felt at least that this could be a learning lesson. Don't assume just because everything was correct last week that it's still correct. Make a routine to double check entries weekly. The sooner you catch an issue, the sooner you can rectify it.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Lisa Shea, owner
BellaOnline.com

--------------------

Archive of Past Emails -
http://www.bellaonline.com/newsletter/editorassistance

Editor Assistance Site - full of helpful articles and tips!
http://editorassistance.bellaonline.com/

Editor Forum - for community help 24 hours a day
http://forums.bellaonline.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=10

All correspondence between BellaOnline editors is confidential and should not be forwarded or distributed.



Unsubscribe from the Editor Assistance Newsletter

Online Newsletter Archive for Editor Assistance Site

Master List of BellaOnline Newsletters



Editor's Picks Articles
Top Ten Articles
Previous Features
Site Map