E-book 2: Electric Jig
For those of you wanting the next update on Goldfish Dreams [B&N | Amazon], I checked the numbers, and it’s selling 1-2 copies per week. I.e., still not king. So I figured I’d try something else. Review copies of an e-book cost me nothing but the time it takes to send an e-mail, right? If you’re a reviewer and would be interested in a review copy of Goldfish Dreams, (epub or mobi format), please let me know. I figure I’ll start by giving away a dozen or so copies and we’ll see what happens.
In the meantime, the e-book experiment continues! I’ve downloaded a copy of Sigil and have been playing around with creating my own epub files, both by working with the software and by reverse engineering the work Steven Saus did for me converting Goldfish Dreams.
I’ve created and uploaded the sample chapter of The Snow Queen’s Shadow as an epub file here. To those of you with e-book readers who want to check it out, please let me know if you run into any trouble with the file or formatting. I tested it in iBooks on my phone, and it turned out fairly well, but I’d love to hear how it does on other platforms.
Because you see, once I get all of the bugs worked out, I can take the next step in my e-book journey. I was thinking that it might be nice to do a little e-pubbed collection of my goblin-related stories. It would be five short stories, probably priced at either $2.99 or $3.99, called Goblin Tales.
One criticism of my experiment with Goldfish Dreams has been that it’s a mainstream novel, and I haven’t built an audience in that area, so naturally sales aren’t as good. Short fiction collections don’t tend to sell as well as novels, but Jig and company are in many ways the foundation of my career, so I suspect I’ve got more of an audience for goblin stories.
What do you think? Goblin Tales: Best Idea Ever, Utter Waste of Time, or Other?
Mikaela
February 10, 2011 @ 10:40 am
I think a short story collection is a good idea, but why don’t you add a sample from Goldfish Dreams at the end?
Jim C. Hines
February 10, 2011 @ 10:42 am
Mostly because it would be utterly unrelated to the light/humorous stories in the collection. Like eating chocolate cake and then getting a sample of pickles afterward. Though including a sample from the princess books, which are the same genre, could work…
Mikaela
February 10, 2011 @ 11:01 am
Ah. I haven’t read Goldfish dreams, so I wasn’t aware of how different it was. Maybe you can write shorts featuring the Princesses too? Sorry. I am rambling..
Jim C. Hines
February 10, 2011 @ 11:02 am
I’d like to do some princess shorts, and I have one in mind to post online eventually. Mostly it’s just a matter of making time.
Mark
February 10, 2011 @ 11:49 am
I tried looking at the sample chapter of The Snow Queen’s Shadow using:
* Stanza for the iPhone: It appeared to download fine; as in the list of ebooks it shows up with the title as “SQ”, author as “Jim C. Hines” and displays your cover art. However when I tried to actually read the file, I get 4 blank pages and Stanza tells me I’m “nan% into Book” for every page except that last page (then it tells me “100% into Book”).
* FBReader (open source ebook reader): This app only gave me a single blank page when trying to view your file.
* calibre (open source ebook reader/convertor/library manager): This app allowed me to read the sample file without errors or problems.
Jim C. Hines
February 10, 2011 @ 11:51 am
Eep. All right, it sounds like I’ve got more work to do. Thanks, Mark!
Steven Saus
February 10, 2011 @ 11:52 am
Jim, I’ll offer to help put these together in return for you continuing to share numbers. Seriously. Either doing it, or I’ll give you a copy of my notes on how I do things. I’ll e-mail you.
Other thoughts:
You might also want to consider putting the stories up as $0.99 shorts and a $3 collection. While this is cost-prohibitive with venues that require a separate eISBN (iBookstore, Sony, Kobo), it makes sense with B&N and Amazon. For the individual bits, maybe you could select some of (or have a contest for) some of the best fan art for covers?
Tony
February 10, 2011 @ 12:38 pm
I’m a 100% convert to eBooks, and think self-publishing your short stories is a great idea. I would gladly pay what you are suggesting for an ebook collection of stories.
Tina
February 10, 2011 @ 12:44 pm
I think a short story collection is a wonderful idea – especially one based on the Goblin books which are a bit light-hearted and fun. I think it will also keep your readers engaged and remind them to read your other works.
Anke
February 10, 2011 @ 12:58 pm
I added it to my Calibre library, which worked. I’m not entirely sure if you wanted your name as the publisher. Having it tagged “general fiction” seems a bit odd.
Then I transferred it to my reader (Sony PRS-650). By and large it worked; the only little problem was that the cover was too small. The margins at the sides seemed a bit wide, but for something “homemade”, the formating seemed really neat.
Collection of shorts seems like a good idea to me, just if you go the “offer both singles and a collection”-route, be sure to make it obvious what’s what… I’ve seen people leave negative reviews on books that were “collected volumes” because they expected the new title to be a new book.
Um, on a only very vaguely related note, do you think you have any way of poking your publisher about the international distribution rights for your ebooks? I sent an email to DAW to the email listed at their website nearly three weeks ago, but did not receive any kind of reply.
I can buy the Goblin series and two of the Princess series at Kobobooks.com or Amazon.com, despite living in Germany. Mermaid’s Madness, however, is on both websites listed as not available for my region. So my impression is that Mermaid’s Madness got wrong information about its georestrictions passed on – or does that book REALLY have different terms?
Bill Pearson
February 10, 2011 @ 2:24 pm
So you are saying that having a sample of Goldfish Dreams at the end would only appeal to stereotypical pregnant women who want ice cream and pickles…. Considering all the stories about them I hear they may be an untapped market. 🙂
In all honesty though, adding in a sample of the princess books would not be a bad idea at all.
Angela Korra'ti
February 10, 2011 @ 3:08 pm
I’d totally buy a Jig collection in ebook form. 🙂 And I’m pretty sure my housemate who loves the Jig novels would as well!
Steven Saus
February 10, 2011 @ 7:43 pm
Notes sent to you in e-mail. Overall, pretty good job – most people wouldn’t notice any of the things I sent you.
Jim C. Hines
February 11, 2011 @ 7:56 am
I’m thinking about a variation on that pricing scheme. There’s a 6th goblin short story, but I won’t have rights to republish it for a while. So I was thinking I’d post the collection for $2.99, and then in a year or two I could update the collection with the 6th story and bump the price to $3.99, while at the same time offering the story as a standalone for $.99 for those who already bought the collection.
Jim C. Hines
February 11, 2011 @ 7:56 am
Thanks, Tony!
Jim C. Hines
February 11, 2011 @ 7:57 am
Particularly since it’s so easy to add a “Other books by the author” section to the back of an e-book, with direct links to purchase or learn more. I’m liking the HTML and linking abilities of e-books.
Jim C. Hines
February 11, 2011 @ 7:58 am
Thank you! 🙂
Jim C. Hines
February 11, 2011 @ 7:59 am
When my mother was pregnant with me, she wanted pretzels dipped in mint chocolate chip ice cream.
Someday I *will* use this in a story!
Teresa
February 11, 2011 @ 2:31 pm
Yeah, I’m down for Goblin Tales. I got a Sony Pocket Reader for Christmas, and I’m loving the portability of some of my favorite books.:)
Bill Pearson
February 13, 2011 @ 10:22 am
Sorry it took so long to get to moving it into the right folder. It shows up correctly on the NookColor. The cover art even shows up properly (which normally is an issue in free ones I download).
Jim C. Hines
February 13, 2011 @ 10:32 am
Thanks, Bill! Sigil seems to have done a pretty good job, overall.
Etwine
February 20, 2011 @ 11:21 am
Thank you with the info, happen to be looking a few days and nights due to this.