Samhain Publishing is winding down and will close

[Dusky Rose]

Originally Posted by Mort1997

I'd second the recommendation for Frank Tuttle. I bought my copies from the now defunct Books on Board and Amazon

I'll third that. It's one of my top-listed series. Just under the Dresden Files.

As for Samhain, I had gotten some freebies and bought a few from them in the remote past, and didn't like the web site. So basically forgot about them.

With the sale, I ended up getting 13 books. But I felt I had to work hard to find them and just became annoyed at trying to find m/m books. I ran across one by accident, (The only clue being the cover of a series I'd read) and then hit the tags inside to bring up more. I found it hard to find series information, and some books were catagorised GLBT but not tagged that way.

I see the books have multiple tags, but never figured out how to chose more than one tag at a time. So that led to a lot of back-n-forth.

Reminded me why I didn't come back to their site after my first few experiences.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

I wonder though. Wouldn't that 60% only apply to the kePub version of the book? I don't know about others, but even though I own a Kobo and have over 1,000 books in my Kobo library I never download the kePub version (other than when they force auto download some titles on a sync, which I immediately delete) let alone open it. I download the ePub and I'm guessing Kobo has no way of really tracking anything about those (other than sales and downloads).

That comes up on mobilereads a lot, but the majority of readers probably just download to the actual device and read it (whether that's a kobo or a book bought on Amazon Kindle) and any book can be tracked if it is read/opened on the Kobo device (or Amazon in the case of Amazon). Mobileread readers tend to be more likely to have multiple readers, use calibre and port books all over than the general reader. (I know this is true based on my own experience selling books from my own store and also doing "tech" support for a number of fans. Several fans expressed an interest in buying from my store or being ARC or beta readers--but they don't know how to port a file to their Kindle unless Amazon does it for them. I usually have to get on the phone and help them set up their "email to kindle" settings and make sure I can email them files.)

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Dusky Rose

I'll third that. It's one of my top-listed series. Just under the Dresden Files.

As for Samhain, I had gotten some freebies and bought a few from them in the remote past, and didn't like the web site. So basically forgot about them.

With the sale, I ended up getting 13 books. But I felt I had to work hard to find them and just became annoyed at trying to find m/m books. I ran across one by accident, (The only clue being the cover of a series I'd read) and then hit the tags inside to bring up more. I found it hard to find series information, and some books were catagorised GLBT but not tagged that way.

I see the books have multiple tags, but never figured out how to chose more than one tag at a time. So that led to a lot of back-n-forth.

Reminded me why I didn't come back to their site after my first few experiences.

A working and easy-to-use site is very important. I know I've lost sales on my own site when it wasn't working (glitches). Readers almost never report they had a problem--they just move on (I'm not blaming them). My site had an issue for 2 months. I saw visitors and wasn't seeing downloads. I finally got suspicious and tested it again. Yup. There had been an update to the cart software and since I hadn't implemented it, the whole thing was failing. No one, out of probably 30 readers, reported it. I DO test the thing, but didn't know about the new software because that particular software doesn't have a flag/email.

This is not to excuse any site, but it is an ongoing effort and I think a lot of "self-retailers" give up because the sales are actually small compared to other retailers, like Amazon. In my consulting business, I get asked all the time if it is a good idea for an author to have their own store--the answer is usually "no" unless the author can handle the design and technical upgrades on their own because to pay someone would NOT pay for itself in book sales (For most authors). I suspect that has been the case even for a small publishers (which is part of the reason Baen had to start putting books on Amazon)--HOWEVER, I do think that is changing, slowly. I do think readers will buy from individual retailers more often now than in the past. Whether that is a "growth" opportunity or not, remains to be seen.

[Rizla]

Did indie-writers (and therefore Amazon?) negatively impact the success of Samhain?

Also, did Samhain offer a higher quality of writing than indie-writers in general? If so, this would also suggest the (incidental) lowering of writing quality in the small publishing electronic market.

Which would seem to me to be a bad thing.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Rizla

Did indie-writers (and therefore Amazon?) negatively impact the success of Samhain?

Also, did Samhain offer a higher quality of writing than indie-writers in general? If so, this would also suggest the (incidental) lowering of writing quality in the small publishing electronic market.

Which would seem to me to be a bad thing.

IF this publisher sold higher-quality work than the appalling crap that is the typical (not all, but the typical) indie book (and I would hope that they did), but people nonetheless bought the crap in preference to the good writing, that doesn't say much for the discernment of the reader, does it?

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Rizla

Did indie-writers (and therefore Amazon?) negatively impact the success of Samhain?

Also, did Samhain offer a higher quality of writing than indie-writers in general? If so, this would also suggest the (incidental) lowering of writing quality in the small publishing electronic market.

Which would seem to me to be a bad thing.

To be honest, the thing that I think impacted small publishers AND indies in the last two plus years is when Amazon signed new agreements with the majors that included placement. You may remember the hoopla surrounding it--the majors had gotten a certain amount of placement "for free" in the past--certain perks just for being on Amazn. With the new agreements, apparently Amazon was charging for placement and charging more than the retailers wanted to pay (which gave them incentive to beef up their own sites). Eventually everything got signed, but no one knows for sure what that placement deals are--just that they exist and Amazon now takes a larger cut of money for placement than they used to (this is assumed from the rumors surrounding the deals). Aside: I think they also changed how the charge for 'warehousing' books from the majors--charging them more for teh whole distribution thing for paperbacks/hardbacks.

At any rate, I think the thing that changed is the algos and placement--they now favor the big publishers because the big publisher are paying for it and placement/mention. I can verify that about 2 years ago the search algos changed significantly on amazon and now favor HIGHER SALE items. In the past, my name either: Maria Schneider or Maria E Schneider would bring up my books at the top. Now, it brings up Maria Schneider the Jazz musician (she was around back then too and is actually quite famous). UNLESS someone is already drilled down to ebooks, her name comes up and you get varying results on my name with and without the middle initial. An author who is from Germany and is out of print comes up as the "see author Maria Schneider" now under books (to get mine the E is required). The author has not put out any new books and if she showed up in the old system, I never even knew she existed. This is not a complaint--but it's evidence of the changing algos. My books and my author page used to come up much closer to the top (or at the top) and did for years. I"m not the only one who has noticed these types of changes.

I've never had a problem with the quality of Samhain (Tuttle also originally published his All the Paths of Shadow series with a different small pub--that publisher also went under and the books were not as well copy edited as Samhain books).

So, no, I don't think that quality is the real issue here, not with Samhain, although some of the others who have read more titles can probably speak to that.

Indies are competition--for small AND large publishers. We compete mainly on price, but Amazon controls much of what is seen and how early it is seen. They have a HUGE, HUGE, HUGE number of eyeballs. Discoverability is an issue for all of us and getting on that first page is key. Amazon was simply more helpful to indies and small guys in the past--and they used that as leverage to get better deals with the majors.

[Cinisajoy]

Maria,
I just searched for you. Found you on the first page of the search in all.

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

Amazon was simply more helpful to indies and small guys in the past--and they used that as leverage to get better deals with the majors.

Ah, okay. So Amazon is not quite the champion of indie-publishers I thought they were.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Maria,
I just searched for you. Found you on the first page of the search in all.

Yes, typically, one of my books shows up--I'm not saying they never do. I'm saying things have changed. I used to DOMINATE the search when either Maria Schneider or Maria E Schneider was entered on the first page. Heck, a search of Karen Cantwell brought up my books 5 years ago (she had me in the acks).

It's not as though Amazon doesn't show our books anymore. It's that the algos and search no longer favor indies and in some cases, neglect them in favor of other books/authors/etc.

Hey, you didn't hear me complaining when it was unfair in my favor so I'm not going to complain now. It's just different now.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Rizla

Ah, okay. So Amazon is not quite the champion of indie-publishers I thought they were.

I think it is fair to say that they used to be--and they used indies to gain market share, do a lot of Amazon marketing of kindles and books, generate interest, etc. Right now, even those in Amazon Select don't get the benefits that we did 7 or 8 years ago. Their business model has changed. They needed indies more in the past--and the reader market has changed too. They are merely responding to market changes (and ad dollars.) Indies and small publishers have to adapt or die.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

I think it is fair to say that they used to be--and they used indies to gain market share, do a lot of Amazon marketing of kindles and books, generate interest, etc. Right now, even those in Amazon Select don't get the benefits that we did 7 or 8 years ago. Their business model has changed. They needed indies more in the past--and the reader market has changed too. They are merely responding to market changes (and ad dollars.) Indies and small publishers have to adapt or die.

Would you regard KU as being a good system for publicising indie books? They do seem to form the majority of its content.

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

and the reader market has changed too.

I would be interested to know how, in your opinion, the reader market has changed. Sorry, I'm probably asking you to repeat yourself.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Would you regard KU as being a good system for publicising indie books? They do seem to form the majority of its content.

No. I tried it out on first of series and a non-series book. The visibility rules are pretty much the same as non-KU books. You need to take out ads, you need a higher ranking to get shown and you need the borrows to get in the "he bought/he read" sections. So if you are "from the ground up" with a title, KU, like any other marketing tactic might work to get visibility, but for the most part you really have to work visibility from the first day of publication and hope to make some of the lists (top in any of the categories, or hot new best sellers). When Executive Retention and Sick Days came out they both made the "hot new sellers...wait. Retention did, but I am not sure Sick Days did--it was Lunch and Retention that made the list.) When you get on these lists, the sales feed themselves for a while. This is still true, but it is much harder to make the lists--you have to have multiple days of good sales to get that high in the ranking. (There's more competition to make the lists, indies all know about the lists and authors are much more active in marketing--as are small pubs and trad pubs.)

When you are in Select you can do the Count down sale OR 5 free days. I hear from most authors that 5 free days does more for visibility and that can help with KU reads, which can feed on itself to a certain extent.

In the old days selling 60 in one day of any book was enough to create a "long tail" so your visibility would be up for as long as two weeks. Amazon's algos now take into account such a "one day" boost and basically ignore it. They know we are taking out ads and ignore that in the popularity lists/contests. One of the things I've talked to advertisers about is they assume there is still a "tail" on sales--but there isn't. It's about a two-day sale period where the visibility is high enough to help juice sales. The ranking will do well very fast if you I sell that many--but it will come back up just as fast. That is different from older algos.

Many authors try to stagger ads to get the most bang for the buck when they do a sale or free, but the problem there is that the same people who sign up for one bargain list are often the same ones signing up for the others--you end up sending ads to the same people over and over.

I found little to no benefit to KU because the majority of my sales are at Google and Kobo these days. No way did KU even begin to make up for the lost sales there.

I know some authors do really well in it and don't want to rock the boat by changing. I agree with that. If something is working, don't go out of your way to change the visibility. I am quite sure I tried it far too late in the game to be effective (late last year). Like most programs, the best benefit is early--Amazon shows benefits that convince more authors to join. Those benefits taper off naturally as more join because of the competition, but I think Amazon also does less for the authors when they reach a point where they think they have enough authors.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Rizla

I would be interested to know how, in your opinion, the reader market has changed. Sorry, I'm probably asking you to repeat yourself.

In early days, the idea of cheap books on kindle was a Godsend. A book for 99 cents? Or 2.99? Readers couldn't snap them up fast enough. As I mentioned earlier, the kobo studies show that some 60 percent of books aren't even opened--so the key was to get enough sales to the people who WERE reading to create a fan base that comes back for more. (This period lasted about 5 years in my estimation--I was published during the last two. It was a very high growth period for indie sales and e-readers, especially the Kindle).

Ad sites (really Amazon associate sites)-- Books on the Knob, DailyCheapReads, ENT, ereaderiq -- most were happy to find good books and talk about them without charging. Fairly quickly, they learned they could charge a nominal ad fee and also made ad money (Books on the Knob and DailyCHeapreads STILL DO NOT TAKE ADS--they are associates and find their own bargains and choose what to talk about so far as I know).

Review sites were springing up all over the place because books were suddenly cheap, right there, right now. Many wanted free books in exchange for a review. The system was RIPE for indies. It could have been ripe for trad books too, but the trads didn't want to adapt--so they made it perfect for us.

These days, even free books elicit a yawn from many quarters (Even trad books don't get the downloads when free or cheap. I know this from my own site and tracking clicks and downloads). The cheap books? Well, they need good reviews, a great cover, good copy, AND just the right buyer.

But readers are not as enthused about reviewing books. Many don't trust reviews, but there's also a lot of sites like GR where they can leave a ranking for their own records. (Which is really a benefit for that reader, not for other readers--nothing wrong with that either!)

There are also more indies. There are also a LOT more backlist titles. All of these things change reader behavior. Seven or 8 years ago readers wanted to snap up the cheap titles before they got expensive. Now? Readers are happy to wait to see if they go on sale...

Pricing expectations are different and sampling habits are different (there's KU and SCRIBD, there's libraries delivering books online-all cheap and effective ways to read. They weren't as easy to access, or didn't exist, 10 years ago).

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

But readers are not as enthused about reviewing books. Many don't trust reviews, but there's also a lot of sites like GR where they can leave a ranking for their own records. (Which is really a benefit for that reader, not for other readers--nothing wrong with that either!)

I've reviewed books for two websites for three years now and I'm stopping. Yes I often got the book for free and my review was never biased by that but I'm worn out from constant reviews so right now I'd rather pay for the book and just read for pleasure. I do rate all my books on GR for my own benefit and as much as I understand why reviews are needed I get fed up with the constant pressure to review.