DEMON GATES by fantasy author Robert Day

[Valdieron]

Hi All,


My name is Robert Day, a fantasy author from Australia. I have just published my novel DEMON GATES in kindle format on amazon.com and amazon.co.uk. Check it out if you like old fashioned fantasy in the vein of Eddings, Feist and Salvatore. Although I cannot guarantee a similar quality as these great authors, I can hopefully take you on an epic journey from beginning to end.

Let me tell you a little bit about my novel.

Demon Gates is set in the realm of Kil’Tar, a magic-rich land with a long history of bloody war between the Kay‘taari and the Ashar’an. Aided by Dragonkind, the Kay’taari have protected the world against the Ashar’an and their demonic followers for many centuries. With demonkind banished to the Voids, and the Ashar’an all but destroyed, Kil’Tar has settled into an era of peace.
However, the seals binding the portals to the voids are breaking, and the Ashar’an no longer hide, for the Kay’taari have ceased to abide on Kil’Tar.
Can Valdieron, a young man raised in the small village of Shadowvale, fulfill his destiny and rid the lands of this menace once and for all, or will he falter, and condemn Kil’Tar to demonic destruction?


I also have a map in digital format which I can send to anybody who would like a copy. It is always nice to have a map for a book, IMO.

~Rob


***UPDATE***

I have just added this to smashbook.com, so check it out there DRM FREE!!
Demon Gates

[SkyDream]

Hi,

are you planning to release any other format than the Kindle one ? One may say that's no problem just remove DRM but i'm not on that way.

[rhadin]

I, too, would be interested in the book if it were available in ePub rather than Kindle. I own a Sony (and have preordered the Sony 950), neither of which can read the Amazon format.

[Worldwalker]

I'm snarky enough to wonder if the reason he attached a warning icon to the book is that it's only available in Kindle format and for people who will tolerate DRM. But it's early and I'm snarky, so don't listen to that part.

Seriously, Robert, instead of thanking us for reading your post (that looks weird from anyone older than 10), making your book available in a format we can read would be a huge help. Saying "it can be viewed via free software on your iPhone or on PC" doesn't do it. Aside from the fact that MR members are, by and large, smart enough to know about how to read our e-books, we also generally don't want to read them on computers. If we did, we wouldn't have bought ebook readers, and therefore probably wouldn't be here. All the thanks in the world won't make up for not having usable formats, and despite what Amazon says, .mobi is only one of many formats. You're denying potential buyers the ability to use the book.

Things MR readers will readily buy: DRM-free books in multiple formats sold for $3 or so.

Things MR readers will buy a lot fewer of: DRM-encumbered books formatted for a reader many of them don't own, sold for $6 or more.

You can sell whatever you like, of course (and even use warning icons!), but if you're trying to sell DRM-loaded Kindle books for paper book prices, you're going to be leaving money on the table. Maybe it's just me, but I'd want the money instead of whatever pleasure those choices would bring. I'm greedy that way.

[frostschutz]

I can read Kindle on my Android smartphone but Amazon charges an extra $2 for any book I buy from them, so I'd love to see this title on Smashwords.com as ePub too.

[SkyDream]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

If we did, we wouldn't have bought ebook readers, and therefore probably wouldn't be here.

Yeah...smart one...so right..

[Valdieron]

I will begin by saying for the replies (hoping that it doesn't make me seem like I am 10 years old ) you have given me food for thought.

You may be pleased to know that I endeavour to remove DRM from my eBook on amazon. To do this I will have to unpublish then publish again.....

I am also looking into releasing it in other formats, but checking thru my rights and obligations to do so. I believe that in order to release it elsewhere, my amazon price must be 20% lower than any other places I sell it. Problem solved by lowering the price on amazon, I know This is entirely probable anyway, as I am thinking of just trying to get as many copies of my first novel out there to get some sort of fan base.

My question to you guys who are up on the moblie reader scene is this?
What proportion of people use what device? Would I be cutting off my nose to spite my face if I reduced the price on amazon just to make a few sales on some potentially lesser-used devices/formats, or is there a far bigger MR world out there that I am unaware of?


Regards,
Robert


p.s. no warning icon on this one
p.s.s. I wasn't intentionally using the warning icon, to me it was more of an 'ATTENTION' icon.... my bad

[Worldwalker]

Somewhere around half of ebook readers use Kindles. However, even among those, there are a fair number who dislike DRM. Then there's all the rest of us. To get a feel for how many people on MR have what, take a look at the device forums -- you can get a feel for it by how many people are browsing them, though it may be somewhat low for older readers. For instance, most Sony 50x users have the thing figured out by now, and aren't asking many questions, but based on the user data (to the left of posts) there are a lot of us. Mostly, we buy from Smashwords.

Things you can fairly safely assume about MobileRead members that are not necessarily true of the public at large: We are bookworms and read more in a month than most people do in a year. We know what's available in reading devices. We know what's available in books, and where to get them. We know what we're doing, most of the time. We want to support authors that we like. We have some idea of how the publishing industry works, and who gets paid for what. And, while it's not universal by any means, a lot of us do intensely dislike DRM.

In short, Amazon's ideal of someone who owns a Kindle, buys their books strictly from Amazon, pays $10 or $15 more for then, and only reads them once, is ... not us. Certainly there are people like that here -- there are people like ANYTHING here -- but mostly, we're clinging precariously to the skinny end of the bell curve and trying to drag that big hump in the middle out our way. Our ideal indie book, I think, is perfectly formatted, reflows nicely, and is available on Smashwords, DRM-free, in the format of our choice, for about $3 or so. If it's a pro book (that is, one also published on dead trees by a publisher we've heard of) it'll be from someone like Baen, for $5 or $6, and everything about formatting and reflowing goes double.

[frostschutz]

Originally Posted by Valdieron

I believe that in order to release it elsewhere, my amazon price must be 20% lower than any other places I sell it.

First time I ever heard of that rule, so I went digging in the Amazon docs, and wish I never did, since I found this. Holy crap.

If I read this correctly, Amazon keeps 65% of the money and the book has to be as cheap as anywhere else at any given time, or keeps 30% if the Amazon offer is 20% than anywhere else at any given time? And that still does not include "delivery costs"? And it says this is only for US/UK customers so if I buy this from Germany, they may still keep 65%?

I'm not an author but that does sound a lot like rip off to me.

If I understand the Smashwords conditions correctly, they only keep 15% and I don't see delivery fees mentioned anywhere. If that's true, then please make the price higher than Amazon, and I'll still buy it on Smashwords. Then at least there's some hope of some of my money actually ending up in your hands...

[Valdieron]

This from the Smashwords conditions...

Royalties - In most cases, authors and publishers receive 85% of the proceeds to Smashwords and Smashwords will receive 15%. Since retailers typically take a big chunk of sales, often 50% of the list price (and we have little control over this), your net may equal approximately 42% of your list price. So, if you set the price of your book at $10.00, you'll receive about $4.20 from each sale from some retailers.

So if I was to set my book at $3 on smashwords, I would receive approx $1.26 from each sale. I would also have to set my book at $2.40 on amazon, from which I would receive about $1.60 (with the download charge) for US Sales, and $0.64 per copy for foreign sales.

Not that I am overly concerned with the price, it's not like I am looking to make a fortune out of it. Predominantly I would be looking at building a fan base and attracting the attention of other publishers etc.

[Worldwalker]

I believe that's referring to the difference between books sold through Smashwords directly and books sold through third parties. Most MR users buy the book from Smashwords, so you'd get the 85%.

[rhadin]

Worldwalker is correct. You would get the 42% if the Smashwords distributed your book to Barnes & Noble and a copy was bought there. It is the tradeoff one makes for increased exposure. But if the book was bought at Smashwords, you would get 85%. I believe Worldwalker is right that most MobileReaders buy directly from Smashwords; I certainly do.

[lene1949]

Originally Posted by rhadin

Worldwalker is correct. You would get the 42% if the Smashwords distributed your book to Barnes & Noble and a copy was bought there. It is the tradeoff one makes for increased exposure. But if the book was bought at Smashwords, you would get 85%. I believe Worldwalker is right that most MobileReaders buy directly from Smashwords; I certainly do.

Me, too... My reason is the $2 surcharge, which Amazon charges to most people living outside USA... The author gets none of that money.

If Amazon and Smashwords have the same price, I buy from Amazon due to the convenience.

[Worldwalker]

Even if they had my format (I'm one of the epub people) I wouldn't buy from Amazon because they force DRM on their authors. I flat-out will not buy DRM-restricted ebooks, no matter how badly I want that book. I've had paper books all my life, and I can continue to read paper books.

I buy from Smashwords, Baen Books, O'Reilly, BookView Cafe, BeWrite, and random independents (often those who post on MR). I also collect excellent books from Project Gutenberg and the like (once again, including MR). The "convenience factor" of an instant purchase from Amazon has never been an issue for me, as my TBR lbooks already reside on my Sony 505, and if the list ever shows any sign of being reasonably sized, I can load up as many more as I want from the computer and a quick shopping or PG'ing session to get it to sufficiently outrageous again.

[Valdieron]

I have just launched Demon Gates on Smashwords!
Ironing out a few formatting issues at the moment, but hopefully it will be all up to scratch soon. It is very weird, but when I upload and check out the html, the entire manuscript is indented fine except for the whole of the last chapter!