The Amazon KDP Honeymoon...Is it Over?

Looks like the honeymoon with Amazon is over.

A friend recently dropped me this small bombshell of a link to another writer's blog post: http://www.derekhaines.ch/vandal/2012/11/self-published-authors-get-ready-youre-being-dumped/

As much as I love the ease and simplicity of the Kindle upload and KDP programs, I'm not blinded to the fact that Amazon is becoming Godzilla. And you don't get to grow that big without stomping on an awful lot of stuff along the way (whether you intend to, or not).

The upside of coming across this blogger's post was twofold: first, it reminded us that there's no such thing as a free lunch unless your host wants something out of you in return (and I've been guilty of eating a great deal of lotus lately); and secondly, that putting all of one's eggs in one basket is never a good idea. I can say that a certain air of complacency has probably crept in since we started to see some success with Kindle (actual sales, a clutch of reviews - even if one or two seem to be hilariously misguided) - all within the last few months, and due entirely to the KDP promotional tools. The fierce self-promotional zest has faded but that's been due to heavy client artwork commitments lately, as well as the act of writing and publishing three new books this year alone. Promotion should never come that far down the priority list, of course, but Amazon's KDP system has served to isolate us in a little self-contained world where free promo offers yield distribution, which leads to real sales and reviews - which again, help the promotional cycle to continue.

A change in our outlook and long-term investment has been needed for a while, it just took somebody else's observations to point the fact out to us.

As a result, I tried an experiment in uploading our new cyberpunk thriller, Malaria 9, to Smashwords, just to see how difficult it was to fulfill SW's rather hefty and off-putting formatting and style criteria. I downloaded the thing last summer, took one look at it and thought "Urgh! Later."

'Later' never happened, until now.

With a tiny bit of tweaking, the MS was ready and without too much wailing and gnashing of teeth, made live on the site. No ISBN was assigned (though I still do have a bunch of those, somewhere) - I could aim for the hip vote and say this was me keepin' it real and refusing to sell out to The Men at Apple and Sony (ISBNs are required for their retail and seemingly universal EPUB format), but it was also part of the experiment to see how far something that wasn't available on those platforms could be pushed. If it dies its death, then fine - I'll know better next time, and 'M-9' is still available on Kindle and selling copies on a regular basis. The 'Trinity Chronicles' books will be ISBN'd when they go live on SW later as they are still in effect the flagship titles for FWB, even if the third and final book in the trilogy is still a long way off (all those other pesky ideas kept getting in the way).

So the honeymoon with Amazon may be over, but it just means that we're becoming polygamous now. It'll probably be happier that way.

More Thoughts on Amazon's KDP

The recent 'giveaway' of our latest Kindle publication, 'Malaria 9', threw up some interesting facts and figures. As well as shifting over 400 copies which got the book into the top 40 free listings in the UK and US territories, we also noticed a surprising number of copies getting shifted in Germany (amazon.de) - which got us into the top 20 over there. Far better than we would ever have expected an English-language prose work to do, in fact. 'Dog Days' also did quite well in Italy (top 10 for its category?!) but that's light on words and heavy on pictures.

All of which makes me ponder now the possibility of a developing market in the European territories. For sure, we appreciate that some readers and Kindle users will grab anything that's free simply because it's free, but I'm unwilling to attribute this kind of habit to all of our foreign uptake to date. Our presence on the .de site has been completely neglected until now, to the point of even leaving all our books untagged as I felt it slightly arrogant to use English language tags on a German shopping site. Perhaps a few minutes with my Collins German dictionary might help change all of that.

Another interesting point to note was how the recent free promo has straightaway managed to raise a few actual sales - showing that Amazon's "Readers who liked this also liked..." and "Suggested/similar offerings" adverts do seem to help raise awareness of the existence of books that are otherwise not very well publicised. As an Amazon promotional tool, the Kindle Select free promo option is the best I've come across yet.

'Malaria-9' Kindle Freebie Starts Thursday

As has now become traditional when we launch a new Kindle book, there'll be a five-day freebie promo for our latest release, the Cyberpunk/horror action piece 'Malaria 9'.

The e-book giveway starts Thursday 22nd November and runs 'til Monday 26th, inclusive.

US readers can get it here.

UK readers cab grab it here.

'Malaria 9' - The Ten Week Wonder!

Well, my experiment to complete a full-length book in no more than 10 weeks for the Amazon Kindle shop succeeded - just! I finished the final edit and uploaded the thing yesterday, which made exactly 10 weeks to the day to conceive, write, and edit the text, as well as come up with a decent cover (to be exact: 3rd September - 17th November, with 6 hours to spare). Most of the donkey work was done during weekday teabreaks and lunch hours in the office - one of the benefits of having a small, easily portable netbook.

The book's now fully available for fans of the cyberpunk, horror and paranormal genres, right here.

The cover art also went through several complete transitions and these alternative illustrations are provided as extra illustrations in the text.

'Angel' Delight

After shifting nearly 1,000 copies in the recent free Kindle giveaway, 'Angel of Vengeance' has scored a 5-star Amazon review!

Well, we're chuffed* with that, anyway. It's always great to see readers being entertained by our works...after all, that's the main reason why we do what we do.

*A peculiarly British word roughly equivalent to satisfied, pleased, etc.

'Dog Days' Finds a Fan Already

Only a week or two since its release, Chaz & Frang's first foray into children's books has picked up a jolly nice 4/5 star review on amazon.com from a reader.

Here's the full review.

We were very unsure how a book intended for kids, and which relied heavily upon its interior illustrations, would fare on the Kindle platform. If this is anything to go by then we ought not to have worried unduly, although it has now got Chaz thinking about whether he should expand the text for future edition in order to embellish the story...

'Dog Days' Are Here...and on Kindle

Fenriswulf Books have just released their first publication for younger readers - an illustrated piece that's been kicking around for a couple of years now. 'Dog Days' is a collaboration written by Chaz and with illustrations by Frang, and in outstanding proof that truth can be much stranger than fiction, Chaz actually dreamt the entire book one night. As a result, the book is rather whimsical, featuring the little-known dogs of the gods who gave their names to our days of the week.

The original illustrations by Frang were all produced in colour for what was to be a large format kids' board book, and if the Kindle edition does okay then the print version may well still appear in future.

The obligatory free promo has been running since the 31st October and closes at midnight (~ish) on November 4th, PST, so if you're very quick you might just be able to grab another freebie.

US Readers get it here
UK Readers can get it here

Another 'Ring' Giveaway

As a special weekend treat, FWB are also presenting free the first book in the ambitious, 4-part illustrated re-imagining of the epic 'Ring' Cycle, 'Of Gods and Gold'.

The free offer runs from Saturday Oct 13, 2012 to Sunday Oct 14, 2012, all inclusive.

UK Kindle Readers can get theirs here.

US Kindle fans can get it here.

'Maranatha' Up for Grabs Again

Amazon's new 'up to 5 day freebie promotion' option has gone down a blast with us lately. We think it's the best thing yet devised for Amazon Kindle-based book promotion, on the grounds that our latest piece, 'Angel of Vengeance', shifted nearly a thousand units in its 5-day period and has already gone on to out-sell almost everything else in our Kindle catalogue to date in only two weeks.

A few months after we first started these promos, we'd like to offer readers another chance to snap up a free copy of the very first FWB title, 'Maranatha'. The promo starts on the 12th October and runs for 5 days inclusive thereafter.

As ever, you can get the 'Trinity Chronicles' freebie via the following links:

for Amazon US readers

for UK Kindle fans

Fenriswulf Books welcome guest blogger Jeff Swenson, who describes the trials and tribulations of being an online cartoonist. Chaz of course contributes his own weekly IT/Tech Support webcomic, Geekz, over at 2Laugh.com, which also features some of Jeff's work. But we'll stop rambling and let Jeff take over now:

"I met Chaz Wood quite awhile ago, via email since we're countries apart, and he mentioned writing an article on what it is like to be an online cartoonist, or rather what my experience has been, to post on his site. This week I read on another cartoonist's Facebook page that yet another well known editorial cartoon series was being dropped from a major publication (both online and in print) and it reminded me that maybe I should actually type something up on how hard it is to be a cartoonist. Not to complain per se, but maybe just to explore the topic.

Certainly, it is not hard to be a cartoonist if you're doing it more as a hobby. I'd like to say I'm treating it that way now as I no longer do it full time but I find that any spare time I have I'm either drawing or writing down ideas. In other words, I'm obsessed with the medium regardless if I make money or not. All I ever wanted growing up was to draw a comic strip like the ones in my local newspapers, the newspapers that have now all gone online and seem to have left the funny pages behind.

You probably have not heard of "Jeff Swenson" the cartoonist much like you have not heard of numerous other online cartoonists who I'm geeky enough to be aware of. There is, however, a good chance you have stumbled across one of my cartoons. I have several "one hit wonders" floating out there that get passed from webmaster to webmaster to social networking sites and even printed out for someone's office bulletin board.

Comic strips and one panel gag cartoons often have a life of their own once they're born. I'm betting even after I die many of my cartoons will continue to travel across multiple sites or enter the public domain and pop up in cheap Ebook collections. I'm not offended by any of this at all. It's rather amusing to find a social networking site that has grabbed a comic strip from 8 years ago and once posted there a hundreds of comments about it as if it were new. I'm also no longer surprised that credit is usually not given or the URL has been removed from the strip. Like I said, the comic strip has taken off on it's own like a rebellious teenager giving the finger to his father. It's not exactly fair to an artist, but this is how it is for a lot of cartoonists--their work can be seen by millions over time because of the Internet and yet they don't see a dime from it.

That's not to say there aren't successful online cartoonists, there are. They've created a business model around their artwork and with enough traffic they can ditch their day job...but that's actually a rare event. It used to be that all a traditional print cartoonist did was write and draw ideas--hell, they didn't even do their own coloring. Now online cartoonists literally have to know how to build a website, build traffic, set up advertising arrangements and create merchandise AND keep it all going day by day without any fatal mishaps. I applaud these people to mask my bitter jealousy (kidding) and I'm only aware of a few online cartoonists who have been successful enough at this business model to ditch their day jobs.

To have the chance to be paid to draw a daily comic strip is essentially the same as a musician getting a record contract--one shot in a million, now more than ever in a crowded market of web comics. To sustain that comic strip for a lifetime so that it pays out dividends (licensing deals) is even harder. It helps if you're good at what you do, but a lot of it has to do with timing and representation. Have you ever gone back and read the dailies of famous comic strips? A large percentage of them, while drawn well, have pretty horrible or just boring ideas. The gags are hit and miss and groaners abound (which I'm guilty of too). What keeps an audience returning is likable characters--they're willing to forgive cliches or even a lazy idea due to a deadline.

So to be be paid to do a syndicated daily comic strip is usually out of reach for most cartoonists. I spent seven years cartooning full time by freelancing for various clients and squeezing in several of my own features for a bit of ad revenue or licensing arrangement fees. Sometimes I was paid well and sometimes I was paid crap--and you'll accept crap when a bill is due! The stress of it finally got to me and I started realizing that I was drawing less of what I wanted to--it was what everyone else wanted. What's the fun in that?

When you come to that point you see that taking a steady job may make sense even though you feel like you're giving in to "adult life." After witnessing other artists around me go bankrupt or still living in their parents' basement, well, the reality is you have to find some sort of balance to being paid enough and having time to draw what you want. If I was single without a mortgage? Yeah, I might be the guy renting the run-down apartment next to the beach wearing shorts in winter and continuing to draw full time on a minimal budget. That sounds like heaven on earth to me, as twisted as it sounds to some readers I'm sure--as I said, cartooning is an obsession.

This next year I'm minimizing any freelancing opportunities and I'm moving forward with collecting my past cartoons into Ebooks and then all I want to do is write and draw new material for more Ebooks (I love doing collections and comic strip stories). I'll have to suffer for my paycheck, but on my own time I'm free to pursue the lovely art of lowbrow."

You can catch loads of Jeff's stuff online at: http://www.Swensonfunnies.com and at Freethunk. Chaz also recommends checking out some of Jeff's Kindle books, like this nifty collection of Halloween funnies on Amazon.

'Angel of Vengeance' Descends to Kindle

It's taken a while, but Fenriswulf Books have now just released the complete 'Angel of Vengeance' story for readers on the Amazon Kindle platform. Originally planned as a three-part illustrated series, this release features the complete text (the first part of which received some jolly good feedback on Authonomy.com), as well as a selection of artwork from the original two ebooks as a bonus feature.

UK readers can download it here.

US readers can find it here.

Oh, and the book will be available free to all between the dates of 25th - 29th September.

Please note: this one's definitely not for kids, even while some of the original content has been toned down for a general audience. At its heart, though, it remains an earthy parable of redemption and the will of the individual, and is not intended as a serious philosophical statement on the nature of divinity, or morality!

Early August News Round-Up

Well the first part of the 'Sword and the Ring' Kindle giveaway was a fine success, with a couple of hundred units shifted in three days (and a good few dozen in Germany, fittingly enough - the spiritual and mythical home of the 'Ring' Cycle!) We still have 2 days left of that promo to run so will keep you posted when we plan to run that. The artwork for this series continues to generate a good buzz on Deviantart, probably because there is already a well-defined audience for this kind of myth-based fantasy - albeit in a very idiosyncratic style.

Art and writing work on the Book 2 of this series is going well, although Book 1 will no doubt continue to be tweaked and revised as we gather more feedback. A review with Readers Favorite had been scheduled, then postponed, as I pondered whether to tone down some of the more mature content. That's still on the cards for sometime soon, though.

Morgen Bailey ran this interview with me last year, but she's now re-publishing all her author Q&As on a new blog to raise a little more awareness for folks. Be sure to check out her new pages and give her some support, won't you!

'Sword and the Ring' Debuts on Kindle

Fenriswulf are proud to present the first book in the re-telling and re-imagining of the epic 'Ring of the Nibelung' saga, Of Gods and Gold, which has just been launched for the Kindle platform (Book 2, Of Valkyries and Vengeance, is now in the pipeline).

Due to the limitations of the Kindle format, this version isn't nearly as fancy or detailed as the print offering available via this very website (which integrates text and pictures in our very own 'graphic fiction' stylee), but all the artwork remains intact, as far as the previews suggest anyway, and this does rather open up interesting new possibilities for illustrated works. (Once Chaz has finished writing it, the Angel of Vengeance cycle will likely be next.)

As a special launch treat we'll also be offering it for free, from August 5th - 7th.

UK readers can get it here.

US readers can pick it up here.

Chaz Interviewed by Marcie Turner

Recently, Chaz was featured over at Marcie Turner's To Read or Not to Read blog. The article covers writing, characters, illustration, comic books, and more. Marcie seems very open to showcasing new writers and doesn't just ask the same old set of questions to everyone - if you fancy, drop her a line. Sure she would love to hear from you.

You can read the whole Question & Answer feature here.

The 'Trinity Chronicles' Giveaway

As the last instalment of our 'summer of freebies', we're offering for free - for 3 days only (commencing 19th July, ending on 21st July) - the Amazon Kindle editions of the first 2 books in the 'Trinity Chronicles' series:

Maranatha and Venus in Saturn.

In the meantime, thanks to everyone who's helped support us this far!

Freebies and Promotion: A Few Thoughts

So our recent experiments with Amazon Kindle's free promo service has come to an end - wherein we offered most of our Kindle novels and comic books for free for a limited time to see what kind of effect it would have on sales.

Boy, were we overwhelmed! - shifting over 700 copies in only a few days, and also securing our first ever 'sales' in foreign territories. In fact, we reached out to all of the Amazon European sister sites: .de, .es, .it and even .fr all accounted for a significant number, though it's fair to say that they were mostly our comic books, rather than the prose works - graphic works will always cross cultural boundaries better than the purely written word, although quite what they may make of the peculiarly British humour of Arf and Mo is anyone's guess...

It's been an interesting time, in which we saw our books briefly chart very high on the Amazon Free Kindle lists, with our comic books both reaching the top spots in all their categories. Seeing our books at the No. 1 ranking was quite a buzz. And as a 'loss leader', our free offer for Maranatha has already sparked some interest in the pay-for prequel, Venus in Saturn. It's also made Chaz think about the idea of producing something to be offered permanently for free on the Kindle store - perhaps a collection of shorter works, or a novella of some sort (he does, after all, have a good many ideas of all sorts floating around the place).

In short, it's been a fascinating experiment, and opens up a very interesting future for FWB and its products. You may recall a post on this very blog not all that long ago where Chaz basically discounted the whole idea of the Kindle book reader as having any real impact on the publishing world any time soon - well, he's more than happy to revise that view now, seeing how times have well and truly changed!

No doubt we'll continue to pick up the long-term effects of this promotional period for some time to come. Interesting times, as they say.

More Summer Freebies!

As part of the current Fenriswulf Books 'summer of Freebies' (i.e, testing the waters with Amazon's new promotional services), we're giving away - for nothing - the first issue of Arf and Mo in Kindle format. The promo lasts throughout 8th July and ends on the 10th at midnight Pacific Standard Time.

US readers can grab their copy right here.

You can also pick up, for a limited time only (throughout the 8th and 9th July), The Black Flag graphic novel for exactly £0.00! Don't delay - snatch one up today!

Over the last week or so we've given away hundreds of copies of 'Maranatha' and Episode 1 of 'Sundancer's Regret' - even managing to shift our very first foreign copies on Amazon.de! - so it's been a rather interesting exercise in getting our material out there.

Another Exclusive Amazon Kindle Freebie: 'Maranatha'

Well, because the free Amazon Kindle promo of 'Sundancer's Regret' went down such a storm, we've decided to do it all over again, this time with the first ever Fenriswulf book release - 'Maranatha', the second volume in the 'Trinity Chronicles' series. Catch the freebie online between Thursday Jul 05, 2012 and Friday Jul 06, 2012 (that's Pacific Standard Time).

UK readers can grab their copy right here.

No Regrets...

Last weekend, we offered the first episode in the 'Wish and the Will' fantasy series, Sundancer's Regret, for free on Amazon. Never having been totally convinced of the value of freebies and giveaways in a world where digital products are so cheap to begin with, we nevertheless thought we'd give it a go and see if it provoked any interest. During the brief promo period, we shifted dozens upon dozens of copies, which pushed Episode 1 briefly into the top 40 for the Epic Fantasy category!

In fact, it seemed to attract so much attention that we're planning to do it all over again with one of the books from the 'Trinity Chronicles' series - either Maranatha or Venus in Saturn. Currently Amazon seem to be having some serious problems with the KDP portal, or we would have launched the new promo already by now. Watch this space, as they say...

Sundancer's Regret: Episode 1 Amazon Kindle Freebie

Having just discovered the Kindle Publishing 'Promotions Manager' facility on Amazon, we've decided to test the new service by offering for free the first episode of 'Sundancer's Regret' - Book One in the Wish and the Will fantasy adventure series. The promo is scheduled to start on Jun 30, 2012 and end on Jul 02, 2012 - beginning approx. 12:00 AM Pacific Standard Time and ending approx. 11:59 PM Pacific Standard Time, according to the Amazon FAQs. Why not take advantage and sample the weird and wonderful world of The Wish and the Will in this freebie?