Kindle Categories and Book Royalties #2

Since my last post on Kindle categories and book royalties got some great traffic, I figured I would do an update on my numbers and thoughts about my six history titles available on the Kindle. I'm actually considering leaving two of my articles in KDP Select. I don't care about the free promos, I like getting money for borrows. This money is significant when one borrow usually ends up being the equivalent of 3-6 sales (depending on the article) and it boosts my popularity and ranking on Amazon (and they have over half the e-book market according to most estimates). The prices and sales numbers below are current as of 7/12/12.




CONSTANTINE: THE EMPEROR OF TOLERANCE



U.S. Sales 17
U.K. Sales 16
KDP Borrows 3
$1.99

Constantine has remained a steady seller even though it is trending down. It continues to sell a few copies a month in the U.S. and U.K. plus a borrow or two. I plan on leaving it in the KDP Select program (meaning it will stay exclusive to Amazon) for a while longer - at least until it stops pulling in borrows.

CARIBBEAN PIRACY: PIRATES AND PRIVATEERS

U.S. Sales 9
U.K. Sales 0
DE Sales 1
KDP Borrows 1
$0.99













While I'm still not a huge fan of free promos, a two day promo definitely kick started sales on this article. I had about 200 free downloads over two days and then I started selling one or two a day. It just got its first borrow today and I'm thinking about leaving this article in KDP Select as well. This article has also conquered the small category of Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > History > Americas > Caribbean & West Indies several times. It has been ranked as high as #1 under Hot New Releases in the category and has made it as high as #7 in the Top 100 for the same category:

PRAYER: ARCHANGELS AND INTERCESSORY BEINGS

U.S. Sales 2
U.K. Sales 1
KDP Borrows 0
$0.99













This article was actually written for my Philosophy of Religion class. Another kid in the class wrote on the same topic but it was a much weaker version and presentation and he only used about 2/3 of the sources that I did (while all of his sources were used in my version). Being a history major gave me a great advantage any time I had to write a paper for other subjects because I knew how to prove my points with lots of primary and secondary sources. It was fun exploring the Apocrypha, Pseudopigrapha, the Old and New Testaments, and other texts to write this article. I wish the story of Joseph and Aseneth was more well-known within Christendom because I enjoyed reading it. I'll probably be posting it on the Nook and Smashwords (which distributes to Apple, Kobo, Sony, etc.) as soon as my term is up with KDP Select.

LUTHER STANDING BEAR: ASSIMILATION




U.S. Sales 2
U.K. Sales 0
KDP Borrows 0
$0.99













I wrote this for a history class called American Indians in the Twentieth Century. It was a great course to take because we rarely discuss Indians after the Colonization Period in the United States. They had a great effect on the country long after that. This article explores Luther Standing Bear and his journey to Carlisle. When he was young, the United States took Indians and shipped them off to boarding schools to educate them. Luther Standing Bear turned around and used his education to fight for Indian rights, the preservation of Indian culture, and many of the points that became a part of the Indian New Deal under FDR. This article will probably be going to the Nook and Smashwords as soon as my term with KDP Select is up.

THE MORMON THEOCRACY




U.S. Sales 0
U.K. Sales 0
KDP Borrows 0
$0.99 / Free













This is my most recent publication. I don't really want anyone to buy it. It's currently priced at $0.99 on Amazon but it isn't enrolled in KDP Select and its available for free on Smashwords. Here's the link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/178031 . I wanted to use this article as a loss leader. I wanted to make it free on all e-book platforms and have it be a gateway to my other history articles. Amazon doesn't want to make it easy on me. I've been trying to get them to price match it down to free for over a week now. Three e-mails later they suggested I enroll it in KDP Select. I don't want it free 5 days every 90; I want it to be free all the time. They have the power to do this but they probably won't until it's up on Apple, Sony, etc. as a free book. I'm still waiting for Smashwords to finish reviewing it so it can send it off to all of them. It'll probably be a few weeks. This is only a 5 page article discussing a brief history of the Mormon theocracy in early Utah. I don't expect anyone to buy it - just wait until it's free on Amazon or grab it from Smashwords (they have almost every possible e-book format available there).

A COLLECTION OF HISTORY: FIVE HISTORY ARTICLES




U.S. Sales 0
U.K. Sales 0
KDP Borrows 0
$4.00













This collection contains five history articles: four that are available on Amazon and one from my blog. The collection includes:
-Constantine: Emperor of Tolerance
-Prayer: Archangels and Intercessory Beings
-Luther Standing Bear: Assimilation
-Gateway to the Vikings: L'Anse aux Meadows
-Caribbean Piracy: Pirates and Privateers


You save $1.00 when you buy them all together and you get a free article on Vikings that's up on my blog currently. This is the only title I currently have available that gives me 70% royalties. I made the collection at the request of a fan who has purchased every other history article I've written. If you want to help me out, buying this collection would be the way to do it. No one has so far.


So there you go. That's how I'm doing in the history article publishing arena. It's been a lot of fun so far going back to edit these articles to make them more interesting for the average Amazon and e-book customer. Feel free to download samples of any of them (available on Amazon) and purchase them if you really find them interesting.

Lazy Lyrics: That had nothing to do with airplanes

I listen to the radio a lot. I drive around all day fixing computers. I like to write and occasionally write raps. I really think a lot of the rappers and people who get featured in songs to throw out a few lines are getting incredibly lazy. Pitbull... I respected you right up until you rhymed Kodak with Kodak. You're right... Kodak does rhyme with Kodak... because they're the same word. Baby you're the whole package and you pay your taxes? Really? I would assume that being the whole package IMPLIES that she pays her taxes. Of all the things you could single out about how awesome a girl is... the best you could think of is that she pays her taxes?




I could go on about that for a while... but that's not my main point here. You know the song Airplanes with Haley Williams and B.O.B.? Their song came on the radio earlier today. I realized something. Most of B.O.B's rapping has nothing to do with airplanes. He mostly just rapped about how hard it was before he got his big break. I will give him some props for a few of his pairs:

And that's just how the story unfolds
You get another hand soon after you fold
And when your plans unravel in the sand
What would you wish for if you had one chance?
So airplane airplane sorry I'm late
I'm on my way so don't close that gate
If I don't make that then I'll miss my flight
But I'll be right back at it by the end of the night

I like that whole section. The rest of his rapping has to do with him being nostalgic about the days when he had a mix tape and life was hard... back before B.O.B. was an acronym and he was just plain Bob. Hopefully you get my point. There's so much you could do rapping about airplanes... or any subject really. I got bored driving around and I came up with this:

When I planned this trip it was for you and me

But you locked up your heart and I misplaced the key

I know you just want me to do what you say

But love is a ticket that goes both ways

You didn't get what I meant when I told you to pack

Metal detector went off from the knife in my back

You might still be mad and maybe its fate

So check your attitude with your bags at the gate

If you won’t give me a chance then you can kiss my ass

And I’ll upgrade my seat and sit alone in first class

There you go. There's a verse from a love song that has to do with airplanes. I actually came up with the last four lines first and I couldn't get them out of my head so I finished it up. I did this in about half an hour while driving around. I didn't talk about paying taxes. I didn't ask anyone to call me maybe. There's no mention of hot girls making me suicidal (Just messing Sean Kingston... you're alright).

I actually like Boyce Avenue and DeStorm's cover of this song a lot better. Yes, DeStorm stays true to what B.O.B. did with it and raps about growing up and how hard life was but I still think his version is a little more creative:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZSx9ZOMgV8

The only rapper that I believe consistently delivers nowadays (as far as rappers that I hear consistently on the radio) is Eminem. Yes, he swears a lot. His rhymes are just so epic though. I love those two lines from Love the Way You Lie:

Now you get to watch her leave out the window
Guess that's why they call it window pain

I love the play on words... window pane / window pain. Epic. I just wish more rappers would put effort in their lyrics or rap about something a little more real than how hot a girl is, how hard their life is, or apparently how sexy it is when a girl pays her taxes.

Evolution of the Cover: The Journals of Jacob and Hyde

Jacob and Hyde has been live for a little over a week now and I promised before its release to give some of the early cover shots. For Jacob and Hyde, I worked with Christine Ticali from http://darkroaddesigns.com/ Some of the early shots looked like this:

I didn't think the eyes looked right or that the covers looked as dark as I wanted them to. I sent Christine this picture to give her an idea of how I wanted the eyes to look:

Instead of making eyes that looked similar, she did something much cooler. She grafted my eyes from this photo on to the cover image which resulted in the following covers:

From there I had her modify the text a little bit and decided I didn't want blood splatter on the cover. The final cover ended up looking like this:

I really like this cover and I think Christine did a great job. For those of you who still haven't purchased a copy, The Journals of Jacob and Hyde can be purchased here. I also published a new history article on Caribbean pirates and privateers from my backlog of history articles. I'll probably talk a little bit more about that in another post.