As part of my ongoing efforts as an independent author and ‘educating’ newbies and/or readers about what sort of results come from being one, here is my round up for the first two months of 2010.

Historically for me, ebook sales tend to be low and slow until April through October, with June through September being my best sales months. Note: I’m lazy about promoting my titles except when something comes up that I could really use extra money to take care of.

(Note: I have medical bills to take care of, so 9 of February’s sales have been through my Payloadz store, via heavy whining on Twitter. All other sales have been through Amazon).

I’ve also changed prices on my ebooks downwards by around 25 to 76 cents on most titles. So instead of prices ranging from .99 to $5.25, they’re now .99 to $4.99.

Results for ‘Set Resurgence Free’: One $5 donation = 1 sponsor so far.

Web fiction ‘tips’: $14 (also in response to my whining – thanks to everyone who has bought or tipped! )

Downloads for the CC licensed, previously published version of Feral Intensity have now matched my total sales of that title. It took two years to hit 90 copies sold; it’s taken exactly 26 days to hit 90 copies downloaded (from here and Smashwords).

At this point in time, neither web fiction nor Resurgence donations have been miserable failures. I will continue reporting on both to see how they do. The Resurgence drive ends April 30, so 61 days more to go. (Note: I did put $10 of the webfic donations towards the goal for it, so actually have 2 sponsors so far.)

I’m an Operation Ebook Drop Author. Operation Ebook Drop is a group effort by a few hundred authors, started by Ed Patterson. Basically, we create and disperse 100% off coupons for our titles listed on Smashwords to active duty military who have ereaders.

From this, I had 8 downloads of my titles in January, and 15 for February.

Since adding my freebies to my blog here between the 2nd and 8th of February, Shades of Gray has had 20 DLs; Solo Mission 19 and Playing for Keeps 14. Over on Smashwords, since July 29, 2009: Shades of Gray has had 1755 DLs, Solo Mission 203 and Playing for Keeps 243.

And there you have it, folks. My total earnings for January to February have been $60.25 after distributor take or transaction fees, with a total of 189 copies going out.

Considering it could be zero, I’m going with ‘not bad’! :)

Amid the dire predictions for publishing, the fumbling about with ebook pricing and the growing hysteria over book piracy, one thing has become perfectly clear: authors need to adapt.

What may not be so clear is that authors can get paid for their work without restricting either availability of it or readers’ convenience.

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My intention has never been, even as a small child, to write without any return on my effort.

Writing is a career, and getting paid for doing it is part of it.

There are things we have to do to make a go of it, to build an audience, if we have no intention of going the traditional publishing route.

One of those things is showcasing our work in the hope of finding readers who will enjoy it. Readers that will become supportive fans, which of course will hopefully translate into ‘buyers’ for our story products.

We may choose to offer free stories for online reading, or free ebooks. People will bypass purchasing a book, regardless of its finished form, if they can’t thumb through or browse it in some manner, rather than plunking down a chunk of change for it, sight unseen.

I know this, because I’m a reader. I thumb through books at bookstores, and check out samples online before making the decision to buy any book.

‘Free’ doesn’t mean we’re releasing those stories to the wilds of public domain for people to use however they may feel they are entitled to.

Writing is personal. Stories come from our imaginations. The characters in them are our children.

We choose to share them in certain ways, but they belong to us.

Just because that’s true, it doesn’t mean we’re selfish, money grubbing hard asses.

It means that they are our creations and no matter how much or in what fashion we share them, they belong to us.

Not because of laws that say so, but because stories, art, photos, software and any kind of creation wouldn’t exist if someone hadn’t imagined it and then decided to create it.

That is the truth and something that, no matter how hard others may try, cannot be taken away from us.

Copyright infringement and illegal distribution can’t take that away. Plagiarism attempts to, but can’t.

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I haven’t seen a big announcement about it, but last week, while making changes to a few of my ebooks distributed through Amazon, I noticed the following:

Personally, I immediately switched all my titles as shown: Do not enable digital rights management.

Hit the ‘publish’ button, and now they’re all DRM free at Amazon. It only took a couple of days.

Since people are still talking about Kindle versions of ebooks being DRMed, I think this has slipped under the radar. Most of those who choose Amazon as a distribution platform likely aren’t aware they now have a choice.

Just thought I’d try spreading the word a bit.

This is an intriguing idea, and here’s my opinions, plus the way I’d try to implement the idea.

Keep in mind I have downloaded mp3s from indie groups that have sponsors, thus allowing them to offer those mp3 files for free download, so I have had a brush with the concept.

I’d offer a limited number of advertising spaces for a fee, then release the title for free download, having been paid for my work and time in producing the ebook.

The idea being that anyone who downloaded it might go visit the advertisers (or should we call them sponsors?), and then purchase something from them.

Because well, if they didn’t, then I’d have more trouble finding sponsors for the next ebook, wouldn’t I?

And there’s the first con: showing a return on the sponsor/advertiser’s investment.

Will readers visit their links?

How will tracking be done to know that they are visiting from links in my ebook, so that the sponsors/advertisers know their investment is paying off?

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