Tag Archives: blogging

Visit Lita Burke's Fantasy Worlds

Enter Here for Fantasy

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Lita's Cauldron Works

Lita’s Cauldron Works

Lita takes a break from the cauldron works and describes the new ways to visit her fantasy worlds.

Why should Gentle Reader put down your warm Kindle and turn to a smart phone or laptop to check out Lita’s latest post? Have Lita’s blog delivered directly to your e-book reader instead.

 Lita Burke’s Blog Available on Amazon Kindle

Want to use a syndicated reader and share Lita’s fantasy worlds through a RSS feed? Here are the spells that Lita prepared for your viewing pleasure.

 Lita Burke’s Blog Available on RSS

WordPress can deliver Lita’s blog posts directly to your email box by way of electronic carrier pigeons. Look for the Follow Blog via Email heading at the top right sidebar to find the skullduggery that summons the birds.

Note that the sidebar spell says “You are following this blog” if Gentle Reader already summoned the pigeons.

Cheshire Cat Hides Under the “W”

Cheshire Cat Hides Under the “W”

Are you a WordPress blogger? Did you use the Follow feature? If so, then Lita’s blog posts prowl in your WordPress Reader.

This lovely Cheshire Cat of a feature hides under the “W” in the top left side of your browser. Log on to WordPress before you talk to the grinning cat.

Curious Devices from the Clockpunk Wizard World

Ephraim’s Curious Device featured at Indies Unlimited

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Curious Devices from the Clockpunk Wizard World

Here are a few Curious Devices (people too) from the Clockpunk Wizard world

Lita is pleased to tell Gentle Reader that the Indies Unlimited (IU) blog has a featured post about the Clockpunk Wizard  world in Ephraim’s Curious Device.  Please take a minute to stop by, look around, and if in the mood, leave some comments.

IU is a site for independent authors, publishers, reviewers and readers who embrace the sweeping changes to book publishing caused by online technology. IU calls it the “Indie Author Movement.”

Treasures await the visitor at IU. For posts that are sometimes snarky but always informative, check out the IU home page. Be sure to visit their featured author online book store here.  For all who are low on schwag, visit their IU Gear store and load up. If Gentle Reader wants to get social, check them out on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest.

Which genres lurk about at IU? Their site covers Adventure, Romance, Mystery, Horror, Sci-Fi, Fantasy (Lita’s favorite), and Biography titles. You’re sure to find a story to please, and meet friendly indie writer acquaintances, at IU.

Startled Man

eBook Pricing for Indie Fiction (Part 2)

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Stop wandering in the indie eBook pricing forest

Setting indie eBook fiction prices is like wandering without a path in a misty forest. Take my hand, and let us find our way together.

This is the second of two posts discussing eBook pricing for new indie fiction authors. In Part 1, we looked at other indies’ pricing suggestions. In today’s post, I will present a pricing model based on samples and story length.

FREE Loss Leader

These freebies are your samples. Their purpose is to hook a reader on your writing style, tease them with taste of a longer novel, or they are the first installment of a series. These items are short stories–novelette length at the most (I describe fiction lengths below). Post flash fiction or ultra-shorts of 100-500 words on your website. These tidbits catch the interest of readers window shopping at your website. They are like delicious sample trays at chocolatiers’ shops.

Long stories have smaller price per word

Long stories have smaller price per word

Put longer short stories and novelettes on your usual sales channels (i.e., Smashwords and Amazon) so you can track how many people have downloaded them. Be sure to enable sampling the first 20% or so of all fiction on your sales channels. The key is to let your readers try your writing before they buy. Have at least one teaser, prequel or loss leader in your collection. Put some freebies on your website, and offer one in your usual sales channels. The eBook price? Free.

Length Matters

The number of words is one of the few pragmatic measurements for a story. No need for fancy (and confusing) formulas based on manuscript pages–use the word count feature of your word processor. You will be rounding it to whole numbers anyway.

Lita’s recommended eBook pricing model uses word count, but it isn’t linear. Your shorter stories will have a high price-per-word value than the longer works. For example, a short story at 1000 words would be priced at a dollar (valued at 10 cents per word), but a 120,000 epic fantasy would not be priced at ten cents a word–it would cost a whopping $120. It would not sell, no matter how wonderful the tale.

The Shocking Pricing Model

Take a deep breath. Ready? Here is Lita’s humbly suggested eBook pricing model for just-starting-out indie authors. When you’ve grown a following, you could adjust the prices to what your market can absorb.

These indie eBook prices are shocking!

These indie eBook prices are shocking!

  • Short Story
    • 1000 to 7500 words
    • Free if loss leader, otherwise 99 cents
  • Novelette
    • 7,500 – 20,000 words
    • 99 cents
  • Novella
    • 20,000 – 80,000 words
    • $1.99
  • Novel
    • 80,000 – 110,000 words
    • $2.99
  • Epic or Sequel
    • Over 110,000 words
    • $3.99

Lita made the mistake of pricing her début novel much too high. I set the eBook value on what I thought it was worth, and the readership disagreed. Other marketing blunders also slowed sales down, but that’s a topic for another post.

These pricing numbers are based on Lita’s experience. If Gentle Reader uses a different pricing approach and wishes to share the pros and cons, please comment. After all, we are wandering together in the misty forest of indie eBook pricing.

News About Lita Burke

Writer Tips for Tweeps: Check Out #LitaLikes

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If the tiny twitter writer tips were magical lights, they would look like this.

Tiny twitter writer tips surround Lita like magical lights

For all the Gentle Readers who are on Twitter, Lita Burke has started a hash tag with indie writer wisdom just for you. But do read on, even if you’re not on Twitter–I’m talking about writing tips today.

About #LitaLikes

Here in December, Lita started a series of every-other-day tweets using the hash tag #LitaLikes. These are “tiny twitter tweets” (assonance rhyme intended–apologies–couldn’t help it today) with Lita’s quick tips, advice, and peccadilloes about writing.

Lita will post these hard-learned nuggets of wisdom until I have disclosed all, or an angry mob of orcs chases me away from the computer. The advice bits will be tips about editing your own fiction, the mechanics of eBook formatting, and Lita’s preferences about fantasy worlds and their story-people.

If Gentle Reader likes these, but you aren’t on Twitter, see the most recent #LitaLikes in the Twitter feed on the homepage sidebar of this blog. If you are on Twitter, here is Lita’s Twitter Page.  Feel free to Follow. If you aren’t on Twitter, and want to catch of Lita’s tweets from the source, here is the Twitter Home and instructions on how to become a Tweep–won’t cost you a cent to join. Gentle Reader can also catch my Twitter feed on Lita’s Facebook Page.

Take a Look at #LitaLikes

I suggest all writers print out their stories and read them off of paper for self-editing. Looking at your words on a different medium gives your eyes a fresh perspective.

How I go on about too many adjectives and adverbs spoiling a perfectly good story. Catch Lita’s rants about these fiction no-nos in earlier posts for Killing Me Softly with Adverbs, and That’s No Moon. It’s Excessive Adjectives.

As writers self-proofing our fiction, our eyes skip over typos and grammar flubs because somehow we just don’t see them. Word can speak the text out loud. Lita catches her literary badness using this technique. It is now my last self-editing step before beta readers.

I’ve gushed over my love of fantasy maps before in 6 Critical Elements for Fantasy World Building.

Remember, Lita posts to Twitter several times a day. Be sure to follow the latest about Lita’s fantasy worlds, get the scoop on the latest status for Lita’s stories, and keep the angry orcs away from my door.