Proof that FREE Really Works...

I've been wanting to speak out a little more often on what works—and what doesn't—in selling books in an attempt to aid those who are navigating the maze of publishing these days, whether you've chosen self-publishing or traditional publishing. I've got a foot in both camps, but I don't mind saying publicly that my self-published books make way more money than my traditionally published books do. It comes down to the law of averages: if you are earning less than $1 per book, you have to sell a LOT more books before you hit thresholds anywhere near what you reach when you are making $3.87 per book. 

I've blogged before about the runaway success of my free offering of Maid for Love last year. Beginning June 15, Maid for Love, book 1 in my McCarthys of Gansett Island Series, was free at all major retailers. I set it to free at Apple and Kobo (very easy to do at both retailers) and then notified Amazon of the price change. They matched it. To my knowledge, there is only one way to make a book free at B&N: I distributed a free copy to B&N via Smashwords, and eventually that copy appeared on the retail site. At that point, I took the paid book "Off Sale" on my dashboard, so only the free Nook version showed up on the retail site. Over the next few months, we saw more than 600,000 downloads of Maid for Love across all platforms. Sales of books 2-6 exploded. Book 7, Longing for Love, was released in October of 2012 and had the strongest week one showing of any book of mine to date. Because it was initially offered as a Kindle exclusive, it didn't make any of the bestseller lists, but it posted numbers that were definitely in the bestseller range. Book 8, Waiting for Love, was released Feb. 18 on all platforms and hit no. 6 on the New York Times ebook list, no. 11 on the NYT combined print/ebook list, no. 15 on the USA Today list and no. 6 on the Wall Street Journal ebook list. I believe the bestseller list showings tie directly to the free offering of Maid for Love. 

Because the Maid for Love offering was so successful, I asked Harlequin to offer Fatal Affair for free around the release of book 5, Fatal Deception, last November. It took a bit of begging and some pleading, but they decided to put Fatal Affair up for free for the month of November. It did so well that I begged for a second month and December was added as well. I haven't heard exact numbers but the downloads were in the 300,000 range and sales of the other four books were in the 180,000 neighborhood. Book 5, Fatal Deception, became the first of my books to hit a major bestseller list, coming in at no. 99 on the USA Today list. Did the free offering spur that placement? What do you think? I say definitely!

I've done some messing around with the price of Maid for Love in recent weeks. I set it back to $3.99 for a while and it did okay, with maybe 100 sales per day across platforms, but I noticed an overall slowdown of sales for books 2-8. So I dropped the price to 99 cents. Again, it did okay, but not great. So I've set it back to free on Apple and Kobo, distributed a free version from Smashwords to B&N and notified Amazon of the lower prices. Maybe they will match, maybe they won't. For now, it's 99 cents at Amazon. On March 24, there were 150 Apple downloads of the free version in the U.S. iBookstore. I figure if even HALF of that 150 buy the other seven books in the series, that's 525 books sold at a profit of $3.87. That translates to $2031.75 in profit as the result of ONE DAY of free sales at ONE retailer—and that's if only HALF the free readers like the book enough to buy the rest of the series. If they all do, that's a profit of $4062 for one day of free downloads at one retailer. That more than offsets the "loss" of offering book 1 for free. If they love the McCarthy Series, I have 17 (soon to be 18) other books available, and if they buy all of them over time as well as any future books I may publish, then that's a huge win, all thanks to one free book that acted as a gateway between me a reader who is now a fan for life.

In this digital age of publishing, "discoverability" remains our greatest challenge. How do we get readers to find our books? Most of us are readers in addition to being writers. Most of us have taken a chance on a new-to-us author because they offered a free book. Most of us might not have paid even 99 cents to try a book by an unknown author. But what is lost when you try something for free? Nothing. What can be gained by offering a book for free? See above! 

Questions? Feel free to ask away. I hope to post more often about my self-publishing journey, so let me know if there are topics you'd like to hear more about.

The Book That Almost Wasn't: Fatal Deception's Bumpy Road to Publication

Fatal Deception, book 5, in the Fatal Series hit the e-book shelves today after a long and winding road to publication. In the midst of my 23rd book, something happened that had never happened to me before. I dropped my laptop and FRIED my hard drive, taking TEN chapters of Fatal Deception with it. If you'd asked me when the last time I'd backed up was, I would've said a week, maybe two. It was more like a month. Painful lesson learned. I was also working on one of my Gansett Island books when the fry-o-lation occurred. I very easily recreated the chunk I was missing in that book. Not so easily done in Fatal Deception.

I always say the Fatal Series books are my most complicated. Because they are so bendy and twisty, there was NO WAY I could easily recreate 10 chapters. My brain was resistant to even THINKING about it. Thus, I had to bring in the experts. To make a very long and UGLY story short, it took TEN WEEKS and THREE THOUSAND dollars to recover my ten chapters. Yep, you read that right. Disk Doctor in California got back the missing chapters, but it wasn't cheap. Since my choice was either to abandon the book or pay the money, I paid. During the ten weeks in the abyss, I kept plugging forward with Fatal Deception from where I'd left off, not knowing if the missing chapters would ever be recovered. When I got back the missing chapters, I pasted the whole thing back together and finished it up--in time for the deadline. Minor miracle! I don't recommend writing a book under these conditions. I now have extremely sophisticated backup systems that I rely upon to keep this from ever happening again.

Fatal Deception, the book that almost wasn't, is out TODAY! Here's what you can expect in this latest installment—my favorite yet in this series. Jealous Nick, Kinky Nick, Sam more obnoxious than ever! Fun, fun, FUN!

The wife of the White House deputy chief of staff has been beaten to death, and their one-year-old daughter is missing. D.C. Police Lieutenant Sam Holland is in charge of the murder investigation, but she's forced to collaborate with Special Victims Unit detectives as well as thorn-in-her-side FBI Special Agent Avery Hill. Then, a cold case of her father's resurrects old hurts—a distraction Sam cannot afford.

As Sam's investigation heats up, so does Nick's political career—and the heat carries over to their bedroom. Will Sam put the pieces together in time to catch a killer and find the baby, or will ambition, greed and lies prove fatal?

Get it now at Kindle • Nook • iBooks • Kobo • Carina Press

Read an excerpt.

Join the Fatal Deception Readers Group on Facebook when you're done with the book to dish about the story with other fans of the series.

And don't forget: Book 1, Fatal Affair, is FREE this month everywhere ebooks are sold! 

Hope you enjoy the latest installment in Sam & Nick's ongoing love affair!

True Confession

My name is Marie Force and I am guilty of ignoring my blog. There. I said it out loud. I can't believe it's been almost three months since I posted here! You'd think I had nothing to say, which couldn't be further from the truth. If you've gotten to know me at all, you know I've always got plenty to say! So what's new?

FATAL DECEPTION, book 5 in my FATAL SERIES, will be out on November 12. I'm really excited about this book, which in my humble opinion, is the best one yet. Sam and Nick are back with more married adventures. You'll see more of series favorites Freddie, Gonzo, Jeannie, Skip, Graham, Laine and of course, SCOTTY! I've also come up with what I think is a fun way to get our superstar wedding planner, Shelby Faircloth, back onto the canvas in a more enduring role. She was so damned fun to write and her dynamic with Sam made me laugh out loud more than once, so how could I not find a way to get her back into the series? If you haven't already pre-ordered your copy, you can do so now at:


Kindle
Nook
Apple

More retailers coming soon! Here's a bit about what you can expect in FATAL DECEPTION: 

The wife of the White House deputy chief of staff has been beaten to death, and their one-year-old daughter is missing. D.C. Police Lieutenant Sam Holland is in charge of the murder investigation, but she's forced to collaborate with Special Victims Unit detectives as well as thorn-in-her-side FBI Special Agent Avery Hill. Then, a cold case of her father's resurrects old hurts—a distraction Sam cannot afford. 

As Sam's investigation heats up, so does Nick's political career—and the heat carries over to their bedroom. Will Sam put the pieces in time to catch a killer and find the baby, or will ambition, greed and lies prove fatal?

Read an excerpt here.

I get a lot of questions about the Fatal Series, so let me answer a few of them here.

How many books do you plan to write in the Fatal Series?

I don't know yet. I figure as long as I'm having fun with Sam and Nick and readers are enjoying their adventures, I'll keep writing the series. 

What will the next book be called and when will it be out?

Book Six will be called Fatal Mistake, and I believe it's scheduled to be out in June 2013. 

Will the Fatal Series be coming to print?

YES! I'm pleased to report that books 1 and 2, FATAL AFFAIR and FATAL JUSTICE, will be out in  2013 in what's called mass market paperback format (meaning they will be in bookstores and retail outlets close to your homes) from HQN, which is a Harlequin imprint. I'm hoping the rest of the books will follow soon after. In the meantime, the series has been coming to print via eHarlequin.com. Fatal Consequences is currently available there in print.

Will Sam ever have a baby?

I'm not sure yet how that will play out. I do know that bringing a newborn in their lives would vastly change the landscape of the series, and not necessarily for the better. So if and when Sam has a baby, I do expect it to be much later in the series. 

Will we ever find out who shot Skip?

I believe we will, but I'm not sure when yet!

If you have other questions about the Fatal Series, please feel free to post them in the comments. I'm happy to provide the answers—if I have them!

In other news...

Right now I'm working on two books at the same time. COMING HOME, book 4 in the Treading Water Series, will hopefully be out by Christmas, and WAITING FOR LOVE, book 8 in the McCarthys of Gansett Island Series, will be out early next year. Right after that, I'll be diving into FATAL MISTAKE as well as book 1 in my new Green Mountain Country Store Series that's coming in late 2013. If you're interested in audio books, watch for the McCarthy Series coming to audio in 2013!

So that's what is keeping me busy at the moment! Hope you're doing well and getting lots of reading time!