Poll–Purchase Reservations
- This topic has 40 replies, 14 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 9 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
I did find this novel somewhat refreshing. The formerly human protagonist gets over his obsession about no longer being human and killing hostile humans very quickly. He might not enjoy it, but at least he doesn’t let most of his enemies live to try and kill him again. Tal is a really nice guy, but if Tom had met him later he likely would not have tried to reason with him as he a headstrong zealot who fully believes in his mission. He hasn’t forgotten who he was, but he has changed without nearly driving himself insane.
In a lot of novel a human or formally human protagonist will choose to side with a humanity that is either actively shunning or hostile to them. Humans might have been or are currently the worst of the races and everybody else just wants revenge. Then the hero who should want the same chooses to save them, despite the fact that the world might have been better if they got knocked down a few pegs.
Don’t really hate humans, but when any other species or non-Caucasian race often in fantasy steps out of line they are swiftly crushed without remorse or a second thought. Not saying that’s always the case, but dark-skinned or nonhuman races always seem to get the short end of the stick. I have no idea where this story is going, but I hope to see lots of death and chaos and maybe progress for humans. A type IV needs the Rod’s greatest knight and 3/4 of their forces to suppress by themselves, a strong four, but still a four. Their are hundreds of IV’s and and 100+ type V+ so clearly the demons have the superior fire power, if they could stop fighting each other. They might work together to kill off all the wizards and burn off all their books that have names in them for a time, but chaos is the only true thing keeping them from overrunning the place. The book obviously has power names in it and possibly a method for controlling and suppressing type V+. Near as I can figure passed on a cryptic conversation.
The hero is not a saint and should not be shown as merciful, strong, and kind. A tolerant strong hero who removes obstacles is fine.[quote=eugene2k;152]Oh, hey, let me say another thing that you probably never thought of. Every time I look at the scales on the hooves I’m thinking: “Why the hell is this demon wearing pantyhose like a transvestite hooker?”[/quote]
Ahh…that will be explained in book II 8-[
No…no it won’t be explained….I am joking…don’t want to freak anyone out….
Maou,
You hit on some key “framework ideas” I have.
Some of which you won’t be able to fully see until later books, but you hit on them here.
1) the value of human life, and how religion affects that
2) the “haves” vs the “have nots” culture/race warfare and discrimination and irrational biases
3) the idea that super powerful entities or countries can just rush in with overwhelming force and solve any problem and impose their “will” and values on others.
4) there is always more than one side to every story
5) everyone is hanging on by the seat of their pants, just trying to do their best to stay afloat (this is how things really work)Tizzy is going to want you to join some strategy sessions, by the way…
Thanks for the quick response. I understand all the points you brought up, and thanks for sharing the process from your side.
Thought I might add something to the description part. After getting into the book I did wonder about the description some. Only thing I see thats wrong with it is that there is such a small piece of the story taking place with the party, while it takes up such a large part of the description. I was thinking that maybe if there was a prologue, taking place from say a day in advance or so to set out his home life, friends, reason he went to the party, ect. more cohesively it might help with the transition from description to storyline. This would make the little bits that come out later, friends names, step-dad, moms reaction, ect. a little less jarring. It would also give readers a little bit more of an impression of Tom pre-demon, making his struggles and transitions a little easier to comprehend/empathize with.
just my two cents.
Thanks for the feedback! It’s very helpful and a lot of what I expected.
So let me address here a few of those things…not as a defense, but as a “why”
The price:
1) First and foremost, I set the list price, expecting most bookstores to automatically “whack the price” by a dollar or more.
a) only Google Play did this, immediately. No one else did.
b) I actually debated reporting the cheaper price to Amazon so they’d lower it…but it was selling better than expect, and well, that seemed to be stupid of me to do. It got noticed on its own.
c) I was afraid if I set it at $4.99 it would get whacked really low. And a really long, really cheap book screams “CRAP”2) I also tried to set a price based on “entertainment time” The book is almost 250,000 words, which is very long by ebook standards. I see these $2.99 books with fewer than 100,000 words and the bang for the buck thing kicks in. If it’s twice as many words????? It should be twice as much. $5.99 (Yes, I know that doesn’t always hold)
[i]My book prices are really dated (mainly because I don’t buy mass market paperbacks–only ebooks, trade paperbacks and hardcover these days) but in my “mind” a good SF, mass market paperback should be around $6.99, trade $14.99, HC $24.99 and this is just internalized pricing. So a “good” ebook price would be $4.99. Which was really the price I paid the longest for a mass market.
Of course, that is all without inflation…in terms of value, look at how little the price of books has changed, especially SF/Fantasy vs movie tickets?
So my goal was always about $5 for the book, my expectation was it would get whacked to that…and it did, eventually.[/i]
3) Editing: yes, I know there are errors still. It’s unbelievable how many times, I and my best friends have read and edited things and still couldn’t catch stuff. I’m going to give every author I bad mouthed for crappy editing a huge break. It’s hard. (unless you have a publisher…and then there’s no excuse, they are taking most of the money…so they should hire a good editor)
Next time, I’m going to see about a real editor…I just need to find one that’s good with SF/Fantasy and particularly, Oorstemothians. But there will also be a beta program where, while I’d be looking for more content/plot/continuity feedback, I’m sure people will catch annoying editing things as well.
4) Cover art: I never intended to do the cover art myself. I was going to hire someone, but time was getting down there…i wanted to get this out before I started another full time contract job, and the artists I “liked” I was afraid were very expensive, and or had a long queue, and I had no idea how well this book would sell to justify $1k to $2K or more. Now, that I know that I can make the money to pay for a good artist, I’m going to do so.
I also wanted something very catchy to stand out in the huge array of books out there, so I feared it would take quite a lot of back and forth to get the right cover image…and I wanted it “out there”
5) I really don’t know what to do with the description that will hook people, be an honest portrayal/description, and not give too much away. There “is a reason” publishers have specialists to write these things. The author is almost always too close to the story.
Maybe we should have a “write a new blurb” contest?
For me it was three things: The cover, the price, and the description
First the cover. It is a mixed bag, on one hand it is colorful and draws the eye. On the other the demon isn’t very good, and looks like a generic render. Most of all though it evokes images in my mind that this is a bad D&D campaign that someone slapped into eBook format and put it on amazon
Next the price. It made me hesitant to pay that much for a first time self publisher author.
Last the description. It is mostly about the pot he smoked in the beginning and was never mentioned again, it makes a small plot point seem like a major part of the story. While I don’t have anything against that in and of itself, that makes it leave the impression that the story is targeted to a very YA audience with a romance focus.
On the plus side for me was the many positive reviews and the fact I hadn’t heard a premise quite like it before and I’m a avid reader. Going from our world to a fantasy one yes, but not kidnapped and turned into a demon.
These are what caught me despite my reservations and I’m glad because I loved the book
Hello, new here. I did have a kind of “Toss up” reaction. Mainly because of the cover, and the price.
As to the cover, basically a 3d render for a cover says to me that the book is completely self done, the author can’t afford a very good artist, and/or they are trying to go with the “quick fix”. That then tells me “BAD EDITING!!!! RUN!” However the reviews helped me on that end.
For the price, I just find anything over $5 kind of crazy for a digital book. For a print book sure, $7.99 with most of it going to the publisher, I can see that. But $6 for what looks like a self-published e-book? That just seems a little steep to me. The only reason I decided to give it a shot was because of the page count, and the fact that amazon is really good about refunds.
It turns out I’m glad I did. There were still some of the editing problems, no where near as many as some self-published works, but enough to notice. However the story was intriguing enough, and the characters engaging enough to push through them. I was very satisfied with the length, it’s so annoying to pay for a book and then finish it in only a few hours.
Also, as to the length. I saw in one of the amazon discussions talk of going “episodic”. I’ve read books that take that route that I enjoy, but my only warning would be to be sure you can keep up with the timescale you set out on. If you’re going to publish 300 pages every 3-6 months, you need to keep with that or you will lose readers. Also this gets into my “It’s annoying to pay for a book and finish it in just a few hours” thing. I can finish 300 pages in about half a day or less if I find it engaging enough. This is usually offset for me if the author is good about releasing additions in a timely manner though. However I wouldn’t pay more than $2.99 or so for anything 300pages or less. (Btw my favorite author that does this well right now is Niall Teasdale. Each book is pretty short but they come out pretty fast and don’t cost too much.)
Well thats it for me. Enjoyed the book, and waiting anxiously for the next installment!
Definitely will do. It’s war you know.
Going to finally get back at the DemiUrge for kicking…oops…sorry…that’s very late Book II, mainly Book III and IV info…
[quote=Tizzy;170]Definitely will do. It’s war you know.
Going to finally get back at the DemiUrge for kicking…oops…sorry…that’s very late Book II, mainly Book III and IV info…
[/quote]
Stop Tizzing you bastard! I’m weeping bloody tears here because I can’t get my hands on the second book right now 😀
Patrick, I think that is just a rule that you made up. I had read a lot of books that has blurbs that doesn’t reinforce the message of the cover. Gosh. There are even books that has a plain cover. No blurbs. No picture or anything, just plain paper or cloth, sometimes with the title printed on them.
Designing an illustration is very difficult. I have been making digital illustrations (2D and 3D) as a hobby and they are very difficult and time consuming.
All rules are just made up by someone at some point :p
However, are you looking at the content of the cover vs. the content of the blurb or the tone of cover vs. the tone of blurb?
I’m not sure it’s that far out from the cover. I do like it.
I’m mixing up the description now, to get people to give it a second look. So I’d love to work it into the rotation. While I’m exclusive to Kindle it’s a lot easier…when I first launched I had to maintain a bunch of stores and blurbs…
I also need alternate blurbs for ads on other sites, such as Goodreads, FaceBook, Tumblr, DeviantArt, etc.
I’d like to change the cover as well, so I spend time looking for artists who’ve done stuff I like and do similar things, but so far those few I’ve contacted are already overbooked…
I also want to get more art for the site. But as Rosver said, illustrations take quite a bit of time…especially when trying to do something specific and “on demand” rather than as the muse strikes you. And at the moment I’m not doing any art because I’m writing v2 in all my spare time.
It’s not that the cover art is bad, its just not super flashy like a lot of the big popular books are which make make readers pass over it at first glance. Many of my most favorite series have covers like yours, such as Thaumatology and Aneka Jansen series by Niall Teasdale. He makes a lot of artwork for his books featuring the various characters which, as one of his avid readers now, makes it more enjoyable. The only downfall is that I passed over Niall’s books for about 6 months before I realized how much I liked his work.
My opinion is to keep up the cover and other graphics on the website but redesign the cover on Amazon for sales… Like putting better bait on the fishing hook.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.