This pisses me off, breaks my heart, and makes me—and the other terrific and honest indie authors on this site—look bad. That is, if we have too many great reviews.

GalleyCat weighed in on this issue with this blog post, listing several bestsellers that each have more than 150 one-star reviews. The point of the short piece is that real bestsellers have lots of bad reviews as well as many good ones. The unspoken point is that books with too many good reviews and few bad ones must not be a real bestsellers, that those reviews must have been paid for or written by marketers or friends.

I resent this! Without good reviews, you’re treated like a hack and can’t sell books. Too many good reviews and not enough dogs, and you look like a phony. Obviously some authors—and publishers—resort to these tactics. But many of the books on Amazon’s bestselling and top-rated lists come by their reviews honestly.

I know I did. Dying for Justice is the top-rated novel on two Amazon’s lists—police procedurals and mystery series—with 54 five-star reviews, 8 four-stars, and 1 one-star (idiot). Not one was paid for or written by a marketer. My sister claimed she wrote a review, but she loves my work. And I can’t find it, if she did. And I have many great reviews in print magazines—Mystery Scene, Crimespree, Spinetingler, and RT Reviews—to support those online “amateur” reviews.

Yes, I gave away the book on Goodreads, with the idea that readers would post reviews, but I took my chances that they would be in my favor. And yes, I asked readers in a blog to post reviews for the book—but always with the caveat “if you read and enjoyed the story.” I don’t want or need fake support.

Here’s a question for GalleyCat: If a book with a lot of fake five-star ratings wasn’t good, wouldn’t a lot of honest readers start to give it bad reviews? You can’t fool everybody forever. No author has that many loyal friends or fake online IDs—except maybe Stephen Leather, another example of how some big-name indie authors are making the rest of us look bad.

And I have to throw in one more issue. The site that Locke used was clearly corrupt. Reviewers were directly paid to crank out good blurbs without even reading the books. But what about sites like Book Rooster? For a $60 admin fee, the site lists your e-book internally, then their unpaid reviewers sign up to receive and read books of their choosing. In exchange for free books, they write honest reviews.

This process seems fine to me, and I used the site for The Suicide Effect, my least-read book, just to get some reviews. But there was no guarantee of how many reviews or what they would be. It was just an opportunity for exposure, and I got lucky, mostly. But now I’m wondering if that was a mistake, just because the exchange of money (for the administrative fee) might make people lump the service into a paid-review category—even though no money goes to the reviewers.

What do you think? Have you read John Locke’s work? Does he deserve his success? Are you skeptical of any books with almost entirely good reviews? Do you think Book Rooster is a legitimate service? Should Amazon take Locke’s work down to show it’s serious about the trust factor for customer reviews?

by L.J. Sellers, author of provocative mysteries & thrillers

First up, I’ll give away a print copy of my latest Detective Jackson book, Liars, Cheaters & Thieves to the person who gives me the best nickname name based on a last name. For example, my husband’s name is Steve Hutchison and his friends all call him Hutch. And I need the name to be gender neutral. This is for a character in my next series, and I’m excited to see what you come up with.

I also still need good Amazon reviews for Dying for Justice. The book is now #8 on Amazon’s top-rated crime fiction list, a separate list from the bestsellers, and it’s based on customers’ ratings alone. If I can get into one of the top three spots, Amazon will feature Dying for Justice on all its crime fiction pages—which would be huge for its sales.

So if you’ve read the book and liked it, please leave even a brief review and be sure to click the star-rating system. Anyone who does or who comments here about my name contest gets a free e-book of their choice. Be sure to email me to let me know which one you’d like and which format Kindle (mobi) or epub.

Thanks for all your wonderful support! Without, I wouldn’t be in this perfect place.

My understanding of the dispute is that IPG wanted better distribution terms for its ebooks—I believe it requested no discounting—and Amazon said no. Which the company has the right to do. Amazon already capitulated when the Big 6 publishers colluded to set their own high prices—a collusion that is now the subject of lawsuits and investigations.

So like all other retailers, Amazon wants to control the sale price of its inventory, and since it couldn’t get Independent Publishers Group to agree to its terms, it took IPG’s products off the shelf. (Caveat: There may be more to the issue than I realize, and if you know more, please leave a comment.)

The people hurt most by this are the authors whose ebooks are no longer selling at Amazon. But it’s important to remember that these authors have a choice. They chose to publish their work through a small publisher, which in turn, contracted with IPG for distribution. Or maybe some authors are working directly with IPG. Either way, these authors have chosen to hire middlemen for publication and/or distribution. Middlemen that take a chunk of the profit, and in this case, refuse to meet Amazon’s terms.

But this is the new age of publishing! Authors don’t need publishers, or distributors for that matter. Anyone can upload their ebooks to Amazon though Kindle Direct Publishing and to Barnes & Noble through PubIt. Granted, if you want to sell on Kobo and Sony, you need a distributor. But Kobo and Sony’s market shares are almost insignificant, and at the same time, they are the ebook retailers doing the discounting that, in turn, triggers Amazon to drop its price.

I pulled my books down from Kobo and Sony for that very reason. They caused me to lose far more money at Amazon than I ever made from either. And Amazon has never discounted my books except to match another retailer’s price.

I understand authors wanting to control the price the book is sold for, and thus, maximize royalties, but if your book is not selling on Amazon, you’ll never maximize your profit. From my perspective, it makes far more sense for IPG to pull its books from Kobo and Sony, and thus eliminate the discounting issue, than to give up its authors’ opportunity to sell on Amazon.

What is IPG offering its authors—besides getting their books pulled from the biggest retailer in the marketplace? I realize distributors may be able to get some print books into bookstores, but what can they do for ebook-only authors that those authors can’t do for themselves?

Of course, some—or many—may have signed contracts with small publishers (that in turn signed with IPG) and therefore, they no longer have the right to control their own work. But instead of complaining about Amazon, they should be contacting their publishers about finding a new distributor. Or if they work with IPG directly, maybe they should terminate that agreement and either find a new distributor, or better yet, simply join the indie revolution and upload their books to Amazon, B&N, and Apple themselves.

Another blogger has offered some excellent alternatives for IPG as well. I expect to take some heat for this, so tell me, what do you think?

If you thought The Sex Club was the first book, you’re also right. Here’s blog about that change.

Why reputable businesses would do this makes no sense, and yet, they do. Take Sony for example. First, the retailer kept discounting my books again and again, causing Amazon to discount my books and me to lose money. My distributor would contact them, and they’d stop for while. Then out of nowhere, Sony would put my books on sale.

Then Amazon Select came along, and I decided I was done dealing with Sony permanently. So INgrooves, my distributor, had my books removed from their ebook store. A few days later, three of my Jackson titles popped up in the Sony store. They were old versions from my previous publisher, supplied by a different distributor. I contacted both my ex-publisher and the other distributor, and they quickly took care of the issue.

For a while, I had no books on Sony’s site, and everything seemed fine. Then suddenly, they were back, selling on Sony again. I know this because Amazon called to let me know I was not in compliance with my Select program agreement. They were very nice about it in person. But two days later, I started getting emails about each of the titles that was still selling elsewhere, with a 30-day notice to get in compliance or have the book removed from Amazon’s program.

Of course, I had already contacted my distributor and asked them to communicate with Sony, using a lawyer, if necessary. INgrooves sent an email to Sony and within two days, the books were down again.

But why did they start selling them again in the first place? What happened to the royalties during that time, since I no longer have an agreement with them? And will it happen again? Is Sony purposefully violating my rights to make a few extra bucks off my inexpensive e-books? Or is it an error? Does it have a computer program that keeps picking up files that should have been deleted?

Sony is not the only guilty one. I’ve heard authors complain about Kobo doing this as well. And several authors who were published with Dorchester have complained that the publisher made and sold e-books of their work—after the company gave the rights back to the author. The Amazon person who called me said many authors are experiencing similar scenarios.

This is such inexplicable behavior all around. Just because it’s an electronic file doesn’t mean anyone can sell it for profit. Authors are calling for a boycott of Dorchester, and it’s tempting to ask readers to boycott Sony as well. And Kobo too, if they’re guilty of this form of theft—also known as pirating.

After publishing ten books—two with a small publisher, the rest without—I’ve come to two conclusions:

1) Digital self-publishing is a straightforward process that isn’t particularly difficult or expensive.

2) There is nothing a small publisher can or will do for writers that they can’t do better for themselves. I don’t mean literally do everything yourself, but a writer can contract for production services as well as a publisher can.

Why? Small presses are often run by a few dedicated, but overworked individuals. They typically contract out most services, and they often pay bottom dollar. I know this because I’ve worked as freelance editor and turned down all of the work offered by small presses because they simply don’t pay enough. Small presses are trying to profit and survive like everyone else and they cut costs where they can.

A large publisher can offer distribution and promotional backing, but most small publishers don’t offer either, so what’s left for the author is the label of being traditionally published and the convenience of having someone else contract the production work. Giving up most of the profit for these small advantages is a hard bargain that I don’t recommend. As the author, you have to sell the book no matter who publishes it, so you might as well make the investment, publish it yourself, and reap the rewards

The three main elements to producing a quality e-book are editing, cover design, and formatting. Many authors are tempted to do all three themselves to save money. But unless you’re incredibility talented and have all the time in the world, it’s probably not a cost-effective decision.

Editing can be expensive, especially if you contract for content evaluation, but you can keep the cost down by sending your manuscript to beta readers or working with a critique group to fine tune the plot and structure. You should, of course, print and read the manuscript out loud before paying anyone else to proof it. After carefully reading it yourself, send it to a professional editor for line editing and proofreading. Many editors charge $1500 and up, but you don’t have to pay that much. You can find someone to proofread or edit your manuscript for $300–$800. depending on the length of the novel. If you pay less, your editor will be in a rush and probably won’t do a good job. If you pay more, it may take a long time to earn back your investment.

A good cover is also essential. Most cover artists charge a flat fee, and you can expect to pay between $150 and $500. Some charge a lot more than that, but why spend that much if you don’t have to? One way to save money is to find the right image yourself, so you’re not paying the artist for that time. One of the great things about self-publishing an e-book is that you can revise it as often as you want, including creating a new cover down the road when the book is making money. The best way to find a cover designer  is to network with other writers, including joining listservs that focusing on marketing.

Formatting: I originally thought I would learn to format my own e-books to save money. Other authors make it sound easy. But I quickly decided that the time and frustration spent on the learning curve was not cost-effective. Time is money. For me, it made more sense to send my Word files and cover jpgs to a professional for formatting. The e-book I got back was gorgeous. In fact, I received two files: a mobi file to upload to Amazon and an epub to upload everywhere else. I recommend working with a formatter who produces these two types of files.

Readers’ biggest complaint about e-books is the formatting. Getting it right is essential. Rates may vary, but if you’re starting with a Word document, it shouldn’t cost more than around $150, depending on how clean your file is. For authors who have a backlist and novels that are in book form instead of Word documents, those books will need to be scanned, and the cost of e-book production will be more expensive. The number of errors from the optical character recognition is also much higher. It might be cost-effective to pay a very fast typist to transcribe your published book into a Word document before sending it to a formatter. You’ll end up with fewer errors too.

Taking the lowest rates I’ve mentioned ($300, $150, and $150), you can conclude that it will cost at least $600 to produce a quality e-book. I raided my very small retirement account to publish my first six books, and I considered it a small business loan to myself. I now treat my novel-writing career as a business instead of a hobby and it has paid off for me.

How long does it take to earn back a $600–$1000 investment? That depends on many things, including how many novels you have on the market. The more books you have, the more credibility you have, which is why I decided to do mine back to back in 2009. Assuming you’ve written a terrific story and produced a quality product, the biggest factor is how much time you’re willing to spend promoting. I spent at least two hours a day for six months, plus one exclusive two-week period during which I promoted eight hours a day (blogs, press releases, reader forums, etc.). I continue to spend at least an hour every day on promotional activities. For the record, I made my money back by the end of the year, and going forward is all profit.

It’s your book and you’ve invested your money, you might as well invest your time too and make it pay off.

I don’t want to give too much away, but the story involves three men, friends since high school. I’ve settled on the main character’s name, but I’m still open to what to call his friends. One is ex-military and an outdoors kind of guy, and the other is more of a techie.

But I also need names for bartenders, girlfriends, bankers, and homeless people! As info, most of the names you submitted for my last contest for The Arranger ended up in the book as contestants in the Gauntlet. So if you have a favorite name, enter it, and it could become part of this story. You can always submit your own name too.

Of course, one of these guys ends up dead, so feel free to submit the names of people you wouldn’t mind seeing bumped off.

I’ll pick a favorite submission, and the prize is a signed print book of your choice from the nine I’ve written (or two e-books if you prefer). I’ll also use as many of the submissions as I can and give an e-book to everyone who participates and contacts me with their email address.

Thanks for playing! This is also such good fun for me.

Of course not. In July, I conducted an experiment and priced all my Jackson e-books at $.99. They got a little bump in sales, then quickly settled into a slightly higher level than where they’d been at $2.99, for example 25 copies a day for one title compared to 15 at the higher price. The problem is the royalty. Amazon only pays a 35% royalty on books under $2.99, instead of 70%. So dropping from $2.99 to $.99 not only means earning a third of the price, it also means receiving half of the royalty.

Straight up math: I have to sell six times as many books at the lower price to make exactly the same money. And that’s hard to pull off. There are so many authors and publishers now offering their books at $.99 that it’s hard to gain much attention with that price, especially since my books have been on the market a while and already reached thousands of readers. (And thank you to all those readers!)

After only a few weeks, my experiment taught me this: I can’t make a living selling e-books at $.99. Yet, I have to make a living. I’m a full-time novelist now and I don’t want to go back to freelancing. If I were to start editing again to make up the cash difference, I would write less and disappoint my readers who are waiting for the next Jackson book.

So all my e-books are now back to the higher price, and The Arranger will be released at $2.99. It’s still a great bargain for readers, and the plan is to leave my prices set. Readers like consistency, and I’m sure they’re as tired of the price fluctuations as I am. I certainly hope this is my last post on the subject. If you want to read another blog about cheap e-books, written with a lot more passion, check out The 99 Cent Ghetto.

Readers: Are you willing to pay $2.99 for an e-book you want?
Writers: Have you experimented with price and found the optimum?

All five stories for the price of a tall latte! If you’ve already bought my series, thank you! Please tell your friends and family about this great offer. Here’s a link to all five on Amazon. And here are brief blurbs for each book. They’re standalone stories and can be read in any order….with an average 4.5-star rating on Amazon.

The Sex Club: A dead girl, a ticking bomb, a Bible study that’s not what it appears to be, and a detective who won’t give up.

Secrets to Die For: A brutal murder, a suspect with a strange story, a missing woman with secrets to hide—can Jackson discover the truth in time to save her?

Thrilled to Death: Two missing women with nothing in common, a dead body, and a suspect who hasn’t left his house in a year—Jackson’s most puzzling cast yet.

Passions of the Dead: A murdered family, two high-octane suspects, and a deadly home invasion lead Jackson on the most disturbing case of his career.

Dying for Justice: Two unsolved murders from the past, a corrupt cop, and dying man’s confession—Can Jackson find the link and stop the rampage?

I’m outlining a new Jackson story (while finishing up The Arranger), and Jackson #6 will be released early next year, likely February. But I’m shooting for the first the year.

If you’d like to be added to mailing list for new releases, click here, and put Add Me in the subject line. I’ve also added an email subscription sign-up on the right.

Sometimes, changes in books sales are obvious and logical. During weeks when I have three guest blogs posted and I’m active in the forums, the numbers go up a little and it makes sense. Other times, the sales shoot up for no reason. This month, they dropped for no reason.

I tried not to panic, telling myself it was temporary. But still, I kicked into high gear, posting in the forums, writing blogs, and sending out press releases. None of it seemed to make a difference. I even bought some ads, something I rarely do because it’s so hard to measure their effectiveness. But self-publishing is a small business, so reinvesting a little profit into advertising seems logical.

I crave logic, and these inexplicable fluctuations can make an author crazy. Particularly people like me: control freaks who want things to make sense. I want to know the cause and effect of everything. I want to depend on my efforts to produce predictable results. (Are you laughing?) So for months, I checked my Amazon sales daily. Because if I did something that worked, I wanted to know. How else do you learn and improve?

Yet sales often fluctuate for no rhyme or reason, so watching the daily numbers is a good way to give yourself an anxiety disorder—and not get much written on a new novel. But you have to keep writing new stories, because releasing a new book is the best thing you can do for sales of all your books. Proven!

So what’s an author to do? I’ve given up looking at daily sales. I still check my rankings on Amazon’s police procedural list every once in a while to see where my books are. If my titles are slipping off the first page, I ramp up my efforts for a while or maybe buy a small online ad.

But I’m trying not to obsess and to accept that I have little control over sales. I remind myself that making a living as a novelist was and is my dream, and that so as long as the bills get paid, I’m happy.

P.S. They’re climbing again, but who knows why?

Authors: What are your experiences with digital sales? Can you shed some light on the ups and downs?