Shifting gears, and sites…

To kick off the new year I’m condensing my blogs.  I started this as a business side blog while I had a personal blog.

Frankly, the business side of things gets a little repetitive… so I’m merging the blogs.

My “new” “main” blog will be here:  http://jimsworldofhorrorandmusicandstuff.blogspot.com/  I invite you to join me there where I’ll be posting like I do here but it’ll also have stuff about what I’m reading, listening to, watching… my personal thoughts on life, quotes, Tweets, and my link roll to some pretty cool sites.

It’s personal with a touch of business.

To those who won’t follow me over there, I understand, and the only part of this business that matters is WRITING.  You can read blogs all day long but at the end of the day you won’t have the word count needed to publish and make money.

Find your own path and follow it until it ends.

A year ago I sat at a computer confused with nothing to show for myself.

Today we have 45 titles published with 10 more being prepared for January 2012.  We’ve cross the “thousands” mark in sales figures and have seen steady growth since September. We have NO secret to anything… some people have grown faster than us, some haven’t.  The one thing we’ve done is simple:  WRITE.  The writers we work with WRITE.  I myself WRITE.  Our team WRITES WRITES WRITES.  It’s what we do and it works.

This will be the last post on this blog, so if you don’t follow me to my new blog, save this post and read it.  WRITE WRITE WRITE WRITE WRITE WRITE WRITE

2012… in our sights

I welcome it.  What about you?

What am I looking forward to?

Last year, when the ball dropped and my Dad and I were slightly drunk, doing our best not to laugh at poor Dick Clark (come on, why do they still let him do the show???) I never thought I’d be where I am today.  Last year, compared to now, I was a baby.  I was a child with a pencil and a short story idea.  And that’s all I had – ideas.

2011 let me bring those ideas to life.  Pencils to pens to keyboards to manuscripts… to state documents to registering an actual company to seeing books hit the virtual world and become paperback books.  To seeing reviews pour in – some good, some bad (each one thickening my heart and skin).  To seeing numbers climb, fall, climb, fall, and climb… to seeing the actual bigger picture of this business and how to focus on it as a business and actually turn a profit.  

Bowie Ibarra reviews The Failed!!!!

I was quite shocked when one of my favorite horror/zombies authors agreed to not only read The Failed, but took the time to write up a quick review.

Bowie Ibarra is awesome and this is what he had to say about The Failed:

Jim Bronyaur contributes a great first entry into the zombieverse with “The Failed”.  Bronyaur is a craftsman with words, and “The Failed” is a tremendous story filled not only with the requisite scenes of zombie horror, but a well-told story with deep characters and quality storytelling.  The devilish cruelty of the opening pages is just the beginning of a zombie story that is certain to be a standard of zombie horror.

 

 

Social sharing…

This is an interesting article shared to me by a friend.

Social sharing for 2011…

What it shows for me is that there isn’t just one venue for sharing anymore, or at least one venue that does it all.  Facebook had more sharing than anyone else.  Google was down, Twitter was up a little, and Tumblr exploded into the 1,000%+ growth.

Tumblr is an interesting platform and usually the blogs I see there are eye catchy, poppy, etc. which is pretty cool.  I’ve actually since considered a little blog over there, just staying in contact with another group of people reading and sharing.

In the wake

We all know last week was wild.  The announcement of KDP Select doesn’t give us a right or wrong answer, and why should it?

I fully believe that too many people rely on Amazon, thinking of them as a partner versus a  distributor.  Now, comparing Amazon to B&N may be like comparing Wal-Mart to CVS… which I understand.  But no matter what comes next, for me or for you, it’s our choice.

Amazon put an option on the table.  There’s no right or wrong choice here – it’s all yours to make and follow, or not.

There has been talk that Amazon will take care of Select authors better or even that Amazon is testing the waters for something bigger in the future.

I say, fine and fine.

Stephen King, tacos, and running your own business.

The talk of self-publishing taking over.

 

*sigh*

 

*yawm*

 

I’m over it.  You should be too.  Anyone who spends more than thirty seconds reading this particular post or any post on why indie’s will take over or how big publishing will die should be ashamed of themselves.  You should be writing!

 

What do I mean?

 

Okay, let’s take Stephen King.  How much does he make a year?  $20 million?  More?  A little less?

 

He does that with a big publisher… if he published it all on his own, how much MORE would he make?  3 times that… 6 times that… who knows.

Amazon KDP Select… select to relax first, read, then make a decision for YOU.

Wow, what a wild day on Amazon, huh?

 

For those who haven’t seen the news, Amazon KDP opened a new exclusive option for authors.

 

You have to give Amazon 90 Day exclusivity to your book – meaning NO other vendors can have it.

 

In return you get:

 

1. A chance to make your book free for 5 days within the 90 day period.  You could split the days up too.
2. Amazon put $500,000 in lending money to give out to indies… just indies… based on how many time their book is borrowed.

 

It seems like a sweet deal, but it comes with many sides to consider.  I’ve seen people jump right on it, not even reading the contract.  I’ve seen some instantly hating it.