March, 2015
I have decided to expand distribution of A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror considerably by publishing it with IngramSpark as well with Amazon.
This means that it will no longer be occasionally free on Amazon. The last two days it will be offered free will be on July 4 and July 31. My KDP Select term for A Tale of Hell… ends August 4. It will continue to be offered as an e-book on Amazon however. My other books will also continue to offered on Amazon and, as in the past, they will also be free at most five days out of every ninety in accordance with the KDP Select program.
Although I will rarely be able to give out free copies of A Tale of Hell… once with IngramSpark, I have great hopes of expanding my distribution (or at least make it available) to approximately 40,000 book outlets worldwide in addition to Amazon. I often time the advertising of my works on my website to correlate with the most heavily populated time zones worldwide in an effort to expand sales worldwide. For example, I might time an announcement so that it appears in the evening in Germany, India, or Australia just after people are getting off work, settling in for the day, and maybe checking their social media.
I have also not been happy with the quality of the printed versions of my works at Amazon. They are simply cheap in appearance as well as in price. I hope to produce a much higher quality work at IngramSpark. Another factor is that the Amazon hard copy price of $53 is outrageous. In my humble opinion, this is just to drive sales over to Kindle, where production costs for several thousand electrons are undoubtedly very close to nil.
Don’t get me wrong. Publishing with Amazon has been a good experience. I will continue to publish some works there, but I need to expand. Very few people buy e-books of my works. I think one major reason for this is because not everyone has a Kindle or is interested in getting a Kindle, even if it’s simply a link to their laptop (one of which I have). However, no one needs a tablet or computer to read a book. Probably the most high-tech piece of equipment you would need to read a book is a pair of eyeglasses or a magnifying glass.
Of course, every publishing house or platform has its strengths and weakness. Amazon has some of each and IngramSpark does as well. After having been with Amazon for a few years, I would like to see how the rest of the publishing world is living.
I will take advantage of this opportunity to tweak A Tale of Hell… and produce a second edition, maybe with a few added features.
Anyway, I will provide updates on progress. I hope to A Tale of Hell… ready to go by August 4.
Phil Slattery, Writer, Publisher 