Books and Loss Leaders

In the world of marketing, there's a concept known as a Loss Leader. It's an item that is discounted so deeply that the vendor isn't earning much - if anything - on the sale and could, in fact, be losing money on it. The reason that vendors do this is to entice people into the store and once they're there, they will perhaps purchase additional items that will more than make up for the income lost on the sale item - hence the term "loss leader".

My book, Ricochet, never quite took off though it received glowing reviews. I believe (through pure speculation) that it was due to two books being released about the same time with the same or similar titles: Sandra Brown's Ricochet, which rose quickly to the New York Times bestseller list, and Sue Grafton's R is for Ricochet. This occurred despite the fact that the title was registered with Bowker a full year in advance. And if you search for Ricochet on amazon without the author name, five pages of results are displayed.

So the publisher decided to turn the Kindle edition into a Loss Leader by offering it exclusively on amazon and enrolling it in amazon's Kindle Select program, in which readers enrolled in the Select program can read it for free and presumably the author and publisher still earn income from the experience.

The theory is by offering this one book at a deeply discounted rate (free for readers enrolled) readers will like what they read and return for more of my books which were not deeply discounted.

The gamble has been paying off. Usually around 800 copies of Ricochet are downloaded each month and sales of my other books have increased. Though it's difficult to tell how much the loss leader has to do with it, as advertising, marketing and promotional efforts are also underway, it was deemed a success.

However, last month the book was removed from the Select program. The reason: authors began reporting that once the book was downloaded for free, hackers could easily replicate it and offer it for sale on other sites. And one stipulation for being in the Select program is to agree not to sell the book anywhere except amazon. Once amazon saw the book on other sites (presumably because someone reported it) they were not only removing that book from their website but every book the author or publisher had listed.

So before this happened to me, the book was pulled from the Select program.

I have noticed for years that my books are offered on unscrupulous websites where the books were copied without the permission of the publisher or myself. Each time, the publisher has notified ICANN, who investigates. In every case that was researched, the file also contained malicious software that could infiltrate the reader's computer and retrieve their passwords and sensitive information.

Loss Leaders can be done without being enrolled in the Select program, however, simply by discounting it below the other books. Ricochet continues to remain in the Loss Leader category because while the rest of my Kindle or eBooks are priced at $6.99, Ricochet is priced at only $2.99.

How much does price impact whether you purchase a book?

Black Friday

Now that Thanksgiving is over, a number of my friends are braving the crowds at stores around the country, trying to get those best deals. Some began as early as 5 am, and on last night's news I was astonished to see film footage of crowds and long lines on Thanksgiving Day. One lady was even eating her Thanksgiving dinner on a paper plate in a parking lot, between shopping.

I don't remember ever being actively engaged in Black Friday and shopping deals. And for more than a decade, my holiday ritual has been to create a family calendar, which I give to each of my relatives. The calendar has photographs of family members in each month. I used to beg for new photographs and then scanned them, but with Facebook it's become so easy to pop onto my relatives' pages and save the photographs I want to use.

My father spent many, many years working on our genealogy and I add those dates, as well as wedding dates, birth dates, and other important dates, to each month. I use Microsoft Publisher, which has a great set of calendar templates. Afterward, I email the file to my wonderful neighborhood PostNet in Lumberton, North Carolina, and they make the copies I need on 14" long by 11" wide paper, staple it, and punch the holes for hanging.

I won't do much if any shopping in stores, and for those things I'll buy, the Internet loves me. :)

However, I remember when my writing career was just beginning how I was scheduled to sign books from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve. My first suspense was published when I lived in the Richmond, Virginia area. Within 30 minutes of my home there were scores of book stores, from small independents (who were fabulous to work with, and who frequently recommended my books when I wasn't there), to chain stores like Barnes and Noble, Books-a-Million, and the now defunct B. Dalton, Waldenbooks, and Tower Books.

Visit the Page on amazon

I began book signings in earnest on Black Friday, and was scheduled at four different stores on that day alone. One signing at Potomac Mills led to the plot behind Ricochet, my third suspense. I was also scheduled at a Barnes and Noble on a Friday evening at 10:00 pm once, because they were located in the mall's outparcel and when the mall closed, the crowds descended on their store, which remained open until midnight.

From Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve, I signed in too many stores to count, primarily on Friday evenings, all day Saturday, and Sunday afternoons.

Since moving to Lumberton, I find with the closing of Waldenbooks that we don't have a book store in the entire county. The closest one is 45 minutes away in Fayetteville. Others are more than an hour and a half away in Wilmington, Myrtle Beach or Raleigh. I used to travel throughout the United States on book tours but in recent years, I've been doing many more virtual book tours, where I can visit with fans and readers from all over the world.

Are you braving the Black Friday crowds today? Will you buy most of your holiday gifts in stores, or online? And will you buy books as gifts?

I'd love to hear your comments on the holiday season and your buying habits.

Tuesday Teaser - Ricochet

In 2006, my third suspense was released. The name was Ricochet; it had been decided upon and registered two years prior to its release, but the book had been delayed because I was in the process of moving from Virginia to North Carolina. At the time of its release, Sandra Brown's book, Ricochet, was released. Soon after, Sue Grafton's R is for Ricochet was released.

Although the content of books is copyrighted, the name isn't - though I suppose if someone released a title such as To Kill a Mockingbird or Gone With the Wind, the copyright holders of the original books could claim those names are too closely associated with a specific author and plot.

In any event, it was a learning experience. Sometimes fans would tell me they had ordered my book only to have the book store order Sandra Brown's instead. And when anyone searched for it online, Sandra Brown's or Sue Grafton's would bump mine down the list of results.

But just last month, the book was released for the first time in eBook format. It received a new cover, which I was happy to see. It somehow seems more up-to-date. And since it's release, it has had a resurgence of sales.

In fact, this week it hit #2 on the Kindle bestseller list in the category of Immigration - and #14 on the printed book bestseller list, also in the category of Immigration.

The book features Sheila Carpenter, who I had originally introduced in Kickback, my debut suspense. On the evening before she is to begin the FBI Academy, she is shopping with her friend Margaret when a bomb explodes in the food court. Margaret winds up in the hospital fighting for her life while Sheila seems unscathed - though she continues to suffer from undiagnosed injuries. But what is even more significant is she saw the bomber before the bomb was detonated. And when she says as much to a reporter on the scene, she becomes a target.

Her adventure takes her from the FBI Academy at Quantico to her childhood home near Nashville, Tennessee to rural Robeson County, North Carolina as she pursues a plot that takes her into the dark underworld of terrorism, illegal immigration and stolen identities.

The Kindle version can be purchased for just $2.99 by following this link. The printed edition with the original cover can be purchased here.

It's You, Isn't It?

I find it fascinating when readers are convinced that I am the character in my book.

It's happened several times this past week. One reader is convinced that I really am Sheila Carpenter, the spunky main character in Kickback and Ricochet. Truthfully, I wish I was more like her. When she came upon the deserted, decrepit hotel in the middle of nowhere, she moved beyond her fear and checked in - knowing something was wrong but determined to investigate. When she turned on the dim light in the hotel room and found spiders and insects crawling on everything, I would have turned tail and run. Not Sheila. She waited until the bad guys had gone and then broke into the office to find an illegal operation in full swing.

Sheila, like the characters in all my books, are composites. Sometimes they have traits based on people I know. Sometimes they have characteristics that are simply needed for the roles they play.

Recently, I've been publicizing my newest book, Vicki's Key, with some blogs about ghosts and ghost sightings and psychic spies. It actually does not matter whether I believe in ghosts. What matters is if the reader believes in them, at least long enough to read through the book. But now there is a segment of my audience who believes I am a psychic spy. That I see ghosts or live with ghosts or I am a ghost.

I find this rather interesting from a writer's perspective. Did Audrey Niffenegger, the author of The Time Traveler's Wife, actually marry someone with that capability in order to write the book? I think not.

Did H.G.Wells travel through time, discover lost worlds, encounter aliens from other planets?

Or was it simply imagination, that which authors are supposed to be famous for?

What relationship do you think an author personally has with their book plots and their characters?