Nook First - Week 1

I thought I'd report on my first week's experiences with the Nook First program. Overall, I'm absolutely thrilled that I was able to participate.

A brief recap:

The Nook First program includes a variety of marketing promotions on the part of Barnes & Noble. (Note: this is the current program; things might change down the line.) Your book is on the home page, on a special "Nook First" page, and there are email blasts to Nook owners and to everyone who's bought one of your books through Barnes & Noble. Needless to say, you can't get this kind of attention on your own. Not without major effort and expense.

Your book is not free. The minimum price is $2.99. Your book appears with 3 others on the Nook First home page for two weeks, and shows up in "new releases" in whatever genre(s) you've selected when you uploaded the book. So, there's good visibility all over the Barnes & Noble website. And, if your book climbs in the rankings, it'll be in even more places.

The conditions: the book must be a first time digital release, and you have to keep it exclusive to the Nook store for 30 days. After that, you're free to publish it elsewhere. My reasoning in applying for this program was that my Pine Hills Police series wasn't selling particularly well anywhere, so publishing SAVING SCOTT, the new book in the series as a Nook First, might draw attention to the rest of the series. Also, my other promo and marketing efforts seem to target the same general audience.

Did it work?

Hodegpodge, Potpourri and general catching up

What I'm reading: Die for Me, by Karen Rose.

Lots of odds and ends here.

I had a very pleasant birthday, even if I'll have to do overtime at the Y to compensate. A very 'green' birthday as well—e-cards and phone calls far outweighed the paper variety, and that's more than fine with me. A good dinner, chocolate…what more could I ask for?

In conjunction with my 'greener' birthday, Dear Author had a lively discussion about e-book formatting.

An email alerted me to a 4 Star review from Romantic Times – the issue hasn't hit the bookstore, or the website, or my mailbox, but someone in one of my RWA chapters got an early copy and she was kind enough to forward this:

What's in a Name? "… an excellent page-turner that will keep readers up into the night. The plot twists are excellently done and keep the suspense at a high level…"

That really excited me, because normally small press publishers don't get a lot of attention from Romantic Times—not without paying for ads, which they've usually only done with major contributions from the author. Until I see the magazine, I won't know if there's any ad at all. I know I didn't submit one.

I seem to be back on the Barnes and Noble website with both books showing available for order. The site even said there were copies available at my neighborhood store, so I high-tailed it down there to see. There's something special about seeing your baby out in public. I autographed the copies, and talked to the manager. Nothing is ever perfect, of course, and the books are shelved in the literary section, not romance or mystery. We'll see if that can be rectified without having them drop off the radar entirely. Nothing can be changed by a store. Everything come from CORPORATE.

Amazon is out of What's in a Name? but they'll order them. The search parameters on their website seem catch-as-catch-can; sometimes I find my books by searching on my name, sometimes I don't seem to exist (or am someone else). Sometimes the system likes quotes around my name, sometimes it doesn't. Usually, "Finding Sarah" will get to me...but not always.

I am finally back in the good graces of the US Postal System. I will admit to a compromise. I paid the on-line fee a second time, but got the money I paid at the counter reimbursed, so financially, I'm where I should be. Still grates that they can't coordinate between on-line and post office systems, though.

Hurricane Breeze came on right on schedule, with a Grade A review.

Next up: SleuthFest.