C. M. Skiera's Blog

Wishing you all well against the virus. I hope you're doing all the things to stay safe. I'm trying my best. I scheduled this book sale and paid for my ads a few months ago, so I'm still going to promote it. If you can't afford 99 cents today, or $1.99 in the next few days, but would like to read these three books, drop me a note and I'll see if I can hook you up for free. The 4.9-star epic fantasy adventure  The Oxbow Kingdom Trilogy  is 99 cents today. Here are some promotional words to inspire you to purchase my epic fantasy three-book-set at this ridiculously low price. Evil lurks in the Underbelly, and that's the least of Jetsam's worries. A runaway orphan and a fugitive wizard are both falsely accused and on the run. Will they survive the men and monsters that want them dead? “If you are a fan of epic fantasies, then this is your trilogy. Master storytelling is hard to achieve, but you will find it here.” – author Jennifer Thompson “The writing...

I received the e-mail below from Amazon today. They're discontinuing another helpful author feature, and replacing it with . . . who knows? Amazon’s Author Rank beta is retiring on March 23, 2020. You’ll be able to view your historical author rank until this date. Your rankings are available on the Author Rank page (https://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/rank). We’ll continue to offer Sales Rank information for both readers and authors. As an author, this information is available through Author Central, Amazon Charts, and a few others. We appreciate your feedback around Amazon Author Rank, and remain committed to improving our features. We will continue to experiment with tools that help readers discover new titles and enable authors to sell more books. For details on Sales Rank, visit our Help page: https://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/help?topicID=200580390#salesRank Best regards, Amazon Author Central Team Since Amazon Author Rank was part of Author Central, I'm n...

Book advertising is difficult, and comparable to gambling. In book advertising, like Vegas, the House always wins, and you may, too, occasionally. Some ad runs are winners, and it seems, even more are losers. I've compiled the data from my book sale advertisements that I've purchased over the last two years. My goal was to focus on where my advertising dollars were best spent for 2020. Below is a table showing each online ad website where I purchased ad space for my e-book sales. One thing to note in looking at the data is that my books are young/new adult fantasy fiction, so I've targeted sites like Book Barbarian and Fantasy Book Reads that feature those specific genres. The data shows the advertising cost per sale. My books and sales prices varied from ad to ad, so this chart doesn't show profit or loss, just the advertising cost divided by the number of sales I recorded on the days the ads ran. The X-Factor which doesn't show up in book sale revenue is...

Wishing everyone a peaceful and joyous holiday season! I hope 2020 ushers in a wonderful year for us all. I look forward to sharing during the upcoming year, including more humorous tales about interacting with Amazon. And if you're looking for a last-minute gift, or a magical adventure to distract you from the cold, all my e-books are on sale for 99 cents from now until Christmas Eve. And remember--there's no better gift for an author than leaving a book review on Amazon or Goodreads--even milk & cookies!