"Tales From The Leeward Lounge"

Irene at 77 years old

'Tales From The Leeward Lounge' (US) is the first collection of my mother's short stories. I've had a dozen titles over the last few years, but this one is the one that seems to define my mother's life the best.

There's many, many more short stories where these came from, hundreds in fact. I'm working on another collection, and I'm just debating how many of these I should publish as singles then collect into a single volume.

In 'Tales of the Leeward Lounge' (UK) Volume I:

• Digging Out (UK)
• Turned Out (UK)
• Death of a Family (UK)
• Trapped (UK)
• Turnabout
• Dumped 
• Beware Marjorie

Volume Two is in the works and these three are on deck.

• Character Flaw (Published)
• Kick in the Face
• The Courtship of Millie

A word of explanation is required as to why I've published the collection via Amazon. Especially as the Traditionally Published Villagers of Hachett are out with pitchforks and torches.

Since Sony closed down the doors to it's e-book store, my primary market is Amazon, as is true for hundreds of other Indie writers. The best way to get a book noticed, as I found out with 'The Emissary - Journey' and proved true again with 'The Emissary - Arrival' is to launch it with KDP Select, upfront.

That's right - I proved it again with 'Tales From The Leeward Lounge' the best way to launch a book is to let it 'simmer' a week in Select to make sure it gets to all the Amazon sites, then to burn those 5 free days.

The pre-order process didn't do a thing for 'The Emissary - Arrival' on Smashwords. The only pre-order was my own on Barnes and Nobel. On Amazon, there were three, none of them mine.

The pattern is clear:

1. Publish to Amazon first
2. Use KDP Select for the first 90 days.
3. Wait 5 days.
4. Blow all 5 free days, starting on a Tuesday or Wednesday.
5. Email newsletter to Mailing List for the first free day.
6. Spend up to $10 on Face book ad.
7. Breaking up days will yield less than 30 sales.

I'm going to check to see if I can use the Smashwords pre-order for something already on KDP. That way KDP can act like the advertising for the Smashwords edition.

I don't know what I did wrong, but I can't use KDP pre-orders for a year. I think I got confused about how to mark the 'hot' copy and missed the deadline. Frankly, I don't think it helped a bit.

So this is my new business plan for 'Tales From The Leeward Lounge, Volume 2."

Wish me luck.