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Valor of the Healer

Quick update for any international readers

Hi all!

I’ve been investigating a problem reported to me about Valor of the Healer on Australian sites, since the book’s still on sale for 99 cents. It had not been deployed properly to iTunes Australia, which made no sense given that they have Vengeance of the Hunter available, as well as Valor‘s audiobook. Carina Press’s people in charge of deploying our books out to third-party channels have happily gotten that resolved for me, and now both Valor and Vengeance are available to Australian customers via iBooks.

The bad news though is that I’m also told that Australian channels are not participating in the current price promotion, and that the Australian channels do their own promotions. Which would explain why Valor is not showing up at a lower price on iTunes Australia or on Amazon Australia.

So if you’re in Australia (or anywhere else besides North America and the UK, which are the places that the 99 cent promo is actually active), and you want to take advantage of the sale price, the best thing to do is to go straight to Carina’s own site and buy it there. I’m told directly from our senior editor that we don’t have any territorial restrictions on who can buy books on the site. So any issues with buying the book there would be technical, not based on territorial rights, and the site’s customer support people should be able to assist.

If you are outside North America and the UK, and you have issues with getting either of my Carina books, do let Carina’s customer service people know. But let me know, too, if you would, just so I know what’s going on! I have faith that Carina’s people will be on top of any issues you run into and will get you set up, but I like to be in the loop too.

Thanks again to all for your support!

July 14, 2014 by
Faerie Blood, Valor of the Healer

Faerie Blood and Valor of the Healer sale update

And now, for some amusing numbers!

I released the current, second edition of Faerie Blood into the wild in June of 2012. Up through May of 2014, I had a total of 335 sales over all for the book. My previous best sales month had been July 2012, pretty much right after I released the book, and January 2013, when I ran a $2.99 sale that got some signalboosting from fellow Carina authors.

Kicking the price down to 99 cents, though, has meant that in June and July of this year so far, I have had a total of 167 sales. A few of those were in early June, before I launched the sale. So it’s more like 160 sales as a direct result of the current low price.

June 2014 is my new record sales month, on the strength of the initial spike once I kicked the price on Faerie Blood down. June scored 97 sales. We’re now eight days into July, and July is well and thoroughly in second place but coming up steadily, with the current tally at 70 sales. At my current rough rate of sales (I’m seeing 2-4 a day coming in right now, mostly from Amazon), it’s reasonable to expect July may pass June.

Overall this means that roughly 33 percent of my current sales numbers are from this sale alone. NEAT.

And if I can get another 160 sales or so before the end of the month, I will DOUBLE the lifetime sales total for the book. If you want to help me make that happen, remember, signalboost! Signalboost! Signalboost!

Amazon sales are certainly welcome but I encourage signalboosting in particular to everywhere else I’m selling the book as well. B&N has clocked in so far with a total of 19 sales, iBooks has 3, Kobo has 5, and Google Play has 8. Smashwords so far is the only place where I’m selling Faerie Blood that hasn’t yet joined this party.

(I would be PARTICULARLY happy if more Kobo sales showed up. Because one, I love that Kobo has partnered up with indie booksellers. Two, they are a Force in Canada and I do love me some Canada. And three, they recently implemented a shopping cart on their site. The lack of a shopping cart on major ebook-selling sites has driven me spare for ages, and now that Kobo finally went and built one, I would love to see people filling it up. Ideally, with my stuff! But with other stuff as well. Reward them for their coding efforts!)

MEANWHILE: I’ve seen only a few confirmed sales of Valor of the Healer showing up as a result of the sale–but as I’ve previously mentioned, those numbers are much harder for me to track. The first wave of any really interesting numbers should be showing up for me by the end of this week! Still, though, the Valor sale needs your love as much as the Faerie Blood one! MORE, even, because it’s not lasting as long! Only 9 days left before Valor returns to its previous price!

July 8, 2014 by
Faerie Blood, Valor of the Healer

Update on the Faerie Blood and Valor of the Healer sales!

I’m past the initial spike of sales for setting Faerie Blood to 99 cents now, I think. But although the huge rush has levelled down, I’m pleased to report that I am continuing to accrue more sales so far this month than I have ever before. I’m very close to breaking 500 sales on that book. If I get lucky, it might even happen TODAY.

And if you, yes you, want to help me make that happen, please remember, spread the word! I’ve reached about everybody I can who usually follows me, and it helps immensely to get the word out to people who aren’t directly in my social network circles. If you’d like to help signalboost, here are the immediate short links you can use:

Valor of the Healer link: http://bit.ly/1reiFHF

Faerie Blood link: http://bit.ly/1lxLhDN

You can plug those bit.ly links into tweets, or posts on Facebook or G+ or wherever. I’ve been making up assorted tweets about both books, using hashtags #urbanfantasy and #fantasy, and emphasizing that Faerie Blood is on sale all month and Valor until the 19th. Mentioning the 99 cent price point is important, too. If you’re on Twitter you can see assorted examples on my Twitter feed here.

If you’re on Tumblr, I have two posts up there that you can reblog if you’re so inclined. Those posts are:

For Faerie Blood: http://annathepiper.tumblr.com/post/90522353994/kendis-thompson-of-seattle-thinks-shes-as-normal

For Valor of the Healer: http://annathepiper.tumblr.com/post/90522657939/the-rook-an-assassin-hired-by-vengeful-elven

Last important reminder: I do have a lot of print copies of Faerie Blood available. And if anybody wants one, I am waiving mailing charges for the duration of the sale. I will also throw a bonus CD in with the print copies, a CD that contains a bundle of assorted formats of both editions of Faerie Blood–the original Drollerie Press version, and the updated Kickstarter release version too. Plus, the CD also includes the short story “The Blood of the Land”.

The print books + CD will be $15 for the duration of the month. After July 31st I will go back to also asking shipping charges, so at that point the price will be $20 for US or Canadian readers, $25 for overseas (because sorry overseas folks, mailing a copy of Faerie Blood across the water costs me more than the book itself 🙁 ).

Special addendum for anybody in Canada: You guys have until Saturday August 2nd if you’d like to buy a print copy of Faerie Blood from me, on account of chances are VERY high that I’m coming up to Canada that weekend, and mailing stuff to you from within B.C. is likely to be way cheaper than me doing it from Seattle. 😉

Thanks again to all for your ongoing support!

July 7, 2014 by
Carina Press, Faerie Blood, Valor of the Healer

Day 2 of sales: proceeding nicely!

Well, yesterday’s numbers weren’t as awesome as Monday’s–but that said, yesterday was still my third best sale day ever for Faerie Blood, so I’d say that was still a triumph!

Many, many thanks to those of you who’ve bought either Faerie Blood OR Valor of the Healer thus far, or signalboosted. Please, please do keep signalboosting, it helps immensely!

(Note in particular as well that on the Valor of the Healer post, I’ve updated that to include links off to the official CarinaPress.com pages for the other Carina titles participating in the promotion. I encourage anyone who’s interested in seeing Carina’s other SF/F offerings to check those out!)

If you’re on Twitter, here are a couple of shortened URLs you can use to plug into tweets, which go to the two posts I made with full info on the sales (and of course you can use these URLs on Facebook or Google+ or wherever, but the shortened URLs are ideal for Twitter):

Valor of the Healer link: http://bit.ly/1reiFHF

Faerie Blood link: http://bit.ly/1lxLhDN

If you’re on Tumblr, I have two posts up there that you can reblog if you’re so inclined. Those posts are:

For Faerie Blood: http://annathepiper.tumblr.com/post/90522353994/kendis-thompson-of-seattle-thinks-shes-as-normal

For Valor of the Healer: http://annathepiper.tumblr.com/post/90522657939/the-rook-an-assassin-hired-by-vengeful-elven

Looking forward to seeing what my numbers do today! 😀

July 2, 2014 by
Faerie Blood, Valor of the Healer

Valor and Faerie Blood sales off with a BANG

It’s the morning of July 1st, and I’m delighted to report that I’m now sitting at 97 total sales of Faerie Blood for the month of June 2014. iBooks and Google Play were both lagging behind on updating their numbers, and some of the transactions at Amazon and Kobo didn’t finish processing until this morning–so they’re going to count as July numbers. This is my current final tally for June, though:

  • Amazon: 74 (US, UK, DE, and CA, mostly US sales)
  • Barnes and Noble: 11 (all US)
  • Kobo: 2
  • iBooks: 1
  • Google Play: 8 (one pre-sale, the rest after the sale started; mix of US and CA)
  • Smashwords: 1 (pre-sale)

And before the sale actually started, these were the numbers I had for June beforehand:

  • Smashwords: 1
  • Google Play: 1

And as of this writing, I’ve already got 11 sales for July transactions–most of which were rolled over from yesterday as they hadn’t been fully processed yet. But so far this morning’s starting off well!

And as you can see, the sale is so far making a world of difference. Faerie Blood is blazing up the Amazon rankings, climbing out of the six-digit pit it’d been languishing in, and currently (as of this writing) parked at… well. Let’s let a screencap do the talking, shall we? This was taken as of last night around midnight:

This Fails to Suck

This Fails to Suck

It’s already been proposed to me that I might want to keep the 99 cent price point. It’s way too early for me to make that call–but it’s going to be real interesting to see how the numbers behave as we head into July. I’ve now, in the last 24 hours, completely blown away my previous monthly and one-day sales counts for this book. If this trend continues, July’s numbers might get truly crazytalk.

MEANWHILE! I do not unfortunately have access to direct sales numbers for Valor of the Healer, so I can’t track that book nearly as well as I can Faerie Blood. I do, however, use NovelRank.com to get an approximation of how my books are behaving on Amazon, and as of last night around midnight, this is what NovelRank showed me about Valor.

This Likewise Also Fails to Suck

This Likewise Also Fails to Suck

I’ve been seeing the book’s ranking over on B&N go up, too. No budging yet on Kobo, as near as I can tell. And I won’t see any real numbers until later this week, when the portal Harlequin provides its authors gets updated with the weekly numbers. More bulletins on this as events warrant.

ALSO: I’ve been seeing quite a few folks tweet for me, or signal-boost on Facebook or Google+. Many, MANY thanks to you all. And if you’re a new person coming in to check me out because of seeing either of my books on sale, greetings to you! Grab a chair and raise a jar, and I hope you enjoy my work!

One new reader who found me on Twitter certainly did, anyway. Speaking of things that don’t suck, I know I’ve managed to please a reader when she forgets to feed her dog!

Hang on, you guys. July promises to be a bumpy ride!

July 1, 2014 by
Valor of the Healer

Valor of the Healer is now ON SALE for 0.99!

Carina Press has now commenced the $0.99 price promotion for Valor of the Healer! Which means that if you haven’t read it yet, now would be a really good time to grab it. This promotion will be running through July 19th, so this price WILL be a limited-time offer!

As of this morning I can confirm that the price is set on all the major ebook vendors where Carina does business. So here are the links!

Carina Press | Amazon | Nook | iTunes | Kobo | Google Play

All other places you can buy the book, including international links, are on the Valor of the Healer page!

A few quick questions you may be having:

I don’t own an ereader! Can I buy the book?

If you don’t want to buy the book from any specific device ecosystem, your best bet will be to buy directly from the Carina Press site, at least if you’re in the US or Canada. (For reasons of possible problems using international payment methods, which is out of my control, apologies in advance for that!) If you’re elsewhere I recommend the Kobo link or Google Play.

However, keep in mind that you don’t need a specific ereader device in order to read ebooks. Assuming you own the computer you’re reading this post on, several of the major ebook vendors have desktop apps you can use to read their stuff. Amazon has a Kindle app, B&N has a Nook app, Apple has iBooks, and Kobo has a desktop app as well. Depending on who you buy from you may also have the ability to just read the book right on the web.

All of these vendors should also have apps available you can use to read books on your smartphone or tablet, if you have a device that falls into either category.

But I want a print edition!

Apologies, but so far my Carina titles are digital-only. If this sale does well, though, it’ll help improve the chances that Carina might decide to add me to the list of authors they put into print.

So if you’d like to see that happen, I strongly encourage you to buy the book if you haven’t already. Buy it as a gift for ebook-reading friends, if you like! And especially, spread the word.

Are other Carina titles on sale right now?

YES! Several other fantasy/sci-fi/paranormal romance titles are involved in this price promotion. Look for:

Any other questions?

Let me know!

June 29, 2014 by
Valor of the Healer

A little Christmas present for you all: a Valor of the Healer deleted scene!

A lot of authors like to share deleted scenes out of their novels, a thing I’d been meaning to do for quite some time. So tonight I’ll share with you all the first of these–the original prelude to Valor of the Healer, back when it was still called Lament of the Dove.

Those of you who’ve read earlier drafts of the book will recognize this, but for those of you who haven’t, there aren’t any spoilers here! These two scenes are backstory for Faanshi, describing her birth and the rising of her power.

You can find ’em right over here. Enjoy all, and Merry Christmas to you all! I’ll post a few more of these as the holidays proceed on to the new year!

December 24, 2013 by