Dan Moren

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April 2020

  • How are those free ebooks doing?

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    Well, this has been quite an experiment. It’s been years since I’ve done anything with self-publishing, so my adventure creating and distributing ebook versions of a couple short stories has been most illuminating. And because I have an unhealthy fixation on numbers, I thought I’d share some details with you.

    Thus far, the ebooks have been downloaded more than 1400 times across all the available sites, which is far better than I’d hoped for. Several folks have reached out to tell me they enjoyed them, which is immensely gratifying.

    Unsurprisingly, the top place for people to download the books was Amazon with about 43% share; that’s one big reason I went to so much work creating ebooks—frustrating as dealing with Amazon can be sometimes, the sheer ease of downloading a book onto your Kindle is hard to beat. In second place was Apple, at 27%—disproportionately large, I suspect, because many of my readers probably follow my work in the Apple sphere—but, close behind that was this very website at 26% (though my stats there are bifurcated because I definitely did not plan ahead to track the downloads, so had to patch together some stats retroactively, whoops!). I’m glad about that, because I know sideloading files onto the Kindle takes some extra steps; fortunately, doing so on an iOS device has gotten much easier now, thanks to Safari’s download support.

    Distantly below, we have our three bottom place finishers: Barnes & Noble with 3% (though its sales reports are apparently delayed by a few days), Kobo with 1%, and…uh Google Play with absolutely zero. Maybe that’s because I had to wait to add the link, since my account was still being approved on Monday, or because—weirdly for Google—its analytics tools are terrible, or maybe nobody in my audience gets their ebooks on Google. Probably that.

    Also interesting for me, and way more inexplicable: “Pilot Error” was downloaded significantly more than “Showdown” from almost every single site.1 I don’t know why. Maybe because it was listed first? Did people read “Pilot Error”, not care for it, and then skip the second one? Could be. Very interesting. Maybe one of you mysterious readers will let me know!

    I also want to thank whoever added them to the Galactic Cold War series page on Goodreads 2, and all the people who’ve rated them. Warms the old cockles of the heart.

    All in all, I’d say this experiment was a success! So who knows, maybe I’ll put out some more titles at some point. Right now, though, I’m buckling down for the launch of The Aleph Extraction. Hoping to do some guest posts, podcast interviews, and more, so if you’ve got a suggestion or an opportunity for me, please don’t hesitate to reach out via the site or on Twitter.

    Most importantly: Stay home and read a book.

    1. The exception? Kobo, where it looks like every reader downloaded both. Kobo readers: there aren’t a lot of them, but they are serious, friends.↩

    2. I suspect it was reader Tobi. 🤔↩

  • One month to ALEPH, have some free short stories!

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    There’s just over four weeks—a mere 29 days—until my latest book, The Aleph Extraction—perhaps you’ve heard me ramble on about it—is…well, once I would have said “in stores.” But stores are so February 2020. So let’s say instead that it’s virtually floating towards your island, born by a cheerful balloon, or brought to your door by wonderful, hardworking delivery people.1 Either way, it’s going to be out in the world for you all to enjoy. And you will enjoy, won’t you. WON’T YOU.

    In order to celebrate the run-up to Aleph‘s arrival, I concocted a little project. One of the silver linings of this whole “stay in your house and never talk to anybody” age that we live in is that it gives you time to try your hand at new things. In my case, the “new thing” in question was producing ebook versions of two Galactic Cold War short stories, which I’m making available today for everybody, in exchange for absolutely, positively, nothing at all. Totally free. Free like the wind!

    All I ask is that if you read and enjoy these stories, consider pre-ordering yourself a copy of The Aleph Extraction, if you haven’t already. And, if you have, might I suggest a modest donation to a local food bank?

    Here’s a little more about the short stories to whet your appetite. (Please do not eat short stories; they contain little nutritional value.)

    Pilot Error cover

    Pilot Error is set right before The Bayern Agenda, and provides a bridge from The Caledonian Gambit, explaining in part what our old friend Eli Brody has been up to in the interim. Space action and feelings, oh my.

    Showdown cover

    Showdown, meanwhile, takes place a little while before The Aleph Extraction, and follows Simon Kovalic and the rest of the Special Projects Team on what seems like a run-of-the-mill job—but they never are for this elite team of covert operatives, are they?

    These short stories were previously sent exclusively to subscribers of my newsletter, but now they’ve got fancy formatting, beautiful covers, and newly-penned afterwords from yours truly, explaining their provenance, which is a highfalutin way of saying “where the hell did these come from?” In addition to downloading them directly from this very website, you can also grab them (still for free) on all popular ebook platforms; check out the Short Stories page for links, or search for them on whichever site you use to get your fancy electronic books.

    Newsletter subscribers, however, get a special bonus perk. Tomorrow, I’ll be sending them a brand new, never-before-read deleted scene from a Galactic Cold War novel. Maybe it’ll make its way into an ebook too, eventually, but who knows? If you want to read it, there’s still time to subscribe.

    I know it’s a weird time for all of us out there, and maybe books aren’t at the top of your priority list. I get it! But it means a lot to me that people have still been excited about the book, and express that they’re looking forward to reading it.

    Things are just as uncertain for me these days—I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about the next Galactic Cold War novel that I’d like to write, plotting out the twists and turns, the dramatic reveals and action sequences, the banter and relationships. But that book hasn’t been sold yet, and the chances of it being picked up are directly related to how well The Aleph Extraction does.

    The good news is you can help! Tell your friends, family, and fellow cooped-up neighbors. Send them a link! Perhaps even point them towards these short stories to get them hooked. Spread the word! (Safely, of course, please.)

    Stay well, everybody.

    1. There have been some reports that paper copies are making their way out early, so keep your eyes open for that.↩

  • Alternatives for delayed Aleph Extraction copies

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    Strange days, to be sure. Hope you’re all doing well, or at least as well as can be expected when you’re probably bouncing off the walls in your own home.

    So, here’s the deal. This weekend, several folks on Twitter alerted me that they’d received emails from Amazon telling them that pre-orders of the paperback version of The Aleph Extraction, which are supposed to be released on May 12, have been delayed, with no new ship date offered. As a result, customers who ordered the book have been given the option to cancel or keep their orders.

    I have it on good authority that I’m not alone in this situation; unsurprisingly, the coronavirus outbreak has had wide-reaching effects, and Amazon has responded in part by delaying shipments of non-essential goods, including books. Let’s be clear: authors—and, in many cases, publishers—have had no hand in these decisions whatsoever.

    Obviously, this isn’t great for writers. Pre-orders, as I’ve discussed elsewhere, are very important to authors, as they contribute to first-week sales numbers, which are also generally the biggest week of sales for a book and can often make or break a title. And those sales are even more important for a book like Aleph, where I can tell you that the possibility of future installments in the Galactic Cold War series very much hinges on how well this book does. Plus, since Amazon is still the biggest game in Booktown1, it’s in a position to make unilateral decisions that no author or publisher has a say in—so my career is, quite literally, at the company’s whims.

    That said, I know this is fairly small potatoes with everything else going on right now. Financially, I’m going to be fine; fiction writing is still only a small chunk of my income. If you’re content to just sit and wait until Amazon delivers your pre-order in its own sweet time, or, hey, if you feel you need to cancel your pre-order entirely, I don’t begrudge that in the slightest. I always advocate borrowing an ebook copy from your local library, via tools like Libby, Overdrive, and Hoopla—and, if the book isn’t available in your local library system, I bet they’ll probably even order a copy if you request it.

    If, after all of that, you are still determined to get a copy of The Aleph Extraction as soon as humanly possible—for which I thank you and bestow upon you many blessings!—you have a few options:

    • The ebook version is still on track and will be delivered on May 12. You can order it from a number of places, including direct from my publisher, Angry Robot, which gets you DRM-free copies in both of the most popular ebook formats: ePub (compatible with iPad, Kobo, and other readers) and MOBI (the Kindle format).2 Moreover, Angry Robot is currently running a sale through April 11: you can get 50 percent off all ebooks using the code SHELFISOLATION. If you prefer a different platform, you can also pick up an ebook copy from Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo.3

    • If it’s a print copy you have your heart set on, I obviously can’t guarantee when it will arrive, but you may have better luck with a non-Amazon vendor. Barnes & Noble is, again, always an option—given that their business is much more book-centric than Amazon, they may still be prioritizing those shipments—but I always recommend you contact your local independent bookstore, because a) local bookstores are the so-called knees of the bees and b) they are probably full of lovely people who will do their best to help you out. The good news is that there are a couple great resources to help you with that: Indiebound will help you find independent bookstores near you, and the new Bookshop will let you order directly from many of those establishments online. And hey, even if the book doesn’t arrive any faster that way, you’ll at least get a warm and fuzzy feeling from supporting a local business!

    • I can’t speak to the current status of the audiobook for The Aleph Extraction. I know it was being produced as of about a month ago, but as Mary Robinette Kowal points out on Twitter, there are reasons the current world situation may result in delays to audiobooks as well. I’m hopeful it will still be available on May 12, alongside with the ebook, but I don’t have any guarantees as of this writing.

    Again, I know the problems of one little author don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world, but I do appreciate the support you’ve all shown me over the last many years. It’s a weird time to be releasing a book, for sure, but we have to play the hand we’re dealt. It’s just over one month until Aleph‘s release, and the good news is that we’ve got a few more things up our sleeves, so keep an eye out.

    1. Population: Me↩

    2. You can also convert ePub files to Kindle format, if you’re so inclined.↩

    3. And, of course, Amazon, if you must, though, for obvious reasons, I’m reluctant to send it more business ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.↩