CompletelyNovel

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Andrew - Bookilicious: +142

23 Nov 12:00

OK… I’ve tried to answer my own question here. I spoke to Waterstones and they suggested that I speak to Nielsons which is what I have just done. The lady I spoke to (her direct number is o1483 712287) explained that as CompletelyNovel.com don’t subscribed to the ‘enhanced’ service with Nielsons, a synopsis is not provided to the likes of Amazon, Waterstones etc… As an individual I could do this and there would be a charge but she explained that it is usually the publisher who does this. Is it something that CompletelyNovel has considered doing? According to Waterstones, a synopsis of the book makes a big difference when it comes to generating online sales.
Thoughts welcome.
Andrew
1
Charlie - Page ranger: +43

23 Nov 14:29

Hmm, let’s see …… keeping subscription costs to the customer to a minimum?

Yea, that should do.

Whilst on the subject of waterstones, I’m curious incidentally why my book is listed there at £15.99 when I set a retail price of £7.99 to fall in step with other similar paperbacks. Also they insisted we redo the cover, despite the original looking great and the new one looks absolute garbage on Waterstones with over saturated covers. So to sum up, my book looks crap and costs twice what it should….. and that’s after help from CN. Before, it looked good, was the right price, but Waterstones and Amazon couldn’t get a copy and I lost sales that I know about after working hard to promote it.

After a year of this kind of crap and getting things put right being nigh impossible, I give up. CN’s lack of response to your messages and questions should really speak volumes as to what lies ahead. Sure, I’ve had Ollie try to help but the state of my book and it’s distribution as it stands now, a year on, is a right mess, to the point that a month ago I made all copies unavailable as it was an embarassment. Needless to say it is still listed everywhere regardless. Is it available or isn’t it? I, the self publishing author have no idea. Have I even sold any since April? Again, no idea, no one tells me.

Nightmare.

http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/charlie+foxtrott/m-m-o-r-p-g-/8434251/

I see that at least it’s under a tenner on Amazon now though. Original cover pic and Next day delivery too. Much better than the 5 month delivery of the last Amazon copy I sold (that I am aware of although I was never credited for).
Hi Charlie, hearing this I feel pretty terrible. It was frustrating for me as the issues were out of my hands. The CompletelyNovel side worked fine but when we sent the book out to external distributors we ran into trouble with the cover printing. I’m not sure how but if there is anything I can do then feel free to drop me a line.
- Oliver 24 Nov 16:46
Oliver - Lord of the reads: +3087

24 Nov 16:29

Hi guys,

Synopsis in retailer listings
The ‘enhanced’ metadata service is offered by Nielsen which adds the synopsis and author bio to the information sent out to retailers. The service is an extra £25 per title per year.

We decided not to do this last year as Lightning Source provide a data feed to amazon which contains the same information. We’re trying to keep the price of services low but I’m not particularly happy with the LS-Amazon feed so the Nielsen offering is looking more appealing.

What do you think? I could add this as an option – buy premium distribution for £25/year for your book.

Retailer Pricing
We sell books to distributors for a 30% discount on the RRP set in your book creator. The distributor adds their mark up and supplies it to the retailer. The retailer then adds their cut and sells it.

We don’t have any say over how much the distributor or retailer add to the price and ultimately they just use the RRP as a guide.

We could offer a larger discount which would decrease the chance of a higher than RRP sale price but for print on demand a 20-35% is standard.

Perhaps I could add an option where everyone can set their own discount rate and trade off royalty vs trade discount.
Andrew - Bookilicious: +142

24 Nov 17:00

Thanks for the information Oli. It’s interesting what you say about the information being sent to Amazon and the like by Lightening Source. If it is, it isn’t being used on the websites (Amazon give information on my Kindle eBook page but they allow me to submit this directly to them). I think I for one would be willing to pay £25 per year for that informtion to be sent to Nielsen. As a buyer of books, I would be very reluctant to purchase something without knowing very much about it… Would it be a difficult thing for you to set up? Please let me know if you decide to do so.
Thanks
Andrew
Andrew - Bookilicious: +142

25 Nov 12:58

I would assume that apart from the synopsis that would be added, another advantage of the ‘enhanced’ level of service from Nielsen is that more detailed information about the ‘category’ of the book would also be sent to the retailers. Currently my book is listed far higher in the rankings that other books which fall into the same category, but it does not appear on any of the charts of books that exist on Amazon because it is simply listed in the very general ‘Travel & Holiday’ category…
Andrew
James - Page ranger: +33

09 May 23:12

I’m now suffering from the same problem! My blurb is not showing up, has is problem been remedied? If so, what do I need to do? Thanks