Hello friends and fans!
Welcome to my 22nd newsletter: October 2018! Coming up in this edition of Another Round @ The Crow Bar:
Regular updates, new releases, and a monthly spotlight on one of my books, this time “Bugspray“.
In Brief:
Again, you might notice a few more subtle differences in this month’s newsletter too! These have been made necessary because I’ve started to build a mailing list – which I’ve been told is vital for an author to build their brand, and so there we are!
On that same topic, I’ve also set up a brand new website – which I’ve had to do in order to be able to include a functioning online shop from where I can actually sell downloads of my books. The other website (christinaengela.com) is very nice and all, but in order to install the necessary plug-ins to do it, would cost me in excess of a whopping R5000 just to upgrade to a business package! In contrast, the new website (christinaengela.net) cost me just R165 to register, and will cost me around R1500 annually in renewal fees as of next year, with all the bells and whistles included for free. That’s much more affordable in my current circumstances.
The Shop page is now fully functional, providing free and paid eBooks for download in PDF format, accepting payment via PayPal internationally.
You might also notice that the prices I’ve set for these same eBooks (which you can buy as epub files from places like Amazon and others) are considerably lower than wherever else they are available, averaging around $2. The reason for this is, overhead costs. Other service providers that distribute and sell my books take a cut from the proceeds – and more often than not, this is an unkind, even cruel cut! While the standard price is set at the source platform – let’s say $4.99 for a book on Lulu, Lulu will take around $1 and the rest goes to the creator as royalty fees. Amazon for example is the biggest distribution and sales network on the planet – but they are also the most capricious. Amazon will sell the same book for the same $4.99, but will take much more for “service fees”, including passing on the costs for the download data by the buyer to the creator, so that in the end Amazon takes the lion’s share of the purchase, leaving the poor author with only about $1 of that sale. This is the obvious reason why I’ve been referring all my sales traffic to Lulu instead of Amazon, where I get the most out of my sales. The trouble is, most people don’t know Lulu, or recognize the name as well as they do “Amazon”, and I’ve even had a few people say so as if my directing them there is some kind of “trick”. It’s no trick – seeing as I have to do my own marketing anyway, it just makes little sense to me to push a channel that rewards me the least rather than a channel that rewards me the most.
It’s a sad fact that most authors write for the pleasure of it, but we publish for the fame and mostly, for what financial rewards we can get from it. What’s sad about it, is that the industry tends to be very much a rigged game run by billionaire fat-cats, and indie authors like myself tend to get lost in the red-tape and cogs and gears of the machine.
By all means, buy your favorite author’s books from Amazon if you like, but believe me, in order for that author to make any worthwhile money off their sales on Amazon, their sales would have to be in the hundreds of thousands of units! I’m still a long way off from that, so if you can imagine how frustrating it is when I hear some writers bragging about sales figures in the thousands per month while I am still battling to get above five paid sales and between 30 and 60 free downloads per month! If you really want to support me as a reader, you can buy direct from my website instead, where the whole proceed of each sale comes to me. If you’d prefer to buy the book in epub format, you can still get it from Lulu for a little more.
That said, the new website, also called “The Crow Bar”, will eventually replace the old one completely, but as you can imagine it will take a lot of work and some time to update all my social media pages and entries linking still to the old one. Dead links can seriously harm a promotion campaign, so it’s best to be thorough! There are still a few books I need to migrate to the new website, but just my parent’s books which I edited – but the rest of my own works are already available from there.
It’s taken me since the last week of September (between work and ongoing DIY renovations of our home) to get the new website up and running, which is why this newsletter is a little late! My apologies for that! I’ve often joked that I wish there were two of me!
All this talk about the new website and current sales aside, on with the show!
New Releases
In August, I was very proud to present my very first short animated film: “Bang! Splat!“: A children’s story …for adults! “Bang! Splat!” is based on “Innocent Minds“, and features some of the characters from my Quantum Series of novels – namely, Dr. Gleichstein and his little dog Vluffy. Dr. Gleichstein is a quantum physicist – and as everyone knows by now, quantum physics is a little like ordinary physics, except that you spend a little more time looking for your eyebrows.
“Deanna is a quaint planet, home to odd-ball quantum physicist Dr. Gleichstein and his little dog Vluffy… and a few uninvited guests.
The Herr Doktor and Vluffy are faced with quite a conundrum – even bigger than the Doktor regularly losing his eyebrows. Their home is overrun by mutant two-headed cockroaches – and not even a hammer will stop them! However will they solve this problem?”
Watch: YouTube (it’s free!)
On 14 August I announced the release of “Christina Engela’s Book of Candid Quotes“, a free downloadable ebook containing a large number of quotes.
Many of these come from my activism days when I wrote and shared articles almost daily to address various social injustices on local and international stages.
I think they’re pretty good, so I decided to share them with the world.
I hope you enjoy them, find something thought provoking, and share it as well.
Free download: eBook (Lulu)
On A Personal Note
- Fan Mail & Honorable Mentions
I display my Fan Mail & Compliments with pride, gratitude and humility. You are always welcome to have a look.
- Hate Mail & Horrible Mentions
I’m rather proud of my hate mail, and you can review it here – but be forewarned, don’t do it while eating or drinking or you might choke while laughing at it!
- Interviews
If you would like to do an interview with me about my works, please do get in touch!
Monthly Book Spotlight [Spoiler Alert]: “Bugspray”
“Bugspray” is now in its third edition since 2006!
“This is not your standard ‘How to restore your VW Beetle’ book. It’s also not a workshop manual. Aside from a basic rundown on the differences between various bug models through the years, there is a section on some things you can do to preserve your bug. Mostly however, what I’ve done is reviewed all the things I did to my bugs and put those ideas together as cheap, skillful, cheap, d.i.y, cheap means of enhancing your grocery getter’s performance and handling.
Dollying the rest up is your baby. (Btw, did I mention it’s cheap?) Most of the procedures described can be done by virtually anyone with the parts currently residing on their drive-to-work banger. The rest are low-budget (cheap!) and can be carried out with household or garage tools. All of these are things that I did to one or more of the Beetles I’ve had.” – Christina Engela
Details:
- Published: March 16, 2018
- Words: 31,613.
Back Cover:
“A host of things you can do yourself to improve your Beetle without emptying your bank account!
‘Bugspray’ is about Beetles. Not about the flashy show cars, but about the ordinary bugs people drive every day, and treasure as a member of their extended family. It’s a book of inventive, low-budget hacks and fixes to keep your bug alive, preserved and even to make a few improvements.
This book is the end result of one woman’s more than twenty years experience with Beetles, and geared toward things you can do to keep your bug going without spending vast sums of money you don’t have.
Most of the things described in this book can be performed by a handy woman (or even a man) with the parts currently on your bug.
Oh – and the pictures are nice too!”
Reviews:
If You Own A VW Bug, This Is A Must!
“If you own a VW bug, this is a must. Or just buy it because Christina is a fine writer and it’s bound to be an enjoyable reading experience.” – Alex S. Johnson
In Closing
Well, that’s all, folks! 🙂
Thanks again for all your support, friendship and interaction! Until next time, keep reading!
Cheers!
Catch me on social media!
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All material copyright © Christina Engela, 2018.