Omnibus Editions

I find the publishing business, both traditional and independent, to be interesting. Since I've been paying more attention to traditional publishing lately, I’ve come away with one important takeaway. I now consider myself an author/publisher rather than a self-publishing author, or an indie-publisher. I write stories. I publish stories. They are two jobs. I do them both. And except for scale, my publishing business is not all that much different from what traditional publishers do, save that I care lot more about the books I publish than most traditional publishers do for most of their books these days.

I’ve been a publisher for eight years. My publishing business model is pretty unique, in that it prioritize sales over revenue, fun over work, and yet makes a very small profit every year. I've alwlays been looking for ways to improve sales – efforts that traditional publishers don’t bother with. I have updated all my books many times to correct errors. I’ve revised the text a little in some of my books to improve them. I’ve released all my books with different covers. I have tried different prices as well. And I’ve tried new technology, like audiobooks, when I had the chance. I haven’t tried going all in with Amazon, and I don’t plan on trying that.

But what I haven’t done so far is to focus any efforts on my Amazon offerings outside of the U.S., where by and large, Amazon does not price match my free books. This summer I plan to address that oversight by offering omnibus editions of my books at special prices exclusively on Amazon. In the U.S. where most of my books are free on Amazon, this won't be a big deal, but for foreign sales, it will allow me to offer my books at discount prices, without changing the list price of my current offerings. Not that it would matter, save that I set the list price as a mark of quality with the price then discounted on Amazon.

To begin, this May I plan on releasing an omnibus edition of my four book Nine Star Nebula Mystery/Adventure series, priced at $.99 for the first month or two before raising it to $2.99. This omnibus version will actually work across all the Amazon stores, since two of the books in the series are still at list price of $2,99 in the U.S. store, so the $.99 or even $2.99 price will still be a deal in the U.S. store.

After that, I will create a Lost Star Stories Omnibus edition that includes both The Bright Black Sea and The Lost Star’s Sea. I hope to price it at $.99 for the first month, but I think that Amazon might have some limits on the word count for $.99 books, so we’ll have to see how that goes. It too will go up to $2.99 after the first month or two.

Next up will be my two near future books, A Summer in Amber, and Some Day Days, packaged as a Before and After the Solar Storms Omnibus. Since I’m currently writing a third and final Tropic Sea story, I’ll let that omnibus version slide until 2024 when it will be complete. Finally, late this fall, my Post Solar Age Omnibus, including Keiree, Under the Lanterns, and The Girl on the Kerb will be released.

I don’t expect this program to generate a lot of revenue. However, more than half of my sales on the other platforms come from outside the U.S., so that offering editions of my books at very special prices might move the needle a little on Amazon as well. Or not. We'll see. "We'll see" seems to be the moto of the publishing business.