Zen Cho

Coffeeandink very kindly sent me the link to this nice review of The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo by Aishwarya Subramaniam, and I wanted to say something about it. A bit awkward linking to reviews of your own things, but I wanted to flag it because it is such an enormous pleasure to — um — it is going to sound pompous to say “find readers who get what I am trying to do”, but I can’t think of a better way of saying it. It’s not like Jade is very hard to get like that, that’s not what I mean. It’s just that it’s nice when people who know and love exactly the sources you’re riffing off of — and who have similarly conflicted feelings about those sources — think you pulled it off.

For many of us who grew up on a steady diet of very light ‘English’ fluff, the lack of non-white people is something we very carefully do not think about — I’d rather not know what P.G. Wodehouse or Georgette Heyer would make of someone like me. But with this novella, Cho writes us into the period in ways that are politically astute, affirmative, and above all joyous.

*fists of determination* I shall keep trying my best!

Just a brief note that my historical romance novella The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo is now available again on my website, and can be read for free online at the following link: The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo. I private-locked the posts on my website and took the ebook off Smashwords while Jade was enrolled in the KDP Select programme (I enrolled it so I could make it free on Amazon, as I explained in this post).

I have no complaint with KDP Select in respect of sales (one person borrowed the ebook! That was exciting). But it was always my intention that the story should be free to read online as well as available for purchase as an ebook, and the KDP Select terms don’t allow for that. Also I am opposed to monopolies and like myself to be able to buy EPUBs of ebooks I want to read, so here we are again.

I haven’t been keeping too close an eye on the sales figures for The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo ebook, but fairly recently I ventured into the jungle of Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing earnings reports and was intrigued by what I discovered.

As you probably noticed if you were reading my blog then, I self-published Jade as an ebook at the end of May this year and also published the novella for free as a web serial on this very blog, posting a new section a day for 20 days. Even though all the content was free on my blog, I set a price on the ebook of US$0.99 — I figured the different, more portable ebook form was worth something even if its innards were on display for all to see in blog posts.

What I thought would happen

What I figured would happen was that people would buy the ebook within the first week of publication — mostly my friends, and perhaps some people who didn’t know me personally but had read and liked my short stories. Sales might continue as long as I was posting new sections and tweeting about them, since that might draw more attention, and then sales would tail off and eventually peter out.

What actually happened

Contrary to my expectations, my sales haven’t yet died a natural death, and they haven’t been decreasing steadily as I expected. Sales went down after the first two months of publication — but then they went up again, to my great surprise. Apart from the first couple of months (when I sold about 60 copies), I’ve been selling about 20 copies per month, with the ratio being about 15 on Amazon and <5 on Smashwords per month.

I’ve now sold 140 copies in total — 47 via Smashwords (through which ebooks are available on Kobo, Barnes & Noble, etc.), the remaining via Amazon. Now 140 is obviously rather a small number, but given that Booker shortlisted author Tan Twan Eng’s Garden of Evening Mists shifted a grand total of 174 copies before the Booker effect kicked in, I’m rather pleased about it!

The marketing

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Photograph by Panorama Media/PanoramaStock/Getty Images

How to self-publish an ebook

1) Write an unsellably self-indulgent story at an awkward length. (The jabs at colonialism were as much self-indulgence as the swoony romance.)

2) Fail to sell story to romance e-publishers.

3) Self-publish as web serial and ebook.

4) ????

5) PROFIT!!! –> Note: I haven’t actually profited.

Why I did it

I wanted a “proper website” mostly because my bibliography was getting too crowded and messy on my blog sticky post. Also, I’d self-published a couple of short stories which I wanted to make available as ebooks, and I thought having an FTP I could keep ‘em on would probably look slightly better than using a free file-sharing site. I figured there was no real reason for people to visit the new website unless I offered something new to look at, and Bloomsbury Girl (previous title of The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo) was just sitting around on my hard drive doing nothing, so why not publish that as a web serial?

I also decided to publish the novella as an ebook, on the basis that in the current publishing environment “knowing how to self-publish an ebook” is probably quite a good skill for a writer to have, like taking constructive criticism and refusing to comment on reviews.

I decided to charge for the ebook instead of giving it away for free just to see if anyone would pay for it. I thought people might, because there’s actual value in having an ebook even if the story is free to read online — I mean, I’d pay US$0.99 to be able to carry a story around in my Kindle.

I set the price at US$0.99 because my aim was to get new readers. I’ve seen arguments that books are undervalued at US$0.99, but if you think about it from the perspective of a reader in a world bursting at the seams with books, an unknown book by an unknown author is worth less than US$0.99. Heck, even if it was free I’m not sure it’d be worth the effort of hitting a button so it’ll download direct to my Kindle. That would mean I’d have get up and turn the wireless setting on my Kindle back on! I haven’t even started reading the book I bought yesterday by a massively well-known author whose stories I know for certain will give me pleasure!

So I set it at US$0.99 based on what I’d do if I’d never heard of me.

How I did it

I prioritised a) decent formatting and b) a cover I found aesthetically pleasing. I succeeded on the second point and think I succeeded on the first, but do let me know if you notice anything wonky with the formatting or typos or anything like that.

The formatting

Producing an ebook was no more difficult than uploading a story to ff.net. [...]

Here is an afterword for The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo! Thank you for buying the ebook, reading, reviewing, linking, retweeting and sending feedback if you’ve done any of that, and thanks for your patience with the daily spam if you haven’t. *g*

If you’ve read the story and have a couple of minutes to spare, I’d super appreciate it if you’d add a review to its page on Smashwords, Amazon or GoodReads. I’d appreciate it whether the review was good or bad — candid reviews are the best, right? I generally find reviews pretty useful when trying out an unknown author and you never know, somebody might be looking for cheap Kindle books or something like that and decide to take a punt on Jade.

Anyway, I wanted to do an afterword after the whole thing was posted, so here it is! It will contain spoilers and so it is going under the tag. Oh, and I’m gonna do a separate post about my experience self-publishing an ebook, so look for that tomorrow.

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I’m posting a section a day of my epistolary romance novella The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo. You can read it online for free here (click on the “Perilous Life of Jade Yeo” category to access the other posts), or you can buy the ebook at Smashwords or Amazon. The ebook contains the complete 23,000-word novella.

3 Seddon Street, London

Tuesday, 26th April 1921

My dearest Margery,

I’m sorry I did not tell you I was going to leave before I did it. But when Ravi came I knew I should have to make a break for it, as if I were a prisoner escaping his gaol, or I should never bring myself to do it, but be stuck at Mrs. Crowther’s forever. It was my decision to go there and I felt duty-bound to stick by it.

Well, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, Emerson says. I think I shall work on having a great mind from now on, like yours. Ravi is consistent, but that is because he is always right about everything. It comes to him naturally, as singing does to a nightingale.

My blessed girl, thank goodness you wrote him. I shall never be able to thank you enough for the favour you did me then. I shall dedicate my next article in Milady’s Boudoir to you–it is a delicious piece on this spring’s hemlines–but that can only go a very little way towards repaying the debt.

There is another thing I have not told you, and you will quite justifiably be cross that I haven’t, but I hope you will see why it had to be done in such a hurry. [...]

I’m posting a section a day of my epistolary romance novella The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo. You can read it online for free here (click on the “Perilous Life of Jade Yeo” category to access the other posts), or you can buy the ebook at Smashwords or Amazon. The ebook contains the complete 23,000-word novella.

Tuesday, 12th April 1921

It is eleven o’clock at night and I have crept to an armchair to write this surreptitiously. I love the feeling of writing in a dark room. One feels like a quiet busy rat, going about its business behind the walls while the humans slumber in their beds.

How cold it is! And it is April. But soon spring will start tapping on the window, thinking of coming in–then May–then warmth, and sunshine again.

I am so happy! Why do my feet and hands not glow with it, why is my hair is not all a-frizz with joy? I feel reborn–newly washed–leagues away from the wailing old misery I was yesterday. Let me try to recount this day in full, so that when I am old and my knees ache, I can read this to cheer myself up.

It was a grey day this morning. I opened my eyes and saw the window silver-beaded with rain. And it kept raining as I dressed and went down to breakfast, and went right on after: a miserly persevering plip-plip-plip, nothing like a proper tropical thunderstorm.

I prefer a storm with some self-respect, one that puts its back into storming. At home you could expect thunder like God rolling barrels across the floor of heaven, and rain like spears that knocked trees over and destroyed gardens.

I sat in my chair in the thin grey light and tried to distract myself with Anne Bronte, hating everyone. Margery for going away, and Ravi for making me love him, and my parents for being tiresomely attached to the idea of my marrying Ng Wai Cheong, and Hardie for implanting me with the worm, and Diana for not hating me. And my poor wormlet most of all, for numerous sins, none of which were in the least its fault.

I was in no mood to see my visitor when Miss Thompson told me I had one. [...]

I’m posting a section a day of my epistolary romance novella The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo. You can read it online for free here (click on the “Perilous Life of Jade Yeo” category to access the other posts), or you can buy the ebook at Smashwords or Amazon. The ebook contains the complete 23,000-word novella.

Friday, 8th April 1921

Bad news today. At breakfast Margery was looking like a squirrel that had discovered the existence of peanut butter. She leant over to me and said:

“I am rescued!”

Her sister is coming next week to take her away. Her letters have been so sprightly even Reginald has been persuaded that science cannot justify Mrs. Crowther’s keeping her.

“And besides, Cordelia misses me,” she said happily.

I smiled, but I was soggy with self-pity inside. [...]

I’m posting a section a day of my epistolary romance novella The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo. You can read it online for free here (click on the “Perilous Life of Jade Yeo” category to access the other posts), or you can buy the ebook at Smashwords or Amazon. The ebook contains the complete 23,000-word novella.

Sunday, 3rd April 1921

I dreamt of my father last night. Ma comes to me in dreams sometimes, usually to say something pointed about money or the state of my clothes, but Pa never. He wasn’t there to give advice; it was a remembering sort of dream.

Pa had just had an argument with my grandfather, and I was upset. I don’t remember what the argument was about, but I remember Pa sitting by me and explaining, as he always did whenever anything frightened me. And as always he was making everything all right again. [...]

I’m posting a section a day of my epistolary romance novella The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo. You can read it online for free here (click on the “Perilous Life of Jade Yeo” category to access the other posts), or you can buy the ebook at Smashwords or Amazon. The ebook contains the complete 23,000-word novella.

Thursday, 24th March 1921

Today we finished Pride and Prejudice. I have been reading it to Margery for the past week, though we both know it almost by heart. When I had read the last word Margery rolled over on the ottoman and sighed.

“That is my favourite love story,” she said. “Jade, what is it like to be in love?”

“What makes you think I would know?” I said.

“Why, of course you do,” Margery said. “Why else would you be having Claude?”

Margery is convinced that the baby is going to be a boy, and not only that, but that he will be a Claude. I am not persuaded on either count, but there’s no harm in letting her suppose. At any rate Claude is better than Aloysius, which was her last guess.

“Pure wantonness,” I suggested.

Margery considered this, but she shook her head.

“No, no,” she said. “You’ve been in love. I think you’re in love even now. You have the look. I’ve never been in love myself, but I know it.” [...]