My goof is your gain ...
A little peek at an indie writer's flubs, and an opportunity to score some free books!
I’ve got a quick little story about the glamorous behind-the-scenes world of an indie erotica writer, handling all of my own marketing in addition to flinging about the words that make up my sexy little stories. It’s a cautionary tale, and a little amusing, and there are some Smashwords coupons in it for you at the end of this story!
As you may know, I have a newsletter that I use to promote my stories — indeed, quite a few of you here are subscribers (you can sign up for the weekly-plus list or the monthly list if you’re interested). I usually schedule things weeks in advance if I know what releases and promotions I have coming up.
I decided that I would do “book birthday” promotions this year, with a sale on books and related titles on the anniversary of their release as a way to celebrate a “year of writing smuttily.” Those newsletters and promotions are all queued up and ready to roll.
I like to add links to other writers’ books in my regular weekly newsletter. It’s a pretty common “mutual aid” practice among indie writers: I’ve been lucky to have some great writers with really big mailing lists give me a boost from time to time, and so I like to return the favor by promoting other writers’ stories, too, if their sales and promotions line up with my schedule.
An opportunity came up to share a book by a writer whose work I enjoy, but the timing didn’t land on my usual Sunday newsletter. It lined up with the book birthday for “Throuple,” though, so I decided to add the link to the book there.
To update a scheduled newsletter with the tool I use, I have to first cancel the scheduled release, and then when I’m done with the changes I have to schedule it again. That’s usually not a big deal. But this time, I was adding a link on Monday to a newsletter scheduled to go out on Wednesday, and when I was ready to set its schedule again I selected Monday instead of Wednesday. About an hour later, to my horror, the “Throuple” newsletter went out two days early.
Sending out the newsletter about the sale early meant that I was giving my readers a link to books that had the full price rather than the promised discount, and even though prices are pretty easy to change online, it still takes a few hours for a price to change to work through the system. I decided that I would send out an “oops” email, and add some Smashwords coupons so people could still get the discount if they were interested in buying right away rather than wait for the scheduled sales date.
“Problem solved,” I thought to myself, and then the emails started coming in from readers to tell me that the other writer’s book wasn’t at the promo price, either: it was scheduled to start on Tuesday, so my newsletter was a day early for that sale, too!
Ugh!
My solution was to double down on the “oops” coupons. I sent another email to explain the situation with all of my goofs, and added some more Smashwords coupons.
It turns out people like coupons — who knew? — and I managed to move a few books.
Those coupons are still good — they expire May 11 — so I figure my Substack fans should benefit, too, even if most of you didn’t have to put up with my flub.
If you use coupon code SKAPG at Smashwords you can grab a freebie from me: this coupon will work on Baby Bump, A Family Condition, and How I Won Spring Break.
And you can use coupon code V95VM to get any of my Smashwords titles for just 99 cents.
And you should check out Steph Brothers’ “Quinn: The A-Z of Age-Gap Erotica Book 17”, which is free until May 11!
Want a cheap and easy way to support me? Buy one of my books directly on Payhip: most are just $1, some come with spicier covers than Amazon and Smashwords permit, and you get discounts when you buy more than one.