Hubris

Well, maybe hubris is a bit too strong a word, but still.  So my novella has not been selling well, and by that I'm being kind.  It's easily my weakest seller, and I finally caved last week to the truth:  the title was just not working for me.  I had saddled it with what I thought was a clever play on words, even though it really revealed nothing about the book at all, since I was convinced that my genius would shine through and pull readers in.  Well, last week I renamed it, giving it a plainer but more descriptive title, and while I wouldn't say I've had a flood of sales, it's definitely improved, pulling up alongside my others.  I heard a phrase once--"murder your darlings"--and I should have done that in the first place with my too-cute title.

I also took heed of JA Konrath's posting recently about monetizing your intellectual property.  I stripped out three stories from my collections that shared a similar theme and repackaged them, slapped on a new cover and set them free as a brand new collection (so to speak; I was very careful to label them as previously published).  I wasn't expecting a lot from it, but it did increase my space on the virtual bookshelf, and strangely enough that has been my best seller on Amazon this month.