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Monday Musings: New Releases, News, and More 10/18/21
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Monday Musings: New Releases, News, and More 10/18/21

Discussion Topic of the Week

Running this site over the years has allowed me to meet many interesting people and learn so many new things. I enjoy the authors’ backstories as much as their books sometimes. Because I’m finding a lot of interesting tidbits about the authors of these new release books I may decide to change Monday Musings into individual new release posts. (Opinions on this are welcome.)

I’ve been chatting with some of the newsletter subscribers lately about how to screen books for posting. It takes time to learn things about an author and when a book may only stay on sale for 24 hours it doesn’t leave much time to find out.

My question this week is: What information do you need about a new author before you decide to try their book? (And as a bonus: What questions would you want an author to answer in an interview style post?)

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Monday Musings: New Releases, News, and More 10/4/21
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Monday Musings: New Releases, News, and More 10/4/21

New releases for October, Christy Awards 2021, Sweet Like Jasmine by Bonnie Gray, Monday Musings, and the discussion topic of the week.

Monday Musings

The new book year is in full swing now. Children are going back to school, people are putting their gardens to rest and moving indoors to catch up on their reading. I’ve been reading more lately, despite all my reading hang-ups. I’ve recently decided to embrace my tendency to read nonfiction and check out some new Christian books on the market.

I admit, I haven’t read a lot of Christian nonfiction. My reading obsessions over the years have been in waves of mainly relationship and other self-help books, nutrition books aimed at getting you to eat less meat in the name of good health, cookbooks (with the same goal,) and the odd assortment of biographies, how-to books, and other interesting non-fiction stories. Most have been secular in nature. 

So imagine my surprise when I went in search of Christian nonfiction and found a lot of secular books being published by Christian publishers. I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around this. On one hand, if a book is “clean” or “inspirational” I can see why a Christian publisher would want to publish it.

But while I’m not publishing the books found on this blog myself, I feel a bit responsible for the content. I try to only publish Christian books, which, up until recently, included all books from Christian publishers and indie books that were well checked out. 

Indies have always been a wild card. You never know what you’re going to get but if you do your homework you can find some gems. Often I’ll find an indie author who was traditionally published before and has decided to self-publish for bigger royalties, or someone with a famous Christian podcast, or someone who has been a missionary in six different countries.

I would never discard these authors just because they didn’t have a fancy publisher label behind them. But some people are still hesitant to take a chance with indies and I get that. We’ve come to trust big publisher names, that they’d never do us wrong. 

Or would they?

Last month I decided not to post a book from a top publisher because the reviews had complaints about the material being too “raunchy, degrading,” and “disappointing from a Christian publisher.” (Those words were taken from three different reviewers.)

I decided that sale or not, if other bloggers wanted to post this book it could be on their conscience, not mine. 

The other day I found a new book in audiobook format to read. It’s a…

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Monday Musings: New Releases, News, and More 9/27/21
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Monday Musings: New Releases, News, and More 9/27/21

Tales of the Bargain Hunter

I know I’ve been slacking on my articles for this site lately but I’ve been working hard exploring the world of Christian books, following rabbit trails and chasing new authors. I’m sure you all have noticed that the site now includes links from Amazon, Christianbook.com, and Google Play. It’s been a lot of work getting used to that but I’ve gained some great insights about bargain hunting from the experience.

For instance, new releases are usually cheaper at Christianbook.com. Take The Mystery of Israel and the Middle East, a new release book listed above. At the time of this post it’s $12.99 on Amazon, $17.99 on Google Play, and $9.99 at Christianbook.com. This is a common occurrence I’m finding for brand new books. The sales also have trends. When a book is $3.99 on Amazon it may be $3.89 on Christianbook. A $1.99 book on Amazon might be $1.59 on Christianbook and it may be full price Google Play. Sometimes it’s the same price on all three retailers but it’s not common.

As an author/publisher myself, I thought there were rules about pricing. I think the small price differences are when the retailer cuts it themselves as a loss leader technique to bring in business, but I’m finding a lot of publishers don’t even bother to put their books on sale at all on Google Play and sometimes a book may be on sale just at Amazon or just at Christianbook.com.

When I set out to include links from other retailers I was simply interested in giving people more choices about where to shop. I had no idea they were allowed to compete against each other for the best price. It’s been very interesting to watch and it’s taught me that (as a book hunter) I need to be open to all retailers to get the best deals. (As an author, I still wouldn’t price my book differently on various retailers as I personally think it’s just disrespectful to customers.)

One of the Bravest Things I’ve Ever Done

So, I decided to …

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Monday Musings: New Releases, News, and More 8/30/21
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Monday Musings: New Releases, News, and More 8/30/21

Where Has The News Gone?

As my newsletter followers already know, I spent the weekend resting. Now that Monday’s here I’m ready to get back into things only Monday Musings hasn’t even been started yet. (I usually at least get it started before the weekend.) So, I promised you all book news and where do most people go for news? Facebook, of course.

So I open up the Facebook newsfeed (which is impossible to find these days) and what do I see? Every author we follow regularly posts pictures and reports on their dog or cat. Not exactly book news.

What else did I find? Authors like to tell their fans about other authors’ new releases. Check.

What else? The only other thing I see is name dropping awards. “USA Today Bestseller” or “Christy Award Winner” or “Award Winning Author” or “Wall Street Journal bestseller!”

No one yells, “Amazon bestseller” anymore. (We used to. Back when that was a difficult thing to do. The next to go will surely be USA Today bestseller because it seems everyone now is one.)

So my question is, where is the book news? Where can I find stories of authors touching lives with their books? Writers uncovering …

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