Randy sez: The reason for two different covers is that there are two different publishers involved. We are publishing the e-book version of Oxygen under our own publishing company, DitDat, Inc., which is owned by me and John.

We decided who our target audience is–people who like fast-paced action novels with a strong female lead character. Then we looked at the covers of current books targeted to that audience. Then we created a concept and hired graphic artists to make the cover. It didn’t turn out exactly the way we imagined, but it was close. We don’t believe the cover will appeal to everybody. We only need it to appeal to our target audience. John and I are both in our target audience, and we “eat our own dog food” — we both like the cover.

Why two publishers? We have no skill in creating paper editions, but Jeff Gerke, publisher at Marcher Lord Press does, and he jumped at the chance to do the paper version of Oxygen. Jeff hired his own graphic designer to create a cover targeted to his target audience for the book.

Different publishers; different covers. This is common in publishing. However, the content is the same, with the minor exceptions noted above.

Randy sez: Hi Shirls, as I recall, you live in South Africa. As I noted above in the blog post, Amazon doesn’t price the book the same for all international customers.

I’ve heard from many readers around the world, and most are getting it for 99 cents. A few are seeing a price of $2.99, and we’re sorry about that, but it’s not something we can change. A very few are not able to buy it at all, and we’re extremely sorry about that, but again, that problem is above our pay grade.

No doubt there are good reasons for these pricing anomalies, but we don’t know what they are. We hope that in a few years, all these international commerce issues will be resolved. That day is not yet, however. What is amazing is how broad the worldwide distribution capabliities of Amazon and B&N actually are. An author with a laptop can write a novel today, upload it tomorrow, and in a couple of days, somebody on the other side of the world can buy it. Amazing. Even with the occasional glitches, amazing.

Just bought the book yesterday and am steaming through it. Great stuff!! And I might add that the cover is great (no offense Katie). I should mention that I think it’s interesting that it’s categorized as futuristic fiction, as much of the book takes place in 2012… :). Anyway, congrats on the success, I can only pray for similar results (without the fan base it might be tough).

-Dave

Randy sez: Glad you like it, Dave! We originally wrote the book in 1999/2000, when 2012 seemed a LONG way off. Unfortunately, a real trip to Mars still is a LONG way off, although we didn’t know that at the time. After we published Oxygen, 9/11 happened, and military spending went way up. That dashed any possibility of a Mars mission.

I don’t read sci-fi … but I read this book a while ago. And the next one, Fifth Man. And all of your other titles. Hmmm. Pretty interesting for someone who doesn’t read sci-fi. What was that your teaser said about action, humor, and romance? They held me, the non-sci-fi reader, because of the writing, storyworld, voice, characterization, MRUs and all the other stuff you talk about. It was all there; I couldn’t help but read. And then … I bought the 99-cent version, too, because, 1. I wanted all that author dissection you referred to, and 2. I wanted a Nook version.

I got your “special offer” email in my inbox yesterday and purchased your book 30 seconds later. You’ve got a knack for the power of advertising! I’ve already started perusing the appendixes and, no joke, they’re chock full of everything you said they’d be. Plus the coupon, very cool.

Your talk on “high concepts” is now making me revisit my current work-in-progress to see if it’s got enough impact.

Thanks for making such an incredibly awesome offer open to your blog readers.

P.S. Hopefully from your sales you’ve seen that I’ll buy just about anything you’ve got on your site. Please let me know when Fiction 301 and Fiction 401 are available! Congrats on #1 in Futuristic Romance!

Randy sez: Hey Shirls, have fun! Once you start reading e-books, you may never go back to paper. Since I started reading on my iPad, I’ve bought far more e-books than I normally would have in paper. I’ve hardly bought any paper since then, and it’s great to have this growing library in my iPad that I can take with me anywhere. Have fun!

Thanks and more power!