How Do You Establish a Fan Base *Before* You Launch Your Book?

Posted on June 6, 2013 by Lindsay

I get a lot of variations of this question from writers who are working on their first book and are planning to self-publish (or seek an agent and a traditional deal) in a few months. Since I didn’t have much of a master plan myself (it went like this: a) release first novel and b) try everything to sell it), but things eventually worked out for me, I usually say focus on writing more books and don’t worry much about the marketing for now.

Buuut, people don’t want to hear that. Go figure.

And I get it. When it’s your first book, it’s a big deal. If you’re anything like I was, it might have taken seven years to get that book to the point where you’re ready to share it. Who knows when the next one will be ready? Also, how will you know if it’s worth doing a series or a spinoff until enough people read the first that you have a gauge as to its commercial potential? Or, if you’re seeking an agent/publisher, how do you show that you have people who will buy that first book before you start querying it? (Yes, I understand that agents/publishers do check up on a potential author’s “platform” these days.)

So let me do a what-I’d-do-if-I-were-starting-today-knowing-what-I-know-now post. I’ll pretend I’m finishing up my first book and plan to publish it (or query it) in a few months.

Establishing a Fan Base Before You’re Ready to Publish/Query Your First Book

What I wouldn’t do

I’ll start out by talking about what many people do (I did too) and why that doesn’t work very well. A few months before the book is ready to go, they start a blog (usually on writing or the writing process), get on Twitter, and get on Facebook. They try to increase traffic/comments to their blog by commenting on all the other writing blogs out there. They try to increase Twitter followers by following the other writers out there (or maybe they’ll do a little better and realize they need readers who love their genre, and they’ll follow folks who mention books, science fiction, etc. in their Twitter bios). They’ll run contests or lobby other writers for likes to their Facebook page.

This is all largely ineffective (though it can make you appear popular, which may be enough for agents/publishers, but it won’t get you anywhere with sales). Why? Very few of these people will end up being your target readers, AKA people who love your writing style, your characters, and the type of story you weave.

It’s not that establishing connections with other writers and with readers in general can’t be useful (later on, after the launch, you may want to do some guest blog posts or interviews on their sites), but as far as building a fan base ahead of time goes, it’s a lot of work and not particularly effective.

What I would do

So there’s the “what not to do” side. What should you do? First off, realize that the people you really want subscribing to your blog, following you on Twitter, and liking your author page on Facebook are those who have read your work and LIKED it. Sure, it’s okay if you have other people (because I write about self-publishing and book promotion here, I get a lot of folks signing up for my newsletter who haven’t read my books), as you never know when someone might buy something to support you or might recommend you to others, but these shouldn’t be the people you target. You want readers who enjoy your work.

So, how do you find them when you haven’t released your book yet?

Ah, finally I get to the point! As I said, here’s what I would do if I were preparing for my first release today:

Start a website/blog and start posting samples of your work

Definitely grab your URL (yourname.com) early on. You can install WordPress (free) in a few minutes (most web hosts have a one-click install, or you can pay an internet-savvy friend to do it for a few bucks), and even if you’re not planning to blog, this can provide the framework for your site (more on finding a host, buying your URL, and setting up your site here), as you can create “pages” as well as “posts” with WordPress. All the free themes out there for WordPress mean you don’t need to pay anyone to design a special author site for you either (save that for later when you’re making money and need tax write-offs).

Once that’s set up, put a newsletter signup somewhere on the site (preferably on the front page or maybe on the menu so it shows up on every page). Let folks know what they’ll get if they sign up (coupons? free stories? access to early releases?)–it’s a good idea to provide an incentive.

Now post some of your work. Maybe it’s the first three chapters of your novel. Maybe you have some snippets from favorite scenes. Maybe you want to create some character interviews. Maybe you have lots of short stories that weren’t accepted for magazines/anthologies (or maybe they were and the rights have reverted back to you).

I think you’ll find you’ll get the most mileage here if these snippets tie in with your first novel. Some of my early sales success came from putting my Ice Cracker II short story out there everywhere I could. It features the two main characters from my Emperor’s Edge series (at the time, I only had the first EE book out), and it includes an excerpt of the novel at the end. I didn’t put it up on my website, because I was busy blogging about self-publishing then and trying to build an audience that way (remember, this is a do-what-I-say-not-what-I-did post), but I did put it everywhere else (more on that coming up).

Once you have some of your work up, you have something to tweet about on Twitter. I speak from experience here: people who will roll their eyes at yet another tweet advertising an ebook for sale will be more inclined to try something for free.

Give Wattpad a try

Trying to get readers to visit your website isn’t a bad idea (it’s the one place that your newsletter signup can be displayed right next to the work, so it’s ideal), but it’s a bit like having a garage sale versus putting something up on eBay. You have to work hard to drive traffic to your site, but the traffic is already there on eBay, and it’s already searching for the types of stories you write.

Wattpad has grown quite popular, and I started posting my own work there a few months ago. I’ve heard the site is more skewed toward the YA audience, especially young folks reading the stories via their smartphones, but I’ve still had some readers find EE and enjoy it (hey, even if the heroes aren’t teenagers, it’s the sort of thing I would have liked as a teen, when I wasn’t busy reading those Forgotten Realms books over and over). Within the last month or so, I’ve started hearing from Wattpad users who said they bought others in my series after finding me there, so it works.

Now, in my case, I had a whole novel I was willing to put up there. If you’re getting ready to launch your first book, you may not be ready to release it anywhere for free (though I’ve heard of authors putting a moderately-clean-but-not-yet-polished-and-professionally-edited version up on Wattpad, doing well, and having lots of folks ready to buy the final version when it was released). As with your website, you could try short stories or sample chapters. I’m sure you’ll do better if you post the whole book (I started getting a lot more readers for EE once it was marked “complete”), but that’s up to you.

Here are a couple of interviews I’ve done with authors who found some success on Wattpad:

There are other sites like this, where readers are waiting for new stories to try, but Wattpad seems to be the big dog right now. You can also look into Scribd, Authonomy, and, if you have some Harry Potter or Star Trek fics buried on your hard drive, the various fan fiction sites. (As you’ve probably heard, there are quite a few authors doing extremely well now who got their starts and built their “tribes” on fan fiction sites.)

Even though I came late to Wattpad (I’m planning to start releasing the first book of my next series there, starting a few weeks before I publish the novel), I like these sites because you can reach a lot of people who aren’t the same folks hitting Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, etc. and browsing for books. Don’t make the mistake of looking down upon readers who don’t do a lot of book buying. Lots of these folks are young people without a regular source of income yet — a few years down the line they could be devoted buyers of your books, and in the meantime they can do more than you can imagine to share your work with others, some of whom will buy now.

Publish something free on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, and Apple

Ice Cracker II free short fantasy storyYou’re probably sensing a theme here… give away some of your work for free so people can try it at no risk. For these sites, it’s the garage-sale-versus-eBay analogy again. The readers are already there. You need to have something out there where they’re looking.

These sites generally want completed fiction (Smashwords, in particular, works this way), so here’s where a short story can work.

When I was getting started and making next to nothing from sales yet, I invested $200 in the cover art for that Ice Cracker II story I mentioned. I wasn’t rich and really debated on this, because it was only a 6,000-word short story. But, within a month, I’d sold enough copies of EE1 (then priced at $2.99) at Barnes & Noble and Smashwords (I didn’t know how to get Amazon to make an ebook free at the time) to pay for that cover art. It was absolutely worth the investment (you’ll want a custom cover for posting your work on Wattpad too).

You can also follow the route fellow indie Moses Siregar III took and turn the first chunk of the book you’re working on into a novella. He published that several months before the novel was ready, worked on promoting it, and had a lot of fans ready to buy the whole novel when he released it.

Later on, if you’re doing a series, you may want to try making your first book free, but I didn’t do that until I had three novels out (plus a stand-alone set in the same world).

Turning these readers into fans who are ready to buy when you finally release your book

All right, you’ve got some short stories or excerpts out there and people are reading them. Mission accomplished, right? Well, you’re half way there. The last thing you need to do is find a way to keep in contact with these folks. You want to be able to tell them when the book is ready to go, or it’s all been for naught.

I’ve already mentioned mailing lists, Twitter followers, Facebook likes, and blog subscriptions. These are the primary ways you’re going to be able to get in touch with folks, with the mailing list being ideal (people forget to check blogs, and it’s easy to get lost among the other people they follow on Twitter/Facebook, but everyone checks their email). Wherever you’re publishing these samples of your work, make sure to post your blog and social media links at the end. Don’t be afraid to ask people to follow you. Otherwise chances are they’ll forget about you, especially if you were using a short story — a novel may stick in their heads better, but some readers devour several novels a week. They might have to read three or four of your full-length books before you become an author that they remember to check up on now and then. Make things easy on yourself and encourage them to follow you right after they finish your story.

All right, gang, thank you for reading what’s become another monster post. If you’re trying any of these methods, or have others you’d like to share, please comment below. What did you do that worked to build a fan base before you launched your first book?

Posted in Book Marketing, New Author Series | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 32 Comments

How Sue London’s First Novel Became an Amazon Bestseller in a Couple of Weeks

Posted on June 4, 2013 by Lindsay

Is it still possible to hit it big with a first novel? To toss that puppy out there and see it rocket to the tops of the Amazon sales charts? Well, if you’ve been following the blog, you know the answer is yes, since I recently interviewed Leeland Artra who’s been having great success with his first fantasy novel. Today we have another success story.

Sue London, one of the first people I followed on Twitter (she complimented my Goblin Brothers stories, so naturally I liked her right away), released her first novel a few weeks ago and asked me to retweet one of her announcements. I did so and bought a copy (hey, it was only 99 cents). Through Twitter, I’m aware of a lot of new authors who are publishing first novels and, frankly, not much happens for most of them. Imagine my surprise when I checked Sue’s Amazon sales ranking a week or two later and her book was in the 300s. As I write this introduction, it’s sitting at 123 and has this nifty tag that shows up in a search: sue-london-historical-romance-amazon
#1 Best Seller in Historical Romance. Not bad, eh?

But how did she do it? Sue’s agreed to spill the beans for us today, so let’s get this interview started!

A few weeks after release, you’re rocking the Amazon sales charts with your first novel, Trials of Artemis. What did you do to get the ball rolling in the first place?

First off, thanks so much for having me come on your site for an interview. Your blog has been my “go to” source for self-publishing information and it’s very exciting to be able to contribute. Also, don’t forget that I’m still waiting for more Goblin Brothers books! Just wanted to put that out there.

This is all pretty unexpected so I can’t provide advice as much as express gratitude. This is one case where I can say “It’s not me, it’s you.” It’s Twitter buddies, Facebook buddies, and readers who were willing to give me a chance. But let me tell you my story in the hopes that there’s a pony for you in all this mess somewhere.

suelondon_trialsofartemis

It all started with an idea for a Regency romance series about three girls who formed a “boys club” growing up, because they thought boys have more fun. They named their club (and therefore the series) The Haberdashers. There are twelve books scoped out for the series at this point. My original intention was to wait until at least book three before doing my big promotional push. I know how series readers are because I am one. We go very quickly from “I LOVE YOU, I WANT TO READ ALL THE BOOKS!” to “Who are you again?” when there has been a gap. So let me tell you what I didn’t do – engage a PR group, do any press releases, schedule a blog tour, intensely research what in the heck I should be doing to release a book. My plan was to do all that for the release of “Fates for Apate.” Sure, I’ve been picking up tricks over the years since I always intended to publish (specifically self-publish), but didn’t put any extra effort into “mastering the book release” prior to releasing book one.

All that aside, my first degree is in marketing so I couldn’t help doing a leeetle bit of it. I mean, no one wants their first book to bomb. But I was going to be delighted if I broke even on the expenses within the first couple of months (i.e., selling about 650 copies). Honestly, I thought my goals were insanely high and unrealistic. Heck, I’d gotten one of the major tenants of the industry “wrong.” I’d just spent ten years building a brand identity on the web of being a sci-fi geek (is it a brand when it’s really who you are?) and here I was publishing a Regency romance. People got whiplash doing a double-take. No one in my circles could believe I’d written a romance, in real life or online. Not exactly the best launching pad. Apparently you can get a lot “wrong” and still get it “right.”

To answer your question, though, what did I do to get the ball rolling?

  1. Set up websites specifically for Author and Series a few months in advance. I already have a lot of blogs and websites, and I wanted something that was specific to publishing so that people didn’t have to wade through ten years of me pontificating (main blog), or stacks of my short stories and writing samples (writing blog), just to get to what they really wanted – to purchase my books or read about the series.
  2. Purchased a rockin’ book cover a few months in advance. Seriously, this may have been the most important thing that I did. It is by Kim Killion at the aptly named Hot Damn Designs. The cost was about $135 and worth every penny. THANK YOU, KIM! Now I need to get a spine and back because this puppy is going to paper.
  3. Purchased 100 “cover cards” from VistaPrint (large postcard size) a few months in advance and offered them autographed as an incentive for pre-purchases. Also handed them out to anyone who would stand still and left stacks of them around the Virginia Festival of the Book. They aren’t cheap, about 40 cents each. Adding envelopes and postage makes this about a $55 investment. But they are shiny and pretty and made everything more “real.”
  4. Set up a Twitter account for the series at @haberdashersfic.
  5. Pestered my twitter buddies (I tweet at @cmdrsue) about the fact that my book was coming out soon and they should consider pre-purchasing a copy.
  6. Remembered that I have a Facebook page and posted some updates (which also auto-post to Twitter).
  7. Remembered I have a writing blog and made some posts about finishing a book and getting it to publication. Those automatically posted to Twitter and G+.

Then late on the night of May 12, 2013 I clicked publish on Amazon.com. And waited for the book to hit the store. And then I bought a copy. At that point I thought it and my five pre-sales (thank God for friends and family, right?) might be the extent of my publishing story. By the end of day one (May 13th) I’d sold 31 copies in the Amazon store and another one on my website. It had begun.

Marketing efforts in that first week included:

  1. Setting up my Amazon author page.
  2. Setting up my Goodreads author page.
  3. Pestering my friends on Twitter some more.
  4. Sending a Trials of Artemis mug to the first person to do a review. (She had no idea that I’d even been talking about giving out a prize because she’s not in my Twitter circles, so it was interesting to have the first person be someone completely unknown to me.)
  5. Posting announcements for my “fans” on Facebook (most of whom are STILL waiting for a sci-fi book).
  6. Posting announcements on a bunch of my blogs and having Blogger push those to my G+ circles. Made sure to include the blog that has a Page Rank of 4 from Google.
  7. Going to the follower lists for some of my favorite historical romance authors and having @haberdashersfic follow those followers.
  8. Reached out to some other writers asking for a retweet. Since I’ve been a good citizen for awhile (interviewing writers at Writing Insight, retweets, etc.) I got that love back – including retweets from yourself plus top romance authors Diane Farr, Danelle Harmon, and Lauren Royal.
  9. Taking a page from Amanda Hocking and reaching out to some romance readers with a polite direct tweet (you can’t do this too much or you’ll get blocked):
  11. Taking the opportunity (whenever it looked like it would fit) to post a link to my book as a response to super-popular people on Twitter. I know at least one sale came from responding to Jen Yates (@cakewrecks) when she asked her followers what was up. I said my book was up <link> and got one sale and follower that I know of. Maybe more.
  12. Asking @erinscafe to livetweet the novel because she had done that to hilarious effect on some other romance novels. I knew it would be a snarkfest and wanted it to be. Ended up getting props from her followers because I joined in on making fun of the book. Sales jumped by almost 100% that night. Some of Erin’s tweets:
    • Our story begins in London, 1815. Our heroine: Jacqueline Walters, but you can call her Jack. #haberdashers
    • Jack decides to ditch the ball, and sneaks into the host’s library. I’m pretty sure this is trespassing. Very least, it’s rude. #haberdashers
    • An arm slips around her from behind in the darkened library. “What are you reading?” Someone’s asking for a knee to the groin. #haberdashers
    • “Who in the bloody hell are you?” Ah, the stranger in the library is NOT a rapist, just a guy who grabbed the wrong boob. #haberdashers
    • We’re at another ball, because in 1815 there was no Twitter and people were bored. Jack’s dance card is empty. #haberdashers
    • I would 100% be playing cards and smoking cigars in the stables in 1815, reputation be damned.#haberdashers
    • Jack points out that she’d really rather not have a husband who grabs strangers’ boobs in libraries. Good call, Jack. #haberdashers
    • Gideon and Jack almost kiss while dancing the waltz. That Footloose town had it right; dancing is a gateway sin. #haberdashers
    • Giddy was just described as a “thoroughgoing rogue,” and I’m pretty sure that’s going to be the name of my next band. #haberdashers

And that pretty much describes my big marketing “push.” The only other thing I’ve done since then is join some romance groups on Facebook. Oh, and struck a chord with another group by making my first gratitude post about Trixie Belden. They have invited me to their Clubhouse. As a huge Trixie Belden nerd I think this is awesome.

At the moment “Trials of Artemis” is selling about 600 copies a day. The only explanation I have for that is… people seem to like it. Not the most insightful analysis but there it is.

I’m always hoping to find new advertising venues that actually work out (i.e. authors make as much from sales as they paid for the ad). Did you do any advertising or has this all been word of mouth?

Nope, no paid advertising for this beyond purchasing the postcards from VistaPrint. I’ll probably try some of these when “Fates for Apate” comes out. My research will undoubtedly include reading through your website so I wish I had some really good advice to give myself right here. I have used GoogleAds for my CafePress site and that was usually somewhere around a break-even.

99-cent novels have fallen out of favor with some folks in the indie community of late (possibly because, last year, Amazon supposedly started weighting the popularity charts to favor higher priced titles). Why did you choose that price point, and how much of an impact do you think it’s had on sales?

I chose 99-cents because I’m a 99-cent novel person. I read voraciously and there’s no way I could do that with typical list-price books. So I look for 99-cent and free ebooks because there are a lot of great writers I’ve never heard of, and even a lot of big houses/authors have sales to convince us to try them. It stretches my reading budget. For me as a reader I have to LOVE your books in order to spend more than 99-cents. But if I do love your writing then I get in this weird “PRICE IS NO OBJECT!” place. Seriously, someone could probably price the first one at 99-cents and the rest at a thousand dollars and I’d be like “THAT’S FINE, I’LL GET ANOTHER JOB, I NEED ALL THE BOOKS.” You know, if they really resonated for me. Some sort of modern-day G.K. Chesterton or something.

Regarding my own sales, I have to assume that the 99-cent price point didn’t hurt. In this particular genre (Regency) there are still a lot of 99-cent books and the top ten list for Regency is usually full of them. So 99-cents is probably just a ticket to get into the show. Because I can’t contact readers from Amazon directly I’m not sure if the price point made a difference to them. (Now you can really tell I studied marketing. Without the datapoint we can’t really draw a conclusion.)

It was always my intention to price the first one in this series at 99-cents and the rest at 2.99. (The next two are already available for pre-order at that price, plus if you pre-order you get an autographed cover card!) The first one for all of my series will probably be 99-cents but I’m not sure. (Yes, there are many other series, trilogies, and books planned. Some of them will be sci-fi and fantasy.) As I walk around and talk to more people about pricing it amazes me how many readers say they don’t mind when books are $8+. Thank God for them, someone needs to keep the major publishing industry going. But I don’t want to pay that for the majority of my reading, and by my little own lonesome I don’t need that margin for what I charge. Volume can often trump margin anyway.

Did you find that once you sold X number of books, Amazon’s algorithms kicked in and have helped you rise to the top (and stick there)? Or are you still doing a lot of promotion?

I know that you’ve written about the algorithms but here’s where I admit that… I haven’t really been paying attention. I can’t explain the rise to the top, but I’m sure that once I achieved the top ten it became a phenomenon of “success breeds success.” Since I read on the Kindle app I know that they constantly push the best-sellers at you. That means all the Regency readers started seeing my book pushed in their face every time they turned their Kindle or app on. Again, the cover was a great investment because at the very least it looks professional. At best it signals “This book is HOT. And brainy.” (They ARE in a library after all.)

I am not doing a lot of promotion. I blog, I tweet, I Facebook. I do interviews if asked. But if what you’re really getting at is “how did you manage to be so successful with your first book?” my honest answer is “I have no clue. If I did then I would do it over and over again. And teach others how to as well.” Seriously, I would take you with me on that magic carpet ride, but if there is an answer in all of this I don’t know what it is. Maybe the stars aligned. Maybe I had some karma points to redeem. Maybe, just maybe, it’s the power of nice. But I can’t point to anything and say “Yep, that’s it right there. That’s the answer.”

Something is working, though. It keeps creeping up the bestsellers lists. Currently at #130 for all of Amazon so it’s possible that “Trials of Artemis” will break the Top 100 before it’s done. Back on May 19th when I was #52 in Regency and #3,392 overall (and feeling pretty good about myself for those numbers) I was smack-talking Dan Brown on my Facebook page because it was funny to act like I could take the #1 spot. Now it’s moved from funny to intriguing…

All of the reviews have certainly been helpful, too. I don’t know how you get those other than wait. Ok, you could ASK for them, but is that really the same? Only one of them is from someone I know because I *didn’t* want to ask people I knew to review it. Right now there are 15 on Amazon.com (average 4.9), 2 on Amazon.co.uk (average 4.5), and 5 ratings/2 reviews on Goodreads (average 4.0).

Do you have any parting tips you’d like to offer to new authors who will be launching a book soon?

My biggest fear is beginning to believe that because this turned out well that I know something. I don’t. I’m grateful that so many people have helped me out in ways both large in small. A retweet here, a nice review there. Someone trying out a new and unknown author for the first time. But there are some things that are common pointers in the profession so I can reiterate them.

  1. Be nice. And remember that part of being nice is not always looking for something for yourself. When I started retweeting links for my favorite romance authors it wasn’t with the thought “because in three years I WILL WRITE A ROMANCE BOOK AND I WANT YOU TO RETWEET ME.” I was just being nice because I liked them. And being nice also means that when you step over a boundary and someone calls you on it that you graciously apologize. It doesn’t have to be a boundary that you expected to encounter or even deem worthy. Would you rather be proven right or sell books? The answer is sell books. When in doubt, be nice.
  2. Be professional. Get a great cover. Get great editing. Meet your obligations. And from a behavior standpoint, being professional is actually just being nice in a business suit. (Not an actual business suit but, like, emotionally.)
  3. Be clever. Think about what could be a fun or funny promotion. I have no idea what the ultimate impact of @erinscafe’s livetweet was but it was clever and fun. People enjoyed that I was laughing along with them. I can’t find the tweet right now but someone commented “more authors should be like you!” I also think Amanda Hocking’s direct marketing approach of contact on Twitter was clever. I still remember when I received the tweet because it was nice enough (see? nice?) that I was like “sure, I’ll check that out” and clicked on the link. Turned out it wasn’t for me and I didn’t buy it, but obviously a lot of people did. (Yes, I’m talking about this happening before she got famous.) Please note, however, that it wasn’t just that she asked me to check out her book, it was HOW she asked that made me click at the time and remember it later. For that one girl who made me click there have been hundreds if not thousands of solicitations that I’ve ignored. (See? I don’t even remember how many, much less who they were.)
  4. Be yourself. (Or at least the nicest, most professional version of you.) Your book is a product and I hope that it is AWESOME. But people want to connect with people at some point, especially if you are planning to have an ongoing writing career. Sharing something of yourself is a big challenge but people appreciate the little things that make you you. If you share enough little tidbits then everyone can find something they connect to. Some people advise authors to “brand themselves” and “sell themselves” but I’m definitely not in favor of that. I want to brand my books and sell my books, but be myself. That’s how I can get away with being a big sci-fi nerd and write a best-selling Regency romance novel. And you know what? I’ve discovered that a lot of other romance writers are big ole nerds, too.
  5. Bonus tip from Sue: Positive thinking. If there is any magic afoot in any of this it’s the fact that I spend at least 10 minutes every day focused on positive mantras. My inspiration comes from writers like Martha Beck (Finding Your Own North Star) and Barbara Sher (Live the Life You Love). In case you’d like to read those books, too, I set up an Amazon store of the books that motivate me.

Other than that just listen to Lindsay. She’s got the best advice around for self-published authors.

 

Awesome, thank you for your time, Sue!

Posted in Interviews / Success Stories | Tagged , , , , , , | 60 Comments

Author Update: What’s Coming This Summer?

Posted on May 31, 2013 by Lindsay

Hi folks,

Just a quick update here for those who are still grinding their teeth over the ending of Forged in Blood I. As some of you already know, I was well into the second half when I released the first half. Now, I’m working on the epilogue and should finish the rough draft this weekend. FiB2 will indeed end the story, so we’ll finally have all the resolution stuff (and, as I’ve teased on Facebook and Twitter, a haircut for a certain someone — no, not Akstyr again). I’ll be doing my own edits in June and have a slot reserved with my editor in July. The cover art is already done (thanks, Glendon!), so I’m hoping everything will be ready to go by early August.

After that?

Lots of folks have asked about a new Flash Gold story, and I’m planning to make that the next project. I’ve also been sitting on an idea for a contemporary fantasy series (no vampires, werewolves, or zombies, but… maybe some motorcycle riding elves :D) and might have the first book ready to go around Christmas.

For those who are wondering if there might be more stories with the Emperor’s Edge gang, I am leaving things open for new story arcs over there. At the end of FiB2, I’m planning to ask people which characters they’d like to see more of in the future. I also have an idea for a trilogy set in Nuria that it’d be fun to do, and maybe a science fiction adventure too. Author minds are busy places!

Now that you know what’s coming, I better get back to work so I can get it out there. Thanks for reading!

Posted in Ebook News | Tagged , , , | 24 Comments

New Author Series: How Do You Build a Fan Base, Anyway?

Posted on May 29, 2013 by Lindsay

It’s a foregone conclusion that it’s a good thing for an author to have an established fan base, but I’ll share some numbers from my last release for those who like concrete examples.

A couple of weeks ago, around May 17th, I released the sixth book in my Emperor’s Edge series. I priced it at $4.95, my usual price for a 100,000+ word e-novel, and I didn’t pay for any big advertising campaigns. I didn’t do guest blog posts, interviews, or spend a lot of extra time on social media sites, bugging people to buy the book. What I did do was spend a few minutes composing an email for my newsletter subscribers (people who have signed up to my mailing list because they enjoyed my other books). I also announced it via a blog post, and added a couple of notices on my own Facebook and Twitter pages. Total time invested on book promotion? Let’s say 30-45 minutes.

That weekend, I sold over a thousand copies of the novel, with its Amazon sales ranking reaching as high as 220. At this point, May 29th, the ebook has sold about 3000 copies. I’ll let you guys do the math on earnings, but you take home around $3.40 per ebook on a $4.95 ebook.

(Alas, my new releases don’t continue to sell that many copies after the first month, but I certainly have nothing to complain about here, especially given that my other titles continue to chug along with sales every day too.)

All in all, not bad for 30-45 minutes of promotion.

Of course, this all comes because I’ve spent the last two and a half years publishing books in this series and occasionally buying advertisements to encourage people to try the first book (I tried everything under the sun in the beginning, but I’ve gotten far more mileage out of making the first book free and putting it in as many places as possible).

The downsides of most types of book promotion

With most types of book promotion, it’s hit or miss, with more misses than hits. This year, I’ve done well advertising my first book with Bookbub, but most advertisements aren’t effective enough for an author to break even (I should point out, too, that BB is picky and doesn’t accept all of the authors who submit their books). A lot are a complete waste of money.

Blog tours, interviews, guest posts, etc. take a lot of time, time you could be using for writing. They’re hit-or-miss, too. Unless you appear on a popular blog, where your target audience hangs out, you’re unlikely to sell many books

Social media? It’s possible to sell some books on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc., but all of your efforts are so short-lived (a Tweet disappears from people’s radar in hours, if not minutes — a Facebook post might last in someone’s feed for a day), so you’re spending time on something that isn’t lasting, meaning you’ll end up in a never-ending cycle if that’s what you rely on to sell books.

Trying to find the latest scheme that works for gaming Amazon isn’t a long-term route to success either. (To see some of the schemes that have come and gone, check out my post on Book Promotion: What’s Working at Amazon in 2013?) I’ve only been self-publishing for two and a half years now, but I can’t tell you how many one hit wonders I’ve seen in that time. A lot. Of course, most people never even make it to the “hit” stage.

So, what does work? Well, you can probably guess from the title of the post. Building a fan base of readers.

Wait, but isn’t that what the advertising and the book promotion and the blog tours and all that stuff is about?

Yes, and no. So many authors only focus on selling the book they’re releasing right now. They may want a fan base, but they don’t take the actions they need to in order to turn that fan base into a reality.

The reason you want — no, need — a fan base is because it allows you to:

  1. not have to work so darned hard to sell your latest release, allowing you to focus on writing awesome new books instead
  2. have a predictable and reliable income, something that’s crucial if you’re thinking of making this the day job someday.

I predicted how many of the new EE books I’d sell in May (release month) almost to a T. If I were the spreadsheet/graph type (I know, I’m kind of a lame geek in my unwillingness to spend time on such things), I could show you how EE5 sold 2.5k in its release month, how EE4 sold 2k, and so on, back over the last couple of years. Keep in mind that the old titles continue to sell every month as well, and each new title I add to the catalog helps keep the income trend on an upward slope — I don’t need to be a blockbuster seller in order to make a living here; I just need to keep writing fun books that a certain segment of the reading population enjoys enough to keep buying.

Okay, blah, blah, fan base = good, but how do you get one? All right, here’s the good stuff:

1. Make sure readers who enjoy your existing books know how to find you online

There’s nothing like being part of a community to maintain and even increase your interest in a certain subject. This goes for readers too. Not everybody is going to want to seek you out and find others who enjoyed the books too, but in case some people do, make it easy for them.

Put your Twitter, Facebook, and website address at the end of your ebooks. Invite people to follow/like/subscribe to your sites. Make Twitter, Facebook, and your blog as much about interacting with and entertaining/informing current readers as you make it about selling books. I think you’ll find that the most dedicated fan will get tired of seeing you try to sell the book they’ve already bought twenty times a day on Twitter.

Once you have a certain number of active online followers, you may even try to start a forum or another type of community, giving them a place to interact with each other. Or you may get lucky and someone will start one for you.

2. Start a mailing list and encourage readers to sign up

Having the email addresses of your core fans is extra security. It means…

  • reaching a point where “book promotion” is sending out a short email to let them know you have a new release (build enough of a fan base, over time and with multiple releases, and this alone could turn you into a bestseller)
  • being able to email your fans and ask for help (i.e. Kickstarter campaign) if something dire happens (this is especially important if most of your income comes from one source — I’m sure the erotica authors, in particular, can tell you how scary it is to live at Amazon’s whims — today your’re a bestseller and tomorrow, “Sorry, your book doesn’t fit our guidelines and has been removed from the Kindle Store”)
  • not having to rely on your readers learning about new releases on Twitter or by stumbling, months down the line, across them on Amazon (with their email addresses, you can simply let them know whenever you have a new book out)

If you haven’t read it yet, I have a post on Newsletters 101: Email Marketing for Authors.

3. Be generous

You may get to a point where it’s hard to be generous with your time (I’d like to say yes to these interview requests, but I need to get the next novel out too…), but you can be generous in ways that don’t take up a lot of time and in which lots of people can benefit.

You guys all know that I have the first of my EE books available everywhere for free. I have a short story and a novella out there for free too right now. In the beginning, this was a marketing scheme (ahh, maybe I can hook them with the free ebook and they’ll buy the rest!), and it still has that element, but Amazon has made it a little harder for people to find the free ebooks of late, so I’d probably be better off selling Book 1 at 99 cents.

I’ve resisted the temptation to do this because I like the idea of people being able to try my series at no risk.

At the other end of the spectrum, I’ve chosen to keep my new novels at $5. Could I make more money if I sold them for $6 or $7? It’s possible. But I’ve had numerous emails from folks along the lines of, “I’m a broke student/I’m on social security/Things are tough right now, and I appreciate that you make your books affordable.”

I’m glad that, as an independent author, I can choose a price that people can afford and that allows me to make a nice living from my work. I’ve given away Smashwords coupons to people who’ve said they’re dying to read the next book but they’re strapped for cash at the moment. I’ve also shrugged and let it go when readers have reported seeing my books on such-and-such pirate site.

Now, I’m sure you can find people who are even more generous (give them all away for free — I don’t need money, just the love of adoring readers!), so I’ll just finish by saying that a little putting-yourself-in-the-readers’-shoes can go a long way in this business.

4. Be everywhere

The more places your work can be found, the more likely it is that it will be.

I know, I know, there are some arguments for Amazon’s KDP Select Program, and I’m quite fond of the paychecks Amazon sends every month, but you’re limiting yourself and your readership if your work is only available in one store. You don’t need to be in every mom-and-pop ebook store, but be in all the big ones. I’d been at this for two years before I started seeing significant income from Kobo, Apple, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords, but now these sellers represent about a third of my income.

Beyond bookstores, think of ways you can be in other places where people might stumble across your work. If you’ve decided to make some of your stories free, you can put them up on Wattpad, Scribd, Feedbooks, and countless other sites. You can work those sites if you want to (try to gain readership on them), or you can “set it and forget it” with your stories. I’ve been like that with my free podiobooks (I put the first one up on iTunes and Podiobooks.com in 2011), and I often hear from people who’ve recently found them and started listening. Yes, some of those people go on to buy the ebooks or the audiobooks from Audible too.

5. Stick to one genre and write a series if you want a steady paycheck

I’m fortunate in that I never wanted to write anything except for fantasy and maybe a little science fiction on the side, and I’ve always loved series. As a reader, I’m picky about the characters I fall in love with, so you’re asking for it if you try to foist new characters on me! As an author, I enjoy spending time with characters once I’ve created them, so I don’t even start a project unless I imagine at least a 3-book story arc.

I know that not every author is like this. Some people want to write a different book every time, sometimes in a different genre every time. Hey, it’s allowed. Just realize that the price you pay is that it’s going to be harder for you to build a diehard fan base.

It’s the characters people fall for (and why, for many people, books about those characters become auto-buys, no matter what the reviews). If you create characters that people want to spend time with and regularly publish books starring them, you can start to predict how many books you’ll sell on a new release and how much income you’ll earn from month to month. As I’ve mentioned, that’s pretty darned important if you want to do this as a career!

Now that I’ve typed up a small novel about this subject, I’d better get back to writing my next novel (and let you get to yours). If you want to agree or disagree or let us know what’s working for you insofar as building a fan base goes, please comment below. Thanks!

Posted in New Author Series | Tagged , , , , , , , | 25 Comments

Tips for Shared Worlds and Collaboration Between Independent Authors

Posted on May 24, 2013 by Lindsay

Now that many of you have read Forged in Blood I (and tweeted/emailed/Facebooked glowers at me for that cliffhanger), I better let you know that I’m working hard to get Part 2 done this summer. I’m already a good 2/3rds of the way through the first draft and won’t be blogging much until I’ve finished it. But, for those authors who like to follow along and read new posts here, I will have a couple of guest articles coming up.

Today we have Charlotte E. English bringing us information on shared worlds and collaborating with other self-published authors. I grew up reading all those DragonLance and Forgotten Realms books, so I’m particularly intrigued by what they’ve put together. I hope you’ll find the post interesting as well and check out the books in the collaborative world they’ve created.

Sharing a World: When Indies Collaborate

BlackMercury_600x900One of the best things about digital self-publishing, in my opinion, is the flexibility it offers: there’s so much freedom to write, and subsequently publish, anything our imaginations can come up with. There is also the freedom to find new and unusual ways to produce, and present, fiction.

There are downsides, of course. One of the objections I hear the most to self-publishing is its isolated nature: there’s no one but you to get your book written, produced and published; no one to help you promote your book, or find its target market. But we’re making the rules, here. What’s to stop authors from forming collectives? Why not take the burden out of world-building by creating a team-built shared world? Why not work with a group of writers, to produce a series that never has to end? Why not create a group who’ll pool their efforts, share connections and help each other out?

Okay, maybe it’s a slightly crazy idea: in the early days, some people said it could never work. But a few of us decided to try it anyway. In January 2012, five fantasy authors got together and started world-building; in April 2013, we published the first few titles.

Building the World

So how did we do it?

TheKaiserAffair_600x900It’s probably fair to say that collaboration of this kind doesn’t necessarily come easily to writers. Most of us are used to working alone. The prospect of pouring the ideas of five complete strangers into a pot and coming out with a coherent world was a daunting one at first. Fortunately we had good leadership from our project founder, Joseph Robert Lewis – and this is the first thing I’d say any collaborative group needs. Joe got the ball rolling by taking lists of random ideas from everyone in the group and then getting us to vote on genre, theme, background and significant features in our world. What we ended up with was a steampunk/high fantasy world, a mysterious island floating in our skies, and such diverse features as talking birds, Shadowy assassins, steam-powered cars and flying machines and magical artefacts.

After that, it took a lot of emails and a lot of posts on our wiki site to hammer out the details. Was this easy? No, certainly not. It took months, and a lot of negotiating. We all had to learn to be as flexible as we could; to say “yes” as much as possible, and rarely to say no; to be both generous with sharing our ideas, and not too personally attached to them.

Writing the Books

That was only the beginning, of course: the ultimate goal was to produce a series of separate, stand-alone adventures that would, nonetheless, link up into a coherent series. Tricky. What we did was to give ourselves a big question to answer: what happens when somebody manages to fly up to that drifting isle, for the very first time?

The first three titles all answer this question in different ways. Writing them was an interesting experience, which naturally had its downsides: more than once I had to regretfully put away an idea I liked for my book, because it conflicted with someone else’s. But the upsides were tremendous: I got to work with many ideas I wouldn’t necessarily have come up with myself, and the whole process has stretched all of us as writers, forcing us to think differently, be more creative. It’s telling that we’ve only just published the first few titles, and already there are flurries of emails going around as we swap thoughts, bounce ideas off each other and begin making our way towards the next collection of books.

Sharing the World

Managing all this shared material isn’t as hard as it may sound. For a start, there are no co-writtenTheMachineGod-600x900 stories; each one of us is responsible for creating our own, separate books and for publishing them, too. That means there is no royalty sharing, and we each retain full rights to our own work and our own characters.

Everything else in our world is the joint property of the group. This, too, isn’t as difficult to manage as one might think. By this time, I struggle to remember which parts of our world were my ideas, and which came from others; we’ve spent so much time merrily digging in our sandpit that it doesn’t feel individualistic anymore. New ideas are always run by the whole group, and difficulties are rare.

What’s Next?

The next step in our team adventure is to bring in new writers; people who will add to the world we’ve already built, and make use of our existing material. This will stretch us again – but, I think, in good ways. What we’ve achieved so far is only the beginning: now we want to build more on top, plug new pieces into our literary jigsaw and keep it growing.

If this is going to work, it means continuing to be as flexible as we can. One of the ways we’re doing this is genre: while the world is high fantasy/steampunk, there’s no reason why all the stories have to be classic fantasy or steampunk in nature, too. We’re hoping to see writers from many different genres getting involved: why not have a romance set against a steampunk backdrop, or a cozy mystery with fantasy elements? Someone could start a paranormal angle, or write pure comedy. The sky’s the limit, and the more writers get involved, the more stories we add, and the more promotional efforts we’re sharing across the group, the greater the benefits to all.

If you’ve read this far and think it sounds interesting, there’s more information to be found at our website: www.driftingislechronicles.com/. If you’re a writer and you think you might like to participate, take a look at the get involved page where you can download the full participation guide.

If you want to check out the books (and maybe see who you’d be working with), the existing titles are:

Black Mercury by Charlotte E. English

The Kaiser Affair by Joseph Robert Lewis

The Machine God by MeiLin Miranda

Forthcoming title: Starcaster by Kat Parrish.

In Summary…

Working with a group brings a lot of extra work with it, this is true: there are miles to travel to make sure that the world and the stories remain consistent across so many titles and so many authors. But the advantages are, potentially, huge. If you’re looking for new ways to challenge yourself, or you’d like to work with something different; if you want to move beyond your comfort zone and revitalize your ideas; if you want help with promoting your work, or just someone to help watch your back and keep you going; all of these can be found with a good group.

 

 

Posted in Writing | Tagged , , , , | 14 Comments

As an Author, Is It Worth Being in the Amazon Associates Program?

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Lindsay

For those who don’t know, the Amazon Associates (or Affiliate) Program is sort of like working on commission for the big seller. You sign up, put links to any of the product pages on your site or in newsletters to your mailing list, and you make a percentage of the sales when people click through and buy within 24 hours. The percentage varies depending on the product type and how many items you sell in the month, but you can expect 4-8% or so.

I’ll admit, that’s not a lot when you’re linking to your own ebooks, which may only run $0.99 to $5, and you may be wondering if it’s worth signing up for the program. After all, it does take a minute or two to log into Amazon and create an affiliate link every time you’re writing a blog post and want to point out an Amazon product.

A lot of authors will probably say no, it’s not worth it, and that they haven’t made any money with the program. I don’t make a lot, but I do earn an extra $75 to $300 a month from Amazon in addition to what they pay me for my book royalties.

That’s money I’d be giving away (giving to them) if I didn’t bother creating those links. And honestly, it takes maybe 5 minutes a month for that money, because I don’t link to products from blog posts very often. I have the links to my own ebooks over there in the side bar, and I link to new releases. I also link to other authors’ books when I interview them on the blog (two years after I interviewed Kate Harper on How to Make Money Publishing Kindle Articles, I still sell copies of her ebook almost every month).

Juuuust in case you’re interested, here are a few more details…

How I Make Affiliate Income from My Author Blog and Newsletter

I’ll be the first to tell you that if you want to make serious money as an affiliate, Amazon isn’t the best program out there (24-hour window vs. the common-in-the-industry 30 days combined with the fact that they don’t offer a high percentage of the sales), but if you’re like me, and your main focus is on writing and promoting your own books, you might be pleased at the extra side income you can pull in by taking a few minutes to add those links.

1. Create a site and build traffic to it.

As an author, you should be doing this anyway. Not all authors choose to blog (or go through the effort of promoting their blog to increase readership), but all authors should at least have a website with periodic this-is-what-will-be-out-next updates, links to where people can buy their books, and a newsletter sign-up form. The address to that website should be on their business cards, on their social media pages, listed in their books/ebooks, stenciled on the back of the car (hey, some people do it!), etc. In other words, you’re going to promote your site anyway. Why not make any Amazon links you have on your site, especially to your own books, Amazon affiliate links?

What this means is you’re essentially earning say 77% on each $3.99 ebook you sell instead of 70%. Can this add up? Sure. You take the effort to create these links once, and they can be there for years to come. Even if you’re not getting a lot of visitors today, that may change as you get more books out and they start selling more copies.

If  you get into blogging, you can interview other authors and include (affiliate) links to their books, as I mentioned earlier. You can also try other types of posts, such as lists of 99-cent titles in your genre, and promote those posts on Twitter, Facebook, etc. I don’t do a lot of those types of blog entries myself, but here’s an example one from last year (I remember making a few dollars in affiliate income from the books linked to, and every now and then one of those titles still pops up in the current month’s report): 10 Free or 99-Cent Steampunk Ebooks.

2. Create a Mailing List and Use Affiliate Links When You Mention Your Own Books

Every author should have a newsletter or mailing list. As I’ve mentioned before, this allows you to email your readers when you have a new release (or any other important news — say you’re running a Kickstarter Campaign or a special sale for fundraising purposes). If you’re new to this idea, check out my post on Newsletters 101: Email Marketing for Authors.

You’re going to tell these people about your new releases anyway, so it just makes sense to use an affiliate link and get the extra 7%. As your list grows, your earnings will grow (both from direct sales and from affiliate commissions).

Forged-in-Blood-Affiliate-Earnings-Amazon

Those were my affiliate sales from this weekend from the release of Forged in Blood I. I didn’t use my affiliate link on Twitter or Facebook (I’ve been lazy and haven’t checked to see what their policies are in regard to using affiliate links lately), but I did use them on my website and in my mailing list. I’d wager at least 350 of those 428 came from the newsletter.

Note: I haven’t been active with them but Apple and Barnes & Noble have affiliate programs too. If you find you’re selling quite a few books there, you might want to sign up for their programs too.

Obvious question: Should you promote books other than your own?

This is up to you. I don’t when it comes to my mailing list (a rare exception was when one of my beta readers came out with her first book last fall); these are your dedicated readers, remember, so you don’t want to push them away by trying to sell things to them every other week. Just because they’re interested in hearing about your newest releases, doesn’t mean they want to buy a lot of other stuff. However, if you read a truly awesome book in your genre and think they might love it too, then it probably wouldn’t hurt to mention it or even share your own review of the book as one of your newsletters (authors often wonder what they should talk to their list about in between releases).

Money Aside, Other Reasons You May Want to Be an Amazon Affiliate

You may be thinking, okay, you made an extra $150 when you released your book, but didn’t you sell thousands that weekend anyway? Like a hundred bucks matters… And like this would work for me if I only have three people on my mailing list and I’ve only published one book…

Okay, fair points, but I still think it’s worth taking the extra couple of minutes to craft affiliate links when you’re going to link to something on Amazon anyway. Seeing what your readers/blog visitors are buying can give you a little extra insight into what people want — AKA market research.

A couple of months ago, I participated in a group book promotion and wrote up this post with everyone’s books: 10 Fantasy Romance Novels from Up-and-Coming Authors. I used affiliate links (this post is an example of one where I spent far more time than usual getting links and inserting book covers, because I did it for ten books, but I did end up making about $40 or so in affiliate income from that post), and it was interesting to see which of the titles sold best and which barely sold at all. Dragon Rose was the winner by a long shot. If you’re curious, go check out that post and take a peep at the cover and the blurb, and compare it to the others (it’s worth noting that it’s not at the top of the list, so it’s not as if people were simply picking the first book).

You can also see from my own screenshot up there that people, after clicking my links, buy quite a few books in addition to my own. You can get a better idea of your target audience and what their interests are by seeing what else they bought (I believe these sales reports are a little more concrete than the also-bought lists on Amazon book pages). Sometimes it’s even entertaining (I’ve found everything from soldering equipment to erotica titles to lawn mowers and baby gates in my affiliate reports).

The information is all anonymous, of course, so you’re not snooping into any particular person’s buying history, but it can give you a broad idea of what other titles people are buying. If you haven’t decided on what you’re going to write next, you might want to take a peep and see what sorts of books your readers are really digging (in addition to your own).

If nothing else, you might get some ideas for new books to read for yourself — hey, if these guys like your books, they must have good taste, right?

So, there you have it — why I bother with the Amazon Associates’ Program. What about you? Do you use affiliate links or are you thinking of giving them a try?

Posted in Tips and Tricks | Tagged , , , , | 20 Comments

Forged in Blood I (Emperor’s Edge, Book 6) Now Available

Posted on May 18, 2013 by Lindsay

Forged in Blood I (Emperor's Edge, Book 6) CoverForged in Blood I, the sixth Emperor’s Edge book is now available! It’s the first of two novels that make up the finale to the series (you can expect the second part later this summer).

Here’s the blurb, cover art, and a Chapter 1 excerpt:

The emperor has been ousted from the throne, his bloodline in question, and war is descending on the capital. Forge, the nefarious business coalition that has been manipulating the political situation from the beginning, has the ultimate weapon at its disposal.

If it was difficult for a small team of outlaws—or, as Amaranthe has decided they should now be called, rebels—to make a difference before, it’s a monumental task now. If she’s to return idealistic young Sespian to the throne, earn the exoneration she’s sought for so long, and help her closest ally win the respect of the son who detests him, she’ll have to employ an unprecedented new scheme… preferably without destroying the city—or herself—in the process.

Chapter 1 Excerpt

You can pick up the ebook at Amazon, Smashwords, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and Apple. Thank you for reading!

 

Posted in Ebook News | Tagged , , , , , | 57 Comments

Contest Winner: From the Mouths of Maldynados (and Akstyrs)

Posted on May 18, 2013 by Lindsay

A few weeks ago (eep, sorry it’s taken me so long to pick a winner!), I posted a contest asking folks to come up with some quirky lines for Maldynado and Akstyr. I’m finally announcing winners!

I’d originally meant to include the winning lines in EE6, but since I’m about to announce the release of the book, ahem, I’ll hold onto them to use in the next book (which is actually the second half of EE6 anyway). The novel should be ready to go at the end of the summer.

The Finalists

Melissa offers: I can imagine Maldynado suggesting that Books (maybe in celebration of finishing his project) “find a new inkwell in which to dip your pen.”

Cathlin suggests for Akstyr: “Chew makarovi fudge.”

CW suggests for Maldynado: “Sail my ship up her channel”

Cassandra suggests for Maldynado: “I’ll have her clothes off faster than Books can fall down.”

Nk suggests for Maldynado: “Mapping her territories.”

Sheree suggests for Maldynado: “Tactical night manoeuvres”

K2N2 suggests for Akstyr: The imperial army ran through barefoot. As in “My mouth tastes like the imperial army ran through barefoot.”

Jay suggests for Akstyr: “Go take a bath with the piss pot!”

Jay suggests for Maldynado: “Have you ever considered crashing your train into her bunker?”

Katya suggests for Akstyr: “…hotter than the sun’s armpit…”

Monica suggests for Maldynado: “rappelling down into a woman’s ravine”

The Winners…

At some point in Forged in Blood II, Maldynado will be saying… “Have you ever considered crashing your train into her bunker?” (I’m already envisioning an exchange between Maldynado and Deret where I can use this ;))

And Akstyr will be saying… Something is “hotter than the sun’s armpit.” (I’m not sure what yet, but it sounds like the classy sort of thing he’d say.)

I’ll be contacting Jay and Katya shortly to arrange for prize delivery.

Thank you all for entering! Until the next contest…

Posted in Cut Scenes and Fun Extras | Tagged | 5 Comments