How Leeland Artra Is Rocking the Amazon Sales Charts with His First Book

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Lindsay

If you asked me how many sales you could expect to get on your first book, I’d probably say something like, “Well, if you want to make money, it’s more important to think about a career and to plan to write a lot of books… It takes time to build up an audience and start selling well.” Probably not bad advice per se, but every now and then an author starts rocking it right out of the starting blocks.

Leeland Artra published his first book, Thread Slivers, in January, and, it’s spending a lot of time on various Top 100 fantasy lists on Amazon. I’m not sure how many books he’s sold, but I know from his sales ranking that it’s in the thousands, maybe even ten thousand already. I hunted him down (not hard since we chat on Twitter from time to time) and pumped him for answers to questions I’m sure you’re all wondering about.

Hi, Leeland! Do you want to tell us a bit about your book and what made you decide to self-publish?

LeelandArtraFirst, I just need to side step a bit and get a picture, smile! Seriously, I’m getting interviewed by Lindsay Buroker! How cool is that? I am so totally a fan boy. Thank you for inviting me to do this.

To answer your question impatience and dreams are what made me an indie author. I put in the time to learn about the industry. I read how-to books, I read blogs, and I read trade magazine articles. Most importantly I sought out successful authors and analyzed what they were doing.

I was not happy with traditional author stories of sending manuscripts to black hole submission addresses, waiting six months for any reply; and doing it again and again. When they were accepted the best a debut author could expect was next to nothing. The idea of spending years trying to find a publisher who would do something a little different was too much. But, I also found you (Lindsay Buroker), Elle Casey, Melissa Foster, and Michael Hicks. I had no idea what an indie author was, I knew what a vanity published book was; but, here were examples of successful authors who were doing it all without a traditional publisher. I read the articles and dug into the process and decided this was really the only option for me to start.

Yes, I said only option. Dreams, that was the second motivator. My books were not going to be traditional books. I like complex stories and not knowing everything. I’m a Firefly and Babylon 5 fan. I don’t care if the story isn’t completed at the end of the episode or season or book. All I care about is there are clues, some things come out, the world moves, the universe follows solid rules, and the good guys don’t always live just because they are popular. My world is the same. Anyone could tell you my books would never get accepted by a mainstream publisher until I had a solid fan base.

A key item that makes my books different is they are all POV. This means if the current POV character wouldn’t notice or know something you’re not going to get that information. For example Ticca barely cares about what people look like, she sees people based on her assessment of their abilities. When I write a chapter from Ticca’s POV there are very little descriptions of other people and what she notices of the surroundings is more tactical than tactile. Lebuin on the other hand notices clothes first, and can tell you the precise details of every outfit he saw and who wore it. Lebuin starts as very ignorant, that gives an excellent way to explain things to him and the reader as the story moves. The basic rule is no long winded explanations unless directly applicable to the current situation.

A reviewer mentioned that it wasn’t until second half of the book before you actually met the protagonist. This is all on purpose because at the beginning of this series none of the main characters had any clue what was really happening.

Chapter-03-thread-slivers-sketch-artraThe clincher was I had an unnatural desire to have sketches in my book of the events. Not just any sketches, I wanted them to be good but not over the top good, making them look like something Ticca or Lebuin might have drawn into their journals. It has been a long time since I have seen a paperback book with illustrations. As a debut indie author I could do this. The results are the first book, even as an eBook has sixteen custom art sketches, two fabulous maps, and feels very different than other books. The first book ended up being far beyond my expectations. The second book is shaping up to be just as good if not better.

And now for the good stuff… it’s been less than three months since you published Thread Slivers, your first book, and its sales are rocking at Amazon. As I write this, it has a #2700 sales ranking, 30 positive reviews, and appears in numerous fantasy charts. What’s your secret?

Yes, the sales since the second week after Thread Slivers came out have been steady at an overall ranking between 1100 and 2800 on all of paid Amazon, as well as hanging out at around #11 in urban fantasies, and #25-50 for contemporary and epic fantasies. I am just as shocked at the results as everyone else is. I really wasn’t expecting to have even the possibility of this type of sales until the third book (Thread Skein) was published.

The biggest driving item is I believe Thread Slivers is the very best I can make it. I decided if I was going to do this I was going to do it right. It has been professionally edited (4 full passes with rewrites.) It has a top artist (Steve Doty of Streetlight Graphics) doing all the sketches (we went round and round on these, most of the 16 sketches went through three revisions before being called done.) It has a cover design that is every bit as good as one by the very best publisher house done by another industry professional (Glendon Haddix of Streetlight Graphics, there were 11 revisions.) I hired a second editor outside of the fantasy genre to give it a final pass (Kitten Jackson.) I also had a top notch promotional video made with professional sound mixing and voice acting (Slow Cooked Pixel.) This is as good as it can get. Every book I put out will have the same level of care behind it.

Another item was I practiced selling the book by first selling its Facebook page. So the last half of 2012 I advertised, tweeted and tried to get some preliminary interest in the book and build up followers on Facebook. For the book’s release I wanted to do something huge, so I did a massive giveaway (which by the way I made a number of mistakes on like not realizing how much real money I was handing out, but it was fun and a learning experience).

Once the book was published I have kept a steady low key advertising campaign running. I am not dumping very much into advertising. Mostly I am using some twitter groups, a few Facebook ads and the occasional book list sale. So far I haven’t found what I could do to get it much better. I keep experimenting. It has only been cooking for a couple of months. I don’t plan on stopping anything I am doing. I will just keep experimenting with other channels. So far no magic bullet has been found.

Chapter-13-thread-slivers-leeland-artraI love the reviews because most are from people I didn’t ask. I laugh at that, because the articles I read said you’d be lucky if you got one review for every twenty you asked for. That was right on the nose. I sent out a little over 50 “reviewer” free copies of the book and got only a couple of reviews in exchange. However, I have gotten a lot of spontaneous reviews which is wonderful. I’m also very happy that all of the reviews are that the book is good to great. The overall star ratings are more a personal call than anything else even so I have gotten mostly 5-stars, a few 4-stars and only a couple 3-stars.

You chose a $5.99 price tag instead of the $2.99 or even $0.99 that many indies start out with. Why the higher price and do you think it’s had an impact on sales?

It was a hard choice to set the price. I talked to a lot of people about this. I got the gambit of opinions all strongly argued from give it away free to charge at least $8. I decided on this price for a few reasons.

First this book is different, it isn’t just a reasonable indie book it is a high quality book with qualified professional editors, artists, cover designer, and formatters. Further it has lots of bonus materials like the 16 custom high resolution sketches, maps, and glossary. On the Kindle Fire you get full color maps plus you can expand the pictures.

Second I don’t agree that the 99-cent or free first book is the best way to get an audience. It is unquestionably a great way to get a lot of downloads. But, the goal isn’t to have the most downloads. The goal is to have happy fans that read the books and buy the new books allowing me to be a full time author. Further, it has been demonstrated most of the books downloaded for free are not likely to be read. I know I have added dozens of free books to my kindle which I never had time to get around to reading. But, every book I paid more than a dollar for I have read. The last bit here is that Amazon lets people return the book for a full refund, so try before you buy is supported.

All the above meant my price was already going to be at least 2.99. I chose to go for the 5.99 price because that still left the book in the impulse purchase range, but it also represented a significant investment as well. Hence I believe almost every copy I have sold has been read, or is being read. This could explain the spontaneous reviews a little too.

I have done a couple one day sales at 99-cents or $2.99 due to advertising with mailing lists like BookBub.com. But, that has pushed the rank up a little higher for a day. But, the rank pops right back to its normal band the next day. Still I’ll continue to do this because it does get the book seen by a wide audience.

You’ve got a cool cover that says “epic fantasy” nicely. How much impact do you think covers and blurbs have in getting people to try a book by an unknown author?

thread-slivers-cover“Don’t judge a book by its cover.” That is not true. Everyone I know is attracted or repulsed by the book cover. Even more so my cover had to work well the smaller sizes for Facebook ads, and Amazon also bought lists. I knew I needed this to be extremely good, eye catching, and compelling.

How did I solve this? I asked YOU (Lindsay) and Elle Casey for advice, at the time you two had already been chatting with other would-be-indie authors such as me. We had already chatted on other writing topics at the time because I had spent the prior six months reading all the writer blogs I could find and asking questions.

Both of you said to not skimp, and both of you gave me some references. I didn’t just blindly follow your advice (and I highly recommend any soon-to-be-indie author reading this to do your homework too.) I looked on my own for other cover art designers, I checked out dozens of example works (and how well they were selling) and in the end I just loved some of the work done by Streetlight Graphics. They had made a number of covers that resonated with me so I chatted with them and finally hired them. It has been a wild and fun ride ever since.

I see you tweeting book quotations and other such teasers often on Twitter. Can you talk about how social media has played a role in your sales success?

I believe social media has been a primary factor in my book’s jump in sales. Before I decided to become an author I had decided I didn’t like Twitter and only played with Facebook to keep up with a few friends. However, the moment I decided to be an author I knew I needed to be “socially visible.” Again I read articles, I looked at other authors (indie and traditional) and I lurked on their Facebook and Twitter feeds carefully monitoring what they did. Over six months I came to some conclusions on how to use these well without being annoying. First and foremost I always want to be able to connect with any fans directly. Naturally I wanted to advertise too.

I followed the advice of some savvy social media folks and have been slowly building a following ever since. One of the things I try to do is to promote other authors’ works. Especially authors I admire and think others should know about. Many people I speak with think this is crazy because they think I am just handing sales to some other author. But I don’t think I am in a competition. I think there will always be thousands of new fantasy readers who would love to know about other authors. There is no reason to hide the fact that I admire one author. In fact there is every reason to broadcast it. This means my readers will find authors I like, and I hope those authors will also point their readers at me. It takes a few months to produce a great fantasy, but only a few hours to read one. Thousands of like-minded authors could easily share fans without any loss of sales.

What are you planning next, and where can people find out more?

Right now I am working hard to make the deadlines to get the entire Golden Threads Trilogy out without slipping dates. Thread Slivers (book one) is of course out now. Thread Strands (book two) is just about complete and scheduled to head out to the editors in a couple of weeks. Thread Skein (book three) is already half done and pretty solidly figured out.

After getting Golden Threads Trilogy out I am not sure. I have gotten a number of requests for prequels. The Golden Threads Trilogy is based in a universe that spans over 15,000 years of known history as the blended world as well as 5,000 years of sci-fi level times within our current universe. There are hundreds of characters that would be fun to write about. But, I haven’t got anything firmly in mind yet.

The best place to find me is the standard three Twitter (https://twitter.com/LArtra), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/LArtraAuthor), and Goodreads (http://www.goodreads.com/LArtra).

I have an author blog at (http://lartra.com)

Of course you can find Thread Slivers at Amazon.com. It will be available on Apple, Kobo and B&N in May 2013.

Posted in Interviews / Success Stories | Tagged , , , , | 41 Comments

New Author Series: How Do You Find Beta Readers?

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Lindsay

I’ve received quite a few questions (more than two, I’m certain of it) from folks finishing up their first books and wondering about self-publishing. A year or two ago, the main one was “should I self-publish or seek an agent/publisher?” but there seem to be more authors these days who know they’re going to jump straight into the independent route. Given some of the impressive success stories out there (here’s a new one by an author who was losing money traditionally publishing, but who may hit seven figures in 2013 after two years of self-publishing) it’s not surprising.

So, I’m doing a series of blog posts answering basic questions for those just getting started. I hope these will be of some use to the writers in the crowd.

First up, a question I’ve  been asked to blog about by a couple of different people, where do you find beta readers?

If nobody except a couple of friends and family members have read your work, it’s a good idea to get outside feedback before assuming you’re ready to find an editor and publish that bad boy. This is especially true if we’re talking about the first novel you’ve ever written and you don’t have a track record of short story sales or any other sort of outside validation to suggest, “You’re ready, kid.”

Technically anybody can be a beta reader, but it’s wise to solicit other writers/editors who are very familiar with your genre/niche (i.e. they can spot a clunky sentence a mile away, and they’ve seen all the been-there-done-that plots, character archetypes, and cliches). Peers like these are going to be hard people to please, which is, believe it or not, a good thing. If you can get them to give your novel a thumb’s up, it might just be ready for the masses.

And where do you find these elusive souls?

If you take classes or join writing workshops, you’re going to have an opportunity to meet a lot of other writers, some of whom will specialize in your genre. Some will be serious about writing and some will already be published, independently or otherwise.

Classes and workshops will not only give you a chance to get your work critiqued, but you’ll have a chance to do the same for other people. Yes, that’s work, but it can be amazingly educational work. I’m sure I’ve learned as much from analyzing what works and what doesn’t in other people’s fiction as I have from having my stuff brutalized, erm, critiqued by others.

I have a fondness for online writing workshops myself (not only do you tend to get more honest feedback when people aren’t gazing into your hopeful eyes, but you’ll have a larger variety of folks from which to choose long-term beta readers). As a fantasy author, I’ve belonged to Critters and the Online Writing Workshop for SF, F, and H. I’m sure there are similar types of online workshops for other genres.

I’ve seen some authors pooh pooh peer-based writing workshops (blind leading the blind, grammar and sentence structure get focused on to the detriment of character/story, writing “rules” are emphasized too much, etc.), but they are, if nothing else, a good place to meet other writers. You won’t click with everybody, but you only need a couple of good beta readers to help you grow as an author and publish better stories, stories that are ready for broader audiences. I also think that if you can survive the workshop experience, you’ll feel more confident about the work you’re producing and less likely to make radical (perhaps unfounded) changes at the first sign of a negative review.

Thanks for reading, and let us know if you have any suggestions for places to find beta readers in the comments. If there are other “new author” topics you’d like to see discussed, feel free to mention those too.

 

Posted in New Author Series | 19 Comments

New Emperor’s Edge Contest: From the Mouths of… Maldynados (and Akstyrs)

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Lindsay

I wrote the last line in the last scene of EE6 yesterday. There’s lots of editing to be done (and a Ch. 1 except of EE7 — or perhaps EE6pt2 — to write), but it seems like the time to celebrate… by posting a new contest. Last year’s “Design a Hat for Maldynado” event was well-received, so let’s see what else we can do here…

From the Mouths of Maldynados (and Akstyrs)

The task:

Come up with a Maldynado-appropriate (or inappropriate, as the case may be) euphemism (i.e. getting one’s snake greased)

OR

Come up with an Akstyr-appropriate curse or idiom (i.e. that licks donkey balls)

You’re welcome to enter both halves of the contest. Please post your entries as a comment below, and make sure to leave an email address you check, so I can get in touch with you if you’re the winner.

The prize:

A winner will be selected from each category (Maldynado and Akstyr), possibly with the help of your peers. The winning snippets of dialogue will be used somewhere in EE6. Also, you’ll have your choice of two of the Emperor’s Edge books in paperback versions, signed of course (possibly by Maldynado or Akstyr as well as myself).

Any questions? Let me know. Otherwise… let’s see what you’ve got! 😉

Update April 8th: Thanks for the entries, everyone! I’ll pick winners soon and announce them this week.

 

Posted in Cut Scenes and Fun Extras | Tagged , , | 108 Comments

Common Mistakes Writers Make by Editor Claudette Cruz

Posted on March 29, 2013 by Lindsay

As always, I’m busy writing (two or three more chapters to go to finish the draft of EE6!), and I’ve been neglecting the blog a little bit. Next week, look for a new book giveaway contest with a chance to put some words into our heroes’ mouths. In the meantime, please enjoy this guest post from editor Claudette Cruz. She has some helpful advice for writers, new and old (I suspect my now infamous “the breast’s maw” typo is covered in there somewhere…).

Common Mistakes Writers Make

Hello, dear readers! My name’s Claudette Cruz, and I’m an independent editor and an avid reader. Today I’d like to mention a few of the more common mistakes I often come across in my line of work. I know there are many indie authors out there who are forced to go through the self-publishing route as traditional publishing houses become more and more selective. I hope my article helps you catch those small, common mistakes that translate to bad reviews and cranky, unsatisfied readers. This, in turn, will hopefully lead to better sales and reviews.

The first thing I have to mention is that you should get your book looked at by as many friends, family members, or beta readers as you possibly can. Try to have some of them focus more on the fluidity of the reading experience than on the content itself. Sure, all of them may concur that the story’s great, but are they overlooking the fact that your manuscript is riddled with grammatical errors? When asking them for their opinion, specifically ask these people to point out any errors they might come across.

If you can afford to do so, hire an editor next. They’re more experienced in catching tiny mistakes other people might miss, such as omitted letters or punctuation, misspellings, or words used out of context. Speaking of errors, I’ll now go into more detail regarding mistakes I’ve seen in every single manuscript I’ve worked on.

Omitted letters or words:

This is THE most common issue I deal with when editing or proofreading. You need a fresh pair of eyes to look at your manuscript. Many authors tell me it’s amazing how many missing words or letters I caught, considering they had gone through the manuscript a bazillion times. I believe that’s exactly the reason they can’t see the mistakes themselves—they’ve gone through the same text so many times, their brains just fill in the missing letters and words automatically. If you can’t afford to hire an editor, or have no friends or family who’ll go through your manuscript for you, set the document aside for a week or more, and then read it again after having given your brain a vacation from looking at the same chunk of text every day.

I want oyu to read an study this sentence carefuly. Then look it again. Now focus on the two sentences before this one. Maybe you were looking for mistakes in the first one and didn’t notice the second sentence was missing a word. Sure, I was trying to trick you, but keep in mind that a manuscript is way longer and probably far messier than this. You may have caught all the mistakes this time, but try doing it in a manuscript that’s over 60,000 words long. Most likely you’ll miss at least one thing, and while a single error isn’t bad at all, it’s far more likely that you’ll miss way more than one error. Readers run the gamut from picky to indifferent. Many won’t care if there’s a few editing blunders, but others will complain about too many mistakes and leave you bad reviews, scaring away potential new readers. If you want to increase your fan base, start by having a manuscript that’s as clean, neat, and error-free as possible.

Missing or incorrect punctuation:

I see this a lot, especially in manuscripts that are more dialogue-heavy. Sometimes you forget to add a quotation mark here or there, effectively confusing the heck out of your reader when a character replies to something the other just said. Other times, a missing comma can affect the fluidity of the whole sentence. Your reader has to stop and backtrack to try to make sense of what you just wrote. You don’t want that. You want your manuscript to read fluidly. A missing period can equally affect the reading experience. Also, remember that a single apostrophe can completely change the meaning of a word. “It’s” and “its” are used in different situations, and replacing one with the other is not advisable if you want your sentence to make any sense at all.

Words used out of context:

Similarly, editors will fix any instances in which you used a word out of context. Homophones, or words that sound the same but are spelled differently, are some writers’ bane. The writers will confuse “their” with “they’re,” “rain” with “reign” or “rein,” “whose” with “who’s,” and the list goes on. They’ll also fix up errors in which you happened to use an adjective instead of a noun, like in “I was paralyzed with frightful.” That doesn’t exactly make sense, does it? You meant to use “fright.” “The sheriff padded her down.” Huh? Didn’t you mean, “The sheriff patted her down”? “The article was trying.” That can have two completely different meanings. It might mean that the article tested your patience, in which case “trying” is used as an adjective, or that it was making an attempt or effort to do something, in which case “trying” is a verb. To be fair, that last example is a stretch, as “the article was trying” seems like it’s missing words to effectively place it in the context I meant, but hopefully you get my drift.

Repetition:

Okay, so your characters are particularly inquisitive and ask a lot of questions. That doesn’t mean that you have to use the word “asked” every single time you write that your character inquires about something. This is when a thesaurus comes in handy. If I notice a manuscript is overusing a particular word, I highlight the offending word throughout the document and provide my client with a list of acceptable replacements they should consider using now and then. They then have the option of replacing a few of the highlighted words with some of the ones I provided for them, thus dealing with the repetitiveness issue. You can easily do this yourself, though. Look up any word you find yourself using way too often. An online dictionary will usually provide synonyms as well as the definition of the word. Coincidentally, this also helps you tackle the issue of words used out of context. Look up “rein” and “reign” in a dictionary, and you’ll easily find out which word you meant to use.

There are a lot of other things editors can help you out with. They’ll make sure your manuscript is consistent, for one. They’ll make sure you spell the name “Lindsay” consistently, and not “Lindsey” by mistake. They’ll also help out if you want your manuscript to use British English instead of American English, and vice versa. If they have the specific skill, they can make sure that your Spanish-speaking character is saying things correctly in Spanish and not just uttering what a website offering free translations managed to cough out for you. They will deal with cumbersome run-on sentences and with sentences that seem disjointed.

I hope my article has been of use to you. Several of my clients have raved about seeing an increase in sales and good reviews after I worked on their manuscripts. I don’t believe that’s a coincidence. In my opinion, a neat, clean, error-free book is more likely to get better reviews and be recommended to other readers. Go ahead and put my advice to use. I wish you all many sales and worldwide fame. Thank you, Lindsay Buroker, for allowing me to contribute this guest post, and thanks to all of you guys for reading my article!

Bio:

Claudette Cruz is a pet lover, a crafting supplies hoarder, and a fan of all her clients. Fluent in English and Spanish, she’s been an independent editor since September of last year, when author Joseph Lallo helped launch her career by giving her a chance to prove herself. After posting on publishing forums based on author Jeff Gunzel’s advice, she got her first paying client, author M.K. Baxley, a total sweetheart who provided encouragement and her first referrals.

When she’s not working, Claudette is either making cards or enjoying long walks with her dogs. Every now and then she plays Zumba on her Wii U because she happens to have a chocolate addiction. Email her at claudettecruz@ymail.com for rates and to request a sample edit.

Posted in Editing, Guest Posts | Tagged , , , | 15 Comments

Where Can Authors Advertise for the B&N, Apple, and Kobo Stores?

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Lindsay

If you’ve decided you’re tired of relying on Amazon for your sole source of e-publishing income (or maybe you’re not doing well at Amazon, and you’re hoping the other stores might take off for you), then you may have looked at Kobo, Apple, Barnes & Noble, and wondered how the heck you can get your books noticed over there.

Every now and then, you hear of some independent author who’s selling extremely well at Apple or perhaps Barnes & Noble, even though they haven’t hit it big at Amazon. I haven’t “hit it big” in those stores myself, but my sales in the last 6-12 months have grown fairly substantial, especially considering how insubstantial they were in the first year I was publishing. Right now, I could actually pay the bills without my Amazon income (of course, I love my Amazon income very much, and hope it doesn’t go anywhere, thank you).

So, what’s the deal? Are there advertising options? Ways to get some Apple/Kobo/B&N loving? I’ve already talked a bit about this in a post on increasing international ebook sales, but here are the main things that I’m guessing are helping me:

  •  Having lots of titles out (lots is a relative word, and authors with 50 books under their belts would snicker at my list, but considering I have seven novels and several shorter ebooks out now, it’s a far cry from the two titles I started with). Each book is a way for people to stumble across your work, and when someone likes one story, there are numerous others for them to go on and buy, thus making your overall earnings much more significant.
  • Having free stuff available in all of these stores. I’ve talked a lot about how I’ve done this and how well it’s worked for me, so I won’t go into that here, but it’s the first thing I ever did that started helping me sell at Barnes & Noble. In all of these stores, people continue to find my first book when browsing for freebies, then go on to buy the rest in the series.
  • Linking to all of these stores with marketing campaigns. Pretty self-explanatory, I think. A lot of authors just have links to Amazon on their sites and on Twitter/Facebook. There are lots of tools now that let you link to multiple sites, but you can always put up an excerpt on your own site with all the links listed there, then link to that page during your book promotions. That helps make people aware of your blog, if you have one, as well. They might subscribe or sign up to your newsletter while they’re there.
  • Being “out there” in the community. Some authors wonder if/why they should bother blogging and building up a social media presence. It’s not always easy to see results (i.e. book sales) from these efforts, but I know I’ve been featured in at least one of these book stores and linked to from numerous publishing blogs because I’m out here enough that people have noticed. You never know who’s reading. If you’re in people’s minds because you’re putting out valuable information or building a fan-base in an interesting way, they might think of you when it’s time to use an author as an example somewhere.
  • Advertising. I’m not one to poo-poo at the notion of paying for advertising. When it makes sense (and it only does for places that have huge audiences of readers), it’s just about the most time-saving form of book promotion you can do. In the last couple of years, there have been a handful of really good places to advertise Kindle ebooks, but what of the other stores? I’ve found a couple of spots, and I’ll share them below, but I’m always on the look out for more. If you hear of any good ones, please let me know, and I’ll add them to the list:

“Beyond Amazon” Places to Advertise Your Books

Bookbub — I’ve mentioned these guys several times in the last few months — I’ve bought three ads from them for different books, and they’ve always been worth the money. Their prices are going up, but their subscribers are, too, and unlike with other sites, they have their subscribers segmented by genre (i.e. fans of SF, mystery, romance, YA, etc.), and you’re only paying to advertise to readers who enjoy your genre. Also unlike other sites, they don’t simply put Amazon links in their advertisements. I ran my free Emperor’s Edge book with them at the end of February, got lots of free downloads at B&N, Smashwords, Kobo, and Apple (as well as Amazon) and ended up having my best earnings month ever this March (of course, I released a new book at the end of February, so that helped too).

NookBoards — If you have a banner, you can advertise your “Nook Book” to the Barnes & Noble forum goes here. It’s been a couple of years since I tried this, and it may be time to give it a whirl again, now that I have more titles in their store. There’s at least one other fantasy author who always seems to be in the ad rotation when I pop in there. I don’t see the current rates listed anywhere, but you can email the owner for information.

Facebook and Goodreads — I’m not a huge fan of pay-per-click ads when it comes to selling books (our earnings aren’t very big on any individual book sale so it’s tough to break even), but these sites allow you to run campaigns and post links to your books within the system or to off-site book pages. I’ve sent people to Amazon and Barnes & Noble, as well as my own site. Here’s a write-up I did of my experience with Goodreads (it’s a couple of years old now, but should still apply to creating a campaign). Goodreads was more effective for me than Facebook, though I remember I did get about 50 “likes” to my page when I ran a Facebook campaign for a couple of weeks (I question whether those likes were worth much, but new authors with only 10 or 20 Facebook likes might want to add some just for the “social proof” aspect — i.e. look, other people have heard of me, so you should try my books!).

Unfortunately, these are the only significant sites I’m aware of right now that allow authors to advertise to Apple, B&N, and Kobo — I’d really like to find some big book forums (are there any out there specific to Apple iBooks or Kobo?) or blogs akin to Pixel of Ink and Ereader News Today that post links to all of the sites (not just Amazon) when you advertise. I’ll post an update if I find some good ones; if you know if any, please post in the comments. Thanks!

Posted in E-publishing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 18 Comments

Writers, Are You Wasting Your Time Submitting to Agents?

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Lindsay

If you’ve read my blog or my books, it’s no secret that I skipped straight to self-publishing in December of 2010 without seriously gearing up for an agent hunt. I put my first two novels out as ebooks and eventually print-on-demand paperbacks. A little over a year later, I had four novels and several shorter works out and was able to quit the day job. Now, in March of 2013, I have seven novels out in addition to the shorter stories. Even though none of these have rocked any best-seller lists, the royalties are generous for independent e-publishers. I just finished doing my taxes for 2012, and it turns out that it was the best income-earning year I’d ever had (it also turns out that I have to send a heaping big check to the IRS here shortly).

Naturally, I’m pretty rah rah with self-publishing, and I pointed out, a year and a half ago, that the best way to find a traditional deal these days seems to be to publish on your own, promote the heck out of your work, build up an audience, sell lots of books, and then look for a deal (or wait for a deal to come to you). Of course, you may decide you don’t really need a traditional publisher at that point, but that’s a discussion for another day.

Now that it’s 2013, I’m not the only one saying this (I’m sure I wasn’t back in 2011 either; it just wasn’t as popular of an opinion). A couple of days ago, Dean Wesley Smith, an author who’s been in the biz for decades and has more books out than Genghis Khan had children, wrote up a post called, “The New World of Publishing: A New Slush Pile.”

Here are a few highlights from the post, which not only talks about how things are today (and why it’s a great time to be an author), but also goes back and shares some of the history of the industry (like why it’s called a “slush pile”):

So near the end of the 1990s, the traditional publishers switched to “No Unagented Manuscripts” and shut down the few slush rooms that were left. In other words, they outsourced the slush to the writer’s own employees. A really, really bad idea since it had the appearance of putting an employee in charge of the employer.

The reasons to go to traditional publishing have vanished. And with the reputations of traditional publishing being tarnished by traditional publishers like Simon and Schuster and Random House going into vanity press scams, even going to traditional publishing for a rubber-stamp of quality has vanished.

The slush piles of old are all now indie published. And the readers decide what is good or bad.

Instead of costing a writer money to mail it to a huge room in New York as we did in my early years, or send it to an agent, writers now can indie publish their work both electronic and in paper and make some money in the process. It might not be a lot, but it is some money. And if the book starts to sell, it will draw the attention of traditional publishers and they will come calling with an offer.

If you follow an old model, you send your manuscript to either an editor or an agent:

In essence, this is what you are doing: Imagine yourself standing at the door of a restaurant in ragged clothes, hat-in-hand, begging for some food. You have no bargaining power, no position to try to get a decent contract (meal). And if you are with a slush-reading agent, imagine that you now only get a part of what little bit of food they are willing to toss you.

If you follow the new, indie-publishing model:

In essence, this is what you are doing: Imagine you own your own business. You have money coming in the door, have customers, and a growing list of products. A representative of a major corporation shows up in your store and asks to buy some of your product for their company. You know what the product is worth and you know you can get decent contract terms. They have come to you, into your business, and it is an even bargaining position for both of you, business to business. They want what you are selling. You can decide if the money and terms are worth you selling it.

I’ll stop pilfering from Mr. Smith’s post now — I just get excited when people in the know are thinking the same things I’m thinking. It makes me feel like I have some sort of clue. If this topic interests you, make sure to check out the whole article and toss a dollar in the tip jar on DWS’s site.

Posted in Tips and Tricks | Tagged , , , , | 17 Comments

How to Connect with Readers Using Wattpad

Posted on March 20, 2013 by Lindsay

As some of you know, I started posting The Emperor’s Edge on Wattpad, figuring it was one more place I could have that first book out there for free (I may post Book 2 as well). I’ve heard from other indie authors who have leveraged Wattpad’s massive reader base to gain fans, often before they’ve launched their first novels.

I’m not rocking it over there with EE yet (and admittedly haven’t done any networking or anything to reach out to people — I’ve just been posting my chapters and announcing them on Twitter), so when the more Wattpad-experienced Nicolette Andrews offered to write up a guest post on the subject, I said, yes, please. I’ll turn you over to her now:

How to Better Connect With Readers Using Wattpad

Diviner's Prophecy ebook coverFirst of all, thank you, Lindsay for letting me take over to talk about my experience with Wattpad and gathering my army of cohorts/followers.

I want to say, I love Wattpad. I have been on the site for a year now and I have met some of the most amazing people you’d ever hope for. I was fortunate enough to find a niche of people who love High Fantasy and love to read and write. Wattpad, to me, is like the ultimate reader/writer social media outlet. And like any other media outlet it’s the ideal place to get to know your readers. I’m going to talk about a couple things that is unique to Wattpad and that I’ve utilized in keeping in touch with my readers.

Dedications

On Wattpad you upload each chapter at a time and it formats it to almost an e-reader format that can be read online or on a mobile app. As the author for each chapter you are given a variety of choices on how to customize said chapter, among other things you can add pictures, videos and a cast (if you so choose). What I love to use is the dedication. When you dedicate a chapter to another Wattpad member, they are notified and it shows up on their page. It’s a nice way of saying ‘thanks’ to some of your more devoted readers.

Broadcasts

The broadcast is similar to a status update or a tweet only instead of it just been part of the thread on a home page, it is directly emailed to any of your followers. (Almost like a built in mailing list.) This is a great way to email teasers, do reader polls, or for me I found volunteers to help me edit my novel ‘Diviner’s Prophecy’. But use the broadcast sparingly, multiple emails in a day about what you had for breakfast or posting for the tenth time that day that your book is now on the Kindle can become overwhelming and no matter how much they like your stories, they will stop following.

Comments and Replies

Another great feature of Wattpad is the comments. Readers have the option to give feedback chapter by chapter, and if you’re posting once a week like I do with my works in progress, sometimes there’s kindly worded threats to write faster. What’s wonderful about this feature is that you can respond to these comments and often times they open up a dialogue about your book. The more you interact with readers, in my experience, the more likely they are to stick around to read more of your work, even if you take forever to post the next installment.

Reading Other Readers’ Stories

This is something I personally like to do but not many authors think it’s worth the time. Now to be clear I only read stories that interest me and at times I have been requested to read other peoples stories and I will read for a while and give feedback as much as I can but you have to draw a line in the sand somewhere. When reading other authors stories I like to make sure I comment and vote. (I would want them to do it for me!)

Stay Active

Like any other social media site, persistence is key. Unlike other social media sites, Wattpad is tailored to readers and writers meaning it’s the ideal place to promote your work, connect with fans, and build a supportive village that will be ready and willing to purchase your books.

You can connect with Nicolette on Wattpad, Twitter, or her website, or pick up over first novel at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords.

Posted in Guest Posts | Tagged , , , | 30 Comments

The Lowdown on EE6 (Forged in Blood)–When, What, Who, and More

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Lindsay

Even though I’m chained to my office chair in the *dungeon and trying to be productive for you guys (if you missed it, Decrypted came out a couple of weeks ago, and the Beneath the Surface novella, sort of an EE 5.5, came out in January), I’ve got quite a few folks asking questions about the next (maybe not last?) Emperor’s Edge book.

I’m glad you guys are excited for it and care enough to ask these questions. Here are my answers to the common ones I’ve seen:

When will EE6 be out?

I’m shooting for a late May/early June release. You may want to start sending my beta readers chocolate now, so they’ll be hyped up on caffeine and ready to go when I send them the file.

Will you do an eARC for EE6 the way you did for Book 5?

I haven’t decided yet. If I do it, I’ll want to do a better job than last time (which involved me emailing the Word .doc files to everyone by hand, meaning people didn’t get the manuscript instantly and also had to convert them to readable Kindle, iPad, etc. files themselves), which would probably mean hiring a programmer to add an e-store of sorts to the site here.

Will you guys let me know if there’s an interest?

Will Amaranthe and Sicarius finally “DOOO EEEET”?

Yes, that’s a direct quote (some of the others were less PG). And the answer is…

Haha, like I’m answering that here. 😀

Who will be the secondary point-of-view character in EE6?

Sicarius.

Will this be the last book?

No.

I’d originally planned for it to be the last book, at least in the Forge story arc, but, as some of you who follow me on Twitter have seen, this last chunk of the story is pretty big. Now that I’m 70,000 words into the first draft, I’m positive I’m not going to finish it in the next 50,000 words or so. As of right now, I’m planning to split things in half and make a Part 1 and Part 2. I’m not sure yet on how I’ll title the second book.

Does that mean there’s going to be a *&$! cliffhanger at the end of EE6?

Well…. probably. I’ll try to get Part 2 out within 3-4 months of the first. You can always wait until they’re both available to start reading. Though I’ll hope you’ll still buy 6 when it comes out, because I’m also powered by chocolate, and I need to be able to keep that in supply.

Wait, does that mean Sicarius will be the secondary POV character in two books?

As of right now, that’s the plan. I hope you guys don’t mind spending time in his head. It’s not all that scary in there. Really. Just… practical. And efficient.

Those are the main questions I’ve seen. If you have any others, feel free to ask below. Thanks for reading!

*I am denying all tweets, photos, and Facebook posts that suggest I may have escaped my dungeon for a few days for a trip to Palm Springs.

Posted in Ebook News | Tagged , , , | 68 Comments