Kobo Becoming a Player for Self-Published Ebook Authors

Posted on December 21, 2012 by Lindsay

A lot of authors, self-published and otherwise, focus on Amazon when it comes to book sales and promotions. How do I sell more ebooks at Amazon? How do I increase my sales ranking? How do I get my book to appear in their recommendations and also-boughts?

Given how many customers shop at Amazon and how much money some independent authors are making there (aside from the rockstar best-sellers, even a lot of mid-list types such as myself are earning a living from that income), this isn’t surprising, but Amazon isn’t the only store out there selling ebooks. Barnes & Noble has long been the Number 2 earner for me, with iTunes coming in at three and Smashwords itself as four. Canada-based Kobo wasn’t on my radar at all in 2011 (my earnings were fairly negligible there), and it wasn’t until Mark Lefebvre, Director of Self Publishing and Author Relations at Kobo, sent me a note in early 2012 (as a result of my woefully neglected self-publishing podcast) that I started following them more closely.

And Kobo has been quite busy this year! In addition to launching a self-publishing platform in June, they’ve been extending their reach around the globe, making deals and going into many countries where Amazon isn’t yet a player. For more details, I’ll refer you to a Kobo-centric interview that Joanna Penn (from the Creative Penn) did with Mark last month.

So, what does that matter to you and me? Well, naturally, we have an opportunity to sell more ebooks, especially in different countries. As some of you know, I never enrolled in Amazon’s KDP Select because of the exclusivity requirement. Back in my blogging days, I saw a lot of people making a living with Google’s “Adsense” advertising program (i.e. they got paid for ad clicks on their sites), and every now and then you’d hear about someone getting kicked out of the program without recourse. Suddenly their entire income was gone, and they had to scramble to find other ways to monetize their sites. Those who’d been diversifying from the start slept a lot more peacefully at night, knowing that the disappearance of one income stream wouldn’t break them. Thus, I’m tickled to see other ebook sellers stepping forward to collect a share of the pie, something that gives us authors more of a chance to diversify our income streams.

So, how much am I making with Kobo, anyway?

Kobo SalesAs I said earlier, my Kobo earnings weren’t worth tracking last year. I lumped them into the Smashwords collective, which wasn’t that significant either. (Apple iTunes sales fell into the same category in 2011.) But in this last year, both iTunes and Kobo sales have increased for me. Part of that is because I have more ebooks in both stores, and a couple of freebies to boot, but part is also due to these e-tailers working hard to get into more countries and extend their reach. They’re also making their stores more functional and appealing for shoppers (for the longest time, searching for my name at Kobo turned up a perplexing list of erotic books and none of my own work).

This last July, I made about $100 through Kobo’s new “Writing Life” self-publishing platform (with two books: Conspiracy and my Emperor’s Edge three-book omnibus) and that’s gradually increased over the months, especially since I added another full-length novel in September. I’d guess my July earnings were about $200 total when one factors in the books that sell at Kobo via the Smashwords distribution network (This includes most of my titles. I didn’t yank them from SW distribution when the Kobo self-pub platform came online because I didn’t want the books to start over with no reviews there, but I may reconsider this now that sales are increasing —  you earn more going direct and sales reports are updated daily).

In November, my Kobo “Writing Life” earnings hit $450, and again that’s just for the ebooks I published directly (four titles total now). Smashwords hasn’t posted a Kobo-sales update since October 31st, so I have no idea how my other books have been doing there in the last couple of months. I’ll be very curious to see how November and December shape up, as my Writing-Life earnings have definitely been on the upswing, and, in this case, it doesn’t have anything to do with new releases for me. I haven’t put anything new out since a short story in October.

As of this morning, December 21st, I have over $500 in estimated earnings sitting in my Kobo account for this month, so I’m guessing December will finish in the $600-$700 range. If my Smashwords-Kobo titles are selling even half as well, I could break $1,000 at the Canadian store. This would mean that in the last year my Kobo earnings have gone from not-worth-tracking to vying for the #2 spot with Barnes & Noble.

If Kobo ends up surpassing B&N (my December earnings there are a little over $900 for the month so far — at B&N I have everything except my free ebooks and one collection of short stories published directly through PubIt), it’d be fairly significant to me. B&N has been such a solid #2 for me from the beginning, that this seems like a change worth reporting. It’s true that my sales from all of these ebook stores combined have yet to come near my Amazon earnings, but I’m excited to see these other book sellers becoming viable options for authors looking to increase (and diversify) their income.

How do you sell more books at Kobo?

I’m going to confess that, outside of having free Book 1s in the store (the same as I have at Amazon, iTunes, Smashwords, and B&N), I haven’t done much to promote my Kobo books. I’m just now getting my Kobo book links up on my site (before, there was a two-month delay for ebooks to go from uploaded at Smashwords to being live in the Kobo store, so I’d have long since moved on to new projects and new announcements by the time I could find the links. With the Writing Life platform, though, books usually go live within a couple of days, so… make sure to add buy-links to Kobo books from your author site.)

Also, thanks to Mark Lefebvre, a sample of my work was included in the free Kobo Writing Life Spring 2012 Collection. I had one person tell me he went on to grab my entire Emperor’s Edge series after encountering my work there (you have to figure that for one person who emails you there are lots of others who had a similar experience but didn’t email). I believe that came about because Mark found me through my podcast. I see authors debate the pros and cons of blogging all the time, and lots of folks say it doesn’t result in many direct book sales. I’d agree with that, but there can be a lot of intangible benefits of being out there where people in the industry can find you. If you’re trying to help people with your posts, you may just find that others want to help you as well, sometimes in ways you’d couldn’t have imagined.

For the future, I’m keeping an eye out to see if any advertising options come up in regard to Kobo, but in the meantime I think your best bets are to include those Kobo links in any of your promotional materials and to consider uploading a free ebook (especially a Book 1) to the store as a way to let people try your characters and your world at no charge. You might also check out that interview I linked to above, as Mark had a few words at the end about book descriptions and searches and such that can help authors looking to be found at Kobo.

I’d love to hear about other people’s experiences this year at Kobo, so please leave a comment if you’d like to chime in. Thank you!

 

Posted in Ebook News | Tagged , , , , | 31 Comments

Want More Time to Write? Go Indie

Posted on December 19, 2012 by Lindsay

I’m busily editing away this week, so have invited another indie author to guest post for you guys. Actually it’s a pair of indie authors writing together as M.H. Mead. They’ve just released their science-fiction novel Taking the Highway and are here to argue that self-publishing means you have more time to write. Here’s what they have to say:

Want More Time to Write? Go Indie
by Margaret Yang and Harry R. Campion

We’re always surprised when indie superstars like Amanda Hocking take a traditional publishing deal, claiming it’s because they want to spend more time writing. Here’s the dirty little secret. Publishing with a big company does not give you more time to write, and in many ways, it steals writing time from you. Forget, for a moment, the dollars and cents questions. Looking at it only from a days and hours perspective, indie publishing is a better deal.

m-h-mead-taking-the-highwayWhat makes us qualified to say this? We’ve been on both sides of the publishing fence, having published short stories both traditionally and indie. We also used to have a high-powered agent, one of the best in the business. He was on the verge of selling our first novel to traditional publishing when we pulled the book and decided to go indie instead.

So let’s examine the ways that traditional publishing does and does not give you more time to write.

Day-to-day writing

Indie publishing easily wins this one. A big publisher releases books on their schedule, not yours, which means you have to do things like finish edits and proofread galleys when your publisher wants you to. Also, agents think nothing of calling during productive working days. Or they send emails that must be answered right away (while you spend three days waiting for a response to a single question).

We also need to talk about stress. Studies have shown that the jobs with the most stress are the ones where the workers have the least power and the most responsibility. Publishing houses will change your book any way they want and publish it on their schedule (no power), yet put your name on it (most responsibility). Also, writers are solitary creatures. Inviting editors and agents into our working life is hard, even when things are going well. When things are going badly, it’s a nightmare. One memorable week, we reached such an impasse with our agent that Harry couldn’t sleep and Margaret couldn’t eat. Not a healthy way to live. Sure, our agent was a bad fit for us, but even the best agent is going to cause you stress at some point. Remember: time spent freaking out is time spent not writing.

Interpreting royalty statements

Those publishing traditionally should be prepared for long, fruitless hours trying to interpret royalty statements from big publishers. An indie writer spends hardly any time at all reading her easily-understandable statements from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and the other the other indie distributors.

Help with Publicity

You’d think, with all that infrastructure behind them, that the big publishers would win this one. Unless you are a household name, not so much. New writers still do all of their own publicity, and yet, they have to seek permission from their publisher for every bit of publicity they do. Publishers get snippy if you arrange book signings without consulting them. They have, in many cases, paid for author tours and/or better placement in stores. They don’t want you stepping on their superstars’ toes. Even blog tours can become problematic if the publisher is trying to get book blogger attention for other authors in their stables. Indie authors don’t have this problem. They can contact anyone they wish, at any time. The worst that can happen is that the blogger or bookseller says no.

Editing

This one is a wash. Big publishers edit for you, but again, on their own schedule. And it’s not as if freelance editors are hard to find, so indie authors can get the same services, usually more quickly, or at least more conveniently. It’s not unusual to wait months for galley proofs from a big publisher, and then have your editor say “I need these back in a week.” One friend of ours canceled his family vacation because galleys came that same week and needed to be sent back in a matter of days. To say no to the publisher was unthinkable, as it could have “bumped” the book back a year or more. An indie author would have finished the proofreading before vacation, or waited until she got back.

Distribution/Uploading to sales channels

Big publishers win this one. A traditionally-published author will never have to touch source files or deal with sales outlets. But how much time will you save? If you do it yourself, it takes about half an hour to set up accounts. After that, uploading each new book takes maybe five minutes.

Formatting

This one goes to the publishers, too. Indies can hire this job out, but if you decide to do it yourself, it will cost you quite a bit of time. However, even if you let your publisher do the formatting for you, you have to double check to make sure your ebooks are the same quality as your paper books.

Cover Art

A traditional publisher can save you time here, too. If you do it yourself, you will have to either hire and instruct a designer, or make your own cover. However, if your publisher makes your cover for you, you will have watch them to make sure they don’t whitewash or plagiarize your covers. You may spend as much time looking over your publisher’s shoulder as you would doing things yourself.

For us, the conclusion is clear. Being an indie author is a much more efficient use of our writing time. The time we spend in formatting and making covers is more than made up for with a more streamlined schedule and less stress. We are writing more than we ever did under a traditional system, and we’re happier too. Do you want more time to write? Maybe you should be going indie, too.

***

If you want to hear more from Margaret and Harry, check out their site or catch them on Facebook. You can find their latest book, Taking the Highway, on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords. You can also try their Riding Fourth for free at Amazon and Smashwords.

Posted in Guest Posts | Tagged , , , | 13 Comments

Book Updates: Emperor’s Edge Novella, Decrypted, and Beyond

Posted on December 18, 2012 by Lindsay

I’ve had a few email questions of late about when things are coming out (and thank you for caring enough to ask!), so I thought I’d do a public update for curious readers. “When is EE6 coming out?” is the most common question, but, as some of you already know, I’m working on the sequel to Encrypted before starting in on Book 6.

However I did decide to write an Emperor’s Edge novella during NaNoWriMo (November), and that ended up being a bigger story than I expected. It’s over 55,000 words (almost half the length of one of my novels) and called “Beneath the Surface.” It takes place after the events in Book 5 and before 6 starts up. I’d originally intended to write a story that wasn’t crucial to read (i.e. people wouldn’t be lost if they went from EE5 to EE6 without picking up the novella), but it really did end up being a part of the continuing adventure, so I hope you guys will check it out.

I’ll post some teasers here soon, and I’m hoping to get the long-awaited (by at least three people) second half of the Sergeant Yara interview up by Christmas since she’s the second point-of-view character in the novella. Here’s the first half of the interview if you haven’t seen that yet.

As for release dates, it shouldn’t be long now for the novella. I received the comments from my beta readers this weekend (thanks, ladies!), and I’m doing final edits this week. I plan to send the manuscript to my editor this weekend. The holidays will probably slow things down a bit, but I’m hoping to have the novella online around the 1st.

I’ve started editing Decrypted (the Encrypted sequel) too and hope to have that one ready to go in February. It’s too early to set a date for EE6 yet, but I’ll definitely start in on the writing for that one after I’m done with my Decrypted edits. I hope the novella will tide you over in the meantime. I promise explosions, brawls, and possibly… spelunking.

Also, for those who have asked about the next Flash Gold story, I’m sure I’ll need a break from the novel-length projects at some point this spring, and I have been thinking about a new adventure for Kali and Cedar.

Thanks for reading!

 

Posted in My Ebooks | Tagged , , , | 22 Comments

Ebook Marketing Thoughts — What’s Changed and What’s Still Working? (guest post from Collin J. Earl)

Posted on December 14, 2012 by Lindsay

As we move into 2013, a lot of new authors are coming into the e-publishing world and many of the older ones are realizing that selling ebooks isn’t as easy as it was a couple of years ago. Collin J. Earl, the CLO of Darkfire Productions (the company putting out the Emperor’s Edge audiobooks) is a fellow indie fantasy author, and he’s been at this for a while now, so he’s seen marketing trends come and go. He’s here today to talk about what he’s doing for his latest project, The House of Grey.

So you want to be a writer: marketing in the 2012/2013 publishing world
by Collin J. Earl

How quickly the world changes, no? Feels like just yesterday I was writing blog posts similarly to this. Books. You’ve written them. Now how do you sell them? Since the start of the publishing/independent writer evolution has anything changed?

You bet it has and its about time someone says it.House-of-Grey-1-collin-earl

Couple of things: first, this article “Ebook/book Marketing” is targeted more for the independent writer. I am sure that some of the thoughts could carry over to the traditional publisher and author, but I seriously doubt they are reading it. Chances are its just you and me – I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing.

Marketing Thoughts Introduction

Authors are always looking for the next greatest thing to help sell books; back in the 90s it was the Internet, then shortly after that, email, closely followed up by blogs, Myspace, YouTube, Digg, Facebook, Twitter, Podiobooks and more. There is so much to do, so much to get your head around, it’s hard to know where you should be spending your time. I’ve suffered from similar time management problems. Most authors, myself included, have jobs, families and other obligations outside their writing. Until we make enough money to meet our everyday obligations, writing is the career we are supposed to have and not the one we have currently. What does that mean? It means the obvious that an author has to outline, create, write, market, blog, and be social through social media all while navigating our real lives, families and alternative careers. Time is the biggest thing working against us and it can be difficult to know what the most efficient use of that time is.

You’ve probably read thousands of blog posts, books, ebooks, or heard hundreds of talk shows on the exact subject. While my thoughts aren’t anything ground breaking, I think its important to remember the true key to success. This is the universal characteristic that all successful authors have in common. I will get to it. I know you want to know, but worry not. This is something you are probably already aware of. I am just reminding you.
You need to write. That is the key, writing, writing, writing. Content, content, content. You’ve got to do it. I cannot say it enough. That is the one thing that has not changed in the last five years. You want to be a paid author, (I don’t say successful because there are different definitions) I mean a paid author – one who makes money off of books, you need as much content as possible.

A look at the past – a couple of case studies:

Amanda Hocking – everyone knows this little vixen – Hocking lives in Austin, Minnesota. Employed as a group home worker until 2010, she wrote 17 novels in her free time. In April 2010, she began self-publishing them as e-books. By March 2011, she had sold over a million copies of her nine books and earned two million dollars from sales, previously unheard of for self-published authors. In early 2011, Hocking averaged 9,000 book sales each day.

John Locke is a writer of crime fiction and the first man to sell over a million self-published digital books in Amazon.com. He was born in an unspecified municipality of Puerto Rico to a Canadian military father and an American mother. He is the author of several e-book novels. His works are predominantly published electronically by Telemachus Press, a work-for-hire author services company. One early work was published by iUniverse.

Michael J. Sullivan is an artist and American author of epic fantasy, best known for his Riyria series, which has been translated into over ten languages. In 2012 io9 named him one of the “Most Successful Self-Published Sci-Fi and Fantasy Authors”. He has written two series, The Riyria Revelations and The Riyria Chronicles. The Riyria Revelations is a six book epic fantasy series while the Riyria Chronicles is an ongoing series that centers on the early adventures the two main protagonists of Riyria Revelations.

Between these three INDEPENDENT authors millions of book were sold from around 2008 to 2011 and there is a lot of speculation on how they did it. John Locke even wrote a book on it – “How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in Five Months” (This book received less than stellar reviews). So much speculation and scams out there – allow me to offer my two cents and you might be surprised at what I have to say. The three things these authors had in common to make them successful were: timing, content and price. That is how they each sold so many books –there was not much beyond that.

I am really serious. If you took time to read Michael’s blog, Amanda’s Twitter feed, or even John’s “How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in Five Months” book. They really didn’t “do” much in the way of promotion. Michael used book bloggers to some extent, John really likes Twitter and Amanda used some combination of both. So what was so instrumental to their success? Well first was price. All of their books were less than five bucks. Still are for the most part. Second, and content, books, books, books, each author had books to spare when their sales blew up. Third and I think the MOST important, they were the front-runners in a space where consumption was EXPLODING, they used price and content push themselves to the forefront of that explosion and sold a whole lot of books because of it. Yep, it was a simple as that.

So what has changed? Why aren’t I selling 9000 books a day?  Several things I think:

  • Ebooks aren’t new anymore – just a couple of years ago ebooks were new, exciting and while Amazon and Barnes & Noble are still selling thousands of ebook readers the consumption of ebooks has or will top out on its share of the market place at a bit above 30 something percent. Don’t see it going much above that. It’s established.
  • Competition – lots more authors and wannabe authors out there. Amazon ain’t a “pond” like it used to be for ebook writers – is a freaking ocean and its real easy to get lost in that ocean.
  • Pricing – “wars” have driven down the price enough so that .99 cents for an ebook is not out of the ordinary. People expect it now because there are so many people doing it.

I could name more. What’s my point? My point is that putting up a book, making it free or low priced is not enough anymore. With changes in the market place, stiffer competition and the like going on, you need to have a better plan. (Notice I say plan)

Several suggestions – Global strategy – this is the first step now that you realize its not as easy as it used to be or you used to think. You need to come to a strategy to create exposure.  Obscurity is the greatest enemy of the author. That’s where marketing comes in and planning comes close after that.

Have a Marketing plan, but only after you have several projects out. I wouldn’t even start thinking about spending any real time marketing until I had at least 3 books out. Remember! Content is key. You need to have content to gain traction in the market place.

Once you have content, come up with your plan. My plan involves a mix of paid and unpaid marketing platforms. I base my plan on the “Free Loss Leader” meaning I give a book away for free knowing that a certain percentage of those readers will “convert.” I like this platform because it allows people to “enter the fold” at little to no cost. So step one in my plan is to push people towards a free product. Step two, use five different platforms in conjunction. Here is what I am using right now.

1.     Twitter
2.     Google Adwords
3.     Bloggers
4.     Bookbub/Pixel of Ink/FreeEbooks.com etc
5.     Facebook

These are a combination long term and short-term exposure sites. I don’t do use more than five platforms at any given time, because then you cannot manage everything. Remember doing something half way is like not doing it at all. Time is important with these endeavors, try to coordinate to use your endeavors in combination to create even more exposure. This is part of the reason I like the loss leader so much. Getting that free book moving on Amazon can put the Amazon marketing algorithms to work for you. If you can get those algorithms working for you. You are going to sell books.

There is more to say on the subject but perhaps we can leave it at that for now. Just remember these few thoughts. Have a plan, keep it simple, use a combination of different platforms that have both long and short term repercussions, don’t spread your efforts thin by doing many different things half way and try to get the big sight algorithms working for you.

Let me know about your success!

***

You can visit Collin at his website, or on Twitter or Facebook, and you can download the first book in his House of Grey series at Amazon, Sony, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.

Posted in Book Marketing | Tagged , , | 21 Comments

Emperor’s Edge Ebook Series Free to Libraries

Posted on December 12, 2012 by Lindsay

This is just a quick post to announce that the ebooks in the Emperor’s Edge series are now free to libraries via Smashwords. If you’d like to help spread the word about the stories (this is much appreciated!), you can ask your library to carry them.

I’m not quite sure how the behind-the-scenes stuff works, but it sounds like the Smashwords Library Direct program is available to any library or library network that hosts and manages its own ebook checkout system, typically using Adobe Content Server.

Here are a couple of blog posts on the Smashwords Library Direct Program and how authors can discount their books.

 

Posted in Ebook News | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

$0.99? $2.99? $9.99? My Answers to Ebook Pricing Questions

Posted on December 11, 2012 by Lindsay

I went skimming through the traffic logs this morning to see what search terms people were using to find my blog and picked out a few questions related to ebook pricing. I figure if one person is asking something then others may be wondering about it too. Pricing can be a heated topic in the independent e-publishing world and almost everything in here will simply be my opinion based on my experience of the last two years, six novels, and numerous odd short stories and novellas. I hope something helps!

Ebook Pricing Q&A

How much should I charge for my novel?

As you probably already know, Amazon and many of the other retailers reward authors and publishers who create price points between $2.99 and $9.99 by offering a 70% cut of earnings. Sell for less than that or more than that and you’ll only receive 35%. So a $2.99 ebook brings you a little over $2.00 whereas a $0.99 ebook only brings about 30 cents. For those who want specifics, here’s a chart with the breakdown for each price point.

Anything in that $2.99 to $9.99 range is going to bring what I consider to be a decent return, per reader, for a full-length novel. At 30-60 cents, it’s always felt (to me) that you can get more out of giving the novel away for free (basically using it as a loss leader to encourage sales of other books, an established and effective technique for many authors publishing series).

Of course, earnings depend on units sold, not simply earnings per unit sold, so, yes, if you can sell oodles of books at 99 cents, you can do well for yourself. That worked for some self-published authors in popular genres in 2010. This year, however, Amazon tweaked its algorithms, apparently to cut down on the numbers of 99-cent titles rocking the popularity lists. More on that in this “Updates to Amazon Book Ranking Algorithms” interview from earlier in the year.

I personally think about $5 per full-length novel is a fair price all around. It gives you far higher per-book earnings than traditionally published authors are receiving (even those whose ebooks are selling for $10+), it gives the readers a deal when compared to most traditionally published ebooks, and it’s often considered a fair price by those who feel that digital books should cost less than the dead-tree variety since paper, ink, and shipping aren’t a part of the equation. Lastly, it separates you from the legions of indie authors charging $0.99, $1.99, and $2.99 for their novels (often on the belief that they won’t be able to sell at a higher price because they’re not established names — I started out at $2.99 for just that reason). A lot of readers still walk warily around self-published books, so it can only help if you’re not giving obvious clues that your book was never vetted by a gatekeeper.

How much should I charge for a short story?

For ebooks that come in under 10,000 words, authors often choose 99 cents as a price point, and I’m in agreement with that choice. Yes, you’re stuck at the lower royalty rate, but a lot less work goes into writing and editing a piece that short. If reviews and sales rankings are anything to go by, readers aren’t keen on the idea of $2.99 short stories, even by established authors.

But that’s okay. If you sell a 100 copies a month of a 5,000-word, 99-cent story, you’re still making more that year than you’d receive if you sold that same story to a pro-paying magazine. If you have a fan base established, you can sell a lot more copies than that in the first month or two you publish it. During release month, I sold about 1400 copies of my last short story (Enigma) even though I also mailed out a Smashwords coupon so readers could download it for free (and many people took advantage of that). If it follows the pattern of my other short stories, it should continue to sell 100+ copies a month. This is from a mid-list self-published author, not a best-selling indie rock star. It’s why I don’t bother submitting anything to magazines or anthologies any more. Even at 99 cents, you can do pretty well for the amount of work that goes into a short story.

What’s up with all those free ebooks? Why would an author give away her hard work? Are these folks smoking some of that newly legal Washington pot?

I already touched on the idea of using a free ebook (a short story, a novella, or even a full-length novel) as a loss leader, the idea being that you can sell more of your other books by giving away free samples. This works particularly well with a series (and particularly less well without a series), assuming your free book is well-written, well-edited, etc. Having awesome cover art doesn’t hurt either.

Another reason you’ll see authors offer books for free is because they’re a part of the Amazon KDP Select program (which demands exclusivity in exchange for enrolling your ebook in the Amazon Prime lending library). As a promotional perk, these authors are allowed to make their ebooks free for five days a quarter at Amazon. Receiving a pile of downloads during the free days used to help boost a book’s sales ranking and visibility when it came off of the free days, though Amazon has nerfed that particular “feature” this year so that it’s less effective (though not totally ineffective). There’s more on that in the interview I mentioned above.

Wait, so how do you make your ebook permanently free at Amazon?

Though one never knows how long such tricks might last, you can currently make your ebook free at Barnes & Noble (through Smashwords distribution), Kobo, and iTunes, and Amazon may price-match. Here’s a video I did last year to explain the free ebook/price-matching thing in more depth.

How do you make a living as an indie author?

Not exactly a question about price points, but variations of this one show up in my traffic log every day, so here’s the quickie “formula.”

1. Hone your craft for years, receive feedback from mentors and peers, hire an editor, and put out as rocking of a first book as you can.

2. Write many more books in the coming years (I did hit the “make a living” point about a year into this, but I had four novels and some shorter ebooks out at that point), and put something out on a regular basis (as much as we’d like to wish and hope otherwise, more books are always being published and it’s rare for any one book to stay on the radar for long).

3. Promote, promote, promote. As time goes on, if you do things correctly (see next step), you’ll be able to do less promoting to random people you don’t know and more to your existing fans (i.e. blog, Facebook, Twitter announcements, fun extras — character interviews, cut scenes, etc.) who will then (we hope!) share news of your work of their own accord.

4. Have a web presence (whether you need to blog or not is always up for debate — it sells some books for me directly, through the links at the right, but not a lot in the grand scheme of things) that you direct readers to (i.e. at the end of your ebook) where they can sign up for your newsletter (see my post on newsletter marketing for authors). This way, you can immediately get in touch with fans when you have a new book out. Right now, if you get a thousand purchases of your book on the day you release it, it will be enough to propel you into the Top 1000 at Amazon, something that will, at least temporarily, put you into the Top 10-20 in most sub-categories (i.e. fantasy > epic) and make you a “hot new release” in your category. Yes, this fades once sales slow down, though for some authors with books with wide appeal, this may bring the necessary attention to become a best-seller for weeks or even months on Amazon. (No, that hasn’t happened with any of my stuff, but you can make a nice living simply by cultivating a core fan base and selling to them — if you haven’t yet, read Kevin Kelly’s 1,000 True Fans post.)

Any other questions related to pricing or thoughts on these? Please leave them below.

Update: You may also want to read my post on Ebook Pricing Strategies for a First or Stand-Alone Novel.

 

Posted in E-publishing | Tagged , , | 28 Comments

How Can You Sell More Books at Christmas?

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Lindsay

Christmas and other gift-giving holidays are around the corner. If you’ve embraced your inner marketer, you may be mulling over extra ways to promote your books and ebooks this season. You’re not alone — judging by the various blog tours, requests for guests posts, and Kindleboards threads I’ve seen, a lot of authors are making plans.

Should you join the rush? Here are my thoughts and experiences on ebooks and holiday promotions:

This is technically my third Christmas as an independent, e-publishing author, though it’s hard to count the first, since I released my first ebook just days before the 2010 holiday. I didn’t have a fan-base or even many relatives waiting to buy. Thus Christmas was a non-event my first year.

Last year, December brought my (at that point) best earnings month, though I’m not sure how much of that I can attribute to the holidays. I’d released my third Emperor’s Edge book at the beginning of November, then, after Thanksgiving, had the first go free for the first time at Amazon. I credit those events with the boost in sales.

So, what am I going to try this year? Less than you’d think. I don’t have much data to back up my hypothesis, but I don’t think people necessarily buy more ebooks in the weeks leading up to Christmas. You may get more sales in the weeks after, if lots of people get e-readers for the first time, and that’s when it may pay to be more visible at Amazon and the other stores. That’s always easier said than done, but you could try some advertising (I had a good run at Bookbub recently), though there aren’t many places out there with enough eyeballs to be worth the fees. Other authors have had good luck banding together and doing group promotions that include blog tours and Facebook posts with lots of cross-promoting of each other’s work.

If you have something in the pipeline, releasing a new book tends to help too. I was hoping to do that with an EE novella I started during NaNoWriMo, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get that together in time for a Christmas release. It’ll probably be more of an early January publication. I do have another Bookbub spot coming up on the 12th, this time for the second book in my EE series. I’ve never paid for advertising on a sequel, but EE1 has already been promoted there. I’m dropping the price to 99 cents for the day of the sale, and I’ll be curious to see if random people buy it without having read others in the series (or perhaps downloads of Book 1 will pick up).

What about paperback books?

I’m glad you asked. Paperbacks, unlike ebooks, make good Christmas gifts (yes, you can email someone a gift certificate for an ebook at Amazon or B&N, but it’s not anything you can put under the tree). I haven’t done anything to promote my paperbacks, but I’ve definitely noticed more sales of late. That started in mid-November and December has been strong so far. Maybe next year, once I have all six EE books out, I’ll do something on my site for folks who may be interested in buying signed copies of the set.

If you like to sell in person (and have a big stack of author copies on hand), this may be the best time of year to push those paperbacks. While you don’t make a lot on paperbacks ordered online from Amazon and such, you can do much better by ordering author copies (mine run $4.70 to $5.75 or so, depending on length, at CreateSpace) and selling those at retail prices.

What are your holiday book-promotion plans?

Do you guys have any plans of your own that you’re enacting? Anything you did last year that worked well? Please let us know in the comments.

Posted in Book Marketing | Tagged , , , , , | 15 Comments

How Much Does Self-Publishing a Book Cost?

Posted on November 29, 2012 by Lindsay

It’s become quite trendy to self-publish of late. No doubt, it’s a combination of the new ease and affordability of getting one’s book out and of the success stories (John Locke, Amanda Hocking, Hugh Howey, etc.), showing that people can not only use the internet to reach a broad audience but can even out-sell the big houses. If you’re new to the world of self-publishing, you may wonder how much you can expect to spend for a chance to play the game (or simply get your book out where friends and family members can find it).

I’m going to talk about the primary ways to get your work out there right now (print-on-demand paperback publishing and e-publishing) and how much things costs, but I want to say up front that there are very few things you have to pay for. If you DIY it all, you can upload ebooks to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, etc. for free, and it’s a matter of a few dollars (ordering proofs and paying for “extended distribution”) to publish paperbacks through POD sites such as CreateSpace.

Be wary of all the businesses that have started up and want to charge you big dollars to self-publish (even some agents and Big 6 publishers are jumping into the newly lucrative area). Some of them will charge well over a thousand dollars, and that won’t even include help with editing. There may be some people who have no interest in micromanaging the small stuff and want to simply hand their manuscripts over to a business and let them do all the work, and that’s fine, but you want to make sure you’re not paying a whole lot for services that are free or inexpensive. More on that later. First, let’s talk about e-publishing versus paperbacks.

E-publishing and E-book Creation Costs

As I said, it doesn’t cost a cent to upload your ebooks. For most stores, it’s a matter of filling out a 2-3 page wizard and uploading your ebook file and cover art. Here are the places where you can upload directly:

If you don’t have a Mac and/or you’re not in the U.S., you can also upload your ebooks to Smashwords and use them as a distributor to get into B&N and Apple along with smaller stores that don’t have dedicated self-publishing platforms (i.e. Sony and various mobile phone platforms). Smashwords is also a store in its own right and attracts a lot of international readers, in particular (they don’t add VAT fees or anything else the way Amazon does).

Ebook Formatting

You’ll note that I mentioned .mobi and .epub files. You need to convert your MS Word, Mac Pages, Scrivener, or other word processor file into these formats so that e-readers can display them. Many of these stores offer conversion programs that will handle this automatically (usually requiring a Word file as a starting point — sorry Mac people). However, the results can be clunkier than you’d wish. Many independent e-publishers choose to handle the formatting themselves or hire someone to do it by hand (depending on who you talk to, fees typically run from $50-$150 for full-length novels — if you have a lot of pictures, it’s more work for someone and will cost more, but you shouldn’t be paying heaps of money for this).

For formatting, I’ve worked with Ted Risk at Dellaster Design and Paul Salvette at BB Ebooks. They create much cleaner and more compact files than the conversion programs, and, yes, I’ve had people tell me they notice the difference (especially when reading on phones) when I’ve cheaped out and used a conversion program or someone who doesn’t create the HTML files by hand.

If you want to save money and format your books yourself, check out Paul’s extensive tutorials. He even has ebook formatting videos on YouTube.

Recap for formatting cost: $0 for DIY to $150.

Cover Art Design

Yes, even an electronic book needs a cover. These are the pictures you see in Amazon when you browse the ebook store. As much as we’d like to think otherwise, a good cover can make a huge difference in sales. A bad cover can send people running, because the amateur look screams “self-published” and not in a cool, I-love-to-support-indie-art way, but in an OMG-if-the-cover-sucks-can-you-imagine-what-the-writing-must-be-like way.

That said, there are indie authors who have done their own covers and saved themselves a lot of money. They may have spent $20 or $30 for some stock art, but everything else, they did on their own. If you have a design background (or a friend with a design background), this may certainly be a possibility.

If you really want to compete with the big boys, however, and have hopes of selling a lot of books, it may be worth hiring someone to handle your cover art, creating something with a professional look that you could easily imagine seeing in a brick-and-mortar bookstore.

Costs can be as inexpensive as $50 for someone who’s just going to use stock art and does design on the side (check the Kindleboards Yellow Pages for a list of folks) to $500-$1,000 for a custom illustration such as indie fantasy author David Alastair Hayden has for his Wrath of the White Tigress.

Do you need a custom illustration? It’s up to you (the trend is going away from them, at least for ebook covers where people usually only see thumbprints of the artwork when they’re browsing). Browse through the top sellers in your genre at Amazon and see what publishers are doing right now.

For most of my covers, including all the ones in my sidebar, I’ve used Glendon Haddix over at Streetlight Graphics. His wait-list has gotten longer of late, so you’ll want to book early if you want to use him, but he’s quite affordable at $200 for cover art and $300 for paperback cover design (which also comes with an ebook cover).

Cover art costs: $0 (DIY) to $1,000 (let me point out that if you go with an ebook-creation business that handles all the details, you’re not going to get a custom illustration by an artist — you’re probably going to get something using stock photography — so just realize that when you’re deciding if their fee is worth it).

Editing Costs

I highly recommend hiring a professional to at least proof-read your manuscript. If you know grammar isn’t your strong point (i.e. you don’t have Strunk & White memorized and you haven’t taken a writing class since high school), you’ll probably want someone to copy-edit your work. If your manuscript hasn’t gone through peer review in a writing workshop or other type of critiquing forum, then you may want to pay for developmental or substantive editing. I’ve written a blog post that goes into more depth on what these different types of editing are and how much they cost.

Honestly, substantive editing is so expensive (thousands of dollars), that, as a self-publishing author, you’re probably better off finding a workshop and/or good beta readers (other writers, not friends/family) to critique your work. That’s what I’ve done. I only pay for proof-reading, and I go through Shelley Holloway for that.

Now, do you absolutely have to pay for editing? Having seen how many typos and such slip through my work, even with beta readers and a professional editor, I cringe at the idea of putting work out there that hasn’t been through that process, but if you absolutely have no money to spend on this, then, no, you don’t have to pay anyone. AutoCrit (editing software) is a less expensive alternative I’ve heard a few authors recommend.

Cost: $0 to thousands (for deals and offers more in the couple of hundred dollar range, again check the Kindleboards Yellow Pages)

Total cost to get an ebook out there: $0 to $500 (bargain basement editing, cover art, and formatting) to a couple of thousand (professional copy editing, custom illustration, and formatting). It costs me around $1,500 to put out a new novel with the bulk of that going to my editor. I paid about $400, though, to get my first ebook out there two years ago.

Unless you have money to throw around, I think it’s a good idea to start as inexpensively as possible. Once you’re making money from your books, you can invest more. Now that I’ve published a number of books and built up a readership, I’ll usually earn back my expenses in the first day or two of a release.

Okay, what about paperback self-publishing?

The first thing you want to ask is if you even want to invest in this. Most indie authors are making 95%+ of their earnings from their ebooks. It’s possible to sell ebooks for less than traditional publishers; this isn’t the case with print-on-demand paperbacks.

My paperbacks run between $11.99 and $12.99 and that’s with making them as inexpensive as possible (meaning I don’t make much from each sale). Compare this to the typical $8 mass market paperback. It’s true that my books are 6×9 inches and more like a trade paperback than something you’d pick up at the grocery store, but it’s still unlikely that someone is going to purchase them when they’re not already fans of my work. I did a post earlier this year on whether print is worth it as a self-published author.

If you do want to hold a hot little paperback in your hands, here’s how it works and what you can expect to pay:

Editing is the same as above. For cover art design, you’ll need someone to do a spine and back cover as well as the front cover you use in e-publishing. This may add $50-$100 to the cost of cover art design. It’s another area where some people just do it themselves.

Formatting is a little different, and I’m not that familiar with the process. Glendon Haddix (my cover guy) does my paperback formatting as well, and I believe he uses InDesign. I’ve heard of folks doing things themselves, though, so this is another spot where you can save money if you want to learn the ropes on your own. Overall though, this shouldn’t cost more than $100 or $200 max.

As for the actual publishing, at CreateSpace (these are the guys I use) it doesn’t cost anything to create a print book. They make their money when it sells. They’ll even give you a free ISBN. You’ll probably want to order a proof of the paperback before you send it out to the world, and that costs about $10, including shipping. You may also want to pay the $25 for extended distribution, which makes your book available in Barnes & Noble and other online stores besides Amazon.

With POD publishing, there’s no option that will get you into brick-and-mortar stores unless managers specifically order your books. You can go into your local bookstores and lobby to make this happen (many sellers, especially independents, like to feature local authors). You can also work the library angle. Check out this interview I did with a librarian to see how to make that happen.

Read the fine print if you go with a book-creation business. They use the same POD companies that you’ll use if you do it on your own, and it’s extremely unlikely that they’ll have a package that will get you into brick-and-mortar stores either. Most small presses don’t even get books into those stores. And you know what? It’s not a big deal. So much book buying happens online these days that this is the way to promote. I recommend focusing on e-publishing and only worrying about paperbacks if you get to the point where people are asking for signed copies (and are willing to pay for them) or if you want to “just because” and have the extra couple hundred to spend on the process.

Are self-publishing services ever worth it?

I know some people simply want to hand a Word file over to someone else and let them take care of things (I know this because people have emailed me and asked if I do this — the answer is, heck no, it’s enough work just handling all of my novels!). Since I’ve overseen everything myself since Day 1, I can’t speak from personal experience, but I have seen BookBaby recommended, and their rates seem reasonable to me. They’ve been doing this for a while, too, so they’re not fly-by-night. Check out their rates before you sign up with another outfit, just so you have a basis for comparison.

One of the things that prompted me to write this post was a recent article about Simon & Schuster stepping into self-publishing and offering packages starting at $1,500 (for children’s books) and going all the way up to $25,000. Yes, $25,000. You’d have to sell a buttload of books (far more than most indies ever do) to earn that money back. “In return, authors will get a range of services, like having access to a speaker’s bureau that will help find speaking opportunities and a video production department that creates and distributes book trailers.” I’ll tell you straight up that book trailers don’t sell books and that speaking is for non-fiction authors, specifically for those who wish to establish themselves as authorities in a field and who have $500 courses to sell as well as books (when speaking, you’re not engaging a large enough audience to sell many books, so you have to sell larger ticket items to fewer people).

This isn’t meant to slam S&S or any other businesses getting into the self-publishing arena (hey, if there’s a market, exploit it); I just want to inform you that you needn’t spend a lot of money to self-publish and that most, if not all, of these businesses aren’t going to include editors or high-end covers, the only things that are really worth paying big money for, in my opinion. When it comes to book promotion, it’s a DIY thing these days, for almost everyone (even those with Big 6 publishers), and online is the way to go.

If you browse through my “book marketing” and “social media” categories, you’ll find lots of help when it comes to promotion. I’m very specific about what’s been working for me and what’s been a waste of time. I also have some old podcasts up (and hope to add more eventually!) at Savvy Self-Publishing.

All right, thank you for reading this monster post. Now get out there and publish something!

Posted in E-publishing | Tagged , , | 54 Comments