Leaving an Agent and Choosing to Self-Publish with Kendra Highley

Posted on September 28, 2012 by Lindsay

I met Kendra Highey, YA fantasy author (and one of my beta readers) through the SF&F Online Writing Workshop a few years ago. She critiqued chapters of the Emperor’s Edge, and I critiqued chapters of her first Matt Archer book. She was further along than I (or maybe just more prolific!) and went on the agent hunt first. I, after receiving a Kindle and finding out how easy it was to get one’s work into the Kindle Store, was distracted by self-publishing and never did get around to that agent hunt. Kendra had some success on that front, but ultimately things didn’t go according to plan. She recently decided to self-publish and has released her first book. I’ll let her fill you in on the details of how and why she came to choose that route.

 Interview with Kendra Highley on Agents, Traditional Publishing, and Self-Publishing

Hello, Kendra. Welcome! Let’s jump right in…

I’ve come across quite a few successful independent authors who were “very close” to getting published in the traditional manner (i.e. they got a couple of almosts from publishers, or their agent loved the story but editors just didn’t think it was right for the market, etc.). Can you tell us about what you went through with MA before deciding to self-publish?

Kendra Highley Matt ArcherI went through a pretty winding road before I self-published. After writing the first Matt Archer novel (Monster Hunter) in 2009, I started the query process in early 2010. I actually did pretty well, scoring several partial requests, four full requests and two offers of representation. Given that only about one-percent of writers seeking an agent were being signed at that time, I felt really good about it. I’d passed the first “gate” so to speak, and I just knew it was only a matter of time before an editor picked up the book.

Things don’t always work out the way you imagine.

The book got good feedback from editors, but it was never quite the “right fit.” In speaking to an editor at a conference, she told me that YA novels with male main characters were a hard sell unless you were an established author with a good sales record.  In addition, some editors liked the book, but wanted more of a Middle Grade take. I wasn’t comfortable with that (and neither was my agent…it’d change the story too much), so I chose not to rewrite it, even though I knew it was a risk.

I think a lot of writers feel that finding an agent is the end-all moment of triumph when it comes to the publishing journey. If they can just get an agent, their careers will be made… Do you have any thoughts about that? Or any idea how often it actually works out?

I don’t know what the stats are for agented-writers who sign traditional contracts for their first books, but it’s definitely not 100%. Heck, I’m not even sure it’s 50% right now. I will say this, though—getting an offer of representation from an agent was an amazing feeling. If nothing else, I had professional validation that the book was ready for “prime time.” On the flip side, being on submission was incredibly stressful. Any author who’s been through that process will tell you how nerve-wracking it is, especially when those first few rejections come in.  And even more so when those rejections say, “We liked it, but…”

At what point did you decide it was time to walk away from the agent and go off on your own?

Here’s the part where I say, “My friend Lindsay beat some sense into my head,” right? Seriously, though, seeing your success gave me the courage to pull the trigger, but the actual decision took me several months. If I was going to do it, I wanted to do it to a high standard (quality editing, great cover art, etc), and that took some planning. But after an epiphany, and a really frank chat with another self-published friend—the lovely Kait Nolan—at a conference in May, I knew it was time.  I hadn’t gotten a contract for Matt, my agent had passed on other work (which, ironically, another agent was interested in), and I was tired of feeling like my fate was in someone else’s hands. To me, it was time to try to succeed—or fail—on my own.

If you had to do it again, would you skip the agent hunt and go straight to self-publishing, or did you learn a lot in the process? I imagine it’s useful to have an agent go over your manuscript with you and offer ideas on improvements.

I learned a lot in the time I was pursuing a traditional contract, both about myself as a writer, and publishing as a business. If I had it all to do over again, I’d still query. There’s something to be said for experiencing rejection and obtaining the patience a submission process takes. It also gave me confidence: my work got past the first big gate-keeper.  Plus, having an agent peruse your manuscript gives it an additional level of scrutiny.  For me, querying was the right answer. In hindsight, though, I should’ve moved on to self-publishing sooner.

Still, I think everyone who wants to publish, whether DIY or traditional, needs to have their work torn to pieces by someone who really knows how to edit and isn’t afraid to hit where it hurts, whether by querying or joining a particularly tough critique group. After naively querying a book that wasn’t ready and getting dozens of rejections, I found the Online Writers’ Workshop for Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror—which is where I met the delightful Ms. Buroker J. It took every ounce of courage I had to post chapters of my first (truly dreadful) novel. The critique was brutal. Some of it made me cry. No kidding. But if I hadn’t done that, I’d still think my early work was brilliant. And it wasn’t. Putting myself out there to be reviewed by people like Lindsay, J.R., Jeanne, Elizabeth, Liz and Crash made me work harder and strive to learn as much as I could.  I know I still have a long way to go in perfecting my craft, but after going through multiple reviews, I felt ready to release Matt into the wild.

If you do well with self-publishing, do you think you’ll take a look at traditional publishers again?

I think it depends on the work. I have a contemporary YA resting on my hard drive that is pretty literary, and would make good library/school reading fodder. That book would benefit from traditional publishers who know those markets.  But if I do well with my more commercial work, I think I’ll stick with self-publishing…unless one of those two-million dollar Amanda Hocking deals comes around. I’d probably sign that kind of contract.

And finally, why don’t you tell us about your current release and what else is in the pipeline?

I released the first book in the Matt Archer Series (Matt Archer: Monster Hunter) in August. Here’s the short description (the longer version, and sample chapters, can be found on Amazon, B&N and Smashwords):

Fourteen-year-old Matt Archer thinks his life is pretty lame until he discovers something terrifying on a weekend camping trip at the local state park: monsters are real. After Matt is forced to kill a strange creature to save his uncle, he finds out that the weird knife he took from his uncle’s bag has a secret. The knife was designed to hunt monsters—and it’s chosen Matt as its wielder.

There will be four books in the Matt Archer series. I’m currently working on MA2 and MA3, along with what I’m calling MA1.5 – a short story to bridge the gap between the first and second books. The short story (Monster Summer) should come out sometime in October, and Matt Archer: Blade’s Edge (book 2) will be available in early 2013.

And because I’m not happy unless I’m so busy that my hair’s on fire, I’m also planning a serialized novel that will hopefully release in late 2013—it’s a dark YA14+ set in post-apocalyptic Texas. I’ll have to see how much time Matt demands before I commit to a release date, though.

Thanks for visiting with us, Kendra!

Please check out Kendra’s first book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords. You can also visit her cool monster-themed website, say hi to her on Twitter, or give her a thumb’s up on Facebook.

Posted in Interviews / Success Stories | 16 Comments

Emperor’s Edge Q&A Pt 2: Fan Fiction, Twitter, Prequels, and More

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Lindsay

I posted the first half of a series of reader Q&A questions last week and am finishing up here today with such important topics as prequels, “crazy obsessed fans,” and what it’s like to see my characters on Twitter.

Maria asks, “Regarding EE – Would you consider writing a few prequels once the series is “finished”?  Stories for Raumesys’ decision to use an assassin, and how he came up with the idea to breed one.  A series with Nurian protagonists, maybe even Stumps’ forced conversion to atheism?

I don’t have anything like this planned at this time (I’d be more likely to jump ahead in the timeline and write the next generation’s story), but one never knows what ideas might come up a few years down the road.

Regarding your authorhood – seconded on “How does it feel to have crazy obsessed fans?” and “What’s it like to see your characters on twitter?” 

I’m tickled that people care enough about the characters to speculate as to what goes on in their lives beyond what’s on the page, and to want to share their opinions with others.

I admit it was a little weird when characters started talking to me on Twitter (I had this notion that outside observers might think I’d made all of those accounts and was carrying on extensive conversations with myself…), but I’ve gotten used to it now. Though it was surprising when Forge made an account and started tweeting wanted posts for my heroes. :O

You’ve kind of answered this one, but unofficially – What are some of the biggest changes you’ve had to make to the series from your original inspiration?  Was it a difficult decision, or did a light bulb suddenly click on and show you the way to your story?”

The main way I’ve strayed is that I’d originally planned on having the EE series take place over years rather than the year or so it’s turning out to be for the first six books. (Of course, I didn’t even have the number six in mind when I got started — it was only when I decided to do different secondary POV characters for each book that I realized it would take six books to cycle through everyone.)

In the beginning, I’d also planned for all the books to be stand-alone adventures, but somehow these last three have turned into a trilogy with one big story arc. I have no idea how these things happen. Light bulbs? Difficult decisions? Not really. I just go with the flow. 😉

Tara32 asks, “Do you read the fanfiction we post? “

I read the first couple, but the forum folks have been very prolific! I try not to spend a lot of time dinking around online when I should be writing, so I don’t think I could keep up if I wanted to. It’s probably best for me to leave those stories alone though. I wouldn’t want to be swayed by someone else’s ideas. It’s bad enough y’all have got me wondering if I need to introduce a new love interest for Sespian in the end…

SaraM asks, “Have you ever thought about doing a series of vignettes to illustrate some of the characters’ histories? Kind of like Ice Cracker II, actually. That would be fun.”

I have an old story on my hard drive that shows how Books’s son was killed and gives us his first adventure with Sicarius (diehard fans will remember that those two had met prior to Amaranthe and the first EE book). At some point, I’d like to fix it up and put it out there.

As to the other characters, I’m not sure. They’re more fun for me to write as an ensemble cast rather than by themselves. Although Maldynado… well, he’s just always fun. Ahem.

Also, I have a short story with a 10-year-old Sicarius around somewhere too. It takes place through the eyes of one of his tutors. I might put that out there as a freebie at some point.

MsMcKnittington asks, “Is answering a two-part question with “yes” or “no” part of Turgonian military training? Because I’m starting to wonder if there’s a Purposely Irritating track. Like, the polite guys are tossed in Remedial Irritation and the smart alecs get retroactive credits or something.”

Yes.

🙂

Meera asks, “This is late but would you include the spirit/ifrit stuff Amaranthe and Sicarius encountered in The Frozen Water Trade in future stories?”

I hadn’t thought much about it, but it’s always a possibility. Someday, I might do a few stories in a different part of the EE world (Nuria or Kendor, maybe), and there’d be more magicky (yeah, let’s pretend that’s a word) types of things, just because that’s a bigger part of the other cultures.
Okay, thanks for reading all. If you have any questions, feel free to toss them out below.
Posted in Cut Scenes and Fun Extras | Tagged , , , | 13 Comments

Ebook Pricing Strategy for a Stand Alone Novel?

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Lindsay

Every now and then someone asks me what I think about such-and-such price for an ebook. I’ve talked a lot about how I like free or 99 cents for a Book 1 in a series, thus to let people try the first adventure at low (or no) risk and perhaps find themselves interested enough to purchase more. This has worked well for me with my Emperor’s Edge series.

But what if you’ve just published your first novel and don’t have any others out? Or what if you’re not doing a series, and all of your ebooks are unrelated? I had to consider this with my stand-alone fantasy adventure, Encrypted.

Long-time author Dean Wesley Smith suggests $6.99 to $7.99 for full-length novels, saying that this price range is a bargain when compared to most ebooks put out by traditional publishers. I haven’t come across too many self-published authors pricing their ebooks that highly yet, but that doesn’t mean you can’t try it. I’m certainly all for authors making a living wage from their work (though it’s important to be realistic and not expect to make a living wage from one book — as we’ve discussed before, most successful indies have multiple books and often multiple series out).

I started out selling Encrypted for $2.99 (to earn the 70% royalty) and later raised it to $3.95 when I increased the prices of my Emperor’s Edge novels to $4.95. Could I make more if I raised the price further? Perhaps, perhaps not.

One thing to remember is that your earnings aren’t a result of price alone. Units sold must be considered. X * Y = Z, right? Raise either X (price) or Y (units sold), and your earnings go up. But raising X might cause Y to drop to such a point that Z is lower.

A common mistake authors make when choosing price

A lot of authors get hung up on their own perceptions of the value of the novel. I put a year’s work into this, and I know it’s an awesome read, so it has to be worth at least $X.XX per book. But what if it turned out that you could make more money each month by selling the ebook at 99 cents instead of the $6.99 or whatever you thought it was worth?

There’s no guarantee that this would be the case (and we’ve seen evidence that Amazon is making it harder for the 99-cent titles to rank well on the popularity lists), but I believe, if increasing income is your main motivation, it’s best to experiment and not let your own beliefs dictate price. Why adamantly say that you sell all novels for $X.XX when it may turn out that X novel in one genre earns more when it’s selling for $4.95 whereas Y novel in a different genre pulls in a greater income at $2.99? Or even $9.99?

As authors and creators, it’s hard for us to be dispassionate about our work, but it’s best not to be married to any one particular number. Try one price, see how well the novel sells, then try other prices, higher and lower to find the sweet spot. (Keep in mind that if sales are dismal, price is only one factor — get an outside opinion on the cover art, blurb, and sample pages. Also having some reviews on the book’s sales page is crucial.)

In the end, of course, it’s up to you and what’s important to you as a writer. I honestly haven’t experimented with > $5 price tags because I’m making a nice income right where I’m at. I like that the reader gets a deal and that I make enough to pay the bills and cover my chocolate and latte addictions.

What do you guys think? Have you found a sweet spot for your stand alone novels? Did you try 99 cents, and did it do anything for you? Is anyone selling well at $6.99 or above?

 

Posted in E-publishing | Tagged , , , | 21 Comments

Q&A on the Encrypted Sequel, Fan Fiction, EE7, Will Yara Get a PoV, and More

Posted on September 17, 2012 by Lindsay

I thought I’d take a break from the self-publishing theme today and share some news about what’s coming up next with Encrypted, the EE series, and other projects. This is the first of two posts where I answer reader questions (a thank you to the ladies — and Andre! — over at the EE forum for posting them for me) and chime in on fan fiction, characters on Twitter, and other terribly important topics. 😉

Moondreamer asks, “What’s the timeline for Decrypted? Will it happen soon after Encrypted, a few years afterward? A long time?”

Decrypted will take place shortly after the first novel. I’m finishing up a Tikaya-and-Rias short story right now (tentatively called Enigma) that takes place on the journey back to the Kyatt Islands. Decrypted will start with them pulling into Tikaya’s home port where Rias will be about as welcome as a toe fungus.

There’ll be the family and government to deal with along with a new mystery to solve. And, because we haven’t had nearly enough underwater adventures (maybe I’m planning to be the first big oceanpunk author?), Rias may be building the first submarine to mix Kyattese Science with Turgonian engineering.

MaggieJ asks, “Are there going to be anymore EE stories after EE6 or is that one going to end it?”

Assuming I can actually manage to end the current story arc and wrap up everything in Book 6? 😉 I do have some ideas for future adventures (more on a possible EE7 below), but I’ll probably take a break to work on something else and also see what the interest level is amongst readers.

Meera asks, “This is kind of along the same lines: Any more books in that universe, or do you want to start somewhere else?  Will you write more in the Flash Gold Chronicles after EE6 (7?) is out?”

I do want to start a new series at some point, though that doesn’t necessarily mean abandoning the gang forever. I definitely want to write a couple more Flash Gold stories and bring some closure to those characters. I’ve even kicked around the idea of getting Kali and Cedar onto their airship and out of the Yukon as a jumping off point for a whole new series. Of course, there are other projects in the holding pattern too. I need to learn to write faster so I can implement all of my ideas sooner!

Mana asks, “What’s it feel like to have fan fiction/art/twitter characters all over the place? Is it an author dream come true or an “oh dear god don’t they have a life” type of thing?  Rabid fans want to know…”

Amaranthe & Sicarius by Hydroxify

It’s really cool! It’s been very rewarding to see that the characters resonate with people and that they want to spend more time with Maldynado, Amaranthe, and even Sicarius (it’s amazing how many readers are interested in the inner life of such a stiff, unfriendly sort of assassin!). It’s also cool to see that a community has grown up where people who probably wouldn’t have ever met otherwise are now online buddies. Maybe we’ll all meet up at a con someday. Some have even proposed a pool party at my house (they don’t seem to mind that I don’t actually have a pool and can only offer a Slip ‘n’ Slide and a horseshoe pit).

Exstock asks a pile of questions, starting with… “–I second the “more EE after EE6?” question!  So one arc is done; I’m sure plenty of us would be happy with the start of a new arc.  :) Will Sespian get a love interest in said hypothetical books? Will Yara get a POV? And what is Sicarius’s internal reaction when someone swears by the Emperor’s ancestors?  Seeing as, you know, he actually is one.”

You mean a love interest other than the one he already has? 😉 There may be something floating around in the back of my mind…

I haven’t thought much about doing a completely new story arc yet, but I do have some ideas for an EE7 that would wrap up a lot of the relationship threads (and there’s always the idea of a quest for someone’s unidentified parents…) that probably won’t have time to find closure in EE6. I see that story as perhaps being the first book to have more than two POV characters. In that case, we might get into Yara’s head. We’ll see! I have to figure out where everything is going to end in 6 first.

As for whether Sicarius has a reaction to someone cursing the emperor’s ancestors, I imagine he might note it, once in a while, in that dry way of his, but I suspect it’s like most of our curses where we just spit them out and nobody thinks much about what they mean.

Andre Dias asks, “- What’s the biggest sense of accomplishment with EE? – Which character do you feel a stronger bond with, if you make distinctions regarding them. Or do you love them equally?”

Well, finishing that first book was a pretty big milestone for me! Now I’d say that I get the biggest kick out of hearing from readers and seeing how much people are enjoying the story and characters. So the biggest sense of accomplishment may just be in having created a world and characters that many readers are passionate about.

As far as favorite characters go, it’s usually certain pairings that I enjoy writing because of the way they interact with each other. I’m sure it’s no surprise that I love writing dialogue, and that’s not something you get to do a lot of when the hero wanders off alone. For pairings, Maldynado and Books are always fun because of their contrasts (and now Maldynado and Yara too). And, of course I like writing Amaranthe and Sicarius too. What’s not to love about stony glares, one-syllable answers, and a monochromatic wardrobe?

Kitty asks, “Will there be more short stories of the EE Team? Have you got another universe in mind for new stories? When is book 6 out? ;)”

I haven’t started writing 6 yet, so no idea for a date yet. I’ll see how long it takes me to do Decrypted (I’m shooting for about January for that one.)

I have a couple of new series ideas, and I’m not sure which one I’ll do next. I have a globe-trotting urban fantasy in mind, a steampunk/dystopian world, and I still want to get back to my Goblin Brothers heroes and publish their first novel. GB1 is already in draft form on my hard drive somewhere. I just haven’t polished it up because middle-grade fiction is a pretty tough sell in ebook format.

Right now, though, I’m just focusing on these next two books. And whatever short stories demand to be told in the interim (look for Enigma in October some time!).

Hm, I have more questions here, but I’m going to answer them in a later post. Thanks for reading, all!

Update: the second Q&A around is up.

Posted in Cut Scenes and Fun Extras | Tagged , , , , | 24 Comments

How to Sell Advanced Reader Copies as a Self-Published Author

Posted on September 12, 2012 by Lindsay

As my three regular readers know, I released the fifth book in my Emperor’s Edge series last week. A couple of weeks before that, I offered an eARC (electronic advanced reader copy) for sale on my site. This was the first time I’d done that, and, overall, it went well with nearly 250 people paying $10 for the file and a promise of the finished ebook when it was ready to go.

I’d originally come up with the idea of selling the ARC because I’d given away some free copies to folks who’d contributed to my Kickstarter campaign last spring. This created some strife in the fan forum between those who had been around for the KS event and those who hadn’t. I figured I’d better make copies available to everyone who wanted them, lest I start a civil war over there.

In addition, I’d posted a short story on my site the month before, and several people had expressed interest in having a copy for their e-readers. This meant paying for cover art, editing, and formatting, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend money on that when I wanted to keep the story free. But, I thought, if I could sell some early copies of EE5, maybe I could come up with a couple hundred dollars to pay for turning the short story into an ebook.

As you can guess from my numbers, I made enough for that and covered the full editing, cover art, and formatting costs for EE5 as well. This was the first time I’d ever recouped the ebook-creation expenses before the book was released (when going through Amazon and other online retailers, you get paid 60+ days after books sell).

I thought some people would find it useful to read about how I went about selling the ARC on my site and where I screwed up what I would do differently if I did this again.

Step 1: Determine Whether People Would Actually Buy an ARC if You Made It Available

It probably goes without saying, but this is going to be for authors who already have an established fan base. If you’re releasing your first book, you’ll have trouble getting more than Mom and Memaw to pay for advanced copies.

Let’s say you’ve been publishing for a while now and you have some loyal readers following your work. You figure that if they knew about it, many of them would be interested in an early copy of the new project. The second thing to ask yourself is whether you have a mailing list or at least the email addresses of these fans so that you can drop a note directly into their inboxes, announcing the availability of the ARC.

It is unlikely that you’ll have good results if the only way you have of contacting people is through Twitter, Facebook, and/or your blog. From my own experience, I know I have some regular folks who stay in touch on Facebook, Twitter, etc., and many of them bought copies of the ARC, but there were far more people whose names I didn’t recognize from everyday interactions. They’re folks who were on my list and decided to check out the ARC after I sent an announcement (the majority of the purchases came within 12 hours after that).

Step 2: Determine the Format of Your eARC and How “Proofed” It Will Be

For my “eARC,” I offered a copy of the same Word .doc I’d just sent off to my editor. If I were to do this again, I’d have someone format it so people could get it in .mobi or .epub versions, which would have made things a little easier for readers. I also imagine I might have gotten more sales that way. But, since formatting is something I pay someone to do, I didn’t consider it for this. I had this idea around 9:30 am Wednesday morning and had the blog post and Paypal button on my site about an hour later. (I was heading out of town that Saturday, and my editor already had the manuscript on her desk, so figured I had a pretty small window to make this happen if I wanted to do it.)

Something you’ll want to consider is if you want to sell an unproofed copy the way I did or wait until you have a polished version back from your editor. There’s a time when I would have been mortified at the idea of letting someone read anything less than perfect, but, despite beta readers and editors, I’ve yet to publish a manuscript without some typos in it. You’ve probably found five already in this blog post. So, anyway, I’m over the delusion that I could put out something perfect. At least 250 people now know that I can never remember whether to use lie or lay, who or whom, and that I have a knack for odd typos that result in terms like, “the breast’s maw.” Ah, well.

If you do want to wait until you have a polished version, this may involve delaying the release date of the regular ebook. The appeal of ARCs for readers is, of course, that they’re getting the story before it’s available in stores. In the traditional publishing industry, where everything takes longer, a reader might be able to purchase an eARC four or five months before the actual book comes out (I did that with Lois McMaster Bujold’s latest this summer, dropping $15 to download the ARC from the Baen website). With self-publishing, we can publish the ebooks as soon as they’re edited and formatted, but there might not be many people willing to pay to get an ARC a mere day or two before it’s be available at Amazon.

I will say, though, that I did have quite a few people say they paid for the ARC because they knew the money would go to me directly, rather than to Amazon or someone else who would take a bigger cut than Paypal. It’s definitely nice to have people that care enough to think about such things!

Step 3: Determine Cost

I sell my ebooks for $4.95, so the obvious price point for an eARC would have been something similar, but I didn’t think it’d be worth my time to set everything up, email people (I mistakenly, didn’t think of automation this first time around — more on that farther down), and deal with the inevitable “customer service” emails I’d get for $5. I decided that I’d go with $10 and include the eARC (Word doc), final ebook (mobi and epub files), and an ebook version of that short story as well.

At the $10 price point, I made $9.41 after Paypal took its cut ($9.31 on foreign sales). Compare this to the $3.30 or so I would have made if these folks had purchased the ebook through Amazon or B&N later on. Since the Word file didn’t cost me anything extra to produce, I earned about $6 more per buyer in the end. If I’d only charged $5, it would have been a dollar more from each person which, as I said, wouldn’t have been worth the extra work. In the end, even with 250 buyers, this wasn’t a huge pile of money, but I’m very happy that it allowed me to cover the entire ebook-creation costs of EE5 and the short story up front.

Step 4: Figure Out How to Handle Sales

I’ll tell you first what I did and then what I’d do differently if I did it again.

I wrote up a blog post, announcing the availability of the eARC and letting folks know what they’d get and how long the offer was available (it’s always a good idea to put a time limit on these sorts of things, so people, if they’re interested, are less likely to put off buying until “later” and then forget). Then I headed to my Paypal account and clicked the “Merchant Services” tab. I selected the “create payment buttons for your website” link and filled out a three-part form. They gave me the code, and I stuck it at the end of the blog post. Overall, it took less than 10 minutes to go from, “I wonder how I go about doing this” to having the Paypal button in the post.

Paypal has an option where you can send folks to a specific URL after making a purchase, and, because I wasn’t thinking, I had it send people back to my blog’s home page. After I’d sent 50 or 100 emails of the file by hand, it occurred to me that it wouldn’t have taken that long to have made a hidden page on my site with the links to the files, so people could download them from that page as soon as they paid. Instead, people had to wait until I checked my email and sent the file. I checked my mail a lot that first couple of days, but, to my surprise, orders kept trickling in over the next week. I was literally sitting at the U.S. Open in New York, watching tennis with a friend and answering emails on my iPhone, telling people where to grab the files.

Did I mention that it’s not a good idea to try something like this when you’re heading out of town in a few days? Yeah.

So, as I said, if I did this again I’d automate things. I’m sure there still would have been emails with questions, but the whole process would have been a lot less work for me overall.

Step 5: Gird Your Loins for Customer Service Emails

Actually, everyone was very nice and pleasant to deal with in emails, but I had a lot of people sign up for this who didn’t know how to sideload a file onto their kindle, ipad, etc. I spent quite a bit of time, trying to talk them through finding their kindle’s email address for forwarding the file, or getting a Word doc onto their iPad, or using the USB cable to transfer the file, etc.

In the end, nobody got too cranky, but I felt bad that people experienced delays and frustrations.  And, as I said, this created more work for me than I’d expected. I used to think I’d eventually add an e-store to my website, so people could buy ebooks directly (thus reducing the cut I share with Amazon/B&N/etc.), but I’m not sure about that after this. It’d be no trouble for people who buy from Smashwords and know how to transfer files to their e-readers, but for the people who are used to instant, automatic, wireless delivery, I think it might be a headache all around!

All right, that post went on a tad long. I hope something was helpful. If you have any questions about this process, please let me know. Or just comment to let me know you actually read most of the post. My ego likes to hear that. 😉

Posted in E-publishing, Tips and Tricks | Tagged , , , , , | 37 Comments

Where Can You Promote Your Free Ebook?

Posted on September 11, 2012 by Lindsay

If you’re an author and you’ve been offering a short story or perhaps a series Book 1 for free, in hopes that readers will try it and go on to buy your other work, you may have had some good results. Or you may have encountered ye olde book promotion problem. Just because your ebook is free doesn’t mean people will automatically find it. So, how can you get a little publicity for the title?

Fortunately, with all the people now offering freebies as part of the KDP Select program (enrolled authors can make their ebooks free a few days a quarter on Amazon without going the Smashwords-price-matching-route) many ebook blogs are offering inexpensive sponsorship opportunities to the plethora of authors seeking to promote their freebies.

Here are a few spots (links go straight to sponsorship pages):

  • Kindle Nation Daily — I’ve done a few sponsorships with these guys over the last two years and had mixed results as a fantasy author. I’ve rarely recouped the cost of the ad in sales earnings, but now that they have less expensive options for people plugging a free book, I’m trying them again. (I should point out that thriller/mystery authors I’ve encountered have sung the praises of KND; with a lot of these sites, books geared toward a more general audience will do better.)
  • Pixel of Ink — I had good results advertising with these folks last year, though they get pretty backed up, and you have to subscribe to their newsletter to find out when slots will be available. That’s for regular priced books though. They now list some free titles on a daily basis, and they don’t charge (though that makes it hard to get selected). I think odds may be better of getting chosen if you make the request several weeks out.
  • BookBub — I learned about these guys when I received a free sponsorship from them out of the blue, and I definitely think I’ll buy future sponsorships — I got a boost to EE downloads of course, but I also like that they have their readers broken down by genre and charge different prices depending on your genre and how many readers you’ll reach. They also charge less for advertising free books than books that are simply discounted.
  • Free Kindle Books and Tips — Free listings of free ebooks, though it’s another space limited thing.
  • Ereader News Today — Another big one where I’ve had success. Their sponsorship pages are often closed for submission (as is the case right now), but it’s worth signing up for their advertising newsletter because they send a note out to people when they’re opening up, and it pays to be on the list and sign up early. I’m pretty sure I’ve never gotten any extra junk from the newsletter.

I’m aware of lots of other blogs that list free ebooks, but have only listed the larger venues here. I’ve rarely seen major upticks in downloads from advertising on small/new blogs (though if they’re offering free mentions, then there’s little to lose). That said, if you’d like to suggest a site (especially if I’ve missed a big one), please feel free to do so.

* For those who like to point out that people who shop for free ebooks on these sites rarely go on to buy anything, I’ll add my usual argument that a) in my experience, this simply isn’t true — many people have told me they became fans and bought my books after trying the free one and b) get enough downloads and your book will appear in the free bestseller lists on Amazon, which line up side-by-side with the paid bestseller lists in each genre (in other words, 10,000 people downloading your ebook can help you even if they never read it, because it increases your visibility on Amazon where it has a chance to catch a buyer’s eye).

Posted in Book Marketing | Tagged , , , | 26 Comments

Self-Publishing Success Interview with… Me :)

Posted on September 10, 2012 by Lindsay

Hi folks,

I’ll have some new blog posts for you this week (specifically I want to talk about my experience with selling advanced reader copies from my site — how it went, what I learned, etc.), but for today, I thought the self-publishers out there might be interested in an interview I did with Joanna from The Creative Penn. She’s well established in the blogosphere and has published best-selling ebooks of her own, so it was quite the honor to be on the show!

Here’s the link:

Build A Fulltime Writing Career Slowly With Lindsay Buroker

If you’re an author, check out Joanna’s other shows while you’re there. She’s interviewed some people who are far more successful than I am!

 

Posted in E-publishing, Interviews / Success Stories | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Author Earning Extra Money Through Monthly Short Story Subscription Offering

Posted on September 7, 2012 by Lindsay

When people hear the term “e-publishing,” they naturally think of ebooks these days. Why not? Lots of independent authors are doing well publishing ebooks through the Kindle, Nook, iPad, etc. stores. But long before e-readers became popular, there were e-zines and other forms of online publishing. A lot of these publications were “for the love,” and few made their creators much money, but there have been exceptions…

Back in 2002, author and teacher Bruce Holland Rogers started selling short story subscriptions through his website, and he continues to earn money this way (among others) today. He’s agreed to answer a few questions for us, and I think his story will be particularly inspiring for authors hoping to diversify their income streams (i.e. so we don’t rely solely on Amazon to pay for the monthly coffee and chocolate supply).

Welcome, Bruce! Could you tell us about your short story subscription service and where you got the original idea?

I got the original idea from a story that probably wasn’t true. I read a book about guerilla marketing for writers, and according to the book, there was a pioneer of email subscriptions who offered to send a limerick a day to anyone who would send him a dollar. The book said that the limericist has been flooded with payments and made $100,000 with this service in its first year.

According to the story, this writer had basically used a spam email to find his subscribers. This was supposed to have happened in the early days of the public Internet when there wasn’t even a name yet for what we now call spam.

I knew I couldn’t start my subscription by sending a spam solicitation, but the idea of distributing my work to paying readers by email seemed terrific. So that was what got me started. I launched shortshortshort.com in 2002.

Once my own subscription service was successful, I tried to learn more about these daily limericks by subscription. And as far as I have been able to tell, the whole story was apocryphal. It does not seem to have happened.

How many subscribers do you have and how did you get those first ones? (I imagine they’re the hardest.)

I have had up to a thousand subscribers. Right now, because I haven’t really worked at maintaining my readership by finding new readers, I have drifted back down to 500.

I got my first subscribers, and built my initial numbers, through a sort of pyramid scheme. I call it a pyramid scheme, but it was completely transparent, honest, and realistic. I said that if I had one subscriber, I’d send that one person one story for the year. If I managed to get ten subscribers, I’d send stories quarterly. With twenty-five subscribers, I’d send a story a month. And so on.

My first subscribers were family, friends, and my most enthusiastic fans. Because they wanted more stories, they recruited more subscribers for me.

When I had about 250 subscribers, I was obliged to send two stories a month. Delivering two really GOOD stories each month was already getting to be a challenge, so I changed my policy at that point and promised to send three stories a month no matter how many subscribers I had. The original scheme could have had me writing more stories than that, and I think that would have ended up disappointing all concerned, because three stories a month is really the limit of what I can produce up to my own standards.

Do you ever get burned out on writing short stories? Three a month seems like a lot to me!

I wouldn’t say that I get burned out on writing short-short stories, but I do get burned out on everything else that takes time away from thinking about and writing stories. I teach, and I love teaching, but if I could, I’d cut back the teaching to just one class a year. I’d really prefer to have a lot more time for writing and thinking about what I’m writing.

But three stories a month is about the right pace for keeping me pleasantly under pressure. Or even unpleasantly under pressure, but satisfied that I’m getting work done.

Of course, sometimes, as when my wife suddenly left me, my usual resources have taken a hit, and it has been hard to keep working. There was a time when I put the subscriptions on re-runs, extending the expiration date for all subscribers and sending out stories that I had written years earlier. But to tell the truth, getting back on track with the stories was very helpful to me in picking up the pieces of my life. And it’s tremendously rewarding to have paying readers with whom I am in direct contact. They keep me going just by letting me know that they’re reading and thinking about the stories. Even if the occasional reader didn’t like a particular story, I am pleased to be getting a reaction. And, too, a story that wasn’t one reader’s cup of tea will almost always be a story that makes a different reader email me to say, “That was one of your best ever.”

Some subscribers have said to me that they’d like me to only send two stories a month, but to send only the best ones. The problem is, readers would disagree greatly about which, out of any month’s production, were the two best stories. That always serves as a great reminder to me that the reader creates half of the story, and some of my work makes for better collaborations with this group of readers than with that group. Writing is not perfectible. That’s actually kind of reassuring. Although, of course, the shorter a work is, the more the writer can reasonably be expected to make it very, very close to perfect. So the pressure to do good work, to strive for excellence, is always high.

The other thing that makes me strive for excellence with every story is that I’m always getting new subscribers. Every story is some new subscriber’s first. First impressions matter. So I try really hard to make every new subscriber feel with the first story he or she gets that the subscription was a good idea.

How is payment handled? It looks like you use Paypal. Does Paypal automatically renew people’s subscriptions and such?

I take PayPal or checks. I prefer checks, actually, because of the rather high percentage that PayPal takes in fees for a small transaction. No, PayPal doesn’t renew anything automatically. Renewals only come when I ask for them, or the subscriber herself notices that her expiration date is coming soon.

PayPal is international, and that’s a great help. I have subscribers all over the world.

Have you done any advertising or promotion to get people to your site and (one hopes!) signed up for your subscription?

I did a little advertising early on, but most of my subscriptions come from people who have heard me read or give a lecture in person. I think part of the motive for subscribing is to support an individual artist, and that means getting an impression of me as a person.

I’m going to be trying some ads at my local art cinema beginning later this year.

Have you thought about bundling the short stories and later selling them in ebook collections? Getting paid twice, as it were?

Getting paid twice? I’d be very disappointed if I only got paid twice! For most stories, I get paid at least three times. First, I’m paid by the subscribers. Second, I’m paid when the stories are published in magazines or anthologies. (Most editors see that the subscription stories haven’t really been published in that they aren’t available. There is no publication of record where you can go to read one of the stories, so although some small and generally non-paying publications won’t consider the subscription stories unpublished, the major markets do, and those major markets are the places I credit as the “first publication” for the stories.) Then the stories are translated into German or French for the translation editions of shortshortshort.com. I don’t make much from those since the numbers are small and I split with the translators, but I’m hoping to grow those services and to add languages. Then the stories appear in collections. In the past, that has always meant trade paperback from a small press. However, I’m going to self-publish my next collection as an ebook and as a trade paperback.

Because my stories are short, a few of them get picked up for educational use. My stories have been incorporated into textbooks internationally and used as the basis of questions on standardized tests in various U.S. states.

None of these income streams is big, but they do add up. If I can regrow my subscriber base from 500 to about 2,000, then I’ll be making a living from shortshortshort.com, and I really could consider the option of just teaching one class a year and spending much more of my time writing.

That’s fantastic, Bruce. Good luck with the ebooks and with finding more subscribers for your short stories. Thanks again for stopping by!

Thanks for the questions! www.shortshortshort.com is the site.

Bruce’s bio:

Stories by Bruce Holland Rogers have won a Pushcart Prize, two Nebula Awards, two Micro Awards, two World Fantasy Awards, and, most impressive of all, the Jonny-Cat Litter-ary Award for a work of cat-related fiction. He has received fellowships to teach writing and conduct story research in Hungary, Finland, and Japan, and he has taught private writing seminars in Greece and Portugal. His stories have been translated into over two dozen languages. He is a member of the permanent fiction faculty at the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts, a low-residency MFA program also known as the Whidbey Writers Workshop.

Posted in E-publishing, Tips and Tricks | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments