Stay Independent or Sign on with a Publisher?

Posted on March 1, 2012 by Lindsay

In the fourteen or fifteen months I’ve been involved with the self-publishing scene, I’ve heard of quite a few independent authors being picked up by major publishers. In some cases, they were noticed and in other cases, they decided to approach agents after proving that they’d developed a fan base and could sell books. Hearing about stories like that is what prompted me to write “Best Way to a Traditional Publishing Deal: Query Agents or Self-Publish?” a couple of months ago.

I have another data point to add to the mix: me.

Earlier this week, an acquisitions editor from Amazon’s new SF/F/H imprint, 47North, contacted me about my Emperor’s Edge series. I wasn’t expecting anything like that, because I’m not a huge seller, at least not by the standards of the indie authors I’ve seen get picked up, but the editor said that she (after seeing how many awesome reviews you guys have left for the books!) checked out the series and enjoyed it.

So, I find myself with a couple of new options to consider. I can stay independent, and continue to do things my way, or I can sign on with a publisher and have a chance at being discovered by a wider audience. If I were to decide I’m interested in the latter, there’d also be the question of whether to sign on with Amazon or to perhaps look for an agent. It’s possible that if one publisher is interested, others may be too, and even if that’s not the case I’d be a little leery about signing contracts without someone around to decipher the fine print.

As far as signing up with Amazon goes, the idea is intriguing and scary at the same time. I’ve heard Robin Sullivan talk about some of the old-school boilerplate contracts that the Big 6 publishers use, and they don’t sound author-friendly, especially to an author who might want to do the hybrid thing and continue to self-publish some titles. From what I’ve read from JA Konrath and other authors who have signed with Amazon, the company seems to be more progressive and flexible. A concern, though, is that there’s a lot of anti-Amazon sentiment out there right now, and, if I went through them, I wouldn’t necessarily be able to walk into a Barnes & Noble and find my book on the shelf.

One of my reasons for making a blog post out of this is that I’d love to hear what you guys think.

Right now, I’m leaning toward staying indie for the immediate future, but I want to keep an open mind too. I’ll get to see a contract in the next week or so, just to get an idea of what exactly is on the table. In the meantime, I’m mulling over pros and cons.

Pros of Going with a Publisher

  • Help with marketing and a chance to reach a larger audience — A traditional publisher could get print copies of my books in all the stores, and, while Amazon might not be able to guarantee that, I imagine the expose at Amazon alone could make a huge difference in sales. As a traditionally published author, it’d be easier to get reviewed on the big book blogs as well.
  • Not having to deal with the little things — Having cover art done, ebooks formatted, paperbacks formatted, etc. isn’t necessarily that time consuming if you’re just doing one book, but, when you’re publishing often, it does start to feel like these non-writing aspects eat up quite a bit of time each week.
  • More chance of recognition in the biz — This isn’t much of a motivating factor for me, but as a traditionally published author, I’d be able to join the SFWA, get onto panels at cons, and be eligible for awards and such (I’m trying not to snort my latte at the idea of someone giving my goofy characters a serious literary award… though Maldynado would be tickled). And, of course, you can say things like, “I had lunch with my agent/editor today…” in casual conversation with friends, and that’s guaranteed to make you sound extra cool.

Cons of Leaving the Indie Life

  • Earning less per book — It’s hard to know how things would balance out (maybe I’d sell many more books overall and end up doing better), but it’s tough to beat the 70% cut you take home as a self-published ebook author. At the end of the day, you can make a very nice living as an indie author when you’re selling 1,500-2,000 ebooks a month, so you don’t necessarily need to be a bestseller (for new indies who think those are huge out-of-read numbers, check out my post on “What Can We Learn from JA Konrath’s $140,000 Month?” where we peep at his sales numbers and point out how much being in the biz for a while and having a lot of titles out helps).
  • Less control on every level — Traditionally published authors don’t get much, if any, say on things like cover art, publication dates, and price points. Also, you’re working with an editor now. That could be a really good thing, if you agree with the changes your editor suggests, and the books are better overall, but I’d imagine it could mean making changes you’re not 100% behind at times as well.
  • Slower publishing process — Let’s face it: nothing is speedy about the traditional system. I wonder if I’d have even found an agent by now if, back in November of 2010, I’d chosen to start querying folks instead of jumping straight into self-publishing. Because I chose the indie route, I’ve managed to get four books out already (along with my short stories and novellas), and I’ve already made it to the point where I’m making enough to do this for a living, if a modest one.
  • Infrequent sales reports — One of the things that I love about e-publishing is that you can log into the Amazon or B&N digital platforms and check your sales stats any time you want. If you’re running some kind of promotion or advertising campaign, this lets you get real-time feedback on whether something is working. Traditionally published authors get royalty statements a couple of times a year, and that’s the only way they have any idea how many books they’re selling.

So, those are some of my thoughts at the moment. As I mentioned, I’d love to hear what you guys think.

UPDATE: My decision here (thanks for the feedback, all!).

Posted in E-publishing | Tagged , , , , | 98 Comments

Peacemaker (Flash Gold 3) News and Preview Chapter

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Lindsay

Peacemaker is now out and available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.

Excerpt from the first part of the first section:

Part I

In a cave on a hillside above Dawson, whale-oil lamps spat and guttered, creating dancing shadows against the wooden frame of a ship, an airship. Still in the earliest stages of construction, it was perched on a row of wooden braces stretching the length of the earthen chamber.

Kali McAlister bent over a sawhorse, sweat dribbling from her temples as she concentrated on cutting the lumber she had laboriously ported from town on a sledge dragged behind her self-automated bicycle. When she had first imagined building an airship, she had dreamed of designing the engine, crafting clever weapons systems, and—of course!—flying the finished craft. Dreams of hours upon hours of measuring and cutting wood hadn’t come a-calling in her mind. As the bandages on her fingers attested, she didn’t have an aptitude for carpentry.

Ding!

Kali froze midway through a cut and stared at the row of bells laid on the muddy cave floor near the exit. A tiny hammer flicked against the third bell, resulting in a second ding.

“Now what?”

Another curious wolf or fox had probably tripped it, but Kali couldn’t assume that, not with the number of people after her these days. Thanks to her late father’s invention, an alchemical power source called flash gold, a number of conniving gangsters had set bounties for her capture.

Kali set the saw aside and reset the alarm. She grabbed her 1873 Winchester and a pair of smoke nuts, pocket-sized shrapnel-flinging grenades that she’d invented. Ready for trouble, she jogged outside, heading down the slope toward Booby Trap Number Three.

She followed a game trail that meandered through the undergrowth. Rain pattered onto ferns, spruce trees, and moss, creating plenty of mud to squish beneath her boots. From a lookout point above her cave, one had a view down to the marshy lowlands where Dawson sprawled, but here, in the thick of the woods, she could see little more than trees.

As Kali drew closer to the trap location, she veered off the trail so she could approach under cover. She picked her way through damp fireweed and ferns, and soon soaked the cuffs of her overalls. The calendar said late June and there were only three hours between sunset and sunrise, but so far the mosquitoes and flies were the only ones who thought summer had come.

Movement stirred the branches ahead, and Kali hunkered behind a stump for a long look. Twenty meters away, a man dangled ten feet above the ground, one ankle caught in her trap. So. Not a fox this time.

He was big and broad, and for a moment she thought it might be her bounty-hunting business partner Cedar, but he knew where her traps were, and this fellow’s hat had come off, revealing hair a few shades lighter than Cedar’s tousled black.

As Kali watched, the man swung himself up and grabbed the rope, trying to free himself. That would take him a while. Kali had used rope threaded with steel and made a knot that would only grow tighter if someone fiddled with it.

The man’s bowler hat lay in the mud beneath him, along with a Colt Peacemaker. There was also a rectangular case with the lid flung open and round ivory chips scattered all about. The revolver drew more of Kali’s attention. Nearly every man—and more than a few women—carried firearms in these parts, so the Colt didn’t necessarily mean this fellow had villainous intentions, but it was a good reason to be careful.

Kali nestled the butt of her rifle into her shoulder and crept closer. “Looking for someone, mister?”

The man let go of the cable and, dangling upside down again, craned his neck to see her. “Looking for a girl that’s supposed to be the best tinkerer in Dawson.”

“She’s a woman, not a girl.” Kali figured she could, at eighteen, make that claim legitimately, though the man had a few gray flecks in his hair and might not agree. “And she’s got a shop in town. If you asked about her, that’s where folks would have sent you.”

The man hung silently for a moment before saying, “Does that mean you’re not she?”

“That’s right.” Kali glanced over her shoulder to make sure the cave—and her future airship—weren’t in sight. It might be hard to deny she had tinkering tendencies when she was building such a craft.

“But you must know her,” the stranger said. “Someone modified your rifle.”

Kali frowned at him. She had indeed altered the Winchester to reload automatically without her needing to manually chamber the rounds, but most people wouldn’t notice the subtle changes from a distance. “You’re powerful observant for a man hanging upside down.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He touched his head where the brim of his hat would have rested if it were not in the mud below. “I’m a gambling man. Having a keen eye pays in my business.”

So those were poker chips on the ground, and the box likely contained cards, dice, and other gaming gear. The gun made sense too then. For obvious reasons, knives and firearms were part of many a gambler’s kit.

Kali lowered her rifle, though she kept both hands on it. “Why’re you looking for a tinkerer?”

“Got in a fracas a spell back, and somebody busted my pistol ring. I’m looking for someone to fix it.”

A pistol ring? Kali had heard of the tiny weapons, but she’d never seen one. They were specialty items, custom-made by a few European masters. She sure wouldn’t mind taking a look at one, but she was not yet ready to believe his story. How had he known to come up here looking for her? Only Cedar knew about her cave, and she had not seen him in days.

“I checked,” the man went on when Kali said nothing, “and the best smiths in town have closed shop and taken to the river to work their claims.”

That part of his story rang true. The two smiths that shared a street with her tinkery had been closed for weeks. It seemed like everyone had gold fever and was out mucking about, which was why she hadn’t been able to find a carpenter, or anyone halfway decent with a hammer, to help with her ship.

“Pistol ring, eh?” Kali said. “Five, six shots? Five millimeter custom bullets or thereabouts?”

“Yes, ma’am. Won it in a game of five-card stud poker down in San Francisco. I reckon I could show it to you if you’d cut me down.”

“I reckon you could do a lot of things if I cut you down.”

“Less than you’d think. Thanks to that rather tight knot up there, my leg has gone quite numb, so I’m not aspiring to do more than stand again today.” He smiled ruefully.

Kali gave him the squinty eye. He seemed amiable enough—most men would be cursing and swearing at her to cut them down—but the fact that nobody was supposed to know she was up here continued to make her suspicious. Maybe he had been watching her shop and had followed her out of town that morning. If his intentions were honest, why hadn’t he simply asked for her help in Dawson?

“Grab that rope with both hands.” Kali pointed above his ankle.

The man did so, which lifted his head and hands high enough that Kali was sure he couldn’t grab her.

“Now what?” he asked.

Before he finished the question, she slipped beneath him and grabbed the Colt. She left the rest of the kit, though she glanced at the velvet inlay of the open case. A plaque read, “Preston Somerset.”

“I didn’t think you had the look of a thief,” the man said, his voice cooler.

“I hope I have the look of a cautious woman.” Kali stuffed the revolver into her overalls before pushing aside a stack of rocks and fiddling with the mechanism hidden behind them. She cranked a wheel, and the ankle noose released.

The stranger twisted in the air and landed feet first in a crouch. It was the sort of move Cedar could make look easy, but not many others could. Kali pointed her rifle in the man’s direction again.

“I suppose caution is wise around here.” He—Somerset—flicked his gaze toward her Winchester and held his hands out, but his stance was relaxed, his face calm. “Do you think you could talk to your tinkerer friend to see if she might work on my piece?”

He tapped a buttoned shirt pocket, and Kali had to admit she was itching to see the miniature gun. It might be smartest to send this fellow on his way, but Cedar had a saying about the wisdom of keeping one’s enemies close. That way one could see what they were fixing to do. If she shooed Somerset away, he might simply spy on her from afar. Better to pretend he’d won her over, so she could find out what he was up to. And—a smile curved her lips—maybe she could persuade him to saw a few boards while she was at it.

“I might be able to talk to her, a favor if you like, but you’d need to do a favor for me,” Kali said.

“That could probably happen.”

Quick to agree, wasn’t he? He hadn’t even asked what she had in mind. “How’re your carpentry skills?”

“I can manage tools,” Somerset said. “What’re you—”

A woman’s scream tore through the trees.

The stranger’s head whipped around. The cry had come from down the slope, somewhere close to town. Another scream followed, a sound of sheer pain, before it was cut short in the middle.

Kali was about to ask the man what he knew about it, but he spoke first.

“Someone’s in trouble.” He took a determined step toward her, his hand reaching toward the Colt, but caught himself and asked, “May I have my piece, please?”

Kali hesitated a moment, then tossed him the revolver.

Without another word, he sprinted down the trail in the direction of the screams. He disappeared into the trees, leaving his gambling kit behind.

Kali wasn’t certain it was the smart thing to do—she had a briar patch of her own troubles without getting tangled up in someone else’s—but she headed downhill anyway, following Somerset’s prints in the mud…

* * *

Get a copy at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords. Thanks for reading!

 

Posted in My Ebooks | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

What Kind of Emperor’s Edge Goodies Would You Like to See for My KickStarter Campaign?

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Lindsay

If you happened to read my post last week on Using KickStarter to Fund Self-Publishing Projects, you might remember that I was toying with the idea of running a campaign myself, one to help fund the production of my Emperor’s Edge audiobooks.

I paid for professional narration and editing of the first two audiobooks out of pocket (you can download all of The Emperor’s Edge through Podiobooks.com or iTunes, and the opening chapters of Book 2 will be out soon), and I put them out there for free, because that’s how I like to roll, but I have four more books planned in the series, and it’ll be quite an investment to get them all out there. So, KickStarter.

For those who don’t want to read the other article (hey, it’s long, I understand), this is a site that allows artists, authors, musicians, etc. to post projects and ask for “crowd-funding” help, meaning people can donate money to get the project off the ground. In return, they get goodies related to the project.

Here are things I’m definitely going to give away to folks who pledge:

  • Completed audio files of the books (instead of listening to a chapter a week on iTunes, you’d be able to listen to the entire book at once, similarly to a story you download from Audible)
  • Signed paperbacks of The Emperor’s Edge, Dark Currents, and Deadly Games
  • A USB drive with all of the audiobooks, all of the ebooks, cut scenes from the stories, interviews I’ve done around the web, and basically anything else I can think of that might be fun to include.

Here are a few more things I’m thinking of giving away:

  • A chance to name a minor character in Book 4
  • Advertising (probably sponsored posts, but I’m open to other ideas) for fantasy authors or artists who’d like a little exposure on my blog, Twitter feed, Facebook page, etc.

Are these good, or is there something else you’d like to see as a prize? Don’t worry — leaving a comment here under no way obligates you to pledge. I’d love to get your input though!

UPDATE: Here’s a preview link to what I’ve set up so far. Nothing is set in stone, so feel free to comment. I may add a partial manuscript or short story critique, since a couple of you have mentioned that, so if that’s something you’d be interested in, please give me an idea on a reasonable price point. Thanks!

Posted in News | Tagged , | 37 Comments

Writing Tips: It’s All in the Details with Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Lindsay

I’ve been buried in editing this week, finishing up the third Flash Gold novella (it’s off to the editor now, so almost done!), and I’ve been neglecting the blog. Fortunately, I have a couple of guest posts in the queue, so I can offer you something to read in the meantime. Today one of my Twitter buddies Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali (she’s the lady who interviewed me about my assassin, Sicarius, a couple of months ago) is here to talk to you about getting the details right when you’re writing.

It’s All In the Details

I’m that person who rolls her eyes in disgust when I watch a movie where the doctor checks for the patient’s pulse using his thumb.  I groan when a laboring woman gives birth to a baby with no umbilical cord who already looks mature enough to get up and walk away.  I hate when movie characters wake up with perfect make-up and hair.  I yell at the screen when a character doing CPR has his arms bent while giving chest compressions…way too slowly.  And for the life of me, and don’t get me wrong, I love the Walking Dead, but shouldn’t all those walking dead, emphasis on the word dead, have melted into puddles of rotten goop in the summer heat by now?

But that’s television.  In books, we get it right.  Right?  Not so much.

Who would ever notice?  Who cares?  I do.  While there are few things about which I can claim being an expert, believe me when I say that I am paying attention to everything.  If I’m paying attention then rest assured that there is some nitpicking picker who is scanning your prose with a magnifying glass.  If you don’t get the facts right, those little details, you’re likely to lose credibility.  Check out 5 Common Medical Errors in Movies.

When I wrote An Unproductive Woman almost fifteen years ago, I included a character named Khadijah who had recurrent breast cancer.  While I didn’t give hard details or facts about her disease or treatment, I did say enough to get it wrong.  After completing AUW, the manuscript spent the next ten or so years in a box in my garage.  Who would have thought that in the interim, as I raised my two eldest children, I would eventually go to nursing school and become a registered and certified breast oncology nurse?  Not me, that’s for sure.

When the opportunity to self-publish AUW presented itself, I grabbed it with both hands.  I immediately got to work re-reading and re-editing.  It is while doing the final edit that I realized how wrong I had been.  Chemotherapy typically lasts six months, not nine.  Radiation may burn the skin but does not cause the hair of the head to fall out, unless that is the area being radiated.  Not all chemotherapy causes nausea and weight loss.

Wikipedia is a terrific source of information for some things, but sometimes, it’s the small details that count.  Personally, I am impressed when I read about a character who’s received an intramuscular injection in the right hip as opposed to a shot in the butt.  I’m not talking info dumps here, nor am I looking for any House-like rare conditions with cures that are even more off the wall, but the basics should always be spot on if we are to earn our reader’s confidence.  Unless we’re writing fantasy, we can’t just make it up as we go along.  Actually, you can’t always make it up with fantasy either.

For an accurate and up to date medical reference, Medscape is a terrific online resource.  Look up any medical condition and you’ll get an explanation about disease presentation, diagnostic procedures, and possible treatments.  PubMed, while a tad scholarly, is a pretty good resource as well.  The regular old Centers for Disease Control also provides information that’s easy for the lay person to understand.  When in absolute doubt, just ask an expert.  If you’re the shy type, send an email.

Ah, so, it’s not medical information you need?  For more general knowledge try The Order of Things: Hierarchies, Structures, and Pecking Orders by Barbara Ann Kipfer.  This book is a fantastic organized reference book with dozens of lists about everything from religion, to philosophy, to economics and more.

The long and short of it is, it’s all in the details, and as a writer, you need to pay attention to them.  If you don’t, your reader will.

And for the record, if you want to take out a zombie, a gunshot to the frontal lobe isn’t likely to do the trick.  You’ve got to destroy or sever the brain stem.  Just saying.

*****

Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali lives and works in Houston as a breast oncology nurse. She is married and the mother to three brilliant artistic children who far outstrip her in intelligence. She writes because she loves to and also because she has a story (or two, or three…) to tell.

You can catch her online at her website, Goodreads, Facebook, Google+, and Twitter.

Her novel can be found on Amazon and Smashwords. (She’s offering a coupon code to grab the novel for free for the next couple of weeks at Smashwords: LC23T)

Posted in Guest Posts | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

Newsletters 101: Email Marketing for Authors

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Lindsay

NewsletterI’ve had a couple of comments left in the bowels of the blog of late that lead me to think that I should say more about newsletters than, “You should have one.” Okay, my article on How to Start a Newsletter (and why every author should) covers a little more than that, but there are still questions afoot. So, let me see if I can answer a few questions and comments today. We’ll call this the email-marketing-for-authors FAQ.

My book just came out, and I want to email everyone I know, so that they’ll buy it. Should I?

My answer here is going to depend on who “everyone” you know is. Is it 20 or 30 friends and family members that you email on a regular basis? If so, sure, send them a note in case they’re interested in checking out your book, and you might even ask them to forward the message on to people they know who read in that genre.

If “everyone” you know is everyone you just happen to have an email address for, including the 500 people who work in your building, the 745 Facebook friends that you’ve never talked to, and basically everyone you’ve ever hit reply to in an email over the last five years, then my answer is no, leave these people alone. They don’t have a real relationship with you and probably don’t give a rat’s petootie about your new book. They might regard your random email as spam. Nobody likes to get spam. If you bug them more than once, they may mulishly decide they’ll never try your book (even if they might have been interested by it if they’d chanced upon it on Amazon).

If you want to engage in email marketing (and there are all sorts of benefits of maintaining a mailing list with your fans’ addresses, the main one being that you can send them a note and let them know when you have a new release out), then you need to start a newsletter.

What exactly do you mean by “newsletter”?

A lot of people seem to think I mean blog-rss-subscription-by-email when I say newsletter (i.e. people fill out a field on your blog and your posts are automatically delivered to their inbox). It’s fine to have this on your site, but this isn’t what I mean. There will be times when you want to email fans directly, and your messages might be for their eyes only (hey, they’ve signed up to be in your inner circle, so it makes sense to give them some special insider stuff).

For example, last month when I released my short story, The Assassin’s Curse, I put it up for 99 cents in the various stores, but I sent a Smashwords coupon to my newsletter subscribers, so they could get it for free if they were interested. A lot of people chose to buy it anyway, to support me as an author, but I’ve definitely had emails from people who mention that money is tight and that they appreciate how affordable my ebooks are, so it’s nice to be able to give away freebies or coupons now and then. Of course, I can’t give every book away free, but I figure it’s good karma to be generous when possible. After all, the folks who sign up for your newsletter are going to be some of your biggest fans, the types of people who tell other people that they have to try your books.

But, I digress… Back to the what-is-a-real-newsletter question.

When I talk of newsletters, I’m talking about a separate mailing list where your readers must “opt in” (choose to sign up of their own accord) in order to belong to it. They are agreeing to receive periodic newsletters from you, and they have the option to unsubscribe at any time. Every email you send should have an unsubscribe link at the bottom (if you join Aweber, Mailchimp, or another of the mailing-list services out there, this will automatically be included in your footers).

Anything else (like you signing people up just because they emailed you once or they commented on your blog) isn’t proper web etiquette and may even be illegal (I’m too lazy to go look up the details of the CAN-SPAM Act, but either way you don’t want to do anything that people could construe as harassment or an irritation).

When you make the leap from writer to published author, you also make the leap from artist to entrepreneur. If you’re trying to sell something, you’ll want to obey all of the rules and etiquette that good businesses follow. The last thing you want to do is alienate potential readers by coming across as a spamming pest.

What you can do is, when responding to reader emails, mention that you have a newsletter they might be interested in signing up for and include a link to that page on your site.

Where can I get a newsletter?

I use Aweber, but it’s mainly because I signed up with them years ago, when I ran several mailing lists for my various websites. I’ve been happy with them, but I don’t generally recommend that service to authors, because of the cost. They charge about $55 a quarter, and most authors won’t need all of the bells and whistles that come with the service (such as the ability to host multiple lists, run auto-responders, and a lot of fancy stats analysis such as click tracking). An exception would be if an author was very popular and saw themselves quickly racking up thousands of newsletter subscribers. (The free services I’m going to mention are only free to a point — after one- or two-thousand subscribers, for example, you have to start paying, and at that point they may become more expensive than Aweber).

Free-to-a-certain-point:

  • Mailchimp — up to 2,000 contacts
  • YMLP — up to 1,000 contacts

I haven’t tried either of these, but I’ve heard from authors who have, and they seem to be happy. The people I know have small lists and haven’t had to worry about going over the subscriber limit yet.

Why I’m sticking with Aweber

Even though Aweber is pricier when you’re starting out (they don’t have a free trial or free-to-a-point option), I expect to break into the thousands of newsletter subscribers before long (I have about 700 now, and I just started plugging the email list in August — I’m also planning a site re-design where the sign-up form will be more prominent). So, I’d end up paying sooner or later anyway.

Another option?

If you pay for your own web hosting, you might have a mailing list software already installed and accessible from your control panel. I’ve heard of WordPress plug-ins that you can use in conjunction with a list based on your own server. I’m not sure what kinds of features you might have with this option, as I’ve never checked into it for myself, but if you’re the techy type (or know someone who is) it may be worth looking into.

After my newsletter is set up, how do I get people to sign up for it?

The big thing is to let your readers know about it. I was slow to do this myself, but my subscriptions picked up when I started mentioning my newsletter at the ends of my ebooks. These days, in my afterword, I usually mention my website, Twitter, and Facebook links, and also that I have a newsletter that people can check out if they want to be notified when I have new releases, contests, giveaways, etc.

Some people want to jump-start their newsletter-subscriber numbers by hosting contests on their blogs, i.e. everyone who signs up for my newsletter will be entered for a chance to win an Amazon gift certificate! I, uh, possibly did that myself. 😛

The problem with that approach, though, is that you get people signing up who aren’t necessarily fans of your work. They’ll just unsubscribe later on.

The only people you really want to sign on are those who have read your stories and want more of your work. As I mentioned, the best way to get those people is by mentioning your newsletter at the end of the book. I know, I know, if you’re only selling a few books a week, this can feel like a tediously slow way to increase one’s fan-base.

My suggestion? Give some short stories away for free (if you have a series of novels out, you might even try giving the first book away for free — you’ve all seen that I’ve had my first Emperor’s Edge book available for free for a couple of months and it’s helped with newsletter sign-ups and sales of subsequent books in the series). You’ll get more people checking out your work that way, and, if they like it, they’ll come to your site and sign up for your list.

Sneaky internet marketers’ tactic to encourage signups:

When I spoke of free ebooks, I meant to get them out there in the Kindle, B&N, iTunes, etc. stores where lots of people will find them, but you can also use free as an incentive to get readers to sign up for your newsletter. If you stumble across some business’s website, you’ll probably be hit with a pop-up box that says something like, “Sign up for our newsletter and get our free ebook on 7 Ways to Melt Away Your Bellyfat Now!” Believe it or not, that stuff works. And you can use the tactic too (sans the annoying pop-up box, please).

Let’s say someone is a fan of your work, and isn’t that big on signing up for newsletters, but they do visit your blog now and then. You could try giving away an exclusive short story, cut scene, or character interview as a way to entice them to sign up. If your freebie isn’t available anywhere else, then they might be a little more tempted to sign up. (Again, this is going to work best with people who are already readers, so do your best to get your work out there in a lot of places where people can try it, maybe for free.) With a mailing list service, you can set up your first email message so that the free tidbit is included in the body of the email; that way people will get it right away and you don’t have to do anything manually.

I have to admit that I haven’t really used that tactic yet myself, but I did do a blog post last month, when I was showing off the cover art for that short story, and I mentioned that I’d be giving away free copies to people on my list. As you might guess, I had quite a few extra signups that week.

Okay, that’s enough for one post (more than enough!). I’ll continue this soon in “Advanced Newsletter Tactics for Authors” so stick around, and let me know if you have any questions you’d like to see covered.

Posted in Book Marketing | Tagged , , | 39 Comments

Book Promotion Basics — Useful Articles for New Authors

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Lindsay

I promised myself I’d spend most of my computer time editing today, so I’m doing a “best of” type post for authors who haven’t been hanging around my blog, reading every single word for long (it’s okay…you didn’t know any better…:D).

The following are some core articles on book promotion:

And a few bonus extras:

If you have any questions or topics you’d like to see covered in future posts, let me know in the comments. Thanks, and happy book promoting!

 

Posted in Book Marketing | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Peacemaker (Flash Gold 3) Cover Art, Teasers, and Story Updates

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Lindsay

I’ve been editing the third Flash Gold novella for the last couple of weeks and sent it off to a beta reader last night. I’ve reserved a spot with my editor for later in the month, too, so I should be able to get the story out in early March.

The novella, Peacemaker, came in at almost 40,000 words (the last two were 17,000 and 27,000 respectively), so I hope folks looking for a longer adventure will be pleased. I haven’t written up a blurb yet, but you can make some guesses as to what’s going on based on the cover art!

Here are a few dialogue teasers from the story:

“Moosehide, then,” Cedar said. “I don’t reckon I’d be able to talk to the Hän without you. Are you willing to go?”
“That depends. Are you willing to share your fancy blanket again?”
A smile softened his face. “Well, it did need a lot of attention from a seamstress after the last time you slept in it. Did no one ever educate you on proper things to do in bed? Setting off explosives isn’t one of them.”

“You’re not speechless, are you?” Cedar asked. “I’ve never seen that on you.”
“I…don’t know what to say,” Kali said.
“Thank you is a popular choice.”

For the Emperor’s Edge fans out there, I gave the story a break after finishing the rough draft at the end of January, but I opened the file up this morning, and I’m ready to dive in again. It starts out with a little sword play atop a moving train. There are actually quite a few train scenes in this one, and I even clambered under, over, and around trains in a museum in Chandler, Arizona, to get ideas for a big battle near the end.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have editing to do!

Posted in My Ebooks | 15 Comments

Using Kickstarter to Fund Self-Publishing Projects

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Lindsay

Thanks to the e-reader revolution, there are a lot of perks to self-publishing these days, but one of the downsides is that you’re on your own for funding some of the basic necessities, such as cover art, editing (this alone can be $1,000 and up for a novel-length manuscript), and formatting. Once you start making money, and have reserves from previous sales to draw upon, it gets easier, but lots of independent authors struggle to come up with the initial funds.

I’ve run into some authors who have used a site called KickStarter to help with start-up costs. I’m looking into it myself right now, not for books, but as a way to pay for my podiobook-creation costs.

As I’ve mentioned before, I pay the folks at Darkfire Productions to handle the narration and editing, because I they do a much more professional job than I could ever manage on my own. As you can guess, hiring voice talent to narrate a whole book isn’t inexpensive, and the podiobooks get published for free, so it’s a little different from paying $1,000-$1,500 for making an ebook that you’re going to sell. I’m fortunate to have enough awesome readers now that I generally make that back within a couple of weeks of releasing a new novel.

With the audiobooks, I paid for the first two out of pocket (the first chapters of Dark Currents will be online soon for those who are wondering!), but when I sat back and did the math, I realized I’d be in the $10,000 ballpark on expenses if I did the whole six-book series. That’s what I’d like to do, but I’ve been mulling over whether I get enough “return on my investment” with the podiobooks to justify the expense.

Because they get published on Podiobooks.com and iTunes for free, the only way I make money is if people end up enjoying the stories enough to buy the books. This has happened, as I wrote about in an article on “Can Publishing a Podiobook Help You Sell More Books?” but I’m certain I’m a long ways from breaking even overall on the audiobook-creation expenses. I have been thinking about selling the finished podiobook to folks who may be interested in having the complete audio (Audible-style) in one file without the story being broken up by chapter with repetitive intros and outros, but I’m also thinking of giving KickStarter a try to fund the costs of producing the third audiobook.

What is KickStarter?

KickStarter is a “crowd-sourcing” site, where you can post projects that need funding to get off the ground. Basically, you’re looking for donations from people, but you get to make it worth their while by offering gifts to those who pledge (i.e. copies of the finished project). You can have different levels of gifts for those who donate different amounts. People won’t be charged unless you meet your goal, so you better make your goodies appealing, so more folks will sign up.

What should you give away to entice people to pledge?

You can probably think of numerous ways you could reward these early investors, but here are some thoughts.

If you’re putting together your first novel, and you intend to offer ebook and paperback versions, you might have a goal of $1,500 or $2,000 to cover the costs of editing, cover art design, and formatting for ebooks and paperbacks. You might get this by offering a copy of the finished ebook to those who donated $5 or $10 and a signed paperback to those who pay $20 or more. (If you do physical products, you’ll need to figure the costs of ordering and shipping those into your funding goal.)

In my case, since I’m interested in creating the third audiobook in my series, I might offer the completed audio file for the third book at the lowest pledge level (people would get this before the chapters started going up on Podiobooks), files of all three audiobooks at the next level, and something like signed CDs with the first three ebooks and audiobooks on them at the highest level. I’d poll my readers/listeners to get an idea of what they were interested in before setting up a campaign, and I’d suggest you do the same. What people want and what you think they want aren’t always the same! Maybe I’d find out that some people would donate if they could get signed copies of the paperbacks instead.

Who does KickStarter work for?

Though I’m just now looking into this for myself, I’ve been aware of KickStarter for a year or more, and I’ve watched a lot of authors put together campaigns. Honestly, most of them have failed to reach their funding goals. If the goal isn’t reached, that means that none of the “pledgers” will be charged, so you don’t get any money at all for your project.

Why do people fail? They don’t have a big enough readership to support them beforehand. You can’t count on random people browsing the KickStarter site, thinking your project looks cool, and pledging money. In fact, I’d be shocked if that happened very often. You need to have a fan-base built up that wants to support you and wants to see your books in print (or, in my case, audio).

Do you need a huge fan base? Not necessarily. If you do have a huge fan base, you can be like this guy who has $22,000 pledged right now (his initial goal was $3,000 to cover the cost of turning some of his comics into ebooks!), but most of us aren’t going to get that kind of love. That’s okay, since most of us are just looking to cover our expenses, not get rich off of people’s pledges. And that can definitely happen, even for a new author.

Last year, I interviewed Miranda MeiLin, an indie fantasy author who successfully funded her first ebook and paperback using KickStarter. You can read the whole interview if you’re interested, but here’s a quote related to her KickStarter success:

Forty-eight people bought pre-sale packages to the tune of $2500. That paid for my editor, artist and typographer, and then the purchase and shipping of the paperback for those that bought the print package. The $50 presale bought them an autographed paperback, the finished formatted ebook and a thank-you in the acknowledgments, but the real attraction was that they got the raw manuscript as soon as my editor and I decided it was done (the $25 package was everything but the paperback). I finished on August 31st, 2010 at 9:30 pm; the raw manuscript was in their hands 24 hours later.

Kickstarter worked for Miranda because she was able to build up a readership beforehand. She did it by publishing her early stories as part of web serial that people could read for free. You can, see, too that she didn’t need a huge number of supporters (only 48) to make her goal.

I think I’ll be able to get some support, too, since I have quite a few readers who follow me via Twitter, Facebook, my blog, my newsletter, etc. I think that’s key with KickStarter — having an audience already established, people who are going to be excited by the items you’re giving away in return for their pledged money. I have more readers than I have listeners of the podiobooks, so I don’t know if it’ll work as well as a book-related campaign might, but we shall see.

So, what if you’re just starting out and don’t have a readership?

My advice would be to serialize some of your work on the web or give away free short stories in ebook form on Smashwords, Amazon, B&N, etc. to start building a readership before you launch a Kickstarter campaign. If you do ebooks, make sure to include an afterword, letting folks know where to find you online (and maybe even suggesting that they sign up for your newsletter!).

Posted in Tips and Tricks | 20 Comments