Introduction to E-Publishing by L B Gschwandtner

Posted on February 18, 2011 by Lindsay

Yesterday, I wrote about the benefits of guest posting, and today we’ve got a guest post by L.B. Gschwandtner. Appropriate, don’t you think?

She’s here to write about her experiences e-publishing, statistics on the growing ebook industry (interesting stuff for authors!), and her novels, The Naked Gardener, and a fun children’s ebook Page Truly and The Journey To Nearandfar (visit the Goodreads giveaway page to enter to win a copy). And now for her post:

The Indie Author, That’s Me

It may be as big a reading revolution as the Gutenberg Bible. You’ve heard of Indie rock, Indie film, even Indie classical. But what about Indie books? Well, their time has arrived. And when you talk Indie authors at this moment, you’re talking Kindle and, to a lesser degree, Nook.

I’ve answered questions about my new book, The Naked Gardener, for many different blog interviews and the subject of how book publishing is changing came up in each one. We’re talking fiction – from an author’s point of view, and Indie authors.

The Indie Road

When a writer friend talked me into going Indie on Kindle, I hesitated. But when her sales took off, I uploaded The Naked Gardener in digital format and Amazon.com’s sister business, Createspace, as a traditional print book. We all know about Kindle and that the iPad has a Kindle app. There are others. Barnes and Noble’s Nook, and a host of new devices that allow users to download books and other print products in digital form to read as they like. It’s great. People seem to love their Kindles or Nooks or whatever. But what about writers? And what about traditional publishing? What is going to happen?

For one thing, there will be more books available for digital devices. A lot more. That’s because Amazon has set up an incredible supply channel and marketing machine using authors not only to supply the books but to promote them as well.

According to Stephen Shapiro, a blogger who attended last year’s annual convention of the book industry, BEA, each year, 172,000 new books are published in the United States. Of those, only 1,000 books sell more than 50,000 copies in retail channels. Less than 25,000 sell more than 5,000 copies. Ninety-three percent of books published (160,000) sell less than 1,000 copies. That represents all books published.

I personally know fiction authors whose agents tell them that sales in the 5,000 range for a work of fiction is highly respectable. In the 10,000 range it’s highly unusual. And in the twenty to fifty thousand range it’s highly unlikely. Above that you’re talking DaVinci Code and The Help. Rare cases that defy the odds makers.

Enter Kindle, and the Indie author. In July, 2010, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos reported: “ …  while our hardcover sales continue to grow, the Kindle format has now overtaken the hardcover format. Amazon.com customers now purchase more Kindle books than hardcover books –astonishing, when you consider that we’ve been selling hardcover books for 15 years and Kindle books for 33 months.” In January, 2011, he reported that Kindle book sales had eclipsed paperbacks on Amazon.com. Much earlier than his company had predicted.

Now not all of those Kindle books were by Indie authors. But this and other inroads by digital books have sparked a quiet revolution. Authors whose digital rights are owned by big publishing houses are beginning to abandon these giants and go out on their own, publishing new titles only on Kindle and promoting them through their own and everyone else’s blogs. In addition, Amazon has done something so clever that it seems obviously simple now. The site, and others not associated with Amazon like Kindle Boards, host dozens of message boards where readers, authors and anyone else can post thoughts and share ideas about books in general, specific books, digital readers, authors, and anything else that is not offensive or downright ornery.

It’s a bit daunting to first enter this message board world. The rules for each message board are prominently featured. Amazon has assigned moderators who will jump in and answer questions when the need arises. But here’s the really amazing and wonderful part of this for an author. Anyone can add to a discussion and post a salient comment or question. But you can also start your own discussion topics. And if you need help or just want to chat with other writers, everyone is supportive, helpful, and sometimes funny. Some boards allow authors to list their books, post sample text, tell readers about price, special sales and other offers.

Enter The Blogger

In fact a cottage industry of book review bloggers has sprung up like a field of poppies in France. There are hundreds – maybe thousands – of bloggers who review books. Everything from women’s fiction to religious to children’s to non fiction and anything else, always for free. Bloggers make a big point of that. At the same time, many of these blogs also offer all manner of freebies from manufacturers so it’s a grass roots marketing system that works for companies, bloggers (who get free samples), and authors, who get unbiased reviews from the markets they actually serve. The middlemen – critics, agents, publishing houses, book distribution companies – are becoming less important for authors and readers alike.

Here’s a little secret no one outside the book industry – especially writers – realizes. Most books spend less than three months in any bookstore. The churn is enormous. And when a  book is done selling, the big houses send them to the book scrap yard. But Indie authors’ books can stay online forever. Which is why the big houses are now listing their titles on sites like Amazon. But not at the price Indie authors charge. Indie authors don’t have to share royalties with agents or give half (or more) of the cover price back to the book distributor so the price point can come down while the sales volume can reach thousands a month.

My first novel, The Naked Gardener, will reach that magic 1,000+ sales milestone this month and my Middle Grade novel, Page Truly and The Journey To Nearandfar, which I just pubbed, has begun to sell.

An Indie author friend whose romantic suspense novel went on sale in the Kindle edition in early June sold over 7,000 books this January. At ninety-nine cents per sale she keeps thirty-five cents. If she has three or four books on Kindle, she can set different price points and the math is obvious. Amazon has set the royalty schedule so it benefits the author. If your Kindle book sells for $2.99 or above the author keeps seventy percent as a royalty. Under $2.99 the author keeps thirty-five percent. But beyond the numbers is the issue of control, which stays in the author’s hands. And that is setting the traditional publishing system on its head.

The Tradition Rich Industry

Here’s how traditional publishing works. You write a book. It takes you years, sometimes decades. You want to share your book with readers. After all that’s what a book is all about. It comes alive when someone reads it. So you start asking around and discover you can’t send your book to a publishing house because editors, for the most part, only look at submissions through agents. So, just like thousands of other writers you start what’s known as the querying process. Your query shows up with the hundreds of other queries the agent receives every day and, lucky for you, a few requests to see the first chapter or maybe the first three chapters come back to you. More often – much more often – your book gets rejected right there. Boom. You’re out of the game.

Or, you do get an agent to represent your book. The agent gets fifteen percent of everything that happens from here on out, takes anywhere from a week to a year or more to shop your book around and maybe you get one or two offers. An offer consists of a dollar figure advance payment to lock in your book with an editor at a publishing house and fifteen percent to you of each book sold. I have writer friends who’ve received advances from five thousand dollars to eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars and everything in between. The average advance is around ten thousand dollars. The publishing house then deducts your royalty payment against your advance so if a book doesn’t – as they say – pay out, you get nothing further. Oh, and by the way, your publishing house also holds back anywhere from twenty to thirty percent against – listen carefully here – returns.

That’s right. Publishers don’t really sell books to people. They sell books to book distribution companies who have orders from bookstores to buy them. Book distributors deliver the books to stores who pay them a percentage of the cover price. The distributor takes forty to sixty percent of that and gives the rest to the publisher. If your books don’t sell in the stores, the distributor takes them back (returns) and sends them back to the publisher. The author gets those returns debited against the original advance or any accrued royalties. The upshot? It takes years for the author to know how many books have been sold.

Case in point. An author friend’s agent sold her first novel to a large publishing house in December 2007. It was released in hardcover on March 31, 2010. It had already sold enough in foreign rights to publishers in other countries to cover her advance of sixty-five thousand dollars. By July it was already gone from most of the bookstores, even though it was selling well and she figured it had earned out its advance. However since the publisher is “holding back” twenty percent of the money it has collected in foreign rights sales and another twenty to thirty percent (she has not been informed yet what this percent is) against returns, and since she only gets a royalty statement twice a year, she has absolutely no idea how her book is doing or if she will ever see any more money from its sales. Three years after her agent sold her book, she still hasn’t seen a penny in royalties.

Oh, but you say, her publisher is promoting her book and sending her on book tours and treating her really well. No. No. And no. The editor sent her on a book blog tour from her telephone and computer. During the first eight weeks after her book’s release she did about forty blog interviews. On her own, she also arranged some book signings in the city where she lives and some other events, including a short book tour by car to a few neighboring states. I know of many similar stories. Some worse. Hers is pretty good by comparison.

Enter Indie Publishing

I’ve been asked: “Why did you decide to bring The Naked Gardener and Page Truly and The Journey To Nearandfar out as ebooks instead of going the more traditional publishing route?” Here’s my long list of reasons:

  • I didn’t want to wait for someone else – an agent, an editor, the marketing dept. of a publishing house etc. – to give me permission to sell my book or waste the time to wait for the traditional process to take hold. I’d rather be writing my next book.
  • Friends who have books with traditional publishers are almost universally unhappy with their situation or outcomes (no matter what advance they got, even the huge ones).
  • It takes years to get an agent. Then takes months (or more) for the agent to sell it to an editor. Then it takes at least 1.5 yrs (and many longer than that) to come out with the hardcover or in some cases soft cover.
  • Publishers promote a book lackadaisically for about 2 months and then move on leaving the author to do the rest of the promoting alone (or not at all).
  • Everything the authors do to promote their own work is what I would be doing anyway as an Indie. And I can do whatever seems to be working better for my book.
  • Kindle (or other apps like Nook & iPad) sales are growing rapidly while bookstore sales are declining. Borders went belly up in bankruptcy court.
  • Readers purchase more Kindle type books because of the price & recent stats say they read more.
  • As an Indie I get immediate feedback on sales figures and I can have an impact on sales.
  • Publishers keep authors in the dark about sales except twice a year when they send out royalty statements so authors never know how their book is doing. I can look at my online sales whenever I want and Amazon automatically figures the royalty for me.
  • A Kindle book costs almost nothing to publish.
  • But the biggest reason for me is the control issue. I feel I’m in control of my future to the degree that is possible.

And on the downside:

  • I’ll never get a traditional review but writers who get published by small presses or in paperback won’t either and there are fewer and fewer book reviews in the traditional print media anyway. Except for Publishers Weekly, which is an industry publication and Kirkus Reviews, there are fewer and fewer ways for a book to be reviewed in print.
  • I won’t have bookstore sales. That is for the two months or so I might have had them.
  • I’ll never have the caché of being with a traditional “house.”
  • Finally there’s that advance. It’s a double edged sword. If you get a big advance and your book doesn’t pay out, it’s unlikely you’ll get a second bite at the apple. And big advances are even more rare these days.

So a couple of questions always come up in interviews. The first is am I making any money on book sales?  Well of course I am. I’m happy with the control I have on everything from price to promotion. I can’t move to a villa on the Riviera – yet. But I am making sales and I do get a royalty with no agent taking a percentage. As my romantic suspense writer friend once told me, “I write to entertain people. I’m not writing for agents or editors but for people who like to read. They’re my authority.”

The second is do I have plans for any other books? Why thank you for asking and yes I do. I’m working on a sequel to The Naked Gardener about how the women from the Naked Gardener save their dying town. It’s called Trout River Falls. And the writer friend who led me into Indie authorship and I will be releasing a new series very soon. The first book is called Foxy’s Tale.

I hope you’ll click onto your favorite book site and download some copies of mine or someone else’s book – for as low as or lower than 99 cents. At those prices, everyone can afford to read.

Sidebar:

The Saga Of The First Harry Potter Book Deal.

J.K. Rowling worked on the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone on and off from 1990 through 1995. After being accepted by Christopher Little Literary Agents, the book was rejected by all twelve publishing houses where it had been submitted. A year later Bloomsbury, a small British press finally gave Rowling a £1500 advance. Interestingly Harry Potter may owe its life to Alice Newton, the eight-year-old daughter of Bloomsbury’s chairman, who was given the first chapter to review by her father and immediately demanded the next. In 1997, Rowling received an £8,000 grant from the Scottish Arts Council to enable her to continue writing. The following spring, Scholastic Inc. won the rights to publish Harry Potter in the U.S. for $105,000.

Check out L.B. Gschwandtner on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and look her up on Twitter.

Also, visit her children’s book pages: Kidz Like To e-Read Facebook Page and Kidz Like To e-Read  Goodreads Group.

Posted in Guest Posts | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Guest Blogging Your Way out of Obscurity

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Lindsay

Earlier this week, I posted an interview with successful indie author, Nathan Lowell, and one of his comments rang home for me: “Obscurity is a bigger obstacle than quality.”

You can have an awesome story, a thrilling blurb, and gorgeous cover art, but if nobody knows your book exists, nobody’s going to buy it. Sucks, huh?

Some folks get lucky and get rescued from obscurity fairly early on (and we hate them, yes, we do, my precious). For the rest of us…we have to plug away, getting our names out there, one mention at a time.

One way to do this is with guest posting. I know of at least a couple people who have been kind enough to purchase my ebooks after learning about me on someone else’s blog. Also, I just had a peep at the traffic stats for this site, and, while Google and Twitter are the biggest sources, the guest posts I’ve done do add up. If you haven’t tried this yet, it may be worth considering.

So, without further ado, a short (haha, short, you believe that, right?) primer on guest posting:

What is guest posting?

Let’s start with the basics. Guest posting is writing an article for someone else’s blog. In exchange for sharing your informative and (we hope) interesting content, the blog owner should let you plug your books and your site.

It’s a good deal for both parties. The blog owner gets a day off from blogging (especially great if they’re heading off on vacation and want to keep the content flowing for their readers), and you get the word out about your work.

Though guest posts are an opportunity to mention your books, they’re not usually promotional in nature. (Bloggers are less enthused about inviting you to post if it’s obvious you’re just there to plug your books and aren’t providing content their readers will appreciate.) If you’re good (hey, you’re a creative writer, aren’t you?), you can probably work in mentions about your work in the post while keeping it informative and related to the blog’s niche.

Where can you find guest posting opportunities?

This tends to be an ask-and-ye-shall-receive thing. Most of the guest articles I’ve written have been for people I’ve met on Twitter. If you let folks know you’re interested, you might be surprised how often someone will appear to take you up on the offer. I’ve also seen people recruit guest posters on the KindleBoards.

If you’re not big on the social media life, check through the blogs you already visit frequently. Not everybody is going to be interested in posting guest articles, but if they have a category for guest posts, chances are you might have a winner.

It’ll help if the bloggers you approach know you a little, even if that just means you’ve left comments on their blog from time to time. You might tell them what you’re interested in writing about, as well, so they know you’re not just looking to share a 500-word advertisement for your book. Give them a couple options, and make sure your proposed topics are tailored to the blog’s niche.

What types of blogs should you post on?

It can be argued that any links to your books/site are good links, but since most of us have a limited amount of time for book promotion, it doesn’t hurt to pick and choose.

The ideal setup would be to appear on a blog related to your genre of book, since that’s where your target audience is hanging out. If you’re not familiar with many of these blogs, try doing a search for your genre + blog + guest post. You’ll probably find some new blogs to check out, blogs that accept guests posts now and then. Follow them for a while to get a feel for what they’re all about and leave a comment here and there to make the owner aware of your existence (as I mentioned, bloggers are more likely to invite guest posts from people they know, at least nominally).

Another option is to guest blog for your fellow writer friends. Whether they blog in your genre or not, this is an non-intimidating way to start out, and who knows? Maybe some of their readers also enjoy books in your genre.

In addition to considering the blog’s focus, check out its popularity. Are people commenting on any of the posts? Does the site get a decent amount of traffic? (You can check it out on Alexa.com–not the end all/be all in traffic ranking, but it’ll give you an idea.) Has the blog been around for a while, and does it get updated regularly?

If time is limited, and you have the opportunity to choose one blog over another, these are factors to consider. You want eyeballs on your brilliant guest post, after all!

Note: I wouldn’t pass up a chance to appear on a high-traffic blog, no matter who the primary reader demographic is.

Any thoughts? Have you been out there guest blogging? Have you seen it send visitors to your site?

Posted in Blogging | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

How Full-time Ebook Author Nathan Lowell Got Start with Podiobooks

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Lindsay

Nathan Lowell first came onto my radar last month when I was looking for new Kindle science fiction releases for a post on my other blog. I saw his two ebooks selling extremely well and did a little writeup on the latest. Then a couple weeks ago, a Nathan Lowell left a review for one of my novels, The Emperor’s Edge, at Amazon and followed me on Twitter. Same guy! Little did he know I’d wrangle him into answering a bunch of questions for my blog….

He’s followed a unique path to full-time ebook author (full-time with only two ebooks out in his series thus far, mind you), and he’s selling well even though he’s priced his work at $4.95 (lots of folks argue for pricing at $2.99 or even $0.99 if you’re a new author). Of course, he already had a big audience, thanks to starting out podcasting his novels. If this is something you’ve considered (and even if it’s only mildly of interest), you’ll definitely want to read this interview.

Before I get to mention it, you can find Nathan on the web at his Trader’s Diary and access his audiobooks there. You can grab his first two ebooks at Amazon (Quarter Share, Half Share), Barnes & Noble (Quarter Share, Half Share), and Smashwords (Quarter Share), among other places.

First off, can you tell us how you got into self-publishing? Though you only have two kindle titles up as I write, you have a number of books out there, and you’ve built a huge following with your blog. What’s your road been like?

My “self-publishing” started at podiobooks.com in 2007. I discovered podcast fiction in 2005 and by 2007 I knew I wanted to play along at home. In those days, there weren’t that many podcasters, and the idea that I wouldn’t have to deal with agents, slush piles, or long waits while people passed judgment on my work had a lot of appeal. All I needed was a book, a way to record my voice, and the willingness to stick it through.

So it started in January, 2007, when I finished my first novel length work and recorded it on a cheap mp3 recorder in the front seat of my car. (It was the quietest place I could find.)

My goal was to see if I could pick up a couple hundred listeners and to have a little fun.

Eight books later, with 15,000 listeners and over 2.5 million downloads, I think I can say I’ve had a LOT of fun.

In 2009 I began to seriously consider text publication. I had played with the idea before, and even talked to some small presses about publication. The contract terms were unattractive so I never followed through with any of them.

By 2009 (with a fan base of about 10,000 people) I got really tired of one particular email. Several times a week (often two or three times a day) somebody would write to ask where they could get my books in print format to share with a friend or family member who didn’t listen to audio. I started the agent search early in the year and had some significant success in a relatively short time.

Before I signed a deal, though, I sat down and had a little talk with myself about what I wanted from my writing and determined that a successful agent hunt would – at best – yield me a “debut author” contract with a Major. I’d seen what those contracts are like — long delays between signing and availability, encumbering related works without any commitment to produce them later, and advances that are impossible to earn back in a timely manner with the royalty rates they offer debut authors. I decided that if that was the *best* I could expect, I really didn’t want any part of it.

I started pursuing self-publication, and along the road I was discovered by Ridan Publishing — an indie publisher in Virginia — and after a couple of weeks of back and forth negotiation, I was convinced that together we could do something better than what I might be able to do on my own and I signed with them in January 2010, almost three years to the day after I started the book they signed.

That book came out in text in May and chugged along pretty well. My second book was due in October, but delays on my part in getting edits back to them in time delayed it until December. It released the week before Christmas.

Sales have been astonishing.

Full Share is due out in April, Double in October. Ridan and I have an agreement to produce 10 titles in text including my Trader’s Tales series, the spin off titles, and also my fantasy line of Tanyth Fairport Adventures.

Since then I’ve published the last of the six-volume Trader’s Tales series at Podiobooks and on iTunes. Almost 10,000 people have downloaded all 30 episodes since I began releasing it on Christmas eve.

The voyage so far has been breathtaking.

Do you want to tell us about your flagship series? Trader’s Tales? Will you have the rest available for Kindle readers soon?

The Trader’s Tales of the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper is a six book cycle following the main character – Ishmael Horatio Wang – on his journey up through the ranks, from a lowly Quarter Share crewman to earning his Owner’s Share.

The universe is based on the idea that humankind explores the universe with an airline rather than an air force. I got tired of reading the “save the universe by blowing up the bugs” books and wanted to explore the idea that trade, rather than war, might make a viable raison d’etre for expansion.

The first two books are out now, two more will come out this year, and the final two are scheduled for 2012. That’s as fast as we can produce them and still have great cover art, do the editing to convert them from podcast to text, and create the kind of reader experience we want.

Anybody familiar with the “one book every other year” phenomenon from the Majors knows that two novels a year is a pretty aggressive schedule.  The people who are waiting anxiously for the next volume aren’t terribly happy with it.

I saw you mention on the Kindleboards that you’re able to write full time now, and I can tell just from your Amazon ranking and the number of reviews you have that you’re selling a lot of books. When were you able to make the shift to writing full time?

I made the shift last July when my DayJob went away. I worked for a federally funded (US) non-profit. Our mission (supporting educational efforts for children who are blind, deaf, or who had significant support needs) was deemed “pork” and funding was zeroed by Congress.

By then the first book was out, but had not yet gained any velocity. Starting in October, I was selling 1000 units a month with the one title. That went to 3000 a month with the release of my second book in December, and I sold almost 6500 in January. February is moving nicely, but I’m a little nervous that the bubble might burst.

For a point of reference, 2500 units worth of sales matches my old salary as a PhD for the national center.

Can you tell us more about the podiobooks? It’s interesting that you chose to start there rather than with print. And it’s doubtless the fanbase you built there played a huge role in your success when it came to ebooks.

As I said in the earlier question, that’s where I started. It’s where I built my fanbase and honed my craft. Looking back over the last (almost) million words and eight books, I’ve learned a lot about writing. Those lessons are going into the print works as they come out now.

I viewed writing the podcast as an end unto itself. Based on a donation model rather than sales or subscriptions, I was able to test my work against the market in an environment where there was not quite so much competition for attention – and in a medium where the rules are still being developed. There’s also no stigma attached to self publishing in podcast because it’s not that kind of market (yet).

In a very real sense, this is where I developed what today’s market would call “my platform” although we just called it “finding an audience.” When my first book came out, it sold into a fanbase of 10,000 people who already knew my work and were asking for it in print. I figured I had a lock on about 500 sales coming out of the gate. That number went by in the first five weeks and I’m selling twice that number every week now.

Do you have any advice for up-and-coming indie authors who are hoping to be able to make a living as writers one day?

Podcast. Give them away. Build your platform.

The pool for good writing is still largely untapped in the podcast space. Millions upon millions of people have mp3 players now and the demand is huge. Geared toward daily workouts, long commutes, and even household chores, podcast fiction is gaining ground at an astonishing rate. With a very modest investment in time and a lot less equipment than you think, a new author with a book or two already written can find an audience in audio without jeopardizing print rights and can test their stories against a market of eager ears.

Obscurity is a bigger obstacle than quality. I’m not sure who first said that but it’s certainly true today and podcasting is a way to break out of obscurity.

It doesn’t work for everybody. Nothing does. But as a way to break in, a way to differentiate yourself in a saturated marketplace, I believe this is the kind of thing that can set a new writer above the pack and give them a huge leg up.

Do you have any recommendations for authors who want to turn a book into a podiobook? Equipment, setup, editing, or anything else?

The biggest expense is equipment. I did my first book with what I had laying around the house — and listening to it now, it shows. Knowing what I know now? I’d have set aside $200 and spent half on a recorder (Zoom H1) and half on a decent pair of “full coverage” headphones. That’s if you’re not sure you want to do this or not — or if you need to ‘ease into it’ for budget reasons.

You *can* spend a few bucks ($50 or $60) and put a mic on your computer if you must, but the technical obstacles of getting a clean sound that way are not trivial.

Software is free and the set up is relatively easy — especially if you happen to have a walk in closet (I don’t).

For writers who want to try this, don’t let the cost of equipment be a barrier to entry. Go to http://community.podiobooks.com and create an account. Join the “Mentorship” group. There are a lot of resources available there including authors in all stages of production expertise.

Where does one upload podiobooks and how does one go about promotion?

You can create a podcast on your own server easily enough with a WordPress blog and appropriate podcasting plugins. A hosted solution is readily available on services like Bluehost and Dreamhost.

I only publish my books through Podiobooks.com and my blog (which is separate) is where I talk with my audience. It’s handy as a place to point listeners to in the closing credits so they can learn more about you and your work.

By publishing on Podiobooks, you join a community already established with 75,000+ members who are looking for your content. The works are automatically pushed up to iTunes and made available thru the iTunes Music Store. It’s sorta like the Kindle store – where people are coming to find the kind of media you’re providing and are pre-disposed to look at new stuff.

The community helps promote new works and – if you can find an audience – it does so enthusiastically.

Podiobooks works on a donation model, which is perfect for a new author. Lots of people will take a chance on a free audio, especially grabbing the first episode to see if they like it. People do donate, and I’ve been very fortunate in that regard over the years.

There are a lot more tips and trick, but as in the previous question, if you’re serious about it, join the podiobooks community and get active in the mentorship community there.

That’s it. Thanks for all the great information, Nathan!

Don’t forget to visit Nathan at Trader’s Diary.

Posted in Interviews / Success Stories | Tagged , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

What if You Don’t Have Time to Blog?

Posted on February 14, 2011 by Lindsay

Do I Have to Have a Blog CartoonA couple weeks ago, I posted a tongue-in-cheek video on YouTube that talks about Blogging for Book Promotion. Near the end, the heroine notices  she’s being instructed to spend more time blogging than working on her novels and as much time promoting her blog as her book, even though she only started a blog to promote her book…

It can definitely feel like you’re spending so much time worrying about marketing your book that you don’t have time to write the next book. And, in the end, will all those efforts pay off? Do you need a blog or does blogging fall onto the less desirable side of the Pareto Principle? The side where 80% of the efforts account for only 20% of the returns? (Ideally, we want to identify and expand upon the 20% of the efforts that account for 80% of the returns!)

I can’t imagine not doing a blog, because it’s been my day job for years. It just seems natural. But, despite the links to my books and the covers in the sidebar, this blog isn’t ultimately about selling stuff. It’s not that I’m against people here buying my ebooks (really, go right ahead), but, for the most part, I’m writing for other folks interested in e-publishing, most of whom probably don’t read fantasy. If it was 100% about selling the books, I’d be writing about things that would appeal to fantasy readers.

I’m maintaining this blog because I love learning new things and sharing what I learn with others. But the argument could be made that my time would be better spent writing and publishing new novels and pursuing only the most effective means of book promotion (for me that’s been advertising, giving away a free ebook, and appearing on other people’s blogs via interviews, blog tours, guest posts, etc.).

Fortunately, or unfortunately as the case may be, I have writers’ ADD and have trouble focusing on any particular project for long, so I like being able to turn to this blog when I’ve grown weary of writing snarky dialogue and monster battles.

But is a blog something every author must maintain? Is it worth the effort?

For the last month or so, I’ve been tracking book sales that originated either here or at Kindle Geeks, and the number is in the neighborhood of (prepare to be underwhelmed) 10. That’s not many for all the time and effort that goes into maintaining a blog.

As much as it pains me to say it–and as much as it goes against prevailing wisdom (establish a platform, OMG, even if you don’t know what one is!)–a blog probably isn’t a requirement for a writer of fiction. The whole build-a-platform mantra comes more from the non-fiction realm. Over there, it’s important to establish your authority in your field because anyone can give advice, qualified or not. With fiction, you just have to entertain folks and the proof is more likely in the novel than on the blog.

This doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t maintain a blog or that you won’t sell any books through your blog (though it’s better to create a blog that targets your fan base rather than fellow writers, so do as I say, not as I do), but if I was pressed for time and I really had to choose carefully where to spend my one free hour a day, I’d pick working on the next novel over blogging. I’d save up some coins for advertising, get more books out so I could give one away free, and I’d do guest posts for other people’s blogs now and then.

Your thoughts? Have you tried and abandoned blogging? Do you have one you feel guilty about because you don’t update it often enough? Or have you actually created a popular blog that attracts your target audience and sells a lot of books for you? And, if you did the latter, did your blog become popular after your books did, or do you believe your blog was key in selling your books from the beginning?

Related posts:

Posted in Blogging, Book Marketing | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Indie Fantasy Author Tracy Falbe Making Solid Part-Time Income

Posted on February 13, 2011 by Lindsay

Fantasy Series Book 1 Tracy Falbe eBook CoverIndie fantasy author, Tracy Falbe, hasn’t quit her day job yet, but she’s making a reliable second income from her four-book fantasy series. She got into self-publishing before the Kindle came along, so she’s experienced the changes the e-publishing revolution has brought. We’re talking with her today about her work, her promotion and pricing strategies, and the positive changes e-publishing has brought for authors who want to self-publish.

Why don’t you start out telling us about your novels?

My novels comprise The Rys Chronicles fantasy series, and Union of Renegades is the first book. The remaining three are The Goddess Queen, Judgment Rising, and The Borderlands of Power.

I write epic fantasy, which in my definition means that it has many characters, multiple cultures, sweeping landscapes, high sociopolitical stakes, and grand personal ambitions.

In the fantasy world of The Rys Chronicles there are two human civilizations plus the rys. The rys are a rare super race ruled by Onja who controls one civilization as its Goddess. Elite rys can use their magic to manipulate energy on a destructive scale, read minds, influence behavior, remote view across long distances, communicate telepathically, and seize the souls of the dead.

The second civilization has developed separately and is now penetrating a Wilderness guarded by Onja’s enslaved wraiths. The Rys Chronicles tells the story of the conflicts that erupt after the civilizations make contact.

The main human hero is Dreibrand Veta, a noble officer in an imperial army who explores this region new to his civilization. His love interest, Miranda, is an escaped slave and mother of two. They become embroiled in a rys power struggle and side with Onja’s rival, Shan.

The series includes a big cast of supporting characters and subplots. There’s King Taischek of the Temu Tribe who makes war on his hated neighbor every year. He also has nine wives and a drinking problem. One of my personal favorites is Faychan, a Spymaster in the notorious Kezanada Brotherhood that is loyal to Onja. As the series progresses I bring in more characters, like Dreibrand’s older brother Atarek and Madame Fayeth, a desperate mother seeking the rys in the hopes that their magic can heal her ailing son.

The Rys Chronicles series is hard-hitting medieval style fantasy. I try to tell a story in each novel while still propelling the overall epic.

How have you been promoting your ebooks?

My primary marketing channels are my website www.braveluck.com and my blog www.herladyshipsquest.com. I run a monthly ebook giveaway that people enter by joining my readers’ list. So that leads into email marketing.

I have online advertising through Google AdWords and Project Wonderful. In the social media arena, I’ve recently got the hang of Twitter. I’m @tracyfalbe and in addition to tweeting about my fiction, I find book review blogs, fantasy art, and other writers that might interest followers. I participate at Goodreads.com, which is a site I really enjoy. I’m also a contributing reviewer at Historical Novel Review.

Can you talk about your pricing strategy? I see your first book is $1 and the others at $4.95. Do many people go on to buy the rest in the series after getting the introductory book at a low price? Have you experimented much with prices?

It’s hard for me to pin down a specific figure for how many people buy Union of Renegades for $1 and then buy the rest of the series. Union of Renegades is still free at www.braveluck.com and www.herladyshipsquest.com and readers still find it there and then sometimes pick up the rest of the series at an online retailer or from me. It makes things hard to track.

I’ll throw out a guess and say that for every 1,000 maybe I get 20 readers who buy the whole series, which seems like miserable conversion, but if a reader buys the whole series, then I’ve moved 3 more units at $4.95 each. Also consider that of the readers who choose to continue the series, over 90 percent of them go on to read all my novels. I actually tracked that data through my website for years. Basically, when my fiction genuinely connects with readers, they buy all my work.

I have always priced Book I as a loss leader. Fantasy is a competitive niche market and it’s a way to get readers to check me out.

To answer your second question, I have never experimented with the prices, and don’t have any plans to alter prices. The free or $1 first book of the series followed by reasonably priced novels works to my satisfaction. Mass market paperbacks are $7.99 and I figure that $4.95 is a reasonable price for a full length novel in digital form. My novels are all in the 100,000 word range.

You have print editions too. How do they sell compared to the ebooks? Do you do any out-in-the-world book promotion?

The ebooks outsell the paperbacks by easily 100 to 1. The paperbacks are harder to market for a number of reasons. They have to have a much higher price point due to significant production costs. They have extremely limited opportunities for being in bookstores where paperback readers are browsing. Of course my paperbacks are at Amazon, and I’ve always had a trickle of paperback sales through Amazon. However, production and shipping costs and the wholesale percentage I have to give up to Amazon basically erase the profit margin on the paperback so I could never justify applying my marketing dollars to promoting my paperbacks at Amazon.

Ebooks are a totally different entity however. Ebooks have a profit margin that will actually support a viable business model (Why do you think all the big retailers are pushing them now?). I once read that selling ebooks is considered the “perfect” online business. This means I can afford to market the ebooks and reach readers.

As for out in the world marketing, I have not had an opportunity for that. I started having kids right when I started publishing my novels, so that makes it very hard to do public events. When I compared child care and the effort involved in a public event against the likelihood of only selling a few copies, I decided not to bother.

In the future I would like to do some in-person marketing. My kids will be older and I’ll have a little more liberty to function as an independent human being. After I publish my next fantasy series (currently a work in progress), I will seriously look into doing a table at a sci fi fantasy convention. I think that might be fun and productive.

You’ve been self-publishing for a few years. Can you tell us how it was in the beginning and how you’ve seen the industry evolve with the new ease of ebook publishing?

Wow! Everything has changed for the better. When I started publishing my fantasy novels in 2005, it was considered an absurd and desperately stupid practice. Conventional wisdom in the publishing industry was that ebooks were never going to go mainstream. Self publishing was the pig-headed pursuit of people who could not properly compose sentences. There was no Amazon Kindle, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble Nook, or Apple iBooks. Among the legitimate ebook retailers in existence a few years ago, self publishers were not allowed. It wasn’t back of the bus. It was you can’t get on the bus.

So I marketed myself from my website. Even though ebooks were officially declared dead by the media, people were reading ebooks on their computers and PDAs and early dedicated ebook reading devices. I’ve gotten a few bored office workers through a lot of down time in their cubicles. (They sent me grateful emails.) Every month, I consistently sold $50 to $200 worth of ebooks from my website. This was how it was for about three years and I always wished I could have wider distribution.

Then came Smashwords and Kindle and Nook and all the big companies were in the game and independent writers weren’t banned anymore! It was like I woke up one day and the world decided it liked ebooks and readers would be allowed to view the work of indie writers. See, retailers aren’t publishers. They’ve discovered that there’s almost no risk in listing a product and there’s much to gain if people like it.

In late 2009 I signed up with Smashwords and then in the summer of 2010 I added my novels to the Amazon Kindle store when the royalty structure was made attractive. By far 2010 has been my best year. My sales quadrupled because I was able to have my novels in places where people were actually shopping for ebooks. Gasp! This had been my Holy Grail.

This is such an exciting time for writers. All I ever wanted was my chance to connect with an audience. I had to make my own opportunities in the beginning and now the marketplace even tolerates my presence. But even if big business hadn’t let me play with its ball, I would keep going. Right now I’m making a very helpful and badly needed second income doing what I love. As I continue writing and marketing my work I hope to improve my work and entertain more readers.

Thanks for the meaty interview, Tracy!

Bio:

Tracy Falbe is the author of Union of Renegades, The Goddess Queen, Judgment Rising, and The Borderlands of Power that comprise The Rys Chronicles fantasy series.

Fantasy readers can sample the first novel Union of Renegades by downloading a free copy from her website www.braveluck.com. Paperbacks available too.

All her fantasy novels are also widely available at major online retailers:

Posted in Interviews / Success Stories | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Help with Ebook Formatting

Posted on February 12, 2011 by Lindsay

I’ve had several folks ask me about ebook formatting. Since I either a) pay someone to do it or b) use the Smashwords Word-to-ebook converter (I didn’t want to pay with my free Ice Cracker II short story, since that price tag was going to make earning back my expenses tough), I’m not the person to write the post answering these questions. However, there are some great resources out there already, so allow me to point you to a couple…

Ebook Formatting Help:

  • Take Pride in Your Ebook Formatting by indie horror author Guido Henkel (this link goes to Part I in what is a very thorough nine-part post)
  • If you’re daunted by the idea of a nine-part post and want the super simple version, Derek J. Canyon’s $0.99 ebook may be more your speed: Format Your eBook for Kindle in One Hour – A Step-by-Step Guide
  • If you want mobi (kindle) and epub (everyone else) files all in one (relatively) simple swoop, you can use the Smashwords meatgrinder to upload your ebook to their site, but make sure to read their formatting guide, as anything funky in your Word document will cause problems. You can download copies of your own ebook to use wherever you want afterward.

If you come across other resources I should list here, let me know in the comments. Thank you!

Posted in E-publishing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Simon Royle–Indie Author Selling Well with Debut Ebook [Interview]

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Lindsay

Simon Royle Tag Ebook CoverWhether you’re already an indie ebook author or just thinking of getting started with e-publishing, you’re probably as excited as I am to hear about all the folks doing well with their offerings. Today, we have a short interview with Simon Royle, a science fiction thriller author who published his debut ebook Tag a couple months ago. He was nice enough to interview me about Encrypted last week, so I wanted to return the favor. He’s also selling quite well, despite only having one novel online, so you might want to stalk him to see what he’s doing!

You can purchase Tag at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.

Let the questions begin!

I don’t usually ask the “can you tell us about yourself?” question, but it sounds like you’ve led an interesting, well-traveled life! Would you like to share some highlights for us? And tell us what led you to settle down in Thailand?

My father was in shipping. The closure of the Suez Canal meant many ships had to travel around the Cape of Good Hope. This happened when I was three. When I was ten we moved to New Jersey, my father worked in New York, and after a short spell there, back to England. When I was sixteen we moved to Hong Kong. By then I had lived on four continents, and experienced vastly different, but same (English speaking for the most part) cultures.

I think the most enduring thing to come out of that is a perspective on nationality and culture that is in the minority – a global outlook. I don’t have allegiance to any particular nation state, but rather look upon humans as a race (and a fairly poorly developed one at that). As an example: I bemoan the fact that we’ve been around for 7,000 years as “civilizations”, and yet we still spend the most of our money on perfecting ways to kill other humans.

Thailand just happened. I first went there when I was twenty-four on a short week’s holiday, and had a great time. For the next two years I flew there regularly, practically every chance I had, and traveled the country extensively. I’d fly in, do the ‘One Night In Bangkok’, (makes a hard man humble) thing; and then hire a rental car and drive. On those trips I found the Thai people to be incredibly generous, warm-hearted, and, well, I guess suited to my character. Two years after that first holiday, I went back to live and have stayed. I travel quite a lot around the region, and sometimes further afield as part of my day job, but for most of the last twenty-one years, I have lived in or near Bangkok.

Okay, now for the book stuff! Please tell us a bit about your first novel and what led you to e-publishing.

I got the idea for Tag after reading an article about a Dutch nightclub where members were (voluntarily) injected with an RFID device. The RFID chip held their personal details and credit. Passports and social security numbers, or other forms of identity are relatively modern (and still primitive) constructs. It got me thinking that as as we evolve the various issues around personal identity become more complex and inevitably technology will play a greater part. I chose to address those ideas in the form of a futuristic thriller.

E-publishing was a natural step given the rising dominance of digital channels. I work in the software industry so I was aware of what was happening on-line and had been tracking the rise of eBooks since mid-2007.

I also prefer the business model. I hired my own editors, proofreaders, cover designer and typesetter – all of whom are involved full-time in publishing. Some were great, some not so – that’s business. Live and learn. Now I’ve got a great team. A side benefit is that I have met some incredibly talented, savvy, and genuinely cool people while doing this. You have a problem or don’t know how to do something – put your hand up – someone who knows will give advice.

I’m impressed (envious?) of how well Tag is doing at Amazon, especially since it’s your only novel out there, and you just published it a couple months ago. What have you been doing for promotion?

Kindle Nation Daily and blogging that’s it.

It looks like your blog has been up longer than your book. When did you start it, and what made you decide to start your “Indieviews” series?

I started the blog in September of 2010 and traffic has grown steadily every month, it averages between eighty and one hundred visitors a day. Month on month, traffic has been increasing by about 45 per cent. That just tells me that the interest in indie authors and their books is growing all the time.

The ‘Indieviews’ came about simply because I had traffic and could make my visitors aware of some cool authors and their books. I expanded that to indie ebook reviewers and readers. Everything on my site is an offshoot of stuff that I am interested in – I’ve learnt many things by reading those interviews.

Are you working on any new projects you’d like to share?

K:OS, the sequel to Tag. First chapter is out there already. It picks up three months after where Tag ended. That’s all I’m saying for now 🙂

Thanks, and good luck, Simon!

Posted in Interviews / Success Stories | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Offering a Free Ebook for Marketing — My Results

Posted on February 9, 2011 by Lindsay

About six weeks ago, I e-published my first novel, The Emperor’s Edge, and, at the same time, I uploaded a free ebook (okay, it’s just a short story) to Smashwords. I hoped people would try the free ebook, like the characters, and go onto buy my novel, which is currently priced at $2.99.

The story features the same characters as are in the novel, and I included an excerpt from Emperor’s Edge at the end of the ebook. I also included purchase links for EE at Smashwords, B&N, and Amazon.

The story, Ice Cracker II, promptly went live at Smashwords and took about three weeks to filter through and appear at Barnes & Noble (you can’t upload a free ebook directly to B&N, but if you ask Smashwords to distribute it, it’ll get there eventually–as far as I know, the Apple Store and Amazon won’t take the free ones, which is a shame).

I discussed the pros and cons of offering a free ebook when I was getting ready to do it, though, as far as I was concerned, it was all theoretical at the time.

So, what actually happened?

In short, it’s working. *author does happy dance*

I’ve sold numerous copies of my novels at Smashwords, despite doing little else to promote my work there. The increase at Barnes & Noble has been more substantial.

I had very few sales there before the free ebook appeared in their store, but now I sell nearly as many ebooks at Barnes & Noble as at Amazon most days, and some days B&N outsells Amazon.

More telling is the fact that The Emperor’s Edge outsells Encrypted, my other novel, by four to one at B&N. At Amazon, where I don’t have a free ebook listed, Encrypted sells about the same number of copies a week as Emperor’s Edge (it’s actually ahead in the count for February).

I should point out that my free ebook isn’t a bestseller or anything special at Barnes & Noble. I’m not even sure how people find it (I tried to drill down in a category and never got to it), since I don’t shop there and know the ins and outs of the site. It has a couple reviews, though, and the sales rank hovers around 1850, so it’s definitely getting some downloads. I’m toying with the idea of having some banners made and trying harder to promote the freebie at Barnes & Noble.

A few notes for others who may wish to try offering a free ebook to encourage other sales:

  • This may not appeal to every author, but I think it helped that I used the same characters in the freebie as in the ebook I hoped people would buy. I didn’t plan it this way (I wrote Ice Cracker II almost a year ago, before e-publishing was a twinkle in my eye), but the short story takes place after the novel and leaves a lot of questions unanswered about the character backgrounds. The lack of backstory may irk some folks, but I hope it leaves more people curious to read the novel and find out how these characters ended up as wanted criminals working together.
  • You can give away an entire novel (I’ve seen people with a series do this to great effect), but if you’re like me and don’t have a whole series ready to publish, a short story can work just fine.
  • Including an excerpt for one of your novels probably helps (though people might feel your ebook is too promotional if the excerpt is huge and the free story is short; in my case the short story is about 6,000 words long and the excerpt is 1,000 words or so).
  • Including the actual links to your non-free novel(s) can only help. I’m not a Nook person, but I assume it’s similar to the Kindle in that you can click a link and go right to the store and buy the next book on your e-reader.
  • Don’t name your free ebook after a ship with numerals in the title like I did, because I’ve had several people admit to being confused because they thought Ice Cracker II was a sequel. Oops.

Have you had any luck (or the opposite) giving away a free ebook? Let us know about it below.

Posted in Book Marketing | Tagged , | 12 Comments