23

Oct

KDP Success: No rhyme or reason

I’m a fan of Ecclesiastes 9:11:  ”I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.”

It reminds me that no matter how many marketing books I read, courses I take, people I hire, or things I do — to a fair degree — timing and opportunity play into success as much as all of those aforementioned things. I believe God orchestrates that timing and opportunity.

You however, may not. But, you have to agree that if you hopped on Apple stock when it first went public (timing and opportunity), you’d be a lot better off than you are now.

For example: I have enrolled my first novel, The Lost Testament, in Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing program several times since its 2010 release. Each time, my sales haven’t gone above 1,000 on the free download days.

However, on its most recent day, it sold almost 6,000 copies. I didn’t do anything different this time — no marketing collateral, extra scheduled tweets, or promotion on my social networking sites. I set the date and let it ride.

What does this tell you? Should I write a book on how I didn’t do anything special and ended up with the biggest free download date in the history of Great Nation Publishing? Unfortunately — and any experienced publisher will tell you this (if they’re honest) there’s no magic bullet. You can always position yourself well to win the battle or the race, but in the end, aren’t you at the mercy of timing and opportunity?

237 days ago Short URL Comments

DIY Publishing

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10

Sep

Self-publishing. . .a bit easy?

While sifting through comments on this blog, I came across someone who said “self-publishing is a bit easy” these days.

Argh.

Well, I admit – anyone can write a novel, upload it to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, Smashwords, or Pub It for the Nook, set a ..99 cent price tag and call themselves “self-published.” As a matter of fact, of the hundreds of thousands of books published last year, I’m willing to bet quite a few of them did just that.

We all want the dream: to write books for a living. It sounds so glamorous — you get that one hit, which sells your backlist, and the next thing you know, you’re rolling in the dough. Very few self-publishers can do that, but it’s more than it used to be.

Anyone can self-publish, just like anyone can dribble a basketball, sing a song, or program a computer. But, not everyone is Amanda Hocking, Kobe Bryant, Christian Aguilera, or Bill Gates.

To me, saying “anyone can do that” is a cop out. Tell me about someone who does self-publishing well, and how they worked their tail off to be recognized — not just write anything by anyone and press “upload.”

280 days ago Short URL Comments

DIY Publishing/Uncategorized

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23

Jul

You market yourself. . .how? (Part 2)

My literary friends and I debate over whether or not Kindle Direct Publishing’s Select Program is “worth it.” Actually, they think I’m a little cray cray for considering anything besides Select, but I’ve been called worse.

Amazon’s Select program allows you to set 5 days (per book) where your book can be downloaded for free and Amazon promotes for you. In addition, if your book is “borrowed” by Kindle Prime account holders (they’ll get it free, too), you get a small cut of an unspecified pool of money per borrow. All of this is in exchange for a 90-day period of exclusivity.

Is it worth it?

As my accountant adviser loves to say, “it depends.”

If you are writing or publishing to make money, the answer is a resounding “yes” from my perspective.

Of course, Barnes and Noble has its Pub It platform, which essentially does the same thing as KDP Select, except its not as user-friendly for reviews, doesn’t demand exclusivity, and doesn’t have the book lending/profit sharing mechanism that KDP Select has.

But, by not enrolling in the Select part of the program (and just having your book available on Kindle), you can publish to B&N, Smashwords, the Apple iBookstore, Kobo, etc. That’s five different streams of income in comparison to one.

KDP Select, however, is easier to manage and maintain if you’re starting out and building your audience. Marketing yourself is hard enough without having to do it for five different places on a rapidly multiplying, infinite bookshelf.

Even if you hire someone to manage your marketing for you, would you want them laser focused on one channel guaranteed to make you money, or five that MIGHT make you more money in the long run?

Here’s my advice: with one title, stick with KDP Select. With two or more in your backlist, mix it up (I’m actually doing this now). Spend 90 days with Select, and during that time, try to establish a way to maintain those other publishing sites. Then, shift from Select to those and see what happens. Let me know how it works out for you!

329 days ago Short URL Comments

DIY Publishing

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09

Jul

You market yourself. . .how? (Part 1)

Recently, a friend asked me, “How do you market yourself [as an indie/self-publisher]?”

Aye, there’s the rub.

Indie and self-pubbed authors want to sell books, but don’t necessarily know how. Witness almost any self-publishing outfit that will offer you bookmarks, business cards, placards, postcards, and the like as marketing collateral (don’t fall for it — do it at Vistaprint for less). To date, I’ve never bought a book because I received one of those things alone. Have you?

So then, we go to Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and other free forums to promote ourselves. I’ve unfriended/unfollowed quite a few people, due to the “Check out my book/buy my book/like my status/watch my trailer” flurry of automated tweets.

I can’t speak for you, but ad nauseum sales pitching turns me off. Be doubly-concerned with your consumers and what they want, not always just what your bottom line demands. It’s my belief that investing in the former will take care of the latter.

So, how do you market yourself? Honestly, without investing time or money, you can’t do it effectively. Trust me, I’ve tried. Pumping out a book a year is a lot more difficult to do when you’re learning how to market, actively marketing, and putting it into practice. Either your sales or your writing will suffer.

Here are two tried and true tips that worked for me.

  1. Come up with a marketing plan (with achievable goals) and follow it. You don’t have a marketing plan? Why not? I found a template online and then asked Stacey Shearer (here’s a link to her Facebook) over at Shearer Message  to help me polish it. Convince yourself that you don’t need a marketing plan. Then, try to get your books into Barnes and Noble, or Lifeway, or just your average, run-of-the-mill bookstore. They’ll all want to know how you plan to sell books before they shelve you. A plan on how to sell books sounds awfully like a marketing plan to me.
  2. Run a contest. Fine, you have a “limited budget.” Do what I did for The Anarchists. Run a “Name a Character Contest,” where you receive entries via your Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, however you want to do it. Promote it on your social networks. Use a randomizer to select the winners and promise them a free book and a mention in your book as long as they sign over the rights to the character (a.k.a. they promise not to sue you if it’s the next Hunger Games). In the end, you have created people who will promote your brand. They have a connection to you and your work. So, they got a free copy. You don’t think they’ll tell other people about their character in your book? That’s word-of-mouth advertising, and anybody in marketing worth their salt will tell you that’s worth its weight in gold — if you can generate it.

Hope this helps! Stay tuned for my take on Kindle Direct Publishing and whether it’s worth it (or not).

343 days ago Short URL Comments

DIY Publishing/Small Business Strategies

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29

May

Barnes and Noble: The inside details (or lack thereof) of a rejection letter

When I talk about publishing, I use quirky comparisons for effect. For example, my “ketchup and cheese” rule:  just because it’s cheap, doesn’t mean it’s good.

Have you ever bought generic ketchup or cheese? Off-brand ketchup and Heinz have one thing in common — they’re both red. Cheap cheese melts like hot glue, and while I’ve never tried eating Elmer’s, it can’t taste much worse than budget cheese.

For me, rejection letters are like asking out a pretty high school girl and being told “no.” She’ll never tell the real reason why she rejected you. It could be your personality, or your wardrobe, among other things. It’s an unsolvable mystery with no closure.

I recently applied for all three of my books to be shelved at B&N. Shelving is one of the nine streams of income you need as an author. If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you’ll know that this is a discussion you can only have if you are listed as the author of your book(s), and not a self-publishing company.

And yes, I got rejected. I won’t be dating that particular pretty girl anytime soon.

The buyer responsible for religious fiction decided not to stock my books, The Lost Testament, The Revelation Gate, and The Anarchists because: a.) the jackets (covers) weren’t compelling, b.) they did not have good advance reviews in trade magazines, c.) they did not have quotes from other writers working in the genre, d.) they did not have articles/reviews in the “usual consumer media,” or e.) my marketing and promotion plan wasn’t good enough.

How do you determine the poison pill(s) from five, very different reasons? 

What makes a jacket or cover “compelling”? Good art design and engaging back cover copy that will sell the book. But what’s “good”?

To a degree, book selling is science, but it’s also a crap shoot. When a legacy publisher picks up a novel, it’s thinking the book is good enough to sell at least two years in the future (it takes that long to edit, produce and market it). That’s a HUGE risk.

For indie/self-pub authors (some places consider you self-pub if you’re indie), advance reviews in places like ForeWord, and Kirkus (the ones you don’t pay almost $500 for) are hard to come by, as are quotes from authors in the genre. The Lost Testament and The Revelation Gate were endorsed by Christian fiction authors Stephanie Perry-Moore  and Michelle Sutton, respectively. My marketing plan for both was involved.

So, that at least narrows the field to three possible reasons for rejection, right?

The moral of the story is this: these details are not really details — it’s a form letter. The key is to do all of the things they request to the best of your ability anyway, and if you’re not good enough to “date,” there are other shelves in the world. Try becoming a Follett vendor (giving you the ability to be shelved in 800 college bookstores across North America). Also, solicit your local small bookstores. They usually love indie authors.

Hope this helps!

385 days ago Short URL 5 Comments

DIY Publishing/Explanations

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07

May

What’s the toughest part about self-publishing?

Author Fair 2007

Self-Publishing or indie publishing? Choose what’s best for you.

Last month, me and Kemya Scott of Phisco Marketing held a Social Media and Self-Publishing Facebook Chat. There, a chatter asked me, “What’s the toughest part about self-publishing?”

That was a few weeks ago, and I still don’t have a better answer than, “it depends.”

Where do you want to go as an author? If it’s “just to get your name out there,” most of the well-publicized self-pub places specialize in that. The aim of those places is to get 100,000 authors selling hundreds of books, not hundreds of authors selling 100,000 books. That’s not a secret, but it’s also not the toughest part — deciding how to go.

Say your plans are bigger than a couple hundred copies. In that case, go indie with your own company.

Indie authors are automatically anonymous, and there are lots of us, good and bad, out there. Changing that — getting shelved, notoriety in media and social media circle, etc — is an uphill battle. You need trade reviews (which are hard to get unless you pay for them), an attractive cover, snappy back cover copy, and engaging writing in order to even be considered.

Still, in my opinion, not the toughest part.

When you succeed, the bookseller will shelve you and take between 45%-55% of your retail on each sale. You get what’s left, minus your Cost Of Goods, 90 days after the sale occurred (60 for digital on Amazon after your total owed reaches above $10).

That part is pretty tough to swallow.

I spent a few thousand dollars promoting The Lost Testament. We had a book launch party and invited 50 guests (about 20 showed) and the media (none). I hired a publicist for a few months, flew to Philadelphia for two book signings, and did the virtual book tour rounds.

I don’t know what I expected my sales to be after all of that, but I wanted it to be more than what I got.

For my second and third books, I did more of it myself. Part of that was necessity because my advertising budget had shrunken considerably. The other side of the coin is that I wanted more bang for my buck, and either you spend time learning a new craft, or pay someone who knows that craft. In my case, the knowledge was valuable enough to sacrifice the time to learn.

THAT’S the toughest part, to me — all of the D-I-Y. If you’re an author, what was yours?

407 days ago Short URL 4 Comments

DIY Publishing

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18

Mar

Selling that makes sense

My wife and I used to have a Multi-Level Marketing business. Yup, we were in one of those. But, I did learn one, valuable thing from it: the need to create methods of making passive income. Passive income = money you can make in your sleep.

I met a self-published author once who insisted she “liked the hustle” of carrying her books around and selling them. Which is fine. But, if you’re like me, and do this full-time, you can’t afford to hustle every day.

What if your wife has a health emergency? Or, heaven forbid, you want to take time off? Those two things happened to me in the span of three days. That time is irreplaceable, which is why your time should also work for you.

Call it boilerplate, but, if nothing else, ESPECIALLY if you’re self-published, your book should be available in both paperback AND digital formats. I’ve spent countless hours curating a list of reviewers, and most of them still want paperbacks. It doesn’t make sense not to do both.

Think about it: if your book is only a paperback, you cut off digital sales. Why would you do that? You don’t want to make more money and expose people to your writing across the globe?

Amazon’s KDP Select program opens up the possibility of your writing reaching England, and German, France, Spanish, and Italian-speaking countries. I’m not knocking her hustle, but I’m thinking she’s not doing it over there simultaneously.

Likewise, publishing on Smashwords’ Premium Catalog would put her book in the Apple iBookstore, Kobo, etc. Throw in Pubit.com for the Nook, too. Once she published digitally in all of these places, all she has to do is check back and see how much money she’s made.

Conversely, to an indie publisher or a self-publisher, an exclusively digital book does not make sense in the long run. It means no signings to expose yourself to new readers. If you’re a speaker, it becomes increasingly difficult to convert your audience to a digital sale, versus something they can see.

Digital only also cuts off the ability to be shelved, or carried on consignment, which are two ways to generate passive income. A benefit of paperbacks (most times) is the hustle because it’s instant income. At worst, it takes 30 days for you to get it. Selling your e-book online means you won’t see that money for up to three months. Even if you’re not in the game to make money, you’d like to make some eventually, right?

Nope. She wasn’t feeling me. Hopefully, you are.

B

456 days ago Short URL Comments

DIY Publishing/Small Business Strategies

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01

Mar

When throwing money isn’t an option

Say you’re a start-up solopreneur (as my friend Kemya Scott likes to call us D-I-Yers) with this great, new book. You are persuaded beyond a shadow of a doubt that this magnificent creation will save its owner time and money. Or, at the very least, entertain them.

The problem is — nobody knows about it.

Grassroots is a good thing, if you’re talking about lawn maintenance. But to the novice solopreneur, the grassroots approach is a time killer. Not only do  you have to make time to learn how to market, you also have to do it and be good at it.

You’d like to hire someone, but you just can’t afford it. Everyone you ask about doing it for you comes up with an eye-popping amount, and when you ask if there’s a lower price range they say something to the tune of “That’s-my-fee-and-I-don’t-apologize-for-it.” Which is fair and their right (I say the same thing when it comes to editing — it’s HARD work!!!). It doesn’t help grease your way out from between that rock and hard place though.

It also doesn’t help that, for the most part, marketing is an inexact science with no clear Return-On-Investment formula. For example, I sent out postcards announcing my first novel with a special deal on them. Not one of them connected with me for an order.

Does that mean it failed? Couldn’t they have bought a book from Amazon or some other retailer? If they did, I never would have known the difference because Amazon does not send me sales figures by region. I didn’t follow up with them, either. In marketing, consistency is key. Random messaging is not.

Something I found that works is this: the most successful marketers are the ones that combine the traditional stuff (mailings, flyers, bookmarks, etc.) with the newer stuff (QR codes, Hashable, social media, etc.) and do it cost-effectively, not cheaply. There IS a difference.

In promotions for my next book, that’s exactly what I did. My blog tour (traditional) is virtual (non-traditional) and I’m only sending out electronic copies (cost-maintenance).

Sounds great, right? I can’t tell you how many hours I spent sifting through blog forums and websites looking for people who reviewed e-books, my kind of fiction, and were open for submissions. Eventually, my curated list came down to under 100 reviewers. I didn’t hire anyone, but it did cost me time.

Remember my ketchup-and-cheese rule: just because it’s cheap, doesn’t mean it’s good.

Lastly, be encouraged! Surround yourself with people smarter than you and keep at it!

Hope this helps.

473 days ago Short URL 2 Comments

DIY Publishing/Explanations

23

Feb

The war over e-book prices

Do you own an e-reader? Are you an avid reader and/or author? If you answered “yes,” read up on the current e-book pricing decisions of the Big 6 legacy publishers (Hatchette, MacMillan, Simon and Shuster, Penguin, HarperCollins, Random House). Here’s a quick 

Cover of "Kindle Wireless Reading Device,...

primer.  Otherwise, you might get sticker shock the next time you go e-book shopping.
What’s the beef? From a publishing standpoint, e-books are very lucrative. They cost very little to distribute and the production costs are one-time. Inflating the price of an e-book is one sure way for a publisher to make money, which is why legacy-published books won’t EVER be cheap again.

Recently, the Big 6 have banded together to fix their prices much higher than consumers are used to paying for e-books. One of the most expensive e-books in the Kindle Library is The Greater Journeyby David McCullough. Published by Simon and Shuster, the e-book costs $19.99. Figure a few cents to transfer the file, $6 to Amazon, there’s $14 left over. At a 15% royalty rate (the average is between 6%-15% of retail), Mr. McCullough gets $3, Simon and Schuster makes $11. Multiply it out to 200,000 books sold. McCullough makes about $600,000; Simon and Schuster makes $2.2 million with no overhead (printing costs, shipping, storage, etc.) to subtract.

In a Twitter chat last week, I asked an author about their opinion regarding e-book pricing. They said “don’t have one.”

Wait, what? 

As a relatively unknown author, it’s an uphill battle to get new readers no matter how much marketing you do or how outstanding your product is. In fact, after two books, I still have to get past the friends and family that ask for free copies. Price your book at .99 cents, and you get the “impulse buy” crowd. But when the natural ebb-and-flow of sales happens (or boom and bust, depending on your vantage point), what do you do to position yourself for more sales? Drop it to .50 cents, or free?

If you are a writer, or aspire to be legacy-published, the Big 6′s stance should outrage you. In addition to all of the other obstacles you face, now you have to wonder if a reader will shell out $20 for your book or go to an online pirating site and get it for free. Indie authors, like me, are stuck between offering books for close to nothing, or pricing them as high as the market goes and seeing our sales suffer.

What do you think?

480 days ago Short URL 2 Comments

DIY Publishing/Musings

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01

Feb

The point of pricing

I’m an advocate of indie publishing, if you didn’t know. Here’s one BIG reason: price points.

Most authors don’t control their price points. If you go through most self-publishing companies, that means you too. Hardcovers, trade paperbacks, and yes, e-books. And it’s about to get worse.

In one of my Facebook groups, I asked the e-reader crowd about their preferences. All of them said anything above $5 is too much to pay. Some wouldn’t go above $4. One mentioned her friends who net $2,000 worth of e-books a month at .99 a pop.

What do you do? I have a self-published friend whose e-book retails for $9.99 on Amazon, which takes 30% of e-book sales – priced above .99 cents – off the top ($3). Her self-pub company takes 50%  of that ($3.50). Her cut is $3.49 minus distribution and taxes, provided she actually sells e-books at $9.99. I tried asking them for specifics, but the company won’t say (RED FLAG).

If the books aren’t moving, she can’t drop the price, and since her self-pub company owns the rights to the digital files it designed, she can’t sell them on her website at a lower price.

You want to give it a go at .99 cents? That’s not a sound business strategy for long-term growth. Thousands of dollars a month is the exception, not the rule. At .99 cents, your royalty rate doesn’t go above 35%, and if they’re not moving for whatever reason, will you drop the price lower?

I sell mine at $2.99 and encourage you to do the same, or close to it. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords all provide platforms where you can publish your work and control your price point. Hope this helps!

502 days ago Short URL Comments

DIY Publishing/Writing and Editing

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