Purgatory's Pit of Doom

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kellion92

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There are so many things about my job I loathe. I loathe them especially when I deal with them on Sunday morning.
 

Amarie

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(((Kell))))

Ktaylor, I have a question. I just self-published something last week under a pen name, because I've now decided that I'm just more comfortable with that. I just hate having people I know read my work, and somehow using a pen name frees up my creativity a little more too. So if I'm not telling anyone I know about it, do I just wait, hoping someone notices it? I'm not sure what to do next.
 

kellion92

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Amarie, I think Teri would have some perspective on that. It's her strategy.

I wish I were prolific enough to have stuff to self-publish. But to succeed at all, through any channel, you have to actually write, right? I'm not exactly disciplined. Oh well, my revision is going sort of well, I think.

ETA: Check out the threads about self-publishing in the AW roundtable -- there's an AWer on there whose self-published book is currently number seven on NYTimes ebooks list.
 
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kellion92

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If anyone is around, could you pretty please do me a favor and comment on my blog? We are trying to post more because we got lazy except for the contests, so I'm actually posting but I get the fewest comments. No wonder -- today I wrote about Post Modern architecture (the building is the one across from traffic court, which I didn't mention).

Anyway, the discussion question really is about a book or author that's so influential that when you revisit or read it the first time, it's hard to see what's original about it.
 

Cricket18

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That's great, KT! I wish I had enough in my arsenal to embark on some of this stuff.

{{{Kell}}} Dealing with the Sunday blues is enough, but to actually have to deal with work on Sunday, is a double whammy.

I've so enjoyed my days off, and I have no desire to go back to work.

*off to comment on Kellion's blog*
 

Catwoman

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God. Why won't any of my ideas come together? Why do I fucking suck? </whine>

Every writer thinks they suck!

Mario, the Amz millionaires are still a very small minority. That said, I've made $7k on one novel at Amz in 10 months that's all mine except for Uncle Sam's share. I made around $12k for my first full year of self-pub, on 4 paid titles and a few free ones.

Those are great numbers. Can I ask what you did, if anything to initially promote yourself?
 

kellion92

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Let's none of us go back to work! Yay!

The email was not really work I had to do -- it was annoying feedback on a project that is incredibly frustrating because we are being terrible clients. I don't know why anyone works with us because we are the worst clients in the world. I hate being the bad guy.
 

kellion92

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Thank you, dear Pitizens. You have saved me from the dreaded "zero comments" that I expect on my own blog but not the group one.
 

K. Taylor

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(((Kell))))

Ktaylor, I have a question. I just self-published something last week under a pen name, because I've now decided that I'm just more comfortable with that. I just hate having people I know read my work, and somehow using a pen name frees up my creativity a little more too. So if I'm not telling anyone I know about it, do I just wait, hoping someone notices it? I'm not sure what to do next.

You can either wait and forget about it and be pleasantly surprised when it gets noticed, or start marketing as that pen name. But either way, things will start slow.
 

Amarie

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You know, the whole idea of blogs kind of drives me crazy. It helps in a small way, but I cringe now when I see teachers making their elementary students blog and then begging for comments on Twitter. I just post random stuff and will continue to do so, but I have learned if you post something with the title of a popular book, movie or actor in it, people will find it. On my group blog, the post that has generated a tremendous number of hits, far more than anything else, has the phrase "social media" in it. I have no idea why.
 

Teriann

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About the pen name and no self promo: The theory is that the best way to spend your time is writing the next book, and that each time a book comes out, all your other books get a little bump. So instead of promoting this one, work on the next. This works for me because I'm not convinced that self-promo does much good in the long run and (here's probably the true reason) I don't want to do it.

With traditionally published books, where you have limited shelf life before your book is declared dead, trying to get it to move makes sense to me.
It has occurred to me, though, that only the publishers really benefit when authors play the "I'll buy your book and you by mine," because each receives so little royalties.

I think in some ways people are in more danger of quitting and giving up if they go the self published route instead of the sell-to-traditional-publishers route because you can just keep on trying to sell to a trad publisher, but if you self pub a book but don't get many sales, it can be even more discouraging. You're really putting yourself out there.

On another subject, I live with people who say, "I am not arguing! I'm not."
 

K. Taylor

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That's great, KT! I wish I had enough in my arsenal to embark on some of this stuff.

{{{Kell}}} Dealing with the Sunday blues is enough, but to actually have to deal with work on Sunday, is a double whammy.

I've so enjoyed my days off, and I have no desire to go back to work.

*off to comment on Kellion's blog*

If you have 3 stories, it's usually enough to start, though there's always the chance a single book will take off.

Those are great numbers. Can I ask what you did, if anything to initially promote yourself?

I introduced my pen name with a couple free short stories. Did this with both my pen names, actually. I told my friends about releases and created FB fan pages, Twitter accounts, and websites. I included the links to those pages at the end of each story so they could come back and find me. I also created G00dreads account for both names and manually entered all my books. And I waited.

Took over a year to get notice on Amz and Amz UK for my old pen name's stuff. For my current pen name, I released a 12k prequel short story a month before the novel released. When Amz price-matched the free prequel, sales of the novel went through the roof for one month.

You'll find with distribution that results really are individual. I only really make money at Amz, @pple, and B&N. The others barely bring in enough for a fast food meal. Their audiences seem to only be interested in my free work. Some people don't sell much at Amz at all and B&N is their bread and butter (or for romance specifically, ARe keeps them afloat). My current pen name does nearly zero international Amz sales, but I sell well through @pple's foreign markets.

Which reminds me - if B&N wants to stay afloat, they *have* to open their online store to foreign sales and self-publishing. That's massively holding them back and they don't seem to get it.
 

Teriann

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I have a strange situation: I sell equal numbers through Apple, Kobo, Amazon UK, and Amazon US. Almost nothing through B and N.

I don't have big numbers, but my Amazon US is about the same as Apple.
 

K. Taylor

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Yeah, it really is individual. I've seen different reports from a lot of people, and that's just in the same genre. It's why it's so important to distribute to all the places that'll take you - you never know where your audience is.
 

kellion92

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Morning, Purgatory. I would complain about the cold gray rain, but that would make Cricket jealous, so I won't.
 

kellion92

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Enjoy, KT and Cricket! (and my, you're up early KT)
 

ink wench

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Morning.

(((Kellion))) Ugh about needing to deal with work on a Sunday.

Every time you guys talk about self-pubbing I make notes. I'm not ruling anything out at this point.

I made absolutely no headway on my agenty revisions this weekend. Kept hoping for an epiphany and none happened. OTOH, I finished my big, fat (well for me, I broke 90k!) angsty-beyond-belief fantasy WIP. It's so awful and totally unpublishable, but I loves it and my poor, villainous MCs. If only I could rekindle that passion about R, I might get the epiphany I need. :rolleyes:

ETA: I want to live in a part of the country where rain is a good thing. It's pouring here. Also, will check out Kell's blog post later.
 

kellion92

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I think fantasy will be big soon, Ink. B1tterblue will feed some of it, Game of Thrones is huge.

Of course, mine will never be ready if I don't write it! I'm going to just pants the big bad middle and get started when I'm done my contracted novel's revision. I know how the first third goes. The rest will be more likely to come to me if I'm writing than if I'm not.
 

ink wench

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Kellion, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Nothing gets you involved in a story like actually starting to write. As for mine, no. It's seriously terrible - deadly slow paced and cliched. It was a vanity project. I watched a movie, thought "what a waste of a character," and decided I could do better. That said, I fully intend to write the sequel. :D

4Bs, that is truly pittish. I am sorry.
 
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