Joining the self-pub fray

Polenth

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The hardest thing about self publishing is not being a fast writer. I just can't produce like a lot of the more successful authors. The world of SP changes every six months and I always feel like I'm fifteen steps behind. Not giving up though. I'm starting to connect with readers through the newsletter and Twitter and people tend to like my books. This is what makes it all worth while. This is why I never want to stop.

The slow writing thing is why I've been trying other stuff, but even us slow people end up with a backlist eventually. Good luck for the new year!
 

akaria

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Haven't done an update in a while...

2017 has been quite the year. It started off pretty shitty. After being in a month long coma, a good friend died on New Year's Day. My marriage was in the toilet and ongoing health problems kicked it up a notch. I wasn't writing anything much less a romance.

In March a boxed set opportunity opened up and I grabbed it. It was going to release in October and I figured even with all the shit going on IRL, I could write at least write a novella in six months. I reached my goal and Hunter's Moon Rising will go off to a beta in the next week or two. But not without drama.

The boxed set is being put together by a person with quite the reputation on Kboards. In fact, drama seems to follow her around. Everywhere. Something I wish I had known before signing up, but there's nothing to do about it now. I don't know why there's so much drama around this woman and everything she does, but I'm not sorry about working with the other authors in the set. Without them I wouldn't have finished anything this year. Joining that boxed set was one of the best things I could have done. I mean, my health and marriage are still shit, but meds have helped the former, therapy is helping with the latter and at least I'm writing again. I've connected with some excellent people who have really helped keep me motivated, positive, and on track.

End of last year I was grabbing at any and all promo opps I could get my hands on in a mad dash to....well who knows because none of it really worked. This year started the same, but came to an abrupt halt when my computer gave up the ghost. After spending 800 bucks on a new one, I didn't have cash to throw around anymore. First of all, I put myself on a strict budget. No promo over $30. Second, focus on building the newsletter. It's been hard. REALLY HARD. When you're in author space and everyone's gushing about the results of such and such promo I constantly feel like I'm missing out. But so far I've stayed strong and within budget. A handful of inexpensive NL building promos and a book of shorts on InstaFreebie has earned me a healthy NL list of 4400. One third of those are engaged in opening and/or clicking. There's also 500 deadbeats who haven't opened or clicked a thing. We'll deal with those losers later.

I am not setting the self pub world on fire yet, but I've learned a lot this year which will become super useful after I have another book written. So, the goal for the rest of 2017 is to finish a first draft of the third book in the trilogy. Keep growing the NL. Stay away from expensive, shiny promo objects.
 

ASeiple

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:: Nods :: Solid advice. The way I see it, the more books you have out there, the further promo goes. You save a ton of money if you have patience and build your backlist for a while first.
 

Catherine

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Thanks for the update. Here's hoping the year turns around for you. It sounds like you are learning a lot and putting that knowledge to good use.

Is NL list a type of email list? It's probably something simple but I can't quite figure it out.
 

akaria

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With GR you can giveaway copies in exchange for reviews through groups. Most groups in your genre will have a section for authors to promote sales or ask for reviews. If you're active in the group, people are more likely to want to review. The rest is up to fate :)
 

akaria

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:: Nods :: Solid advice. The way I see it, the more books you have out there, the further promo goes. You save a ton of money if you have patience and build your backlist for a while first.
Backlist really is key. Out of all the things that have changed in the indie world since I began this trip in 2014, this is the one thing that's remained the same. Reviews for my stuff have been mostly positive, so getting more out there for people to read is job number one.I'm super jealous of those who can knock out three or four books a year. I used to think they were doing 50 page pamphlets or novellas, but nope. A lot of those folks are putting out 60k+ books.
 

AW Admin

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The best way to promote your books is to publish another good book.

Everything else is second to that, in terms of selling books.

Promotion for a book should start about six weeks before release day.

If you want to get reviews on GoodReads and Library thing, do a giveaway.

Start lining up reviewers for your books by seeing who reviews your sort of book, and contacting them, offering a free review copy (but don't assume that you'll get a review for every copy; you won't).

On Goodreads and Library thing, post reviews of books you genuinely liked and / or found useful or interesting. People will read your review and often, look at your profile.

Don't forget How do I promote on Absolute Write with aplomb, and What's this deal about "engaging the community"? on AW and the Book Promotion and Ideas subforum.
 

akaria

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I meant to update closer to release day, but Thanksgiving seems like an appropriate day to catch up.

The Other Worlds box set released on 10/17 and by the skin of our teeth, we squeezed onto the USA best sellers list. Hooray! I really learned a lot from doing that project. Three months prepping for one week is exciting and exhausting, but it was nice to work with people on the regular for a change.

It was interesting to see Problematic Drama Lady in action. She's neither all-knowing saint or backstabbing spawn of Satan. Like anything else, she's somewhere in between. I learned a lot about how to launch a book and while tons of very smart, successful people write blog posts and books on the topic, I'm a hands on type and doing the work every day really helped cement what it takes.

Back in June, I didn't really think I'd have another book written by the end of the year, but chances are good a 50k first draft will be complete. I started book three in September as an experiment in pantsing. No outline. No plot points. No crafting. See what happens. It worked well until I hit a wall a few weeks ago. Dead stop. No words written. So I took a day and just sorta laid around in bed and tried to figure out what was gonna happen next. I also booked the cover artist and started planning for a March release. That cleared things up. Skinny outline is barely more than bones, but things are chugging along much faster now that I know where these characters are sort of going.

Next year will see the rebranding of the series. New covers and new blurbs will come out six weeks or so before the new book. I've been testing a piece of the new blurb with an Amazon AMS ad and the results are decent.

Another project for next year is working on libraries carrying my books. D2D offers distribution to OverDrive, but I'm not sure what they actually do to entice libraries to choose me. The inner control freak can't wait to tackle this project.

Oh, and I managed to stay away from big shiny promos. It was pretty easy after choosing big, shiny new covers and author branding instead. Promo is for a day. Covers last a lifetime...or at least a few years. :)