Learning as I go: lizo27's self-publishing thread

Hey, I've been reading your thread, and I'm so glad to hear of your success. It's well-deserved.

lizo27 said:

Steady sales this month. Sequel is doing much better than I thought it would--and has already picked up a couple of five-star reviews!

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That's awesome to hear! It's inspiring how you've worked at this and are having real success.

Sucks to hear that.

I've worked with three separate producers on audiobooks and all of them were responsive. One went quiet while working on the files for the novel but I could see them being uploaded onto the site so knew steady progress was being made. Not sure what stage you are in the process. If you're through ACX and haven't received your first 15 minutes, I think it's pretty easy to cancel. If you have, then there was a deadline in that contract for full production and you should check if you're past it and then that should be pretty easy to cancel, too. If you aren't at that deadline yet, you may have to wait it out.

In terms of the books slumping. It happens sometimes until your next release. Don't get discouraged, just get the next one out there. If you're exclusive to Amazon, try some of their sponsored product ads in the meantime. If you're wide and direct with Kobo see about getting in on one of their monthly promos. Or run a sale and set up some ads with the better sites. If you don't have the money for ads, then just get that next book out.

Take a moment to feel down, but then power through and keep going.

Sorry to hear about your frustrations, Lizo.

Are you in KDP Select? I understand some technical glitches have meant some authors have been underpaid recently. It might be worth checking out.
https://teleread.org/2016/10/08/ama...ge-reads-apparently-due-to-software-glitches/

lizo27 said:

It's possible that the glitch is affecting my pagereads, but I don't know that it explains the lack of sales.

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You're right, it doesn't sound like it should.


I can imagine it's discouraging when your sales drop below where you think they should be. Self-publishing isn't easy.

But remind yourself of what you've accomplished so far. You have two books out, you're getting good reviews on them, and you have a third book underway. I hear it can take five or so books for a new author to gain momentum, and you have the advantage that you're writing a series so people who discover one book and enjoy it are likely to be interested in the others.

When it starts to get on top of you, take a quick time out and read something inspiring. Then get back to writing.


You might want to think about paying for advertising or working on increasing your social media presence. There are lots of books and blog posts that give authors ideas on how to become more discoverable online.


Most importantly, keep writing.


Good luck!
KiwiChick

I think you're on the right track. This was my track, and the game plan that I'm following is as follows;

Three books
Box set of those three
Book four
Book five
Book six
Box set of 4-6
Wash, rinse, repeat for as long as I can. Other books and series as time and creativity permits.

I'm holding off on advertising pushes until book four. That's when I can do a kindle countdown on the box set, buy a few ads, and market the heck out of book four.

So far it's working out. The more books you have out there, the more effective marketing becomes. Best of all, this path is easy to walk without a big investment of anything but writing time... which is what you'd be doing anyway. I think this way would work for you.

Just be patient and keep building that backlist. It'll pay off, eventually.

Were you planning to go through Createspace? If so, it's pretty much free to put books up there, unless you're looking to get an ISBN for expanded distribution.

If that's the case and you don't mind a little extra time fiddling with the templates, I'd say put all four of them up there. (The three books and the omnibus).

But if you only want to do it once, yeah, the omnibus is a good way to go.

Hm... going to have to make a quick amendment, here, due to the ever-changing nature of things.

As of yesterday, Amazon has started to fold their POD publishing into KDP, and will eventually be moving it out of Createspace. So my advice on putting everything in Createspace? Might not be so good anymore, or by the time you get around to it. It'll probably take them a few months to get everything up and running, mind, and Createspace will keep going in the meantime, but you may want to avoid fussing with it. Whatever they put into KDP will probably be less hassle when it's all said and done.

The KDP Print service is, as of now, still inferior to CS. For one thing, you can't order author copies at cost (not even a proof copy!), and for another, there's no expanded distribution. Authors have also reported bugs with the interface over at the KDP forum.

So, for anyone publishing a POD edition now, I'd say CS is still the way to go.

Hey, that's a good thing! One out of ten is a great ratio.Also, you've hit a milestone. A lot of self-published folks don't break double digits on reviews. You've beaten that, so you're ahead of the game.There's also a school of thought that a negative review adds "authenticity". I happen to agree with that. While they shouldn't be courted, the simple fact of the matter is that there's always going to be someone out there who doesn't like your book, no matter how you write. Having a negative review up there shows that your reviews aren't falsely inflated, and that the other reviewers are probably on the level.So yeah, 90% good reviews? Freaking awesome. If you can keep that ratio up then life'll be good.

lizo27 said:

Well, just got into double-digits for reviews on Amazon--but the tenth review was my first negative review! Oh well . . .

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There's always going to be at least one. On one of my books, I had a one-star review that simply said "Good book"--I'm still scratching my head over that one!

Celebrate your 10 reviews, and if the negative review is constructive, at least you'll get something out of it. Otherwise, it's best to ignore it and move on.

"9 out of 10 readers prefer," like the old gum ad with 4 out of 5 dentists. I'd take that ratio. Congrats!

That's an interesting perspective, blackrice. But just FYI, this forum is about documenting their stats and methods as a journal so others can learn from them.

A negative review is a good sign. It means people are taking a chance on your book. Not everyone will like it, but they're trying it.

Don't have much to add except encouragement. Authors can succeed with self-publishing, and I think your work is good enough for that to happen.

And working on book 3 is awesome.

To the OP, sounds interesting enough so downloaded it. Reading another right now but will read yours next

Hi lizo27,
This is a great thread. I am seeing very similar results after my first six weeks of self-publishing online with Amazon. I have read the entire thread and really enjoyed the read. Getting reviews has been my greatest battle, only two so far, despite the promise of many more (maybe 20 promised). Is there something that stands out as the key to more sales and getting those reviews? I only have one book online with Amazon Kindle Unlimited, but I am considering advertising. Is there a minimum number of reviews that you should have before promoting using Amazon advertising? I'm thinking that a potential reader is far more likely to risk their £2.99 on a book that has five, or ten or more reviews than just two. I do have a couple of other books that I'm working on, but they are six months away from being ready to publish. Thanks in advance.
Good luck with your work,
Jason