Madame Guillotine's self publishing journey thread

Hello there!

I'm considered in some circles to be a fairly successful self publisher (I only ever call myself 'self published' because that's what I think I am) so I thought it might be helpful to start a thread about my own experiences with self publishing as I work on my fourth book. I don't personally think I am all that successful but then I come on here and see talk about how the vast majority of self published writers only sell about a 100 books and it makes me wonder.

I currently have three books for sale on Amazon and sell around 1,500 books a month which makes me enough loot to take an ongoing sabbatical from my day job as a researcher and instead concentrate exclusively on my writing. My first novel sells about 1,000 copies every month and the rest of the sales are divided between the other two, with my second book taking the larger share. To date, I have sold just over 12,000 novels since last May.

My first book is a YA novel about Marie Antoinette's youth and was originally written as a blog. I kept getting requests to make it into an actual book and decided to self publish after submitting it to a couple of agents who liked my voice but said there was no market for novels about Marie Antoinette's childhood. I took them at their word and as I only expected my blog readers to be interested cheerfully put it first on Lulu (it's now deleted from there as I felt embarrassed by how expensive their books are) and then made it into a Kindle book. As mentioned above, it's selling about 1,000 copies a month which I'm pleased about but I don't know if that confirms or contradicts what I was told by agents about its probable appeal. I should probably have submitted it to a few more really before giving up but really I only thought my blog readers would be interested in it!

I initially self published my second book, which is set during the French Revolution, without really thinking about submitting it anywhere but then signed a contract with an e-publisher who went bust before it could be released. In order for the book to be accepted, I had to change the ending to a happier one as they felt it was too miserable. Although I was, of course, disappointed for my stable mates when the publisher went under, I was relieved for myself as it meant I got my book back and could change the ending back again as I really didn't like the new one! I was also fortunate enough to get hold of the edited version so was able to swiftly publish it myself.

My third book was submitted to one agent who expressed interest in my work but although they liked my writing they didn't think the subject matter (the French Revolution again) was one that they could really get behind. I therefore self published it as well.

I've since had interest from a few agents and am in correspondance with one who is based in the US with a tentative view to getting representation for my fourth book, which is about the youngest sister of Charles II. I really really love the freedom of self publishing but I get emails pretty much every day from readers either asking when my next book is out or wanting to know why they can't buy them in shops. I don't want to use Lulu again so thought it might be a good idea to properly explore other avenues. I find the idea of submitting books really frightening though as I have Aspergers and am very shy so find the process really off-putting although I am not at all adverse to being trade published (I'm sorry but I can't remember what the preferred term for being published by a publisher is at the moment and don't want to cause offence or annoy anyone but I think that's right?)

As to promotion - I don't do very much to be honest. My blog has about 3,000 regular readers and gets about 4,000 views a day so I have links to my books on there and also mention them when it is absolutely relevant (ie I quote a passage as part of a post about the French Revolution or Marie Antoinette or am discussing self publishing). I'm also coming up to 4,000 followers on Twitter but never mention my books unless they have just been released or are on a free promotion (which I don't class as sales btw). I often wonder how successful I would be if a. I relentlessly promoted my books as much as some other self published writers do or b. I was published by an actual publisher. However, I am happy with the way things are right now - I went into self publishing with very VERY low fiscal expectations so making ANY money at all from it is a bonus.

Anyway, that's my experience at the moment. I know there's a lot of talk on here about promotion and the actual grass roots figures behind self publishing so thought this might be of help to someone. I don't think I'm an expert or even massively successful like some of the really big and often mentioned names out there but I'm always happy to share any tips or anything that I've come across since I started out with this.

Thank you! I hope I'm not posting out of turn or anything as although I've lurked for AGES, I'm a posting newbie. However, there's so much misinformation and conjecture about self publishing, I decided that it's always useful to hear from anyone who actually does it whether successful or not!

Thank you Engineer Tiger! I'm always agog to read about the experiences of other self published writers as we all seem to do things so differently.

Okay, I've read through the threads here and feel a lot less nervous about things so as requested I've sent the first three chapters of my WIP to an agent who has expressed interest. I even checked them out in the agent bit and now know that they are a good egg!

It feels a bit weird to be doing it this way - ie being approached by agents rather than the other way around and also being encouraged to send fragments of unfinished work to them. I can't help feeling that this isn't really to my benefit though as they're also looking at much more polished FINISHED manuscripts from other writers at the same time. Do you think it's okay to tell them to hold fire while I finish the blooming thing?

Thanks! Like I said, I don't feel very successful and am not sure what all the numbers even mean but it's nice to be asked even if it never goes any further! I think I'll see how it goes with this agent and then maybe retire from the whole circus until I've actually finished the book!

Thanks Jeff!

I always reply to say that I don't currently sell paperback copies as self published ones are too expensive and I don't want to charge my readers that much. However, if I find a way to sell them at a price that compares favourably with that of trade published books then I will do so!

I need to set up some sort of mailing list really but feel a bit embarrassed about it! I'll have a look for some tips on how to do that!

Daddyo said:

12,000 copies since May? I'd call that super successful! I'd also think that agents certainly would have an interest in any writer posting such sales, so they just may offer a deal on spec. Your current promotional efforts have done the job for you, so I can't see where any improvement is needed there. Can't argue with 4,000 blog views a day. Take your time because you just may have your pick of agents before all is said and done.

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Thank you! I'm not sure what is good to be honest as other writers can be quite cagey about their sales numbers, which is, of course, entirely up to them. I like to tell all though because I know new authors find it handy to know what to expect.

I've only had a handful of agents contact me so far but don't want to rush things in case I make a complete balls up of the whole thing and end up being blacklisted for being awkward or unprofessional or something.

I should probably do a bit more promotion but I don't want to annoy people!

Thank you! It's certainly nice to be my own boss but it feels completely weird to be living off royalties because although academically I know that I worked for my income, it doesn't feel like I'm doing much for it right now, if that makes sense?

Oh crikey, I've been blogging for about three years now and don't really have much of a strategy to be honest. All I do is post frequently, make sure it all looks as nice as possible, cover a wide variety of subjects and try to build up connections with other bloggers and tweeters so that my posts are shared with their readers and followers as well, some of whom will then become regular readers.

Unlike parenting blogs, there are surprisingly few history blogs out there and certainly not enough when you consider how many history fans there are so it's pretty easy to pick up readers if you try to write about history in an interesting way.

Although it feels like I don't really promote my books at all, I actually work really hard on my blog which pretty much amounts to the same thing as it is my platform.

A further update on the whole self publishing malarkey:

1. After much wrestling with an annoying chapter, I've managed to finish it off. Hurray. I've sent the first three chapters as they are now to an agent who contacted me to ask to look at my work. I haven't heard back yet but feel really uncertain about the whole thing still.

2. The updated cover for my first novel is now in the process of being created. We had a slight creative tussle as the artist wanted to do something really cool and creative, which I really loved the sound of but as this is supposed to be a YA novel, I thought it would be better with a portrait style cover as I think that age range like to SEE what the heroine looks like. Or something. Anyway, I'm hoping for a relaunch in August maybe?

3. I've just had a bit of a row with Amazon about pricing which ended up in my deleting my first book from Smashwords, reducing its price on Amazon and taking a serious cut to my revenue. It's all sorted out now but it left me feeling really vulnerable and a bit rubbish about the whole thing. I try really hard to be professional about my writing as after all this is my livelihood now and usually it's all plain sailing (I know, I've been lucky) but this sort of thing leaves me feeling really daunted, reminds me of my limitations (I have a learning disability) and wishing I had more confidence. I suppose when stuff like this happens, I kind of wish I had an agent and so on to help me out.

Anyway, that's how things are right now. In better news, I've had a good month with over 1,000 sales again so far and some really nice reviews, which I'm very grateful for and at least there hasn't been a repeat of last month when an Amazon reviewer laid into me because my novel based on Edith Wharton's The Buccaneers only set in France and in a different century is *drumroll* really similar to Edith Wharton's The Buccaneers only set in France and in a different century. How we laughed.

I'm planning to explain what happened more fully when I'm feeling less ranty and weird about the whole thing. It was probably all my own fault - without warning or explanation, Amazon discounted my list price from $3 to $1.75 and in a panic I changed the price on Smashbooks to reflect this as I know Amazon don't like it if books are priced higher elsewhere. However, I didn't mind as I was still getting a 70% cut, whereas ordinarily $1.75 would get a 35% cut.

This was all fine until my book appeared on the B&N and Sony sites, at which point Amazon threatened to delete it from their site if I didn't lower the original list price of $3 to the discounted price of $1.75 to match the prices on their sites, which meant going from a 70% cut to a 35% one.

It's all fair enough from their point of view but I was clearly confused about how the price matching worked and thought I was doing the right thing in lowering it elsewhere because I thought it had to be the same price. Clearly I was wrong, which I am sorry about. I don't know if there's a lesson to be learned here but I'm pretty annoyed with myself right now as I'm stuck with this lower list price until Sony take my book down.

I'm not very awake so have probably not explained it very well, sorry!

Thanks!

I wish I'd known that before - I was really anxious about making sure that the prices match and it's ended in a bit of a disaster! Anyway, to ensure that it doesn't happen again, I've deleted the book from Smashwords and am going to stick to just Amazon for now until I have a proper unified strategy in place. I'm still hoping to make paperback copies of my books available at some point as, like I said, I'm getting emails pretty much every day asking about them.

On the plus side! I hadn't looked at Smashwords for about six months and was amazed to see that I have quite a nice amount of money in my account! I'd better send them a form with my ITIN number so I can get my mitts on it!

Thank you so much!

Because of my issues, I feel really nervous about putting myself forward and find promotion extremely arduous but being on here is already making me feel so much more confident and definitely a lot less alone! I'm even considering properly submitting my latest WIP to agents now, which isn't something that I've ever really properly contemplated before because I thought the whole process was so scary!

I feel SO stupid but I honestly thought I was doing the right thing. I was actually really worried about the prices on other sites being higher. What a plum, I am!

Their email really rattled me and I still feel a bit upset about the whole thing, like I was being accused of trying to cheat them in some way when actually I really wasn't! Ah well, I'll get over it soon but it's certainly taken some of the shine off my otherwise pretty nice KDP experience!

Oh yes, and I will be staging a return to Smashwords in the future but I want to do it properly with all of my books with their nice new covers and a definite price point and all sorts of fanfare and fuss.