Before I published I lurked through this forum a while and weighed a lot of the advice and lessons learned. Given that I took--I thought I should also give.
Personal Background: I'm a professional (corporate/government/technical) writer, and have been for ten years. I've done anything from writing public policy to editing international briefs about high end defense toys. I have a handful of academic degrees (English, Social Theory, Master's in Literature). So, going into this, I have quite a few skills that are very useful when self publishing: I did all of my own formatting for print and digital versions, and did the graphic editing (but did not create the art) to setup my cover, etc. This is my first novel.
Why Self-Publish: I self published mostly because I wanted to. Consider me a bit of a digital hippie, but I have a belief in crowd funding, independent publishing, and generally 'sticking it to the man'. Additionally, like most self-published writers, I really enjoy the level of control that I have over my work.
What I Published: A sci-fi adventure story. It's the first in what I plan to be a four-book series. I'm about 1/4 into the second book now.
My plan: First and foremost, my plan for this book isn't to make money. I mean, sure, I want to buy a few nice bottles of scotch by the time I'm done--but my day job keeps me fed and bedded. My goal is to build readership and learn the system.
I went Amazon and enrolled in KDP. I'd heard mixed reviews about e-book give-away periods on Amazon, and was simply too curious not to test it out. So, that's how I started:
1. I got my e-book up online and told my four beta readers (But nobody else). They put up their initial reviews so that I had some words/stars to start with. The reason I didn't tell anyone else (friends/family) was because I wanted to use this first period as a control group to see what kind of impact to sales/review accumulation I could get out of the Amazon give-away period.
2. With four reviews up (3x5star and 1x4 star), I put it up for free for 3 days (starting on a Friday). By Monday morning, I had 396 downloads. From what I understand, this was on the high side of average for first-time authors with no following. So a good start. (Which I credit at least partially to my cover--which was painted by a good friend of mine).
3. While I was waiting for the print edition to become available, I watched my sales. The day after the giveaway ended, I sold 7 (Monday) then 4 (Tuesday) the next day... over the rest of the week I ended up with 19 sales (without having advertised the book).
I thought that was a pretty positive response. I'd given away my book to about 400--and that helped me sell it to 19. In reality, not the worst trade-off.
4. With that initial wave dying down--and my print edition available. I went and made my "Author Page" on Facebook public and "announced" my book to my personal social network the following Monday. 8-9 of my friends "Shared" the link, and so I had a pretty good echo across a little corner of cyberspace.
Over the next two days, I sold 11 e-books and 9 print. With steady sales tricking since then.
Results:
1. Two weeks ago my "giveaway" period on Amazon ended. Since then there have only been two days where I didn't sell at least one E-book (I may have sold print editions those days, it's hard to tell since CreateSpace doesn't post your print edition sales until they are printed). During that time I've averaged over 3 e-book sales per day. Again, feeling good.
2. In these first two weeks I've sold 13 print, and 44 e-book versions. I'll add, at least at this point, I'm 99% certain I personally know all the people who have purchased the print edition. But the e-book has gotten a wider audience. Personally, I'm quite happy with this as a starting point.
3. Reviews! My initial reviews were 'seeded' by my betas. So they really didn't mean much to me. Since putting the book out, I've received 4 more reviews. 3 of which were from people I do not know (actual readers!). And all of them have been glowingly positive (Two said it would be a great movie, and another compared me to Lois Bujolds.. I'll take it!)
Given the time frame, I am going to assume that those reviews were probably/possibly results of the initial book give-away period. If so, it was definitely worth it. I suppose I should have waited 2 weeks after the give-away to see if reviews would come in from those readers before advertising it through my social network--but honestly I didn't want to wait.
Interesting take-aways:
1. During the giveaway period I had downloads from all over the world. UK, Aussi, Germany, India, Canada, etc. Since the giveaway ended, I've had a good number of sales in the UK (10), with 1-2 sales each in Canada and Australia.
2. The 3.99 price point seems effective for e-books (and the royalties are pretty good per sale). There was a discussion on this elsewhere on the blog, which convinced me that for a book like mine (listed at 360 pages e-book, 278 print, 117k words), 3.99 was a fair price. I agree--and it seems readers think so to.
3. I don't blog or tweet--but I'm still selling books. Do what you will with that one. Personally I haven't read anything of twitter helping convert sales on a notable scale. And, honestly, I work full time, have a family, and am writing novels. I don't have time, energy, or motivation to blog anything meaningful.
4. Advertising: When the free period ended, I took out a 30-day ad on Facebook with a targeted demographic. I put in $50 and told facebook to run it as often as it can as a small ad on my specific sci-fi demographic. So far (2 weeks) the ad has displayed 40,000+ times, and gotten 45 clicks. This means I'm paying about $0.45 cents per click. How many convert to sales? No idea. Not 100% of them, probably not 50% of them, but, 20-30%? possibly. Unfortunately there is no way to tell for certain. I DO think that as I gain more (positive) reviews, that the facebook ad approach may be more effective. As it was, my ad was my book cover with a little blurb about "Need a new great sci-fi epic?" or something like that.
If anyone else has experiences with doing FB ads or the like, I'd be curious to hear what kind of numbers they saw.
A noob's tips:
1. Edit the hell out of your work. I wrote the book in 3 months, and spent 7 re-writing it.
2. Take criticism from reviewers.
3. Get good reviewers.
4. ^ Seriously ^
5. I was lucky enough to have a profession where I am very good with desktop publishing and was able to do all of the formatting myself. If you don't have that skillset, and want to self publish, find someone who does have the skills. Getting the book to look right in e-book and print formats is tricky and can be a bit of a task if desktop publishing is not your forte.
I suppose that's enough of my jabbering. Obviously, if you want to check out my book, it's linked in the sig
Personal Background: I'm a professional (corporate/government/technical) writer, and have been for ten years. I've done anything from writing public policy to editing international briefs about high end defense toys. I have a handful of academic degrees (English, Social Theory, Master's in Literature). So, going into this, I have quite a few skills that are very useful when self publishing: I did all of my own formatting for print and digital versions, and did the graphic editing (but did not create the art) to setup my cover, etc. This is my first novel.
Why Self-Publish: I self published mostly because I wanted to. Consider me a bit of a digital hippie, but I have a belief in crowd funding, independent publishing, and generally 'sticking it to the man'. Additionally, like most self-published writers, I really enjoy the level of control that I have over my work.
What I Published: A sci-fi adventure story. It's the first in what I plan to be a four-book series. I'm about 1/4 into the second book now.
My plan: First and foremost, my plan for this book isn't to make money. I mean, sure, I want to buy a few nice bottles of scotch by the time I'm done--but my day job keeps me fed and bedded. My goal is to build readership and learn the system.
I went Amazon and enrolled in KDP. I'd heard mixed reviews about e-book give-away periods on Amazon, and was simply too curious not to test it out. So, that's how I started:
1. I got my e-book up online and told my four beta readers (But nobody else). They put up their initial reviews so that I had some words/stars to start with. The reason I didn't tell anyone else (friends/family) was because I wanted to use this first period as a control group to see what kind of impact to sales/review accumulation I could get out of the Amazon give-away period.
2. With four reviews up (3x5star and 1x4 star), I put it up for free for 3 days (starting on a Friday). By Monday morning, I had 396 downloads. From what I understand, this was on the high side of average for first-time authors with no following. So a good start. (Which I credit at least partially to my cover--which was painted by a good friend of mine).
3. While I was waiting for the print edition to become available, I watched my sales. The day after the giveaway ended, I sold 7 (Monday) then 4 (Tuesday) the next day... over the rest of the week I ended up with 19 sales (without having advertised the book).
I thought that was a pretty positive response. I'd given away my book to about 400--and that helped me sell it to 19. In reality, not the worst trade-off.
4. With that initial wave dying down--and my print edition available. I went and made my "Author Page" on Facebook public and "announced" my book to my personal social network the following Monday. 8-9 of my friends "Shared" the link, and so I had a pretty good echo across a little corner of cyberspace.
Over the next two days, I sold 11 e-books and 9 print. With steady sales tricking since then.
Results:
1. Two weeks ago my "giveaway" period on Amazon ended. Since then there have only been two days where I didn't sell at least one E-book (I may have sold print editions those days, it's hard to tell since CreateSpace doesn't post your print edition sales until they are printed). During that time I've averaged over 3 e-book sales per day. Again, feeling good.
2. In these first two weeks I've sold 13 print, and 44 e-book versions. I'll add, at least at this point, I'm 99% certain I personally know all the people who have purchased the print edition. But the e-book has gotten a wider audience. Personally, I'm quite happy with this as a starting point.
3. Reviews! My initial reviews were 'seeded' by my betas. So they really didn't mean much to me. Since putting the book out, I've received 4 more reviews. 3 of which were from people I do not know (actual readers!). And all of them have been glowingly positive (Two said it would be a great movie, and another compared me to Lois Bujolds.. I'll take it!)
Given the time frame, I am going to assume that those reviews were probably/possibly results of the initial book give-away period. If so, it was definitely worth it. I suppose I should have waited 2 weeks after the give-away to see if reviews would come in from those readers before advertising it through my social network--but honestly I didn't want to wait.
Interesting take-aways:
1. During the giveaway period I had downloads from all over the world. UK, Aussi, Germany, India, Canada, etc. Since the giveaway ended, I've had a good number of sales in the UK (10), with 1-2 sales each in Canada and Australia.
2. The 3.99 price point seems effective for e-books (and the royalties are pretty good per sale). There was a discussion on this elsewhere on the blog, which convinced me that for a book like mine (listed at 360 pages e-book, 278 print, 117k words), 3.99 was a fair price. I agree--and it seems readers think so to.
3. I don't blog or tweet--but I'm still selling books. Do what you will with that one. Personally I haven't read anything of twitter helping convert sales on a notable scale. And, honestly, I work full time, have a family, and am writing novels. I don't have time, energy, or motivation to blog anything meaningful.
4. Advertising: When the free period ended, I took out a 30-day ad on Facebook with a targeted demographic. I put in $50 and told facebook to run it as often as it can as a small ad on my specific sci-fi demographic. So far (2 weeks) the ad has displayed 40,000+ times, and gotten 45 clicks. This means I'm paying about $0.45 cents per click. How many convert to sales? No idea. Not 100% of them, probably not 50% of them, but, 20-30%? possibly. Unfortunately there is no way to tell for certain. I DO think that as I gain more (positive) reviews, that the facebook ad approach may be more effective. As it was, my ad was my book cover with a little blurb about "Need a new great sci-fi epic?" or something like that.
If anyone else has experiences with doing FB ads or the like, I'd be curious to hear what kind of numbers they saw.
A noob's tips:
1. Edit the hell out of your work. I wrote the book in 3 months, and spent 7 re-writing it.
2. Take criticism from reviewers.
3. Get good reviewers.
4. ^ Seriously ^
5. I was lucky enough to have a profession where I am very good with desktop publishing and was able to do all of the formatting myself. If you don't have that skillset, and want to self publish, find someone who does have the skills. Getting the book to look right in e-book and print formats is tricky and can be a bit of a task if desktop publishing is not your forte.
I suppose that's enough of my jabbering. Obviously, if you want to check out my book, it's linked in the sig
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