My Exhaustively Researched, Extensively Plotted And Quite Possibly Insane Self Publishing Plan

Hello, fellow AW-ers! Having benefited greatly from a lot of the wisdom from this forum and elsewhere in this community, and being about to embark on a new self-published path myself, I thought I'd share my plan of action here as well as any successes or failure that come from it. Never know who might benefit from it and in what way.

A bit of backstory - last year some personal/family issues forced me to move and put my querying on hold as I had neither the time or energy to pursue a new potential business partnership should some agent actually offer. However, that didn't stop me from writing to deal with the stress and I built up quite a stockpile. I'm umm...a tad prolific. As I'd been interested for some time in pursuing BOTH trade and self publication with different projects, by the time things started settling down I began testing the waters by self publishing erotica under a couple pen names. Between that and my cover design business I'm able to focus full time on writing, but as I hope to someday trade publish a MG series, full disclosure there isn't the best idea.

Hence this thread! Here I'll chart my self-pub journey under my real name, even though it may not be successful at all. I'm a big fan of writers sharing their experiences as openly and honestly as possible, and I spent a lot of time and effort in crafting the best publication process possible (FOR ME!), based on a lot of what I learned through my self publishing experiences so far.

So to start - I have twelve things ready to release over the next three to four months, beginning October 1st.



I know a very popular opinion among most self-publishers is that a book should be released as soon as its ready, that any day it lingers on your hard drive is a day it could be racking up sales. I strongly disagree, for several reasons.

First off, momentum. Over anything else, I credit being able to debut with a number of titles quickly for my success under other pen names, and plan to see if the same holds true here. A reader's initial discovery of an author is one of the best opportunities to get them interested in your overall writings rather than a single book. There is a LOT of competition out there. If a reader finds and enjoys your book, they have a reason to keep an eye on you and check back for your next release. If a writer finds and enjoys your book, discovers you have three or four other titles already out and reads and enjoys them, they have FIVE reasons to keep an eye on you and check back for future releases.

The same theory holds true with speed of releases. If you have several projects all ready to go around the same time, don't just throw them all up all at once when it might be months before you write, edit and prepare something new for a followup release. Space them out. Steady, regular releases are more likely to keep an author fresh and relevant in a reader's mind, rather than an initial burst and then nothing for months, giving them time to forget you or find a similar author they prefer more.

Length of time between releases brings me to my next point though, and that's quality of work. As self-publishers, we're required to wear all the hats. This cuts into writing time significantly. Editing, formatting, commissioning or designing covers, all these things take time, time away from writing. And the second you have a release on shelves, starting to accumulate readers and fans who want to know when the next book's coming out, and how long until the one after that...you start to hear a ticking clock. It becomes very easy to start cutting corners, to say oh, this one's edited well enough, time to release it, and so on. The more you're able to do all that other non-writing stuff in advance, the more you're able to stockpile books to release regularly while you work on new stuff that won't be ready for months, the more breathing room you'll have to find a regular rhythm and routine of write and release that works for you.

Now, all that said, debuting with a lot of titles and quick followup releases is all well and good, but it also comes with a danger of over-saturation. You don't want to overwhelm your new readers with more than they can handle, and that's why you can see I'm casting my net wide to start. I have twelve releases planned for the next three to four months, but they're a mix of genres and intended demographics. Half adult, half young adult, a mix of shorter works and longer works, standalones and series, sci-fi and fantasy and the odd niche market like superheroes and gay romance. Do I hope that readers who discover one book like it enough that they go on to buy all my others? Of course. Will all of them? Of course not. We all have our preferences, and even being a fan of an author overall isn't going to make an adult sci-fi reader a fan of a teen gay romance. By targeting a variety of markets and readers initially, all of my works are still there and available if readers are interested and have the money to spend - but to the adult sci-fi reader, it doesn't FEEL like I'm asking him to drop money on me every couple of weeks. When he sees YA titles or epic fantasy releases that don't interest him, he thus doesn't feel they're aimed at him and 'pressuring' him to spend money more often than he's comfortable. Perception is a very large part of marketing.

Which brings me to my next point, marketing. VEGAS BABY will be my first release on October 1st, as well as the first installment of FENCE, my serialized superhero story. I'll be releasing the first Changelings novella later that month, as well as a second installment of FENCE. I'll finish off the month with my first full length novel release, ADRIAN GRAY.

However, I'm doing a soft launch to start, and by that I mean not a lot of initial promotion on my part for my first titles. I'll be updating my signature on here and other boards I'm on quietly of course, and I'll have a central website ready (finishing that now) and a Facebook page, but I won't be tweeting about them or hitting up friends to promote VB and Fence. I have a number of friends, bloggers and published authors, etc, who are very influential with YA readers and blogs, and they've all offered to help me promote my self-publishing efforts. They're amazing to do so, but any time you're offered help or a chance to market, its key not to be overzealous. For that reason, I'm focusing my marketing efforts and their help and waiting to use it to promote ADAGIO when it releases in November.

For one, its easily the most marketable and commercial of my books. In the meanwhile those others books will still be releasing on schedule, potentially gaining readers on their own. By the time ADAGIO releases and I point all the attention my friends and promotional efforts have gained towards my website and all the places readers can find and purchase it...those other titles are already there and visible as well, and voila. Even though they were just released a month or mere weeks before, they're already a backlist. By focusing my marketing efforts on ONE book, I've simultaneously made all those potential readers aware of all five or six previous releases as well. There was no irritating or alienating readers by tweeting incessantly about a new release every week, just one concerted push in November that can potentially take the usual month or so of visibility and good sales a new release might enjoy and stretch it out over TWO months.

Finally we come to pricing. Pricing is totally arbitrary and subjective when you're the one setting it, and everyone's mileage will vary. I find for myself, anyone interested in your writing can be pretty understanding of most prices you set, as long as they feel you're being reasonable and not just trying to gouge them out of their money. To that end, consistency and transparency are key. As with my erotica website, my website for these releases will feature a pricing key or legend. I go by word count, and use the Hugo's categories to differentiate. For instance, a short story under 7500 words would be priced at .99 cents. A novelette between 7500 words and 17,500 would be priced at 1.99. A novella of 17,500 to 37,500 will be 2.99, and though there's no official category between novella and novel, I feel anything between 37,500 words and 60K can justify a 3.99 price point, as its essentially a short novel at that point. That leaves 4.99 for any novels over 60K, which is still very reasonable for quality self-published work, I feel. It respects the work involved without trying to milk readers out of extra cash.

The only exception to this will be my serialized novel FENCE, as it has five relatively self-contained installments of approximately 20K a piece for a final novel of 100K. By my pricing system, that'd be 2.99 per installment, but fifteen bucks for the finished, collected e-book is quite frankly, redonk. Instead, each installment will be $1.49, which is very reasonable IMO for a 20K superhero episodic adventure, and prices the final, collected version at around $7.50. I might round down to 6.99 as incentive to purchase the final novel rather than in installments, and that still comes in lower than trade published ebooks, while potentially netting me my highest royalties overall.

Whew. Okay. *Flexes fingers* So that's the basics of my strategy over the next coming months, but your guesses are as good as mine to how well this will all pan out. I intend to update this thread regularly with my progress and how things are playing out, and I'll try and be as forthcoming with any flaws and failures as I would be with any successes it reaps. We're all here to share and learn from each other after all. Not trying to be another DWS here, lol. The world only needs one of those. (Just kidding. I have mad respect for Dean, even if I disagree with him on a lot. Like, a LOT. Heh.)

So anyway, as I said, I've done very well with a similar model in my erotica stuff, but that's a TOTALLY different beast, and this could flop or fizzle spectacularly. But that's the beauty of self-publishing and what drew me to it in the first place - if something doesn't work, take a step back, evaluate, and try another angle. One of my reasons for going both the self and trade publishing routes is I can save this road for the series I need to share with readers all the way through to the end, where I don't want to risk a publisher not continuing a series due to lack of sales, and the only one who can decide whether or not there are more books are myself. But re: my reasons for self-publishing is another epic-long post and I've bored you all far long enough. I'll save that for another night.

Ack! My apologies, no agenda was intended. I missed when you added that to the guidelines. Editing now.

Thanks so much everyone, I really appreciate it!

Veinglory, I'd love to compare notes with your friend! I'm very interested to see how others approach similar ideas, as I said, you never know what we could pick up from each other.

COchick, thanks for the covers compliment! I really love your DT cover too, I've seen it around on the kindleboards and recognized it straight away here, so you know its memorable.

Anthony, you make a good point, and it is something I thought of, but the thing is I wrote FENCE specifically to be a serialized story - rather than just a novel chopped into five parts, its written as five 'mini' stories essentially that all add up to one larger novel. Turning it into three or four installments would mess with the rise and fall of the action, to the detriment of the work, so it didn't seem worth it. And really, I'm fine with the lower royalty rate on one work....it might not pad my bank account as much, but could be very helpful in growing my brand. (Plus, with the compiled novel having my highest price point yet, in the long run it could potentially balance out having the installments at the lower royalty rate).

JanDarby said:

Have you considered separating the books into a couple pen names (beyond the erotica one)? Especially separating the adult and YA books? The other subgenres seem to be okay together, and there are a lot of adults reading YA, but it might be worth having two names to make the distinction clear. It might avoid some bad reviews based on confusion of expectations. Maybe use a SIMILAR name, but not quite the same. And you could have it be an open secret, even cross-promote at the end of the book, but just have a different name on the cover and -- I don't know how to do it, but also have a different set of titles come up if a reader clicks on your name at Amazon, depending on whether it's the adult name or the YA name.

I know there are some self-pubbed authors who mix in adult and YA titles (Victorine Lieske has one suspense and two YA, I believe), but more often I see separate pen names, and I do think it's useful to readers, even when they know that Author A is the same as Author B, because they know that Author A writes a genre they like and Author B doesn't. Jayne Ann Krentz is an example of that -- she writes under three names -- her own (contemporary romantic suspense), Jayne Castle (futuristic) and Amanda Quick (historical). Some readers cross those genre lines, some only read one.

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It's something I've thought about a lot actually Jan, and I remain undecided, LOL. A lot of what I'm doing here is experimental as I have no idea how it'll play out with these particular genres/markets, so I've left myself room to be flexible. Depending on sales, reader feedback, etc, I might slow down the rate of releases, I might release later ones under openly disclosed pen names, etc. This is the plan FOR NOW, but I intend to change and adjust it as needed once its in action and I can see how things are shaping up. Adaptability is very important in this industry right now, and I believe that goes equally for self or trade publishers.

One thing I will be doing is running a blog from my website that poses questions like this and invites opinions and feedback from readers and anyone else - do they prefer authors that separate their genres by pen names and thus have streamlined author pages readers with narrower areas of interest can zero in on? Or do they find multiple pen names unnecessary and prefer to just browse through an author's offerings and pick and choose what they like?

(That last part reads a little biased, I admit, lol, because that's always been my personal leaning and why I chose no pen names as my 'default' setting for this strategy. But I'm open to changing my mind on that. I am taking care however to differentiate very clearly on my website, with separate YA and Adult sections that are further divided by genres).