I have some stories that were originally published in anthologies and small press magazines forever ago that I have the rights to reprint. Self-publishing offers a good way to get them back out there, so I recently dug out a story and got to work.
I had planned to go over the story for a quick edit before offering it as an ebook, but once I started reading, I realized it needed a lot more than that (which is heartening, I suppose: it would be disappointing to find out I hadn't learned anything in the decade since I wrote it). I ended up doing two major revisions followed by four or five proofreads. I also had another writer read it and catch a few more errors. The original story was about 16k. After revisions, it's 34k (and much less whiplash inducing)—long enough to justify a slim print edition as well.
One of the things I do for a living is page design for industrial magazines, so laying out the interior for print was easy (and fun!). Doing the ebook layout was even simpler—no widows, orphans or hyphenation to worry about.
My graphic design skills are passable (but not my strongest suit)—still I decided to go ahead and do my own cover for it. I enjoyed working on it as a break from the revisions.
I also came up with a name for my self-publishing venture (Hela Press) and purchased ISBNs so the book would look less obviously self-published. I set up a website for the press, so I could collect all the info—blurb, buy links, links to reviews, etc.—in one place. (I maybe should have done it for the pen name rather than the press, but holdenwells.com was taken, and I didn't think to go with holdenwellsauthor.com or something—it's something to put on the to-do list, though.)
Then I uploaded the book to Smashwords, Createspace, Amazon KDP and AllRomance for a September 3 release and did some promo on my blog, Facebook, Twitter and a forum I'm on. I had some help from friends in spreading the word to their followers, too. (But I didn't take advantage of that as much as I could have—I need to put together some guest blog posts, but at the same time I have my other writing I want to be working on.)
After creating an author account for the pen name on the book (Holden Wells) & setting the book up on Goodreads, I did a Goodreads giveaway, which just ended. It got the book onto 284 to-read lists, for whatever that's worth. I'm sending the winner's copy out this week but not holding my breath that it'll get a review. I have more copies to give away; I'm not sure if I'll do it through Goodreads again or do it through book blogs.
I've sent copies out to bloggers who've reviewed similar books—hopefully that will garner a review or two to boost sales.
So far I've sold 20 copies—none from Smashwords directly, though the sample was downloaded 12 times, and there was at least one sale (probably just the one) on Kobo, which I had distribution to through Smashwords. (Next time I'm going to distribute to Kobo myself, eliminating the cheesy "Smashwords edition" on the Kobo copy, and also so I can see the sales numbers without having to wait for them to report to Smashwords. Another thing about Smashwords...I made a few corrections and reuploaded the book to SW back on September 3rd; as of this morning the changes are still "pending review" for the premium catalog. As I understand it, anyone who buys from the premium catalog channels will get the uncorrected copy until the review is finished and the retail channels update their catalogs, which is frustrating & another reason to deal with some of those channels directly next time.)
The bulk of sales so far have come from AllRomance and Amazon KDP.
I need to sell roughly 75 copies (depending on which channel they sell through) to break even on what I've spent. It looks doable, though I'm not sure how quickly it'll happen.
My plan is to alternate between working on new stuff to send to trade publishers and continuing to update previous published stuff for self-publishing. (I also have a sequel to this first book that's about half written; I'll finish that and self publish it as well in 2014.)
Things I've learned so far:
I had planned to go over the story for a quick edit before offering it as an ebook, but once I started reading, I realized it needed a lot more than that (which is heartening, I suppose: it would be disappointing to find out I hadn't learned anything in the decade since I wrote it). I ended up doing two major revisions followed by four or five proofreads. I also had another writer read it and catch a few more errors. The original story was about 16k. After revisions, it's 34k (and much less whiplash inducing)—long enough to justify a slim print edition as well.
One of the things I do for a living is page design for industrial magazines, so laying out the interior for print was easy (and fun!). Doing the ebook layout was even simpler—no widows, orphans or hyphenation to worry about.
My graphic design skills are passable (but not my strongest suit)—still I decided to go ahead and do my own cover for it. I enjoyed working on it as a break from the revisions.
I also came up with a name for my self-publishing venture (Hela Press) and purchased ISBNs so the book would look less obviously self-published. I set up a website for the press, so I could collect all the info—blurb, buy links, links to reviews, etc.—in one place. (I maybe should have done it for the pen name rather than the press, but holdenwells.com was taken, and I didn't think to go with holdenwellsauthor.com or something—it's something to put on the to-do list, though.)
Then I uploaded the book to Smashwords, Createspace, Amazon KDP and AllRomance for a September 3 release and did some promo on my blog, Facebook, Twitter and a forum I'm on. I had some help from friends in spreading the word to their followers, too. (But I didn't take advantage of that as much as I could have—I need to put together some guest blog posts, but at the same time I have my other writing I want to be working on.)
After creating an author account for the pen name on the book (Holden Wells) & setting the book up on Goodreads, I did a Goodreads giveaway, which just ended. It got the book onto 284 to-read lists, for whatever that's worth. I'm sending the winner's copy out this week but not holding my breath that it'll get a review. I have more copies to give away; I'm not sure if I'll do it through Goodreads again or do it through book blogs.
I've sent copies out to bloggers who've reviewed similar books—hopefully that will garner a review or two to boost sales.
So far I've sold 20 copies—none from Smashwords directly, though the sample was downloaded 12 times, and there was at least one sale (probably just the one) on Kobo, which I had distribution to through Smashwords. (Next time I'm going to distribute to Kobo myself, eliminating the cheesy "Smashwords edition" on the Kobo copy, and also so I can see the sales numbers without having to wait for them to report to Smashwords. Another thing about Smashwords...I made a few corrections and reuploaded the book to SW back on September 3rd; as of this morning the changes are still "pending review" for the premium catalog. As I understand it, anyone who buys from the premium catalog channels will get the uncorrected copy until the review is finished and the retail channels update their catalogs, which is frustrating & another reason to deal with some of those channels directly next time.)
The bulk of sales so far have come from AllRomance and Amazon KDP.
I need to sell roughly 75 copies (depending on which channel they sell through) to break even on what I've spent. It looks doable, though I'm not sure how quickly it'll happen.
My plan is to alternate between working on new stuff to send to trade publishers and continuing to update previous published stuff for self-publishing. (I also have a sequel to this first book that's about half written; I'll finish that and self publish it as well in 2014.)
Things I've learned so far:
- Putting a book out is a lot of work (and very time consuming), but also a lot of fun.
- When you can upload your book to a channel directly rather than through Smashwords, it might be worth doing.
- Next time I'm going to give myself more time between having the book ready to go & its release date so I have more time to work on getting reviews lined up & maybe a blog tour for it.
