Prakash is just one of many Indie authors supporting Indies with cheerful interviews and opportunities to talk about their books.
Showing posts with label Indies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Indies. Show all posts
Monday, 17 July 2017
Blog Interviews: Prakash Vir Sharma
Seems to me there are a lot of places for Indie authors to link up and chat to each other.
Prakash is just one of many Indie authors supporting Indies with cheerful interviews and opportunities to talk about their books.
Prakash is just one of many Indie authors supporting Indies with cheerful interviews and opportunities to talk about their books.
Friday, 10 June 2016
Three cheers for the Author earnings team.
Find them here, Indies and rejoice.
http://authorearnings.com/report/may-2016-report/
This time they:
...went deeper. Instead of just looking at Amazon’s bestseller lists, we had our spider follow links to also-bought recommendations and also through each authors’ full catalog. This resulted in a million-title dataset, our most comprehensive and definitive look yet at author earnings. We were able to tally up precisely how many indie authors, Big Five authors, small/medium press authors, and Amazon-imprint authors are currently making enough from Amazon.com sales to land in a number of “tax brackets”.
And do read the article and check the figures. It seems that Indie author ebook sales are still climbing, and the big five publishers sales are declining.
Could that be the crazy price they set on their ebooks?
What is most cheering is that:
Fewer than 700 Big Five authors and fewer than 500 small-or-medium publisher authors who debuted in the last 10 years are now earning $25,000 a year or more on Amazon — from all of their hardcover, paperback, audio and ebook editions combined. By contrast, over 1,600 indie authors are currently earning that much or more.
The gap becomes even more pronounced when we look at those authors who first debuted in the last five years, or during the “ebook era.” And when we look at just the most recent debuts from each publishing path, only 250 Big Five authors and 200 recent small or medium publisher authors who debuted in the last three years are earning a midlist-or-better income from their Amazon sales.
By contrast, there are over 1,000 indie authors who debuted in the last 3 years who are doing so.
We see the same dichotomy play out in the $50,000/year “tax bracket”, which tallies up authors earning what would be a living wage in most parts of the US:
It might be hard work, Indies, but we are better off as Indies.
Thursday, 25 February 2016
Hurray for the team at AuthorEarnings.
The February 2016 Report is out. And it is full of interesting facts about indies books at Amazon.
If you haven't signed up for their newsletter and you are an Indie author you are missing out on some valuable information. Seems to me you need this information about Amazon and sales if you want to increase your own sales.
They promise:
For 2016, a brand new methodology based on raw, unfiltered, Amazon-reported daily sales.
And brand new breakdowns of Amazon's daily print and audiobook sales, too.
How many ebooks, print books, and audiobooks is Amazon selling every day, right now?
In our February 2016 report, we find out:
http://authorearnings.com/report/february-2016-author-earnings-report/
As always, our complete data set is available for download at the end of the report.
Thanks for signing up for the newsletter. Feel free to opt out if you no longer wish to receive these updates. And as always, feel free to share this report with others who care about authors as much as we do.
-The AuthorEarnings Team
The February 2016 Report is out. And it is full of interesting facts about indies books at Amazon.
If you haven't signed up for their newsletter and you are an Indie author you are missing out on some valuable information. Seems to me you need this information about Amazon and sales if you want to increase your own sales.
They promise:
For 2016, a brand new methodology based on raw, unfiltered, Amazon-reported daily sales.
And brand new breakdowns of Amazon's daily print and audiobook sales, too.
How many ebooks, print books, and audiobooks is Amazon selling every day, right now?
In our February 2016 report, we find out:
http://authorearnings.com/report/february-2016-author-earnings-report/
As always, our complete data set is available for download at the end of the report.
Thanks for signing up for the newsletter. Feel free to opt out if you no longer wish to receive these updates. And as always, feel free to share this report with others who care about authors as much as we do.
-The AuthorEarnings Team
Monday, 18 January 2016
virtual book fair
It seems to me we need more people like Abbie supporting herself and the rest of the Indie writers.
This is what's she is doing.
Virtual Bookfair. Online via Facebook from Feb 20th to March 4th.
This is being run by Abbie of the Support Indies Authors group on Goodreads.com with their support.
Yes, it is reputable. Check it out at Facebook!
DETAILS
Who am I?
My name is Abbie Chandler, and last July I finally published my first paranormal mystery, The Veiled Soul. I've been writing for what seems like all my life, but this is my first leap into the world of publication. I always have at least three writing projects open at a time, and I'm always coming up with new ideas! You can find more information about me from my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/abbiechandler13/
What was the idea behind the book fair?
I quickly discovered that while Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes&Noble.com are wonderful platforms for self-published and indie authors, it's a marketing nightmare. I work part time as a freelance writer and part time as a cocktail waitress. My funds for marketing are extremely limited. I'm bombarded every day with ways to market my book, but they always cost hundreds of dollars. The alternative was social media groups that supposedly helped connect indie authors with readers, but they were so saturated with authors posting about their books that I knew that most readers probably weren't even looking at the site anymore. So what could I, an author living from paycheck to paycheck, do to help promote my book?
Maybe it was the fact that I was ordering from the kids menu at work one night, but I had this flashback to the book fairs from elementary school. We got to spend an hour or so each day for several days browsing the books that were set up in the gym. For a bookworm like myself, it was a dream come true. I wanted to take that concept and modernize it for the adult world. And so the virtual book fair was born. I don't know if it's the first one ever (I would guess not), but it's the first once I've ever come across, and the first one I've ever done!
How will the book fair work?
It will be done strictly from Facebook. Set up as a Facebook event, it will run from February 20-March. Ever day of the event will be set aside for books from a particular genre. Guests will be able to see book covers, summaries, and purchase links. They'll be able to read information about the author and view book trailers (when available). The best part is that most of our authors are also on Facebook, so guests can connect directly to the author and ask them question about their works or their writing styles! In addition, each day will include chances for the guests to win free books!
What do I hope to achieve from this?
The idea is to connect people who want to discover new books and authors with writers who are otherwise struggling to expand their audience. In setting it up this way, I hope to avoid certain marketing faux pas. Since the event will only run for two weeks, we won't be bombarding guests with "Buy me now!" posts for the rest of their lives. Once the two weeks are up, guests can either bookmark their favorite books or buy, and then they don't have to worry about hearing from us again until the next one. If they want to connect with the authors on social media for updates on particular works, they can. I hope that the guests who do win or buy books will leave honest reviews (remember, reviews feed authors!!), and they'll discover a new author that they like!
What types of books will be included?
All kinds!!
Romance
Mystery
Horror/Thriller
Fantasy
Science Fiction
Paranormal
Humor/Satire
LGBT
Religious
YA
Chick-Lit
Literary Fiction
Non-fiction
Who can join?
Anyone with a Facebook account can join! Print giveaway from the site will be restricted to US residents only, but authors will also be promoting their own e-book and print giveaway that will span other countries.
How do I join?
Visit https://www.facebook.com/events/927569970656592/ and sign up today! Although the event hasn't started yet, book discussions have! Guests are already voting for their favorite genres and discussing their love for books! The event is completely free. Who knows- maybe you'll find your next favorite book, your next favorite author, and connect with a new friend!
This is what's she is doing.
Virtual Bookfair. Online via Facebook from Feb 20th to March 4th.
This is being run by Abbie of the Support Indies Authors group on Goodreads.com with their support.
Yes, it is reputable. Check it out at Facebook!
DETAILS
Who am I?
My name is Abbie Chandler, and last July I finally published my first paranormal mystery, The Veiled Soul. I've been writing for what seems like all my life, but this is my first leap into the world of publication. I always have at least three writing projects open at a time, and I'm always coming up with new ideas! You can find more information about me from my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/abbiechandler13/
What was the idea behind the book fair?
I quickly discovered that while Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes&Noble.com are wonderful platforms for self-published and indie authors, it's a marketing nightmare. I work part time as a freelance writer and part time as a cocktail waitress. My funds for marketing are extremely limited. I'm bombarded every day with ways to market my book, but they always cost hundreds of dollars. The alternative was social media groups that supposedly helped connect indie authors with readers, but they were so saturated with authors posting about their books that I knew that most readers probably weren't even looking at the site anymore. So what could I, an author living from paycheck to paycheck, do to help promote my book?
Maybe it was the fact that I was ordering from the kids menu at work one night, but I had this flashback to the book fairs from elementary school. We got to spend an hour or so each day for several days browsing the books that were set up in the gym. For a bookworm like myself, it was a dream come true. I wanted to take that concept and modernize it for the adult world. And so the virtual book fair was born. I don't know if it's the first one ever (I would guess not), but it's the first once I've ever come across, and the first one I've ever done!
How will the book fair work?
It will be done strictly from Facebook. Set up as a Facebook event, it will run from February 20-March. Ever day of the event will be set aside for books from a particular genre. Guests will be able to see book covers, summaries, and purchase links. They'll be able to read information about the author and view book trailers (when available). The best part is that most of our authors are also on Facebook, so guests can connect directly to the author and ask them question about their works or their writing styles! In addition, each day will include chances for the guests to win free books!
What do I hope to achieve from this?
The idea is to connect people who want to discover new books and authors with writers who are otherwise struggling to expand their audience. In setting it up this way, I hope to avoid certain marketing faux pas. Since the event will only run for two weeks, we won't be bombarding guests with "Buy me now!" posts for the rest of their lives. Once the two weeks are up, guests can either bookmark their favorite books or buy, and then they don't have to worry about hearing from us again until the next one. If they want to connect with the authors on social media for updates on particular works, they can. I hope that the guests who do win or buy books will leave honest reviews (remember, reviews feed authors!!), and they'll discover a new author that they like!
What types of books will be included?
All kinds!!
Romance
Mystery
Horror/Thriller
Fantasy
Science Fiction
Paranormal
Humor/Satire
LGBT
Religious
YA
Chick-Lit
Literary Fiction
Non-fiction
Who can join?
Anyone with a Facebook account can join! Print giveaway from the site will be restricted to US residents only, but authors will also be promoting their own e-book and print giveaway that will span other countries.
How do I join?
Visit https://www.facebook.com/events/927569970656592/ and sign up today! Although the event hasn't started yet, book discussions have! Guests are already voting for their favorite genres and discussing their love for books! The event is completely free. Who knows- maybe you'll find your next favorite book, your next favorite author, and connect with a new friend!
Monday, 2 November 2015
Real Facts and Figures for the Indie Author.
So we Indies and our e-books are dying out? Huh! Read the facts at Authorearnings.com
These guys are great and they deal in facts!!!
http://authorearnings.com/report/individual-author-earnings-tracked-across-7-quarters-feb-2014-sept-2015/?utm_source=Author+Earnings+Updates&utm_campaign=3214c87399-September_2015_Author_Earnings_Report9_5_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2438cb1801-3214c87399-128100545
When you look only at authors who started publishing less than a decade ago — in 2005 or later — the gap between the numbers of indie and traditionally published authors earning midlist-or-better incomes nearly disappears. Fast work, considering that none of those indies had widespread access to readers until 2010, giving their traditionally-published cohort-mates a five-year head start.
In fact, if we look at only authors who debuted in the “ebook era” — i.e. in 2010 or after — we see a reversal. At each annual earnings level, we find far more indies than traditionally-published authors who debuted in the last 5 years and are now earning that much or more.
If we look at the most recent debuts — authors whose first Kindle book was published in the last three years or so — the disparity grows:
There are fewer than half as many traditionally published authors as indie authors who debuted in the last 3 years and are now earning consistently at the $25K/year level or $50K/year level from Kindle ebooks.
This, then, is the world that all new entrants — whether traditionally published or indie — face in 2015. If you’re a debut author in 2015 with a manuscript in hand, or even an experienced author regaining the rights to your backlist or starting out with a fresh pen name, when choosing your publishing route it’s that right-most set of bars in every one of these charts that is today most relevant to you.
But what if you are destined to be more than a mid-lister? You don’t want to sell your work short. Isn’t it still worth being patient and pursuing the traditional route, to have a better shot at truly stellar earnings?
Surprisingly, as we move into six-figure-earning territory and beyond, the contrast between indie ebook earnings and traditionally-published ebook earnings becomes even more stark. Let’s look at:
In closing, while these trends in our changing industry are exciting, it’s also worth reminding ourselves that the odds against an author being able to make a full-time, high-paying career out of writing are long indeed. They always have been. There are many hundreds of thousands of US authors publishing books each year, both traditionally published and indie. Only a few fortunate thousand from among them will end up earning a living solely from their art, no matter which publishing path they take.
The choice of how to publish is never an easy one. It’s also worth reminding ourselves that what works best for one author may not be what works best for another. All paths have their merits and downsides, and neither can guarantee anyone success. But today, our chances of achieving that success as writers are better, and there are more ways we can make it happen, than at any previous time in history.
And that’s a wonderful thing.
Download the raw data this report is based on (.xslx)
Creative Commons License
Author Earnings is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
11 Responses to “Individual author earnings tracked across 7 quarters, Feb. 2014 – Sept. 2015”
Brian Meeks
September 23, 2015 at 3:59 pm
Hugh,
Like all of your reports before, this one continues to shine a light on the current state of the publishing world.
I’ve never questioned my decision to be an Indie author and even if the numbers showed that Traditional was the way to go, the freedom and control is what I like most about being an author/publisher.
That being said, this is the first year I’ll crack the 25K mark (possibly the 50K mark, but that depends on how the last quarter goes. Last year I hit 10K and the year before 5K. The big difference each year as been the number of titles I have available.
This business has changed my life and I’m very appreciative of all that you do for our community. Reading these sorts of reports always makes my day.
Thanks,
Brian D. Meeks
(Sometimes Arthur Byrne)
Reply
PG
September 23, 2015 at 4:14 pm
These guys are great and they deal in facts!!!
http://authorearnings.com/report/individual-author-earnings-tracked-across-7-quarters-feb-2014-sept-2015/?utm_source=Author+Earnings+Updates&utm_campaign=3214c87399-September_2015_Author_Earnings_Report9_5_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2438cb1801-3214c87399-128100545
When you look only at authors who started publishing less than a decade ago — in 2005 or later — the gap between the numbers of indie and traditionally published authors earning midlist-or-better incomes nearly disappears. Fast work, considering that none of those indies had widespread access to readers until 2010, giving their traditionally-published cohort-mates a five-year head start.
In fact, if we look at only authors who debuted in the “ebook era” — i.e. in 2010 or after — we see a reversal. At each annual earnings level, we find far more indies than traditionally-published authors who debuted in the last 5 years and are now earning that much or more.
If we look at the most recent debuts — authors whose first Kindle book was published in the last three years or so — the disparity grows:
There are fewer than half as many traditionally published authors as indie authors who debuted in the last 3 years and are now earning consistently at the $25K/year level or $50K/year level from Kindle ebooks.
This, then, is the world that all new entrants — whether traditionally published or indie — face in 2015. If you’re a debut author in 2015 with a manuscript in hand, or even an experienced author regaining the rights to your backlist or starting out with a fresh pen name, when choosing your publishing route it’s that right-most set of bars in every one of these charts that is today most relevant to you.
But what if you are destined to be more than a mid-lister? You don’t want to sell your work short. Isn’t it still worth being patient and pursuing the traditional route, to have a better shot at truly stellar earnings?
Surprisingly, as we move into six-figure-earning territory and beyond, the contrast between indie ebook earnings and traditionally-published ebook earnings becomes even more stark. Let’s look at:
In closing, while these trends in our changing industry are exciting, it’s also worth reminding ourselves that the odds against an author being able to make a full-time, high-paying career out of writing are long indeed. They always have been. There are many hundreds of thousands of US authors publishing books each year, both traditionally published and indie. Only a few fortunate thousand from among them will end up earning a living solely from their art, no matter which publishing path they take.
The choice of how to publish is never an easy one. It’s also worth reminding ourselves that what works best for one author may not be what works best for another. All paths have their merits and downsides, and neither can guarantee anyone success. But today, our chances of achieving that success as writers are better, and there are more ways we can make it happen, than at any previous time in history.
And that’s a wonderful thing.
Download the raw data this report is based on (.xslx)
Creative Commons License
Author Earnings is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
11 Responses to “Individual author earnings tracked across 7 quarters, Feb. 2014 – Sept. 2015”
Brian Meeks
September 23, 2015 at 3:59 pm
Hugh,
Like all of your reports before, this one continues to shine a light on the current state of the publishing world.
I’ve never questioned my decision to be an Indie author and even if the numbers showed that Traditional was the way to go, the freedom and control is what I like most about being an author/publisher.
That being said, this is the first year I’ll crack the 25K mark (possibly the 50K mark, but that depends on how the last quarter goes. Last year I hit 10K and the year before 5K. The big difference each year as been the number of titles I have available.
This business has changed my life and I’m very appreciative of all that you do for our community. Reading these sorts of reports always makes my day.
Thanks,
Brian D. Meeks
(Sometimes Arthur Byrne)
Reply
PG
September 23, 2015 at 4:14 pm
Thursday, 17 September 2015
Listen to the researchers who know: Independent E-Book Sales are growing.
Independent Writers owe a great deal to the team at author earnings.com. When the publishing industry is busy talking down e-books and e-book sales, telling us they have plateaued or are even dropping, here is the truth from solid research.
Take a look.
http://authorearnings.com/report/september-2015-author-earnings-report/?utm_source=Author+Earnings+Updates&utm_campaign=d11d97a618-September_2015_Author_Earnings_Report9_5_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2438cb1801-d11d97a618-128100545
Seems to me e-book sales are still strong and the research only covers amazon sales!
For those of you in a hurry here is the meat of their latest research:
During that same period in 2015, Amazon’s overall ebook sales have continued to grow in both unit and dollar terms, fueled by a strong shift in consumer ebook purchasing behavior away from traditionally-published ebooks and toward indie-published- and Amazon-imprint-published ebooks.
These “non-traditionally-published” books now make up nearly 60% of all Kindle ebooks purchased in the US, and take in 40% of all consumer dollars spent on those ebooks.
Traditional publishers and publishing industry pundits are claiming that the broader US ebook market has now flattened, or is even shrinking.
But at the same time, the largest ebook store in world is telling the Wall Street Journal that the exact opposite is happening:
“Amazon says e-book sales in its Kindle store—which encompasses a host of titles that aren’t published by the five major houses—are up in 2015 in both units and revenue.”
So which is it?
Indie ebooks without ISBNs have grown from 30% of all Kindle ebooks purchased in January 2015 to now account for 37% of all Kindle ebooks being purchased in September.
When indie ebooks that do have ISBNs are included, then indie self-published books, which made up 36% of all Kindle ebooks purchased in February 2014, now make up 42% of all Kindle ebooks being purchased on Amazon right now.
Unfortunately, we didn’t also go back and retroactively check each book in the 4 earlier 2014 datasets to see which of them had ISBNs. Had we done so, it would have beautifully charted the rapid rise of the untracked ebook “shadow industry,” right alongside the rapid decline in market share held by traditionally-published ebooks.
But right now, as of September 2015:
“Nontraditionally-published” ebooks from indie self-publishers and Amazon publishing imprints make up 58% of all Kindle ebooks purchased in the US.
Traditionally-published ebooks make up 42% of Kindle ebooks purchased in the US.
When the AAP reports “declining ebook sales”, they are describing the shrinking portion of the US ebook market held by their 1200 participating traditional publishers, whose share of the broader US ebook market has fallen in the last 18 months from 46% of all Kindle ebook purchases to less than 32%.
This dramatic market share shift has not gone entirely unnoticed in traditional-publishing circles. In July, influential industry veteran Mike Shatzkin observed that:
“Ebook sales for big publishers may be declining but they’re being replaced by indie sales at lower prices (their USP) at Amazon.”
Way to go Indies!
And thank you guys for your research.
Take a look.
http://authorearnings.com/report/september-2015-author-earnings-report/?utm_source=Author+Earnings+Updates&utm_campaign=d11d97a618-September_2015_Author_Earnings_Report9_5_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2438cb1801-d11d97a618-128100545
Seems to me e-book sales are still strong and the research only covers amazon sales!
For those of you in a hurry here is the meat of their latest research:
During that same period in 2015, Amazon’s overall ebook sales have continued to grow in both unit and dollar terms, fueled by a strong shift in consumer ebook purchasing behavior away from traditionally-published ebooks and toward indie-published- and Amazon-imprint-published ebooks.
These “non-traditionally-published” books now make up nearly 60% of all Kindle ebooks purchased in the US, and take in 40% of all consumer dollars spent on those ebooks.
Traditional publishers and publishing industry pundits are claiming that the broader US ebook market has now flattened, or is even shrinking.
But at the same time, the largest ebook store in world is telling the Wall Street Journal that the exact opposite is happening:
“Amazon says e-book sales in its Kindle store—which encompasses a host of titles that aren’t published by the five major houses—are up in 2015 in both units and revenue.”
So which is it?
Indie ebooks without ISBNs have grown from 30% of all Kindle ebooks purchased in January 2015 to now account for 37% of all Kindle ebooks being purchased in September.
When indie ebooks that do have ISBNs are included, then indie self-published books, which made up 36% of all Kindle ebooks purchased in February 2014, now make up 42% of all Kindle ebooks being purchased on Amazon right now.
Unfortunately, we didn’t also go back and retroactively check each book in the 4 earlier 2014 datasets to see which of them had ISBNs. Had we done so, it would have beautifully charted the rapid rise of the untracked ebook “shadow industry,” right alongside the rapid decline in market share held by traditionally-published ebooks.
But right now, as of September 2015:
“Nontraditionally-published” ebooks from indie self-publishers and Amazon publishing imprints make up 58% of all Kindle ebooks purchased in the US.
Traditionally-published ebooks make up 42% of Kindle ebooks purchased in the US.
When the AAP reports “declining ebook sales”, they are describing the shrinking portion of the US ebook market held by their 1200 participating traditional publishers, whose share of the broader US ebook market has fallen in the last 18 months from 46% of all Kindle ebook purchases to less than 32%.
This dramatic market share shift has not gone entirely unnoticed in traditional-publishing circles. In July, influential industry veteran Mike Shatzkin observed that:
“Ebook sales for big publishers may be declining but they’re being replaced by indie sales at lower prices (their USP) at Amazon.”
Way to go Indies!
And thank you guys for your research.
Friday, 26 June 2015
A really useful place for Indie Writers
I've been working with two wonderful new writers. Full of enthusiasm, grit, stickability and thousands of story ideas these two newbies put the writers' group to shame.
Moaning about not getting published via the traditional route this writers' group wouldn't even consider being independent and forming a co-op to help each other publish. Too much hard work and they couldn't sell their books, it was too difficult.
Sigh!
Might I recommend to all Indies new or established that they join up or even just check out the Author Marketing Club.com? Full of useful advice from successful Indies, and PR experts there are videos and podcasts, transcripts of the same, and the wonderful check list. http://authormarketingclub.com/members/checklist/
There is a free basic service and a paid (not too expensive either) premium service.
My newbie novelist is determined to have the novel out in kindle and then paperback by year's end. Naturally she is eagerly reading all the advice she can find and agrees that the Author Marketing Club check list is the best yet.
Indies take note and go and read it.
Moaning about not getting published via the traditional route this writers' group wouldn't even consider being independent and forming a co-op to help each other publish. Too much hard work and they couldn't sell their books, it was too difficult.
Sigh!
Might I recommend to all Indies new or established that they join up or even just check out the Author Marketing Club.com? Full of useful advice from successful Indies, and PR experts there are videos and podcasts, transcripts of the same, and the wonderful check list. http://authormarketingclub.com/members/checklist/
There is a free basic service and a paid (not too expensive either) premium service.
My newbie novelist is determined to have the novel out in kindle and then paperback by year's end. Naturally she is eagerly reading all the advice she can find and agrees that the Author Marketing Club check list is the best yet.
Indies take note and go and read it.
Tuesday, 2 June 2015
Emails and the Book Fair
Why life gets in the way of writing is something we writers all moan about. I note that the men moan less. They usually have wives to do the cooking, cleaning and child rearing for them. I need a wife, or housekeeper or a good WWOOFer to do all the chores, manage the telephone and let me write. Life has been intrusive for months with that stupid neighbour, and the court case, insurance problems, medical problems, penguin protection problems and the need to do these water exercises to keep walking. I'd rather write, preferably on a desert island with a ready supply of fruit and nuts.
April and May have been extra hellish for trying to chase up the problem with my emails being blocked. I haven't heard from my Writer's Choice colleagues for a month. I know they will be cross. I have a possible new member with a novel nearly ready to go, but it will take a lot of thought and discussion to include her. Can't do that without email working. My invoices for next month's income never arrived. I missed the deadlines! Financially next month will be difficult. 'Fascinating' as Mr Spock would say.
Email problems can render one paranoid. Why does the normal stuff get through but every vital, important, financial or writerly email not arrive? Who is reading my email and destroying it? No idea. Which writer out there took offence at my review? At least I can laugh about it all.
It has been particularly difficult without email trying to get the Indie Book Fair organised. It is in Auckland and you have to book a table and space, pay for it and then organise a place to sleep, never mind about bouncing all over the internet trying to catch really cheap flights which are flashed up once a day. It has taken two months to make contact, pay and register.
Indies have to be active. I wish Kiwi Indies would wake up to the book fair. Last year I carried some twenty odd South island writers' books on my stand. The naiveties of most of those writers worried me. Sitting with 500 or 1,000 books in their garage you'd think they would welcome the Book Fair. Not if they had to pay money to go! Not if they had to pay a part share of the space. Not if they had to supply a couple of free books as a giveaway. Sigh.
Someone who sells a lot of his Indies books online and at fairs said that in order to sell a writer needs to be where his readers are. The Indies Book Fair is crowded with readers looking for interesting and different books. Surely it's a good place to be if you want to sell a few books. Wake up Kiwi Indies and start thinking.
April and May have been extra hellish for trying to chase up the problem with my emails being blocked. I haven't heard from my Writer's Choice colleagues for a month. I know they will be cross. I have a possible new member with a novel nearly ready to go, but it will take a lot of thought and discussion to include her. Can't do that without email working. My invoices for next month's income never arrived. I missed the deadlines! Financially next month will be difficult. 'Fascinating' as Mr Spock would say.
Email problems can render one paranoid. Why does the normal stuff get through but every vital, important, financial or writerly email not arrive? Who is reading my email and destroying it? No idea. Which writer out there took offence at my review? At least I can laugh about it all.
It has been particularly difficult without email trying to get the Indie Book Fair organised. It is in Auckland and you have to book a table and space, pay for it and then organise a place to sleep, never mind about bouncing all over the internet trying to catch really cheap flights which are flashed up once a day. It has taken two months to make contact, pay and register.
Indies have to be active. I wish Kiwi Indies would wake up to the book fair. Last year I carried some twenty odd South island writers' books on my stand. The naiveties of most of those writers worried me. Sitting with 500 or 1,000 books in their garage you'd think they would welcome the Book Fair. Not if they had to pay money to go! Not if they had to pay a part share of the space. Not if they had to supply a couple of free books as a giveaway. Sigh.
Someone who sells a lot of his Indies books online and at fairs said that in order to sell a writer needs to be where his readers are. The Indies Book Fair is crowded with readers looking for interesting and different books. Surely it's a good place to be if you want to sell a few books. Wake up Kiwi Indies and start thinking.
Thursday, 26 March 2015
indies forever. Our celebration on March 25th.
The Indie party is over. Another group of people have been informed about the ease, absence of expense, and sheer delight of being an Independent author. The hour rapidly became two, thanks to our local library's generous gift of a comfy space and the time to use it.
An interesting possibility of a book, art and photography, sprang up and everyone was keen to explore the multimedia aspects of digital printing.
Seems to me that there is new world out there for writers, musicians, artists and photographers and even technophobes like me can see ways to use it.
An interesting possibility of a book, art and photography, sprang up and everyone was keen to explore the multimedia aspects of digital printing.
Seems to me that there is new world out there for writers, musicians, artists and photographers and even technophobes like me can see ways to use it.
Saturday, 14 March 2015
The New World of the 21stC Novelist.
Now isn't that a grand title? Alas, being a 21stC novelist means hours spent doing P.R.
It goes like this.
I am still a bemused technophobe so when Simon at Readersintheknow.com drops me an email telling me about a gadget I have to have and it's a Read Excerpt widget I have visions of a little robot that crawls around books finding extracts for me. I haven't signed up yet, need the money, but this is the sort of gadget I need for readers on my website. Then I am struck by an awful thought! Is that what it is?
I could waste hours of writing time finding out. But I won't. I am waiting for some clever reader or writer to tell me. I still prefer real word of mouth for information.
Just when I thought I had recovered some writing time by not doing that bit of research into my inbox comes an email from Indiesunlimited.com. I like Indiesunlimited for its useful articles and list of resources for Indies. It is real source of information for me. This time I have to sign up for BookLikes. Apparently it is different from Goodreads, is set up like a blog, and users of Tumblr will love it. More time is wasted as I look up Tumblr, and try to work out how to use a dashboard page that functions as a timeline.
But back to Booklikes, it seems I must trot round the site liking and following other peoples’ blogs. There’s also a discussion section, but having had some nasty experiences at Goodreads, I will probably avoid those unless I know some people from my kiwi reading groups are chatting there.
It has a section for authors and authors can giveaway e-books as well as print copies. This makes it better than Goodreads. You can also list your book release dates under Events.
I shall cogitate but probably join up as the more one's books are out there, being visible, the better the chance of a sale. But all this PR research eats into my writing.
This is the new world for this 21stC novelist.
Monday, 2 March 2015
Start here, Indies, if you want to succeed in the Brave New Indie World.
When I started having to become a 'business person writer' and help to sell our Writer's Choice books I found the most useful collection of information, practical, doable, and easy to use at Book Marketing Tools, website: http://bookmarketingtools.com
Sign up for their free email newsletter and recieve helpful information like the following which is from their last email newsletter to me. They are a real boon to the Indies. Thank you, Shawn and R.J.
• eBook Submission Tool - If you have run a free promotion, you probably know how long it takes to submit your books to the free ebook sites on the web. Hours, right? Not anymore, our eBook Submission Tool allows you to submit to 30+ free ebook sites in just minutes by giving you just one form to fill out, and pre-filling the rest of the forms. Awesome, right?
• Reading Deals Book Promos - Last summer we launched ReadingDeals.com to help authors promote their free and bargain books. We have continued to grow and grow our list of readers who want to hear about your free and bargain book promotions! We have free (not guaranteed) and low-cost (guaranteed) promotion options available for authors like you.
• Ultimate Author Checklist - We sent this to you when you first joined our mailing list, but maybe you forgot about it. We walk you through step-by-step for setting up your book marketing engine, including the passive steps that you just need to set up once, and the on-going promotional things you should be doing.
• Reading Deals Book Reviews - One of the biggest struggles we know people have is getting reviews for their books. With our connections to readers through Reading Deals, we created a review club that you can take advantage of. Upload your book to our system, and readers can organically choose your book to read and then leave a review for. Readers get free books, you get real, genuine reviews from readers. The best part is, it doesn't cost an arm and a leg like other review services that are outside of the budget of most indie authors!
• The Author Hangout Podcast - Our podcast contains over 13 hours of interviews filled with book marketing tips, ideas, tools, best practices, and more. If you haven't listened to The Author Hangout yet, you should definitely get started today. We have interviews with over 25 guests!
• Getting Reviews for Your Book Guide - We recently created a new guide that walks you through the steps to help you get more reviews. We explore a lot of free and low-cost options that you can use to get more reviews for your books, which helps give social proof which will convert more people browsing your book page into buyers.
• Book Marketing Tools Blog - Our blog has over 75 posts, interviews, guest posts, and guides filled with great book marketing, writing, and publishing tips and ideas to help you.
Our goal is to equip authors like you with the tools, education, and community to help you to sell more books. The above list is our group of tools and resources to help you! Be sure to use these to your advantage to sell more books, build your list of readers, and become a bestselling author!
-Shawn & R.J. from Book Marketing Tools
http://bookmarketingtools.com
Sign up for their free email newsletter and recieve helpful information like the following which is from their last email newsletter to me. They are a real boon to the Indies. Thank you, Shawn and R.J.
• eBook Submission Tool - If you have run a free promotion, you probably know how long it takes to submit your books to the free ebook sites on the web. Hours, right? Not anymore, our eBook Submission Tool allows you to submit to 30+ free ebook sites in just minutes by giving you just one form to fill out, and pre-filling the rest of the forms. Awesome, right?
• Reading Deals Book Promos - Last summer we launched ReadingDeals.com to help authors promote their free and bargain books. We have continued to grow and grow our list of readers who want to hear about your free and bargain book promotions! We have free (not guaranteed) and low-cost (guaranteed) promotion options available for authors like you.
• Ultimate Author Checklist - We sent this to you when you first joined our mailing list, but maybe you forgot about it. We walk you through step-by-step for setting up your book marketing engine, including the passive steps that you just need to set up once, and the on-going promotional things you should be doing.
• Reading Deals Book Reviews - One of the biggest struggles we know people have is getting reviews for their books. With our connections to readers through Reading Deals, we created a review club that you can take advantage of. Upload your book to our system, and readers can organically choose your book to read and then leave a review for. Readers get free books, you get real, genuine reviews from readers. The best part is, it doesn't cost an arm and a leg like other review services that are outside of the budget of most indie authors!
• The Author Hangout Podcast - Our podcast contains over 13 hours of interviews filled with book marketing tips, ideas, tools, best practices, and more. If you haven't listened to The Author Hangout yet, you should definitely get started today. We have interviews with over 25 guests!
• Getting Reviews for Your Book Guide - We recently created a new guide that walks you through the steps to help you get more reviews. We explore a lot of free and low-cost options that you can use to get more reviews for your books, which helps give social proof which will convert more people browsing your book page into buyers.
• Book Marketing Tools Blog - Our blog has over 75 posts, interviews, guest posts, and guides filled with great book marketing, writing, and publishing tips and ideas to help you.
Our goal is to equip authors like you with the tools, education, and community to help you to sell more books. The above list is our group of tools and resources to help you! Be sure to use these to your advantage to sell more books, build your list of readers, and become a bestselling author!
-Shawn & R.J. from Book Marketing Tools
http://bookmarketingtools.com
Friday, 30 January 2015
Hah! Read this Indies and cheer.
Author Earnings.com is doing a great job in dispelling the myths put out by the traditionalists about e-book earnings. If you haven't met them before go and read all their reports. They will cheer up any Indie author. The road to making us respectable as 'Real Writers' with good books is made shorter with people like these to present facts and back them up.
Here is a short extract. Please go to their website and read the rest.
The January 2015 Report
This time around, we measured the size of the invisible "shadow industry" of ebooks without ISBNs... and discovered why all the official (ISBN-based) ebook market-size reports from Bowker, AAP, BISG, and Nielsen are so wildly wrong.
Back in February, our first report analyzed the top 7,000 e-books in three bestselling genres [link]. Then we followed up with a look at all 54,000 ranked bestselling e-books on Amazon in a single day snapshot [link]. We then turned our attention to Barnes & Noble [link]. In May, we returned to Amazon to run another quarterly report on 85,000 of the bestselling books across all genres to see what it could tell us [link], and took a deeper dive into how newer authors were faring compared to their longer-tenured peers [link]. In July, we took our deepest dive yet, and looked at the effect of DRM and of genre across 120,000 titles [link].
In October, we went back to the data well again and this time, examined the effect Kindle Unlimited [link].
Now, at the start of 2015, we return once again to the Amazon bestseller lists with another all-genres grab of 120,000 titles, and take a look at longer term trends.
And we took a look at which of those 120,000 titles had registered ISBNs and which didn't, answering two long-standing questions about the ebook market:
Here is a short extract. Please go to their website and read the rest.
The January 2015 Report
This time around, we measured the size of the invisible "shadow industry" of ebooks without ISBNs... and discovered why all the official (ISBN-based) ebook market-size reports from Bowker, AAP, BISG, and Nielsen are so wildly wrong.
Back in February, our first report analyzed the top 7,000 e-books in three bestselling genres [link]. Then we followed up with a look at all 54,000 ranked bestselling e-books on Amazon in a single day snapshot [link]. We then turned our attention to Barnes & Noble [link]. In May, we returned to Amazon to run another quarterly report on 85,000 of the bestselling books across all genres to see what it could tell us [link], and took a deeper dive into how newer authors were faring compared to their longer-tenured peers [link]. In July, we took our deepest dive yet, and looked at the effect of DRM and of genre across 120,000 titles [link].
In October, we went back to the data well again and this time, examined the effect Kindle Unlimited [link].
Now, at the start of 2015, we return once again to the Amazon bestseller lists with another all-genres grab of 120,000 titles, and take a look at longer term trends.
And we took a look at which of those 120,000 titles had registered ISBNs and which didn't, answering two long-standing questions about the ebook market:
Tuesday, 13 January 2015
A Good Start for the Indie publisher/author in the New Year
Oh cheers.
Here is encouragement for Indie novelists. The new world many be tough but look at these figures garnered from British sources.
'Self-publishing and Ebooks on the rise
What the 2013 figures do show is that self-publishing in both ebook and paper book formats is really taking off. Paperback sales through Lulu rose 38% and CreateSpace sales were up a massive 161%. This is bound to send shivers of fear through the boardrooms of the publishing industry. Half of all book sales (both traditional and self-published) in the UK are now through Amazon.'
I call that definite encouragement for us Indies.
'Rumours that ebook sales are flat-lining are untrue. Obviously they aren’t soaring at the goldrush rates that happened in the beginning, but they’re now climbing at more realistic levels. According to Nielsen, ebook sales across the industry were up 20% overall in 2013 and readers spent more than £300m buying at least 80m ebooks. This accounted for more than a quarter of all book purchases. One in five of these sales (12% of all sales) was an ‘Indie’ book. Early figures from the first three months of 2014 show that the moment when ebook sales will overtake paper book sales is very close and the percentage of ‘Indie’ books is also rising fast, particularly in the USA. In the UK Tesco have just launched their own ebook platform Blinkbox Books with a reading tablet called the Hudl (who thought that one up?). It’s too early to tell where this will go, or whether this is a significant opportunity for Indies, though they’ve apparently sold 500,000 Hudls so far.'
Come on Indies. leap into the new market and put your books out with Blinkbox.
'Ebook Fiction up from £4m to £200m
The Bookseller also released some interesting publisher statistics that give a bit more information about what is really happening within the genre divisions. In 2013 paper book sales of fiction were down from £561m to £400m, but ebook sales of fiction are up from only £4m to a whopping £200m in the same period. Non-fiction suffered less, with only a minor shift from paper to ebook, but children’s paper book sales dropped £35m without any compensation in digital sales – bad news for children’s authors. But many children are reading on i-pads – particularly i-pad minis. My 4 year old grand-daughter reads a lot on her i-pad mini and loves interactive books. Her mother (a publishing professional with one of the Big 5) reads on the i-pad when it’s not otherwise engaged. Authors need to think about Apple much more seriously as a market for books. It may well become bigger than Kindle.'
This is great news. A good start to the New Year and great that Apple will be giving Amazon a run for its money. We need them to be in competition.
'What does it all mean?
The future for ebooks is bright. This doesn’t mean that they’ll replace paperbooks entirely, but there will be more of an even balance between E and paper sales. It also means that there will be more opportunities for Indies, but we’re going to have to be more pro-active in marketing ourselves against increasing opposition from the traditional publishing sector. The problem of visibility also increases as there are more and more authors clamouring to sell themselves in the self-published arena. We’re probably going to be forced to buy in marketing as well as editorial services if we want to be seen, but there are lots of refugees from the Big 5 offering their experience freelance.'
Note the Marketing call Indies. We have to do a good job for ourselves. Get that support group going and growing.
'The rosy dawn of self-publishing is over – it’s now a serious business and we are in competition with traditional industry professionals who won’t necessarily play fair. They see themselves as the legitimate land-owners and ourselves as the barbarian hordes. Naturally, they want to protect their commercial interests from the self-published invaders. We will have to think about how we organise ourselves to cope with a probable book war in the near future. The Hachette/Amazon conflict, recently settled, is only the beginning. But history is on our side – the mighty Roman Empire fell to the Barbarians eventually!'
It seems to me, oh new world novelists, that we have a golden opportunity here to stop worrying about advances, royalties and the nasty tricks of traditional publishers. Let's start the New Year with confidence, there is evidence that we are going to survive as novelists. Indies of course!
Here is encouragement for Indie novelists. The new world many be tough but look at these figures garnered from British sources.
'Self-publishing and Ebooks on the rise
What the 2013 figures do show is that self-publishing in both ebook and paper book formats is really taking off. Paperback sales through Lulu rose 38% and CreateSpace sales were up a massive 161%. This is bound to send shivers of fear through the boardrooms of the publishing industry. Half of all book sales (both traditional and self-published) in the UK are now through Amazon.'
I call that definite encouragement for us Indies.
'Rumours that ebook sales are flat-lining are untrue. Obviously they aren’t soaring at the goldrush rates that happened in the beginning, but they’re now climbing at more realistic levels. According to Nielsen, ebook sales across the industry were up 20% overall in 2013 and readers spent more than £300m buying at least 80m ebooks. This accounted for more than a quarter of all book purchases. One in five of these sales (12% of all sales) was an ‘Indie’ book. Early figures from the first three months of 2014 show that the moment when ebook sales will overtake paper book sales is very close and the percentage of ‘Indie’ books is also rising fast, particularly in the USA. In the UK Tesco have just launched their own ebook platform Blinkbox Books with a reading tablet called the Hudl (who thought that one up?). It’s too early to tell where this will go, or whether this is a significant opportunity for Indies, though they’ve apparently sold 500,000 Hudls so far.'
Come on Indies. leap into the new market and put your books out with Blinkbox.
'Ebook Fiction up from £4m to £200m
The Bookseller also released some interesting publisher statistics that give a bit more information about what is really happening within the genre divisions. In 2013 paper book sales of fiction were down from £561m to £400m, but ebook sales of fiction are up from only £4m to a whopping £200m in the same period. Non-fiction suffered less, with only a minor shift from paper to ebook, but children’s paper book sales dropped £35m without any compensation in digital sales – bad news for children’s authors. But many children are reading on i-pads – particularly i-pad minis. My 4 year old grand-daughter reads a lot on her i-pad mini and loves interactive books. Her mother (a publishing professional with one of the Big 5) reads on the i-pad when it’s not otherwise engaged. Authors need to think about Apple much more seriously as a market for books. It may well become bigger than Kindle.'
This is great news. A good start to the New Year and great that Apple will be giving Amazon a run for its money. We need them to be in competition.
'What does it all mean?
The future for ebooks is bright. This doesn’t mean that they’ll replace paperbooks entirely, but there will be more of an even balance between E and paper sales. It also means that there will be more opportunities for Indies, but we’re going to have to be more pro-active in marketing ourselves against increasing opposition from the traditional publishing sector. The problem of visibility also increases as there are more and more authors clamouring to sell themselves in the self-published arena. We’re probably going to be forced to buy in marketing as well as editorial services if we want to be seen, but there are lots of refugees from the Big 5 offering their experience freelance.'
Note the Marketing call Indies. We have to do a good job for ourselves. Get that support group going and growing.
'The rosy dawn of self-publishing is over – it’s now a serious business and we are in competition with traditional industry professionals who won’t necessarily play fair. They see themselves as the legitimate land-owners and ourselves as the barbarian hordes. Naturally, they want to protect their commercial interests from the self-published invaders. We will have to think about how we organise ourselves to cope with a probable book war in the near future. The Hachette/Amazon conflict, recently settled, is only the beginning. But history is on our side – the mighty Roman Empire fell to the Barbarians eventually!'
It seems to me, oh new world novelists, that we have a golden opportunity here to stop worrying about advances, royalties and the nasty tricks of traditional publishers. Let's start the New Year with confidence, there is evidence that we are going to survive as novelists. Indies of course!
Thursday, 11 December 2014
And here's a novelist making his mark in the Brave New World
It seems to me that we Indies should help each other. Here's a lovely Goodreads review which Donald Platt received for his fascinating new novel.
I am glad to puff it off for him here and hope other readers who like serious historical novels which are well told and tell a good story might read it.
REVIEW of Bodo the Apostate by Donald M. Platt
Donald is a fabulous technical and historical writer overall, but Bodo the Apostate (his newest novel) is nothing short of his best work all the way around. Not only is his writing immaculate and his history engaging, but in this book his dialogue and character's thoughts, personalities, and actions are so real and dimensional that I found myself enamored and smiling from the start.
The Bodo that Donald presents in this book (as of course, little was known of him and one-sided) is highly intelligent and advanced ("gifted") from a very young age. He's curious, inquisitive, thoughtful, analytic (I have some kids like that so I truly understand it), but in the Carolingian period, which is pre-Medieval age circa 8-9th century, religion was serious (yes, even more serious than by today's standards). Bodo is taken to be enrolled at the Academy located at the winter palace of Emperor Louis the Pious (the son of Charlamagne) for his smarts, and as well, his great-aunt just happens to be the mother of Emperor Louis.
So, when on the cover it states, " In a time of intolerance following your conscience is a dangerous choice...." I can totally understand this comment in relation to this book. When one is forced to become a priest and religion gets political and divisions are formed, loyalties demanded and abused, an educated person with a high intellect (these types of people generally think for themselves and don't follow the crowd, but make logical and educated decisions) is likely to not follow the demanded path. Bodo made a decision to change religions and flee to exile (this is historical record so I don't feel it is a spoiler), but the book mostly takes place prior to that. It was so very interesting reading of the path that led to his decision and his thoughts behind it. Donald takes what little historical detail was accounted for and intertwines the best scenarios he could deduce in order to bring us Bodo's story, while simultaneously showing us what led to the demise of the Carolingian Empire. In fact, most of the book really dealt with the political and religious issues of the times, using Bodo as the propelling plot to showcase it. However, he does give us probably one of the only, or at least, best accounts of what his life might have been like afterwards when he lived in Andalusia (al-andalus), Hispania.
I love Carolingian historical fiction. There is something about it that lies between truth and fantasy, so even the facts seem surreal. I've grown up loving this era and Donald's book is another wonderful novel on a list of highly regarded and entertaining books of this time period. Though the book is totally a historical fiction meant to be as authentic and plausible as possible, utilizing best guess based on research, in some way it just so reminded me at the start of something like Lord of the Rings. That's probably crazy, but the book reads as if someone is telling us a legend (like the Legends of King Arthur, but rather, the legend of Bodo the Apostate, not Bodo Proudfoot, Hobbit!!). I totally admire this story and was enthralled by each chapter. I definitely never wanted to have to stop reading it, but would rather have had a day to do nothing but be entrenched in this book.
Donald's writing is detailed, visual, entertaining, informative, interesting, and he creates characters that readers can relate or connect to, creating understanding among all various types of people and their relations with others. He writes with a courageous pen in order to honor little-known men in history that made giant decisions. I believe Donald likes to research, critically think, and put together and forth other accounts of those lost to history that could become their lasting legacy as much as he likes to write entertaining material.
Helping historians, as well as readers, to understand other sides of history and make sense of religious intolerance, strife, and its lasting ramifications does a great service way past adorning bookshelves. Donald writes historical fiction of true meaning in a fashion that is so very captivating.
Highly recommended for the true pre-Medieval or Carolingian reader who are made happy by this time period fantasy feel, as well as those who are interested in historical reference about the angst between Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.
I was given this book in exchange for a honest review. Opinions are my own.
Wednesday, 10 December 2014
BRAVE NEW NOVELIST'S WORLD.
If you are an Indie writer struggling to make sense of the Brave New World of the novelist then you soon find that some people help and others don't!
As I wade through the swamps of 'Buy this package we guarantee will sell your novel.' and into the thorny thickets of self-help I have found that there is a lot of sensible common-sense provide by www.indiesunlimited. Definitely a place Indies should spend time at reading all those helpful articles.
Another useful site, although they do sell you things if they can, is Book Marketing Tools - find them at www.bookmarketingtools.com. They have a newsletter which drops valuable advice into your inbox. I have much to learn and am discovering how much more I have to learn every time there is a new email from them.
Here's a sample of their advice on building e-mail lists.
1
Use a Paid Method – Using Facebook, Google, Linkedin, Twitter, etc to push targeted traffic to your offer. I have used FB Influence to help me learn all about Facebook marketing.
2
Organic – This is all about writing content on your website or blog that is based on the wants of searchers online. Does someone in your target reader group search for “Free Mystery eBooks”, then why not write a post about your free mystery eBook giveaway when you run your next promotion? Use the Google AdWords Keyword Planner Tool to get more ideas.
3
Social – Not only have we been active on Google Plus, but we have had amazing results on Twitter as well, so make sure, when you are trying to drive traffic, you pick the one or two places that will help you the most. Not sure which to pick? Pick one and try it, then analyze a month or two later to see if you should continue or not.
4
New Media Collaboration – You might have noticed I said, New Media Collaboration. What I mean by this is, why not partner up with one or two other writers in the same genre and start your own YouTube, Itunes or Google HOA show? Instead of having to learn all this technology solo, work together and not only will you learn it, it will be with others that you can brainstorm on making something worth engaging on. Don’t be afraid to collaborate in 2015!
The offer you create is the gateway for someone moving into your sales funnel. Without something to offer them, you are banking on the idea that just because you built a platform and have a subscribe button, people will want to give you their email address. That’s a wrong and faulty assumption. It doesn’t work that way.
A good offer will have the following principle and components present:
1
The offer is exclusive – I didn't say the offer was unique, because let’s face it, everything has been created before… but the offer must be exclusively given to people via your mailing list. Therefore, the books you sell on amazon should not be the offer. The free list you have on a blog post is not the offer. Anything that is available publicly is not the offer. You make it exclusive, by making it exclusive.
2
The offer is interesting – You need to make the offer something that isn't just interesting to you, but interesting to the consumer, the readers you are trying to connect with. You should have a clear idea of the biggest pain that your readers have and the real need that they want. Fiction readers might not have a pain you can observe, so you have to ask. Why do people read my fiction book? Escape… freedom… getting lost. Create an offer that helps them to escape!
3
As a fiction author, maybe you can share a secret chapter in your book that you write just for your mailing list. Maybe you provide the private details about the creation of your story that your readers are dying to know. You can also create a short novella as a prequel or with the back story for your main books. It must be what they want, not what you think they want.
4
For non-fiction authors, giving someone a checklist, a resource guide or collating information for your readers is always valuable. If you don’t know what the offer should be, then ask your readers and if you don’t have readers, go back to last week’s social media post and find some.
5
The offer is simple – Rather than making a 50-page guide on something that your readers will never get through, why not give them something that is easy to digest that still hold value in their minds, that they can read in 1 hour. Give them a clear story about your story, so they connect with you.
6
The offer must be real – When marketing your offer, you want to be sure that you are not making promises about the offer that are hyped up just as a marketing gimmick. The Ultimate Author Checklist that we create is pretty, well, ultimate and it gives you what you need to know to market your book. If we billed it any other way and it didn't deliver, people would not stick around.
Interesting stuff. Is this really what a novelist must do to sell books? Don't writers write?
AND
How on earth do you find the time to do all this?
I do not know, nor do I have the answers. But for some people this has worked. I am trying to find out what will work for me and my Writer's Choice colleagues. It seems to me this might well be part of the new world for novelists.
As I wade through the swamps of 'Buy this package we guarantee will sell your novel.' and into the thorny thickets of self-help I have found that there is a lot of sensible common-sense provide by www.indiesunlimited. Definitely a place Indies should spend time at reading all those helpful articles.
Another useful site, although they do sell you things if they can, is Book Marketing Tools - find them at www.bookmarketingtools.com. They have a newsletter which drops valuable advice into your inbox. I have much to learn and am discovering how much more I have to learn every time there is a new email from them.
Here's a sample of their advice on building e-mail lists.
1
Use a Paid Method – Using Facebook, Google, Linkedin, Twitter, etc to push targeted traffic to your offer. I have used FB Influence to help me learn all about Facebook marketing.
2
Organic – This is all about writing content on your website or blog that is based on the wants of searchers online. Does someone in your target reader group search for “Free Mystery eBooks”, then why not write a post about your free mystery eBook giveaway when you run your next promotion? Use the Google AdWords Keyword Planner Tool to get more ideas.
3
Social – Not only have we been active on Google Plus, but we have had amazing results on Twitter as well, so make sure, when you are trying to drive traffic, you pick the one or two places that will help you the most. Not sure which to pick? Pick one and try it, then analyze a month or two later to see if you should continue or not.
4
New Media Collaboration – You might have noticed I said, New Media Collaboration. What I mean by this is, why not partner up with one or two other writers in the same genre and start your own YouTube, Itunes or Google HOA show? Instead of having to learn all this technology solo, work together and not only will you learn it, it will be with others that you can brainstorm on making something worth engaging on. Don’t be afraid to collaborate in 2015!
The offer you create is the gateway for someone moving into your sales funnel. Without something to offer them, you are banking on the idea that just because you built a platform and have a subscribe button, people will want to give you their email address. That’s a wrong and faulty assumption. It doesn’t work that way.
A good offer will have the following principle and components present:
1
The offer is exclusive – I didn't say the offer was unique, because let’s face it, everything has been created before… but the offer must be exclusively given to people via your mailing list. Therefore, the books you sell on amazon should not be the offer. The free list you have on a blog post is not the offer. Anything that is available publicly is not the offer. You make it exclusive, by making it exclusive.
2
The offer is interesting – You need to make the offer something that isn't just interesting to you, but interesting to the consumer, the readers you are trying to connect with. You should have a clear idea of the biggest pain that your readers have and the real need that they want. Fiction readers might not have a pain you can observe, so you have to ask. Why do people read my fiction book? Escape… freedom… getting lost. Create an offer that helps them to escape!
3
As a fiction author, maybe you can share a secret chapter in your book that you write just for your mailing list. Maybe you provide the private details about the creation of your story that your readers are dying to know. You can also create a short novella as a prequel or with the back story for your main books. It must be what they want, not what you think they want.
4
For non-fiction authors, giving someone a checklist, a resource guide or collating information for your readers is always valuable. If you don’t know what the offer should be, then ask your readers and if you don’t have readers, go back to last week’s social media post and find some.
5
The offer is simple – Rather than making a 50-page guide on something that your readers will never get through, why not give them something that is easy to digest that still hold value in their minds, that they can read in 1 hour. Give them a clear story about your story, so they connect with you.
6
The offer must be real – When marketing your offer, you want to be sure that you are not making promises about the offer that are hyped up just as a marketing gimmick. The Ultimate Author Checklist that we create is pretty, well, ultimate and it gives you what you need to know to market your book. If we billed it any other way and it didn't deliver, people would not stick around.
Interesting stuff. Is this really what a novelist must do to sell books? Don't writers write?
AND
How on earth do you find the time to do all this?
I do not know, nor do I have the answers. But for some people this has worked. I am trying to find out what will work for me and my Writer's Choice colleagues. It seems to me this might well be part of the new world for novelists.
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