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The Fuzzy Hulk posted:Did anybody else get an extra audible payment? I got one today, and they normally don’t pay until the end of the month. If you enrolled any audiobooks into the Audible Romance program, this was a bonus payment. The program is horrible and no one should put anything else into it.
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Mar 18, 2018 17:07
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Chokes McGee posted:hello friendos I am not a fan. Nothing pops. I don't know what genre this is. It took me too long to see her fangs. I don't know why her white eyelashes droop down until they're vertical. There seems to be a US flag done over her face. No idea why. And in the background we're looking up at a cathedral or castle with some kind of image projected over it.Then the entire upper right quadrant is just black. I also don't like the author name being right under the title at the top and then along the bottom you have "An Astin Fell Novel". I'd prefer title and subtitle at top and author name at the bottom (or vice versa).
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Mar 19, 2018 17:20
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If you've noticed your pages being reduced, you will probably get an email either threatening account suspension or actually suspending your account. I'm so loving glad I went wide.
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Apr 9, 2018 17:27
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I pay mine $120 to fix up a 50k romance novel, but that's mostly just grammar and clarity.
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Sep 10, 2018 00:59
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BBQ Dave posted:Any critique on my keywords and categories? Think of your seven keyword sections as opportunities to stuff them to the gills with any relevant search terms. It's 50 characters per field, so 350 characters total. How would a customer stumble upon your book or _similar_ books? What tropes are present in your book? You can also use your keyword field to put in keywords which will slot you into extra categories: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201216150 (You can also reach out to KDP support directly and ask them to put you into categories you think your book would be appropriate in) quote:Categories: If it's a book you want to actively promote, the organic boost of being in the top 20 of your most niche genre is very powerful. It's one of the only ways someone can stumble upon your book by browsing. So you should find the most niche genre category you think readers would like your book and make sure you're in it. You can spend a thousand dollars in a day on ads in one category and not break into the top 20, and in another category you can spend fifty dollars and hit #1. The customers in the former category might be spending a million dollars a day and the latter's might only be spending a thousand, though. quote:Also, what's up with KDP select? Should I get this up in every market I can? How much work is all that? KDP Select is synonymous with Kindle Unlimited. This means if you enroll in KDP Select, your book is also in the Kindle Unlimited program. Your ebooks in KDP select must be EXCLUSIVE to Amazon for each 90 day term they're enrolled/renewed. You can't have KDP Select ebooks available for sale/download anywhere else on the internet. No iTunes, no B&N, no KOBO, no Google, no Smashwords, etc. Worldwide. So Kindle Unlimited is the big all-you-can-read program customers can sign pay $10/month for. You get paid every time someone reads a page, and right now the payment rate is $0.0045 or so (yeah, half a penny). It changes every month but usually stays in a 10% range. Plus what Amazon considers a page is more generous than most of our formatting software, so a 200 page book might count as 300 pages, for instance. Some people make zero dollars a month in this system, others make six figures per month. In addition to KU, KDP Select also gives you two promotional opportunities that renew every 90 days. One is five days of free, the other is five days of reduced price. In the past people used to debut a book in KU for the first 90 days, then put the book "wide" at all the retailers. I don't think this plan is good for long term success, as your wide audience will feel irked that they have to wait 90 days for the book on their marketplace. I've been wide for a year and now charge $5.99 for my novels and $6.99 for my box sets of short stories. This means I can spend significantly more to attract a customer than someone who is depending on a full Kindle Unlimited read payout of $1.08 (for instance).
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Sep 17, 2018 13:04
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freebooter posted:Can someone explain to me what exactly the chicken littles at Kboards are panicking about now? Some company bought Kboards and their MO is to fill it full of clickbait ads to squeeze anything they can out of it ASAP. They have a track record of doing this back to 2008 I read. There's also something in the TOS which talks about them having the right to take anything you post (including your book covers) and use them for...something. My first take on it was it was the common boilerplate that let them run ads on Google Adwords and other networks, but everyone is pretty much bailing on the place now.
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Sep 20, 2018 23:42
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Dadliest Worrier posted:What other board? Some Kboards users formed writersanctum.com. Edit: looks like they're having tech difficulties at the moment. Jalumibnkrayal fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Sep 21, 2018 |
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Sep 21, 2018 16:58
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Blorknorg posted:So my promo runs until the 11th and assuming I get at least a trickle of interest I'm going to try some token amount on Bookbub around the 7th to the 11th. I took a glance and there seems to be two different ways to advertise via them, one that's for 1k impressions and the other that's for a clickthrough. Given that the clickthroughs claim to average 60 cents, and I do sort of feel like my book has a decent factor of 'wtf, really?' when they see it would my best bet to go for the impressions one? Is there a sweet spot of sorts for the budget on Bookbub? I was going to just do about 40$ over 3 days or something similar. The CPM (impressions) ads usually come out much cheaper than the CPC ads so I usually opt for those. Unfortunately you have a lot more options in how to target than any other platform, so it can take a lot of trial and error to find the targets that respond to your stuff. You should subscribe to the BookBub newsletter of your genre and look at the ads being shown, as that's another whole consideration. It's going to be very difficult recouping your first $40 spent on the platform, but who knows? smarties posted:Is romance still where the money lies? It's still the largest pool of money but it's also the highest competition. There might be smaller pools with much less competition for each reader dollar. If I had to start over today from scratch I would either write something super specific (like lesbian vampire romance) or in a non-romance genre. quote:Is it as profitable as it was? Nope. quote:Is it still realistic to expect it to pay bills if I can consistently get down, say, a thousand words a day, Monday-Friday? It's very unlikely that you will start out making that much by publishing just 20k words per month or four novels per year. Many romance authors in KU aim for publishing a novel once a month or so. quote:Is there any point in releasing anywere except Kindle Unlimited? I used to be hardcore KU and have been wide for the past 1.5 years. I much prefer being wide as the money is more consistent and I don't have to worry about Amazon banning me from their platform forever. Plus I can charge $6.99 for a novel and spend $3 acquiring a new customer. quote:Last time marketing really put me off - is it a major headache or barely an inconvenience these days? If you're ok using the CPC ad platforms, you'll be fine. The newsletters are mostly too expensive now, so you can save your time and money. I'm not sure what the situation is for newsletter swaps. I suspect they're still useful. quote:Is paying an editor necessary or is the real solution to write more? People might sit through a 5k erotic short if your writing is poo poo. They will NOT do that for a 50k romance. quote:What can I expect to invest in getting people to actually read my book (editing costs, costs of a decent cover, price of whatever marketing needs to be done, anything else I don't know about)? The costs of many services are way down as sites like upwork and fiverr make it easier to find people very skilled at certain technical tasks, like making a book cover. It also depends on your subgenre of romance: produce something for an underserved market and people will throw money at you. Write another billionaire romance book and good luck getting noticed. quote:I really want to give it a good go this time. That way, if it doesn't work out, I can at least know it wasn't because I didn't take it seriously enough. It will probably take a year or two to see anything approaching success.
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Mar 5, 2019 11:50
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monkfoot posted:My bookbub is a massive failure so far. Anyone else have a bad experience with them? It looks like their estimate for an Int'l 99c Lit Fic is 480 sales, so 65 is a big miss. What about pagereads? Also, your book is showing the Recommendations area up top, not Also Boughts (they're back and forth testing this). A lot of authors are hypothesizing that this is causing big drops in revenue these past few weeks. The things Amazon are recommending are often items with no connection to what you're browsing or, worse, items they know you already own. Besides that, down below where you'd find the Also Boughts I'm just seeing Also Vieweds, which could mean that your book hasn't sold enough recently to be part of the AB engine. The 65 sales should change that, so you might see even more sales/borrows flow in as your book pops up in other books ABs. But in general I think BB is losing some value to authors as their prices increase and their readers become inundated with books and emails. They will probably be loosening their strict guidelines and taking more chances on books that might miss.
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Mar 6, 2019 13:11
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Flossie posted:I've written my first book and I am currently editing it. It's a murder mystery set in London in the 1930s. I am confident it fits in its genre and I'm intending to pay for a professional to make the cover. I can't afford an editor or proofreader (without sacrificing significant money from my family's holiday budget) You can get a 50k word novel edited for less than $50. Just check freelance sites. Results will be somewhere in between spellcheck and career editor, though. quote:My question is - (based on the proviso my books have good covers, blurbs and few errors) is it reasonable to just concentrate on writing for a couple of years and then worry about building up an audience once I have a reasonably sized catalogue? Honestly, no it isn't. My successful pen name is successful because of constant tending and care. I have ads that send people to my mailing list and a few permafree titles, and these are going 24/7. I reach out to do swaps with other authors and book newsletters. I'll get close to six figures this year on this pen name. One of my failed pen names (that I'm still releasing for) is one where I just release the books (Clean and Wholesome Romance) without any fanfare. It's been almost a year, I've put out four novels, and I've grossed $300. If this is where I'd started I would be devastated. Thankfully it's just a costly experiment. The most powerful word in marketing is new. You have complete control over your release schedule (especially if you're not depending on the money) so you might want to consider waiting to publish until you have 3-4 books done. Then in one day you release the first three books (I really hope these are a series) and a month later continue your normal release schedule. That way if someone likes book 1, they can instantly grab books 2 and 3 instead of waiting and then forgetting. I'm going to be doing this with a brand new pen name and genre. In fact I'm not going to launch book 1 until the audiobook and paperback for it are ready. Then I'll line up the biggest splash I can manage.
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Apr 10, 2019 15:24
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Heliogabalos posted:Is it a terrible idea to e-publish a novel in two parts to gauge interest? I love the book I am writing but it is also a lot of work and requires considerable research. Also I suffer from mental health issues (treated, but still tough to live with). Sometimes I go weeks and months without writing - so obviously I am not looking to make a living. These issues are directly related to never having submitted anything for publication (except one sci-fi story 15 years ago which was rejected and I still haven't recovered lol). Anyway. I don't think that publishing half a novel on Amazon would be well received. Even serialized short stories are complete in and of themselves and tie together with the larger arc or theme. However, there are venues that are designed for episodic content where you can publish it a chapter at a time and gauge the interest that way. Radish Fiction is one, Webnovel is another, and there might be a few others (Scribd?). Your ability to monetize on any of these is questionable, but expecting money for half a novel is probably not the right mindset anyway. quote:I finally want to share this new novel because it's been a hell of a lot of fun when I do have the energy to write, and I would definitely find the will to finish it if people were buying it. I'm almost at the 30 000 word mark and at a logical Part 2 split. I think it's a cool idea and it just flowed out so seamlessly (...like water! See, I'm a writer). If it's a pleasurable experience then just work on it until it's done. It doesn't matter if it takes a month or ten years. quote:Then, how much do you charge for a first publication? I see a lot of variance, and by that I consider .99 cents to $7 quite a bit of variance; no doubt people charge more because they've established themselves, so is there a benchmark for new writers that I've missed? It depends on what your goal is. If you just want to get it out there and have people read it then a low price point (99c and in Kindle Unlimited) will be the best route. quote:Also, on a different note, is there a market for short story collections? I have about 20 years of short stories that have never before published. Mostly sci-fi but general fiction too, with some historical fiction and alt-historical fiction to boot. Not really. If they're the same genre and style as your novel, you could use them as a newsletter magnet to get subscribers, but that's only if you're going to continue publishing.
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Apr 22, 2019 22:14
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gerg_861 posted:Well...I accidentally posted this to the whole creative convention forum and not this thread last night...doh. Anyhow, now posting in the right place. If you want to open up options at more newsletters, getting the requisite positive reviews is pretty easy with ARCs. In fact, you can use Booksprout to basically automate it. I think it costs $20 a month, but you just post your book and they find the reviewers. It's probably the next best thing to curating your own ARC list. For the third book in the series, you should also consider a sale on books one and two, then drive traffic with ads/newsletters to the first book. If you have a mailing list you can probably arrange promo swaps with other authors in the same genre. Bookfunnel has a built in system for that which might be useful to you.
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Apr 26, 2019 19:21
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Fiverr.com
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Apr 27, 2019 11:42
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Do everything Bardeh just said. Look further back in this thread to see all the Hard Luck Hank stuff, because I think your cover should be a similar illustrated over the top kind. I definitely cringed when I saw the title, just like all the "Jordan Peterson DESTROYS SJW Feminist!" poo poo on Youtube.
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Jun 4, 2019 16:01
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Hijinks Ensue posted:Question about ISBNs. I don't do anything with actual ISBNs, but if they're anything like ASINs or other identifiers, then yes, it will need its own ISBN. KrunkMcGrunk posted:Okay, so I started dipping my toe into BB ads this week. A friend of mine is helping mentor me so I don't blow through my daily budget in like 15 minutes (like the last two times I've tried running BB ads). They seem to convert really well? Like, better than AMS? But also it seems like I have to check on them every hour or so, or risk losing my shirt. If you're spending your budget quickly then you could just reduce your CPM bids so it spends slower. The CPM bids are usually a better value than the CPC bids.
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Jul 20, 2019 14:43
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Quite a few 4-5 figure a month authors have noticed a huge drop in revenue that started around Prime Days. Book ranks and Also Boughts are taking longer to update as well. So it's possible a book's recent poor performance isn't just due to the book itself.
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Jul 29, 2019 16:26
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feedmyleg posted:I launched my book on the 18th and have had sold ~80 copies across Kindle and paperback. I'd say at least half of those are people I know, if not closer to 75%. I've been running small Facebook ad sets to hone in on my audience and I'm down to a $0.35 cost-per-click, which I understand to be quite good. You can probably do better. I can routinely get CPCs down to $0.20 if my ad reaches relevance 10 (or whatever the new vague equivalent is). Half that if it's to my permafree. Yours is in KU so you should be making it very clear that it's "FREE in KU!" if you're not already. Testing is key. It's been a while since I ran a cozy ad though. quote:The problem is that none of these seem to be converting to sales—I ramped up my Facebook ad-spend yesterday for Halloween week (my book is somewhat spooky) and spent $60 to get ~200 link clicks that resulted in... 2 sales. And even then, one of those was paperback, which I believe only show when they ship, not when they're bought, so let's call that 1 sale. I'm even getting a smattering of likes and comments on my Facebook ads and have converted a whopping 13 of those to page likes. Like... how did I get 8 likes on my ads last night but 1 sale?[quote] KU activity is measured by page reads, not borrows or sales or units. It will be a very large number but each page read is like half a penny or less. quote:I've got seven 5-star reviews, all from friends. I've changed my blurb a few times but have seen no uptick in sales associated. I ran a couple of ads on BookBub which had dismal 0.08% and 0.18% CTRs. I'm running a Bargain Booksy promotion this week. I know this isn't terribly outside of the norm, but it's very demoralizing. I figured I'd at least be able to get a few sales per day with a pretty low ad spend. Bookbub ads are tough to make work. The audience is primed to buy book but only when it's a deal. quote:I thought I'd gotten a pretty good handle on my prime demographic, the "Cozy Mystery" reader. According to Facebook insights my clicks are mostly coming from liberal women in their 30s-60s so I've been trying to target them, but I'm just having such a hard time getting any traction at all. How are you targeting initially? Author names? Genre? I find author names to be the best, and I don't limit anything else except to focus on USA if that's my market. quote:It makes me feel like I'm missing something extremely obvious. Can anyone take a look at my Amazon listing and tell me if anything obviously doesn't work there? Your book self identifies as a cozy mystery but you're in the Teen/YA subgenre. Cozy readers skew a lot older than teens, so you might be hiding your book in a section your readers don't check out. If you do want to target teens with your book, you might want a new cover. Yours is a throwback to those 50's classics, but all the bestsellers in your genre have more photo realistic covers. If it is a cozy, is there a murder? There is almost always a murder that's being investigated. You might just be off on the tropes and cozy readers are not finding what they're looking for. quote:At this point I wonder if my book isn't just too niche? I mean there are readers out there, it's just a matter of setting your expectations. Were you expecting hundreds of sales? Is that a reasonable expectation? quote:I know my next step is to get out there more and just feel skeezy plastering my book all over Facebook groups and messaging individuals on Tumblr and reaching out to blogs That will result in just about zero sales. CPC ads and exclusive newsletters are just about the only things that push the needle these days. quote:and figuring out how to convince people to get on a mailing list Reader magnet! Whip up a little free story they can only get by subscribing to your list. Put a link to sign up at the end of all your books. quote:and whatever, but I was hoping to at least get a steady drip of sales from ads before then so I could focus my time and energy on it. But I've been putting ~4 hours a day into this since launch and seeing nothing come of it is pretty depressing. What are you doing for four hours a day post-launch? In the end it's good to keep in mind that this industry is absurdly competitive right now. This year I published 1.1mil words and next year I'm going to almost triple that.
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Nov 7, 2019 14:43
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