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the brotherly phl posted:Awesome, thanks for the edit. I do like the color, though I prefer my original typography. I don't know, what do others think? I think the new cover does a good job of focusing the readers eye. Author name is too big, or the font too prominent. It's almost Tom Clancy author name big.
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Jan 15, 2015 22:31
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 So yah, about that writing thing cat. It knows I'm almost done with the novel. It knows.
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Jan 16, 2015 02:03
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That is Scrivener. I love it. I had issues using Google Drive but since I switched to Dropbox everything has been golden.
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Jan 16, 2015 02:24
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What do you guys think of the cover and blurb ideas? Blurb #1 quote:For nearly a millenia humans have spread out and colonized space. Stargates link a thousand colonies, but space is still vast and the distances amazing. Ever since the first contact, alien relations have been… difficult. Blurb #2 (Condensed) quote:The Vasilov Worlds are the frontier of Human space. They have fought a war for 35 years against the insectiod Kadan that they have no intention of ending. It’s too essential to a society where the only social movement is via battle promotion. Then it all changes when the Kadan decimate the defensive lines.
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Jan 16, 2015 19:52
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ravenkult posted:Noooooooo. PM coming your way Ravenkult. You guys are right. Thanks for reminding me not to throw myself under the bus. And thanks everyone for the input, goon input, best input.
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Jan 16, 2015 22:23
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Here's the new cover. It's by our esteemed ravenkult. Seriously, go buy his poo poo and don't make your own lovely cover unless you really know what you're doing.
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Jan 21, 2015 13:25
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I'm going into my first BookBub next weekend, so I'm not entirely sure. But I can tell you that bookgorilla/KND was a loss on direct sales, harder to determine if indirect/series sales went up. I know on my standalone novel it was a loser.
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Jan 30, 2015 21:29
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What does purchased reviews look like? Look at that, top few results all show 31/31 find this helpful. It appears the one honest review shows 1/5. But hey, it's a 14k sales rank.
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Mar 10, 2015 16:46
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Fuego Fish posted:Yes, I want to do this for a living. In all honesty, to toot my own horn, I'm pretty good at it. Not master class or anything, but I'm definitely in a comfortable spot with my writing. It's not the content that's the problem here, though, it's the fact that I'm atrocious at promoting myself. I don't have the right kind of attitude to shamelessly shill my stuff, so it doesn't really come naturally. I've had two novels sell well, neither one had advertising. One was my first novel. I had no mailing list, no one to poke for reviews, no money for an editor, and absolutely nothing for advertising. Slowly, slowly, it creeped up and one sale a day turned into three, then ten, then fifty. The next two books did OK, but not as well as the first. Then I wrote my fourth, a standalone novel, and put some of my earnings into advertising/promotions and it didn't do me a goddamn thing. It didn't sell well. Some people bought it, and those that did liked it, but it was outside my niche. My fifth novel, released a month and a half ago, had zero advertising. I sent it out to a meager mailing list and within a couple of weeks I peaked at #335 sales rank. If it's a good story targeted to the proper niche, people will buy it. If it's missing some critical element, or is not targeted right, lacks a good cover, has a poo poo blurb, then no quantity of advertising/promotion will help.
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Mar 13, 2015 12:22
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This is the greatest review I've ever gotten.
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Apr 16, 2015 01:33
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EngineerSean posted:Haha I thought they removed the minimum word count for reviews. I think they did because I've got a couple of reviews that are about 8 words long. My guess is the dude was writing a review on his phone and just went nuts on the autocorrect.
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Apr 16, 2015 14:04
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One hour at a minimum. I aim for 1k a day. Somedays though it turns into much much more.
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Apr 16, 2015 15:42
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Has Google Drive gotten better with Scrivener? I used to use Google Drive for my writing storage but after a few days losses I put it all on Dropbox. No losses since, but it'd be nice to have everything in one spot.
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Apr 23, 2015 13:09
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AuthorCentral is completely separate from KDP. You don't have to have an Author Central page to publish. All of my stuff is Select and I hand out copies all the time. I'll give them a .mobi, and if they request something else I send that too. I think as long as it isn't freely available, where the Amazon crawler can find it, then you should be OK. But even then I don't know the criteria as my poo poo can be downloaded in a torrent from all sorts of sites.
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Apr 29, 2015 19:49
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EngineerSean posted:II can't say that it will definitely pay off now on your second book but "willingness to put my family and health aside to capitalize on luck/a smart move" has made me hundreds of thousands. It is serious life skill. I'll confirm this. The greatest skill I've learned from writing is diligence. At the end of the day the only things that matter to me is writing better than I did yesterday and meeting my daily goal. Lunch breaks, coffee breaks, oatmeal in the morning, after the kiddo goes to bed, all valid writing times.
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May 4, 2015 01:13
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I've had two 5 digit months in a row. It's a pretty awesome feeling to make more writing than at my day job. There's a light at the end of the tunnel now, I can see it, just need more words, more novels, more more more! My average day is now 2k-3k of words. It's amazing how your mind gets used to it, I used to struggle to write 1k a day, now I do that during the first cup of coffee. It's been really cool to watch my back catalog stabilize. With every release they've been selling better. Even my worst selling story, dogs in power armor, has paid for itself now. My plan is materializing and it's settled at a few more good releases and reliably writing 4k a day. At that rate I can release a novel a month and be like my goonidol, moana. The other scifi guys in my niche that release at that rate are doing pretty drat well.
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May 7, 2015 20:09
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Thanks! Unfortunately this month is middle 4 digits, but hey, that's why I need more catalog. At the end of the day, every problem, issue, concern, and piece of self doubt is solved by one thing. Write More Words.
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May 7, 2015 20:26
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I feel the same way. 
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May 7, 2015 20:30
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Sundae posted:Go on...... DogForge was my first stand alone novel after finishing a series. It was either that, or a piece about a drunken starship captain who accidentally steals the clone of the Emperor. It was a blast to write, I finished it in no time flat, and it sold like poo poo. Like DogShit. I don't dwell on it, instead I focused on writing the next novel which peaked at about #250 on Amazon. DogForge  quote:The world is not as it seems.
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May 7, 2015 22:40
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They got good once I quit trying to do them. Seriously, don't do your own cover.
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May 8, 2015 00:27
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Holy poo poo what a day. Finished a novel, paid off my student loans, and the guy who narrated Harry Harrison's audiobooks is doing one of mine. I'm drinking now.
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May 21, 2015 02:22
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EngineerSean posted:Yooper make sure you check back on those in a few days. When we paid off ours, they randomly charged us like $400 later until I got on the phone and yelled at them a bit (a lot). Ahh yes, I'll add that to my list. We had some difficulties with my wifes loans five years ago but luckily the charges disappeared as magically as they appeared.
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May 21, 2015 02:48
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Omi no Kami posted:Taking the romance example, what I'm best at writing isn't romance, it's military sci-fi and noir detective stories. However, those are both pretty niche markets, and since my aim is to try and (eventually) build up a sufficiently large fanbase to make this cover cost of living while I run another business, I feel like I'm obligated to look at the best-selling genres (romance, erotica, possibly triceratops porn) and focus on studying what's done well and emulating that. My genre is mil scifi and I do pretty well. Now it's not romance levels of income, but in the year and a half I've been writing I've : paid off my student loans, paid off my car loans, spent a week partying in Reykjavik with EVE nerds, spent a week fishing in Alaska, and kept my wife happy by not having our savings drained from all that poo poo. On the flip side I write every single morning, evenings, lunch breaks, etc. The biggest thing, and this goes with all genres, is to produce quality content and produce it often. I see a lot of people bitch that they can't get traction, yet they only have one piece out there. This isn't a trad pub model anymore, it's an SEO model, whether we like it or not. Like voting, write early and write often. Fake edit : Link to genre breakdown : http://edwardwrobertson.com/self-publishings-share-of-the-kindle-market-by-genre/ Yooper fucked around with this message at 14:19 on May 26, 2015 |
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May 26, 2015 14:16
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I gave it a quick glance and 7 out of the top 100 Scifi bestsellers are Romance/SuperRomance. There was also some Michael Crichton and GRRM, along with titles that are such bestsellers that they top multiple lists. It'd be tough to break it down exactly, but if you removed the multi-genre ones, and the romance, I think Scifi would look even smaller.
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May 26, 2015 17:57
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Ghostwoods posted:
I can confirm, that's a drat close number. Awesome work man, it's cool to see the numbers out front.
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May 26, 2015 20:19
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Interesting article about the Hardy Boys and series writing : http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/05/hardy-boys-nancy-drew-ghostwriters/394022/quote:Still, there are some unexpected benefits. Ghostwriting seems to teach writers to intuitively balance making books and making a living. Though Leonhardt wrote in an age of typewriters and snail mail, writing for an assembly line arguably equipped her with the basic insights of writing for the Internet age. “To be a successful writer in today's world, you have to be obsessed,” she says. “With the marketing, the promoting, the querying, coming up with ideas, being able to deal with all that rejection. And understanding that this is a business—not just a creative endeavor.” Some really interesting insight in that article.
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May 27, 2015 20:10
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Hijinks Ensue posted:Well, wish me luck. I've got a BookBub free promo next week. Never done a free promo with 'Bub before. Interested to see how it will shake out. That's awesome dude. I hope you've got a nice back catalog because it's about sell better than it did when it was new.
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Jun 5, 2015 22:49
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Here's the cover for my newest novel, done by our esteemed ravenkult. What do you guys think of the blurb? quote:Colonel Cole Clarke, Armored Cavalry Commander, and his battalion of convicts are sent to the Kalivostok Front to reinforce a system controlled by an incompetent Duke. Only Cole understands what his tanks can do… if he can get them.
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Jun 6, 2015 15:20
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ArchangeI posted:Last paragraph doesn't work for me. Good point on the tractor. I'd be better just leaving it as untested I think.
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Jun 6, 2015 16:38
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Cast_No_Shadow posted:Yeah I had no idea it was a part two. Can it be read stand alone? Yes, absolutely. There's some backup information but I try to keep it to a minimum. I'm not a fan of reading 20 pages of flashbacks so I figure my readers aren't either. I had a different editor for the 2nd book and she was very good about pointing out things that she had no clue about. Thanks for the blurb critique guys, I'll start distilling down to the good stuff. Fake edit quote:A routine sentry mission discovers a human colony where only bones remain, but the hostiles are nowhere to be found. Yooper fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Jun 6, 2015 |
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Jun 6, 2015 21:22
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Excellent! Thanks again guys. I noticed a new trend in my blurb studies. Lots of authors are adding a few snippets to the start of the blurb and I wondered why. Then I was on a different PC and suddenly the Amazon product page looked different. A bit of A/B testing methinks. This is how it normally looked to me, notice the first three lines of the blurb, way down below the cover, pricing, etc.  And this is how it looked on a different PC.  Instead of scrolling down to read the blurb, whammo, it's right in your face. Literally the first line of your blurb is all they get to read unless they click for more. So man, you better have a great first line, or do the whole ... thing. I think my opening line is good enough to not do the fragment opener, but I can see the strength in it.
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Jun 6, 2015 22:55
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Fuego Fish posted:I'm naturally very patient, and it's not like I'm going to lose sales like this. My book's gonna sell the same amount whether it's published now and six months from now, honestly. Plus the artist's work is very good, and they've shown me that they have a really good understanding of not only what I want from the cover, but also what the story is about. I took one look at their sketches and thought, "this is the exact cover that I want." I had this happen with two different editors. I wrote a nice email asking for an update, nothing, then a week later I fired them. Their incompetence at even giving you a basic update is costing you (potentially) thousands of dollars. For me the not knowing was the worst part.
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Jun 8, 2015 20:47
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I think it looks pretty good. Clean and crisp, gotta like an artist website that's about the art, and not the artistic layout that takes 15 minutes for the browser to understand.
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Jun 9, 2015 12:36
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Omi no Kami posted:"Write what everyone is already buying, make your money on marketing it more effectively than the other guy" Go to genre you like, look at what is selling, do the above, and write it well. Look for niches with robust self-publishing authors. I recall the Hugh Howey report showing a few niches with low self-pub authorship but high sales. Is that a niche waiting to be exploited? Maybe. Just be aware that your niche is not going to sell as well as romance. You can be a Top 100 bestseller in the Culinary Cozy Mysteries category and only get 5 sales a day. (Yes, that's a thing and now you've ruined my Amazon browsing history) A niche breakdown here - http://edwardwrobertson.com/followup-self-publishings-share-of-the-kindle-market-by-genre/ it's from 2014, but I'd says it's close. quote:Okay, so what about the genres’ overall market share? Here’s how it breaks down this time: If you write Fantasy be aware that your market is 1/6th the size of Romance. So a Romance with mediocre sales may sell much better than a Fantasy novel that's ranked well in the niche.
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Jun 23, 2015 13:59
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Speaking of reviews, some of my books are getting a star rated review with no text or link to who gave it. This is a definite departure from the 100 word minimum I saw enforced in the past.
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Jun 23, 2015 15:47
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I'll second that reference. Quick, professional, crisp. A pleasure to work with.
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Jun 26, 2015 13:06
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I use D2D to generate my files, they make really nice TOCs without any issues. Just upload it to Draft2Digital, and when you get to the page to publish, download the .mobi file.  Just don't click on the check box. Then go back to KDP and upload it there. Then the Kindle Police will leave you alone.
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Jul 1, 2015 14:20
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We're basing the estimates off of last months KU payout fund, $11 million, and the word count for last month that Amazon mentioned, 1.9 billion words. $11,000,000 / 1,900,000,000 = $0.0057 per page (yes, that is 1/2 of a penny. Not a nickel for the decimal point challenged) I'm curious if Amazon has a target price. If KU authors drop by 10%, then the word pool drops as well, and if the payout fund remains the same then the rate per word would go up. For the 10% drop in words read @ $11M, the payout would change to $0.0067. But this is all poo poo if the fund floats and they just retain goal for a certain page price. I haven't pulled out yet, my page count is pretty close to the borrow rate for the day before.
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Jul 2, 2015 12:30
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Yup, just double checked it. The KENP count for the day times $0.0057 is within 13% of the previous days borrows * $1.34.
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Jul 2, 2015 13:02
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Sulla-Marius 88 posted:What lengths did you write? 30 page or 300 page? If it's 30 page I'd check your sales ranking because that'd be an interesting jump. The maths is: They're all full length novels. My average KENP page count is about 525. 525 * $0.0057 = $2.85 per read. Which shows a read through rate of about 45%. ($1.16 / $2.85). Hmm, that's a pretty drat interesting number.
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Jul 2, 2015 13:59
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