Self-Publishing Goons: Yep, people buy it!

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > Self-Publishing Goons: Yep, people buy it!

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

Sundae posted:

Also - Yooper, I'm glad at least someone here isn't getting murdered by the new royalty structure. I'm down about 90% on earnings as a result, so all my stuff is yanked. I'll have a busy July 4th weekend re-pubbing with a wide net again.

Man, that's a terrible drop. I feel for you dude.

I'm going to hang on for now and see how it shakes out, my KENP total for today is already above half of what it was yesterday. It all feels really weird.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2015 14:42

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# ¿ May 20, 2024 01:26

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

Bookreport dude posted:

Basically, Book Report users are overwhelming Amazon's servers. And they're just that: Amazon's servers, so Book Report will be respecting their request and switching back to 90 days of historical data.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2015 18:45

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

# ¿ Jul 9, 2015 12:34

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

I know the graph is from the authorearnings website but I wasn't able to track down the corresponding post in a few minutes of searching.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2015 14:20

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

Paid is just that, someone bought your book for full price.

KENP relates to borrows and eventually how much of it they read.

Did one person read all 300 pages, or did 300 people read 1 page?

:iiam:

# ¿ Aug 3, 2015 02:30

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

Not exactly, but once August's word tally comes in we'll all have a pretty good idea. For a rough estimate you can multiply your KENP by .005 cents. Yes, half a penny. Where it'll be exactly, who knows.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2015 03:34

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

CommissarMega posted:

All right, I'm uploading the book as we speak. Is $5.99 too much to ask for a first book of around 100K words?

EDIT: And should I sign up for KDP Select?

You're Scifi right? Check out the top 100 in your category and price accordingly. First novel too? Don't price yourself out of an impulse buy.

I've got 6 Scifi novels out and I've never priced them at $5.99. $3.99 is a good spot to start at. If it starts selling like a bastard then you can always up the price.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2015 13:31

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

EngineerSean posted:

Be 100% sure that the person who put this file up is the person that took the picture, and if someone tries to tell you otherwise (that they own the picture and do not give you or this website permission to use it), the license that this website grants probably means absolutely nothing

Seriously though there's a million photos on stock photography sites that absolutely have their ducks in a row that cost $5 a piece and avoid this headache.

Ravenkult and I ran into this on one of my covers. He had an absolutely beautiful image that he'd purchased in a pack of images. Lo and behold the entire pack was all of a particularly famous scifi concept artists work. He still did me an awesome cover, but I felt bad that he was screwed buying a pack of useless images.

Now whenever I explore cover images I do a very thorough Google Image Search. Like Sean said, a license doesn't mean poo poo if it happens to be Annie Leibovitz's work.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2015 18:33

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

I wrote a long letter to jon joe and I'll share it here.

quote:

Hi dude,

While I'm not wildly successful, I'm comfortably middle list in my genre. The YA genre is a niche all its own, so take all of this with a grain of salt.

I'd avoid serials. Some people have had success with it, but don't do it unless you've got a blistering hot mailing list and you know the genre tolerates it. Some genres despise it. Absolutely despise. Fantasy, on average, likes big books. Check out the top 100 fantasy books, (throw out the GRRM stuff and erotica) and check out length, titles, blurbs, and write down the sales rank. Your covers need to look like those, your blurb needs to be close, and your story needs to be in the same style. If it's not you're looking at the wrong niche, or you're writing unicorn coming of age stories with no audience.

Now be aware, some genres have a very light self pub presence. This post covers it well :

http://edwardwrobertson.com/self-publishing/followup-self-publishings-share-of-the-kindle-market-by-genre/

But the tough part here is identifying your real competition, not the shapeshifter-gaybear stories that people shoehorn in because Amazon is lovely at categorizing.

So lets check out an actual book like yours (maybe.)

http://www.amazon.com/Throne-Glass-Book-ebook/dp/B007N6JEII/ref=zg_bs_10368509011_2

Its been out for three years, has an awesome sales rank (#50) and is in a few bestsellers. Remember those, it's where you'll list your novel later. Also, scroll to the very bottom and check out the "Look for similiar items by category" area, that's all of your categories. Ignore the reviews for the most part. This fucker is selling, and selling hot. Book #3, released a year ago, is still ranked #1000. This is a good one to look at for research.

The blurb is good. It nails the story immediately. No bullshit. 416 pages. Not bad, a bit long for my taste, but that's genre dependent. Now start going through the "also bought" list and seeing how they all compare. Lots of similar, well done, covers. Don't show up with a shitshow of a cover. At the very least spend $40 and get one from goonwrite, or hit up ravenkult for a good one. If you come to this genre with a turd like cover you're wasting your time. My niche tolerates some horribly bad covers, but this one doesn't.

Now look for an author like you in that list. Self pubbed, similar price point (low, $2,99) with a decent sized catalog. Her, for example, http://www.amazon.com/Grace-Draven/e/B005E9VYRK/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1 . Then keep expanding, know that niche. If it doesn't sound like what you write, then find what is. You'll see certain authors keep popping up, emulate them.

Then write the best story you can, have it edited professionally if you can afford, and publish it. Immediately start on the next. You'll feel on the rocks, #1 will start selling like poo poo, then hit #2. Rinse. Repeat. Every time you do that your back catalog will crank up a little bit. But remember, it's all about a good story. If you don't have that, nothing else matters.

It's a lot to take in, lemme know if you have questions. I've got 6 novels out, been at it for nearly 2 years now. Five of the six did well, one was a lovely seller, I just broke even on it. Not until books #5 and #6 did I feel like I was doing well. Before that it was a roller coaster ride. I've taken a break for the summer and am getting my kid ready for school. That's stressful enough, but I started writing again today and hope to get one more novel out this year.

Just set a goal and do it. Once the novel is written goons can help you hone your blurb and cover.

Now go. Write.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2015 03:19

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

Yah, it's worth pointing out that I don't do this full time. My day job is as an engineer, I write in the mornings before work, during break, lunch, and after work. In the two years or so doing it I've made enough that I could have survived on my writing. Instead I've taken some nice vacations, made some investments, and am looking at the Mr. Mustache Method.

As far as distilling how much every word is worth : Don't. It's not a quantifiable number. You can write a 100k book and it might never sell. You can write a dozen 100k books that never sell. People do it all the time. But if you don't write all of those books you won't run the risk of actually succeeding. My first three did OK, then my fourth was a flop. A big time flop. Fat guy in a pool of mayonnaise belly flop. Instead I looked at what I did wrong and wrote my 5th novel that peaked at like #180. My 6th (sequel to the 5th) did better than my first 4. You just gotta keep at it.

Just write. Get better at writing. Learn why you failed. Learn the craft.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2015 12:43

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

Meh. I'm just not feeling the original.

The goal isn't to explain the story in a nutshell but to make someone buy the book. Hit em in the gut, make it visceral, drop the details, they'll find those out soon enough.

yooper posted:

It's 2044. Maria Perez-Castillo, the daughter of a Mexican millionaire, is brutally kidnapped in the middle of her 16th birthday party. The only suspect: an artificial nanny, a superhuman constructed to serve.

Eloy Layer, a veteran of the Texas Secession War, is the only man that can find her deep in Mexico. All he has is his cybernetic implant, a giant metal X grafted onto the back of his skull, and his steely will. Then his investigation collides with the beautiful Galatea, also searching for the girl.

Now they must find her among the cartels, criminals, cults, and corruption. But is it just a kidnapping, or a conspiracy to ignite another war that would make Texas burn?

Is this book strictly in Spanish? You should do a translated version too.

The cover lacks depth, this is a good place for man walking into the distance kind of cover.

Yooper fucked around with this message at 03:17 on Sep 16, 2015

# ¿ Sep 16, 2015 03:13

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

That's a super bummer dude.

What software did you use?

My routine involves saving to dropbox, then doing a daily backup on the local machine. Scrivener handles both with just a click.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2015 12:39

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

Sundae posted:

Don't care either way. I just want to read something new IN SPACE!

Soon I'll have another science fiction novel out and I'll provide a special edition Goon copy just for you! (And any other goon)

I've been doing keyword research and it's fairly well amazing how much super romance is slotted right next to military science fiction.

Space marines just aren't what they used to be I guess.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2015 00:40

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

Perma free, how does it stand right now?

The last time I explored it one had to publish to D2D, set price to zero, and then spam Amazon with "it's cheaper here!" button.

Does this still stand?

# ¿ Sep 18, 2015 16:36

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

How has the Free Ranking held up long term?

I'm seeing some novels with serious permafree sticking power. Pretty encouraging stuff.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2015 19:37

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

I too use Scrivener and love it. Well worth the money, in fact I bought a second copy for my wife. Now that I think of it I have three copies now, another on a laptop.

Word of warning, it doesn't play well with Google Drive or Onecloud. I use Dropbox and don't have any issues.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2015 12:57

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

Anyone had a Booksend promo lately? Happy with the results?

I've got one coming in about a month.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2015 16:13

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

That's the one I picked up this time. We'll see how it goes.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2015 17:32

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

Jalumibnkrayal posted:

^^^- For what it's worth, someone on another forum was very upset with Booksends because they're acting like a middleman for PoI I guess. The person booked a promo with PoI and Booksends accepted their payment and told them they were good to go. The day of the promo Booksends tells them that PoI rejected their promo and refunded them.

It's interesting you mentioned that because I started out looking at PoI, then was redirected to Booksends.. So far everything has been handled by Booksends. I'm assuming I've got both, as I paid for both, and was invoiced for both.

This is on Pixel of Inks website -

edit : It feels like someone bought a mailing list and is melding it into one service.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2015 18:05

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

This novel literally opens up with the death of thousands of sailors and marines as the starship crashes. The survivors are slowly freezing to death in a barren wasteland. That's all cool I guess, but say gently caress and I've gone too far.

quote:

"We train young men to drop fire on people. But their commanders won't allow them to write "gently caress" on their airplanes because it's obscene!" - Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now

# ¿ Sep 28, 2015 02:24

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

I do believe excessive melting is a problem in our society today and good fiction doesn't dramatize or sensationalize melting.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2015 17:34

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

Blurb check, whatcha guys think?

quote:

War has raged between the Terran Union and the alien Qin for over twenty years. The humans are masters on the ground, the Qin rule the stars. It's a stalemate where neither side is able to defeat the other. Then in the Summer System, the first to fall to the Qin, the Terran Union invades with the largest military force ever assembled. 50 Million Troops. An Armada of starships. An operation that must succeed.

Captain Gavin Mcloud, son of the SkyMarshall leading the invasion, is the Commanding Officer of the 5th Rangers. Fifteen years before the Qin slaughtered his mother and took both his brother and sister. Now he's out for revenge and must drop into the mountains and secure an orbital defense battery. But instead of the inept Qin, armored humans are fighting back, and fighting back hard.

Just then Jack Cook, Xeno-Engineer, manages to hack the entire planetary defense grid. He accidentally makes himself and Captain McCloud the key to using the defenses. But not all is as it seems, and soon the entire invasion hangs in the balance. And the Qin haven't even arrived with their fleet.

Can the invasion succeed when they face human defenders, the most dangerous predator of all?

# ¿ Oct 2, 2015 19:27

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

Thanks for the feedback guys, it just wasn't ringing with me either.

But I tell yah, I walk away for 8 hours and I come back to the Readers Digest version.

kitten posted:

COULD IT BE HIS MISSING FAMILY SHOOTING AT HIM?

I like yours archangel, it fits the bill quite well.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2015 13:54

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

I don't feel so bad about the two stars for swearing review now.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2015 15:43

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

If going perma free use the Contact Us link in KDP. The whole "tell us about a cheaper price" didn't do poo poo.

KDP Customer Support matched my price about 3 hours after I emailed them with a list of where it was cheaper.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2015 14:48

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

6:14 - Started KDP process. Filled in text, basics.
6:16 - Uploaded manuscript. Realized I forgot to make coffee.
6:19 - Coffee brewing. KDP found some spell checks. Gotta fix that poo poo.
6:23 - Uploaded manuscript again. Added keywords. Blurb. Categories.
6:24 - Decided KDP's pricing algorithm is mentally handicapped.
6:26 - Inspected prices on other best selling scifi. Yup. I'm in line.
6:28 - Hit publish.
6:32 - Drinking coffee.
6:37 - Start on Mailchimp. I'm using template from last newsletter.
6:41 - Done. Need to wait until KDP gives me an ASIN until I can send out the newsletter.
6:55 - Go to day job.

This is all I do when I publish a new novel. As far as promotions I'll hit it on Twitter and the newsletter. That's it. I don't discount on day one. There's no promotion you can do that'll be worth your money.

magnificient7, I've done this eight times now. There's nothing a book manager can do that you can't do yourself. They don't have any secrets. You can do this man.

Here's the cover.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2015 13:17

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

magnificent7 posted:

Thanks for this, and I get it. But was your first book published in less than an hour, including coffee? I'm sure I'll get there.

Yes. In fact less as I had no mailing list at that point.

There's only so much you can do. But there's a lot, and I mean a lot of people who try to sell you on doing much much more.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2015 18:26

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

You really should do this right now. ravenkult does same damned cool covers.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2015 16:43

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

brotherly posted:

I was doing this for a while, back when I wasn't good at motivating! It definitely works.

Same here. I found it quite useful to get the words started. Once I committed to that 25 minutes then I found it all went smoothly. But man, sometimes the words were like pulling teeth.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2015 02:21

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

Question about Amazon ads.

There's the ad that appears on someone elses product, right below the pricing on the right, or the list that appears just below the also-boughts.

Then there's another style that appears on a keyword search.

I know how to create my own ad that's beneath the pricing, through Amazon Marketing Services. But the other Sponsored links takes me to Amazon SellerCentral where nothing seems to function the same.

How do I add my book to those sponsored lists?

# ¿ Nov 19, 2015 13:43

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

Sundae posted:

Long story short: You can't unless you're part of the lucky few. Those ads are in small group testing right now and are only open to trad pubs, a select set of KDP users, and people who gave Amazon waaaaay too much money for their personalized marketing campaigns. If you have permission to do it, it'll show up under "Promote and Advertise", then go to the advertising tab, and then you'll have a ratio box for advertising by keyword. If you only have product and interest, then you do not have access to those ads.

Thanks Sundae! That answers that.

Though it makes you wonder about the viability, I mean if we're already adding keywords this just puts the book into a bidding war. Which I guess makes Amazon more money, so, welp, answered my own thought. This is starting to feel like the company store....

# ¿ Nov 19, 2015 16:21

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

LowellDND posted:

More precisely, I have ~375k words in TG, and am ramping up to get to 500k (mil scifi). My understanding is that packaging it in 20k serials would be the most optimal, but I am open to advice Im a disabled vet and rent is no issue, any sales would be beer money/student loans or whatever.

Yo, I do milscifi and I'm not aware of any serials that are rocking it. Look at the top milscifi guys and no one is doing 10k serials. Everyone is doing 70k-100k per novel series.

Not saying you won't sell well, but you may discover more impact with a traditional length story.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2015 02:54

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

Over the weekend I re-read Save the Cat. Since we're seeing some new interest I thought I'd highlight this book.

It's designed for movies/screenplays but all of his story cues, plot points, and requirements match a good novel. I use his beat sheet and Weilands outline for all of my plotting. Between the two it makes for a nice template that tells you what emotions/problem style you need to have. It's so very nice to sit down and know that I have a thousand words to build a conflict that gets handled in a few thousand more.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2015 16:44

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

RedTonic posted:

Yooper! I've been meaning to ask you -- are you using any promo services for your sf work or are you steamrolling the market on name recognition now? I've got a fantasy piece I'll probably push Q1 2016 and I'm looking for more targeted promo/ad services.

The only promo service that I found to be worthwhile was Bookbub. So my last two releases have been just from my mailing list and name recognition. One did really well (~350 rank), the other broke even but didn't hit as well (~1900 best rank) as I'd hoped.

There's just not the promo stuff out there for my genre like for romance. Mailing list is absolutely critical. Like laser beam with a fusion powered suit of titanium armor critical.

If it's a steamroller it is a very small one. Maybe a sidewalk roller.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2015 17:32

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

The artwork is cool, but yah, thats like Esienhorns girlfriend or something.

If your book doesn't sell, or just sells a little bit, you'll be fine. But what happens when you crack the top 100 on Amazon and some attorney at Games Workshop HQ sees it? That's lawyer porn. They can fight it, and they know you have money. If the rights are questionable you potentially hamstring yourself into a really lovely place.

I know a few milscifi authors, myself included, will write a few stand alones to judge whats selling well. I alternate between books in a series, a couple of stand alones, then back to the series. If the standalones sell well, then they turn into a series. If they don't, well, then it's back to the drawing board.

In your case you've got a monster. I'd do whatever you can to make sure the first book/novella/series is awesome, compelling, emotional, and makes me want to read more. If it sells well a decent cover will be a minor cost with huge benefits.

Always assume you'll make $10k a month on one book, and invest in it as such (cover, editor, etc.). If you don't, you definitely won't hit $10k a month.

LowellDND posted:

It would certainly be cheaper that way, and there are some natural breaks around those areas. My readers were concerned that if I made a big slab of a book and it didn't sell, it would be more disheartening than having ~20 products. Although making 3 larger books and slabbing together for an omnibus does have appeal.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2015 16:09

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

I used to see a list of games I play. Now I add the hours, multiply by 1,000, and divide by 80,000.

Yah, that's 5 novels right there. Hell, CK2 is worth 2 novels.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2015 13:42

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

All of my poo poo has been pirated on some pretty shady looking sites. It doesn't bother me, not much can be done about.

As long as it's not being pirated on Amazon, or some other legitimate storefront then I'd put it out of your mind.

# ¿ Dec 21, 2015 17:19

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

I put in for a Bookbub a week ago. A few days later I received a survey from Bookbub that wanted to know how my previous release did. Sales in the first day, first week, first month, etc. I filled it out and about an hour later got my rejection notice.

The survey could have been a coincidence, but man, that timing sure is suspect.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2016 16:20

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

For anyone on the fence with Scrivener you can get it at Tested's website for $22.50. Hit the drop-down menu to select the PC version. It's well worth the money.

https://store.tested.com/sales/scrivener-2-for-os-x

# ¿ Apr 13, 2016 19:59

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# ¿ May 20, 2024 01:26

Yooper: Apr 30, 2012

I'd recommend exploring Draft2Digital for your iBook fix.

https://www.draft2digital.com/partners/

# ¿ Jun 5, 2016 14:20

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > Self-Publishing Goons: Yep, people buy it!

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