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Will Wight, self-published author of Cradle fame, hit the #1 bestseller list on the whole Amazon Kindle store (not just his category) for 24 hours or so this week with the release of Wintersteel (Cradle Book 8). It's still at #4 right now. He's done some posts on his blog and on Reddit regarding his process and business model that I've found very informative:
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Oct 9, 2020 02:28
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angel opportunity posted:This doesn't mean I am disdainful of my readers or anything. It just means I'm writing something that I'm not the target audience for. I try really hard to put my own voice into this stuff and get elements in there that I appreciate myself (usually humor, for example, even if it's not a "comedy") but I am always hyper-conscious of what the readers actually want to read This is an entire lecture on how to be a commercially successful author crammed into a single eloquent post. Thank you so much for sharing your advice, especially on how to write stuff that doesn't necessarily appeal to you as a reader but still have fun doing it and putting your own spin on things. Also happens to be extremely timely advice for NaNoWriMo!
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Nov 4, 2020 00:04
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How rough are we talking? Have you done a self editing pass through it already? Have you tried getting feedback on it from a few trusted people? What are you looking for help with? Macro stuff (structure, plot, character) or micro stuff (prose, copy editing, proof reading)?
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Jan 20, 2021 07:46
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Sounds like you're looking for somebody to go over the prose. From the fiction writing advice thread OP:Dr. Kloctopussy posted:EDITING Since you're doing a translation, it sounds like you're after a line edit: Dr. Kloctopussy posted:There are more detailed styles of crits, as well! There's a few editors listed in the OP that you could try as a starting point. Not sure of what your budget is, but editors will charge either by the word, page or hour. As a starting point, you might want to post a sample in the crit thread first just to see what the feedback is like and whether it's within your ability to address. If so, it would probably be worth it to do a second pass through and address the feedback before you spring money for an editor to comb through the whole thing.
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Jan 20, 2021 12:23
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Breath Ray posted:Someone mentioned blogspot was the best option for their own website as it's easy to use and the customisation wasnt hidden behind a paywall. But this was about 7 years ago, sooooo for your personal sites, do you still use blogspot or is there another game in town? There are loads of options with free plans:
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Mar 28, 2021 02:06
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Wordpress.com runs the same software as self-hosting your own install of Wordpress, with the bonus of it always being up to date. SEO-wise, unless you're competing for the first page of Google search results for a highly contested search term, there's gonna be minimal difference. What will matter more is your web page copy, rather than where your website is hosted. Note if you don't buy your own URL, your website will be at yoursitename.wordpress.com as a subdomain of Wordpress–functionally this is just more annoying for readers to type, but most people are gonna Google you, or click a link from your ebook, so  if you don't want to spend the $10/year it doesn't matter that much.Embedding videos, etc comes down to whether you're uploading it to your website, or if you're going to upload to YouTube (or similar) and then share embed on your website. Either way will work on most if not all places, though hosting videos on YouTube is better because sometimes your videos can get new eyeballs (and therefore you might get new fans) due to the YouTube Recommended videos or the Autoplay algorithms.
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Mar 28, 2021 17:14
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Has anyone here done a self-published children's picture book for the 0-5 age range? I'm almost done with one (the last pages and back cover will be finished tomorrow) so getting ready to dive into the marketing side of it. It's a bilingual rhyming story book (i.e. it rhymes in both languages) that is like a cross between the Oliver Jeffers picture books, the Belle Yang picture books and Dr Seuss, aimed specifically at the bilingual parents living abroad. The most similar kind of self-published title I can see is the Mina Learns Chinese series. So far, I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos from people self-publishing children's picture books, but wanted to see if anyone had thoughts on the following: 1. Is IngramSpark still the default go to or is KDP better? 2. Has anyone done a kids' ebook or audiobook*? I was originally planning to do print-only given it's aimed at such young kids but since the main point of the book is to learn the language, an audiobook seemed like it might be worthwhile? The bilingual aspect of the book makes it kind of weird though, like do I do one audio book per language or a combined version? And on the ebook side, we're signed up for Zoom language lessons and a lot of the kids are dialled in to the lesson on iPads so potentially an eBook version might be worth it. 3. Related to #2, has anyone done a self-published board book? Neither IngramSpark nor Amazon do board books, the random Googling I've done indicates most people self-publishing board books are either raising funds on Kickstarter/Indiegogo* or taking the risk of holding inventory themselves. Someone had good things to say about this place: https://hangtongprinting.en.alibaba....6fa226c0Pz2JI4 which incidentally also has the lowest minimum order quantity (100 units) *Sanderson's illustrator is in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign for a lift-the-flap board book: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/izykstewart/monsters-dont-wear-underpants/description As part of the Kickstarter campaign video, they got Michael Kramer and Kate Reading to do a reading of just a digital version of the book. Since I've got such a niche market, I was planning on doing promotions mainly through Facebook groups, YouTube and a few bloggers rather than the typical routes, which meant that I was also debating just doing a YouTube read through of the book as a promotional thing. Leng fucked around with this message at 13:09 on Mar 29, 2021 |
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Mar 29, 2021 12:35
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divabot posted:In print quality? Kindle Print (and CreateSpace before it) literally use IngramSpark as their printer in the UK, so it'll be the same here, and I presume comparable quality elsewhere. Ah, now that I didn't know. Further research seems to indicate I should just do both (https://selfpublishingadvice.org/use-both-kdp-print-and-ingram-spark-together/ so I guess I will be doing that. Especially because apparently Amazon hates Australia  so that sucks for me.Today I started reaching out for beta readers via Facebook groups. I was looking for 10 and got almost 70 responses in under 2 hours...and the sign ups are still coming in (tempted to cut it off but I'll let it run until the end of the week so I can collect more prospects). I'm a little floored that there's been such positive interest; I'm gonna pick 10 based on random number generator I guess and reach out to the rest on launch day with a discount code for their trouble. I almost wasn't going to try for beta readers because I made the noob mistake of thinking "ah crap that's all too hard, I should just throw it up, post a link and see what happens" which is the stupidest thought process ever. Thankfully, the number of things to complete on web forms were overwhelming enough that I decided creating a sign up survey for beta readers would be easier instead. I'm really glad I did, because now I have some detailed answers to my earlier questions.
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Mar 31, 2021 12:38
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D-Pad posted:What FB groups do you like? I had joined a couple and they were really bad. It isn't a writing or reading oriented FB group, it's a couple of FB groups full of my target audience members (and I'm one myself). I joined the groups way before I ever thought of writing the book, because the struggle to raise a bilingual kid in a predominantly English speaking country is real. There's constant chatter about bilingual picture books (which for Cantonese is an underserved niche) and how to get them because they are really hard to source. On top of all that, I really wanted to get some bilingual picture books for my daughter that were, you know, actual interesting stories, not just a vocab book in disguise. Then I realized I could just...write one and so I did. I spent today sending out a PDF copy to beta readers and partially setting up my website (so Script Frenzy is going to have to wait  ) and tomorrow's task is to reach out to the Cantonese language YouTubers who target mainly English speakers to see if they'd like an ARC in exchange for doing a YouTube review or something.On Wordpress chat: I set this one up on NearlyFreeSpeech using the WP-CLI (WordPress Command Line Interface) method and it was pretty easy. Now I'm in the middle of customizing my theme and writing the web copy (like not even the blurb, I finished writing the blurb at the beginning of this week). EDIT: Oh and mailing list sign-ups. I was going to do a Mailchimp except they need a real physical address so now I have to organize a PO box before I can do that. Which is a distraction from the main stuff so I'm just getting individual permission through various Google Forms right now. There's a Google Sheets Mail Merge thing you can do with Gmail which is how I sent out my book to beta readers and the daily quota on Gmail is 100 recipients so I figure until I can hold out a little longer before I do all the PO box stuff. Then I will migrate it over to Mailchimp just in time for the launch so I can send a proper launch newsletter with Amazon links and asking people for reviews. Still debating whether I should get people to do pre-orders. I have heard that pre-orders are good because they all count as sales on release day. But what sucks is if I could get a decent amount of pre-orders then instead of doing POD through IngramSpark I would just order a bigger run to be shipped to me and then organize shipping separately. But maybe that would be a logistical nightmare in itself. You know what, forget it I think I just talked myself out of doing that. I should just concentrate on launching the first book properly and iterate for the next one. Leng fucked around with this message at 07:56 on Apr 1, 2021 |
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Apr 1, 2021 07:50
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D-Pad posted:Honestly this sounds like something that could do really well on Kickstarter. Publishing projects for underserved communities or subjects tend to do well on there and you only have to print whatever you sell. I have thought about that and will probably do a Kickstarter for a board book edition if the other editions do well. The downsides to a Kickstarter is a) I would have to organize all of the fulfilment logistics myself which sucks and b) there wouldn't be a presence on the main book selling channels. The good thing about my market is in theory I should have a long tail of sales post launch, because there are always bilingual people having kids and appropriate books are hard to find when you live overseas.
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Apr 2, 2021 11:52
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Camo Guitar posted:How recently did this kick in? I'm also here in Aus and had author copies come in last month. Perhaps it's outdated info? The comments in the link were as recent as Nov 2020 so I thought maybe it might be applicable. Also I am now going through the book building process on IngramSpark and  why is the 203mm x 203mm trim size no longer available to be selected? Like it is listed as an available trim size on their site. The only other square format available is 216mm x 216mm and I did not size everything for that.If I have to bloody redraw all of the illustrations...  EDIT: wow okay the more you know, if you go through IngramSpark's book builder tool, you can only select 8.5" x 8.5" (203mm x 203mm) trim size. And also it only accepts .docx formats. avoid the book builder tool.EDIT EDIT: okay, finally got things to work far out I should create a YouTube tutorial on how to do this for picture books because wow it was confusing. Anyway, 3 hours of wrangling with Scribus and Calibre later, I managed to get my print and epub files ready to go. Question for the thread: how many of you joined up with https://www.allianceindependentauthors.org/member-benefits/ ? The free set up and revision on IngramSparks looks like it'd be worth alone, assuming I stick to my plan of putting out at least another one of these books in the next year. Is it worth getting one of the higher tier membership levels or is the associate one just fine? Leng fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Apr 3, 2021 |
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Apr 3, 2021 12:39
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Alright what gives?! I just tried to order an author proof to my Australian address and got the "sorry we can't ship to this address" message. Are you guys ordering actual author copies or the proof?
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Apr 6, 2021 03:37
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But doesn't that screw around with your launch plans? Do you stealth publish it, order author copies, then immediately take the book down until you get them, fix any issues, then put it back up on your planned release date and then do your promos from there?! What is also bizarre is that we could get author copies but not proof copies, that makes no sense at all. I'm now considering just doing the paperback through Ingram Spark as well, despite the horrible interface. At least I shouldn't have issues getting proofs from IS.
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Apr 7, 2021 06:09
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Plot twist! The first author proof went poof after 24 hours without being able to check it out. I set up a ShopMate account after a few hours poring over the other options and resigned myself to paying more money to get the thing shipped over. While I'm waiting for the second author proof link to show up, I go over to IngramSpark to uploading new files because their cover file instructions are completely unclear and also because I picked up a mistake I made on the interior file while reviewing it on the KDP online proofer. Lo and behold, the IngramSpark website is messing up big time, in that it refuses to load the revision fee information at all. Like where that information should be is just a giant blank on the website. The source code itself hasn't loaded either. Great. I'm not clicking on that, when I shouldn't be paying anything since I have a valid code that would waive the fee. Meanwhile, I check my email and click the link to add the new KDP proof to my cart and this time, it gives me the global shipping option at $8 USD. well no complaints here, then. I checked that out quick smart before Amazon could change its mind again.Now I am back to hating IngramSpark's entire user experience.  I did not expect the actual publication process to be MORE painful than the process of writing and illustrating the book itself.
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Apr 7, 2021 13:21
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Alright, back with more questions! Based on new data coming in, it seems like the majority of my target customers buy either from Amazon (in which case they'll most likely order the KDP paperback over the ebook), or direct from the publisher (i.e. me). Reading up on IngramSpark's vaunted "distribution" into actual bookstores seems like it's not that accurate and also not that beneficial (you would have to set royalty at 55% AND allow returns AND they won't ship returns to Australia so the only option for returned stock is destruction ).HOWEVER, the majority still prefer reading in hardcover. So right now I'm thinking of ordering small batches of author copies and selling hardcovers directly through my own website. Since it's such a niche audience, I think I'd have more luck selling directly. Has anyone done something similar? If so, what are you using for the ecommerce side of it (WooCommerce, Shopify, Wix, etc)? I'm looking at Ecwid currently as they have a free plan (https://www.ecwid.com/pricing) which would suit me fine since I won't need anything more complicated.
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Apr 9, 2021 15:12
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n8r posted:Where are you pulling the information about people buying directly from a publisher? I seriously doubt most people even know who the publisher of a particular book is. Having the infrastructure / volume to justify hardcover seems beyond the means of most self pub. You really should just stick with kdp/Ingram (with 55% and returnable). Yeah that's what I initially thought until I went and did some research (direct survey responses and actual observation). Bilingual books are hard to find and source overseas. Most big name book stores just don't carry them because it's not worth for them as they cater to a primarily English speaking audience. Group buys direct from publisher are a regular occurrence on Facebook groups. When people ask for book recommendations, most give links to Amazon or publisher websites, with an occasional shout out to bloggers who make book lists. What's your experience been like with 55% and returnable in getting books into stores? My recent lurking in the Ingram community is turning up a lot of stories about how despite having 55% and returnable, authors aren't able to get their books stocked (granted most are talking about Barnes & Noble where apparently there's a corporate policy against stocking POD titles?).
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Apr 10, 2021 01:15
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If the dropcap is being done using CSS to float the first letter left and make it big, then the LOOK INSIDE might be playing havoc with it and overriding it. Dropcaps can be hit and miss.
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Apr 13, 2021 13:14
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My week so far: Monday Went through beta reader comments. Unfortunately, they confirmed two main flaws that I thought were there but didn't fix because  .Tuesday Gritted my teeth and fixed both of the main flaws, i.e. rewriting sections of the text and then laying out the new text, then reformatting all of the pages for all the different formats. Wednesday Upload new revisions for hard cover and epub to IngramSpark. Epub was created by using the Kindle Kids' Book Creator, then converted from mobi using Calibre. Stupidly assume it's gonna be fine because it was like 3 AM Thursday Look at ebook with new eyes. Amazon's stupid rescaling of images makes everything illegible. Experiment with adding popups. Decide popups suck. Create ebook AGAIN, this time with individual pages as pages instead of spreads as pages. Spend hours trying to pass epubcheck. Try out draft to digital, except they basically don't help and their proof version actually makes something that was correct worse. Realize that this means the version on IngramSpark will probably have issues and that they will distribute the same file to everybody. Realize this means I need to distribute to each place myself, and create separate epub specific to those formats. And that I need to yank ebook distribution back from IngramSpark (I had already opted out of distribution to Amazon before but now I need to yank it from them entirely) and that you have to do this by contacting their customer service team directly (and their response times are abysmal). I freaking hate this part of the process and can totally understand why authors would opt to outsource this pain entirely. No wonder there are so many ebooks about how to self-publish and make ebooks etc etc etc. I just want to go back to planning out the next two books in the series.  Right now I don't even know if I want to set up a second paperback version on IngramSpark for Australian customers only (since KDP will apparently ship paperbacks from their US printer instead of...just printing in Australia via a partner) because I am so sick of wrangling with all of these back end platforms. I will probably be less upset when I get my KDP proof next week. I hope. Maybe. But just the thought of it is again making me think I should just set up the paperback on IngramSpark so I can get and compare the proofs at the same time, since IngramSpark takes forever to process a title.
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Apr 15, 2021 07:41
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Ccs posted:That sounds like hell. As an amateur front end web developer, I can say that this is exactly like trying to ensure cross browser compatibility and standards compliant code when IE6 was the most widely used browser. divabot posted:full post of all the dumb poo poo I did, written as a reference to myself for next time Your article was one that I referred to over and over again during the course of the ebook saga. I kept not going through with your solution, because I hoped that someone ELSE would have solved the problem for picture books but I may have to end up doing what you did. Also in other website chat (because I'm now just sitting waiting for meta data to update and IS to give me my eproofs), I found a really good free Wordpress theme today: https://rarathemesdemo.com/author-landing-page/ It is great if you specialize in one type of books (like I am currently doing) and is well documented (https://docs.rarathemes.com/docs/author-landing-page/faqs/how-to-configure-footer-credit-settings/) on how to customize. My website now looks so much better than it did before and I'm glad I spent the afternoon fixing it up, because literally as I was putting the final touches on the book's product page, someone posted in a Facebook group asking for books exactly like the one I've written. I have a mailing list sign up on that very page for people to be notified when the book comes out so here's hoping I can add some more emails to my list, in hopes of getting on that Amazon Best Sellers list on launch day.
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Apr 16, 2021 08:27
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Are you doing any additional promotion of your own? I haven't reread your published version but I did flip to the back and noticed you didn't include any links to a website of your own or a mailing list. Your Twitter handle was mentioned but almost as an aside. I'm currently in the midst of prepping for my own launch while my proofs are stuck with KDP and Ingram, so curious as to what you're doing. Though as I type I've literally just logged in and noticed both of them are cleared! Yay! On the other hand, something I just learned is that if you have a foreign language title, you are boned if you want to change it halfway through the process. Thorpe-Bowker's system chokes on Chinese characters so it just shows up as "???????" in the records. Chinese characters show up fine in both Ingram and KDP, but KDP won't accept a title change if it doesn't match Thorpe-Bowker records exactly, which it never will because of the aforementioned choke issue. There wasn't a problem if I set up the book title first before assigning the ISBN though! I need to make more calls this week to speak with someone who can figure this out and see if the system can be overridden. Otherwise I guess I go paperback with Ingram only, which will suck for KDP distribution. At least Chinese characters in titles works fine in Ingram, who have leapfrogged KDP again now. I wonder which of them I'll love/hate more at the end of this process. EDIT: Wow, ok, KDP hate confirmed, back to liking Ingram:
 I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that if you plan on self-publishing in print, you should just do Ingram and screw KDP. Maybe I'll change my mind again next week. Leng fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Apr 17, 2021 |
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Apr 17, 2021 12:16
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Congrats, that's awesome!quote:Best Sellers Rank: #72 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store) Still riding at the top for Epic Fantasy and your other category, that's a nice achievement!
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Apr 18, 2021 13:14
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So this popped up on my feed today: https://www.amazon.com/b?node=21613975011&ref=tsm_1_tw_s__4743373791&linkId=116620400 Kindle Vella sounds like KDP trying to get in on WattPad/Royal Road action. Is anyone planning to experiment with this?
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Apr 20, 2021 11:09
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Amazon is abandoning .mobi as of the end of June this year: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200634390 And of course this is going to happen after my launch date.
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Apr 23, 2021 22:56
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Fixed, because children's book. But it would have been nice to just fiddle with ONE format instead of multiple. At this point I'm not even sure it's worth doing ebooks for all the major platforms; I'm tempted to just throw a PDF up on my own website and sell it direct. At least the PDF would display properly regardless of device.
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Apr 24, 2021 22:22
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Adobe is the developer of the format but these days it's pretty ubiquitous after it was standardized as an ISO in 2008 (so Adobe don't get royalties off people using the format anymore). The main issue is PDFs are perfect for fixed layouts on larger displays, since they're essentially printer files, but technically ebooks should be reflowable and optimized for smaller displays. Most ereaders will choke on a PDF, or if they display it, it will be an annoying reading experience full of scrolling or repeatedly pinching to zoom in and out. In other news, the last round of my proofs have come in! I got an early proof from KDP, plus a paperback and a hard cover from IngramSpark. Gotta say, IngramSpark wins this round:
Still need yet another revision because I picked up errors when looking at the proof. But better now than post launch!
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Apr 26, 2021 13:10
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In my ongoing saga:
EDIT: I hate marketing and publicity. Since I ran into technical issues with setting up ebooks, I spent the rest of this afternoon reaching out to bloggers, YouTubers and Instagram influencers. I swear writing the outreach emails are harder than writing the book. Leng fucked around with this message at 08:09 on Apr 27, 2021 |
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Apr 27, 2021 06:13
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Today is an exciting update! Preorder links are starting to go up at various retailers (Amazon of course, Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, Kinokuniya, Dymocks), but there are weird glitches due to metadata lag:
In other exciting news, I've heard back from 4 out of 5 of the bloggers I've reached out to. 1 isn't interested, but recommended 2 of the others on my list, 1 hasn't responded, and the other 3 have agreed to do a review, though 1 of those 3 are backed up with projects and doesn't have a definite timing on when the review will happen. The other 2 are US-based so I'm going to organise for IngramSpark to ship those copies now, but worryingly, the only shipping option I've got is "Basic", which IngramSpark says has no tracking available but the IngramSpark community at large insists that all levels of shipping in the US have tracking despite what IngramSpark's own documentation claims. back to hating the stupidity and confusion of the IngramSpark interface.EDIT: welp, for whatever bizarro reason, after submitting the order for the first US reviewer using "Basic" shipping, I now have other shipping options for the second reviewer. There's just no rhyme or reason to IngramSpark's interface.My book's metadata has also finally hit Goodreads for the hardcover, which means I can now claim my Goodreads author page. We're getting close to the 2 week mark prior to publication date which means I need to start planning out a social media blitz. I hate social media and I never know what to post, so this is going to be fun like having my eyes gouged out during a root canal. Leng fucked around with this message at 13:33 on Apr 29, 2021 |
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Apr 29, 2021 06:25
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I hate Amazon so much. Preorder links that were working are now suddenly showing as temporarily out of stock. WHHHHY. Also the IngramSpark author copy shipping options are ridiculous. I'm in the process of getting physical copies out to my beta readers and it is actually ending up to be cheaper to order them copies off Amazon or Barnes & Noble or Book Depository, etc than to order them an author copy from IngramSpark. Don't get me wrong, the unit cost is cheaper, but by the time you add in the processing fee, handling, then the actual shipping cost, the only shipping option that would make the total cost cheaper is selecting the basic non-tracking non-insurable option, at which point I might as well just buy it on Amazon or wherever else so I at least get the royalty while also getting tracking. Also also this experience has definitely confirmed that I do not want to hassle around with fulfilment myself. Ugh.
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Apr 30, 2021 03:24
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In all fairness, the majority of my problems are because I'm doing a children's book which requires print formats and fixed ebook layouts. If I were self publishing genre fiction I'd probably be done by now and even on costs. I did my own illustrations and cover (only because I could get away with that kind of simple art style for a kids book) but shipping ARCs and beta read reward copies probably cost the same amount as hiring a good cover artist/designer. Marketing would still be the same headache. I spent all day today setting up a proper mailing list in preparation for a launch eblast. I ended up ditching the WP Newsletter plugin and going for Sendinblue over Mailchimp because the free plan is better. Still can't get my email on my domain working properly, but is finally an issues that's unrelated to KDP and Ingram Spark so I'll take the variety.  But yeah, don't let my rants put you off self-publishing!
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Apr 30, 2021 15:50
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Leng posted:Today is an exciting update! Preorder links are starting to go up at various retailers (Amazon of course, Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, Kinokuniya, Dymocks), but there are weird glitches due to metadata lag: Further update which I feel I need to post as a PSA because I've been freaking out about this over the whole weekend: The preorder pages on Amazon are fine. There is no issue. People I've been sending to the preorder page can preorder, no problem. The "issue" was a bad user interface design on the Amazon product page, on every major market other than the CA store, which had the default behavior I expected. Namely, when your shipping location is set to a location other than the country of that store, it still shows you the pre-order button, but there is red/warning text telling you that the product does not ship to your selected location. Sensible right? Well apparently some front end developer at Amazon disagreed, because the default behavior on the US/UK/AU stores is that if your delivery location is set to something other than the store's country, then it will take away the preorder button and tell you that the item is "Temporarily out of stock". On a preorder item. Which nobody has in stock, because the point of a preorder is for the retailer to collect preorders for an item that is not yet in stock so they can in turn place a bulk order with the wholesaler in advance of the release date. Thus causing me to freak out over the weekend and make a lot of customer service reps unhappy with my frustration. I only figured it out because I started contacting customer service in every location because there is no single team that looks after this and the KDP team won't touch it if you're publishing via IngramSpark. Not that any of the customer service reps were able to put two and two together either.
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May 3, 2021 14:39
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Ccs posted:Not the most user friendly bit of UI design. Speaking of, I now have a new target of frustration and rage: Apple. It seems I am not the only one experiencing this weird script error with Apple and Apple IDs being deemed not active and therefore the iTunesConnect set up process choking: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252527782 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252586742 The applebooks@apple.com email is useless - they just send back an email parroting the error message you already have and telling you to activate your Apple ID (without realizing that the reason you're contacting them is because there's nothing to indicate that your Apple ID is inactive, particularly as you can login, etc without issue). Also it will take 3-5 days for them to reply. The online chat team also can't do anything when it's an iTunesConnect issue, phone support is required. Oh, and the information about phone support information on their own website (https://itunespartner.apple.com/books/articles/apple-books-support-2701) is wrong - all phone support hours are 9 AM to 7 PM US Central Mon-Fri, despite the public webpage saying they do 8 AM to 8 PM for the Australian phone lines. According to the only helpful online chat person I got, their internal operating manual says otherwise. Well that would definitely explain why I'm on hold for hours on end if I try calling the Australian line on Monday in Australia, or quite frankly any time after 10 AM in Australia, after daycare drop off. divabot posted:draft2digital deal with both pretty painlessly IME Quite frankly at this point, I'm going to leave it on Kindle, and then set up an ecommerce store on my own website to distribute PDFs and epubs. Most of my readers are going to come via word of mouth anyway, so it's not like I'll be relying on them browsing through the other stores to find it, and I'm not enabling DRM on the ebooks either so it doesn't really matter where they get it from. EDIT: OMFG that was so much easier than setting up anything on Apple. I now have a working estore that accepts credit card payments on my website. The free plan on ECWID doesn't include auto fulfilment of digital goods, but a quick test shows that when someone places an order, I'll get an email and be able to manually send them the file. I'll call this a win for today. Leng fucked around with this message at 06:18 on May 4, 2021 |
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May 4, 2021 04:10
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Today's update: Marketing I still hate social media. But I had a new idea for a regular thing I could post that doesn't feel spammy so I spent 4 hours this week doing the artwork that could be posted to Instagram and another 2 filming extra footage so it could go on YouTube then another 2 hours creating a related PDF download. It's also Mother's Day related so I'm capitalizing in the timing with this weekend. The Instagram post and related tweet did ok for a new account with not many followers but I shared the Facebook page post to one of the Facebook groups for this niche and it blew up. I wasn't really expecting it to go quite that quickly, so I was still setting up Google analytics and web pages. Will have to wait until next week to see how well it translates into audience growth, newsletter subscribers and then eventually book sales. Wish I had had the forethought to set up Google analytics BEFORE I put up the preorder links because then at least I could track how many people clicked through on those.Overall I'm feeling pretty good since I finally have some regular content I can post without feeling like that annoying person who's constantly spamming people to buy my book. And I should be able to eventually repackage all of the free content into a print book I can sell!
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May 7, 2021 08:41
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Grand Theft Autobot posted:SIEGE CATS is a gritty, urban, left-wing Warriors, with a mature style like The Wicked Deep and The Night Circus, where cats battle time-traveling forces of Late Capitalism, connecting readers’ experiences of contemporary issues with the enduring legacy of slavery. newts posted:Okay. I missed the fact that they were cats at first and was very confused. Seconding this. I do read YA from time to time and this really isn't YA. Is there a particular reason why you're trying to go after the YA market? As I understand, the YA market is insane competitive, but I mainly know what I know because I subscribe to Alexa Donne's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfwTRhTSM2NyJImC8HeUd1Q (she's traditionally published in YA, her two published books are sci-fi retellings of Jane Austen classics) Ccs posted:Could you just age up the protagonist? Honestly I feel like with that pitch I’d want an older main character. Maybe early 20s, or whatever that is in cat years. Also this. Flint doesn't come across as a young kitten coming into cathood, he sounds like a grizzled veteran (old war ally, a lost love). And also why cats? I mean, I love cats and I am a real cat person, but why cats in a YA book?  Usually YA has a huge focus on coming of age stories and first time romances, etc.
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May 11, 2021 03:02
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Further update around marketing: I hate this lead up to a release date because I don't want to endlessly spam people about my book. I spent today putting together this week's regular free content. Tomorrow is going to be filming the related YouTube video. Hopefully after that I'll have the energy and motivation to start Edwardly posted:https://youtu.be/doFcWmt7-J0 I love cats and I love musicals but I most definitely did not love Cats. 
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May 12, 2021 13:39
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Today's marketing update: Filmed the related YouTube video in the morning. Watched YouTuber marketing videos on thumbnails, etc over my lunch break. Went and changed a bunch of things as a result after lunch. Finished editing and uploading around 3 pm. Went back to the launch newsletter I drafted earlier this week and sent some test emails. It keeps getting cut off at the bottom in Gmail. 10 tries later, it's 5 pm and I finally have an initial launch newsletter blast that a) has unique content to the newsletter vs Instagram and Facebook; b) is short enough that it doesn't get cut off automatically by Gmail and c) ready to go at 9:30 AM Sydney time tomorrow. So tomorrow's pre-release date marketing plan is: - newsletter scheduled to go out to my small list at 9:30 AM Sydney time, which is still 7:30 PM Eastern, so hopefully I'll catch US/Canada before they go to bed and Australia during the day. Unfortunately, this means everybody in the UK will already be in bed, but 75% of the audience is not bad I guess - free audiobook on YouTube goes live at the same time, description will have links to buy on Amazon and a bunch of other places - Facebook group and Instagram posts are gonna go up also at 9:30 AM, this will be mainly to the audiobook, which I hope to then drive sales of the print book Hopefully the momentum keeps going over the weekend so I don't have to do anything on the weekend other than engage with replies, etc. I'm reasonably confident it will, because that's what happened with last week's Facebook group post (which according to Facebook's analytics apparently reached 7000+ people after 9 shares, and only 2 of those were mine). Tuesday is launch day, so my plan is to film me reading the hardcover with my daughter and post it as an IG/Facebook story. Not really sure what I'm going to do after that, but it seems like most other authors in this space build buzz by hosting giveaways. So I will probably do that, but not with my book because I want them to buy my book, but with other people's books and do a cross promo. I hate marketing so much.
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May 13, 2021 08:15
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Grand Theft Autobot posted:Fair enough, it doesn't really fit for YA, I just assumed it would have to be YA because of animal protagonists. Oh. That is not a good reason for targeting the YA market. And that inspiration is really cool. If that's what got you all fired up to write the book, then stay true to that instead of twisting it into something else that it isn't. Also: Ccs posted:Part of me is curious if you changed the characters ages and kept them as cats whether it would work. A lot of people grew up on Redwall and so forth, maybe they'd be more open to a story featuring animal protagonists that wasn't necessarily for kids. There's already comics like Blacksad and so forth that do this. If you had pitched this to me as "Redwall, but for grown-ups and from the POV of cats" I would buy this as a reader, no question.
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May 14, 2021 18:37
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It's launch day and one of my ARC reviewers FINALLY got back to me after sitting on the book for a week and finds an error that got missed in all the rounds of revision. I would leave it except the point of the book is to teach language so I can't have that error in it. So I spent my morning redoing all of the files and am uploading revised ones to IngramSpark and KDP now. It's going to be too late for the preorders so oh well. It's literally ONE character and not all that important a character, so whatevs, I will cop to it in the next newsletter that I send out when the blogger posts her review and offer anyone who bought a copy with the old error a free ebook as comp if they forward me their purchase receipt.
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May 18, 2021 04:05
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First global day of release and I've hit #1 in new releases for my category on Amazon!  (it's #41 on the best sellers list for the same category and it's a really niche category so I don't think all that many copies sold, but whatever, I'll take that screenshot of the little best sellers tag for promo purposes) Amazon KDP is supposed to have launched in Australia finally, so I tried to set up my KDP paperback for that. Went to order a proof copy and still can't select "Amazon.com.au" as the location. Screw it, I'm gonna publish it anyway, nobody is ordering the paperbacks and I just got a box from IngramSpark for my own website sales so Trying to figure out what extra bonus I'm going to offer for ordering direct from me is hard though. And part of me is just going, leave the first book alone and get onto writing the next one, because that's the best marketing. And another part of me is like, you still haven't written to all the libraries, you should do some read aloud story time sessions at the local libraries and maybe you'll sell some copies, plus schools. How do the rest of you manage your schedules between continued marketing of the first/recently published book and writing the next?
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May 20, 2021 11:56
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divabot posted:just signing them's a great start really. Offer individualised dedications! KrunkMcGrunk posted:Signed copies are great. Signed copies it is! The exclusive artwork is a great suggestion - I've been doing some as part of a weekly ongoing content thing for social media (they're basically 4 panel comics, but for writing Chinese characters, based on the concept from the Sinfest calligraphy comics) and they could be easily adapted into custom bookmarks. I'd like to figure out a way to make them multi-purpose though, like you could cut up the bookmarks and get a little matching card game or something for your kids that would help teach them visual recognition and recall of the language. "Buy a book directly from me and you get a signed, personalized copy plus a random bookmark, which is not available for purchase from anywhere else..." etc. I've been answering a lot of posts on the IngramSpark Facebook group that keep getting liked so I also decided to start a second YouTube channel on the self-publishing process because I feel way more comfortable with making long videos than I do making random "engagement" comments and posts on Instagram and Facebook so we'll see how this goes. I watched a lot of YouTube videos when I was researching getting into this and there's a lot of stuff that most booktubers/authortubers aren't addressing that I feel like are way more important than watching someone upload their book to KDP for 10 minutes. Maybe it's just my perspective coming from an accounting/finance background though since the second YouTube channel won't be producing content for kids, at least I can monetize it later for another income stream (which I can't do on my other channel).Finally I got some really good news! Amazon and at least one other retailer must have pushed data to Ingram Spark today, because I got some data in my print sales dashboard. According to that, I've sold 85 copies of the hardcover and 52 of the paperback (137 total) and 1 copy of the ebook on KDP (I really have no idea who that might be). I can't get a sensible consolidated publisher compensation report from IngramSpark but the bulk of those sales did come from the US (I'm guessing Amazon.com put in an order due to the traffic and pre-orders going through on Amazon.com) and that report says my net publisher compensation is $606.97  (I'm at the lowest discount setting and no returns so I shouldn't get hit with any nasty surprises for return fees). That means I've broken even on all of my title related costs, so I have a chance at recouping my other set up costs and making a profit if I put in some more time marketing and promoting the book.Now somehow I need to find the time to write the second book.
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May 25, 2021 17:28
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newts posted:Leng, I’m enjoying (sort of?) reading about your struggles. Very informative, if daunting. Thanks  I appreciate the feedback! The thing that gets me is it SHOULDN'T be daunting. It's just that the whole process is poorly mapped out and not documented anywhere and this drives me insane as somebody who spent over 15 years documenting process work flows. No wonder people get so confused and frustrated all the time–I got confused and frustrated all the time and I went into this understanding how the publishing industry works at a high level (the actual mechanics of it on the other hand...I've only seen the author's side of it before, and only in the work for hire type of arrangements. The illustration and typesetting and distribution and marketing, all of that is new to me).newts posted:I’m also thinking about covers. Considering drawing my own for my crappy novel, even though illustrated covers are not the genre convention. Unless it’s a book featuring a witch protagonist in a cozy mystery, which mine is not. I realize that’s probably shooting myself in the foot. Maybe I’ll just draw it and see if I hate it. Fate Accomplice posted:your cover is more important to sales than the quality of your book. Honestly though, I like your book and I think you would have an audience so you should invest in your cover. Spend the money on hiring a cover designer if you're not confident in doing a good cover; draw your own cover and post it here for critique; or spend the time you would have spent doing a cover on your book doing extra work that would pay for a cover designer. Leng fucked around with this message at 19:49 on May 29, 2021 |
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May 29, 2021 19:42
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