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Bright Bart posted:Hopefully I'll get an ISBN assigned in time to edit the file and put it on the copyright page. If you bought your own this should be pretty much instantaneous. Make sure you bought it direct from the official ISBN agency for your country (there's only 1 per country), not from a reseller.
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Oct 21, 2023 07:20
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| # ¿ May 13, 2024 16:50 |
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Bright Bart posted:Nope! I posted a little about how I did get free ISBNs from the national agencies in my two countries of nationality, but wasn't able to 100% withhold personal details and stay anonymous. Fair enough. Honestly it doesn't matter; you can update it afterwards and no one will care. Especially if it's ebook only; Amazon doesn't even require an ISBN.
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Oct 21, 2023 10:23
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Captain Log posted:For all you fine self-published folks, do you use chapters? Yes. I name and number my chapters.
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Oct 23, 2023 06:39
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IngramSpark finally did it. They've finally messed up enough of my print orders that starting next year, I'm gonna be seriously looking into doing offset printing because I never want to put in an order for $500 worth of books and 27 out of 39 books arrive with damage or severe misprinting. UGH.
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Dec 7, 2023 03:32
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Robert Deadford posted:I've recently self-published a novel and am trying to find sensible ways to market it. Write something that people already want. If you haven't done that, write the next book and make sure it's something people already want.
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Dec 12, 2023 04:52
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Will Wight just announced a Cradle anime adaptation: https://twitter.com/WilliamWight/status/1736799781639295117 I'm definitely going to be looking at the Kickstarter numbers!
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Dec 18, 2023 19:43
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CaptainCrunch posted:do self-pub books sell hardcovers CaptainCrunch posted:do they offer the traditional dust jacket or laminated style? (I'm sure it's genre dependent too.) CaptainCrunch posted:Then there's dust jackets. Apparently KDP doesn't have them? The cover is just laminated to the board? I'm probably dating myself something fierce, but that seems really... cheap, to me. Personally I hate dust jackets. They're annoying. Also they add a bunch of extra cost to the cover. Also also having the same art on the jacket and the case laminate takes a bit of the "wow" factor away. So if you want to do something different on the case, which you probably absolutely should, that's even more additional cost on the cover. CaptainCrunch posted:I'm curious about how hardcovers are received by readers these days? Are they still popular outside of the brick and mortar, trad pub "hardcover first then paperback" context? But I would not bother with releasing books in hardcover unless you: a) already have a sizeable audience; or b) plan on hustling hard and pandering to the Kickstarter crowd and blinging it up with lots of art and other fancy add-ons. The bar for a fancy hardcover is pretty high these days. I have a standard jacketed case laminate hardcover through IngramSpark. To date, I have sold like, 15, probably. The rest have been given away as ARCs, giveaway prizes, etc. The margin on them varies by market, but it's like...$3 on average. The set up cost of the hard cover was the extra title set up fee on IngramSpark at the time, plus $200 USD for hardcover case laminate and jacket design. So yeah, nah, I haven't recouped the marginal cost on doing a hardcover and I doubt I will any time soon, unless maybe I try for in person sales at conventions, etc. FWIW, I'm in the last stages of coordinating a promo with 45 other self-pub fantasy authors in it. 16 of us have hardcovers. All of us have paperbacks. Only 14 have audio. FYI it's not like I've sold that many paperbacks either (19). Some people—mostly those who already know me from something else and want to support and like physical books—will buy in print and paperback has the edge here because of price. Others will jump on print if they see it deeply discounted. The rest mostly buy ebook—and then, once they've finished and if they've enjoyed it, they'll go on and buy in print. So as far as I can tell, the main determinator is size of audience and proportion of core fans and how pretty the hardcover is as a decorative shelf object. CaptainCrunch posted:I received a very nice email from a fan informing me that my book was their favorite read of 2023, and included fan art of their favorite character. I have officially "made it" and can die happy. This is awesome and I hope you've asked that fan for permission to post it and use it in your marketing. Or, like, hire them to do more art in an official capacity.
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Feb 27, 2024 03:51
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Mrenda posted:How "on brand" do you have to be on Amazon/Kindle? Hasn’t changed a lot. Brand under the same pen name if you think there’ll be a decent overlap between audiences for your books, else do separate pen names. This is a judgement call depending on what you write. I’ve seen romance authors spin up different pen names just to distinguish between steamy and non steamy, or type of relationship, even if it’s all under a similar umbrella like small town romance or whatever. SFF has more leeway. Mrenda posted:I wouldn't be going after this for serious money, just beer money. In fact serious money could actually cause me more problems than it'd solve, unless I suddenly became a top seller with every book I publish. Worry about this after you make any money. And by that I mean breaking even on your title P&L, not even turning a profit. Mrenda posted:On a separate topic what's it like with paying for covers now? Again, last time I looked at this it ranged all the way from people throwing text on stock images they paid for, people using fiver and the likes, and some people paying $500+ for a cover. Not looking for trends, I know what the trends are in the area I'm looking at. More about the pricing and how people are approaching the actual securing of covers. Hasn’t changed. Spending $$$ isn’t necessarily required for a great cover that sells the book, but there is generally a reasonable level of correlation. Generative AI assets have flooded the marketplace though, so buyer beware. Ask for WIPs if you’re commissioning original stuff, or links to the assets if it’s photo bashed. Even then, you can still end up with AI in your cover. This might matter to you (and/or your target audience), or it might not. Get Covers is the go to now for cheap covers; they’re the training arm for Miblart who has publicly taken a “no AI” stance. The other cheap options listed in the OP (eg goonwrite) have embraced generative AI as far as I’m aware based on their blog posts. Damonza requires you to explicitly opt out of AI at check out if you don’t want them having AI as an option for source images (note: they don’t necessarily always choose to use AI even if you don’t opt out but best to be clear if you don’t want that possibility on the table). They also have a text only design package if you want to BYO art.
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Mar 6, 2024 01:45
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Mrenda posted:Is it possible to do an Iain (M) Banks yet, with KDP, or is that simply him brute forcing the Amazon search results through the weight of his two names? It’s two separate pen names. Applies to all platforms as far as I’m aware, because you’re filling out different metadata for the same field.
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Mar 6, 2024 05:08
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The 10th annual Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off contest will open for entries on 10 May 2024: https://mark---lawrence.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-official-self-published-fantasy.html Mark Lawrence posted:SPFBO 10 (SPFBOX) will open to entries on Friday the 10th of May 2024 at 1pm GMT. The link will be posted here. Looks like it's all gonna come down to the RNG for the next crop of authors. Boy am I glad to have gotten in when I did for SPFBO9. Anyway, if you have something that's eligible, you should enter, because if you do get in, you have a good shot of getting some good exposure for your book but more importantly, you meet a lot of other cool people. Mark Lawrence posted:The rules are:
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Mar 29, 2024 04:08
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CaptainCrunch posted:Ooof on "random selection of 300 out of eleventy-billion entries," though. One is allowed to enter a book only once, being eliminated sight unseen is going to sting. I don't think that's the intent of how it's going to be applied—I'd interpret it to be more if your book is selected to be in the competition, you can't resubmit it again just because it didn't do as well as you'd hoped. (I.e. if it got cut in the first round one year, you can't reapply with the same book next year.) But comments are enabled on Mark Lawrence's page and he does check those so if you want to clarify it for sure, I'd suggest leaving a comment there for him.
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Mar 29, 2024 22:43
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| # ¿ May 13, 2024 16:50 |
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Right, I have now had enough readers constantly asking about whether my book is going to have an audiobook format that I've seriously started looking into the process of producing one. Because fantasy and long word count, it is $$$ and so I'm likely looking into a Kickstarter. I am going to be doing a livestream with 3 authors who have/are currently doing audiobook Kickstarter campaigns next week, so if anyone has questions for them, drop them in the thread and I'll do my best to make sure we cover them. Edit: replay video is up now - https://youtu.be/bihhjFMVods Leng fucked around with this message at 04:34 on May 8, 2024 |
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Mar 31, 2024 04:42
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