# Feelin' down, and wondering "what is the point"?



## RightHoJeeves (Jun 30, 2016)

I have to admit, the wind has really been taken out of my indie sails lately.

I think it's a combination of a few things. Mainly that I'm about to send the third book in a trilogy to the editor (that's the Ministry of Detection), and so far, I haven't seen any return on anything. I can't beat myself up too much, because I haven't done any marketing (I'm planning to do that once I've got the three ready to go).

But man, seeing the expenses rack up on my spreadsheet... starting to get me down. Every day it feels more and more like a self-indulgent waste of time.

I'm lucky in that my partner repeatedly tells me I'd be an idiot to give up now, and that everything's been paid for by a side job. But we're also thinking about buying a house, etc, and I've got to wonder if maybe the money would have been better spend on something else.

I don't know. Maybe once I get the third book out and start marketing it'll turn out to be the smartest thing I've ever done. A part of me knows that if I _hadn't_ done it, I'd regret it forever.

Is anyone else feeling blue about this whole enterprise?


----------



## BillyDeCarlo (Apr 11, 2017)

The dream we all had that we were going to write a great book and put it out there and everyone would buy it is just that. An incredible number of books are published every single day now that it's so easy. Many great books are just needles in that haystack. Nobody sees them unless you market, and market well. If you write for the satisfaction and accomplishment of writing, if it makes you happy, then do that. If you want to make money, you have to run a business. That involves investment and a plan, money spent certainly for marketing.

If you're going to market, you have to learn or you'll throw away large piles of money. There's a lot to it. Read the threads here on using Amazon Marketing Services (AMS), promotional sites (a few are good, most won't earn your money back), BookBub ads, Facebook ads, Google Adwords (most say it's a waste for books), etc.

If you had this amazing chocolate chip cookie recipe and want to become the next Famous Amos, you'd have to spend a lot to get the business going. If you had a fantastic product idea and wanted to bring it to market, you'd have to invest money on production, marketing, etc. The author/book publishing business is no different.

Looking at "overnight successes" like Hugh Howey (most of whom have toiled long and hard, and failed for years before becoming an "overnight success") and thinking that will happen to you is like seeing that big lottery winner on the news and deciding that you're going to spend your paychecks on the lottery. You're seeing the one winner, and not the vast wastelands of folks who did not win.

If you like writing and don't want to run a business, consider it a hobby and put your craft out there.


----------



## C. Gold (Jun 12, 2017)

Dude. Your book cover for book 2 looks awesome. Your Look Inside immediately starts off action packed. You start advertising and you'll be making sales. Maybe you should start now that you have two books.


----------



## Sam Kates (Aug 28, 2012)

RightHoJeeves said:


> Is anyone else feeling blue about this whole enterprise?


Yep - most days. I feel more and more that I'm p***ing in the wind.


----------



## H.C. (Jul 28, 2016)

You should probably reassess the difficulty level we face and be ready for it.

It isn't easy and you said you aren't promoting your book. If you won't...who will?

Even great works were rejected many, many times. You have to get your books in front of faces. Uploading and waiting isn't enough.

Good luck.


----------



## anotherpage (Apr 4, 2012)

RightHoJeeves said:


> I have to admit, the wind has really been taken out of my indie sails lately.
> 
> I think it's a combination of a few things. Mainly that I'm about to send the third book in a trilogy to the editor (that's the Ministry of Detection), and so far, I haven't seen any return on anything. I can't beat myself up too much, because I haven't done any marketing (I'm planning to do that once I've got the three ready to go).
> 
> ...


I understand the frustration.

However, this is work and business at the end of the day.

Most businesses collapse within the first 5 years.

Not every business idea ( or book idea ) is going to fly.

If you are paying too much for covers and editors ( find someone new )
If you are writing in a market that is not responding, change genre.


----------



## RightHoJeeves (Jun 30, 2016)

C. Gold said:


> Dude. Your book cover for book 2 looks awesome. Your Look Inside immediately starts off action packed. You start advertising and you'll be making sales. Maybe you should start now that you have two books.


Thanks, I appreciate that


----------



## C. Gold (Jun 12, 2017)

It's a mistake to not do any advertising on books. Even if you only have a single book, you should start doing cheap and free promos for it. At $3.99, you can earn more than you spend on very cheap AMS ads with low bids and a dollar a day budget. The longer you delay, the more money you are letting slip past your fingers.

You can use services like Instafreebie and Book Cave for free and get involved with group giveaways and reader magnets. You could either give away one of your books and have a link to the other at the end to encourage buys of that one, or you can put a 10% sample to entice people to buy it. 

You can begin collecting emails with Book Cave for free, and Instafreebie for 30 days free trial and use that list of emails in newsletter swaps with other authors. There are numerous Facebook groups devoted to author swaps. Most are free and several are willing to accept authors with few subscribers.

I have only one novel and I'm earning more than I'm spending on low cost advertising. Sure, I made a few minor mistakes with AMS, but the way it's set up allows you to nip ads in the bud if they spend more than you are comfortable with. And sure, I'm not making a huge amount, but this is ONE book. You have two. I envy you! 

Also, make sure both books have links to the other in the back, so people know you have another book if they read through the first. 

There is zero reason why your books shouldn't be able to earn you money right now. You just have to utilize the resources many authors have posted on this forum to your advantage. Stick with the cheap and free for now, and once you have that third book, you'll be experienced enough to know how to make the most of the higher cost promotions and ads. Good luck!


----------



## RightHoJeeves (Jun 30, 2016)

LilyBLily said:


> I agree with all the sentiments expressed, but with one caveat. This indie thing is all about the good luck that we can now publish our books while being 100% true to our own voices. This is huge. If we've been writing for years or even if we've just started, it's a tremendous moment and we should run with it as much as we can. (See the Struggling thread for many reasons some of us can't.)


Very true. And worth remembering every day.



> Selling them? That's a different gig. Right now, we see the effects of a business decision the major facilitator of our good luck has made, to do KU and let it be scammed and overrun with appalling junk. But KU is also an opportunity for readers to pay us to read the first pages of our books and if they don't like them and stop cold, at least we've earned something out of it. Of course none of us want to admit that we might be writing appalling junk. But some of us are, and KU is a Look Inside that pays us. Think about that.
> 
> This market will change, because all things change. Maybe not for the better, it's true. However, regardless of the frog-in-boiling-pot situation Amazon has authors in with KU, we still have the opportunity to express ourselves creatively and to market our books as we each personally have the mindset to do. Some people sell their books out of car trunks, remember, and are happy to do so. Others have complex Facebook relationships that drive sales. Others rely on newsletters and on automation and free books. And on and on.
> 
> ...


All true, all true. Thank you for saying so, as well.

I've got to admit, I actually don't really aspire to be a full-time indie writer. I mean, if I hit it totally out of the park Hugh Howey-style, then sure. Who wouldn't quit the day job in that situation? But I think if I was relying on publishing for a full time income, I'd become fearful and resentful. I'm happy to make some side scratch to help pay off the mortgage that bit faster.


----------



## RightHoJeeves (Jun 30, 2016)

C. Gold said:


> It's a mistake to not do any advertising on books. Even if you only have a single book, you should start doing cheap and free promos for it. At $3.99, you can earn more than you spend on very cheap AMS ads with low bids and a dollar a day budget. The longer you delay, the more money you are letting slip past your fingers.
> 
> You can use services like Instafreebie and Book Cave for free and get involved with group giveaways and reader magnets. You could either give away one of your books and have a link to the other at the end to encourage buys of that one, or you can put a 10% sample to entice people to buy it.
> 
> ...


Thanks. Another part of my lack of marketing efforts has honestly been headspace. I work full time and I run a side business. With the actual day to day writing, I just don't have the actual time or headspace to think about marketing (especially when its such a monster topic).

Once I've finished this book (it should literally be this weekend) then I plan to devote some time properly towards it. I should mention I have a reader magnet (https://www.jameslawsonauthor.com/fox-in-the-hen-house if you're interested) and have done some Instafreebie stuff. I do have about 800 subscribers that I haven't really done anything with. So I haven't been totally useless.

To be honest I think I'm just having a bit of a whinge.


----------



## Talbot (Jul 14, 2015)

Of course I'm feeling blue, I just rewrote everything. Mistakes were made!    I remind myself every day that I'm new at this and the swamp of presentation alone (formatting, covers, front and back matter) is enough to overwhelm anyone.  Then there's the story itself (structure, characterization, themes, arcs, plot, innate skill, outlines vs pantsing) etc... THEN we have to dive into marketing?!? (Website, Twitter, Facebook, ads, finding the perfect promos, newsletters on and on and on...) 

Ugh. Tiring. But I really like a bit of support Chris Fox mentioned in one of his books. "Where are you now compared to where you were before?" Personally I'd say my new learnin' has brought me halfway up the mountain. It's not where I want to be, at the very top, but WOW the view from halfway up is so much better than the view I had when I was sunk in the valley.


----------



## Flay Otters (Jul 29, 2014)

If misery loves company... I was feeling bummed for the last month or two because my source for bright ideas seemed to have dried up.
It has been a busy couple of months in my real job, so I blame mental exhaustion rather than permanent loss of great ideas.
But it wasn't any kind of depression like I had when I was younger, just a vague feeling of annoyance and unease.
If you've got it done and paid for, and two books are out, then start asking Bookbub to take your money.


----------



## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

RightHoJeeves said:


> I have to admit, the wind has really been taken out of my indie sails lately.
> 
> I think it's a combination of a few things. Mainly that I'm about to send the third book in a trilogy to the editor (that's the Ministry of Detection), and so far, I haven't seen any return on anything. I can't beat myself up too much, because I haven't done any marketing (I'm planning to do that once I've got the three ready to go).
> 
> ...


Are the two books you have listed connected and part of a trilogy? The newer one seems to have more of a sci-fi element? Both covers are great. I am not a sci-fi reader but I do like thrillers and your first book looks great. You may want to mention in the blurb that it's a historical mystery/thriller. That wasn't obvious until I was reading and a few pages in it mentions 'a few years ago in '47'.

I would advertise both of these books, ASAP. It's like having a party--no one is going to show up unless they are invited. I would experiment with AMS ads on both books and also FB and run a promo or two. Good luck!


----------



## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Whenever I talk to struggling business owners, their core problem seems to be false expectations (e.g. "_I have a great product. Why isn't anyone buying it?!_").


----------



## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Stick them in KU and run an AMS ad on book 1. Don't wait for book 3 to come out. Start building up sales/borrows on the first two books while the editor is working on the last one. Then when it comes out you'll have the new release boost to goose things along. When 3 comes out schedule a couple of free days for book 1 and run a couple of cheap promos like bknights. The patient isn't dead - apply some life support!


----------



## RightHoJeeves (Jun 30, 2016)

I should mention the current two books are unrelated. There will be three Ministry of Detection books, all nicely branded the same.


----------



## IreneP (Jun 19, 2012)

Don't get down. From what I can see, you have great, hooky blurbs and can string words together. Strong advantages, in my opinion.

What you are missing is marketing. I understand your strategy, but reclaiming lost ground on those books that have been out for a long while is going to be way harder than marketing immediately on release. Amazon is predisposed to give new releases more juice.

Don't get down on yourself, but maybe reasses your goals. As others have said, if you just want to be published and maybe pick up a few readers, make it a hobby. 

If you want/need to make money, you're going to have to change your approach. Even then, it's a battle for most of us. Being able to write and being able to sell are two separate skills.


----------



## C. Gold (Jun 12, 2017)

RightHoJeeves said:


> Thanks. Another part of my lack of marketing efforts has honestly been headspace. I work full time and I run a side business. With the actual day to day writing, I just don't have the actual time or headspace to think about marketing (especially when its such a monster topic).
> 
> Once I've finished this book (it should literally be this weekend) then I plan to devote some time properly towards it. I should mention I have a reader magnet (https://www.jameslawsonauthor.com/fox-in-the-hen-house if you're interested) and have done some Instafreebie stuff. I do have about 800 subscribers that I haven't really done anything with. So I haven't been totally useless.
> 
> To be honest I think I'm just having a bit of a whinge.


Oh well, and here I come, the annoying, cheerful person trying to fix you up!  Whinge away... we call that artistic temperament!

Being quite honest here, I don't read your genre and I was this close (>.<) to clicking buy on your Ministry book, it's that engaging. I added it to my list of potential future reads, and if it gets put in KU consider me sold!

Send it out to your newsletter and set up a buck a day sponsored AMS ad with various keywords. (Feel free to PM me with help on possible keywords.)
Do that now! And happy whinging!


----------



## Fleurina (Nov 13, 2017)

> I have to admit, the wind has really been taken out of my indie sails lately.


I just bought Operation Nightcrawl for my Kindle, and not via KU.  It looks great.

I'm in the same boat. I have only one published book so far, and it has done very little, with a second in the series half-written which I plan to launch in April. I escaped from Select yesterday and pressed the button to go wide on D2D an hour ago. Apart from a few hundred free downloads I have not had many 'proper' sales.

I have done, and will do, a few inexpensive ads and promotions here and there, but am only planning to go gung-ho on marketing after at least book two, but probably when I complete the trilogy, in about June or July.

Do not despair, we all have crappy days, but this, IMHO, is too early in the game to throw in the towel. I think your writing is GOOD, it pulled me in, and I am Little Miss Fussy when it comes to reading. I often read the beginning of twenty books to find one.

PS. However, I am considering doing a low cost for click AMS ad to test the waters, before the launch of book two.

PPS. Perhaps you need a few pages of Gussie Fink Nottle and Aunt Agatha to cheer you.


----------



## DrewMcGunn (Jul 6, 2017)

RightHoJeeves said:


> Thanks. Another part of my lack of marketing efforts has honestly been headspace. I work full time and I run a side business. With the actual day to day writing, I just don't have the actual time or headspace to think about marketing (especially when its such a monster topic).
> 
> Once I've finished this book (it should literally be this weekend) then I plan to devote some time properly towards it. I should mention I have a reader magnet (https://www.jameslawsonauthor.com/fox-in-the-hen-house if you're interested) and have done some Instafreebie stuff. I do have about 800 subscribers that I haven't really done anything with. So I haven't been totally useless.
> 
> To be honest I think I'm just having a bit of a whinge.


Let me add my voice to the chorus of voices saying that marketing your book, even if its got nothing behind it yet, is important. I had been reading on these forums for several months before my first book came out, and I had sworn that I was going to get a second book before spending money on advertising. But my will was weak and I went ahead and started with a single AMS ad, with a few hundred key words, just a dollar or two a day, and sure enough I had a couple of sales and a few hundred pages of KU reads, and slowly my book started climbing the charts. By the time book 2 came out, I had broken the top 100 of my genre, with my first book (not the hardest thing to do, it's a niche). I then dropped the price using Amazon's countdown deals and did some promos. Sold a few more copies, and was rewarded with a few thousand page reads daily. YMMV, but it started with a single AMS ad.


----------



## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Lots of folks have recommended marketing your books.

In my opinion, it's crucial that you start with a marketing *strategy*.

Buying promos, creating AMS ads, etc. are fine. But these tactics should complement your overall strategy. Otherwise, you risk falling victim to rising costs.


----------



## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

TwistedTales said:


> I first published in Q3 2014 and it was a very different business even then to what it is now. I thought it was about writing and publishing books and for some of us it still is, but largely the cat 100s on Amazon have turned into a farce.
> 
> Although it's fair to say there is room for a wide range of reading interests, it's really odd how so many people want to read erotica, magic spaceships, role playing games, and sassy witches/vampires/shapeshifters/werewolves (did I miss any?), all of which are mostly in KU. I find it hard to believe that the majority of readers in the world only want these niches, but that's what Amazon's KU download equals a sale makes it look like.
> 
> ...


Awesome post. This has been my observation of the industry for the past two years as well. I just wanted to say that everyone's business strategy will look differently and that there really is no failure so long as you don't entirely give up. If something doesn't work, reassess and try something else. I've also done a bit better since I've gone wide and added a few audiobooks to my portfolio. The thing is, that I have a tiny back list, and I've actually been making sales since I left KU in October. I did okay in KU for a few months but page reads dropped to nothing. Being wide has given me a greater ease of mind because I can actually market my books the way I want to and NEED to in order to gain visibility. There are many options to try and although KU works great for many authors, it also doesn't work so great for others. I do, however, wonder what the long-term effects of keeping all of my books in KU would have been. Stability and future growth is what I try to focus on, build on.

OP: please watch what you spend. I went crazy on covers at the beginning because I had no idea what I was doing and bought the wrong covers for my books time and time again. Throw in editing and advertising costs and I've estimated that I'm in the red by a shitload of money that I rather not mention here. Go easy. It takes time to find your audience, be patient along with the rest of us. One thing I've had to remind myself of lately is this: just because my sales are low doesn't mean I'm a bad writer. This is a visibility and, really, a learning curve issue. Career authors are in it for LIFE...take. your. time. Yes, you want everyone to read your book and make lots of money but that's going to take persistence, endurance, a constant effort of trial and error to see which stories pan out and those that don't. Honor the craft above all else. That's what it's really about...writing good books!!!


----------



## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

Reasons to keep going:

The only way to really lose is to quit.
You've written a book (or two) and that's something to be very proud of.
Someday, people all over the world may/probably will read your book.
You'll be leaving a part of yourself to future generations. You've made a place in history.
Money is temporary, written words are forever.

Rest is as important as writing, so eat right, rest, and see if things don't look better in the morning. Need to take more vitamins? Try B12 chewables. It will help with energy and fight depression.

Marti - I never follow my own advice. Why is that?


----------



## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

C. Gold said:


> It's a mistake to not do any advertising on books. Even if you only have a single book, you should start doing cheap and free promos for it. At $3.99, you can earn more than you spend on very cheap AMS ads with low bids and a dollar a day budget. The longer you delay, the more money you are letting slip past your fingers.
> 
> You can use services like Instafreebie and Book Cave for free and get involved with group giveaways and reader magnets. You could either give away one of your books and have a link to the other at the end to encourage buys of that one, or you can put a 10% sample to entice people to buy it.
> 
> ...


The important point is: there is always something we can do to get visibility. I've been trying Pinterest out for the past few months and steadily figuring it out. One book I read about Pinterest mentioned that it's a platform where people actually go to look for something to buy--as a Pinterest fanatic, I have to say that's what I use it for as well. Social media a cheap(er) and powerful way of advertising. Thinking outside the box, and doing what we can is really the key. We have to work to get visibility in the same way we worked to craft the story.


----------



## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Seneca42 said:


> 2018 is going to be the worst year ever for indies. The market is hyper saturated on all fronts. Everything has gone nuts, from release schedules to marketing spend to fake reviews.
> 
> The best thing you can do this year is just step back and write and set yourself up for 2019 when some of this madness should burn itself out. Maybe sprinkle an ENT or freeboosky in here or there, and take a bookbub if you can get it, but otherwise don't expect much this year.
> 
> ...


I'm not saying that your facts are wrong, but the truth is that _every_ year has had it's big problems and shakeups since I started doing this in 2011. It's like Tommy Lee Jones said in MIB: "There's always an Arquillian Battle Cruiser, or a Corillian Death Ray, or an intergalactic plague that is about to wipe out all life on this miserable little planet..." You can't survive in this business if you spend your time constantly worrying about those things. Worry about what you can control - writing good books that people want to read. Add to your catalog. Grow your mailing list. Promote as you can. If you can get a Bookbub, great. If not, plenty of people get along fine without them. I've never had one. I don't worry about it, because I don't care about hitting bestseller lists or making it big. I'm making a solid living as a midlister and I'm perfectly content with that. And so far 2018 is shaping up to be my best year yet.


----------



## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

I'd hate to be someone trying to make a living as an indie writer right now. I continue only because I have other sources of income. If I had to make a living on what I make as a writer, I'd be in trouble.

I think the sweet spot is to have a day job that is at least tolerable, maybe even enjoyable, and that allows enough time to write. If your work takes off, maybe much later writing can become your day job. It doesn't appear most people can do that right away, and the vast majority probably never will.

However, we shouldn't be surprised. Publishing models have changed a lot over the years, but writers have hardly ever made a living at writing. Even most classic authors made their primary living from journalism (Bryant, Melville, Crane, Hemingway, for example). We know them best as poets or fiction writers, but for large parts of their lives, that wasn't what put a roof over their heads. Even when it did, it certainly didn't make them wealthy. In Shakespeare's time, most writers were barely making a living. Shakespeare was a lonely exception, and even in his case, a large part of his income seems to have come from his partial ownership of the his theater company rather than from his writing. The mega bestsellers of today are historically very much the exceptions.

Write because you love it. Spend what you can afford without getting yourself in trouble. If it works, it becomes a business. If it doesn't, it's a great hobby. Emily Dickinson is now one of the best known American poets, but she wrote almost entirely for herself. She tried publishing a couple of times but didn't like the reception her work got. (She could never have endured the Amazon one-star reviews.) She spent years writing for herself instead of trying to make a living at it.

I spend a lot on my "hobby." However, I've known other hobbyists, particularly collectors, who spend more and don't expect to see a dime back. Nor can they dream of being famous if lightning strikes some day...

(Sorry, I didn't mean to sound quite so idealist--or rambling.)


----------



## Goulburn (May 21, 2014)

Rosie A. said:


> The important point is: there is always something we can do to get visibility. I've been trying Pinterest out for the past few months and steadily figuring it out. One book I read about Pinterest mentioned that it's a platform where people actually go to look for something to buy--as a Pinterest fanatic, I have to say that's what I use it for as well. Social media a cheap(er) and powerful way of advertising. Thinking outside the box, and doing what we can is really the key. We have to work to get visibility in the same way we worked to craft the story.


What Rosie said, "There's always something you can do to get visibility."

The best place to promote is where your potential client goes to browse for your product. They may not use Amazon. That's the case for most of my readers. I don't advertise distributor links, and I'm doing better than last year when I used Amazon links in promotions, (I don't now) and I did better book sales before I used Amazon.

Consider experimenting. There are more options out there than most authors are aware of. There is a huge growth in free to 10% distribution companies, useful if you are doing the public relations and advertising yourself.


----------



## It&#039;s A Mystery (Mar 14, 2017)

Seneca42 said:


> The days of viewing SP as a business are almost over because the fundementals are so broken that you can't justify entering this market based on the ROI. You have to do it because you love it (or as you say, it's a hobby). The older guard are working off something they've built up over half a decade, so they can still managing their operations like a business. But even they, as time goes on, are going to have a harder and harder time trying to make the numbers work.


I agree with a lot of your posts Seneca, but I think this is overly negative. I think the problem is that people need to go into this with business being as much of a skillset/mindset as the creative side. To be honest, that would be the same in any form of independent creative, I think the book industry just had a glory 'wild west' period that many others didn't.

Good books
Good covers
Good blurbs 
Good marketing strategy
Good business plan with realistic aims and milestones.

Do those things and I think there's a career to be had. Doing them isn't easy, but then getting a dream job like this was never going to be.

I'm going to give it my best shot!


----------



## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Seneca42 said:


> This is a major major issue with kboards, everyone assumes that whatever they are doing is perfectly replicable by others.
> 
> You've been around since 2011. That's 7 years of building your publishing processes. Most authors haven't been around that long.
> 
> ...


And yet I was able to launch a brand new pen name without any reference to or reliance on my other pens or my back catalog, and these new books are all sitting in the top 100 (and top 20 and HNR) lists for their categories (which aren't small). I did this without any promotion except AMS ads and a couple of the smaller promos like bknights. The core principles still apply - write a good book that people want to read, have a good cover, have a good blurb, and write the next book. That doesn't guarantee you success, because the unfortunate truth is that not everyone who wants to be a writer is going to be one, any more than anyone who wants to be a fashion model or astronaut is going to be. But if you can write, those core principles will still get your foot in the door. The other stuff can help you, but it won't save you if you're not solid on the basics. All the marketing genius in the world isn't going to give you a career as a writer if you can't produce good books with good covers and blurbs that people want to read.

Yes, you have to know your market. Yes, you have to understand your genre. Yes, you have to have good covers and blurbs. And most definitely you have to have a _good_ book. But that has always been the case. Some people managed to skate by those things in The Olden Days. And some people still manage to skate by those things now. But it has never been something you could count on, and most of the ones that skated by back then when it was "easy" have softly and silently vanished away because you can only get by on luck for so long. Those of us who paid attention to Konrath and DWS back in The Olden Days are still here because we learned those fundamentals and apply them every single day. That's why we've survived all of the storms that have taken so many others down, and it's why we'll outlast most of the new kids who come in and get lucky out of the gate.

The distributors are going to screw with things and change the rules. Scammers are going to scam. The market is saturated. Heard the same things in 2012. Heard the same things last year. No one said this was going to be easy. There are no guarantees and this isn't a game for sissies. If you want an easy, steady paycheck, stick with the day job and write for fun.


----------



## It&#039;s A Mystery (Mar 14, 2017)

Seneca42 said:


> Admittedly I am in a surly mood today
> 
> But by the business side of things I mean the monetary realities of publishing. The book covers and all that stuff are just a given.
> 
> ...


Ha! We all have days like that!

I agree all of that is happening at the top end, but in my opinion, there is loads of room below that to make a living.

I guess it depends on what you're aiming for. You could have five books out and sell ten of each a day and be making a decent chunk of money. That's VERY achievable.


----------



## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

Seneca42 said:


> If you look at what is going on with the top of the indies they are spending through the nose. It's hard to estimate, but I think a lot of them have doubled their AMS spend easily. They are doing everything they can not to slide backward.


You've said this before. What's your source for it, out of curiosity? It reads like an assertion passed as fact, to me.


----------



## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Seneca42 said:


> If you look at what is going on with the top of the indies they are spending through the nose. It's hard to estimate, but I think a lot of them have doubled their AMS spend easily. They are doing everything they can not to slide backward.


If your goal is to make Amanda money then yes, you'll probably have to spend a lot on advertising. But at that level you're competing with the top names in traditional publishing and their advertising budgets and the fact that their books are in markets you'll never be able to get into. I'm running two AMS ads on my new pen's books with $3 / day limits on both. Almost the only times I've hit my daily limits were in the week leading up to Christmas. I've spent $5 each on two bknights promos for free days on the first in series when I released the latest two books. That's it. You don't have to spend more on advertising than you make in sales/reads to stay on the top 100 genre lists. I'm sorry, but it just isn't true.

It all depends on your expectations. If your goal is to be consistently in the top 100 in the Amazon store and have your own Scrooge McDuck money bin, then you're going to have to approach things very differently than if what you want is to be a midlister making a solid living. I seriously doubt I'm ever going to get rich doing this, and I don't care. I'm doing what I love and making a good living at it, without having to spend all of my time learning the latest marketing hype/buzzwords and analyzing my AMS click ratios down to nine decimal places.



Seneca42 said:


> It's not about the fundamentals though. It's about saturation. You're saying the market is no more saturated than it ever was. I'd disagree with that. You can see it in every 'write to market' genre out there, it's a tsunami of glowing hands and spaceships.
> 
> And what that does is jack up marketing costs; because whether a book is good or not, those authors are still bidding up ppc. You launched with a new pen name with AMS. How much per day were you spending on that launch? I'm genuinely curious. But I think you write to the erotica cat right? I know nothing about that. I know in scifi the authors are going nuts with marketing spend.


I stopped writing erotica in early 2016 and switched to contemporary/NA romance. I hate writing sex scenes.  My latest pen name - the one I've been talking about - is YA romance and completely firewalled from my earlier pens for obvious reasons. I read a bunch of books in the genre that were selling. I read a few that weren't. I decided I really enjoyed the genre, wrote books that I knew I'd want to read, and put genre-appropriate covers on them. I stuck them in KU because the books that were going best in the categories I picked were in KU. I put AMS ads with minimal spend and bids on the first and last books in the series. I check on them maybe every 2 weeks. When I do a new release, I swap out ads to go to the newest book. That's all.


----------



## Sam Rivers (May 22, 2011)

> 2018 is going to be the worst year ever for indies. The market is hyper saturated on all fronts. Everything has gone nuts, from release schedules to marketing spend to fake reviews.
> 
> The best thing you can do this year is just step back and write and set yourself up for 2019 when some of this madness should burn itself out. Maybe sprinkle an ENT or freeboosky in here or there, and take a bookbub if you can get it, but otherwise don't expect much this year.
> 
> ...


I like that advice and think you are right. I am going to be financially conservative and wait it out.


----------



## Vidya (Feb 14, 2012)

Here you are, Seneca:

http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,260089.msg3623506.html#msg3623506

it was in the "Said goodbye to Wide" thread.


----------



## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Hey, it's Seneca with his Doomsday Diatribe. And you know what that means...

INTERNET FIGHT!


----------



## Boswser (Jul 21, 2017)

DrewMcGunn said:


> Let me add my voice to the chorus of voices saying that marketing your book, even if its got nothing behind it yet, is important. I had been reading on these forums for several months before my first book came out, and I had sworn that I was going to get a second book before spending money on advertising. But my will was weak and I went ahead and started with a single AMS ad, with a few hundred key words, just a dollar or two a day, and sure enough I had a couple of sales and a few hundred pages of KU reads, and slowly my book started climbing the charts. By the time book 2 came out, I had broken the top 100 of my genre, with my first book (not the hardest thing to do, it's a niche). I then dropped the price using Amazon's countdown deals and did some promos. Sold a few more copies, and was rewarded with a few thousand page reads daily. YMMV, but it started with a single AMS ad.


As someone who is in a similar situation--never done any paid promos, and has just one book right now--I want to look into AMS ads to wet my feet in that marketing world and see what kind of results it garners. I'm googling around at the moment, learning about it, and I know I've seen a few threads on the subject here I plan to hunt down. Just wondering, do you have any advice on that you'd recommend for single-book marketing?


----------



## Sam Rivers (May 22, 2011)

In the California gold rush days, they would say if you are not striking gold, you should buy more shovels. Of course it was the merchants who said it. Who do you think got rich?


----------



## EvanPickering (Mar 8, 2016)

Look, there's a lot of people with a lot of opinions and doomsdaying here.

There are also people trying to be positive and support you.

But the only thing that matters is _do you still love it?_ And I'm not necessarily talking about writing all the time, because lets be honest, sometimes its a grind and it sucks. But do you love creating stories, worlds, seeing characters come to life, and all that magical shit? Do you love seeing your world come to life, and sometimes when you look back on what you've written does it make you feel good?

Because if so, just don't stop. And change your definition of success from "I'm gonna be a famous/rich/successful author" to "I want to keep doing what I love and study the craft and enjoy the process every day." Often success is the byproduct of the latter.

I read something pretty brilliant that said [paraphrasing]: _your dream career isn't the one where you love the best parts, it's the one where you enjoy the challenge of the worst parts._ Because most careers are made up of lots of challenging shit and a few awesome things.

I was pretty lucky that my first novel exploded when it came out. Since then it has died down a lot. There was a pretty serious come-down for me with that. But this shit is about the long game. I'm still chugging along, I'm loving the third book which is almost done even though it pisses me off sometimes, and most of all I can't wait to get it out there for people to read. Even if it were only a few friends and family who enjoy my work, I'd still be excited to get it in their hands.

This business, like many business, has a ton of shit you can't control. Focus on what you can, which is how good your writing is, what is the most fun for you to write, and then also what sort of marketing/exposure you can do.

Hope that helps/makes sense.
Evan


----------



## Fleurina (Nov 13, 2017)

> It all depends on your expectations. If your goal is to be consistently in the top 100 in the Amazon store and have your own Scrooge McDuck money bin, then you're going to have to approach things very differently than if what you want is to be a midlister making a solid living. I seriously doubt I'm ever going to get rich doing this, and I don't care. I'm doing what I love and making a good living at it, without having to spend all of my time learning the latest marketing hype/buzzwords and analyzing my AMS click ratios down to nine decimal places.


I LOVE this.


----------



## Carol Davis (Dec 9, 2013)

Is the time of year contributing to your blues?

I ask that because I keep seeing indy writer friends post on FB that they're throwing in the towel.  That it's gotten to be too much for them, and they can't keep trying.  Other folks are way behind on getting books finished.

What everybody is saying about this being a tough business is absolutely true.  But I had a long conversation with myself after a year in which I wrote almost nothing, and in which my sales were some teeny tiny numbers.  I reminded myself that I wrote for a good 10 years during which nobody but me read my work.  I write because I'm a storyteller.  It's who I am.  I may take breaks once in a while, but I can't *not* write.

So I think "Where do I go from here?" depends on what you're looking for.  Are you someone who needs to keep telling stories, whether you have one reader, or a million, or none?  Or are you doing it for the income?

Either way, I wish you good times ahead, whether that includes writing and publishing, or finding another outlet for your creativity.


----------



## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

Yes, feel bummed. You have my personal permission to feel as bummed as you want. In art, you can feel bummed, and that's a bummer. In business, your feelings have nothing to do with it. So go and feel bummed, and also go and keep learning the business. Join me at the bar and we can commiserate.

Just remember, football is easy. Get the ball into the endzone. Simple. So just do it. Racing is easy, just drive around the track faster than everyone else. Politics is easy, just get elected. Publishing is easy, just write a good book, get a good cover, advertise, and build a fan base.


----------



## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

Well, the good news, for you, is that you're in some good genres. I personally believe that the thriller categories, in general, offer Indies a better chance of making money than the indie-saturated ones do (UF, Sci-Fi and Romance). I don't know if that's true or not, it's just my feeling, and it makes sense. In UF, sci-fi and romance, the Indies are eating each other with their ad spends and .99 books. In thrillers, it's still pretty much toad-dominated, so there isn't the same dynamic happening. Granted, the thriller cats are dominated by not only trade but A-Pubs, but I still think that the thriller cats are a better place to be than those other cats.

And your covers, especially your second one, are awesome! 

I say, don't give up so easily. At least not until you market and find out if your books hit the sweet spot. If they don't, then read some more books in the genre and get more of a feel for what readers are looking for. At the moment, you don't really know if your books are hitting or not, because you haven't marketed them yet.


----------



## going going gone (Jun 4, 2013)

My attitude is: you keep going if you love writing. If you don't love writing, there are more certain businesses to enter than this one! If you don't love writing, you're not going to like indie success very much either because it requires even more writing.

I loathe marketing and have done probably less of it than anyone here and have done okay. The best kind of marketing is not done by me but by enthusiastic readers telling other readers. You can't buy that. Sometimes you can engineer it, but usually it happens on its own. And it has a much longer tail than any ad you'll run.

(I also serve as an interesting data point because I don't do ARCs or push for reviews or do free or other come-ons, so I can tell you what at least one person's organic growth looks like, what % of readers spontaneously review, spontaneous sell-through numbers, and other nifty facts of the organic face of indie).

I worked my butt off for 25 years to get good enough at my craft that my books sell and then also sell the backlist. I'd have quit if I hated writing at some point in all those lean income years when I worked a straight job and had to shoehorn writing in on the commute or weekends. Always loved it, and will write on even if my income falls off to $200/month in 2019, until I'm a drooling little old lady mumbling into her pillow. (Oh wait, that was this morning.)

The point for me is the writing itself. Other attitudes are possible. This is my attitude.


----------



## EvanPickering (Mar 8, 2016)

Lorri Moulton said:


> Very true!
> 
> Evan, I really like your new covers! If you go here on Kboards, you can hit preview and update your signature line.
> https://www.kboards.com/authorsig/


Thank you Lorri, you rock. I wasn't sure how to update it but now it's good to go


----------



## Catherine Lea (Jul 16, 2013)

TwistedTales said:


> I first published in Q3 2014 and it was a very different business even then to what it is now. I thought it was about writing and publishing books and for some of us it still is, but largely the cat 100s on Amazon have turned into a farce.
> 
> Although it's fair to say there is room for a wide range of reading interests, it's really odd how so many people want to read erotica, magic spaceships, role playing games, and sassy witches/vampires/shapeshifters/werewolves (did I miss any?), all of which are mostly in KU. I find it hard to believe that the majority of readers in the world only want these niches, but that's what Amazon's KU download equals a sale makes it look like.
> 
> ...


You condensed the last four years of my life here.


----------



## DrewMcGunn (Jul 6, 2017)

Seneca42 said:


> Then you, not fox, should be writing the how-to's on SP'ing. I'm serious, not trying to sound flippant. If you can score top 100 off less than $3 a day with no mailing list and no author brand and no back catalog, then whatever you're doing is what we should all be doing. In my opinion that's the best performance out of any indie I've seen in terms of ROI.
> 
> It's great that you can do it, now share your secrets with the rest of us


Perhaps I misread the context about the top 100, but I was under the impression they were talking about within their genre. Depending on how narrow that genre's top 100 is, it's certainly do-able. But if I'm misunderstanding and they're talking about the top 100 of the kindle store, then I'm with you, I wanna know what the secret sauce is.

I write in a narrow niche and my $3 to $4 daily ad spend puts me in the top 100 of my little niche neighborhood. Now if I go up to the general SSF top 100, then I'm not even in spitting distance of the top 100.


----------



## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

I know quite a few writers killing it, and not all of them are utilizing huge ad spends. My definition of "killing it" is six figures a year, by the way. I know one top 100 author right now spending a ton but he's also selling a ton (enough to garner a 70K monthly profit). I also know people spending nothing other than for the occasional free run on ENT, Robin Reads, OHFB, etc. One push every few months. People making 20K a month and spending less than $100 a month.
As for me personally, since my name was brought up earlier, I spend about 2K a month on advertising now. That's mostly AMS ads but I'm testing a Facebook pixel ad right now but the spend is low as I'm figuring things out. That might get me to 2.5K a month. I make more than six figures a month. I don't do ARCs, or giveaways, or huge ad spends. I still manage to do just fine.
And, yes, I started early and got in when the getting was good (which I don't discount and consider myself lucky for) but my pen name pulls in 300K a year on its own and it was started much later and basically has one AMS ad with a $20-a-day ad spend fueling it. I never hit the limit on that spend, by the way. I would say I spend about $350 a month advertising that name and the other $1,500 or so on my main name. On that amount of money, I hit my highest numbers ever in both December and January.
Now, to address the other elephant in the room, I release a lot. That's how I get my visibility. I release quite fast and that's what my focus is on. Do I think I would be making this much if I didn't release at a quick pace? Absolutely not.
There are more ways than one to success, though, and I know a lot of people using a lot of different ways to be successful. Some of those have names that are less than a year old. It can be done.


----------



## It&#039;s A Mystery (Mar 14, 2017)

I hit a top 100 this month with my first release under this name, no mailing list and a $5 a day budget on AMS. For context that was getting to 10,300 in the overall store.

I seriously doubt the book will sustain this level, but I'm working hard to get the next one out at the end of March.

I'm not sure what the 'secret sauce' is there, but I suspect it is just a good combo of cover/blurb/genre.


----------



## Dr. Faustus (Jan 21, 2018)

yeah, a lot of times I feel down about it. But that's just the game we choose to play.


----------



## DrewMcGunn (Jul 6, 2017)

Boswser said:


> As someone who is in a similar situation--never done any paid promos, and has just one book right now--I want to look into AMS ads to wet my feet in that marketing world and see what kind of results it garners. I'm googling around at the moment, learning about it, and I know I've seen a few threads on the subject here I plan to hunt down. Just wondering, do you have any advice on that you'd recommend for single-book marketing?


Not to threadjack, but is your book going to be a stand alone or is it a first in a series or a prequel? If it's a standalone, I'm probably not the best to ask, as I've read that how you advertise a stand alone that won't have successive stories coming behind is different. First I would suggest you take a look at the AMS threads (start with the latest one, it's shorter), but setting up a AMS ad is pretty easy, just follow the instructions. I'd try to identify at least a hundred key words for the ad (keeping in mind that authors and their books work just fine as key words).

Keep in mind that if you're not getting people to click on your ad, that you could have issues with the cover or the ad copy. I've experimented with more than a dozen ads and as of yet, still don't know that I've got a winning combo. And of course, keep your bids controlled. It's your first ad, set that daily bid at somewhere between 1 and 3 dollars, whatever you're most comfortable with. I started with $1 daily limit. IMO, your genre is crowded and getting your bid to get picked up at a decent spot on the carousel can be pricey. Some folks have luck getting lower bid prices by focusing their bids on the names and titles offered by midlisters, and ignoring the people dominating the top twenty spots in your genre. Also, be aware that words like "shifter" could be prohibitively expensive to get a high/good spot on the carousel.

Lastly, and perhaps just as important. YMMV. What works for one person may not work for someone else. If this doesn't work, then circle back around and look at what others are doing.


----------



## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

DrewMcGunn said:


> Perhaps I misread the context about the top 100, but I was under the impression they were talking about within their genre. Depending on how narrow that genre's top 100 is, it's certainly do-able. But if I'm misunderstanding and they're talking about the top 100 of the kindle store, then I'm with you, I wanna know what the secret sauce is.
> 
> I write in a narrow niche and my $3 to $4 daily ad spend puts me in the top 100 of my little niche neighborhood. Now if I go up to the general SSF top 100, then I'm not even in spitting distance of the top 100.


You're correct. I *wish* it was the store, but I do well enough hitting those ranks in my categories to keep me happy and the lights on. Without AMS my books tend to drift in and out of the low end of the top 100. Spending a little to keep them well into the top 100 makes me a lot more. I could probably get the same effect by running stacked promos, but AMS is much less of a headache and cheaper.


----------



## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

Seneca42 said:


> You're making 7 figures monthly off $2.5k in advertising? I take it back, Kelli, you're out, Lee now has the best ROI.
> 
> Anyone doing better than $1M a month off $2.5k in spending?
> 
> If so speak up, I want to buy your how to book.


Where did I say one million? I said better than six figures, which could be misconstrued if you wanted to be a jerk I guess, but six figures is 100K to me. I make more than that. I know you get off on being a summer's breeze but it's not always necessary to give in to your baser urges. Try it one day.


----------



## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

Seneca42 said:


> You said you make *more than* 6 figures a months. More than 6 is 7 last time i checked. So no biggy, it was just a simple misunderstanding. You meant to say you MAKE 6 figures a month.
> 
> But because of that mistake, Kelli probably has the better ROI and I'll be buying her how to book. Sorry.


Or 100K is six figures and more than that is more than that. I think I know what I meant and said. I definitely think you should buy Kelli's how-to book, though. It might give you hope and stop you from trying to bring everyone down.


----------



## rdperry57 (Nov 15, 2017)

Hard not to get discouraged at times. I have one book out and two more in the editing stages. I've done a little marketing, but mostly free stuff. I'm hoping sales will pick up after the second one is published, but who knows? Either way, I'm pleased with the work and proud of the finished product.


----------



## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Seneca42 said:


> You said you make *more than* 6 figures a months. More than 6 is 7 last time i checked. So no biggy, it was just a simple misunderstanding. You meant to say you MAKE 6 figures a month.
> 
> But because of that mistake, Kelli probably has the better ROI and I'll be buying her how to book. Sorry.


I think I'd rather get Amanda's. Not that it would do me any good - on my best days I don't come anywhere close to her output or quality. While quite prawny compared to her, I have every expectation that I'll hit six figures for the year and beat what I was making at my former day job in IT, though. Would have done it last year but Things Happened and I went almost 7 months without writing or paying any attention to what was happening with my sales. Thank god for the Long Tail...


----------



## SND (May 26, 2017)

TwistedTales said:


> I first published in Q3 2014 and it was a very different business even then to what it is now. I thought it was about writing and publishing books and for some of us it still is, but largely the cat 100s on Amazon have turned into a farce.
> 
> Although it's fair to say there is room for a wide range of reading interests, it's really odd how so many people want to read erotica, magic spaceships, role playing games, and sassy witches/vampires/shapeshifters/werewolves (did I miss any?), all of which are mostly in KU. I find it hard to believe that the majority of readers in the world only want these niches, but that's what Amazon's KU download equals a sale makes it look like.
> 
> ...


This post warmed the cockles of my heart, or the void where it once resided. It also nudged me toward a decision to go wide.


----------



## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

If I have one of those days, and I'm sure we all have them, I remember I wrote for trad for years, selling short stories for few hundred bucks at most. I sold two novels, one deal fell through, the other publisher never paid half my advance. Since in the world of genre trad everyone knows everyone, you can't even have a good whinge about it. I had cupboards full of stuff that would never see the light of day under the trad model--because they were series, and series are useless if you can't sell book 1. I was growing depressed because I had so much stuff, but nothing I could do with it.

So that's what I think about when I have one of those bleh days and some eejit buys a copy of all my books and then returns all of them, and you're *sure* there ought to be more sales on your dashboard, but they somehow fail to make an appearance.

Because writing and publishing as we are is still the coolest thing ever.

ETA. edited because I need to clean my keyboard and some keys don't appear to work.


----------



## RightHoJeeves (Jun 30, 2016)

Patty Jansen said:


> Because writing and publishing as we as is still the coolest thing ever.


Right on.

Looks as though everyone's been busy while I've been asleep... yeah, you guys are all clearly right. Honestly I think at the route of my blues is the money I've spent, but I've also paid for everything through a side income, so I haven't had to go without to pay for this stuff. I haven't gone the cheap route at all, so things have added up, but I know I made that decision early on.

Once this third book is done, they'll be done. Then I'll be in a position to market, and hopefully then I can start to see some return. Of course I"m not expecting to break even immediately, but I suppose if I start seeing a return then it'll be a lot easier to be positive about it all.

And thanks to everyone who has complemented the books


----------



## CynthiaClay (Mar 17, 2017)

C. Gold said:


> It's a mistake to not do any advertising on books. Even if you only have a single book, you should start doing cheap and free promos for it. At $3.99, you can earn more than you spend on very cheap AMS ads with low bids and a dollar a day budget. The longer you delay, the more money you are letting slip past your fingers.
> 
> You can use services like Instafreebie and Book Cave for free and get involved with group giveaways and reader magnets. You could either give away one of your books and have a link to the other at the end to encourage buys of that one, or you can put a 10% sample to entice people to buy it.
> 
> ...


This was such good advice it deserves repeating! Thanks for posting!


----------



## EvanPickering (Mar 8, 2016)

Patty Jansen said:


> If I have one of those days, and I'm sure we all have them, I remember I wrote for trad for years, selling short stories for few hundred bucks at most. I sold two novels, one deal fell through, the other publisher never paid half my advance. Since in the world of genre trad everyone knows everyone, you can't even have a good whinge about it. I had cupboards full of stuff that would never see the light of day under the trad model--because they were series, and series are useless if you can't sell book 1. I was growing depressed because I had so much stuff, but nothing I could do with it.
> 
> So that's what I think about when I have one of those bleh days and some eejit buys a copy of all my books and then returns all of them, and you're *sure* there ought to be more sales on your dashboard, but they somehow fail to make an appearance.
> 
> ...


----------



## Sam Rivers (May 22, 2011)

> Honestly I think at the route of my blues is the money I've spent, but I've also paid for everything through a side income,


What is a side income?


----------



## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

I hear you, I really do.

I feel low a lot of the time as I'm trying to break away from teen romance and into a new genre, and it's hard starting from scratch again. Of course, I picked a really saturated genre simply because I love to read it, but it's depressing seeing my rankings and my income all fall as I ignore my old name and focus on a new one that has yet to move the needle.

But like you, I sometimes think this is a time spent issue. I can only really write at night (even though I call it my job - because being a full time mother to little ones doesn't earn squat), so I try to aim for 1000 words a day. But it's constantly interrupted, and of course, being a Moderator I spent far too much time here at the WC.

My youngest will start pre-school soon and I keep thinking I should probably go back to an office. But I don't want to! I want to do this! 

I just keep telling myself that it doesn't matter that my new series isn't "resonating", because there will be other series and at least I'm building a back list for my new name/genre. Put in the hours you can, keep learning and experimenting and give it time...


----------



## AlexaGrave (Jun 11, 2015)

Right now, the only thing keeping me going is that I love to write. It's definitely not sales (hey, I sold 1 copy this month - that's a good month for me - lol).

It is hard, and marketing frustrates me to no end. And I'm also recently running into issues on getting the second novel out in my trilogy, which I know the long time span between books doesn't help, so it stresses me out even more and...

Ah, the endless cycle.

Right now, the point for me is to enjoy what I'm doing. I write more now than I did when I was querying agents and editors, so that's a plus.

Maybe, just maybe, one day I'll gather a small following of readers, but I understand it will take time and more full length novels (most of my titles right now are short stories and novelettes, though I won't stop writing those either - I must have fun and those short series are a blast for me and close to my heart). And maybe one of these days all the marketing will just click with me.

Until then, there's only one thing I can do - keep writing.


----------



## Guest (Feb 20, 2018)

Evenstar said:


> I just keep telling myself that it doesn't matter that my new series isn't "resonating", because there will be other series and at least I'm building a back list for my new name/genre. Put in the hours you can, keep learning and experimenting and give it time...


This is really important to remember. I'm pretty sure that even Amanda Lee, one of my heroes of indie publishing (and probably a lot of yours), didn't get great traction on her books until her 2nd Series (I think? if I'm wrong please correct me Amanda) series. Pretty sure the 1st series was Avery Shaw iirc, later came the Witches of the Midwest which knocked it out of the park.

I'm hoping my debut series does reasonably well, but my actual career plan is based on Third Porridge Theory; that is, that by my 3rd series I'll get it right and it'll really resonate with readers OR by the 3rd series even if I still don't have a huge winner I'll have a backlist that will start to add up. (PS: If you are at all curious about my debut series please don't interpret this to mean it's not a 100% effort and don't let it deter you from buying it if inclined &#129310;  (when it comes out late spring). I just expect to learn a lot and be a much better writer, and a little more tuned to readers from feedback, by the 3rd series.)

Even if there are disappointments and it's a drag some of the time, doesn't it beat the heck out of waiting month after month on query letters to trad; and then, if your ship comes in, waiting months and months for the book to come out -- and knowing that if it doesn't sell like hotcakes the 10-15% royalty rate isn't going to buy much? 
Does to me. 
It's tremendous good fortune for story-tellers to be alive in the age of ebooks and the Great and Powerful Zon.


----------



## Sam Rivers (May 22, 2011)

One thing I noticed about this thread is everyone acts like advertising is the only expense. There are a lot of other expenses related to writing and publishing. It is the bottom line that is important. If you don't make a profit, you are in trouble.


----------



## Skip Knox (May 12, 2013)

Bill Hiatt made an important observation, one that I did not see echoed, so I'll do it.

Most writers don't make a living publishing fiction. Never did. I don't have sort of numbers to support this, but I would not be surprised to find *more* writers making a living solely from publishing fiction since 2000 than in any twenty years prior to that. As Bill pointed out, many made rent money off writing for newspapers and magazines, publishing fiction on the side, as it were. Rather notoriously, a number of well-known SF writers made a living in the 1950s and 1960s writing porn. 

Art just ain't a paying gig, save for the fortunate few.

Someone here said maybe they'd quit the day job if they started making big bucks. Me, I'd still be cautious. Most any well-established writer will tell you, it can all vanish dishearteningly fast. Suddenly your books don't sell and it's been fifteen years since you held a regular job and *now* what? 

Art just ain't a long-term gig, save for the fortunate few.

We've had a stretch of extraordinary good fortune thanks to some big shifts in the industry. It's worth mentioning that these same shifts have ruined careers that people thought were well established. Sad because your ROI on your AMS ads is tanking? Think about the journalist who is not just out of a job but is out of a career, a life's work.

I'm not going to say quit your complaining. Complaining is a fundamental human activity. Deciding things ain't right is a good motivator. I'm just trying to add some perspective on the complaints. Personally, making a profit from writing--never mind a living wage--is more of a hope than an expectation. When I fall short, I don't assume it's because I'm doing something wrong. I assume I'm typical.


----------



## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Sam Rivers said:


> One thing I noticed about this thread is everyone acts like advertising is the only expense. There are a lot of other expenses related to writing and publishing. It is the bottom line that is important. If you don't make a profit, you are in trouble.


You can get decent premade covers without having to spend much, and editing doesn't have to cost a fortune, either, if you learn how to write clean copy and fix most of the problems yourself before sending your manuscript off. Or if you're hurting for funds find a friend or colleague who is willing and able to edit for you until you can pay someone to do it. It's very possible to publish on a budget. Other than that, what expenses are there, really?

In this sense things are much better than they were just a few years ago. There weren't nearly as many cover designers and editors available, and they tended to charge significantly higher prices.


----------



## RightHoJeeves (Jun 30, 2016)

Sam Rivers said:


> What is a side income?


I have a 9-5 job but I also work as a freelancer. My life (food, bills, rent, etc) is totally covered by my 9-5 job, and freelancing totally covers the publishing.


----------



## RightHoJeeves (Jun 30, 2016)

Skip Knox said:


> Bill Hiatt made an important observation, one that I did not see echoed, so I'll do it.
> 
> Most writers don't make a living publishing fiction. Never did. I don't have sort of numbers to support this, but I would not be surprised to find *more* writers making a living solely from publishing fiction since 2000 than in any twenty years prior to that. As Bill pointed out, many made rent money off writing for newspapers and magazines, publishing fiction on the side, as it were. Rather notoriously, a number of well-known SF writers made a living in the 1950s and 1960s writing porn.
> 
> ...


Very true.

I'd be happy if I broke even, to be honest. That's my main goal.

As for big bucks... I mean, I've got friends who are corporate lawyers, doctors and investment bankers. They're earning huge amounts of money, but have brutal work loads. Especially the doctors... can you imagine the stress of that? Bleagh.

Actually one of the lawyers told me over a few beers the other day that he wished he could write and indie publish. Grass is always greener, I guess!


----------



## IreneP (Jun 19, 2012)

Skip Knox said:


> Bill Hiatt made an important observation, one that I did not see echoed, so I'll do it.
> 
> Most writers don't make a living publishing fiction. Never did. I don't have sort of numbers to support this, but I would not be surprised to find *more* writers making a living solely from publishing fiction since 2000 than in any twenty years prior to that. As Bill pointed out, many made rent money off writing for newspapers and magazines, publishing fiction on the side, as it were. Rather notoriously, a number of well-known SF writers made a living in the 1950s and 1960s writing porn.


About 10 years ago I read an article that placed a respectable income for a solid mid-list author at around $12k per year. That was before the indie explosion and by mid-list we were talking people with a nice readership and books in all the major retailers, just not household names.

So, yeah. There's a reason the term "starving artist" exists.


----------



## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

.


----------



## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

P.J. Post said:


> Writing is not a business, publishing is a business. Publishing is the retail side of the equation, the attempt to commodify Art.


I disagree. If you are self-publishing with the goal of making money, then writing is every bit as much a part of your business as advertising, cover design, ebook creation, mailing list creation, and blurb writing.

If you are writing for the pure enjoyment of creating and don't care about making money, then you can write whatever you want. But if you are writing commercial fiction that you expect to sell, that is not the case. You are writing to a market which you have identified beforehand. That market has expectations which you have to meet if you want to be successful. There are exceptions, but that's the point. They're _exceptions_. For the rest of us, violating genre expectations generally means bad reviews and lousy sales. So if you're not looking at your writing as part of your business, you may very well be shooting yourself in the foot.

I'm _not_ an artist. I'm a writer who (usually) produces commercial fiction written to a specific market in order to make a living. I don't look at it any differently than when I was writing software for a living, only instead of making pixels do things on a computer screen I'm making images dance around in peoples' heads. If I do my job right, I get to keep on doing it and make money at it. If I don't, someone else who can will take my place. Just like when writing software, there are rules I have to follow or the end result isn't going to perform well, leading to unhappy customers. I can ignore those rules and hope that I get lucky, but it certainly isn't something I'd count on.


----------



## going going gone (Jun 4, 2013)

Patty Jansen said:


> If I have one of those days, and I'm sure we all have them, I remember I wrote for trad for years, selling short stories for few hundred bucks at most. I sold two novels, one deal fell through, the other publisher never paid half my advance. Since in the world of genre trad everyone knows everyone, you can't even have a good whinge about it. I had cupboards full of stuff that would never see the light of day under the trad model--because they were series, and series are useless if you can't sell book 1. I was growing depressed because I had so much stuff, but nothing I could do with it.
> 
> So that's what I think about when I have one of those bleh days and some eejit buys a copy of all my books and then returns all of them, and you're *sure* there ought to be more sales on your dashboard, but they somehow fail to make an appearance.
> 
> ...


love that, Patty. There is something to be said for the experience of slogging in the trenches of trad pub, and how it changes your perspective on indie.


----------



## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

KelliWolfe said:


> I disagree. If you are self-publishing with the goal of making money, then writing is every bit as much a part of your business as advertising, cover design, ebook creation, mailing list creation, and blurb writing.
> 
> If you are writing for the pure enjoyment of creating and don't care about making money, then you can write whatever you want. But if you are writing commercial fiction that you expect to sell, that is not the case. You are writing to a market which you have identified beforehand. That market has expectations which you have to meet if you want to be successful. There are exceptions, but that's the point. They're _exceptions_. For the rest of us, violating genre expectations generally means bad reviews and lousy sales. So if you're not looking at your writing as part of your business, you may very well be shooting yourself in the foot.
> 
> I'm _not_ an artist. I'm a writer who (usually) produces commercial fiction written to a specific market in order to make a living. I don't look at it any differently than when I was writing software for a living, only instead of making pixels do things on a computer screen I'm making images dance around in peoples' heads. If I do my job right, I get to keep on doing it and make money at it. If I don't, someone else who can will take my place. Just like when writing software, there are rules I have to follow or the end result isn't going to perform well, leading to unhappy customers. I can ignore those rules and hope that I get lucky, but it certainly isn't something I'd count on.


I self-publish with the intent of making money, and I don't do any of the things you just described.

I agree with PJ. Writing is an art. Publishing that writing is a business.


----------



## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

I have to agree with KelliWolfe, I don't feel like writing is an art at all. Especially when you do it professionally. I _love_ to write, but I treat it like work not like self-expression. I try to put in the word count, I slog my way through books that I'm fed up with or I'm too tired to write. I show up and do it.

It's still the best job in the entire world as far as I'm concerned, but it is my job and I want to make money doing it. And I feel disingenuous to call myself an 'artist' on that basis. Of course, a lot of that might simply depend on your definition of artist...


----------



## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

GeneDoucette said:


> I agree with PJ. Writing is an art. Publishing that writing is a business.


For me it's both. I love the creative side of it, dreaming up the characters and seeing how their lives go, but I'm also conscious while I write of the mechanical craft issues (too many adverbs, repeating words, need more conflict, infodumps, add in some description, deepen the emotional intensity...), and I'm also considering whether readers will like it.

It's exactly the same in many other art forms. The painter is often trying to produce art that's also a faithful representation of the thing depicted, is a visually satisfying composition, and something that can be sold afterwards. It's a combination of art, technical skill and marketability. Very few of us are entirely at one or other extreme, we're hoping to hit some optimum point that's creatively satisfying, technically competent and also sells well. Each of us makes a personal decision as to where that optimum point is.


----------



## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

While art and self-expression overlap, I see them as two separate things. 

Art is dominated by judgement. If you follow all the rules for art, you don't necessarily come out with anything appealing. Rules guide you towards good results, but do not guarantee good results. Art needs human judgement to come out well.

In contrast, a science will always come out with correct results if you follow the rules. Two people can both make a stool from the same blueprints and those stools will look and work the same. It's not even a problem that the stools are exact copies. Science is replicable.


----------



## Guest (Feb 21, 2018)

Writing romance and competing with others in trends and on the market and making that work - that's what kills the artist in the writer. Giving up that BS gets you back to the art side.

And screw money. Screw sales. Screw 5 star reviews. I'm serious.

If I'm going to make it at this long term, then there's one person's opinion that comes before all that garbage. AKA MINE

And my opinion is that most of what's dominating the charts atm is crap. Yeah, sure, there's brilliance there as well of course. But I'm not going to find my own brilliance if I start copy and pasting what I see and try to replicate. That time is over. As Senaca keeps saying, the market is SATURATED. Want to stand out? Be an ARTIST. Be AWESOME. Don't settle for second best. I've already done that for 3 years and where did it get me? Short term success followed by me having to throw everything out because I couldn't stand by those books. They weren't good. Not in my opinion. Time to write what I believe is good.

Reading the OPs original post, it's like - Really? That's all you got? That's all you've got in the tank? That's the extent you're willing to suffer for this?

Because I and many others like me are willing to suffer much worse and longer than you're willing to incorporate into your long term plan. 

At the end of the day, if I write the best books I can write in my opinion and people still hate me, and I'm poor and broke, so what. I gave my best and I still have a smile on my face. 

This is what I'm meant to do.


----------



## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

ShaneJeffery said:


> If I'm going to make it at this long term, then there's one person's opinion that comes before all that garbage. AKA MINE


I have the opposite perspective.

My customers are collectively my boss. They dictate what I write.

I happen to love my genre, so it works out well. And my compensation package is pretty good. 

Ultimately, each of us has to forge our own path in light of how we measure success. Different strokes for different folks.


----------



## Guest (Feb 21, 2018)

Anarchist said:


> I have the opposite perspective.
> 
> My customers are collectively my boss. They dictate what I write.
> 
> ...


That's not the opposite perspective to me. You've found people who enjoy your work and now you cater to them. I'm opposed to going out to the blind marketplace and trying to artificially devise your writing to conform to market expectation. For this writer, he's worried about his third book or whatever not selling, just as his last 2 books didn't sell. The true test of strength though doesn't lie in whether his books sells, it lies in whether he believes in his books. If he doesn't believe in his books and they sell, he will climb for a short while. If he doesn't believe and he doesn't sell he won't get anywhere.

But if he believes and he doesn't sell, he will have the resolve to survive not selling, to the point where he actually does sell if he is good enough. Judging from reading his work, he certainly is good enough. He's not a bad writer. And he'll get there if he has the stamina to prioritize his passion over what the market dictates.


----------



## LadyG (Sep 3, 2015)

RightHoJeeves said:


> I have to admit, the wind has really been taken out of my indie sails lately.
> 
> I think it's a combination of a few things. Mainly that I'm about to send the third book in a trilogy to the editor (that's the Ministry of Detection), and so far, I haven't seen any return on anything. I can't beat myself up too much, because I haven't done any marketing (I'm planning to do that once I've got the three ready to go).
> 
> ...


I think it's perfectly normal to feel a bit blue about it once in a while. After all, I do that in my regular job as well after a really bad day. Don't we all occasionally have one of those days when we wonder, _"Have I made a huge mistake here? What the hell am I doing with my life?"_ I don't believe anyone anywhere is 100% confident 100% of the time, no matter what their chosen path.

I'm far from being a success at this by anyone's standards, so maybe my thoughts on the subject are utterly worthless. But it sounds like you're enjoying what you're writing, you're not actually losing any money, you're learning from the experience, and you've got support and encouragement from your partner. I think that all adds up to being on the right track. Just keep writing, keep learning, keep going. Learn from the ones who are successful and ignore the naysayers who seem to thrive on discouraging others.


----------



## Fleurina (Nov 13, 2017)

> Bravo.


Ditto.


----------



## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

ShaneJeffery said:


> Writing romance and competing with others in trends and on the market and making that work - that's what kills the artist in the writer. Giving up that BS gets you back to the art side.


Perhaps for you, but frankly this sounds terribly condescending, not to mention insulting, towards those of us who write romance and enjoy it. And we do enjoy it. I love my sweet YAs, and the deeper NAs, and I'm having a blast with the Regency Gothic I'm working on between projects. I think what you're talking about happens when people try to write in genres they don't enjoy hoping to get an easy paycheck. I'll totally agree that's not much fun, and it's why I finally bailed on erotica even though it was easy and the money was very nice.



> And my opinion is that most of what's dominating the charts atm is crap. Yeah, sure, there's brilliance there as well of course. But I'm not going to find my own brilliance if I start copy and pasting what I see and try to replicate. That time is over. As Senaca keeps saying, the market is SATURATED. Want to stand out? Be an ARTIST. Be AWESOME. Don't settle for second best. I've already done that for 3 years and where did it get me? Short term success followed by me having to throw everything out because I couldn't stand by those books. They weren't good. Not in my opinion. Time to write what I believe is good.


Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap. So what? Popular fiction has been considered to be dominated by crap since Gutenberg built the printing press. Again, so what? The market is saturated. People have been saying that since 2012 when the Kindle store broke the million ebook mark. "How can I compete with a million other books?!?!?!" And yet there are plenty of people right here doing just that, and at least half of the ones that I'm aware of here on WC aren't doing it in the romance genres.

There is (and has been since long, long before ebooks became a thing) a notion that it's easy to make a lot of money cranking out cookie cutter romances. And it is - if you're one of those people hiring ghostwriters to churn out 50 new books a month and you're making your money on volume across a huge catalog. But if you're flying solo and all you've got is yourself, unless you can turn out copy as fast as Amanda that's probably not going to work.

No one says you have to write romance to be successful. No one says you have to write a book a week to be successful. Find a genre you love. Learn that sucker inside and out until you know what the readers want so well you don't even have to think about it. Give them what they want and wrap it up with a solid cover and blurb. Work on improving your writing craft until the readers don't want to put down your book until they hit The End. But these are things most of us have to _learn_, it isn't just instinctive. It takes work and it takes time. As I said in an earlier post, yes, there are exceptions. But you can't count on being an exception in this business any more than you can count on winning the lottery to cover your retirement. The vast majority of people who are successful at this are so because they've found a genre/subgenre they like and they've devoted themselves to becoming better at writing those books than anyone else. That means understanding the genre and their readers as well as working to improve their writing.

All the topics wondering "Why isn't my book selling?" here are by people looking for answers. A lot of them are by people in financial difficulty hoping to make ends meet by adding to their income. A lot of others are no longer physically capable of holding down a day job and need something to bring in some money. Telling them "You're an artist - write what you want and just enjoy yourself" is counterproductive. There are very definite things that you can do to improve your chances of becoming successful in this business. There aren't any guarantees. There are no guarantees in _any_ business that you'll be successful. But the things I've talked about in this thread are replicable, and they are the exact same things that Joe Konrath and DWS and Holly Lisle and most of the pros who hand out wisdom to us prawns offer as advice.

If you want to be an artist, none of that matters. But if you're serious about making a living selling fiction then it's very good advice. I followed it and was able to quit my day job about three years ago. In 2018 I fully expect to beat the six figures I was making as a software dev. Was there some luck involved? Absolutely. But the work I put in learning made sure that I was in a good position to take advantage of every opportunity that came my way. A lot of people got in on this early in 2010-2012 during the "Gold Rush." But most of them are gone now because they relied on luck and that particular set of circumstances instead of working their butts off to take advantage of the chance to learn their craft and getting paid to do it. As the market matured and the products improved, they got left behind.

So do it your way. But I stand by the advice I've given. Treat this like a business, treat your writing like a craft rather than art, and your chances of actually making money doing this are going to be much better.


----------



## LadyG (Sep 3, 2015)

KelliWolfe, I really wish KBoards had a "like" button.


----------



## Guest (Feb 21, 2018)

KelliWolfe said:


> Perhaps for you, but frankly this sounds terribly condescending, not to mention insulting, towards those of us who write romance and enjoy it. And we do enjoy it. I love my sweet YAs, and the deeper NAs, and I'm having a blast with the Regency Gothic I'm working on between projects. I think what you're talking about happens when people try to write in genres they don't enjoy hoping to get an easy paycheck. I'll totally agree that's not much fun, and it's why I finally bailed on erotica even though it was easy and the money was very nice.


Settle down, Kellie. My message was addressed to the author who said they weren't artists and merely just job-taskers, doing what the customer asked. That was your quote, don't make me go and dredge it up. Obviously not ALL romance authors are like that. But I would think if you're writing romance and you don't consider yourself an artist and just a conformist servicing your readers, then you don't belong in that genre. Maybe you don't belong in any genre.

I mean, maybe you do, if you're just some psycho genius getting off on writing romance because you CAN, but I want to help people who are writing genres and trends and to the market and it's not working for them, and it's killing their soul because inside they're artists.

Aren't you an artist inside? Truly at your core?

Then why is writing romance preventing you from being an artist?


----------



## MKK (Jun 9, 2015)

I hear you. I'm the same...Not every day...but often. 

I've started businesses, ran them, sold them, managed two-hundred and fifty employees across the globe and...

WRITING...IS...THE...HARDEST...THING...I...HAVE...EVER...DONE

What keeps me going is knowing: 

(1) my best work is still to come,
(2) I haven't put the time or money or effort into advertising,
(3) I'm still finding my style/voice and until I do, I probably won't hit the right market, 
(4) a well-written book will sell for decades. (but it has to be written first)

I don't think you're alone.


----------



## Guest (Feb 21, 2018)

KelliWolfe said:


> Telling them "You're an artist - write what you want and just enjoy yourself" is counterproductive. There are very definite things that you can do to improve your chances of becoming successful in this business. There aren't any guarantees. There are no guarantees in _any_ business that you'll be successful. But the things I've talked about in this thread are replicable, and they are the exact same things that Joe Konrath and DWS and Holly Lisle and most of the pros who hand out wisdom to us prawns offer as advice.
> 
> If you want to be an artist, none of that matters. But if you're serious about making a living selling fiction then it's very good advice. I followed it and was able to quit my day job about three years ago. In 2018 I fully expect to beat the six figures I was making as a software dev. Was there some luck involved? Absolutely. But the work I put in learning made sure that I was in a good position to take advantage of every opportunity that came my way. A lot of people got in on this early in 2010-2012 during the "Gold Rush." But most of them are gone now because they relied on luck and that particular set of circumstances instead of working their butts off to take advantage of the chance to learn their craft and getting paid to do it. As the market matured and the products improved, they got left behind.
> 
> So do it your way. But I stand by the advice I've given. Treat this like a business, treat your writing like a craft rather than art, and your chances of actually making money doing this are going to be much better.


Kelli, your advice isn't challenged by me. If it speaks to authors then they should pursue it. I'm just saying that there's another way to selling out and treating this as a hardcore mechanical business to build yourself up.

I've been publishing since Dec 2012 and I've gone from Horror to Contemp Romance To Paranormal Romance back to Horror and Finally Thrillers.

IF YOU WRITE BOOKS YOU DON'T LOVE YOU WILL ONE DAY DELETE YOUR NAME

Unless you're 50 Shades of Gray successful, which won't happen.

Anyway. I love debates. We're probably not that far off from agreeing though.


----------



## Diamond Eyes (Feb 11, 2017)

ShaneJeffery said:


> And screw money. Screw sales. Screw 5 star reviews. I'm serious.
> 
> If I'm going to make it at this long term, then there's one person's opinion that comes before all that garbage. AKA MINE
> 
> ...





ShaneJeffery said:


> another way to selling out and treating this as a hardcore mechanical business





ShaneJeffery said:


> just a conformist servicing your readers, then you don't belong in that genre. Maybe you don't belong in any genre.
> 
> it's killing their soul because inside they're artists.
> 
> ...


So, writing is all about you, you, you and "art" and taking what readers want and enjoy into consideration is just being a conformist mechanical soul-killing sell-out, but then you want people to pay you for what you put out for some reason? I don't understand this mindset at all. It seems like a very narcissistic way to approach any career/profession/business. Why even put your stuff up on Amazon for money if you don't care so much? How is providing other people entertainment, information, or services that they want a bad thing?


----------



## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

I write romance and in no way did I feel insulted by Shane's post. Maybe it's because I see writing books as a lifelong thing for me; my life's calling, if you will. Writing stories is something I've always done and did so for free until 2016. I've complained on Kboards before about my meager sales, so I empathize with the OP. But when we really view SP from a realistic pov, there are so many authors and so many books and so many readers...and it's always been this way.


----------



## KylieG (Oct 30, 2015)

I am not the expert that others are and despite writing a lot of promo copy when I worked for local television stations, I have to say that I don't think my blurbs are very good.  That said, your books look like something I would like, but I felt like I needed a little more information. I was especially curious about Operation Nightcrawl.  I was wondering if it was retro, was it supernatural, or what?  I'm thinking this may be something to address in marketing.


----------



## Guest (Feb 21, 2018)

KennySkylin said:


> So, writing is all about you, you, you and "art" and taking what readers want and enjoy into consideration is just being a conformist mechanical soul-killing sell-out, but then you want people to pay you for what you put out for some reason? I don't understand this mindset at all. It seems like a very narcissistic way to approach any career/profession/business. Why even put your stuff up on Amazon for money if you don't care so much? How is providing other people entertainment, information, or services that they want a bad thing?


It sounds like you understand the mindset perfectly. After all, you created it.

That's all your interpretation of what I've said. Tonnes of misconception in there.

Writing is all about the writer, uh yeah. The one who is writing the words. No-brainer. It's about art too, because authors who write usually are trying to be creative and consider themselves artists. The BEST authors /writers are artists. Are you arguing that point?

Taking reader consideration only works up to a point. Like as in the point of, I want to write X genre, do readers read X genre? If the answer is Yes, then have at it. When people come in telling you how to write that genre that's the point where I say take out the tommy gun and start shooting people.

I want people to pay me for reading my books for ... some reason? I mean, you're seriously trying your best to be argumentative, aren't you? What author doesn't want to be paid by the reader who picks up their books?

I'd like to discuss this further with you, but only when you stop throwing insults at me and have the capacity to see what's happening outside your own field of vision.


----------



## Guest (Feb 21, 2018)

Rosie A. said:


> I write romance and in no way did I feel insulted by Shane's post. Maybe it's because I see writing books as a lifelong thing for me; my life's calling, if you will. Writing stories is something I've always done and did so for free until 2016. I've complained on Kboards before about my meager sales, so I empathize with the OP. But when we really view SP from a realistic pov, there are so many authors and so many books and so many readers...and it's always been this way.


Thank you. I do not mean to disparage romance writers or the craft. All I'm saying is that if you're in romance and it's not your calling, get out.


----------



## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

ShaneJeffery said:


> Settle down, Kellie. My message was addressed to the author who said they weren't artists and merely just job-taskers, doing what the customer asked. That was your quote, don't make me go and dredge it up. Obviously not ALL romance authors are like that. But I would think if you're writing romance and you don't consider yourself an artist and just a conformist servicing your readers, then you don't belong in that genre. Maybe you don't belong in any genre.
> 
> I mean, maybe you do, if you're just some psycho genius getting off on writing romance because you CAN, but I want to help people who are writing genres and trends and to the market and it's not working for them, and it's killing their soul because inside they're artists.
> 
> ...


*I* said that I'm not an artist. I'm not. I'm a writer. I've wanted to be a writer since I was in the third grade and my dad handed me his copy of LOTR and said "Shut up an be quiet for a while." I don't give a flying leap at a rolling doughnut about producing art. I care about writing stories that people want to read. That means thoroughly understanding the genre, understanding what it is that the readers want when they pick up a book in that genre, and giving them the best book I can that scratches their itch.

This is my *job*. I can no more sit here and crank out whatever I like with no thought to what the customer wants than I could have when I was a software developer. If I write a romance that doesn't deliver what romance readers want, then I don't deserve sales and I do deserve the bad reviews. Whether the book is any good is completely irrelevant. It wasn't what the readers wanted or expected, and they get just as irritated by that as my old boss would have done if I'd written a game when I was supposed to be working on a database interface. It might have been a great game, but that isn't what my boss wanted and was paying me to do.

So I make sure that my books deliver what the readers want, first and foremost, because they're the ones who _pay me_. But I don't have to write in genres that I don't enjoy. If I don't enjoy what I'm writing, I move on to something else, which is why I no longer write erotica even though I was good at it and can make very nice money doing it. This is not a prison sentence. I write commercial fiction to market because that's where the money is, and it lets me keep working at home in my pajamas drinking coffee and telling stories for a living. That doesn't mean that I have to write books I don't enjoy. It doesn't mean I have to force myself into genres I don't like reading. It does mean that I have to actually know WTF I'm doing and I have to understand the genre I'm working in and be closely in touch with what the readers want. How I deliver that is completely up to me, but my job is to deliver it. And I do, which is why I'm sitting here all cozy in my pajamas right now drinking coffee and working on my next YA romance instead of making the daily commute to a day job in an office and dealing with management with it's head so far up it's a** they can see their own tonsils.


----------



## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

I am happy for everyone who followed advice and did the things they call 'write to market' in order to succeed. But there is a manifest difference between:

"I did this to become a successful SP author" 

and

"If you are not doing this you will not become a successful SP author"


----------



## Guest (Feb 21, 2018)

KelliWolfe said:


> *I* said that I'm not an artist. I'm not. I'm a writer. I've wanted to be a writer since I was in the third grade and my dad handed me his copy of LOTR and said "Shut up an be quiet for a while." I don't give a flying leap at a rolling doughnut about producing art. I care about writing stories that people want to read. That means thoroughly understanding the genre, understanding what it is that the readers want when they pick up a book in that genre, and giving them the best book I can that scratches their itch.
> 
> This is my *job*. I can no more sit here and crank out whatever I like with no thought to what the customer wants than I could have when I was a software developer. If I write a romance that doesn't deliver what romance readers want, then I don't deserve sales and I do deserve the bad reviews. Whether the book is any good is completely irrelevant. It wasn't what the readers wanted or expected, and they get just as irritated by that as my old boss would have done if I'd written a game when I was supposed to be working on a database interface. It might have been a great game, but that isn't what my boss wanted and was paying me to do.
> 
> So I make sure that my books deliver what the readers want, first and foremost, because they're the ones who _pay me_. But I don't have to write in genres that I don't enjoy. If I don't enjoy what I'm writing, I move on to something else, which is why I no longer write erotica even though I was good at it and can make very nice money doing it. This is not a prison sentence. I write commercial fiction to market because that's where the money is, and it lets me keep working at home in my pajamas drinking coffee and telling stories for a living. That doesn't mean that I have to write books I don't enjoy. It doesn't mean I have to force myself into genres I don't like reading. It does mean that I have to actually know WTF I'm doing and I have to understand the genre I'm working in and be closely in touch with what the readers want. How I deliver that is completely up to me, but my job is to deliver it. And I do, which is why I'm sitting here all cozy in my pajamas right now drinking coffee and working on my next YA romance instead of making the daily commute to a day job in an office and dealing with management with it's head so far up it's a** they can see their own tonsils.


You know, I thought the exact same thing when I was writing paranormal romance, and I had fans, and sales and I mean sales that changed my life.

You take away the readers and the sales and it exposes what you're really doing.

The thing is, I couldn't control my sales. Or my reviews. Even when it was going well. That was all part of random circumstance, the changing market, etc. I wrote those books not for myself by for the readers.

And now they're gone, those books are worth NOTHING

Where do my sentiments stem from? An author with 2 books out, not selling, and asking if book 3 doesn't work, what's the point? My answer is = The point is you shouldn't even be thinking about success at this point. If you're not on a 10, 15, 20 year plan, if you don't have the guts to fail at this forever, then you're nowhere. Give up. Because he sounds like he wants book 3 to be the one that makes or breaks him and it's not going to do anything other than what books 1 and 2 did. Because he's not doing anything differently than those times. And he's already out of puff.

The odds of success if you aren't 100 percent behind your books is minuscule and growing smaller. And there's no longevity in it.

Just my thoughts anyway.

_Edited. PM me any questions. Evenstar, Moderator_


----------



## Guest (Feb 21, 2018)

Usedtoposthere said:


> I am not an artist either. Craftsperson, I would say. I am the guy making beautiful cutting boards and selling them at the farmers market. At least I hope they are beautiful. The boards have skill and artistry in them, but he is making a useful but beautiful product to sell. I am selling entertainment and escape, and also writing for entertainment and escape.
> 
> I have seen that successful authors approach their job with different mindsets. Nothing wrong with that. We are not all the same.


You're not an artist? Do you read romance? Do you enjoy romance? Do you write books you want to read?

If the answer is no, then you're not an artist. Otherwise, we're about on the same page, I think.


----------



## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

RightHoJeeves said:


> I have to admit, the wind has really been taken out of my indie sails lately.
> 
> I think it's a combination of a few things. Mainly that I'm about to send the third book in a trilogy to the editor (that's the Ministry of Detection), and so far, I haven't seen any return on anything. I can't beat myself up too much, because I haven't done any marketing (I'm planning to do that once I've got the three ready to go).
> 
> ...


I think it is normal to get blue some times about self-publishing. There is a lot of uncertainty in this business. Uncertainty brings a lot of unhappiness.

If you have a group of beta readers who are loving your material, you'll do well enough. Maybe not Usedtoposthere or Gene D. levels of "well enough," but you'll make back those expenses.


----------



## Moticom (Jun 29, 2016)

I do worry that not just with books, but with any entertainment medium such as music, film, TV etc all markets are reaching saturation point. There is simply far more choice in the world for all of these tings now than there ever was before. Yes that is a good thing and we're all very lucky to have such choice, but with so much to choose from, if we're all choosing different things then each of those things are going to get less money and be less viable to continue.

The amount of music around now, if The Beatles came out now, yes they would probably still be popular, but look at all of the other new bands/artists around today that people can choose to spend their money on instead that weren't around back then. 

It's the same with books and films, every day there are more. There are so many books/albums/films we can enjoy today from dead artists too, and whilst people unfortunately die it's great that their art lives on. But as more generations come and pass leaving their art, how much more choice will there be in the future? A lot more, so will anything in the future ever be as big as The Beatles or Harry Potter again? Perhaps the lucky few will, but what about everyone else? How will the new artists and creators do with so much competition? This is what worries me.


----------



## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

This is one of those threads where everybody's right, because writing and the reasons and motivations for it are individual, and people define 'artist' differently.

By the way, I'm not an artist, either. I'm a gol dang ar_teest_.


----------



## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

If it was all about money for me then I'd still be writing erotica and cranking out an endless stream of motorcycle club/billionaire/stepbrother romances (or combinations of all three). If it was all about money, I've got lots of options. I have degrees in math and physics and 25 years experience in IT as a software developer, systems admin, DBA admin, etc. No, I'm doing exactly what I want to do, and I'm writing what I want to write _within the scope that I know will sell_. I started off writing books no one wanted to read. They were fun to write, but if no one was going to read them then what was the point? No, I don't want to suffer over books no one likes. That's just ridiculous. Why write books no one likes when I can have just as much fun writing books that I'm pretty sure they will? I keep telling you - I am not an artist. I am not trying to produce art. I don't have any inclination whatsoever to suffer to produce something artsy. I don't care if people are analyzing my books in their 8th grade English class a hundred years from now. I'm not writing for the ages. I'm doing what I really enjoy doing and getting paid to do it. Very few people are that lucky.



> IMO in 2018 if you want to game the system and write to market and all that jazz, then it's impossible. That's how I feel about it. The odds of success if you aren't 100 percent behind your books is minuscule and growing smaller. And there's no longevity in it.


Game the system? Seriously? I'm not gaming anything. I work my *ss off 7 days a week trying to be better than everyone else who does what I do so people keep reading _my_ books. I spent five years working the equivalent of two full-time jobs so I could be where I am today. I still put in 12-16 hour days for weeks at a time when I'm starting a new pen name. You can believe what you like, but none of what you say is impossible. There are people doing it every day, many of them right here in WC. But just like every other job, the odds of you being successful at it go way up depending on how much time and effort you put into learning to *do* your job. My job is to write books that sell. I'm pretty good at it, and I'm willing to learn anything that anyone is willing to teach me to get even better. As for longevity, the vast majority of books stop selling in any significant numbers after just a few years. Go to a used bookstore sometime - how many of those books are still in print, or even available as ebooks? But if you continue to produce new books that people like to read, they'll burn through your back catalog as well.

You can make excuses about market saturation and increased competition all you like, but at the end of the day that's all they are - excuses. It is quite possible to start from ground zero and hit the top 100 category lists today without spending any significant amount of money on advertising. I've done it. I know other people who have done it. Amanda pointed out that she knew people who had done it. Continuing to say that it's _F'ING impossible_ when it's clearly not is self-delusional. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, it takes a lot of work to be successful in this business. But it's no different than anything else that's worth doing.

_Edited due to editing quoted post. PM me any questions. Evenstar, Moderator_


----------



## Diamond Eyes (Feb 11, 2017)

ShaneJeffery said:


> It sounds like you understand the mindset perfectly. After all, you created it.


Haha, I did?



ShaneJeffery said:


> It's about art too, because authors who write usually are trying to be creative and consider themselves artists. The BEST authors /writers are artists. Are you arguing that point?


I have no idea what actually makes something "art". If you have an objective definition, I'd love to hear it. I would never really want label myself as an artist in any domain, in my opinion that's for other people to decide if they even care about providing such a label.



ShaneJeffery said:


> Writing is all about the writer, uh yeah. The one who is writing the words. No-brainer.





ShaneJeffery said:


> What author doesn't want to be paid by the reader who picks up their books?


You don't see any contradiction at all in these types of statements? Putting out a creative work for money is not all about the creator, it's an interaction and a transaction. I don't understand why you would expect payment for anything without taking into consideration the buyers likes/wants/needs at all.



ShaneJeffery said:


> but only when you stop throwing insults


But you've done this up and down the thread by stating and implying that others are mechanical conformist sellouts desperate and only caring about the money and killing their own soul when they choose to create things for the enjoyment of others. Unless a creative person falls under your definition of this self-serving mythical "artist" you keep throwing insults and labeling them negatively. Maybe some people get more joy and are more driven when creating things for others. Is that wrong? I like how someone else put it as being a craftsperson instead of an artist.

Using your own skills and talents to create things that others enjoy or find useful can be just as fulfilling a pursuit as only focusing on creating things to please yourself and "screw" everything else like you said. Why are you making value judgments on one path but not the other? Do you think things can only be considered "art" when they were created solely focused on the artist's desires?

And I'll ask again: How is providing OTHER people entertainment, information, or services that THEY want a bad thing? Especially if you want THEM to pay you for it?


----------



## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

This is a reminder to be respectful or be banned from the thread. Some of the posts are getting too close to the boundary and there have been reports and edits. I know you all like a good debate, but let's keep the personal remarks out of it. Only the OP has asked for feedback, I can't see anyone else that has done so. Carry on... nicely.

Evenstar, Moderator


----------



## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Seneca42 said:


> Part of the problem in these conversations is that KU has changed the book market. Moreover, what's successful in KU is not necessarily what is successful in every other literary market.
> 
> I mean, there's a very good reason many authors are trapped in KU. I see authors who are supposedly making six figures and simple logic dictates that if your audience is that big, why in the world would you not sell direct (and wide) at a higher price and increase your revenue? But forget wide, I'm just talking *direct* on amazon. Why take $1.50 for a full read when you could be getting $3.70 for the same read off a direct buy? Or use a hybrid model of having only 10% of your catalog in KU and make bank on the follow through outside KU.
> 
> The answer is obvious, because the readers won't follow them outside of KU. _So is that really success?_ If people won't pay for your work, but will only read it in a subscription model? Ultimately, many will say "i'm getting paid, so hell ya it's success".


You're partially right, but there are confounding issues. Genres that do well with some distributors don't necessarily do well with others. Some genres do really well in KU, while others don't. In some genres a significant portion of the readership now has KU subscriptions and are mostly borrowing rather than buying books. This is definitely true in romance, because the readers are voracious and often don't re-read books so the program works very well for them. We have zero control over this - KU is there whether we like it or not (I don't) and if you write in one of those genres it's just something you have to live with. As a self-publisher you have to figure out what works best for your books. If you make more money in KU it makes sense to leave your books there. If you make more wide, do that.



> So you have a lot of KU authors touting success, but to someone like me, I don't want that form of success. I want to be able to actually sell books in the general market, not in Bezos' little bubble of niche readers. I want my books to sell in 5, 20, 100 years from now, not just for the next 30-90 day HNR cliff.


But that's an emotional decision, not a business decision. Which is fine, you have every right to do whatever you like, but it's disingenuous to base your business on emotion then complain about how hard it is to sell books. And that little bubble of niche readers is now bigger than B&N, which last I saw was still bigger than either iTunes or Google and far larger than Kobo.



> There's no right and wrong in all this, i mean, people can do whatever they want. But sometimes I think the KU write-to-market crowd has no appreciation for what other writers are trying to do, which is the more conventional route of establishing a more traditional presence in the market (ie. being able to sell beyond bezos' bubble). And I'm sure KU authors feel people like me have no appreciation for what they are trying to do (which is earn a living).


I publish both wide and in KU. What I do is based on how I sell the most books. I am by no means a KU fan, but it's not going anywhere and in this business you have to learn how to adapt - quickly. There have been many, many major shifts since I first started doing this. When they happen, lots of people give up and go back to doing other things. Others adapt and continue getting deposits in their bank accounts every month.

The other distributors don't make going wide easy, either. Discoverability on the platforms outside of Amazon has actually *decreased* for indies in the last five years - often deliberately on the part of the distributor, like Google Play pushing indie titles lower in the search results to promote higher priced tradpub books and Kobo no longer ranking free books so they're buried at the bottom of everything else. Many of the authors who have gone all-in with KU are quite well aware of this and have decided to put their books in the biggest marketplace _and_ the one that gives them the best visibility to their readers.

It isn't a black-and-white issue, and those of us who treat this as a business do take all of these factors into account.


----------



## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

Just wanted to chime in and say I am not an artist, and I don't want to be an artist. I am a storyteller ... maybe not the greatest one, but some people like my work.

I also don't write to market, but I've found a market for my madness--which is amusingly, what I used to pray for at night as a little girl. (I'd figured out my hyper-realistic daydreams weren't precisely normal.)

I want to find meaning in my writing--whether it is only in the escapism of it, or if they like the symbolism and the messages behind my writing--and I want to enjoy what I write. That balance can be found. I do worry that if we don't find that balance we are just navel gazing or in danger of burnout.


----------



## 98368 (Sep 4, 2017)

KelliWolfe said:


> If it was all about money for me then I'd still be writing erotica and cranking out an endless stream of motorcycle club/billionaire/stepbrother romances (or combinations of all three). If it was all about money, I've got lots of options. I have degrees in math and physics and 25 years experience in IT as a software developer, systems admin, DBA admin, etc. No, I'm doing exactly what I want to do, and I'm writing what I want to write _within the scope that I know will sell_. I started off writing books no one wanted to read. They were fun to write, but if no one was going to read them then what was the point? No, I don't want to suffer over books no one likes. That's just ridiculous. Why write books no one likes when I can have just as much fun writing books that I'm pretty sure they will? I keep telling you - I am not an artist. I am not trying to produce art. I don't have any inclination whatsoever to suffer to produce something artsy. I don't care if people are analyzing my books in their 8th grade English class a hundred years from now. I'm not writing for the ages. I'm doing what I really enjoy doing and getting paid to do it. Very few people are that lucky.
> Game the system? Seriously? I'm not gaming anything. I work my *ss off 7 days a week trying to be better than everyone else who does what I do so people keep reading _my_ books. I spent five years working the equivalent of two full-time jobs so I could be where I am today. I still put in 12-16 hour days for weeks at a time when I'm starting a new pen name. You can believe what you like, but none of what you say is impossible. There are people doing it every day, many of them right here in WC. But just like every other job, the odds of you being successful at it go way up depending on how much time and effort you put into learning to *do* your job. My job is to write books that sell. I'm pretty good at it, and I'm willing to learn anything that anyone is willing to teach me to get even better. As for longevity, the vast majority of books stop selling in any significant numbers after just a few years. Go to a used bookstore sometime - how many of those books are still in print, or even available as ebooks? But if you continue to produce new books that people like to read, they'll burn through your back catalog as well.
> 
> You can make excuses about market saturation and increased competition all you like, but at the end of the day that's all they are - excuses. It is quite possible to start from ground zero and hit the top 100 category lists today without spending any significant amount of money on advertising. I've done it. I know other people who have done it. Amanda pointed out that she knew people who had done it. Continuing to say that it's _F'ING impossible_ when it's clearly not is self-delusional. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, it takes a lot of work to be successful in this business. But it's no different than anything else that's worth doing.
> ...


Kelli--I started reading this thread and started sinking, then I came across your posts and started feeling much much better. Then I got smart and read through the thread, reading only your posts. Because one thing I realize is that keeping a good attitude is essential, not just for writing or publishing but for everything.

I came to kboards looking for how-to information, really, and sometimes I get sucked down into these it'll-never-ever-happen-because-things-aren't-the-way-they-used-to-be threads.

Now I'm on kboards to get info and listen to the people who are grounded and informative. You're at the top of my list. Thank you thank you thank you.


----------



## MyCatDoesNotConsent (Sep 11, 2017)

Qui tacet consentit.
Я не согласен с условиями T.O.S.


----------



## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

RTW said:


> Kelli--I started reading this thread and started sinking, then I came across your posts and started feeling much much better. Then I got smart and read through the thread, reading only your posts. Because one thing I realize is that keeping a good attitude is essential, not just for writing or publishing but for everything.
> 
> I came to kboards looking for how-to information, really, and sometimes I get sucked down into these it'll-never-ever-happen-because-things-aren't-the-way-they-used-to-be threads.
> 
> Now I'm on kboards to get info and listen to the people who are grounded and informative. You're at the top of my list. Thank you thank you thank you.


Thank you. There is a lot of doom and gloom in WC, and I'll admit that I've contributed my fair share where KU and the shenanigans on Amazon are concerned. But at the end of the day you pick yourself up and keep going because every single other business out there has to deal with the same kinds of things, and if you're going to be successful you just have to suck it up and deal with them. I had a really bad year in 2017. My marriage ended after 14 years and I went through over 7 months where I wasn't able to write at all and I let my business go completely to hell because I just didn't care. But because of the books I'd written and the way I'd published, the continuing sales kept the bills paid while I recovered. Now that I'm back on the job my sales are ramping back up and my new releases are hitting the top 100 lists and I've done what I can to maximize sales of my older books. I'm saying this not for sympathy, but to show what's possible. I don't think I'm an outlier. I'm not anything special. I think there are lots of other people just like me out there doing this every day - they just don't come in here and post about it. But they're the ones that the strugglers really _need_ to hear from. Yes, it takes time to figure all of this out. Yes, it can be totally overwhelming. Yes, writing books that don't sell sucks. But that's not all there is to it, by any means, and there are concrete, replicable steps that you can take to improve and increase your chances of selling more books and keep them selling. I am never going to be a rockstar like Amanda. I am never going to write books as brilliant as those some of the people here do with every release. That's okay. I'm making a living doing exactly what I want to do, and that's all I really want out of the deal. And I think there are a lot more people like me lurking about who would be perfectly happy with that as well. My advice and encouragement is for them.


----------



## 98368 (Sep 4, 2017)

KelliWolfe said:


> And I think there are a lot more people like me lurking about who would be perfectly happy with that as well. My advice and encouragement is for them.


I'm one of them, although no longer lurking. And I appreciate all your advice--and in fact am taking it. Thank you again.


----------



## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

I envy. I do envy. I will envy. I have envied. I am envying. But when I sit down to write, I don't think about anybody else all.


----------



## Holden (Feb 5, 2015)

Seneca is right. OP, you have to decide how you want to play this game and know, without a doubt, who your target audience is. When I say target audience, don't you dare say (insert genre) genre. That's weak. You have to drill it down even further. Get niche and hone in like a laser.

If "wide" is the goal then you need to understand something going in. Understand that when authors that said they've tried wide, but didn't get any traction, is an indication of their failures as a publisher. They always want to blame the other distributors for their short comings. They'll cry "discoverability" and act like it's their fault and how it doesn't come close to equaling amazon's. Google and Apple does everything they need to do to help you succeed. They live and die by UI/UX.
"Customers who also bought, Other titles by this author, Books in this series," simple. But I'm sure that's not enough. They'll cry about categories, search, etc. But all that shows me is how inadequate you are as a publisher.

Distributors are not your publisher. You are your publisher. It's your business. And just like any entrepreneur, it begins and ends with you. When [crap] hits the fan, hope you like looking yourself in the mirror, but at the end of the day, distributors are in the business for themselves. They don't make decisions to specifically help you out. Does them selling more books--and in turn, helping authors of said books--make them more money? Obviously. But now comes the question of whether or not your books are worthy. So it's easier to cry about discoverability and how the other platforms just don't measure up, and that "amazon owns 80 percent of the ebook market." Amazon doesn't own 80 percent of the ebook market. It owns 80 percent of a demographic.

Which leads me to my next point. Understand your target audience. Romance readers? Thriller readers? Sci-fi readers? Not good enough. Drill it down. This is demographics warfare. Amazon owns the older crowd. Say, 40 and up. The people who are more likely to own a dedicated e-reader device. E-readers were cool back in the late 2000's, early 10's, but that had a lot to do with the state of technology. We all had dedicated devices because battery life just didn't hold enough juice for all our tasks. We needed dedicated e-readers, dedicated mp3 players, dedicated smart phones. But now we're at a point where things are getting smaller and bigger at the same time. Specifically batteries.

Amazon had the financial push to go all in with e-readers. They're cheap to make, the margins are optimal, sounds like a good business decision, right? But it's only fleeting. There's only so much you can innovate an e-ink e-reader. We know that. Amazon knows that. It's why they had to make the jump to tablet territory. The problem with that is you'll never be able to compete with Google and Apple. It's all about operating systems. No device will ever be able to run iOS if it's not made by Apple. And there's no way to run Android-actual, without giving Google their cut.

Amazon wishes it had Google and Apple's business setup. Everything that gets sold in either of those marketplaces, Apple and Google gets a 30 percent cut. Everything. Free apps with microtransactions? 30 percent. It's the reason why Amazon couldn't get a foothold with their kindle app. They were forced to give up 30% of the initial transaction. They couldn't let Apple and Google take 30%, and then they themselves take 30%, and leave you only with 40% of the botched 70% they received after Google and Apple's cuts. Which is why they tried to be slick about it and have outbound links within the kindle app to open your device's browser and take you directly to the Amazon's storefront. But that's against Google and Apple's TOS and they both effectively shut that [crap] down.

Why do I say all of this? It's because Amazon has a problem. It doesn't need the 40 and up demographic that only reads genre. It owns it. And that demographic looooves e-readers. They are more likely to own multiple kindle devices. But ask the coveted 18-36 demographic if they own an e-reader, you're in for a rude awakening. We don't see a reason. Why would we when our phones do all that and more. There are exceptions on either side, 40 plus reading exclusively on their android/ios device, and 30's and under reading on a kindle. But you know what they say about exceptions. Businesses at scale surely don't operate on exceptions.

And neither should you. For those starting out and wondering where they should publish, please choose and understand your demographic first. Genre second. If your target demographic is the 40 and up, genre, and if you want to drill it down even further--say, by race?--white (lol), they are more than likely to be reading on an e-reader--a kindle device--so your focus should be with Amazon. At least for now.

Amazon can't keep selling refreshed e-readers to the same demographic, over and over, if it wants to grow. Their tablet game was futile at best. If Microsoft, with all it's unlimited resources, can't compete in that arena against Google and Apple, what makes you think Amazon can? Amazon makes a lot of money but their margins are atrocious. Their overhead is tragic. It's why their making the push for "voice." You can only reiterate and innovate an e-reader so much. But, voice? Now we're talking. You can't watch a sci-fi film/book without realizing how much voice will be a factor in our very near future. The way people feel naked without their smart phone, is the way they will feel once voice command becomes part of our day-to-day lives.

Let's talk about KU and what a hot glorious mess it is and what Amazon is probably going to do about it. If at this point you've decided on your target demographic and genre and all roads lead to Amazon/KU. No fret. It's not easy, but it's easier than you think. But it means playing by the rules. Conventions, tropes, damn near borderline cliches. This is double dutch. Time your entrance or risk getting slapped in the face by the rope.

Amazon knows KU is a problem but it also knows that it's integral for their success. I akin it to something like a rocket ship. In order for Amazon to launch and sustain it's digital media arm to the stars, it's going to need enough rocket power to escape Earth's gravity. It's no different than Netflix's approach. In it's early days, Netflix let any and everyone in. The good, the bad, the ugly, the exceptional. It had to. It needed a substantial library to entice people to not only subscribe but to remain a subscriber even when they weren't using the product.

KU is Amazon's rockets for their media arm. It will use it and ditch it when the time comes. Just like Nasa dumps rockets after it clears Earth's gravity. Only essential personal will be left. Ever wonder why the need to implement prime reading when they could have easily just added KU to prime subscribers? That's what Amazon's prime curation is about. Just like how Netflix started producing its own content and curating its library with invitations. Amazon is doing the same. Slowly but surely. It starts with prime and their timed exclusives and the in-house productions. And when the time comes, they'll ditch the booster rockets and be left with what they intended KU to be from the start and not the hot mess that it is now. But they're going deeper than that. There is a subset of authors that are in prime reading, KU, sans exclusivity, full royalty per borrow, wide.*** (not trad. And I'm not talking about the obvious ones either, like JK Rowling.) Bet you didn't know that. Almost sounds like an urban legend. You only hear from the successful Amazon exclusive genre writers, but Amazon isn't extending those invitations to those writers. Want to know why? Like I said above, Amazon owns that demographic, it doesn't have to fight for it. But if they want the 18-36 demographic, it needs to start cultivating successful authors at that demographic. It's not going to achieve that by trying to sell to them an antiquated dedicated device.

Ever wonder why, all of a sudden, glowy hands are all the rage? Because it's the one thing, visually, that skews drastically lower in age range compared to the other genres. Once Amazon got a taste of that 18-36 demographic, they knew what they had to do.

Self publishing is a business, like it or not. Writing is an art, like it or not. But understand where the indelible lines are drawn. Zero-in. Align your pieces. Ready. Fire. Aim. (Yes, you read that correctly.) You'll never be able to get it right the first time. No matter how much advice you ask, firsthand experience will always be the best teacher. Stop trying to mitigate risk. Entrepreneurship is all about risk.

***I'm one of those authors. I make seven figures a month. Plot twist? Amazon is 4th in line when it comes to earnings. 
1. Direct 
2. Google 
3. Apple 
4. Amazon
And just to put it into perspective: Amazon cuts me half-a-million-ish dollars a month. More or less. And even with all of Amazon's "assists" it still comes in forth? People lie. Data doesn't. And to these companies, you are worth less than the data you produce. It's nothing personal. It's just business. So understand why I'm afforded that kind of privilege. I don't know someone. Bezos isn't my uncle. I'm just an indie publisher with enough reach that my data, along with others, is worth cultivating so that Amazon can understand why they can't secure a particular demographic. When someone says that Amazon is 80 percent of their income, it doesn't mean much. It sure as hell doesn't mean Amazon owns 80 percent of the ebook market. Amazon doesn't care that you sell 20 books a month on their platform and only 5 on Apple and 1 on Google. They are way too smart for that. They know the real numbers are in the macro players. At the end of the day, earnings is earnings, and they don't care who supplies it, but make no mistake, when it's glaringly obvious that Amazon has a problem with a huge chunk of the e-reading demographic, it's only smart business to figure out why.

There are over 2 billion active android devices in the world. 
There are over 1 billion active ios devices in the world.
How many active kindles are there in the world? And no, you owning twelve doesn't count for twelve. lol.

Android and iOS have their book apps with every factory install and device sold. C'mon guys, can't get any traction wide? I can not and will not feel sorry for you. It would be a disservice to you and your potential.

We're all just pawns in this game of ebook chess, but act like I won't checkmate the [expletive] out of the king, will be your first and only mistake. That's the power we as indies hold.

Note: If there are any technical/grammatical issues with my post, it's because I wrote it in fifteen minutes from my phone. I am not about to go back and edit anything lol.

ETA: I know I said I wasn't going to Edit, but UGH, what are those stupid ?'s. It's because of copy pasta, isn't it?

ETA2: I fixed the question marks.


----------



## SickMikeHunt (Feb 9, 2018)

I am half way through the first book. Great story but I did notice a couple misspelled words. Good work, keep it up!


----------



## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

.


----------



## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

What PJ Post says.

Not only that, but hang around in the KB long enough and find some authors (many, in fact, and some in this very thread) who have done one or more entire 180s on this subject.

They wrote for fun (didn't market or had any kind of strategy), got tired of making no money, went the WTM route, and either bombed badly or had some success, then couldn't repeat that success, or burned out, and went back to writing for fun, with or without newfound strategy, and maybe repeated the whole thing with another genre.

There is no true way.


----------



## RightHoJeeves (Jun 30, 2016)

Hey everyone, thanks for the kind comments, advice, and vigourous debate. 

If I'm being honest, I think I'm just at the pointy end of a few unrelated life issues. They probably manifest themselves in the indie writing stuff, because it's pretty easy to beat oneself up about it.

But yeah, I'll be soldiering on. One of my goals this year was to give the marketing stuff a solid go. See if I can get some traction. 

And then? Who knows, eh?


----------



## DIAMONDSINTHESKY (May 14, 2017)

KennySkylin said:


> Haha, I did?
> 
> I have no idea what actually makes something "art". If you have an objective definition, I'd love to hear it. I would never really want label myself as an artist in any domain, in my opinion that's for other people to decide if they even care about providing such a label.
> 
> ...


This is a good attitude and the only one to have really. No one in this world owes you a living, you have to find a way or make one.


----------



## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

TwistedTales said:


> Is writing an art? I couldn't say because I'm not entirely sure where the line is between creating something mundane or inspiring. It depends on my mood.


You can't even use inspiringness as a measure. Some of the stuff in major museums is downright boring (to me), but it's still art. It's not really a definable category, so everyone's free to draw their line where they want. But we should take an inclusive view of those lines, IMO -- that is, accept a capacious, amorphous category rather than trying to impose restrictions.


----------



## beccaprice (Oct 1, 2011)

I'm feeling down, too, but then I write in a very difficult to market genre: children's fairy tales. I mostly sell at festivals (and do pretty well there) but I'm getting a bit too old for the festival scene - it's hard work!

Some of my books were written as art, others were written to market. I find it doesn't make much difference which one is which for sales.

My latest book, Sirens' Song, is written for art and for love. I have no idea who the market would be for this book, not even know what keywords to use to describe it. I'm putting more money into this book than any of my others. but it's an important book to me, and so I'm doing the work and putting in the money gladly... if it ever breaks even, I'll be a bit surprised.

But then I'm back to writing to market and to my strengths - more fairy tales, and maybe a middle-grade fairy-tale-ish thing that keys off of some of my other stories. I may even get around to writing The Boy Who Loved The Moon, which is a YA - adult fantasy based heavily on various mythologies (just not the standard Roman/Greek/Egyption ones). 

So the "what's the point" answer is, it varies from book to book. If you want to sell big, pick a big selling genre and write to market as best you can without feeling like you're pushing it or selling out.


----------



## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

TwistedTales said:


> It becomes a problem when some people brand others as hobbyists because money isn't their first priority when they write. Usually the other side retaliate by accusing the authors making money their first priority as selling out and writing any old trash that sells.
> 
> It's not so much an argument about art as it is personalizing someone's opinion as being directed at you.
> 
> Badge me however you see fit, I couldn't care less. It's not as if my self image is affected by what someone I don't know and don't care about thinks of what I'm doing. The whole subject turns into a distraction from the issues we should all be thinking about, which has nothing to do with whether what we're writing is art and everything to do with making good decisions for ourselves.


Ditto. I cannot even figure out what the argument is about. I write readable stuff in a commercial genre, and writing is my job. I also care passionately about what I do and how my readers respond on both an entertainment and emotional level. My old stuff still sells great and that makes me happy, because I loved writing it. What do I care why others are writing and what they are doing, unless they are affecting me by gaming? I do not put any labels on myself and am not going to put a label on anybody who writes their own stuff for their own reasons.

Whole argument seems ridiculous, honestly, and pointless. Do what works for you. Write what you want for your reasons. Market and distribute and promote it in a way that works for you and your goals. The right way is the way that works for YOU, and to heck with everybody else's judgment. They are not living in your soul or paying your bills. You are.


----------



## Rob Martin (Nov 15, 2017)

Becca Mills said:


> You can't even use inspiringness as a measure. Some of the stuff in major museums is downright boring (to me), but it's still art. It's not really a definable category, so everyone's free to draw their line where they want. But we should take an inclusive view of those lines, IMO -- that is, accept a capacious, amorphous category rather than trying to impose restrictions.


I was always told that art is defined by creating an emotion in the viewer. If you qualify bored as an emotion, then the art's done its job, lol.


----------



## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Jeez. You know, not _one single person_ in this topic has suggested trend-chasing or copying what the bestsellers are doing. That's a strawman argument that keeps getting thrown up and it's pure distraction.

Writing to market does not mean that you go and copy what the bestsellers are doing. It simply means that you know your genre extremely well and you know your audience and you give them what they expect. If you want to do that by copying the bestsellers and chasing trends you can, but you can also do it by delivering something different that still gives the readers what they want and expect out of a book in their genre. In general, the people writing to market who are the most successful both in the long and short term are the ones doing the latter. Readers absolutely love it when you put a new spin on an old trope and deliver it while still hitting their buttons. But you have to _know what those buttons are_, and I'm constantly floored by the number of people who drop new releases into a genre without having bothered to ever read a single book in that genre beforehand. It's usually with romance, but it happens often enough in the other genres as well.

I don't have any problem whatsoever with the people who consider their writing art and are stubborn enough to write what they want while knowing that they're taking a risk that it won't sell or they won't find an audience for it. That takes a lot of guts and commitment, and when you succeed at it then I hope you know that you really have accomplished something incredible. I have the utmost admiration for writers like Gene and Annie Jacoby who have struck out on their own and done things very differently and earned every bit of success they've achieved.

But realistically, when someone comes into WC and asks, "Why isn't my book selling?" they don't want to hear, "Write whatever you want however you want to write it and learn to deal with failure until you find your audience, because _art_." Most of them are writing genre fiction, and they want some concrete answers that are actionable to help them do better on their next book, or to try to fix what's wrong with the current one. Telling them


Find a genre that you actually like and write in that
Learn that genre upside down and backwards so you understand the tropes and can write well in it
Figure out what the readers expect and give it to them
Release it with a good, genre-appropriate cover and blurb

in no way, shape, or form implies that they have to copy what anyone else is doing or chase trends. I would in fact strongly recommend _against_ doing so, because trends change so quickly and most of us don't write fast enough to be successful at it, and because it tends to seriously limit the effectiveness of your back catalog to continue generating money long term.

If this isn't how you work or how you want to work, fine. It doesn't make the slightest bit of difference to me or to anyone else here. Do what works for you. But for someone just starting out or struggling it can provide them with some sense of direction and some actions they can take to move their career forward. Does it guarantee sales or success? Of course not. It simply improves their chances of getting some sales out of the gate with their next book. And sometimes all it takes is a taste of success to keep you going while you learn the ins and outs of this business and figure out where you really want to go with it, instead of getting frustrated and discouraged and giving up. Getting a book out there and making enough money from it to pay your water bill or car insurance for the month and realizing, "Hey, I really _can_ do this!" is a very powerful incentive to keep going.


----------



## RE Johnston (Jan 5, 2018)

RightHoJeeves said:


> I have to admit, the wind has really been taken out of my indie sails lately...


Thank you for starting this thread, RightHo. My first novel is just now at the copy edit stage and I've got way more questions than answers. This discussion, drama and all, has really helped me realize the decisions I need to make. Do I intend my efforts to be an art or a business? Or maybe some kind of semi-profitable craft? Do I want to appeal to the paying customers of 2018 or the schoolchildren of 2118? Do I want to keep up with the Joneses or do I maybe want a shot at being the new Jones?

Best of luck on getting your mojo back. And, again, thanks!


----------



## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

TwistedTales said:


> Some days a well cooked steak seems like art to me.


I have nothing to contribute to the "is writing an art" discussion.

But hopefully, everyone can agree that a well-cooked steak is indeed art.


----------



## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Anarchist said:


> I have nothing to contribute to the "is writing an art" discussion.
> 
> But hopefully, everyone can agree that a well-cooked steak is indeed art.


If by "well-cooked" you mean that you dropped it on the grill just long enough to keep it from mooing, I wholeheartedly agree with you.


----------



## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

KelliWolfe said:


> If by "well-cooked" you mean that you dropped it on the grill just long enough to keep it from mooing, I wholeheartedly agree with you.


Yup. I prefer rare, or even blue rare.


----------



## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Anarchist said:


> I have nothing to contribute to the "is writing an art" discussion.
> 
> But hopefully, everyone can agree that a well-cooked steak is indeed art.


Yuck. Everyone ain't ever gonna agree on anything. 

I think Kelli has it right--when someone asks why a book isn't selling, it generally doesn't mean why does no one love my unique vision and the book I wrote for myself not caring if it sold a single copy. It's why doesn't this have more commercial appeal, and maybe how I can keep the next book from languishing the same way. There are exceptions, I'm sure. And "who cares, write what you want to" is great advice, but in answer to different types of questions.


----------



## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

Anarchist said:


> I have nothing to contribute to the "is writing an art" discussion.
> 
> But hopefully, everyone can agree that a well-cooked steak is indeed art.


Vampybara steak. That's all I have to contribute to this thread.


----------



## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Paranormal Kitty said:


> Vampybara steak. That's all I have to contribute to this thread.


I love your profile pic _so_ freakin' much.


----------



## Eskimo (Dec 31, 2013)

Anarchist said:


> Yup. I prefer rare, or even blue rare.


I always liked ordering mine "black and blue!"


----------



## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

David Chill said:


> I always liked ordering mine "black and blue!"


Hah! I've gotta try that.


----------



## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

KelliWolfe said:


> I love your profile pic _so_ freakin' much.


Haha, thanks


----------



## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

TwistedTales said:


> It becomes a problem when some people brand others as hobbyists because money isn't their first priority when they write. Usually the other side retaliate by accusing the authors making money their first priority as selling out and writing any old trash that sells.
> 
> It's not so much an argument about art as it is personalizing someone's opinion as being directed at you.
> 
> Badge me however you see fit, I couldn't care less. It's not as if my self image is affected by what someone I don't know and don't care about thinks of what I'm doing. The whole subject turns into a distraction from the issues we should all be thinking about, which has nothing to do with whether what we're writing is art and everything to do with making good decisions for ourselves.


Yes, I couldn't agree more. Some feel they're "artists," and some don't. Both are correct about themselves because there is no objective definition of what being an artist means. If you understand yourself to be an artist, you are one; if you don't, you aren't. There's nothing wrong with either way of identifying, and arguments about such terms are largely meaningless.


----------



## Wired (Jan 10, 2014)

ShaneJeffery said:


> ...the market is SATURATED. Want to stand out? Be an ARTIST. Be AWESOME. Don't settle for second best.


This.


----------



## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

But the book market has been "saturated" for a very long time. There were about 100,000 English-language fiction novels published in 2007, before ebooks took off. For decades there have been far more titles published in every fiction genre than readers could possibly hope to get through. There are several times as many dead tree books for sale on Amazon as there are ebooks - and yet people still find our books and read them. It's competitive, sure, but so is getting onto those display tables at B&N.

Imagine how much more difficult things would be if all readers had to go on to decide whether to click on our books was a picture of the SPINE!


----------



## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

KelliWolfe said:


> But the book market has been "saturated" for a very long time.


And not to be a Debbie Downer, but indie publishing, as a commercial venture, will never be as easy as it is today.

Competition for visibility is only going to grow fiercer. Folks who are having difficulty competing today will either need to regroup and evolve or endure a slow slide into obscurity.


----------



## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

And yet its' still far, far easier than it ever was to make a go of it in tradpub.


----------



## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

kw3000 said:


> If you write a good book that people enjoy reading and you get it in front of enough people and/or in front of the right people, you can have success as a writer. Nothing's guaranteed of course, but don't let the discouraging voices overwhelm you.


Let the discouraging voices overwhelm you. We're only human. I get down just like everyone else, and that's good. That makes me examine why I'm doing what I'm doing, learn some lessons, change my choices, and if I'm doing it for the right reasons, I'll get back up. The break does me good.

On the other hand, if you ignore getting down, that's what leads to burnout and bitterness. Retreating and regrouping is a necessary option, one that you should pursue without shame.


----------



## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

Lorri Moulton said:


> It's a wonderful time for writers because we can get OUR book into the hands of readers. We have the chance to write about anything we like and discover if there's an audience for that book.
> 
> I'm still amazed that I can sit at home, hit a button when I'm ready and have my story almost instantly available for millions of potential readers. What an opportunity!
> 
> As for money, fame, quitting the day job...those are more elusive. Maybe in a few years, maybe not. There are no guarantees, but I'm still having fun with the process.


Thumbs up.


----------



## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

ParkerAvrile said:


> Speak for yourself! I loved having someone else do all the work and all I did was the art.


LOL! To each her own.


----------



## raminar_dixon (Aug 26, 2013)

Has February been terrible for nearly everyone else or what?

I have no idea what the heck is going on. Everything has dropped like 50%. I haven't done anything except try to make improvements and work harder.


----------



## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

raminar_dixon said:


> Has February been terrible for nearly everyone else or what?
> 
> I have no idea what the heck is going on. Everything has dropped like 50%. I haven't done anything except try to make improvements and work harder.


I seem to be at a smidge below 75% of my January sales right now (excluding the new YA pen name which has taken off).


----------



## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

kw3000 said:


> It's probably the greatest, most opportune time in the history of the written word to be a writer, and nowhere near as difficult to gain even a modicum of visibility as it's often made out to be.
> 
> If you write a good book that people enjoy reading and you get it in front of enough people and/or in front of the right people, you can have success as a writer. Nothing's guaranteed of course, but don't let the discouraging voices overwhelm you.
> 
> Rejoice in the fact that you're a writer in this place and time where scores of readers constantly engage with new authors on a daily basis and the barriers to entry are lower than low.


Hear this, everyone!


----------



## RightHoJeeves (Jun 30, 2016)

On a happier note I just finished the final book in the trilogy, ready for the editors. So that's nice.


----------



## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

RightHoJeeves said:


> On a happier note I just finished the final book in the trilogy, ready for the editors. So that's nice.


Congratulations! It's a great feeling, isn't it.


----------



## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

.


----------



## Moticom (Jun 29, 2016)

Lorri Moulton said:


> I'm still amazed that I can sit at home, hit a button when I'm ready and have my story almost instantly available for millions of potential readers. What an opportunity!


This is one of the great things about the days we live in now, a real plus of the internet and the creative freedom it offers, and the number of people it can reach. There are many bad things about the internet, but this is a definite positive.


----------



## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

Congratulations, Mr Jeeves. You have successfully completed your mission. Your new assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to get started on the next book.


----------

