# Writing more books is the answer



## Sam Rivers (May 22, 2011)

The more books you publish, the more likely it is for someone to find them and buy them.

I have a lot of books and I keep writing.  I should have my newest novel ready to publish early next month.  A reader is more likely to buy an author's books who has written a lot of books than only a few.  They realize that writers get better at writing as they write and publish books.

One thing that I have noticed is that my newest novels sell best and are my highest priced books so that means I make more money.

I think many people spend too much time promoting their books and not enough time writing books.  Promoting books is a distraction from writing and might hurt an author in the long run.

There are some authors that don't agree with me and feel that writing more books is not the answer.  However, it works for me and will probably work for you.

So do you agree that writing more books is the answer?


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## zoe tate (Dec 18, 2013)

Wild Rivers said:


> The more books you publish, the more likely it is for someone to find them and buy them.


That's certainly not high among my reasons for writing more books. I'm not even quite sure how true it is.

The more books you write, the more you have for sale to the people who already know about and like your writing. That's my reason. Not the fact that having more available somehow "increases the chances of people finding them" (and honestly I doubt whether it really works that way to any appreciable extent). If someone has read one of my books and liked it, then obviously it's better for me to have 10 others for sale than 5 others for sale. I don't think it really requires any more complicated reasoning than that, does it?



Wild Rivers said:


> A reader is more likely to buy an author's books who has written a lot of books than only a few. They realize that writers get better at writing as they write and publish books.


I really wouldn't think that's how most readers look at it, at all. So I agree entirely with your conclusion, but hardly at all with your reasons.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Wild Rivers said:


> There are some authors that don't agree with me and feel that writing more books is not the answer.


If you're referring to the other thread, he specifically said writing more books wasn't ALWAYS the answer.

And I agree with him. It isn't always the answer. It works for many, but not for some.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Give us some numbers. What are you producing? What have your sales done?


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## Guest (Dec 27, 2013)

Everything you've said here is plain common sense, but strangely enough there are tons of writers on these boards who will argue with it. It makes no sense to me that they do, but whatever--my time is better spent writing than arguing with them anyway.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

I tend to take the position that you have to do both. Writing a bunch of books nobody's ever heard of does one no good. And books generally don't sell themselves - even good ones. Virtually all the authors I know who sell tonnage do marketing - some, considerable marketing.

As I've said several thousand times by now, 25% marketing/non-writing tasks to 75% writing is a sustainable balance.

Those generally advocating just writing more books and ignoring the marketing sell very few books, so the wisdom of their counsel should be judged by their results.

This is a self-publishing, as in, BOOK SELLING, business. In all other businesses, if you ignore investing time and energy in the business, it fails. The WRITING business is a different business. Writing books won't necessarily result in people discovering and buying them. In the retail book selling business, you have to gain visibility by marketing. It's not like lifeboats on the Titanic. People don't have to buy your book. The truth is that 99% or more of readers have never heard of my books, and so I must work constantly to gain visibility. While it's always possible that you win the lottery and your book goes viral for unknown reasons, that's so rare as to be shocking. If your book selling strategy is to produce more product in the hopes that some magical process takes place and you start selling well, you likely won't sell many books. That's just common sense.

Having said that, there's nothing wrong with having more product on the shelf. However, if nobody knows which of hundreds of thousands of shelves your products are sitting on, you're still screwed. And so you have to market.

It's constantly amazing to me how many resist this simple, obvious fact.

Does anyone know of any sales businesses where you do no marketing and put no effort into selling, and you make lots of sales? No? Oh, maybe that's because it doesn't exist. And yet in the rainbow world of author make-believe, for some reason, it does.

*Shakes head*


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

Can we please put an adjective in front of "books" for the purpose of this excercise? Something like: good, interesting, entertaining, awesome, unparalleled... Just sayin'  

(EC who is waiting for Terrence to come on this thread and ask: What is the question?)


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

blakebooks said:


> Does anyone know of any sales businesses where you do no marketing and put no effort into selling, and you make lots of sales?


Well, there's erotica.

But that's a different kind of beast, where most of the customers actively seek it out.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

EC Sheedy said:


> Can we please put an adjective in front of "books" for the purpose of this excercise? Something like: good, interesting, entertaining, awesome, unparalleled... Just sayin'


That is always the caveat, isn't it? No matter what else we do, if we don't write books that people want to read, then we're wasting our time with the other stuff.


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## Joshua Dalzelle (Jun 12, 2013)

I don't think flooding the market alone is the key to getting noticed. There are a lot of authors who have dozens of published works who don't sell a lot. 

But, if you have a book that gains some modest attention, and then wait 18 months to release the next, you're likely going to have to start over building your audience. I do agree (at least from my own limited experience) that once you get a little traction subsequent released really start building sales.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

MichaelWallace said:


> Give us some numbers. What are you producing? What have your sales done?


Michael Wallace has brought up a good point. 
Your hiding behind an avatar doesn't lend much credence to your statement. It could be true, or it could be false.

For many writers (I have no idea if this applies to you) having a 100 not-so-great books advertises you're-not-such-a-great-writer, and actually does the opposite for readers (they, on the whole, will avoid your books in the future.)


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Swolf: Not necessarily. I have a friend with a small press that specializes in erotica. Most of the titles don't sell. So not all, or even most, erotica, sells. Some does. Whether those authors don't market, or some do, or most do, is unknown to me.

Where's Terrence? He must be sleeping in.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

blakebooks said:


> Swolf: Not necessarily. I have a friend with a small press that specializes in erotica. Most of the titles don't sell. So not all, or even most, erotica, sells. Some does. Whether those authors don't market, or some do, or most do, is unknown to me.


Yes, as many people have found out by dipping their toe into it, not all erotica sells. However, I can personally vouch that it is one of the genres where 'write more books' actually works on its own - provided you write stories that make people want to come back for more. If you put it out there, people will find it, and they'll be back for more if they like what they read.

I also know other erotica authors who have used the same formula for success. The truth is, there aren't that many marketing opportunities open to us.

That said, I have no doubt that the right marketing can increase already healthy sales of erotica. That's why I'm currently getting my website ready to go, so I can have a place to point my readers to and let them know what else I have available.


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

Many of us who--back in the day--went the trad pub route and collected rejections in rolls big enough to wallpaper a town hall, would talk about those fussy editors with "no taste" who pooh-poohed our peerless prose and called us out on it. They didn't buy our book/s. 

They'd say crazy incomprehensible stuff like: drab characters, lacks voice, pacing problems, contrived plot, lacks "sparkle." I loved that last one!    

If someone has a ton of books out here, has promoted the heck out of them, efficiently and wisely, maybe it's time to go back to the basics and look at the writing. Or not. 

Hoping everyone sells a million books in 2014!

"Nobody knows anything."
William Goldman


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## redacted (Dec 16, 2013)

swolf said:


> Yes, as many people have found out by dipping their toe into it, not all erotica sells. However, I can personally vouch that it is one of the genres where 'write more books' actually works on its own - provided you write stories that make people want to come back for more. If you put it out there, people will find it, and they'll be back for more if they like what they read.
> 
> I also know other erotica authors who have used the same formula for success. The truth is, there aren't that many marketing opportunities open to us.
> 
> That said, I have no doubt that the right marketing can increase already healthy sales of erotica. That's why I'm currently getting my website ready to go, so I can have a place to point my readers to and let them know what else I have available.


It's much easier to "write more books" as an erotica writer. You can basically write one 300-page book and split it up into 10 parts. Give the first part away for free, and charge $2.99 for the remaining 9 piece. Then later, put them together and sell that same 300-page book as a "bundle" for $9.99. So that one book means you have 10 titles up for sale. That makes it appear like you have a lot of books, when it's actually just one full-length novel. Horny readers apparently have no problems paying this kind of price tag, though I'm pretty sure other genre readers would scream bloody murder.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

jackcrows said:


> It's much easier to "write more books" as an erotica writer. You can basically write one 300-page book and split it up into 10 parts. Give the first part away for free, and charge $2.99 for the remaining 9 piece. Then later, put them together and sell that same 300-page book as a "bundle" for $9.99. So that one book means you have 10 titles up for sale. That makes it appear like you have a lot of books, when it's actually just one full-length novel. Horny readers apparently have no problems paying this kind of price tag, though I'm pretty sure other genre readers would scream bloody murder.


Yes, it's the perfect plan. In theory.

The problem is, your Part 1 has to be good enough to make readers want to pony up $2.99 for each of the remaining nine parts. And I guarantee that's not as easy as you think it is.


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

blakebooks said:


> I tend to take the position that you have to do both. Writing a bunch of books nobody's ever heard of does one no good. And books generally don't sell themselves - even good ones. Virtually all the authors I know who sell tonnage do marketing - some, considerable marketing.
> 
> As I've said several thousand times by now, 25% marketing/non-writing tasks to 75% writing is a sustainable balance.
> 
> ...


Well said. Make no mistake, this is a business. You are more likely to be successful with the more you put into it. The total package has many components, not just one.


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## Guest (Dec 27, 2013)

You've hit on my 2014 strategy - continuous publishing.  Sure, I'll do a cheap promo ($50) now and again, but mainly it's the ol' publish button that I hope will be my friend.

Has it been already?  Well I have 21 titles, and get around 100 to 150 sales a month, usually getting about 15 to 17 titles out.  That doesn't count the 12 titles I have under a pen name, which bring in a little extra.  Book revenues have gone up each month for me, but it's a slow and gradual process.

So in that case maybe it's not working as well as it could, or as well as it is for others.  Any look at my books will tell you I put out some 'interesting' stuff though.  Anyway, what else am I going to do, stop?  And do what?


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

I don't think there's _an answer, _except that however many books you write, they must be _good __books_.

Yes, statistically the more books you have out, the likelier it is that you'll be discovered. That's just math. With my own books, I have seen sales of all my books increase as I've released more books. I also have friends who are fantastic writers who aren't seeing the same growth yet, and that's why I don't think there's a single answer.

Many different factors contribute to an author's success: number of books, quality of books (the biggest factor), promotion (you do have to do SOME or nobody is likely to find you at all), appropriate branding for your genre, which includes the right cover, description, title, etc. And luck -- that can also be a factor, though it is true that the harder you work the luckier you're likely to get. However, there is a small aspect of randomness to this gig which I suppose we can call "luck" -- that mysterious, unforeseen factor nobody thought to control for.

There isn't one answer for any one writer, though most writers could be working at least some factors to much better advantage.


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## Trish McCallan (Jul 16, 2011)

This subject has been heavily debated through the three years I've been studying the self-publishing industry. I track a lot of authors and a lot of books and I've seen this strategy work for some and not for others. 

There is a situation unfolding that is going to be very, very interesting to follow in regard to this subject. I started watching the Self-Publishing podcast way back before Johnny B Truant and Sean Platt launched their Realm and Sands house last spring and I've been tracking the Amazon ranks on the books they've released through this house since they started it. These guys have an amazing work ethic and have written and published 1.5 million words last year. Through the Realm and Sands brand alone they've published 9 novels or full seasons of serials in the past nine months or so. They have done no marketing on their releases other than notifying their newsletter and letting the first episode in each serial go perma free. This was a decision they made, since they felt getting the product written and published was more important. 

As a result of this strategy though, their R&S books never took off. As I said, I've been tracking each book/full season since it's release and up until recently when their Write Publish Repeat gave their titles some lift- their best selling books (The Beam and Unicorn Western) averaged an Amazon rank of 100-150K. The rest of their releases averaged a rank of 250-450K. But with each release since UW and The Beam, the Amazon sales rank for the new books actually worsened. From  rank alone they seemed to be selling less, the more they put out. Now keep in mind this house is brand new, they only started publishing through it this past spring. Maybe April or May. And the authors have said they do very well on Kobo, not sure what that equates to since I can't figure out the Kobo ranking system.    It's really too early to judge whether the books would have eventually taken off without the promo behind them given more time. 


But on their last podcast they said that now that they have their products all in place, they will start hitting the promo and marketing. Sounds like they are planning on slowing down on the production through 2014 to allow time for promoting. It's going to be very interesting to watch and see if the line takes off once they get the marketing rolling. 

They are kinda like the perfect test subjects.


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## Vivi_Anna (Feb 12, 2011)

For me this hasn't worked.

I am making less money this year than last year, with 6 more books out.    Go figure.

Obviously my newer books aren't resonating with my readers and haven't gotten me new fans.


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## Guest (Dec 27, 2013)

Nothing wrong with putting off promotion until you've got ten or fifteen books out. It's not like they go bad over time, after all. And while writing more books may not be sufficient to make it at this business, it certainly is necessary.


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## Jay Allan (Aug 20, 2012)

I agree with Russell regarding marketing, with one caveat.  In my experience, there are fewer practical marketing alternatives that are truly effective.  In my own career, I'd ideally do more marketing than I do, but I just cant find the venues that are cost-effective.  I have some ideas for 2014, but I think some of the marketing people do is basically ineffective.

My last book was the start of a new series.  One of the first reviews stated that it was the "first book I've read from this author" and that the reviewer was going to check out my other books.  Marketing.  For some reason, this book caught that reader's eye when my others didn't. 

Every time I release a book, the sales of my other books gets a boost.  Every time.  

There is no question...none...that releasing more books tends to help you build sales and a fan base.  I simply cannot understand why every time this comes up we get all sorts of arguments about it.  

Does it work every time for everyone?  I'm sure it doesn't.  NOTHING works every time for everyone.  Does it work in different degrees for different authors?  Of course.  Every author has a different number of fans and various degrees of market penetration already. 

Do you have to write more?  No, of course not.  But whether you choose not to release books quickly, or if you are unable to do so for whatever reason, that's your own affair.  It's your career, your choice of how to manage it.  No one is saying it makes you a bad writer.  No one is saying anything negative.  But what is the point in constantly arguing against the fact that more releases TENDS to help build sales?  

I have six books out in a series, and all of them are still in their sub-genre top-100s.  I've watched the books start to fall again and again and then watched as a new release goosed them back up and out of danger of falling off the list.  

Every time I have a new release Amazon sends out more emails promoting my books.  Every time.

Another tired, dead, boring, inane thing that need to be laid to rest - the implicit notion that anyone releasing books at a swift pace is producing substandard work and, by extension, anyone who takes a long time to release something is producing a masterpiece.  BORING.  It's a nonsensical, baseless argument that pollutes every thread on this topic.  People have produced crappy books in a month and in five years.  People have produced great books in short and long periods alike.  Some authors may produce better books if they have more time, others may find a faster pace more conducive to a cohesive story.  Personally, my best books have been the ones I produced fastest, because I was in a good creative rhythm, while the ones that took longer generally did so because I was more distracted by other things.  Others, of course, may have entirely different experiences and writing processes.


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## Guest (Dec 27, 2013)

Jay Allan said:


> There is no question...none...that releasing more books tends to help you build sales and a fan base. I simply cannot understand why every time this comes up we get all sorts of arguments about it.


Because many can't do it, either through lack of ability or lack of will.



Trish McCallan said:


> They are kinda like the perfect test subjects.


I'm also interested in that, and I'm glad to see I'm not the only one selling marketing books when my other books have a rather lackluster length. 

Listen, I've got quite a few books, but authors with just one are making a lot more money than me. Still, I bet there are some with 50 books that are making less. Find what works for you and stick to it.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Jay Allan said:


> Every time I have a new release Amazon sends out more emails promoting my books. Every time.


I'm jealous. While we erotica writers enjoy the benefits of a rabid readership, we get no support like that from Amazon. We're their (profitable) red-headed stepchildren they don't want to admit to.

Great post.


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## Lady Vine (Nov 11, 2012)

Trish McCallan said:


> But on their last podcast they said that now that they have their products all in place, they will start hitting the promo and marketing. Sounds like they are planning on slowing down on the production through 2014 to allow time for promoting. It's going to be very interesting to watch and see if the line takes off once they get the marketing rolling.


This is my strategy. I've barely done any marketing (and I happen to LOVE marketing), because my backlist isn't where it needs to be. A year from now it will be. I also see no reason to market when my publisher website isn't ready yet.

I very rarely listen to advice about the self-publishing/e-publishing business, simply because no one really knows any more than I do when we get down to it.


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## Trish McCallan (Jul 16, 2011)

Lady Vine said:


> This is my strategy. I've barely done any marketing (and I happen to LOVE marketing), because my backlist isn't where it needs to be. A year from now it will be. I also see no reason to market when my publisher website isn't ready yet.
> 
> I very rarely listen to advice about the self-publishing/e-publishing business, simply because no one really knows any more than I do when we get down to it.


This is why I find them such an interesting case study. They share their strategy on the podcast, so you know what they are doing and then you can judge how it is working by watching their ranks. They are perfect examples of the "write without marketing until you have enough products to to market" camp. This next year will prove very interesting.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Trish McCallan said:


> This is why I find them such an interesting case study. They share their strategy on the podcast, so you know what they are doing and then you can judge how it is working by watching their ranks. They are perfect examples of the "write without marketing until you have enough products to to market" camp. This next year will prove very interesting.


I'm curious - have you read any of their books? Did they seem like something that would generate interest from fans of that genre?


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Jay Allan said:


> Every time I have a new release Amazon sends out more emails promoting my books. Every time.


Really? Do they send out these emails automatically and without prompting? Who do they send the emails to?


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## KeithAllen (Jun 5, 2013)

swolf said:


> I'm curious - have you read any of their books? Did they seem like something that would generate interest from fans of that genre?


I've read Unicorn Western and The Beam. Both are well written and entertaining. I would wager I'm in their target demographic (ridiculously good looking and intelligent people) and I'll keep reading. I would say as well, that they didn't stick to one genre, so that may be another interesting factor as they market out this year.


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## 69959 (May 14, 2013)

KeithAllen said:


> I've read Unicorn Western and The Beam. Both are well written and entertaining. I would wager I'm in their target demographic (ridiculously good looking and intelligent people) and I'll keep reading. I would say as well, that they didn't stick to one genre, so that may be another interesting factor as they market out this year.


I was going to mention their genre-hopping also. I'm very curious how that goes for them.

In my year of publishing, I have found that publishing in a _series_ increases sales. Most of my books are in the same series, and with each new release (excluding the short story) all of the books have seen a jump in sales. That jump gets better with each new one. Having a prequel at perma-free has been the best thing I've done for the sales.

I've got one book that isn't part of the series, and it's my worst selling novel despite the good reviews. I'm getting close to publishing a follow up book and I'm definitely curious to see what happens after that.


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## Trish McCallan (Jul 16, 2011)

swolf said:


> I'm curious - have you read any of their books? Did they seem like something that would generate interest from fans of that genre?


No, I haven't tried them. They are writing in several different genres, but not the ones I read. I know several people who have enjoyed their books though, so I do think they'll generate interest among readers.

The real surprise to me so far, though, is the effect Write Publish Repeat has had on their catalog. There has been much more transference to their fiction titles than I would have expected. All their books have dropped in rank, but Unicorn Western and The Beam are probably seeing the most transference, they are consistently dropping each day. The Beam was in the 38K range today, which is a significant drop from where it was before. Pretty impressive considering it's 9.99.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

One powerful argument against waiting until you have a bunch of books out to market: The market constantly changes, generally for the worse, in terms of marketing effectiveness. So the longer you wait, the worse your odds are of breaking out, mainly because there are fewer viable alternatives that are effective.

There is zero good reason for holding off on marketing, other than being afraid of failing if you give it your all and fall flat. Imagine if you'd held off on using Select for 2012 while you crafted your special snowflakes. You would have missed out on the biggest marketing boon ever handed to authors, and by the time you got into it at 2013, you missed that boat. Ditto for choosing to hold off on BB ads until 2014. You missed the glory days of that pub, and would have lost out on not only the Select bandwagon, but also the BB bandwagon.

Holding off on marketing makes about as much sense as holding off on all writing while you build a platform. With all due respect, you have to do both, not one or the other. Both. Write, and market what you publish, or you'll sink into the void, never to be discovered.

Holding off simply guarantees you a place in obscurity.


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## Trish McCallan (Jul 16, 2011)

Stacy Claflin said:


> I was going to mention their genre-hopping also. I'm very curious how that goes for them.
> 
> Yeah, the whole genre hopping thing, makes them even more interesting to follow.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

blakebooks said:


> Holding off simply guarantees you a place in obscurity.


QFT.

Joe Vasicek suggested waiting until you'd written 10-15 books before marketing. That's insane. By the time I had 10 titles for sale I'd already sold 100,000 books. Much of this was simply being in the right place at the right time, not through any brilliance on my part, but if I'd followed Joe's advice, I'd be out roughly 99,000 of those sales, plus a whole bunch of sales that came later.


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## Jay Allan (Aug 20, 2012)

blakebooks said:


> One powerful argument against waiting until you have a bunch of books out to market: The market constantly changes, generally for the worse, in terms of marketing effectiveness. So the longer you wait, the worse your odds are of breaking out, mainly because there are fewer viable alternatives that are effective.
> 
> There is zero good reason for holding off on marketing, other than being afraid of failing if you give it your all and fall flat. Imagine if you'd held off on using Select for 2012 while you crafted your special snowflakes. You would have missed out on the biggest marketing boon ever handed to authors, and by the time you got into it at 2013, you missed that boat. Ditto for choosing to hold off on BB ads until 2014. You missed the glory days of that pub, and would have lost out on not only the Select bandwagon, but also the BB bandwagon.
> 
> ...


YES

I see threads all the time where people are overthinking things. If the book is ready, release it. If there is a good marketing or advertising venue, use it. Waiting is pointless.


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## Guest (Dec 27, 2013)

Honestly, these conversations are circular and unproductive, aren't they? Because ultimately, it comes down to one thing:

Are you a writer or not? 

If you are, you'll write more books and chances are you'll get more sales. (assuming you're not publishing drek for the sake of it). If you're not a writer, then you'll stop writing and you won't see any more sales. It's really that binary. 

So unless you plan on never writing again, then you're already writing another book. Just get on with it. Write, publish, make people aware, and move on to the next one. Otherwise the alternative is to stop writing and find another endeavour.


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## 69959 (May 14, 2013)

Marketing shouldn't be ignored, but it might have to start off small. For instance, I had to borrow money to publish my first book (cover, paperback, etc.) so I was starting out in the hole and had no way of using any kind of paid marketing. I used Select for a short time before it totally busted. I put together my own book tours. Luckily I already had a mailing list and following from my personal growth blog, so I already had some people ready to buy and share about my new book. 

With about every two new books or so, my goals change slightly. For a while, my goals were simply to be able to afford to publish my books. After the second one, I stopped with paperbacks until it make financial sense. My books started making more than the cost of publication and I've been able to dabble in paid promotions and advertising. Some has worked, some hasn't. But it hasn't been a huge hit because all the money has come directly from book sales to begin with. I'm not quite at the point of being able to go with BookBub, but perhaps after my two most recent campaigns, I'll be able to take that next step. If that works, then I can move on to bigger things.

It's all a process, and writing more good books is a big part of that process right along with marketing.


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

blakebooks said:


> Does anyone know of any sales businesses where you do no marketing and put no effort into selling, and you make lots of sales? No? Oh, maybe that's because it doesn't exist. And yet in the rainbow world of author make-believe, for some reason, it does.


LOL. I'm about to prove this point, but it got delayed. I have a nonfic (will be released in 2014) that I am going to do a UNsale strategy on. I.e. I'm not going to pay a dime for marketing/advertising. I'm going to soft launch it, let it sit there, and then I'm going to do a silent marketing a la silent auction. The hypothesis is that if you don't tell anybody about your book, it will sit at the bottom of the feeding trough and stay there. That as a publisher I have to make the book known. It would be a miracle if the book sells itself. But miracles happen. Stay tuned...



ColinFBarnes said:


> Honestly, these conversations are circular and unproductive, aren't they? Because ultimately, it comes down to one thing:
> 
> Are you a writer or not?
> 
> If you are, you'll write more books and chances are you'll get more sales.


What about those writers who keep writing stuff that nobody buys and they just keep regurgitating the same old stuff that nobody cares about? I am wondering about that. So they could write tons of books that nobody buys. So I don't think it's always true that more books == more sales. I think you have to throw in other factors.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

JanThompson said:


> LOL. I'm about to prove this point, but it got delayed. I have a nonfic (will be released in 2014) that I am going to do a UNsale strategy on. I.e. I'm not going to pay a dime for marketing/advertising. I'm going to soft launch it, let it sit there, and then I'm going to do a silent marketing a la silent auction. The hypothesis is that if you don't tell anybody about your book, it will sit at the bottom of the feeding trough and stay there. That as a publisher I have to make the book known. It would be a miracle if the book sells itself. But miracles happen. Stay tuned...


Why


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## Guest (Dec 27, 2013)

JanThompson said:


> LOL. I'm about to prove this point, but it got delayed. I have a nonfic (will be released in 2014) that I am going to do a UNsale strategy on. I.e. I'm not going to pay a dime for marketing/advertising. I'm going to soft launch it, let it sit there, and then I'm going to do a silent marketing a la silent auction. The hypothesis is that if you don't tell anybody about your book, it will sit at the bottom of the feeding trough and stay there. That as a publisher I have to make the book known. It would be a miracle if the book sells itself. But miracles happen. Stay tuned...
> 
> What about those writers who keep writing stuff that nobody buys and they just keep regurgitating the same old stuff that nobody cares about? I am wondering about that. So they could write tons of books that nobody buys. So I don't think it's always true that more books == more sales. I think you have to throw in other factors.


Agreed, which is why I qualified with 'Unless you're publishing drek'. But if you keep writing books that no one wants, then at some point you have to realise that perhaps your books just aren't written well enough. (the wider you, not you personally). But there is no argument that suggests you write a couple of books and bow out and expect increasing sales. It always comes down to: are you a writer or not.


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## Chris P. O&#039;Grady (Oct 28, 2013)

ColinFBarnes said:


> Honestly, these conversations are circular and unproductive, aren't they? Because ultimately, it comes down to one thing:
> 
> Are you a writer or not?
> 
> ...


I like this, good use of the KISS principle. Keeping it simple.


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

MichaelWallace said:


> Why


Because I have nothing to lose (except my pocket money), and it takes the stress off trying to sell, sell, sell. Also I want to see how little of the 25% marketing (Blake's number) I can get away with as a new self-publisher. That if I market 1% or 10% in a strategic manner, will this work just as well as the 25%?

I totally get it re: marketing, but I'm an unknown writer, and I wanted to see if it's possible to get sales on a nonfic that everyone in tradpub has already told me that I will not be able to market if I have no platform to back it up, and I want them to know that we all have platforms, and we may not be on TV or radio but we all have our spheres of influences...


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

ColinFBarnes said:


> Agreed, which is why I qualified with 'Unless you're publishing drek'. But if you keep writing books that no one wants, then at some point you have to realise that perhaps your books just aren't written well enough. (the wider you, not you personally). But there is no argument that suggests you write a couple of books and bow out and expect increasing sales. It always comes down to: are you a writer or not.


I hear you. Then again there're books like _To Kill a Mockingbird_ and_ Gone with the Wind_...


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## zoe tate (Dec 18, 2013)

blakebooks said:


> One powerful argument against waiting until you have a bunch of books out to market: The market constantly changes, generally for the worse, in terms of marketing effectiveness. So the longer you wait, the worse your odds are of breaking out, mainly because there are fewer viable alternatives that are effective.
> 
> There is zero good reason for holding off on marketing, other than being afraid of failing if you give it your all and fall flat. Imagine if you'd held off on using Select for 2012 while you crafted your special snowflakes. You would have missed out on the biggest marketing boon ever handed to authors, and by the time you got into it at 2013, you missed that boat. Ditto for choosing to hold off on BB ads until 2014. You missed the glory days of that pub, and would have lost out on not only the Select bandwagon, but also the BB bandwagon.
> 
> ...


A masterful post, that effectively says it all.

(Unfortunately, I suspect that those who can potentially benefit most by taking it on board are also those least likely to be willing to be influenced by it.)


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

JanThompson said:


> I hear you. Then again there're books like _To Kill a Mockingbird_ and_ Gone with the Wind_...


To be fair, though, Margaret Mitchell might not have stopped writing had she not been flattened by a car...


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

JanThompson said:


> Because I have nothing to lose (except my pocket money), and it takes the stress off trying to sell, sell, sell. Also I want to see how little of the 25% marketing (Blake's number) I can get away with as a new self-publisher. That if I market 1% or 10% in a strategic manner, will this work just as well as the 25%?
> 
> I totally get it re: marketing, but I'm an unknown writer, and I wanted to see if it's possible to get sales on a nonfic that everyone in tradpub has already told me that I will not be able to market if I have no platform to back it up, and I want them to know that we all have platforms, and we may not be on TV or radio but we all have our spheres of influences...


Your post confused me. You say you are going to do no marketing but yet you have a platform. Does this mean that you are just not going to spend money for advertising but just use the word of mouth method? Please clarify. Does this mean you have friends in that industry that you are gonna talk to?


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

JanThompson said:


> Because I have nothing to lose (except my pocket money), and it takes the stress off trying to sell, sell, sell. Also I want to see how little of the 25% marketing (Blake's number) I can get away with as a new self-publisher. That if I market 1% or 10% in a strategic manner, will this work just as well as the 25%?
> 
> I totally get it re: marketing, but I'm an unknown writer, and I wanted to see if it's possible to get sales on a nonfic that everyone in tradpub has already told me that I will not be able to market if I have no platform to back it up, and I want them to know that we all have platforms, and we may not be on TV or radio but we all have our spheres of influences...


My advice*?

Sounds like fear of failure, which, hey, I get, but if you want to be professional, you've got to act like one. If you want self-publish, you have to play the role of a publisher as well as an author. If you don't do any work as publisher the writer in your will remain unknown. If that's what you want, really want, then that's cool. If you're doing it because you're scared, I think you need a Cher Slap.

*Ymmv. Not available in 50 states. May cause anal bleeding.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

My thought on reading this is that:

1.) Writing more books IS the answer, but it's the answer to a different question than people are looking for. It's NOT a magic bullet. There is no magic bullet. And if you are looking for one, you'll always be disappointed.

2.) There are two ways that having more books helps you with book discovery (i.e. provides more opportunities for readers to find you):

*For active marketers: Each book, each title, each cover, each blurb has a slightly different appeal, so each additional book creates a new opportunity to market your body of work. (I have fallen in love with many series I didn't think I would like, because ONE book happened to have a hook that interested me. Without that book I would never have tried it.)

*For passive marketers: each new release will appear on new lists for a time, getting it in front of new eyeballs. And frequent releases means that those who saw and considered (but didn't buy) the previous book will feel more familiar with your next and be more likely to click.

3.) As someone noticed in another thread: writing more books increases your chance of writing that break out book. (This, however, depends on how you are going about writing more.) Out-writing your muse _can_ be a mistake, but even if you write ten books fast and they fail because you couldn't handle it -- it didn't take long and you learned something from it. Maybe the next book you write slow will be better for it.

That said, yeah, the main importance of having more books is that there is someplace for a reader who loves you to go.

None of this means that you have to write at a particular pace. It just means ... keep writing. Writing more (with "more" undefined in terms of how much) is a good thing.

Camille


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Writing is HARD WORK. It's rewarding, but so is yoga. That doesn't mean we can do either for 12 hours a day.

I can only write for, at most, 4-5 hours in a day. That leaves PLENTY of time for learning and playing the game!


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

Monique said:


> My advice*?
> 
> Sounds like fear of failure, which, hey, I get, but if you want to be professional, you've got to act like one. If you want self-publish, you have to play the role of a publisher as well as an author. If you don't do any work as publisher the writer in your will remain unknown. If that's what you want, really want, then that's cool. If you're doing it because you're scared, I think you need a Cher Slap.


I hear you but I'm doing a business experiment. I didn't say "zero" marketing. I said "silent sales" i.e. 1-10% tops marketing quietly on one book -- the nonfic. For my fiction, I'm going all out, marketing to the max whatever I can afford.

My point is that -- lit agents have said over and over that if you want to sell a nonfic, you must have a platform PRIOR to your writing the book. And that their definition of "platform" is basically popularity. If you are an unknown, then they are not even going to look at your nonfic MS whether memoir or self-help or whatever. My point is that everyone has a platform, a sphere of influence, and that is where our readers are for nonfic.

Truth be told, whether anybody buys my nonfic or not I'm going to publish it anyway. It's something I've been writing the last 12 years, and I'm going to publish it and leave it out there for as long as online bookstores exist 

I am trying to prove that anyone can write a nonfic book and that they shouldn't not write just becasue lit agents won't pick them up. A grandfather who has lived through the Battle of the Buldge, for example, should be allowed to write about his experiences, even if people don't know who he is or what he went through. That, because of his experience, that people -- his friends, circle of influence, people who knew him, word of mouth -- would be interested in buying his book to read about the experience. A mother's experiences don't have to be tear-jerking for her to write. Life on the farm, raising kids, living through the Great Depression, that sort of everyday people are who have been prevented from publishing by lit agents who said because they are "commoners" that they can't sell anything.

As for fear of failure -- I have it all the time. But it's not stopping me from starting my own publishing company or write or publish. I fear standing in public, let alone speaking in public, and I'll probably always have it. But it's not stopping me from using my real name to write my books. My self-publishing is my process of overcoming my fears (hmm, another nonfic book to write about).

But I get your point and I hear you and I appreciate what you're saying about the need for marketing. I do think that zero marketing leads to zero sales probably but soft marketing probably can be just as profitable as aggressive marketing, but that's what I'm trying to find out. Maybe I should use someone else's book to test the theory LOL.


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## KevinH (Jun 29, 2013)

When it comes to writing, I don't believe there's just one yellow brick road to Oz; there's a million of them. We don't all have to walk the exact same path to end up in the same place.

Thus, I don't know if writing more books is "the" answer, but in my opinion it certainly helps, and it's a strong marketing tool in and of itself - possibly the best weapon in your arsenal. That said, unless you're James Patterson, it would probably behoove you to do _some_ amount of marketing (or have at least have a marketing plan that you're following). Sure, there will always be outliers who hit it big with seemingly little effort, but most of us are going to have to put our backs into it to some degree.

In short, I don't think there's a right and wrong answer here, because the industry is constantly in flux, and what works today may not work tomorrow. (The only constant is change.) Regardless, I think Russell has it right when he says that you have to think of this like a business, and that includes have a business plan, marketing plan, etc.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

I'm not sure I understand, Jan.

You are going to publish your nonfic, lay low, do very little marketing, make sure you don't have a platform going in or actively grown one in order to get a lit agent so that you can prove that a "nobody" with no platform, etc. can publish a nonfic book and still get a lit agent?

Do the grandfathers and grandmothers and others out there really all want lit agents? Nothing is stopping the grandfather, or the grandfather or anyone else from writing and publishing their stories. Other than the doing (which ain't easy). I'm working with my dad on part of his story. The difference? He doesn't give a rat's patoot about a lit agent discovering him. He, like the grandfather in your hypothetical, I would imagine, is not concerned with big sales or agents or any of those trappings. He just wants to tell his story and if some people find it interesting then that's a bonus.


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## Mip7 (Mar 3, 2013)

Am I the only one who gets frustrated by these threads that throw the term _marketing_ around as if everyone is supposed to know exactly what that entails?

It must *not* mean: Doing book-blog tours, buying non-Bookbub ads, Facebooking/Tweeting/Pinning, doing coop promos in back matter with other authors, or email list swaps. Because for a struggling mid-lister with only a few books out, that stuff is minimally effective at best.

If it means buying Bookbub ads, why not just say that instead of _marketing_?

And if it means something else, can we have a separate thread where the *effective* marketing tactics are all listed?

And if it means something else beyond that, maybe a secret tactic that a high-lister like Russell Blake knows about but isn't willing to share with everyone, then why bring it up at all?

I think the best marketing is to write a series in a hot genre with good covers and price the first book at 0.99 or free. And oh yeah, *the writing must be good* so the sample hooks them and compels them to buy to keep going. So in that regard, writing the next book is indeed the answer. If the books aren't good then they are all a waste of time and one should be studying books on craft rather than writing (although the best-seller lists are full of examples which violate this advice, having it working against you doesn't help).

At some point the book has to obtain a lasting high visibility at Amazon if you are going to be ranked in the paid-book four-figure rankings (or better). I do not believe this is something that can be manipulated by marketing (with the possible exception of a Bookbub ad launching you there). If I'm wrong, I'd love to hear the details of how it's done.

Write well, write series, write in hot genres, price intelligently, keep improving, keep trying, get Bookbub ads if they'll have you, keep at them until they do, and wait until you "get lucky going viral." Only, if you do all this, it won't take quite so much luck.


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## Thisiswhywecan&#039;thavenicethings (May 3, 2013)

> Ditto for choosing to hold off on BB ads until 2014. You missed the glory days of that pub, and would have lost out on not only the Select bandwagon, but also the BB bandwagon.


Not to derail the thread (well, maybe just a little), but the past few weeks people have been predicting the demise of Bookbub. Any particular reason for that? A failing of the BB model? Fewer people looking for bargain books? Email alerts giving way to another method?


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Colin: I think this is where we disagree. I view self-publishing as two distinctly different jobs: Writing, and Book Selling.

Doing one almost exclusively has virtually zero impact on the other.

Writing and engaging in virtually no activities integral to book selling won't sell books. And doing mostly book selling activities won't get you more or better books written. This confounding of the two disparate disciplines results in threads like these, or declarations that "such and such book made it with no marketing, so maybe mine will!" No, they didn't. You better believe that the publisher did plenty of marketing for Gone with the Wind if he spent money to buy it. 

Jan: Book selling. If you don't want to sell books, then just put your book out there, and wait to see what so many are reporting every day - that books don't sell themselves. Nobody says you have to sell books, but doing "soft" marketing makes no sense. Just call it what it is: doing no marketing. "I did no marketing and nobody bought my book" is more accurate than "I did soft marketing and nobody bought my book." It's entirely possible that lightning will strike and for some unknown reason your book will capture the hearts and minds of millions, but that possibility requires a decimal point and lot of zeroes to calculate. While doing marketing in no way guarantees you'll sell lots of books, not doing any increases your odds of not selling any.

Arkan: We have to disagree on all the things you are assuming it doesn't mean. I do all those things. And more. Many more. Because while no single thing guarantees success, often it is a cumulative thing, or merely seemingly random chance - one of the many things you did gets you a little lift, and you'll never know which. Or someone has seen your name for the tenth time and this time when they see your book is on sale or free, they decide, what the heck, might as well give it a shot. It's rather like buying insurance or wearing a seatbelt. While the odds of it helping on any one trip to the market are slim, over time, the odds of it being a significant factor increase.

There are no secrets besides writing good books at a clip you're comfortable with, and allocating 25% of your time to productive marketing activities. What those are change literally quarterly, so it's outside of the scope of this thread to counsel on what's working best today, versus in Sept.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

blakebooks said:


> Colin: I think this is where we disagree. I view self-publishing as two distinctly different jobs: Writing, and Book Selling.
> 
> Doing one almost exclusively has virtually zero impact on the other.
> 
> ...


This. What works for my YA may not work for an erotica book. Shoot, it may not work for the next YA book. Neil Gaiman did a marketing experiment, then tried to replicate it. The first attempt went viral, the second attempt fell flat on its face. He recommends thinking your marketing is like the seeds of the dandelion. Cast them out, see if something worked. But keep casting the seeds out there to catch the wind. That's your marketing.


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2013)

blakebooks said:


> Colin: I think this is where we disagree. I view self-publishing as two distinctly different jobs: Writing, and Book Selling.
> 
> Doing one almost exclusively has virtually zero impact on the other.
> 
> ...


You misunderstand me. I wasn't referring at all to marketing (I, like you, think it's essential). I was referring to the idea that somehow not writing another book is preferable to writing another.


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2013)

There are books I would not have written if I had followed your marketing advice, Blake--books that are making decent money for me and driving readers to my other books. It doesn't help to stay fixated on your first few projects, whether you're endlessly revising them or endlessly promoting them. I wonder how many great books have not been written because we're too busy being authors and not writers. Far too many good writers are giving up and quitting because they burn out on promoting themselves before they have a decent catalogue out yet. Of course, it's a balance--you can't exclusively write, and you can't exclusively market--but well-meaning advice, couched in absolutes, is prone to be more harmful than helpful, especially to the people who agree with it whole-heartedly.


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## JW Jackson (Nov 28, 2013)

Simply writing more books is not the answer. If you are not writing. You are networking with readers and other writers. If you are not treating this as a business. How are you going to make money?


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Wild Rivers said:


> The more books you publish, the more likely it is for someone to find them and buy them.
> 
> I have a lot of books and I keep writing. I should have my newest novel ready to publish early next month. A reader is more likely to buy an author's books who has written a lot of books than only a few. They realize that writers get better at writing as they write and publish books.
> 
> One thing that I have noticed is that my newest novels sell best and are my highest priced books so that means I make more money.


Franklin, I just don't know. More books? Maybe more good or very good books. But not just any old book. They tend to not sell many copies.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> Where's Terrence? He must be sleeping in.


Markets call. The wolf must be kept at least fifty feet from the door.

If a business wants to produce one product every X days, then it needs internal resources capable of producing one unit every X days. If it doesn't have them, then it has to get them. If it can't get them, then it is stuck with what it has. If internal resources can produce every Y days, then that's all it can do.

An author is stuck with himself. He is stuck with a production rate of one book per Y days. He might not be meeting that rate, but thats what he is stuck with.

So, are more books the answer? I don't know. Thats uncomfortably* imprecise. But one book every Y days might work. And that is a function of the individual.

And holding off on publishing, marketing, or promotion? That is called a wasting asset.

It also doesn't matter what I call myself. Writer, author, rodeo clown, or special? Who cares? I prefer Rock-n-Roll Legend.

*Adverb.


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

blakebooks said:


> Jan: Book selling. If you don't want to sell books, then just put your book out there, and wait to see what so many are reporting every day - that books don't sell themselves. Nobody says you have to sell books, but doing "soft" marketing makes no sense. Just call it what it is: doing no marketing. "I did no marketing and nobody bought my book" is more accurate than "I did soft marketing and nobody bought my book." It's entirely possible that lightning will strike and for some unknown reason your book will capture the hearts and minds of millions, but that possibility requires a decimal point and lot of zeroes to calculate. While doing marketing in no way guarantees you'll sell lots of books, not doing any increases your odds of not selling any.


OK you have a point there. Maybe I should be more ambitious!


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Arkan9 said:


> Am I the only one who gets frustrated by these threads that throw the term _marketing_ around as if everyone is supposed to know exactly what that entails?


Nobody knows exactly what it entails. That's why it gets thrown around that way. Or to be more precise, it means different things to different writers who are at different points in their careers. AND, the effectiveness and reach of every method (including Bookbub) keeps changing, and new things to try arise. So that's also why.

I bought a BB ad back in June and saw fantastic results from it, but I think a big reason why I saw such good results is because the book already had about 75 fantastic reviews from happy readers and a good sales rank. I got to that point by doing "marketing" that consisted of nothing more than just interacting with readers on Goodreads, without ever telling them directly to buy my book. That's the kind of super-effective "marketing" that anybody can do with one spare hour per day.

However, the only hard and fast rule about marketing is that what's effective for me might not be effective for you, and that what's effective today might not be effective tomorrow. it's one of the places in this business where there's plenty of room for creative thinking and risk-taking, if you have the guts to try it. The only real certainty about marketing is that if you do NOTHING to increase your exposure or reach your audience, you will reap what you sow.


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## Book Master (May 3, 2013)

blakebooks said:


> I tend to take the position that you have to do both. Writing a bunch of books nobody's ever heard of does one no good. And books generally don't sell themselves - even good ones. Virtually all the authors I know who sell tonnage do marketing - some, considerable marketing.
> 
> As I've said several thousand times by now, 25% marketing/non-writing tasks to 75% writing is a sustainable balance.
> 
> ...


Some use the 20/80 rule. Whatever percentage one uses to market, they can always make room in that percentage for more.

WR is right. RB is correct in his post above as well. Some people just never will get it right. You don't write more books, how in the world can you expect to make more money? The more work that you can produce means more money can be made anytime in the future. All the books that are being uploaded to Amazon and you don't need to write more? Are some of you even here?
In 2014, I plan to write much more and market like there is no tomorrow! Things are going to tighten up and its going to be harder than the past year has been. You better take the marketing with the writing seriously.
Get the ducks in a row and buckle down to business. It will continue to get tougher.

BM


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> Am I the only one who gets frustrated by these threads that throw the term marketing around as if everyone is supposed to know exactly what that entails?


Good point. Its fun to just ask people about these things. You can get lots of answers. Sometimes no answer.

I use a definition that has been around for a while. The Four Ps. Product, Place, Price, and Promotion.

For a book, keep it simple by taking the product as given. Understand the chosen business strategy. Then manage the place to sell, price, and promotion to further the strategy.

There are other descriptions. Nothing wrong with them, but its good to ask what they are.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Joe: I have no idea how many books you sell. I don't know how to evaluate your approach, because you haven't shared the results your approach yields, merely repeated your disagreement with my approach, over and over. I will say that if doing 25% marketing to 75% writing somehow stifles your ability to write books, you must have missed the 25 novels I've released in 30 months while adhering to that approach (although in truth it's more like 20%/80% nowadays). The point being that if you view the world as polarized, wherein you EITHER write more books, OR market, you're completely missing the point.

You need to do both if you wish to sell more than a few books. That's all. Simple.

And if people wait to market their books until they've written ten or fifteen or whatever the magic number is, they're doing themselves an extreme disservice if they want to maximize their book selling, as opposed to their writing time.


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## ChrisWard (Mar 10, 2012)

EC Sheedy said:


> Can we please put an adjective in front of "books" for the purpose of this excercise? Something like: good, interesting, entertaining, awesome, unparalleled... Just sayin'


Exactly this. Churning out poor quality books won't achieve anything. You want every book to be so good that the customer immediately wants to go and buy your backlist. The absolute last thing you want is to churn out junk and have people go and tell their friends how much you suck. So while I agree that more books is obviously a good idea, putting out books that are of poor quality or not ready for publication is just counter-productive. Quite often when I see people asking why no one is buying their book twos or book threes, I think the question to ask is whether their book one is actually any good.


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2013)

Sometimes it seems all you can do is soft marketing, at least for a time, which could be long.  I've contacted a few sites like BookBlast, KFD, and eBooklister and they all say they can't list me because of reviews.  Well, I know this but I thought I'd take a chance and see if anything in the blurb or cover grabbed you.  Instead I get pointed to a thread on Goodreads where authors can list their books to get reviews.

So what do I do with this book, or several books if I'm writing fast, that I can't do a lot of hard marketing for?  Sure, there are other sites out there, but I'm not sure how effective they'd be for my limited budget.  So what do I do?  I like what someone said about just putting it to $0.99, maybe as long as it takes to get some reviews.  Maybe you just have to lose money until you can get some magic review number that enables a whole new set of hard marketing options, kind of like getting up to another level in a video game.

It's just frustrating when a new book only has seemingly ineffective options for marketing and thus sits there collecting dust, or in this case sees its ranking fall indefinitely.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> Exactly this. Churning out poor quality books won't achieve anything. You want every book to be so good that the customer immediately wants to go and buy your backlist.


If each product is just good enough to get the consumer to buy the producers other products, then resources can be directed in other more productive directions. Its fun to play with the boundaries.


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2013)

We're all different, Blake. Your advice can only be generalized to the people who are wired the way you are. Your sales numbers, no matter how impressive, are not the only measure of the validity of your advice, or anyone else's for that matter. 

Telling myself that I didn't need to worry about promotion until I had 10-15 books out helped to take the pressure off and freed me up creatively so I had the mental space to try new things and experiment with different ideas. It helped me to avoid getting discouraged when my initial promotional attempts failed, and to be patient with the long-term strategies like building a mailing list or setting a couple of books to perma-free. That patience is now bearing fruit.

Furthermore, I know myself well enough to know that if I'd followed your advice, I would have gone crazy or burned out well before I'd written my tenth book. And would I be selling hundreds of thousands of books now? I doubt it. Counter-factuals are impossible to prove, and the books I write are very different from yours. There are too many variables, not the least of which is the difference in our personalities and creative processes. I know myself. The fact that you don't, and that you find my approach so confusing, only tells me that your advice won't work for me.


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## GearPress Steve (Feb 4, 2012)

For most self-published authors (most) to be successful, it takes more than just writing. Marketing, or at least some form of promotion, is generally required. For authors who prefer only to write, that's cool... then write. But the chances of success are less for an author who is unable or unwilling to promote. If promotion isn't your bag, no problem. You'll either have to go without promotion or likely pay someone else to handle it for you.

Books don't sell themselves... except sometimes they kinda do. But those times aren't nearly often enough, in fact they're fairly rare when you consider all of the self-published authors in the world. Just writing works for some, but few.


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## Lady Vine (Nov 11, 2012)

blakebooks said:


> One powerful argument against waiting until you have a bunch of books out to market: The market constantly changes, generally for the worse, in terms of marketing effectiveness. So the longer you wait, the worse your odds are of breaking out, mainly because there are fewer viable alternatives that are effective.
> 
> There is zero good reason for holding off on marketing, other than being afraid of failing if you give it your all and fall flat. Imagine if you'd held off on using Select for 2012 while you crafted your special snowflakes. You would have missed out on the biggest marketing boon ever handed to authors, and by the time you got into it at 2013, you missed that boat. Ditto for choosing to hold off on BB ads until 2014. You missed the glory days of that pub, and would have lost out on not only the Select bandwagon, but also the BB bandwagon.
> 
> ...


Actually, those are passive marketing strategies. I'm not talking about those. I've used the first in a series permafree strategy for several months, and I have my mailing list and a twitter account. I write in a niche, and things like Bookbub aren't designed for my niche, so it's not something I need to use. I also don't have to worry about missing any boats, as my niche isn't as volatile as some of the mainstream genres, like Romance or Thriller.

Besides, my marketing strategy (the more active approach) focuses on search engine placement for my website, and getting readers there before they go to any of the retailers. That has always been my goal. And getting my sites to the first page of Google for my chosen keywords is something I'm good at. I'm not running the same race as many of you.

What works for your genre won't necessarily work for others.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> We're all different, Blake. Your advice can only be generalized to the people who are wired the way you are. Your sales numbers, no matter how impressive, are not the only measure of the validity of your advice, or anyone else's for that matter.
> 
> Telling myself that I didn't need to worry about promotion until I had 10-15 books out helped to take the pressure off and freed me up creatively so I had the mental space to try new things and experiment with different ideas. It helped me to avoid getting discouraged when my initial promotional attempts failed, and to be patient with the long-term strategies like building a mailing list or setting a couple of books to perma-free. That patience is now bearing fruit.
> 
> Furthermore, I know myself well enough to know that if I'd followed your advice, I would have gone crazy or burned out well before I'd written my tenth book. And would I be selling hundreds of thousands of books now? I doubt it. Counter-factuals are impossible to prove, and the books I write are very different from yours. There are too many variables, not the least of which is the difference in our personalities and creative processes. I know myself. The fact that you don't, and that you find my approach so confusing, only tells me that your advice won't work for me.


But Blake can point to success following his method, not just his own, but that of many other writers. Who is the writer who has quietly released 10-15 books into the marketplace without attempting to shift copies, who then takes off organically and makes a living at it? Please point to this writer.


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2013)

MichaelWallace said:


> But Blake can point to success following his method, not just his own, but that of many other writers. Who is the writer who has quietly released 10-15 books into the marketplace without attempting to shift copies, who then takes off organically and makes a living at it? Please point to this writer.


Hugh Howey. But of course we can ignore him, because he's an outlier. 

ETA: If you're looking for someone who falls closer to the midlist, you can also include me.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> Hugh Howey. But of course we can ignore him, because he's an outlier.
> 
> ETA: If you're looking for someone who falls closer to the midlist, you can also include me.


No, he didn't. He had a handful of books out. And how did his book get into the hands of Boing Boing, etc.? Was he not sending it to people hoping to get a review? Then once his books started taking off, he didn't sit back and wait for it to happen.

As for you, how many books have you sold? Without a number, it's hard to tell what your example is worth. Secondly, you've said before that you keep a mailing list, post to FB, etc. You're not even following your own advice, but are doing a fair amount of strategizing.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

MichaelWallace said:


> No, he didn't. He had a handful of books out. And how did his book get into the hands of Boing Boing, etc.? Was he not sending it to people hoping to get a review? Then once his books started taking off, he didn't sit back and wait for it to happen.
> ...


Hugh did excellent marketing in a non-cheesey way, so it probably didn't feel like marketing. He posted youtube videos opening up boxes of the print editions and stuff like that. He blogged, posted progress reports, and really connected with readers via his website and Facebook profile.

Great marketing doesn't always look like marketing.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Mimi (was Dalya) said:


> Hugh did excellent marketing in a non-cheesey way, so it probably didn't feel like marketing. He posted youtube videos opening up boxes of the print editions and stuff like that. He blogged, posted progress reports, and really connected with readers via his website and Facebook profile.
> 
> Great marketing doesn't always look like marketing.


Exactly. Anyone who thinks that Hugh was sitting back, laboring in obscurity and solitude while his books took off wasn't remotely paying attention. His marketing looked different than Blake's, but it was absolutely there.


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

blakebooks said:


> Joe: I have no idea how many books you sell. I don't know how to evaluate your approach, because you haven't shared the results your approach yields, merely repeated your disagreement with my approach, over and over. I will say that if doing 25% marketing to 75% writing somehow stifles your ability to write books, you must have missed the 25 novels I've released in 30 months while adhering to that approach (although in truth it's more like 20%/80% nowadays). The point being that if you view the world as polarized, wherein you EITHER write more books, OR market, you're completely missing the point.


I read somewhere that if you are unpublished, it should be 90/10 (writing/marketing) so that you can get those books written. Then once you have published something, some go 70/30, 75/25, 80/25, but I have also head of selfpubbers going 50/50. YMMV.



Mimi (was Dalya) said:


> Hugh did excellent marketing in a non-cheesey way, so it probably didn't feel like marketing. He posted youtube videos opening up boxes of the print editions and stuff like that. He blogged, posted progress reports, and really connected with readers via his website and Facebook profile.
> 
> Great marketing doesn't always look like marketing.


According to another thread in KB, he also does soft launches e.g. for SAND.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

I don't pay much attention to the ratios that float around. For a profit maximizer, the last hour of marketing will yield the same benefit as the last hour of writing.  So if an author writes for 80 hours, and markets for 20 hours, the 80th hour of writing will have the same productivity as the 20th hour of marketing.

I forget about such ratios at the beginning of a project, but observe them on an ongoing basis. The objective isn't to meet a ratio, but to equalize the benefit from the last hour of each endeavor. If I can hit that balance, then I have it right. It doesn't matter what the ratio is, but its interesting to watch it. It also provides a rational answer to why I might be holding a given ratio. Its not just pulled out of the air.

Its hard to measure this stuff. But keeping the concept in mind can often eliminate lots of inefficient hours. The ratio is derivative, not driving.


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## Jay Allan (Aug 20, 2012)

Joe Vasicek said:


> We're all different, Blake. Your advice can only be generalized to the people who are wired the way you are. Your sales numbers, no matter how impressive, are not the only measure of the validity of your advice, or anyone else's for that matter.
> 
> Telling myself that I didn't need to worry about promotion until I had 10-15 books out helped to take the pressure off and freed me up creatively so I had the mental space to try new things and experiment with different ideas. It helped me to avoid getting discouraged when my initial promotional attempts failed, and to be patient with the long-term strategies like building a mailing list or setting a couple of books to perma-free. That patience is now bearing fruit.
> 
> Furthermore, I know myself well enough to know that if I'd followed your advice, I would have gone crazy or burned out well before I'd written my tenth book. And would I be selling hundreds of thousands of books now? I doubt it. Counter-factuals are impossible to prove, and the books I write are very different from yours. There are too many variables, not the least of which is the difference in our personalities and creative processes. I know myself. The fact that you don't, and that you find my approach so confusing, only tells me that your advice won't work for me.


Have to disagree with most of this. First, sales numbers ARE just about the only relevant thing when the thread is about writing more books to sell more. If it was a thread about deriving personal satisfaction from writing you might be right, but in this case, the thread's about selling books.

Second, a writer who wants to sell books has to learn to write AND deal with the other aspects of his/her career. A chef could open a restaurant, say "I'm just going to focus on cooking," but all he'd get is a closed down restaurant. A thread about how to sell more books is a career skills thread. The answer on this is learn to deal with it. Learn to be creative AND take care of business. Or write for personal satisfaction and not to make a living.

This is something that addresses a lot of posts on these threads. If you want to make a living as a writer, you have to do all the work. Writing, marketing, learning, researching what to write. Why should writing be any less demanding than another career.

You can say the people selling a ton of books are lucky (perhaps good too, but lucky they caught on), but the truth is, the people on here selling in big numbers all sound very much alike in how they approach the business. They all pay attention to the market, find the time to produce a lot of books, studiously analyze marketing alternatives. They don't say things like, "I don't have the time to write enough," or "if I spent an hour a day on marketing, it would gut my writing time."

This is an old, old, old rule of thumb, but if you want to succeed at something, you have to make it your priority. You have to find the time to do what is necessary. If you don't, maybe you'll get lucky, but your odds are far lower.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Jay: I was going to reply to Joe, but you did it far more eloquently than I ever could. When following writing advice, I consider the source. When weighing book selling advice, I consider the source, only differently. This is a discussion of book selling and marketing versus writing more books as a strategy, at its core. Obviously Joe feels that writing more books is the answer. So I ask, how's that working for you, in hard numbers we can all evaluate? My hunch is, not well. Because it doesn't work. Then again, he can disprove my hunch whenever he wants. So far, long on opinion, short on fact. All hat, no cattle's the way they say it in Texas.

If someone's going to proclaim, "Do X, it's a superior approach" I will always, always ask, "why?" Followed by, "prove it." That's just how I am. I learned a long time ago to sort BS from reality using that mechanism. So far it's served me well. I use that same razor here.

Again, I'm not agitating for one approach or another. I'm reporting what's worked for me. And what's apparently worked well for others. I can push a big pile of sales stats into the pile as an ante as reinforcement, if not proof, that my approach is a valid one. Not the only one. Not the preferred one. But mine, which has worked well.

Joe: Yes, my sales numbers are in fact the only measure of the validity of my advice for selling books. Your sales numbers are in fact the only measure of the validity of your advice. How has that advice performed? How have you done with it? I can understand you wouldn't want to evaluate the value of SALES advice based on the actual SALES generated by that advice, but only if your advice yielded lousy results. Then you'd try to move the goalposts, shift the discussion to how you FEEL about the advice, how it resonates with your belief system, how your philosophy meshes with it...none of which has anything at all to do with how well it works for SELLING books.

People deserve to understand how well your system, which in your mind is superior to my approach, has actually worked in the only measurable sense that matters for the purposes of a sales outcome discussion.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Well, Id really like to know how it works when an author builds up 15 books before publishing any of them. At the point where #15 is finished, there is no point in worrying about what might have been. Its done.  Sunk costs.

So what happens? There are a zillion permutations not available to the guy who goes one at a time. What works well? What doesn't? How are they released? One every 15 days? Every other Tuesday? An entire series with the first perm free?  Boxed sets of four? Select?

Does the author continue to write? Or is he a full time marketer? What if its five books? Eight?

And regarding any recommended approach, a rigorous analysis would demand we consider a set of randomly selected authors who embraced the approach. Then we would look at the distribution of sales over the sample set. When 100 authors use the approach, what are the results? Cherry picking people who succeeded isn't any more valid than cherry picking those who fail. Ah, now Im awake.


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## Mip7 (Mar 3, 2013)

> I got to that point by doing "marketing" that consisted of nothing more than just interacting with readers on Goodreads, without ever telling them directly to buy my book. That's the kind of super-effective "marketing" that anybody can do with one spare hour per day.


LOL that's actually one of the better tips I've seen, thanks. I plan on taking it to heart. The more reviews you have, the better chance you have with Bookbub. Your response actually plays to my point. The real marketing is the Bookbub ad. But you have to work to get in with them, and this is really a good nugget of advice here on something you can spend a little time doing every day working towards that end. So, I concede to Russell's plan with this modification: Spend 7% of your time every day gracefully soliciting more reviews for your lead book, with the ultimate goal of getting accepted by Bookbub - the only effective marketing known to Indies.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Terrence: It first depends on whether the books suck or not. Assuming they don't, what works best today likely won't a month from now, just as if you determined two years ago that you should write five or seven or ten books before marketing, based on the idea that you could then put them into Select with free promos and rule the world, doesn't work now.

It's kind of silly advice, I think. But what do I know?

How to market your 10 books today? You can visit the thread that Mike posted, and the counsel therein, for a man in much that position. The answer is that there's no surefire approach. None. There are the things that worked last month, or for me, or for that guy over there, but books are NOT fungible, and there are too many variables to offer one set of blueprints for marketing success.

If it were easy, everyone would be doing it...


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## Trish McCallan (Jul 16, 2011)

blakebooks said:


> When weighing book selling advice, I consider the source... I ask, how's that working for you, in hard numbers we can all evaluate?
> 
> If someone's going to proclaim, "Do X, it's a superior approach" I will always, always ask, "why?" Followed by, "prove it." That's just how I am. I learned a long time ago to sort BS from reality using that mechanism. So far it's served me well. I use that same razor here. . . . .
> 
> sales numbers are in fact the only measure of the validity of your advice. How has that advice performed? How have you done with it?


This is such stellar advice, I hope people pay attention to your point. It amazes me how few authors bother to check into the sales numbers of those offering marketing advice.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

blakebooks said:


> Terrence: It first depends on whether the books suck or not. Assuming they don't, what works best today likely won't a month from now, just as if you determined two years ago that you should write five or seven or ten books before marketing, based on the idea that you could then put them into Select with free promos and rule the world, doesn't work now.
> 
> It's kind of silly advice, I think. But what do I know?
> 
> ...


The suck factor makes any real analysis suck. If a book doesn't sell well with a given approach, advocates say it sucked. If it does sell, advocates say it was because of the marketing approach. We get into the No Real Scotsman situation.

And if yesterdays approach won't work tomorrow, then who cares?

I agree there are no blueprints, but I suspect there are some principles. Different strategies can be organized around common principles.

I disagree about the fungibility of books. That is a function of the consumers purpose. A set of unique books can be fungible for a consumer looking for something to read on tonights Redeye. They are not fungible for a consumer looking for _Catcher In The Rye _ for a lit class.

I agree we should ask hard questions when anyone proclaims X is a superior approach. Its good for the soul.

Aint this great country?


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Terrence: I'm afraid I couldn't disagree more. If most books were fungible, in your example, to take one's mind off the idea that you're hurtling through space at 550 mph five miles above the ground, then there wouldn't be standouts that sell within the more popular genres for that purpose. And yet, every year, there are. Books aren't equivalent. It's easy to believe they might be, but that's as naive as saying, "all paintings are equivalent." Some command $100 50 years after their creation, others $100 million. So no, they aren't.

We agree that there are principles that are superior to others, even if the specific tactics may change. That's why I usually approach this from an organizational perspective, rather than a tactical one. The way I bring order to the chaos is based on my observations, which in turn are informed by my strategy, which then drive my selection of tactics. So first and foremost, I try to drill home that there are really two businesses here, and only one of them really involves the sale of books. The other involves the writing of them.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> Terrence: I'm afraid I couldn't disagree more. If most books were fungible, in your example, to take one's mind off the idea that you're hurtling through space at 550 mph five miles above the ground, then there wouldn't be standouts that sell within the more popular genres for that purpose. And yet, every year, there are. Books aren't equivalent. It's easy to believe they might be, but that's as naive as saying, "all paintings are equivalent." Some command $100 50 years after their creation, others $100 million. So no, they aren't.


Of course they are. The consumer is faced with a rack of books. His purpose is to occupy himself for a few hours. Test it by taking away any book from the rack, and he will still buy a book for his purpose. Take two away, and he will still meet his purpose. Take any three away... What you are identifying is a non horizontal distribution. The individual consumer experience is not a function of subsequent aggregates.

Note the set of books is a function of the consumer purpose. That does not mean all books are in the purpose-defined fungible set.

I agree books are not equivalent. I contend sets of books are fungible as a function of consumer purpose. Equivalence is not necessary for that.

I said nothing about paintings, so I won't be responding. Im happy to engage on books.



> We agree that there are principles that are superior to others, even if the specific tactics may change. That's why I usually approach this from an organizational perspective, rather than a tactical one. The way I bring order to the chaos is based on my observations, which in turn are informed by my strategy, which then drive my selection of tactics. So first and foremost, I try to drill home that there are really two businesses here, and only one of them really involves the sale of books. The other involves the writing of them.


Fine with me. I wish you the best of luck with whatever approach you choose.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

MichaelWallace said:


> But Blake can point to success following his method, not just his own, but that of many other writers. Who is the writer who has quietly released 10-15 books into the marketplace without attempting to shift copies, who then takes off organically and makes a living at it? Please point to this writer.


Dean Wesley Smith. (Multiple times under multiple names.)

Also, there are a whole lot of authors who used to promote who now believe it was a waste of time and that it didn't have as much to do with their success as they used to believe. (Konrath has certainly posted about this, among others.)

The thing is, most of these authors who are making a living are not here. They're not wasting their time with forums. And we're all loath to put words in their mouths.

The truth is, KB is a pretty small pond, and whoever happens to be most successful at the moment gets a lot of cred, but then the next person comes along and has a different view of how to do it, and that person gets all the cred.

That said, I think what Russell has to say is mostly awesome -- but the devil is in the details, and the details apply only to writers like him.

In this particular argument... it's silly. There are good reasons to promote or not promote. You've got to experiment and find your balance. You've got to find the mix that works for you. Your time is an investment -- you have to invest in what gives you the most return, not what gives your neighbor the most return.

I invested in Apple at $9-10 bucks a share (split adjusted). I also made similar investments in Chipotle and Amazon and Canadian Solar. I made less than 18k a year most of of my life, but I have multiple big retirement accounts, and other resources.

I could tell you a lot about managing money, but let's be honest: Your situation is different from mine. Your information, your instincts, your background. Nothing I tell you is going to make you a star investor. I can tell you to buy good companies and hold them until you need the money elsewhere, no matter what. I can tell you to look for companies for which the press has an emotional knee-jerk reaction, and then buy on the dips. But that wouldn't give you Apple in 1999. And that wouldn't make you capable of telling the difference between Amazon and Iomega few years later.

*Success is not proof.*

*Success is only "proof of concept."*

It only tells you that something CAN work, not that it will.

As a matter of fact, I've usually seen proof of the opposite. Someone makes it big, and everybody imitates that person and fails. On the other hand, I have seen again and again that when people take the slow route, and never make it "big" and yet they end up way better off than the "rabbits" of this world.

Look to your own goals and resources, and use every model to figure out what works best for you.

Camille


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> I invested in Apple at $9-10 bucks a share (split adjusted).


I have a new hero...


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> I have a new hero...


And I had to look up the definition of fungible.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Mimi (was Dalya) said:


> And I had to look up the definition of fungible.


Disappointing, huh?


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

daringnovelist said:


> Dean Wesley Smith. (Multiple times under multiple names.)
> 
> Also, there are a whole lot of authors who used to promote who now believe it was a waste of time and that it didn't have as much to do with their success as they used to believe. (Konrath has certainly posted about this, among others.)
> 
> ...


Well said, Camille.


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2013)

You guys sure like to take a revisionist approach to indie success stories. In

__
https://www.reddit.com/r/1a7jxd/i_am_hugh_howey_the_author_of_the_selfpublished/
, he said:



> I didn't market Wool at all in the beginning. It wasn't until the sales started shooting up that I began throwing logs on the fire ... If the work is making people happy, they'll tell others. That's the best promotion.


He also linked to one of his promotional youtube videos. At the time the AMA was live, it had less than 500 views.

You also like to resort to straw man logic in order to discredit my side of the argument. At no point have I said that writers should "labor in obscurity and solitude," or do absolutely zero marketing until reaching a certain "magic number" of books or whatever. All I've said here is that it's perfectly fine not to worry about promotion until you have 10-15 books out. Have I experimented with different promotional tactics in that time? Yes, but I haven't worried about it--I haven't put much time or money or mental space into it. What little marketing I have done has been more experimental than anything, finding out what works and learning how to do it better. So am I breaking my advice by "doing a fair amount of strategizing"? Only if you misrepresent my side of the argument.

In every one of these marketing / promotion threads, I somehow get painted as the one who says that writers shouldn't worry their silly little heads about marketing or the business side of things, but that they should labor in a closet and come to fame and fortune through sheer literary prowess. I would like to meet someone who actually believes that, because I haven't ever heard anyone argue that in all my time here on KBoards. Of course marketing is important. Of course you have to strike a balance between writing and marketing. We don't disagree on the fundamentals (those ones, anyway), just where to draw that balance. And because the stakes are so high (masterpieces that are left unwritten, careers that are never made), it's tempting to just dismiss the other side. But I think there's a lot we can learn from each other, if 1) we acknowledge that every writer is different, 2) no piece of advice works universally for everyone, and 3) no one has all of the answers.



blakebooks said:


> Joe: Yes, my sales numbers are in fact the only measure of the validity of my advice for selling books. Your sales numbers are in fact the only measure of the validity of your advice. How has that advice performed? How have you done with it? I can understand you wouldn't want to evaluate the value of SALES advice based on the actual SALES generated by that advice, but only if your advice yielded lousy results. Then you'd try to move the goalposts, shift the discussion to how you FEEL about the advice, how it resonates with your belief system, how your philosophy meshes with it...none of which has anything at all to do with how well it works for SELLING books.
> 
> People deserve to understand how well your system, which in your mind is superior to my approach, has actually worked in the only measurable sense that matters for the purposes of a sales outcome discussion.


First of all, that would only be true if the business side of everyone's writing career is completely divorced from the creative side of everyone's writing career. For you, that may be true. For everyone else, you don't need to go much further than the Writer's Cafe to see that business success/failure bleeds into creative side of things and discourages people from writing certain things, or to switch to genres they aren't particularly passionate about but think will help them sell better. If your advice has an impact on the creative side of the business, affecting production, then looking only at sales is not going to give you the full picture.

I don't feel comfortable sharing my sales numbers because I don't feel comfortable with the growing tendency on KBoards to rank people by how their books are selling. Success is something that can only be defined on an individual basis, which means that there is no universal, absolute way to measure it. This narrow-minded focus on sales, while useful in some aspects, has a tendency to make us lose sight of our own personal markers of success, and instead adopt a "keeping up with the Jones's" sort of mentality.

When the indie publishing movement first began, there was a certain sense of egalitarianism--a sense that we were all in this together and that no one was any better or worse than anyone else. Over time, though, we've gradually lost that ethos. Instead, we now feel that we're in a race to the top, where nothing else matters so much as sales. Those who aren't fortunate enough to be earning five or six figures per month look up to the bestsellers as demigods, retelling (and revising) their success stories until they become myths that bear little resemblance to anything the bestsellers themselves would actually recognize. Many of the newbies fawn over big-name authors the way us old-timers used to fawn over agents and editors. Instead of embracing the indie spirit, we've defaulted to the old, familiar ways of the gatekeepers and kingmakers.

I don't want to buy into that, even if it means discrediting myself by not posting sales numbers. Do I sell as many books as you, Blake? No. Am I a bestseller in my genre? No, not really. Do I sell enough books to make a living off of my writing? Yes, and that's as much as I'm comfortable divulging at the present time.

I understand the temptation to break everything down into sales--it certainly is an easy way to measure and compare things. But it's deceptive. For one thing, some of us write in genres that sell more than others. For science fiction writers, is the advice of the writer at #43 in the Kindle Store > Romance category any more relevant than the writer at #17 in the Kindle Store > Science Fiction category, simply because the romance writer is selling more books than the science fiction writer? Are her methods somehow more likely to attract science fiction readers?

Everyone has to figure out what works for them. For some people, your approach is superior; for others, it really isn't, no matter how many books you sell. Just because it works for you doesn't mean it will work for everyone.


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2013)

Here's my take.

I started in January and by August had 13 books out with no paid promotion whatsoever.  In that time I had 252 sales, or 35% of my sales for the year.  

In September I got perma-free and did some paid promotions for it.  I also put out a book in October that did well.  From September when I began a more active marketing campaign until last week I had 464 sales over 34 books out, or 65% of my sales for the year.  So I'd say that marketing was effective for me, especially because most of those sales came from the books I was actively pushing, not the titles I was just dumping out there with no fanfare whatsoever.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Wild Rivers said:


> The more books you publish, the more likely it is for someone to find them and buy them.


OMG! You're the first person to ever ever ever suggest this insight! No one has ever conceived of such wisdom before, and I doubt anyone ever will again!


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

Joe Vasicek said:


> I understand the temptation to break everything down into sales--it certainly is an easy way to measure and compare things. But it's deceptive. * For one thing, some of us write in genres that sell more than others.* For science fiction writers, is the advice of the writer at #43 in the Kindle Store > Romance category any more relevant than the writer at #17 in the Kindle Store > Science Fiction category, simply because the romance writer is selling more books than the science fiction writer? Are her methods somehow more likely to attract science fiction readers?
> 
> Everyone has to figure out what works for them. For some people, your approach is superior; for others, it really isn't, no matter how many books you sell. Just because it works for you doesn't mean it will work for everyone.


Thank you for this, Joe. I've always wondered about The Genre Factor when it comes to discussions of sales. Obviously, some genres sell better than others, and unless you are chasing the market, it would be hard to compare sales in a children's genre or nonfic with, say, NA Rom or the Current Hot Genre. To each his/her own.

I think with all advice/ideas/suggestions/discussions on sales and marketing methods, we have to take them with a grain of salt, and find our own paths that work for us individually. Like you said elsewhere in your post, you make a living writing, and it doesn't have to be the $$$ that someone else earns. It could be more $$ than, or less $$ than, but it's what works for you.

Also, where one lives affects our living expenses and monetary goals too. For example, NYC vs rural countryside and everywhere in between.

For me, I'm not overly ambitious, and I'm content with my modest goals for my writing career. Everything on top of that is icing on the cake. If I don't get any overflow of sales, I'm still going to be OK.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> Joe: Yes, my sales numbers are in fact the only measure of the validity of my advice for selling books. Your sales numbers are in fact the only measure of the validity of your advice. How has that advice performed? How have you done with it? I can understand you wouldn't want to evaluate the value of SALES advice based on the actual SALES generated by that advice, but only if your advice yielded lousy results.


Suppose some person follows a given system and sales suck? What does that tell us about the validity of the system? What if the system yields lousy results? Suppose it gives good sales for some, and lousy sales for others? What kind of statistical results do we need in order to conclude the system is good? What results would tell us the system is bad? What results tell us the system doesnt matter? In evaluating, do we consider only successes, only failures, or both?



> Then you'd try to move the goalposts, shift the discussion to how you FEEL about the advice, how it resonates with your belief system, how your philosophy meshes with it...none of which has anything at all to do with how well it works for SELLING books. People deserve to understand how well your system, which in your mind is superior to my approach, has actually worked in the only measurable sense that matters for the purposes of a sales outcome discussion.


Good point. The numbers don't have feelings. So in evaluating a system, do we consider anything other than the numbers? If only the numbers matter, can we agree in advance on what kind of test would indicate a system is good? Bad? Could the test then be replicated by those not involved in using the system?

God Bless the goalposts, for they anchor the numbers.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Joe: Yes, my sales numbers are in fact the only measure of the validity of my advice for selling books. Your sales numbers are in fact the only measure of the validity of your advice. How has that advice performed? How have you done with it?
> 
> Well, suppose someone followed the advice and sales sucked? What would that tell us?


Seriously, it depends on the advice, and it depends on the book.

A niche book which only sells to people who never look at a best seller list is not going to benefit from most advice regarding best sellers. "Sheer numbers sold" is not a valid measure of success in reaching that audience, because that audience is small. If you serve that audience, then you have to develop other strategies to make a living. (For instance, higher prices instead of sales numbers.)

Secondly, not all advice is sales advice. That's, I think, what Joe is complaining about. If you talk about big picture issues here, somebody will inevitably come along and complain that it's WRONG because it isn't about a very narrow area of immediate sales. (Not even long term sales count for much around here.)

I think Joe's most important point gets overlooked a lot: we're not all here to get rich quick -- but that doesn't mean we're not interested in business. It doesn't mean we write literary fiction. It doesn't mean we should shut up and go away. Business, lifestyle, art, philosophy are not at all segregated issues. They all blend. Some of us balance them differently.

The kicker is this: the very best break-out advice you'll ever get will usually come from a lateral source. Something outside the standard advice.

The reason I'm a good investor, for instance, is not because I pay attention to Wall St. It's because I apply understanding of the social and political aspects of economics. The investing culture is crippled by their own analytics. They can't see the larger forces at work.

So instead of shooting down input from people outside the mainstream, it's much better to use other points of view as a way to get a fuller picture of what's going on. You're never going to see the opportunities if you limit yourself to the standard point of view. Because you'll only see what everybody else sees, and someone will get to it before you.

Camille


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Except in special circumstances, I don't know why you'd want to wait to promote any more than you'd want to wait to publish. Getting your books in front of readers and seeing how they respond is the only way to find out if any of this advice _will_ work for you. It's also the only way to learn new lessons for yourself.

As long as you keep writing new books, there isn't some finite amount of promotional activities that you can exhaust. Each new release is a new opportunity. Make it explode, then go write up some fresh dynamite.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

I think something is getting lost here. What's getting lost is that my approach, which is a 75% writing, 25% marketing approach, has worked wonders for _me_. There is of course no guarantee that will work for _you_. Your books may suck. Your blurb might. Your cover might. Your editing might. The story itself may lack appeal. You may be writing in a genre that isn't popular. There are countless variables. I don't pretend to know your situation, and I'm not recommending my approach as the sole one. Just the one I use.

I recommend the 25% marketing, 75% writing mix because it worked. We can hypothesize about sets of those for whom it might not, or for whom it doesn't. We can also bemoan that book selling approaches are measured by how well they work to sell books for the person in question, and that it's not based on a shared sense of community, or how we feel about what success means, or how it's different for every person. Sure it is. I can only speak for what's worked for me. If you want the kind of success I've had (such as it is), then you know how I did it. If you want the kind of success others have had, go study their results, and best of luck to you.

Joe Nobody's approach works for him because of the niche he's in. His genre doesn't have a problem plunking down $10 a book. Try that in romance, and you'll die a quick death. Genres are all different. Marketing approaches must be tailored to them.

I won't debate DWS's approach, because frankly he is selling seminars and courses, which are dependent upon one buying into his success. I do however look at his rankings, and based on my estimates, he ain't selling a ton of books. Not to disparage him, but that result's just not impressive to me, and not a model I'd want to emulate for that reason. Others, however, might and do, because he's selling his courses, and for every transaction, there has to be a willing buyer. More power to him. I'm not planning on offering any courses. So I'm afraid I'm not here to comment on anything but what's worked for me, so that newbies can evaluate alternatives to "writing more books as the answer."

Holly and Elle both took hard looks at their genres, concluded that what they were writing wasn't delivering the results they wanted, switched to more viable genres, approached their business like a business, and their sales rocketed. Some might argue that's selling out, or is in some way jeopardizing one's artistic integrity. To which I'd say, hogwash. That's more a rationalization than anything - trying to justify their approach that _hasn't yielded those sorts of results_. That's how it looks to me.

I come from a business background. Self-taught. I educated myself on what works, and what doesn't, in business, the majority of the time. I've evaluated literally hundreds of business plans over the years when I was investing. The good ones all had the same characteristic: They had realistic plans, and objectives, and there was no aspect that was out of balance. They had marketing strategies, sales strategies, product development strategies, branding strategies, and they paid a hell of a lot of attention to the niches they were shooting to succeed in. There were exactly none that succeeded whose business plan was essentially, "Pick a niche that's small, do very little marketing (if any), and hope the product carries the day."

Perhaps the book business is different. Perhaps not. From my perspective, there are black swan events where a book goes viral for unknown reasons, but I didn't tailor my approach hoping to be a black swan. I tailored mine to make maximum revenue off of base hits. No home runs necessary. If I have one, super, but I don't depend on it.

In business, everyone's got an opinion, and markets get irrational, but I have learned to be skeptical, and to demand proof of all claims. The world's filled with those who would argue their positions as if their lives depended on it, but can't point to their approach actually working well. I've found that, other than for amusement value, those positions don't bear fruit, so I ignore them. As I've said before, when Holly or Colleen or Elle or Joe or Konrath describe what they're doing, I pay attention. Because they're selling well, and first and foremost, I come here to see what others are doing to sell successfully. I'm not interested in what those who aren't selling much are doing, not because I don't value them as humans, but because it's immaterial for the objective I'm after - to maximize my revenue selling books.

Of course your mileage may vary. Having to restate that again and again as though it's some sort of hidden wisdom insults everyone's intelligence. We get it. There is no guaranteed method that will assure success. Thanks for the feedback. Now let's focus on what has worked, and how well it's worked, so we can glean what we can from it and apply it to our situation.

Terrence: Of course you should count hits, as well as the misses. I don't know anyone else who is working 12 hour days writing in viable genres, who's also marketing 25% of their time, and who writes at a high quality level, so it's kind of hard for me to say how many have worked my "system" such as it is, and failed to sell decently. Frankly, that's up to those who are looking for guidance on how to improve their own approach to do - it's called due diligence. I'm not compensated to be anyone's life coach or success cheerleader, and frankly, when I've helped other authors one on one, they generally do well, and then decide they know enough to take it from there, and promptly ignore the parts of my approach they don't like. You do that once or twice, you stop wasting your time. I have.

Daring: We're discussing how to maximize your book sales here. If you choose to write to tiny niches that aren't very viable, that speaks to your book sale approach strategy. I've laid mine out, which among other things, counsels choosing niches that are viable, or being happy with meager sales. If as a book seller you choose niches that have no chance of breaking big, no problem, but that would be lousy book selling advice for someone looking at how to build a viable book selling business. As an author you might argue, "but that's what I write!" And that's fine. But you need a book seller who is willing to sell very few books. That's usually going to be you as publisher, because others won't risk their time and money to sell very few books. So my approach isn't intended for that audience. It's intended for those who want to sell lots of books.

Everyone:

I offer my approach as food for thought. I have no doubt that 2014 will be a good year for my sales. The reasons will become obvious as the year unfolds. Some of the things I've done aren't traditional marketing in the sense many think of it, but I've allocated my time to pursuing them using my 25% marketing time allocation, and expect to see huge ROI on that investment of effort. We'll see.

In the meantime, everyone enjoy their New Year. I'm starting another book, and so won't be around for a few weeks. Whether you think my approach is arrogant foolery or solid business counsel won't really change my outcome. The proof is always in results, not rhetoric or philosophy. That's my business side talking. You may decide there's some other factor you favor. Bless you with it, whatever it is.

Having said that, there is no such thing as someone who will give you the answer, largely because most who profess to have that answer actually don't, and also because the answer usually has to be prefaced with, "depends." Depends on a host of factors. Yours will be different than mine. So take what works for you, discard the rest, and have a nice life. I can assure you that I intend to try. We can pick this whole thread up this time next year to see how everyone's doing. Until then, have fun, and good luck.


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

daringnovelist said:


> Seriously, it depends on the advice, and it depends on the book.
> 
> A niche book which only sells to people who never look at a best seller list is not going to benefit from most advice regarding best sellers. "Sheer numbers sold" is not a valid measure of success in reaching that audience, because that audience is small. If you serve that audience, then you have to develop other strategies to make a living. (For instance, higher prices instead of sales numbers).


But a good measure of a book's success would be to see how it's ranking against others in the same niche. Certainly a ton of bestselling genre books will never see the Amazon Top 100, but you do want them to see genre Top 100. That's comparing apples to apples.

I don't compare my book ranking to thriller or new adult or (flavor of the month). I compare my books to others in the cozy mysteries and women sleuth categories. That speaks to what my existing and potential readership feels about my work.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> Terrence: Of course you should count hits, as well as the misses.


Good. In that case we dispense with the idea that the validity of a system is demonstrated by one persons sales? What that tells us is that one person with his book, plot, cover, work hours, and marketing approach had good sales. It doesn't tell us much about the system and its portability. We can send the True Scotsman back home.



> I don't know anyone else who is working 12 hour days writing in viable genres, who's also marketing 25% of their time, and who writes at a high quality level, so it's kind of hard for me to say how many have worked my "system" such as it is, and failed to sell decently.


Agree. It is very difficult to say a system works unless we test it on more than one person under similar controls.



> Frankly, that's up to those who are looking for guidance on how to improve their own approach to do - it's called due diligence.


Agree. Due diligence demands rigorous examinations of claims.



> I'm not compensated to be anyone's life coach or success cheerleader, and frankly, when I've helped other authors one on one, they generally do well, and then decide they know enough to take it from there, and promptly ignore the parts of my approach they don't like. You do that once or twice, you stop wasting your time. I have.


Fine with me.



> I offer my approach as food for thought. I have no doubt that 2014 will be a good year for my sales. The reasons will become obvious as the year unfolds. Some of the things I've done aren't traditional marketing in the sense many think of it, but I've allocated my time to pursuing them using my 25% marketing time allocation, and expect to see huge ROI on that investment of effort. We'll see.


Good. Individual success stories are great. There are all kinds of things we can learn from them.



> Whether you think my approach is arrogant foolery or solid business counsel won't really change my outcome. The proof is always in results, not rhetoric or philosophy. That's my business side talking.


Of course our thoughts about an author won't change his outcome. Best of luck. Beyond that, due diligence demands we apply that rigorous analysis to any rhetoric or recommended philosophy.



> Having said that, there is no such thing as someone who will give you the answer, largely because most who profess to have that answer actually don't, and also because the answer usually has to be prefaced with, "depends." Depends on a host of factors. Yours will be different than mine. So take what works for you, discard the rest, and have a nice life.


Agree. it depends on stuff like "who is working 12 hour days writing in viable genres, who's also marketing 25% of their time, and who writes at a high quality level."

God Bless due diligence, for it is most needed where least welcome.


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2013)

I have an issue with this idea of 'popular genre.' If you look at almost all main genres, they all have the viability of making you a decent living if you're serving those readers and having your books in a number of the lists. Even in cyberpunk, which is tiny, when my books were near the top of the chart, I was making decent enough sales that if they continued to stay there, or I had more books similarly ranked, I'd be making good coin. Even now that they're not, I'm still managing to write fulltime. (which is my primary aim). 

It's not all about jumping on New Adult, Romance, Thrillers or whatever. I see plenty of smaller niches making decent returns for the author. This is why I believe you're better off writing that makes you tick. Your'e going to be more enthusiastic in adding more books to your catalogue, and more prepared to promote them than if you were constantly chasing a 'popular' genre. And how is that even defined anyway? 

I see indies in all genres doing well. It's not the genre. It's the quality of your book and marketing.


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2013)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> Except in special circumstances, I don't know why you'd want to wait to promote any more than you'd want to wait to publish. Getting your books in front of readers and seeing how they respond is the only way to find out if any of this advice _will_ work for you. It's also the only way to learn new lessons for yourself.
> 
> As long as you keep writing new books, there isn't some finite amount of promotional activities that you can exhaust. Each new release is a new opportunity. Make it explode, then go write up some fresh dynamite.


Marketing is certainly important, but I don't think it's worth stressing out over until you've got a decent catalogue of titles out--especially if you're just starting out and learning the ropes from square one. It's fine to experiment with stuff and try out different ideas, but if you only sell a handful of copies of your first few titles in spite of your promotional efforts, it's not the end of your career. The only way to end your career is to stop writing--so write!


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

blakebooks said:


> I won't debate DWS's approach, because frankly he is selling seminars and courses, which are dependent upon one buying into his success. I do however look at his rankings, and based on my estimates, he ain't selling a ton of books.


I actually know Dean, and knew him LONG before he started selling the seminars. He was always like this, and he has been making a very very good living for decades. At writing. And also publishing.

The thing that you're missing is that YOUR approach depends on selling high numbers of each title. But other people's approach does not. Dean's approach assumes low steady sales per title. (He was making guestimates of 5 sales a month for certain kinds of titles.) Some of his pen name books get on best seller lists, sure, but in the end, they don't make as much as those very low ranked books, which last forever and ever.

Never underestimate the power of a compounding trickle.

Camille


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Daring: Good for him. But that's not what I aspire to. I'm uninterested in approaches that require 100 - 150 titles to sell 5-10 of each - because by my math, that's still not great money, and it's just not what I'm shooting for. I prefer approaches that yield 100 to 1000 of each title, steadily, year after year.

Again, if you think his approach a good one, by all means go for it. 

I have nothing against him. I agree with much of what he says. But I'm looking for a different result than what he's getting, so look elsewhere.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

blakebooks said:


> Daring: We're discussing how to maximize your book sales here. If you choose to write to tiny niches that aren't very viable, that speaks to your book sale approach strategy. I've laid mine out, which among other things, counsels choosing niches that are viable, or being happy with meager sales. If as a book seller you choose niches that have no chance of breaking big, no problem, but that would be lousy book selling advice for someone looking at how to build a viable book selling business. As an author you might argue, "but that's what I write!" And that's fine. But you need a book seller who is willing to sell very few books. That's usually going to be you as publisher, because others won't risk their time and money to sell very few books. So my approach isn't intended for that audience. It's intended for those who want to sell lots of books.


No, you're talking about maximizing short term book sales for certain kinds of books only. Others are talking about different approaches for maximizing total long term income in various situations.

Nobody's disputing your advice. They're just saying it's not for them. (And to be clear: most of the debating here isn't with you, but with people who are using your words/methods to put down other approaches.)

My only dispute with what you say is that this is complete bullpucky: "...that would be lousy book selling advice for someone looking at how to build a viable book selling business." Many small income streams are incredibly viable for most people. For some, it's not good enough, for others it's well beyond what they need.

Please don't force your definition of "viable" on everyone. Or insist that everyone else is an "artiste" who doesn't deal with business. You know your niche. Yes, and we want to know more about what you know. But we're also interested in things that fit our lives and niche.

Camille


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

blakebooks said:


> Daring: Good for him. But that's not what I aspire to. I'm uninterested in approaches that require 100 - 150 titles to sell 5-10 of each - because by my math, that's still not great money, and it's just not what I'm shooting for. I prefer approaches that yield 100 to 1000 of each title, steadily, year after year.
> 
> Again, if you think his approach a good one, by all means go for it.
> 
> I have nothing against him. I agree with much of what he says. But I'm looking for a different result than what he's getting, so look elsewhere.


Whoops, I hit post before I saw this:

Okay, so you're not interested... so what?

What does that have to do with what interests the rest of us? Take what interests you. Discuss the stuff that half-interests you. Leave the rest.

Camille


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2013)

daringnovelist said:


> Whoops, I hit post before I saw this:
> 
> Okay, so you're not interested... so what?
> 
> ...


Relax peeps, Russell has every right to express his opinion on DWS's method. (I for one agree with him). We're all finding our way here and it's cool to hear opinions from all sides.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Daring: For me, a business that ekes out a marginal income (in my view) via multiple income streams isn't a viable use of my time, because I can apply myself at other, equally enjoyable pursuits, and make way more, with the same energy. So I tune out when that's advised. I know my limitations, one might say.

Again, if you're earning what you want from your approach, I have no problem with that. I simply don't aspire to that particular goal - my philosophy is always go big or go home. I'm pretty sure that my definition of viable ain't what yours is, and that's fine. It takes all kinds of flavors to make a stew.

And Daring, I'll reserve my right to express interest, or lack thereof, in whatever I like, without seeking anyone's permission. You're welcome to express your interest or lack of it, as you do early and often, and I have no problem with that.

Have a happy New Year. I'm outta here. Book's not going to write itself.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

blakebooks said:


> Daring: For me, a business that ekes out a marginal income (in my view) via multiple income streams isn't a viable use of my time, because I can apply myself at other, equally enjoyable pursuits, and make way more, with the same energy. So I tune out when that's advised. I know my limitations, one might say.
> 
> Again, if you're earning what you want from your approach, I have no problem with that. I simply don't aspire to that particular goal - my philosophy is always go big or go home. I'm pretty sure that my definition of viable ain't what yours is, and that's fine. It takes all kinds of flavors to make a stew.
> 
> ...


Thanks Russell, you just gave me an idea for dinner. PS: if I get to missing your posts too bad, I can always read one or more of your books.


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2013)

Is not writing more books the answer?


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2013)

Greg Strandberg said:


> Is not writing more books the answer?


After all this discussion, I'm now more interested in the question.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

1. This is what I did, and here are the results.

2. This is what I did, and you should do what I did because it worked for me.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

ColinFBarnes said:


> Relax peeps, Russell has every right to express his opinion on DWS's method. (I for one agree with him). We're all finding our way here and it's cool to hear opinions from all sides.


I think you missed the subtext here: My post about DWS was purely informational -- just verifying that Dean does indeed do amazingly well from his writing and that he does indeed do it with the methods he tells people about. Dean can stand on his own beyond that. IMHO, his methods are not for everyone, because most people can't do what he does.

The issue that caused me to speak up is a common one on these boards:

Whenever anyone expresses any idea that is contrary to the "get rich quick" mentality around here, someone will make a dismissive comment about how they have no legitimacy. And a whole lot of energy goes into proving them illegitimate, and force them out of the conversation.

This is not a contest. We're not here to win the internet.

Nobody is saying Russell is wrong. He's just one part of the conversation, and we all _want_ to hear his opinion -- but this conversation is NOT about Russell. It's about all of us, and we're all trying to find an answer for our selves based on our own needs.

So when we talk about, say, writing more books, or marketing books (which frankly are both things I think are good useful activities) -- it is not helpful to tell other people that they don't have a legitimate place in the conversation.

We're all interested in how this conversation will help ourselves. Russell is not interested in what this conversation will do for you or me or David, and that's fine -- but we don't have to be interested in what this conversation will do for him.

And I'm tired of watching people who are talking about things that interest me get bullied and badgered, and the whole conversation become useless, because some people (and I'm not talking about Russell here, usually it's people using his name) see this as a contest to be won.

Camille


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> Relax peeps, Russell has every right to express his opinion on DWS's method. (I for one agree with him). We're all finding our way here and it's cool to hear opinions from all sides.


Relax? Why? Thats no fun. The fact that someone has a right to express an opinion is no reason to pass up an opportunity to challenge the ideas contained in the opinion. Robust ideas can handle it. Nobody is special.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Terrence: Well said. Although I feel special. Phooey.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

blakebooks said:


> Terrence: Well said. Although I feel special. Phooey.


Blake and I agree! Hey!


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Oh, My Gawd! I feel like bursting forth with a rousing chorus of Kumbayah...

Now, aint this great country?


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

EelKat said:


> You know, the thing I find funny about this thread...I've been doing this whole "writing more" system since 2004 and, I had never heard of DWS or his method before this past November 2013, when I read about it on another thread here. I followed a link in that thread to DWS's site and found he "invented" the method in 2011.�  Goosh! I was doing it a whole 7 years before it was invented! LOL! Of course, I wasn't doing the ebook part of it, just getting ready to do that now, but still, my whole career has been based on, write more, write more, write more...


Just a quick comment here: Dean has actually been doing something very like this since at least 1985. The short story experiment that spawned everyone's attention here is just a new variation of older games and methods. (He likes challenges.) And he doesn't propose you write to a length -- it's just that he has different ideas about what you should do with different lengths. He assumes that this short story challenge is something you do in your spare time, after you've done your main writing. (Also, Dean changes his mind regularly and adapts and upgrades his ideas. That was an idea he threw out there -- it's not a "method" so much as a thought exercise. It changed multiple times.)

That short story experiment, BTW, is actually an adaptation for indie publishing of a game/challenge he used do to in the 1990s based on submissions. It was called "The Race." The point of that game was to keep as many stories under submission as you could. It was a productivity exercise, you get credit for every story you have under consideration by an editor. You lose the credit when the editor responds -- whether it's an acceptance or a rejection. I think people got more points for a longer story (one point for a short story, three for a chapters and synopsis submission, eight for a whole novel). But to stay in the game and keep your rankings up, you had to keep writing and submitting.

What usually happened with that game is that people had to drop out of the game after a while, because they got too good to keep stories in submission: the stories started selling too fast to keep up. (Also, books under contract didn't count because they were already accepted.)

The Race was not a business model, it was a way of staying motivated and challenging yourself. His short story method was meant to be the same sort of thing.

His business model is basically Heinlein's Rules taken to extreme lengths. (So, for instance, "put it on the market" means that you don't just upload to Amazon and Smashwords and stop there, but rather that you put that book every place you possibly can. Including selling special editions off your own website and getting paper copies into small bookstores. And selling foreign language rights, and doing audio books, etc.)

Camille


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## Harriet Schultz (Jan 3, 2012)

blakebooks said:


> I offer my approach as food for thought. I have no doubt that 2014 will be a good year for my sales. The reasons will become obvious as the year unfolds. Some of the things I've done aren't traditional marketing in the sense many think of it, but I've allocated my time to pursuing them using my 25% marketing time allocation, and expect to see huge ROI on that investment of effort. We'll see.


Russell: No one can argue with success. Whatever you're doing is working. You're right that Select and BookBub have been great, but their prime time has passed (although I have a BB promo scheduled next week since they're still a worthwhile place to put my ad $$s). Now I wonder if you've figured out what the next marketing big thing is. The plan you allude to for 2014 sure sounds like you're on to something.


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## Jay Allan (Aug 20, 2012)

If you want to do well at something, you learn from success. This thread isn't about writing well, though of course that is a prerequisite to success. It is about strategies to promote sales. 

When I first started, I soaked up every word posted by about half a dozen people. It was clear they had become proficient at this new marketplace, and they had the results to prove it. 

This isn't sensitivity training or a tea party.  For a lot of people it's a livelihood and a business.  For the hundred thousandth time, when someone who has been successful tells you how they achieved that, they are not trying to tell you what to do. They are offering advice.  If writing poetry about your cat, and selling copies to your mother and Aunt Edna makes you happy, then go for it.  No one is saying you are wrong to do that.  No one is trying to make you do something.  No one is saying you are bad. But if you want to pay the mortgage and other expenses with your writing, it pays to listen to those who are already doing it.

You can convince yourself of anything you want, but when you argue against the strategy behind the vast majority of top-selling indies, you're only hurting yourself. 

I swear, there are people on here who would argue with Michael Jordan if he was teaching them basketball.  "But, Mike, that's only true if I'm trying to get the ball in the hoop."


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> I swear, there are people on here who would argue with Michael Jordan if he was teaching them basketball.


This isn't sensitivity training or a tea party. Those who don't like the argument can stand up and refute it.

God Bless the Tea Party.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Harriet Schultz said:


> Russell: No one can argue with success.


_Au contraire_.

I argued with success once.

Once.


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## Guest (Dec 29, 2013)

Success is something that everyone has to define individually for themselves, based on their goals.  My goal is to make a living telling stories that I love; if I was a million+ bestseller in erotica, I still would not consider myself successful.


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## Mip7 (Mar 3, 2013)

> if I was a million+ bestseller in erotica, I still would not consider myself successful.


I love that bold statement. Where's the tip jar?

In fact, you probably wouldn't be able to look at yourself in the mirror, would you?


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## Istvan Szabo Ifj. (Dec 13, 2013)

Wild Rivers said:


> So do you agree that writing more books is the answer?


Only if you can keep the quality. If you can't, write less. Releasing books rapidly, in mass quantity is also not a winning idea, mostly because they won't be quality.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Jay Allan said:


> I swear, there are people on here who would argue with Michael Jordan if he was teaching them basketball. "But, Mike, that's only true if I'm trying to get the ball in the hoop."


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## Sam Rivers (May 22, 2011)

> Releasing books rapidly, in mass quantity is also not a winning idea, mostly because they won't be quality.


Porn erotic writers do it and the books sell like hotcakes according to some of these rich writers.


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## Harriet Schultz (Jan 3, 2012)

CraigInTwinCities said:


> _Au contraire_.
> 
> I argued with success once.
> 
> Once.


 touché


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Wild Rivers said:


> Porn erotic writers do it and the books sell like hotcakes according to some of these rich writers.


So I'm curious. Why should anyone be taking marketing advice from you? What are you selling, and how much of it are you selling?


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Folks,

invoking Godwin's Law here will cause your thread to be edited.  I've also removed a post that responded to the edited post as it no longer made sense.  Thanks for understanding.

Let's keep the peace.

Betsy
KB Moderator


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## Sam Rivers (May 22, 2011)

> So I'm curious. Why should anyone be taking marketing advice from you? What are you selling, and how much of it are you selling?


Actually I was referring to your advice on other threads since you are the expert on porn erotica. So guess you will have to answer your own question.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Wild Rivers said:


> Actually I was referring to your advice on other threads since you are the expert on porn erotica. So guess you will have to answer your own question.


Unlike you, I put links to my books in my signature, so that when I offer advice based on my experience, people can look at what I've done and see the results.

So, once again, why should we be taking marketing advice from you? Pretty bold to be making snide remarks about others' books/genres when you have an empty signature.


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## Sam Rivers (May 22, 2011)

> Pretty bold to be making snide remarks about others' books/genres when you have an empty signature.


Maybe I do write racy novels and am afraid my mom will find out.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Terrence: I would posit that a lot of the time, assertoric gets confused with apodictic on these boards. 

I tend to frame my statements as, I did this, and this was the result. I will usually add, as a postscript, that I think those looking for that result might want to consider the merits of my approach.

Within minutes, I'll get three posts saying, yeah, but that doesn't mean everyone's result will be the same.

Then still others arguing that the result isn't one they care about, or is philosophically inferior due to how they view their lot in life, or some other tangential observation/argument, or that the result will depend on one's chosen approach (which will depend on temperament, etc.).

Still others will chime in to say that they find my style abrasive, or boastful, or arrogant. And the thread will ultimately degrade, after some perhaps interesting back and forth, into schoolyard scuffles.

To say that this is tedious is an understatement. It's a very predictable trajectory, and has some of the dysfunctional characteristics of a holiday dinner, where the discussion invariably degrades into familiar tussles in which nothing new is learned or decided. The barista will accuse the entrepreneur of being a money-grubbing charlatan, the sister will accuse the brother of being an imbecile, the accountant will brand the uncle as a wastrel, the academic will argue esoteric philosophical points to the cousin who's concerned with practical results, and so on. It's fun to watch, to a point, but inevitably grows tiring, and those that can, move on to more productive pursuits.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Jay Allan said:


> I swear, there are people on here who would argue with Michael Jordan if he was teaching them basketball. "But, Mike, that's only true if I'm trying to get the ball in the hoop."


Yes, Jay -- if you're not trying to play basketball, then someone insisting on telling you how to put the ball in the hoop is not helping. And if Michael Jordan butted in every time I was practicing my punt kick, and tried to tell me how do a lay-up, I would sure as heck argue with him.

Camille


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

To be fair, Russell, these things (at least when I get into them -- I don't read every thread on the board) usually don't start with you or your posts.  They usually start with someone else who uses your name as a flight to authority.  So things are often already stirred up when you get into them.

I don't remember any time when someone was saying "I prefer to do X" that you ever came in to say "NO! You MUST do Y! Because that's what Russell Blake does!"  It's just that other people do actually say that.

I suspect the resulting conversation comes off as people disagreeing with what you say, but nobody does. They just have other points of view.

Camille


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

Wild Rivers said:


> Maybe I do write racy novels and am afraid my mom will find out.


http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,168068.msg2405241.html#msg2405241



> I have had quite a bit of success with my erotic novels, however, I write them in the context of romance and sex.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> Terrence: I would posit that a lot of the time, assertoric gets confused with apodictic on these boards.


Good point. I would posit it is important to see how firmly we can anchor propositions in one category or the other. That's part of due diligence.


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## Jana DeLeon (Jan 20, 2011)

Why can't everyone just live by the motto:

"Take what you need. Leave the rest."

Works well for online groups, chats, Facebook, etc. No one can give you advice for your situation without knowing every aspect of your situation. People can only speak with authority on what has/does work/not work for them.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

blakebooks said:


> Still others will chime in to say that they find my style abrasive, or boastful, or arrogant.


Did it ever occur to you that maybe the reason people keep saying the same things to you is because there is a grain of truth to them?


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> "Success is something that everyone has to define individually for themselves, based on their goals."


Hers's a suggestion for an assertoric definition of a successful venture.

When a given strategy exists, a successful venture is one that advances the given strategy to a predetermined point.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Cora: It occurs to me that I'm not particularly interested in what any given group thinks of my actions or counsel if they don't like it. There will always be those that don't like your style or your message. You can either spend your life trying to adjust to what they feel you should be like, or you can push on and evaluate your approach based on what life is delivering. As an example, some readers hate my voice. Others love it. Should I adjust it to try to suit those who dislike it? Why, for god's sake, would anyone do that? There will always be someone who finds you insufferable. If everyone does, there is likely a problem. If only some, guess what? Some people think Reality TV is brilliantly entertaining. Others think that everyone should mouth platitudes and couch their language in terms that even the most sensitive would embrace. Still others believe that their view of how others should interact is the valid one, and sit in haughty judgment.

George Carlin is one of my favorite social commentators because he didn't suffer fools gladly, and his observations were dead on. Many couldn't stand him. Fortunately, he stayed true to his approach, and for all those who disliked him, there were far more who liked him - or at least sufficient to keep him in high style.

If someone dislikes my communication style, that's fine. I don't go on other peoples' threads and critique their style, because I don't feel the need to. If they're doing well, hat's off. If they're floundering, there's their reward. Whatever. But there are some who feel the need to critique others. Perhaps they had inadequate breast feeding as babies, or feel their own view is the preferred one for all, or are insecure in their views and feel they need to defend them, or they simply don't like a particular approach or style for unknown reasons. I'm not running for office, and life isn't a popularity contest, so I'm fine with my lot in life. I frankly don't have the time or interest to devote much attention to those 'helpful' observations. Once you're in your fifties, you have this enormous freedom to pretty much say or do whatever you like without giving two sh#ts about what anyone else thinks. One of the few bennies.

I intend to continue availing myself of that benefit, early and often.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Or to put it in more commonly understood terms:

People put forth information, ideas and advice.

It's easy for people to mistake one for the other, especially the last two.  Someone puts forth an idea, and someone takes it as advice, for instance.  Advice requires authority and experience.  Ideas don't.

Most of us see advice as something you take or leave.  Ideas on the other hand, are meant to be batted about.

A lot of the conflict I see here happens when people treat advice like ideas (or ideas like advice).  Someone gives advice, and others bat it around as an idea, and the Advisor gets offended because they see it as an attack on his/her qualifications (or the qualifications of his/her guru). Alternately, someone puts forth ideas, and others, who aren't looking for ideas, treat it as advice, and discuss the qualifications of the person rather than the validity of the idea, which totally undercuts the point of putting the idea out there.

Camille


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Some of the conflict comes when people change the question. What's the question the OP is saying more books is the answer to? I know what I think it is, but judging from some replies, it's something else to them.


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## Chris P. O&#039;Grady (Oct 28, 2013)

Wild Rivers said:


> The more books you publish, the more likely it is for someone to find them and buy them.
> 
> I have a lot of books and I keep writing.Â I should have my newest novel ready to publish early next month.Â A reader is more likely to buy an author's books who has written a lot of books than only a few.Â They realize that writers get better at writing as they write and publish books.
> 
> ...


Survey says.... you are correct writing AND Publishing more books increases visiblity which can lead to more trips to your book buying pages and hopefully more sales. While this thread has sprouted many other topics and rabbit holes, I think that is the one unifying rule or bit of learning I have taken back from this entire thread. Certainly not the ONLY tool available to me, but its a no-brainer. With no books published no sales. One or more books published more opportunity for sales. Therefore more promotion increases the likelyhood of more sales. Maybe I over simplified it, but I am a simple prawn.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Monique said:


> Some of the conflict comes when people change the question. What's the question the OP is saying more books is the answer to? I know what I think it is, but judging from some replies, it's something else to them.


"What is the question?" is the $64k question, isn't it? (Also, what's the definition of "more"?) And which objection is the OP referring to? There are several, and the OP tied the subject of marketing to it, which brings in nearly every controversy on the board.

IMHO, the question of writing more and the question of whether to (or how much to) market are separate issues. There is a school of thought in marketing circles that says product IS marketing, but that's different than "write more because marketing is a waste of time."

So I'm still not sure if we're really talking about writing more as a marketing technique, or about writing more as an overall driving philosophy that has many benefits. Those are two different conversations.

Camille


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

blakebooks said:


> Terrence: I would posit that a lot of the time, assertoric gets confused with apodictic on these boards.
> 
> I tend to frame my statements as, I did this, and this was the result. I will usually add, as a postscript, that I think those looking for that result might want to consider the merits of my approach.
> 
> ...


As someone who used to lurk here quite a bit, soaking up all the info I could get, I agree that what Russell describes above is what I've seen as well. I think it may be because there is a natural resistance with many writers to doing any kind of marketing or sales related activity. So, when facts are presented as to how different marketing actions generated results, instead of being open to the idea, they instead argue against it. Which I find baffling. Why dismiss something out of hand when presented with information that could help?

I'm just glad that people continue to share this information even when it's dismissed. I tried these ideas, and they work really well.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

XXXXXXXXXX


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## MeiLinMiranda (Feb 17, 2011)

42!


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Write 42 more books?



Here's my question, though. What do you consider "marketing"? This especially for those who succeed at it, and those who don't want to do it.

I'll tell you this: DWS says he doesn't market, but what he actually doesn't do is _author_ marketing. (And that's how he phrases it.) When he puts his publisher hat on, he does publisher marketing up the wazoo. For instance, he produces beautiful publisher catalogs to place his books with independent bookstores -- something he talks about a lot.

I suspect some of the people who say "marketing is a waste of time" mean "Printing up promotional book marks, and spending all day tweeting spam, and screaming 'BUY MY BOOK!' are a waste of time." But I suspect that at least some of the people here also consider those things a waste of time.

Some people consider hanging out here to be "marketing" even if you never mention your book because it gets your name out there -- and you have your books in your sig. Others don't think that counts.

Also, many of us consider passive marketing to still be marketing: covers, blurbs, making sure the book is up and available on all sites.

So.... I guess my first question is for Russell: what do you do in that 25 percent of your time you spend marketing? Does that include blurb writing and spending time on KB to get your sig in front of more eyeballs? Do you consider many things that writers commonly do to be a waste of time?

Camille


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## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

.


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## Gennita Low (Dec 13, 2012)

MeiLinMiranda said:


> 42!


I think you hit the jackpot!  And still they ask questions, Deep Thought.


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## Crime fighters (Nov 27, 2013)

Wild Rivers said:


> Maybe I do write racy novels and am afraid my mom will find out.





Wild Rivers said:


> Actually I was referring to your advice on other threads since you are the expert on porn erotica. So guess you will have to answer your own question.





Wild Rivers said:


> Porn erotic writers do it and the books sell like hotcakes according to some of these rich writers.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

C.C. Kelly said:


> I've kept up with this thread and have a few comments, so fwiw...
> 
> Marketing is integral to all retail businesses. Period. End of debate.
> 
> ...


Terrific answer. There's no "one" solution. The x-factor is writing books people want to read, and to have them want to read more when they finish the first one. That tends to sell books for you. There's a causation/correlation thing going on here too--so-and-so writes a lot of books, so-and-so is successful. There are plenty of so-and-sos who write a lot of books and aren't successful, too, and some people who've had great success with one, two, or three books. Writing the very best book you can sure is important, and so is genre, and covers, and blurbs, and pricing, and . . . and . . . Well, lots of stuff!

I write fast. I don't promote much. I don't offer myself as an example on those things, because those are just the things that work for me. Maybe I'd do better in a vacuum if I promoted more, but I'd take time away from writing, and I'd get more anxious, which makes my writing not work nearly as well. For me, the joy of writing has to be there or the book, and my sales, will suffer. So I've got to balance that. But somebody with a more robust ego doesn't get so battered, and can split their time more effectively. Also, I'm getting a bit better at dealing with the "stuff" than I used to be, after 16 months at this game. Folks who've been doing it for several years, though, are going to have a bit thicker skin just because of that.

So hard to compare. Your books are not anybody else's books. You are not anybody else. Look at what works for other people, figure out which of those things might work for you and your books, try them and see. Do more of what works. Don't do things again that haven't worked. Pick yourself up when things don't work out and keep chugging. And best of luck to all of us.


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## Sapphire (Apr 24, 2012)

"Success" is an individually defined term. For any one person, it may be writing one book, it may be writing longer books or more books or non-fiction books, it may be intellectual stimulation, it may be becoming a known name, it may be earning a few extra dollars, it may be supporting oneself, it may be becoming a millionaire.

What we often discuss here is how to sell more books. I would assume we all agree there is no one single method that works best for everyone. I do think that it's important to hear many explanations of what has worked for various authors. From many approaches we may be able to glean the details to form our own particular approach. It would be wonderful if threads such as this focused more on hearing about many methods rather than disproving those that are offered.

I, for one, appreciate hearing what works for each and every one of you.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Phoenix: Yup.

Daring: I count everything that isn't writing or editing the book. Which includes blurb writing, posting on boards, writing blogs, doing interviews, advertising, guest posting, tweeting, interacting on facebook, etc.

CC: Everyone's entitled to their opinion. I happen to filter the value of most opinions based upon how the strategy has performed. As an example, if someone tells me, "Wrap restaurants are the wave of the future," I automatically ask, "How do you know? How are they performing now, and what special expertise do you have that makes your opinion more informed or better than the guy next to you saying, 'Repent, the end is nigh'?"

I then evaluate their bonafides, which is where the rubber hits the road. If a strategy for book selling has yielded meager results, I look at that, go, huh, another hollow strategy, and press on. That's not me being cruel. That's me filtering out the noise from the signal so I can determine what's viable and what isn't for my purposes.

Others may not feel that the number of books sold using a strategy is a meaningful marker for the viability of a strategy for book selling. That person ain't me, as I've made clear numerous times. As an example, I pay particular attention when Phoenix posts, because she always backs her mouth with concrete examples and cogent, on-point explanations of why her strategy is viable, and how it's working. Sometimes we don't always agree, but that's fine, it's nothing personal, and I listen to what she's saying even if I disagree, because I realize I might need to change my mind if I want to stay competitive.

When someone comes on, and, for instance, says, "Prayer and chanting are my preferred mechanism for selling books - I spend most of my non-writing time appealing to invisible gods to sell books," that's certainly outside the box, however it lacks any usefulness to me, so I'll simply ignore it. If someone comes onto a thread and confronts me directly with something I consider lacking merit, I will either refute it, or demand proof, because they chose to confront me. Demanding proof for how well an approach works is the basic mechanism I use to sort valid counsel from snake oil. If someone says, "we need to bomb that country because they have nukes they could deploy within 45 minutes," I'm the unpopular guy saying, "Really? Prove it." Or if someone says that Vedic healing or Reiki or homeopathy can cure what ails me, again, I say, "prove it."

Thus, while it may seem "elitist" to measure the efficacy of advice by how well it's performed, and only assign value to approaches that have performed, what it actually is has a different name in my book: logical. 

Nobody's forced to use my logical razor or skeptical approach to life in order to evaluate anything. However, I've found that there are endless folks trying to advance agendas, some for profit, some for power, some just to have attention, and often those agendas are empty promises or shams. 

Everyone's free to posit whatever they like. I let it go, unless it's pushed on me, in which case I react, inevitably, with two simple words: Prove it. That's not elitist. It's common sense.

Or it it's elitist, than count me as elitist. I will say, however, that I tend to post predictions every year that are usually more right than wrong, I explain in detail, over countless hours, why and how I believe the system I use works for me, my sales numbers are well understood and hide nothing, and I'm pretty transparent. That makes me credible, I think. It certainly makes Phoenix credible. It definitely makes Holly and Elle credible, as well as Ed Robertson, Joes Nobody and Konrath, and a handful of others who selflessly share their approaches.

But note that when Ed wasn't selling a lot, he still was worth listening to, because he could articulate very clearly the benefits of his approach, and was logical in his arguments - they made sense, and were plausible. Which is why I listened to him. So you're correct that you don't have to be selling a ton in order to have a valid approach, but what you do have to have is a coherent argument that will hold up to basic scrutiny, as well as a certain transparency as to how you're doing so everyone can track the success or failure of your approach based on the results it's yielded.

So we agree that everyone's entitled to having their beliefs considered. If, however, the consideration process offends them, that's a whole different issue.

Now back to my WIP, for which I actually receive compensation from readers. Have a happy New Year.


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## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

This is kind of the false version of the Absence of Proof vs. Proof of Absence argument.

In internet conversations, we don't have proof of anything.  We don't even know if we're involved in some highly sophisticated Turing Test.  This is compounded by the fact that most people aren't interested in revealing information about themselves.  (It's always fun to watch some armchair quarterback find out that the anonymous person they've been lecturing turns out to be a real quarterback.)

If I were trying to convince CC of the truth of something, then it's up to me to prove it.  However, if I am just putting it out there for what it's worth, I have no responsibility to prove it at all.  That's up to CC to figure out what it's worth to him.  And we all set our own criteria for what makes good proof.

So for me: I don't consider short term sales credible. That doesn't mean I don't consider the people who have them credible, it's just that if you've been around this business long enough you realize that a flash in the pan happens to everybody at some point.  To me, it takes ten years or so in the business to earn credibility (partly because that's about how long a publishing cycle lasts).

But that's okay, because you don't need credibility to get me to listen to your ideas.  You only need to prove your credibility if you want me to take your criticism of others seriously.

Camille


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## Bob Mayer (Feb 20, 2011)

Every writer has different platform, product and promotion.  I listen to all opinions, take what I need and leave the rest.

Anything that really bothers me, I've learned to focus on because it might be telling me a truth I don't want to hear. 

A lot of good information on these boards. Thanks.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

I figure that, since the large-scale ebook self-publishing industry was only Kindled into existence four-five years ago, we're all starting from scratch. If anything, it feels like people with previous experience in the publishing industry often wind up being _less_ useful sources of advice in this field, because they let the way things used to be cloud their judgment of how things are now.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

XXXXXXXXXX


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> I figure that, since the large-scale ebook self-publishing industry was only Kindled into existence four-five years ago, we're all starting from scratch. If anything, it feels like people with previous experience in the publishing industry often wind up being _less_ useful sources of advice in this field, because they let the way things used to be cloud their judgment of how things are now.


I know which people you are talking about, but they really are in the minority. (We get a very skewed view of the industry here on KB.)

Kindle is new. The self-publishing industry has only gone mainstream for a few years, but most of the people here have been doing this for a long time. Konrath makes a good example. Bob Mayer makes a good example.

And a whole LOT of people who aren't on these boards make good examples -- people who have lived through many new cycles, people who have been through enough of other internet disruptions to see what is really unique and what is just new to this cycle or group.

If your point is that nobody really has credibility with the new world of publishing then, okay, I would accept that standard. Nobody has sufficient credibility to dismiss the ideas of anybody else. We are inventing this thing as we go along.

All the same: none of this is new. There are good models for this in the entertainment industry, in various internet industries, even in publishing history. And we all still do have internal standards of credibility. For some people it's short term sales. But for me, I've seen this movie before. Again and again. And short term sales are too often a fluke.

Camille


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## Writerly Writer (Jul 19, 2012)

A. Writing and publishing both high quality and quantity is hard. Really, really hard. Even if you do hard work -- which society tells us makes us 'entitled' to success (which is BS) -- does not guarantee the results you want. Accept that, you'll be doing yourself a favour.

B. Even if you follow a formula. Even if your book is excellent. Even if you promote and work hard... you may not sell a lot of books.

C. If someone gives you advice, and you follow that advice, it may not work (regardless of who it is, look to those who have done well, though, to emulate their tactics and efforts).

The anecdote is not the evidence. The exception is not the rule. Do the best you can and accept the rest.



Spoiler



Lower your expectations. Reach for the stars, keep your feet on the ground.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

daringnovelist said:


> And we all still do have internal standards of credibility. For some people it's short term sales. But for me, I've seen this movie before. Again and again. And short term sales are too often a fluke.


I don't quite understand this point. Could you explain? How short is short? Do you mean that somebody who hits big with one book won't necessarily replicate it, or that nobody really knows why some books sell big and others don't, so don't listen too much to anybody who says, "I did x and therefore x is the answer?" Or just the fact that sales rise and fall? Or ...?

I felt like my sales were a fluke at first. Unless you have a really healthy ego, I'll bet most folks do. But after a certain point, after the next and next books sell, you think, ok, at some level, this is going to work.


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## Michael Buckley (Jun 24, 2013)

"NUMBER ONE RULE" The reader buys the book or chooses not to. If you have one book or 20 they decide. There is no logic or reasoning in what they will like today or tomorrow. Write more if you want to be seen. There are a lot of great books out there with great covers and great editing and they never sell a copy.

Keep on trying and learn to fail along the way, improve on your past failures, it's all part of the path to success. In the end the readers will decide and no one else.

If someone tells me I suck, I look at their ratings and they're selling less than me. Follow your heart and strive to improve and if someone gets in your way just kick them aside.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

CC: Again, you're free to use whatever logical device most appeals to you. I can simply explain which ones I use. If your approach yields better results, you win. I applaud that. I'm simply very pragmatic when it comes to ideas, having been around plenty of em in my time. And frankly, if someone had said, "eReaders and a publishing platform for everyone!" to me five years ago, that wouldn't have meant much to me because I don't have the resources to execute. 

If someone thinks my analysis or dismissal is invalid, that's fine. Their validation, or refusal, of my logic, in no way changes my outcome, so it's all good.

I'm very mission driven right now: figure out what works to sell ebooks at the greatest rate I can. So far so good. Next year, hopefully more. 

Daring: I'm not sure I agree. Phoenix has beaucoup cred with me because her system works. Now, perhaps it will fail at some point eight years from now, but that's a hypothetical. My system has cred with me because it's increasing in performance over time. Perhaps it will fail at some point in the future. I will then adjust it and move forward. If you believe that proof of concept as evidenced by sales isn't a valid way of evaluating an approach to sales, that's your right to believe. We don't agree on that. I've seen cycles in the tech biz that were great for the five years the approaches worked. People did very well indeed by following those approaches. Those that dismissed them because they weren't properly aged missed huge.

It's always been hard to sell books. As long as I've been alive. My hunch is it will continue to be so. Maybe get even harder. I'll continue to report on how my approach is working for those who are interested. My proposal for those that aren't is to simply not read my posts, just as readers who find my work to be drivel are invited to skip my next 60 releases, because they'll all probably be equivalently lousy. Since I'm not being paid on a per read basis with message board posts, I especially won't take any offense if those that disagree with me or feel I'm too X or Y or Z don't read them. All the same to me.

I tend to take what I can from these boards and leave the rest, not engage in protracted battles over them. There are books to write, money to be made, so best to focus on things that are productive, I think.


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## Jay Allan (Aug 20, 2012)

How do you get long-term sales without starting with short term sales?


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

I appreciate the time that writers who are selling take to come here and share what helped them along the way.










Please realize that for every one heckler there are a thousand of us hanging on your every word. We thousand stay quiet and absorb, for the most part, but I just realized I had better drop in to say thank you, lest you start to feel unappreciated and stop coming back.


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## Sapphire (Apr 24, 2012)

Cherise Kelley said:


> I appreciate the time that writers who are selling take to come here and share what helped them along the way.
> 
> Please realize that for every one heckler there are a thousand of us hanging on your every word. We thousand stay quiet and absorb, for the most part, but I just realized I had better drop in to say thank you, lest you start to feel unappreciated and stop coming back.


+1


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## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

C.C. Kelly said:


> *We have NO IDEA what their background is, relative to business, technology or any other relevant profession and therefore cannot always understand their new ideas through our own myopic prism - we have no foundation with which to judge their contribution.*


I don't see Blake dismissing ideas so much as dismissing empty advice of the "Doing x, y, z is also valid!" variety when there's no evidence that x, y, z has helped anyone. People have been hawking residual income schemes, for example, since Al Gore invented the internet. But where's the beef? Where's one genuine success? I've seen lots of smoke here over the years, but no fire.

The real open question in business strategies is whether the cause of a person's success is the same as his explanation of it. In other words, is the person's success a result of doing the things he thinks he's doing or is there another reason? For example, it's possible that a small subset of Blake's marketing is responsible for his success; alternatively, his marketing might've only been useful in the beginning, or only useful in his genre, etc.


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## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

.


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## Michael Buckley (Jun 24, 2013)

I for one like Blakebook posts, I agree with a lot he says, I do not apply it to my books and they are not good sellers. If things work out and I make enough money one day to pay attention I will use some of his ideas.

He does not sugar coat things and might offend some, he has huge results and that speaks for it's self.


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## Sam Rivers (May 22, 2011)

> The reader buys the book or chooses not to. If you have one book or 20 they decide. There is no logic or reasoning in what they will like today or tomorrow. Write more if you want to be seen. There are a lot of great books out there with great covers and great editing and they never sell a copy.
> 
> Keep on trying and learn to fail along the way, improve on your past failures, it's all part of the path to success. In the end the readers will decide and no one else.


I think that sums it up beautifully.


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## zoe tate (Dec 18, 2013)

Michael Buckley said:


> I for one like Blakebook posts, I agree with a lot he says, I do not apply it to my books and they are not good sellers. If things work out and I make enough money one day to pay attention I will use some of his ideas.
> 
> He does not sugar coat things and might offend some, he has huge results and that speaks for it's self.


He may be doing a fraction more marketing, here, than he imagined, too: I've appreciated his logical, well-written posts in this thread so much that I'm going to try his books, too.


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

blakebooks said:


> If someone thinks my analysis or dismissal is invalid, that's fine. Their validation, or refusal, of my logic, in no way changes my outcome, so it's all good.
> 
> I'm very mission driven right now: figure out what works to sell ebooks at the greatest rate I can. So far so good. Next year, hopefully more.
> 
> ...


I think it's great that Blake shares his experiences--one may not like the message or delivery but it is honest and good stuff and HIS experience. His method does seem to work well for him. A different method may work well for someone else and jolly good for them. Different approaches may work for different books, genres, and authors.

If you don't like his method then thank him for contributing and post your successful method that works well. The squabbles make for a bad read.


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## Gennita Low (Dec 13, 2012)

jackz4000 said:


> I think it's great that Blake shares his experiences--one may not like the message or delivery but it is honest and good stuff and HIS experience. His method does seem to work well for him. A different method may work well for someone else and jolly good for them. Different approaches may work for different books, genres, and authors.
> 
> If you don't like his method then thank him for contributing and post your successful method that works well. The squabbles make for a bad read.


*Exactly* what he's been saying, five different times or more. It's strange to me how that gets interpreted into "My way or the highway" by some.


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