# And The Hand Finally Closes Around Our Throat



## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

I noticed something odd about the release of my most recent book _Bloodwing_. So I went to investigate. If you'll recall my current plan relies on rapid releases, because that's the supposed key to wealth and riches on Jeff's yellow brick road of opportunity and pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. Well, my plan lasted a total of sixteen days. In that time I published about 57,000 words of new fiction. Fortunately I was smart enough to hold on to my rights. I don't trust anyone anymore and I'm about to explain why.

Here's my first book, _The Praetorian Imperative_, published July 20th, on the 51st anniversary of the Apollo Moon landing:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=B08DDFXT6R&ref=nb_sb_noss

I use this URL for a very specific purpose. This is the URL we normally use to check and see if our books are in the right categories. Over there on the left are the dropdowns for each store. Here's the link for _Bloodwing_

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=B08F6MQ473&ref=nb_sb_noss

Now then, when you compare these two pages, you will rapidly discover a problem. (I did this logged out to prevent any shenanigans). When you examine the drop down for "Kindle Store" you'll find that the second book appears in various browse categories. Meanwhile the first book (which has identical keywords) appears in none.

Funny how this automated system can produce two totally different sets of results for two books (with identical metadata that are even in the same SERIES) that are right next to each other in my bibliography, isn't it? If my book isn't in any browse categories, then it won't get a sales rank, now will it?

You'll then find the second book (published three days ago) is absent from either new releases list, while the first book (published sixteen days ago) is on page nine of the 30-day list.

This isn't the first time I've discovered this. During my last investigation, it turned out books wouldn't appear on the new releases list until they've had at least one sale and have a sales rank. This, of course, creates the old "keep the poor people in their place" paradox: you can't be on the list until your book sells, your book won't sell because it's not on the list.

If you will go back and re-examine the links in the URL for the second book _Bloodwing_, you'll see that the page insists it also appears on the 30-day and 90-day lists. Except it doesn't, despite the fact it was published 72 hours ago. At least it doesn't appear before its series mate, which went live sixteen days ago. I took the liberty of looking up the "hot 100 new releases" lists in all SEVEN browse categories. Only the first book appeared at #70 on the list for two-hour reads. Neither book appeared anywhere else.

This is the 30-day military science fiction new releases list:

https://www.amazon.com/s?i=digital-text&bbn=158591011&rh=n%3A133140011%2Cn%3A154606011%2Cn%3A668010011%2Cn%3A158591011%2Cn%3A6157856011%2Cp_n_date%3A1249100011&dc&fst=as%3Aoff&qid=1596653602&rnid=158591011&ref=sr_nr_n_16

The #4 book on the list is called _Direct Fire_. Must be one hell of a book too. 55 5-star ratings. Top 1000 in the store. Only problem is it was published 15 days ago. The book right after it _Forgotten Empire_, in the number five slot, was published *27* days ago.

Both are in Kindle Unlimited too but I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong (God knows nobody on this site is bashful) but this accounts for the very last avenue any author had on Amazon for organic visibility, absent some wild-ass random search result. If there is no organic visibility on Amazon, then it makes no difference at all how fast books are released, which means no matter what an author does, or how hard they work, they will get no sales on Amazon unless they bring their own readers. Amazon is not going to provide you with even one opportunity to put your book somewhere it might be seen unless you drop some cash on the table, even if you write two books a month.

In other words, you can't just pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Getting favored treatment is mandatory. You cannot earn it. You must be chosen.

The other thing we can conclude from all of this is there are criteria for appearing on the "new releases" list that have nothing to do with whether your book is a new release. Actual new releases are locked out until those criteria are met (we have no official word on what those are) while the clock runs. Authors are left to guess, and what better use of an author's time than to speculate and experiment with "solve a puzzle, win a prize" on a site they don't control? It reminds me of people who believed there was such a thing as SEO while they fretted day and night trying to untangle the mixed signals they got from Google's search results. Then once they figured out how to get their sites visible, Google changed the rules and locked them all out again. These people were invited to believe that deplatforming is new. It isn't. De-platforming is something these sites have been perfecting ever since they put their plans in motion to centralize control and lock the people who built the Internet out. Yes, I sound like Jerry Maguire. You'll recall Jerry Maguire won.

Now I've sent an e-mail to KDP to inquire about this, and I'm sure I will get a very polite non-response. The bottom line here is that publishing a book and getting it in front of a buying audience has become a video game. It's us against Amazon, with our interlocutor doing everything in its trillion-dollar power to keep our books from getting to readers. Amazon wants exclusive rights. They want control over our pricing. They want to slap a $0.00 price on our book and whore it out for pennies while we send hundreds and thousands of fresh new customers to their site night and day. What do we get in exchange for all this? Practically nothing. Amazon takes what they like and then sits on our money for two months.

I'm not an elite. I'm not entitled to visibility or the privileges of being chosen. Neither of my books have sold at all, at least on Amazon. Did Amazon notify my "followers" (lol) I had two new books out? Apparently not. If you go to my book's pages you'll find Amazon isn't advertising anything on those pages. They're completely bare. See if you can guess why? Why would you advertise on a page where you know there will never be any traffic?

*BY THE WAY*:

I still have the stats from the last time I was stupid enough to spend money on AMS ads. I know *exactly* how many people visited the Amazon page for _Dawnsong: The Last Skyblade _ over a four month period. You would be shocked to know how few people actually showed up on a site with millions and billions of customers.

I also now know with certainty why my LitRPG, non-fiction, romance and fantasy books didn't sell. Amazon just turned them off because I'm a military science fiction author. The robot doesn't understand anything else, so those hundreds of thousands of words I've written in other genres? Eh, toss 'em. The robot doesn't care about your hard work. All that matters is what number is in the database column labeled "morlock author type."

Amazon has decided that I shouldn't have a writing career. They have decided they are not interested in selling my books (unless I'm innovative enough to just hand them 30% of my gross in exchange for nothing) I was kicked out of a promising technology career in my mid-30s. I was kicked out and left to the streets when my uncle and felon grandmother stole my mother's house from me. Now I'm being kicked out of being an author after nine years of hard work. If I want a writing career, I'm going to have to build it myself, because when I try to work with others, I get lied to and cheated.

If you have a writing career in mind, and you are relying on Amazon, there are some things you should know: 1) You have a job 2) Your job is to send traffic to Amazon 3) You may receive an optional paycheck 4) You are subject to termination with or without cause 5) You work for a robot.

You are part of the new breed of corporate dream employee. You agree to occasional paychecks or no paychecks. You require no benefits or job security. You can be thrown out on the sidewalk on a whim. Your elite corporate paymaster controls the money and all your property. You will have a four-inch-wide leather strap tightly cinched around your neck before you are hauled up on the ever-accelerating treadmill to run for your life. When you collapse from exhaustion or die you'll be thrown in the trash to make room for the next slave.

I've written for Amazon for nine years and sold thousands of books. I still can't afford to go to the dentist.

Now go to this page:

https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/

See right there under the video where it says "reach millions of readers on Amazon?" (This page hasn't changed at all since I signed up for KDP in 2011)

What they fail to mention is *you* are responsible for the millions of readers.

Amazon isn't getting another minute of my time.


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## Randall Wood (Mar 31, 2014)

"Your margin is my opportunity."- Jeff Bezos


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

I have a new quote for Jeff. He's welcome to use it:

"You're a [poopy] writer and I'm willing to spend a trillion dollars to prove it."

And now I will leave you all with a musical interlude and retire to my bookstore, where my books are actually visible, I have more traffic than my Amazon pages and I'm in control of the new releases list and the pricing:


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

BREAKING NEWS: This just in to the Shane Lochlann Black newsroom. Directly from KDP Support:



> *We've confirmed that your book is not eligible for the New Release badge to display in search results/on the detail page.
> 
> There are multiple factors that determine this eligibility, most importantly the book's release date.
> 
> ...


*IMPORTANT POINT*: Both of my new books' category pages insist they are listed on both the 30-day and 90-day new releases lists.

And that's a wrap. I'm pulling my remaining titles from KDP Select.

P.S. Lotta reads of this thread. I notice the Bubclub and the usual suspects are no longer popping up to defend Amazon. Perhaps times have changed, eh? Just remember, kids: the bells toll for thee. Good luck.

/turns off the lights


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

Perhaps they're just taking time trying to take all that info in. After all, Mr. Black, you do compact a lot of info in your first post on this thread.

I'm still trying to comprehend all of it.


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## ShawnaReads (May 9, 2019)

This kind of thing is why I don't think exclusivity is a great idea for most authors. Maybe we should be thinking of KU as something to be done occasionally or as a launch strategy before going wide (as some already recommend) rather than as a long-term plan.

I have a book up on Amazon. It's one that I've wavered on whether it's more of an adult book or a YA book. After it was published, I asked Amazon to put it in a few YA subcats. They did so. Then I decided it's more of an adult novel and asked them to move it into adult categories instead (which I found by navigating the categories on their site). I was told that those categories don't exist. Given that I only found them by navigating to them, I gave up rather than trying to explain to Amazon what their own store says.

I do wonder, though, if the fact that your books are novellas instead of novels might have anything to do with what you're seeing. Maybe so, maybe not, but it wouldn't surprise me if Amazon wants to push novels over novellas, since more readers are interested in them.


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

Only preorders are getting regular new release alerts right now. I haven't had a new release alert sent since February.
As for commenting, what is it you want us to say? You're very angry. I get it. We can't fix that, though.


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## J. Tanner (Aug 22, 2011)

I looked at the two links and the both show the same categories as far as I can tell. So I don't understand the problem.

The other form of organic discovery all books get is Search. YMMV of course because ranking appears based on sales too.

The main driver has always been alsobots which Amazon continues to deemphasize, but that's also sales related--rich get richer.

So all roads do kind of lead back to bringing your own traffic in some form at the start. Their discoverability engine kicks in a little later. This is why there's so much talk about list-building and promo. It's no secret that's the "secret".


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## The one with all the big dresses on the covers (Jan 25, 2016)

Maybe I misunderstood, but it reads to me like you might have a misunderstanding about the new release lists. They don't show the latest new releases based on which one was the most recent release. They are a bestseller list, just like the regular bestseller list, but limited to the books that are pre-orders or released in the last 30 days. So if the bestselling book out of all the new releases in that category released 29 days ago, then it will show up at the top. A new release that released yesterday and has no sales will not show up at all. (Since you need one sale to appear on the lists--and then of course it's category dependent as to where on the list you will show and how many sales are needed to make it into the top 100.) That is normal.

It is also normal for the first level of kdp support to not understand questions put to them and give generic answers. The fact that they're talking about a badge in their reply to you reads to me like they thought you were asking about the #1 New Release badge that is given to the top new release in each category. To be eligible for that, a book has to be both a new release and the top-selling new release in that category.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

I have no idea what you mean by "Bubclub" except it seems to me that you think I am part of it. So I will respond.

I am not sure what you thought to prove with this experiment. Since you hate Amazon so much (I do, too, so we're in agreement), why spend all that time to prove.... that they conspire against new writers? Oh wait, you're not new. So what?

You wrote a series of novellas to prove that Amazon discriminates against you and in favour of people at the top of the SF charts, who write a chunky book a month and have done this for years, *and* they have a large following because they write books that their audience loves, *and* they have spent years building that audience in KU?

I mean--seriously? You "blow in" without anything that remotely resembles success of the likes that those people have had (not me either, by the way), anything remotely like their audience, with a bunch of novellas, and then blame Amazon? Or the "bubclub"? Whoever they are?

"Bubclub" members, like people who work on their lists, audiences, and write chunky books, are not responding because they're tired of this attitude. I don't know why I'm responding, but I took a break from recording my own audio, because I'm hungry and my stomach starts making ridiculous noises. Audio is doing very well for me right now. Like four-figures-a-month in the bank kind of well. Why? Because I worked at it. Long, chunky books that cannot be whipped up (or recorded) in a day or two. It's hard work.

And this morning I scheduled some emails to lists I've spent years building up.Pooh-pooh that if you want, but don't turn around and go blaming your disappointment on Amazon. I sell poorly on Amazon and in the US. Amazon US is 21% of my sales.

My latest release went live a month and a half ago. At this point, it's probably sitting somewhere in the mid-hundreds. But I had a few hundred preorders, and I have a hundred preorders for the next book, which releases in May next year. The series continues to give me a good income. Eleven books, all at $5.99. That's not just Amazon, but everywhere.

I am not a bestseller on Amazon US. I pay my bills and those of my family. My books cannot be found anywhere *near* those charts.

Here are a few things I'd suggest:

- QUIT worrying about Amazon US. Rank-chasing is ridiculous. It does not equate money in the bank.
- Put your books wide
- Write longer books
- Build your audience and stick with doing this


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> Maybe I misunderstood, but it reads to me like you might have a misunderstanding about the new release lists.


I did and it was confirmed by KDP. It's a best-seller list limited to books released within a certain time period. There is no point in publishing on Amazon at all unless you can buy readers. This was confirmed by Amazon itself this morning.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> I am not sure what you thought to prove with this experiment.


I'm just trying to make my way in the universe. But I've proven there's no such thing as just writing books and organically building a readership on Amazon. It cannot be done. I defy anyone to prove otherwise. If you accept that challenge, then you must demonstrate to these fine people the exact mechanism by which your book becomes visible to readers without a mailing list, an established readership or advertising.

The debate is over.


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## CatherineM (Jan 9, 2013)

ShawnaReads said:


> ...
> 
> I have a book up on Amazon. It's one that I've wavered on whether it's more of an adult book or a YA book. After it was published, I asked Amazon to put it in a few YA subcats. They did so. Then I decided it's more of an adult novel and asked them to move it into adult categories instead (which I found by navigating the categories on their site). I was told that those categories don't exist. Given that I only found them by navigating to them, I gave up rather than trying to explain to Amazon what their own store says.
> 
> ...


I get this.

Other than that, I'm confused.


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## Rachel Anne (Apr 18, 2015)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> I'm just trying to make my way in the universe. But I've proven there's no such thing as just writing books and organically building a readership on Amazon. It cannot be done. I defy anyone to prove otherwise. If you accept that challenge, then you must demonstrate to these fine people the exact mechanism by which your book becomes visible to readers without a mailing list, an established readership or advertising.
> 
> The debate is over.


I mean... I'm sorry you're having such a shit time with Amazon, but.. you're experiences don't mean everyone else experiences the same thing.

My debut novel, with zero previous readership made just under $8000 its first month of publication (paid in Canadian, so that's something to keep in mind with our crap dollar).

My second novel went up for pre-order and had 1600 pre-orders by its release, at $2.99. I dropped the ball from there, but that's an entirely different post to share.

My 'advertising' platform? I had a not even finished website, a mailing list that gained all organic readers from these books, and I posted a couple of times a week in one voracious FB reader group with book teasers, etc.

It was (and still is) a hungry reader genre, surprisingly, and the books were written to market.

I'm not posting this to start a fight or some large debate. I'm just hoping that other people first discovering indie publishing and kboards doesn't see just the OP's post and think it's all doom and gloom.


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## Rachel Anne (Apr 18, 2015)

I find it oddly endearing that kboards edited my original choice word in my above post.
Bless.


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## Kathy Dee (Aug 27, 2016)

Rachel Anne said:


> I find it oddly endearing that kboards edited my original choice word in my above post.
> Bless.


It's an automatic feature of many bulletin boards. Here are some words that I didn't type: suck shit piss.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

I've removed a post. Please be civil, folks.


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## notjohn (Sep 9, 2016)

>I'm pulling my remaining titles from KDP Select.

I don't understand why anyone would put books in Select except as a 90-day experiment with the renewal box not checked.


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## AlecHutson (Sep 26, 2016)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> Only preorders are getting regular new release alerts right now. I haven't had a new release alert sent since February.


Anyone have any idea why this is? I also didn't have a new relase emails go out with my latest release - it doesn't make any sense to me, as why the heck would readers have followed you if not to be informed when you put out something new? I'm still getting oodles of useless Amazon emails hawking things to me I have absolutely no interest in . . . why cut back on the emails that are guaranteed to result in sales?


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

Rachel Anne said:


> I mean... I'm sorry you're having such a [crap] time with Amazon, but.. you're experiences don't mean everyone else experiences the same thing.
> 
> My debut novel, with zero previous readership made just under $8000 its first month of publication (paid in Canadian, so that's something to keep in mind with our crap dollar).
> 
> ...


I don't make as much as you, but there are a crop of readers who actually seek my books out, and I've done less than you to find them, actually, aside from post them and leave notices on the Zon's author's page. Organic does happen. Can many live off of it? Doubtful. I don't. But then, I"m not trying to live off of it. Either way, with indie publishing, it's always YMMV.

I can understand Shane's frustrations. He's trying all the tricks that are said to pay off with visibility and all that. Including advertising and rapid release. Apparently there is more to the formula... Luck, or the right algorithm comes your way, perhaps. Or a long past history of bestsellers? I don't know.

I'm still trying to unpack his first post but I get the jist of it: it's not an easy thing to even get visibility at first release. Of course, the massive numbers of books released every day probably do not help, unless you're one of those rare writers of some odd genre where a new release may get seen, like maybe something in Esperanto.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Organic visibility worked pretty spectacularly for me eight years ago. I did two ads for a free run for about $10. No mailing list and no Facebook signups. That was eons ago, but I know several other people whose first books caught on organically much more recently. You need to have a book lots of readers recommend once they do read it. Organic visibility is mostly word of mouth. I still get it—new readers who stumble upon my stuff because somebody tells them or the cover and title are hooky. 

Saying you did not get it does not mean it does not exist. It just says it did not happen for you. Nobody can say exactly how it works or why their books managed to catch that wave. We do not really know, though we see that book mentioned all over in reader groups. That is the main thing. Mostly it is genre, title, series title, hook, cover, blurb—and then the book. And then the ending. And then another book and another. 

Personally I have been in Select with my indie books most of the time. I also have trad books, but they too are Amazon only. And audiobooks which I do not do anything for other than let my readers know. I get a great many first time readers in audio, which is not as crowded as Kindle. (I am in an extremely crowded genre.)


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## davoman13 (Aug 6, 2020)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> I did and it was confirmed by KDP. It's a best-seller list limited to books released within a certain time period. There is no point in publishing on Amazon at all unless you can buy readers. This was confirmed by Amazon itself this morning.


Isn't this why we've been building mailing lists for years?


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> Isn't this why we've been building mailing lists for years?


Yes it is. When you finally shake off all the magic fairy dust and take a hard, realistic look at the world as it is, you will understand what gives a book visibility: Mailing list, established readership and ads. Without visibility, your book will not sell no matter how talented you are and no matter how much you spent on your cover.

"Gee, I hope people run into the hinterlands waving my book in the air" is not a business plan.

And now for my last trick, I will once and for all put a stake through the heart of the organic sales myth:

If it were possible to achieve sustainable sales growth without mailing lists or advertising, none of the top-selling authors on this board would be spending money on them. Yet every single one of them does.

Case closed.


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

notjohn said:


> I don't understand why anyone would put books in Select except as a 90-day experiment with the renewal box not checked.


Money


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

AlecHutson said:


> Anyone have any idea why this is? I also didn't have a new relase emails go out with my latest release - it doesn't make any sense to me, as why the heck would readers have followed you if not to be informed when you put out something new? I'm still getting oodles of useless Amazon emails hawking things to me I have absolutely no interest in . . . why cut back on the emails that are guaranteed to result in sales?


The rep I communicate with indicated that the releases were stopped during Covid. She said she believed they had started again. I told her that wasn't the case. She seemed surprised. I have no idea why they're not doing the releases and she didn't seem to either, which is normal.


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

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Yes it is. When you finally shake off all the magic fairy dust and take a hard, realistic look at the world as it is, you will understand what gives a book visibility: Mailing list, established readership and ads. Without visibility, your book will not sell no matter how talented you are and no matter how much you spent on your cover.
> 
> "Gee, I hope people run into the hinterlands waving my book in the air" is not a business plan.
> 
> ...


Here's the thing that you either can't or won't grasp: There are too many books published each and every day to give everybody this visibility you seem to think you're owed. How would they conceivably manage that? Seriously.
So, yes, there are best-sellers lists. There is advertising. There are people who have mailing lists. We use all of those things because we want to sell books.
I know plenty of people doing this full time. I don't know anybody giving away their profit for advertising because the whole point of advertising is to pay to make more money. So, therefore, you wouldn't make money if you didn't advertise.
You're very bitter and combative. As long as you give in to those emotions you won't ever get what you want.
You don't have to start by spending thousands of dollars advertising. Most people start small and then start scaling. You say you're good at advertising and have no problem making a profit doing it, so why not keep doing it and build on it? That seems like the smart way to go to me.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

I didn't have a mailing list, a reader group, or anything at all for my first three or four years in the business. i'd sold probably 500K books by then. And my stuff has always sold well in audio with virtually no push from me. People see the cover and the title and the reviews, and they click, I guess.

Again--just because it doesn't work for everybody, and just because mailing lists and ads CAN help, doesn't mean there's no such thing as organic sales.

The new releases list in any genre is ONLY the Top 100 books published within the last three months in that genre. It doesn't include every book in that genre.

Rapid release is one method to try to achieve more sales. It doesn't work for everybody, because--and this is the main thing--NOT ALL BOOKS SELL. It also isn't necessary. Many authors sell great without rapid release. There are a number of paths that CAN work. That does not mean they WILL work.

*The main question I'd have is this. How does believing what you believe help you? It seems to be simply angering you. How is that useful? What could you do that might help you more?*

One thing most successful authors do is--take a good, hard, cold look at what you're putting out there. What isn't quite good enough? What could be better? How do your books, really and truly, stack up against the best sellers in your genre?

Maybe you don't have enough distance for this. Ask an honest friend! Better yet, ask ten. That's what I did before I first published. I learned so much from my brutally honest friends. I still learn a lot from reviews, from straight-out asking readers. Not just what DOESN'T work, but what DOES work. Do more of what you do well.

But meanwhile, if your first books have crappy reviews, is there a pattern to them? If there is, it's not that readers don't appreciate your genius. It's that your books HAVE A PROBLEM. (And potential readers look at those "intro books," and they'll think--nah. Despite what people sometimes say, readers don't hate 5-star reviews! They like high reviews that say something genuine.)

One solution is to take those books down, FIX the problem, and republish them. Then take what you learned from fixing them and apply that knowledge. Find a better hook. Package better. Work on your promotional strategies, so that when your book DOES get in front of readers, they are intrigued enough to click, and when they read the Look Inside, or better yet, an excerpt right there on the product page, they want to read that book.

Or you can decide it's too much work for too uncertain a reward, and just stop. Write for yourself for a while. Remember what you love about it. See if a few months or years bring you more perspective and more life knowledge to put into your books. Heck, I didn't start writing fiction until I was over 50. Most of what my readers like about my stuff, I'd never have been able to produce until then. I'm a whole heck of a lot smarter about life than I was when I was in my 30s, I'll tell you that.

Some writers do great in their 30s. More power to them! Like I said. Many paths. Everybody has to forge their own.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> If it were possible to achieve sustainable sales growth without mailing lists or advertising, none of the top-selling authors on this board would be spending money on them. Yet every single one of them does.
> 
> Case closed.


It could just be that, if you can get organic sales with no mailing lists or advertising, you're pretty much guaranteed to get far more sales WITH mailing lists and advertising.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> Money


Haha yep.

ETA: The question was why anybody would choose to be in KDP Select.


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## RBC (Feb 24, 2013)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> I'm just trying to make my way in the universe. But I've proven there's no such thing as just writing books and organically building a readership on Amazon. It cannot be done. I defy anyone to prove otherwise. If you accept that challenge, then you must demonstrate to these fine people the exact mechanism by which your book becomes visible to readers without a mailing list, an established readership or advertising.
> 
> The debate is over.


Even if you were right, why do you expect Amazon or any other platform to give you success for free with no work on it? Why does Amazon or any other platform has to owe you or anyone else free organic distribution? They don't!

No one is entitled success and don't blame Amazon or BookBub or anyone else for it. There were people succeeding on Amazon organically before, now there is less and less of that. Sad. But what's the point of bitching about it? Build your own email list and get the first sales from there and Amazon algos will then start helping. Simple. Don't like it? Quit or quit complaining about it.

You're super negative at this point. You're not looking for objective test results, you're just looking for any detail to prove yourself right and show that Amazon is evil... You're blinded by anger. Just happy to prove your own point... Throwing out challenges to prove you wrong and not listening to those who do post different stories to yours, going around blaming whole forum for failing as authors etc You're super negative. Maybe it's time to seriously look in the mirror and ask why you're so angry at the world? Maybe it's less to do with Amazon as you and everyone else on this forum have an amazing opportunity to self-publish and not wait for anyone's approval, to build an email list of fans who appreciate your work and then sell to them and then get benefits of that.

We still live in the best age to be alive as a Creative! Appreciate it and maybe your times will get better and easier. Or don't and live in permanent angry depression that doesn't help you succeed in life more at all. Your choice.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> why do you expect Amazon or any other platform to give you success for free with no work on it?


I don't. And let's be fair. 30% of my sales go to pay for whatever I get. Nobody's asking for or expecting a free lunch here.



> Why does Amazon or any other platform has to owe you or anyone else free organic distribution?


Nobody said they did. But again, let's be fair. The signup page for KDP still says "reach millions of readers on Amazon." It hasn't changed in at least nine years. If *just one* of my books was actually seen by say, two million readers, I could retire the next day.



> No one is entitled success


No one said they were.



> and don't blame Amazon or BookBub or anyone else for it.


Nobody is blaming anyone. I simply pointed out the new releases list isn't a new releases list and Amazon confirmed it.



> There were people succeeding on Amazon organically before


If this thread has accomplished nothing else, it has conclusively disproven the organic sales myth. It is no different than the "revenue share" model so many people attempt when collaborating on a creative project. "Join us, and when the product ships we'll all share the revenue!" It doesn't work, no matter how many times it's tried. If it did work, every major developer, producer and publisher on Earth would be using it because it would save them millions of dollars a month in payroll, insurance and taxes. They don't use it. Why? Because it doesn't work. The end.

If organic sales worked, nobody would spend money on mailing lists or advertising. Yet they all do. Why? Because organic sales doesn't work. The end.



> You're not looking for objective test results


Not any more. Rapid release is pointless if my books are locked out of the new releases list.



> going around blaming whole forum for failing as authors etc


I'm blaming no one. I am simply pointing out a fact that was later directly confirmed by KDP support.

Then we're back to the accusations of bitterness and anger. Let me tell you a story. If you kick a dog every day on the way to work and then one day you show up to work in an ambulance because the dog bit your [Uranus] out, who is in the wrong? I'll give you a hint: it's not the dog.

People get bitter and angry when they are lied to. And they have every right to be bitter and angry because lying is wrong.

The Lie: If you write a lot of books and publish them all _really fast_, the magic algorithm will notice you and carry you aloft to live among the angels.

The Truth: If you write a lot of books and publish them all _really fast_, you'll have a really long list of invisible books.

If you stop lying, they'll stop being bitter and angry. It really isn't that complicated.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

I am not talking to you at this point, Shane, because you are not listening. But maybe somebody else needs to hear this.

Every. Single. Successful author started out in exactly the same place. With a book. Maybe they sold it to a tradpub, either easily or after a lot of slogging. Maybe they published it as an indie. Maybe they were wide. Maybe in Select. They all found a way to get their book out there. Maybe they spent money on advertising, and maybe they worked with a network of other authors and cross-promoted each other's books. Maybe they did some of all of that. Maybe they hit big out of the gate and kept going. Maybe they hit big and then stumbled. Maybe they made a lot of mistakes early on and got better at all of it--at writing, at packaging, at promoting. 

Publishing, no matter how you do it, involves an endless series of tiny microdecisions. Nobody makes all the right ones. The trick is to, first, have the talent, or develop the talent, to write books people want to read, and then to make enough right decisions along the way to get those books into enough hands that you build a career. 

Nobody gets it all right. Nobody is owed one single solitary thing. NOBODY (except maybe one of those scammers) promised that all you had to do was write books and release them fast, and you'd succeed. NOBODY, not Amazon, not Nook, not iBooks, not Google Play, not your publisher, promised that your book would magically be SEEN by all the millions of POTENTIAL readers out there. All you can do is give it your best shot, try and do it better next time, and repeat. For as long as it takes. Or until you decide to spend your time and energy on something else. 

Why do something that makes you mad and doesn't give you the return you want? If I tried day trading and lost my money, I'd quit day trading and get a regular job. If I tried art but couldn't paint anything people wanted to pay for, I'd paint for fun like 99.9% of people do and ... get a regular job. There's no difference. It's an opportunity, that's all, and one I feel lucky to have. There are no guarantees.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> NOBODY (except maybe one of those scammers) promised that all you had to do was write books and release them fast, and you'd succeed.


Provably false.

https://www.amazon.com/Rapid-Release-Write-Publish-Profit-ebook/dp/B07MYJT332








> NOBODY, not Amazon, not Nook, not iBooks, not Google Play, not your publisher, promised that your book would magically be SEEN by all the millions of POTENTIAL readers out there.


I know what "reach millions of readers on Amazon" implies to me. Perhaps you have some alternative interpretation.

What I do know is this: there is no level of talent that will sell books without advertising, a mailing list and an established readership. The debate is over.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> I simply pointed out the new releases list isn't a new releases list and Amazon confirmed it.


It's a New Release Best Sellers list. If it was list of every single book that had been released in the last thirty days, it would tens of thousands of books long.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> It's a New Release Best Sellers list.


That is correct, and wouldn't it be thrilling if it were labeled as such?



> If it was list of every single book that had been released in the last thirty days, it would tens of thousands of books long.


Heavens to Betsy! Tens of thousands of books!? Whatever would we do? If only we had machines that could organize and store large amounts of information!


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

This needs to be addressed too:



> I didn't have a mailing list, a reader group, or anything at all for my first three or four years in the business.


Obviously you are far more talented than the rest of us. You have the power to sell invisible books. For us mere mortals, we need a business plan that doesn't rely on magic and fairy dust.



> The new releases list in any genre is ONLY the Top 100 books published within the last three months in that genre. It doesn't include every book in that genre.


Yes. We know that now. It would be nice if it were labeled as such, but I'm afraid I've run out of wishes.



> How do your books, really and truly, stack up against the best sellers in your genre?


They were written by someone who doesn't spend six figures a year on advertising. Do you consider Chris Fox to be talented? Think he sells better than me? (Hint: he does) Think he's a better author than me? (Hint: He probably is) Go look up what the man spends on advertising. He's a talented and capable guy. Shouldn't have any trouble selling his books at this point, should he? Yet for some reason he spends north of $120k a year on ads. See if you can guess why?



> How does believing what you believe help you?


Because it prevents me from wasting time on sales strategies that don't work. Rapid release not only doesn't work, it can't, and I have conclusively demonstrated why it can't work.

I write about it here in the hopes it will save the next author the time and trouble of pursuing any sales strategy other than having a mailing list, ads and an established readership. Do not waste your time trying to outmaneuver the system. If you think you can beat the system, you will probably be surprised to learn the system beats back.

If you want to win football games, you do it with blocking, tackling and holding the goshdarnn ball properly. Yeah, those aren't sexy, but they WIN FOOTBALL GAMES EVEN IF YOU AREN'T TOM BRADY. You don't win football games with 99-yard kickoff returns.

If you want to win football games, and your strategy is being Tom Brady when you aren't Tom Brady, I've got news for you.

Anyone my age will remember the Oakland Raiders of old. They were the ugliest football team on the planet. They didn't have any spectacular flashy athletes. They didn't have boatloads of talent. But they won Super Bowls and they were World Champions. The reason is because they executed on fundamentals like having a running game and an offensive line that could block. They had some of the greatest special teams play in the history of the game, and if you stand quietly on the field in Oakland you can still hear the sweat coming off opposing offenses when they faced that silver and black defense.

I may not be the most talented writer alive. I may not have the golden touch when it comes to marketing. That's why my approach to book selling is smashmouth football. Three yards and a cloud of dust. I'm through launching the ball into the end zone hoping someone on my team catches it.


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## Flying Pizza Pie (Dec 19, 2016)

Rapid release is an idea in the book _*Rapid Release*_, which has sold fairly well. But Amazon never promised it would work (nor, I assume, does the author), for every book. I'm pretty sure the same percentage of authors selling well on Amazon are about the same percentage that are able to make a living from TRAD PUB book deals. We can't all be successful authors any more than we can all be doctors or laywers, or CEO's at IBM. It's not because Amazon is racist, hates Indie authors, or only shed's a golden light on certain books. It's all computer and algorithm driven! That means there is a chance, that even if a book is weak, it will sell - and the opposite is true. Even if it is strong, it might NOT sell. Of course, the odds go way up if you have superior talent or a timely book.

"If you build it they will come". Well, yeah, maybe. Amazon came, they built it, and there are millions of readers just surfing around the book pages. Getting your book seen by those millions of people is your problem, not Amazon's. It can happen organically, but you have to have a superior product 99% of the time. They built it, so I do some writing, I do some advertising, and I profit. And, since I have a little success at Amazon, I refuse to send any more of my novels to TRAD PUBS since they don't want to play with me! I'm taking my book and going home (to Amazon).


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## Miles A. Maxwell (Dec 5, 2015)

Here's an option: https://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,325003.0.html


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## NikOK (Jun 27, 2020)

I just wanted to say a quick thanks for posting your results on this.  Sorry to hear that things didn't pan out with the rapid release, but it's useful for people out here to hear your experience with that system.  I'm a casual guy with this stuff, and I'd be happy to always be casually writing odd things, and doing it pretty slowly, so for me this post has been like getting the results from an experiment I will never run.  Will I ever be a rapid releaser?  Probably not.  But now I have a little more info about the new release list than I did before, and I appreciate it.


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## J. Tanner (Aug 22, 2011)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Provably false.
> 
> [links removed]


I haven't read the book you linked, but I listen to 6 Figure Authors and they don't make the claim you're attributing to them. They advertise rapid release, and advocate doing so. They never said it results in organic traffic on Amazon. They said it rapid release allows for better conversion on early books in the series, and lower advertising costs overall vs spreading releases out. This is very different from your claim.


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## J. Tanner (Aug 22, 2011)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Heavens to Betsy! Tens of thousands of books!? Whatever would we do? If only we had machines that could organize and store large amounts of information!


Your visibility would go from zero seconds to two seconds. And visibility for authors who are driving traffic and producing revenue for Amazon would drop to that same 2 seconds.

How does that help anybody?

The current merit based system seems better than a time based system.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Musings and spoutings on podcasts does not constitute either proof or fact.

To look at why some of these people have had success with methods discussed (not just rapid release--any methods), you need to look at the complete picture. Their genre, their predisposition to working in a particular way, how their previous work was received. You also need to look at the work involved.

One thing I do agree with in a way, and that is that organic visibility on Amazon (or anywhere else, really) is not something you should worry about, assume or even aim for. It's something out of control, and like fame, it is more likely than not to disappear. So it's better to operate your business without assuming that you'll get it, ever.

Take control of your own audience. In a way, that's what you're doing with rapid release: making sure that when people who read your first in series, they have somewhere to go next and don't have to wait months for the next book. You're forgoing having releases in the time when you're writing all these books. This is a problem if you don't work fast. The podcasts concludes exactly the same thing. It does not make sense for everyone to do this. 

But. Above all, you must have series where people like book 1 and that people want to continue reading. If you have that, frankly, any method will be profitable.


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## blubarry (Feb 27, 2015)

I find the OP a fascinating study in someone who speaks passionately and with an air of authority but has absolutely no grasp of the business side of publishing. Write your book but then switch hats an become a business person. That doesn't mean complaining about the system. Work with it. If you don't like Amazon (and I like that they've allowed me to write full time, make a significant income, and do what I love to do), then publish wide, but know you'll have the same visibiiity issues there, only with a smaller audience. You can launch a new name in the current climate and succeed. I've been publishing since 2013, but love to experiment and I did it last year. Stop talking, start listening, and work to improve, but making universal statements that are simply wrong does those who don't know better a disservice.


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## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

Patty Jansen said:


> Musings and spoutings on podcasts does not constitute either proof or fact.
> 
> To look at why some of these people have had success with methods discussed (not just rapid release--any methods), you need to look at the complete picture. Their genre, their predisposition to working in a particular way, how their previous work was received. You also need to look at the work involved.
> 
> ...


I'm just about to start reading your three year plan, the first I purchased some time ago. I don't know what is in it yet, but if you don't mention the changes that have taken place you might be a good person to do that. it sounds like a lot more up front money is needed now than was needed in the past.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> absolutely no grasp of the business side of publishing


Ironic that you criticize others' knowledge while you simultaneously contend authors can sell books by osmosis and telepathy.



> making universal statements that are simply wrong does those who don't know better a disservice.


That is correct, and the current undisputed heavyweight champion of universally wrong statements is that someone can build a readership by publishing really fast.

Again, if organic sales were sustainable and led to revenue growth, Bookbub, ads and mailing lists would be obsolete.

They aren't, so it isn't.

This discussion has been going on for years. So far nobody has described the mechanism by which a new book becomes visible to readers without advertising, an established readership or a mailing list. The reason they haven't is because there is no such mechanism. These are all facts. Confirmed facts. They are no longer in dispute. The debate is over.

Home Depot is one of the most successful retailers on Earth. Build one at the exact halfway point between Barstow and Baker, California and it will go out of business in six weeks no matter how many sales they have. Nobody is going to drive 40 miles out into the goshdarnn desert to buy 2x4s.

Telling people otherwise is cruel, destructive and misleading. Further it is grossly unfair. Now, if you want to believe in magic fairy dust by all means do as you will. Your books will remain invisible and will not sell no matter how talented you are and no matter how much you spent on your cover. I defy you to prove otherwise.


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## VisitasKeat (Oct 15, 2018)

I'm really thankful to Amazon for giving me the opportunity to share my stories. I'm also happy that rapid releases don't get the desired mileage, and thanks to Amazon yet again for attempting to maintain a merit based system. This is good for quality of books published as against quantity. This also gets rid of the  harmful influence of the speed gurus who have made a big business by writing how to write thousands of words in an hour books. Do they practice what they preach everyday?


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> There are too many books published each and every day to give everybody this visibility you seem to think you're owed.


I never said I was owed anything. I buy my readers. Just like you do.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> That is correct, and wouldn't it be thrilling if it were labeled as such?
> 
> Heavens to Betsy! Tens of thousands of books!? Whatever would we do? If only we had machines that could organize and store large amounts of information!


A list with tens of thousands of books on it is going to be virtually useless. I would love it if the lists were a little longer - say the top 250, or even the top 500 - but anything beyond that is likely going to be a waste.

And as for the name, it is called the Amazon Hot New Release list. So even though it doesn't specifically say it's the top 100 books, the title definitely implies that it's not just every new release in the whole store.


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## Corvid (May 15, 2014)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> I never said I was owed anything. I buy my readers. Just like you do.


Well, I don't know how your fiction's doing, Shane, but I can tell you your kboards posts rarely disappoint. They're compelling, and compulsively readable. I don't mean that snidely, either, I genuinely enjoy your musings - even when I disagree.

I believe someone wise once said it's best to write when angry (or perhaps it was, 'emotional'). In any case, it seems to work for you... that is, if you are - in fact - angry. Regardless, I wish you and anyone reading this thread the best, whether you're doing rapid releases, advertising, both, or none of the above.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

P.A. Woodburn said:


> I'm just about to start reading your three year plan, the first I purchased some time ago. I don't know what is in it yet, but if you don't mention the changes that have taken place you might be a good person to do that. it sounds like a lot more up front money is needed now than was needed in the past.


I don't get this response. Crummy cover and crummy editing have not been tickets to hot sales since, oh, 2012. All the rest, don't get too carried away. Just never spend more than you earn. That's all there is to it. You don't "have" to spend big on ads. At all.


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## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

Patty Jansen said:


> I don't get this response. Crummy cover and crummy editing have not been tickets to hot sales since, oh, 2012. All the rest, don't get too carried away. Just never spend more than you earn. That's all there is to it. You don't "have" to spend big on ads. At all.


Thanks for the advice I'll need lots.


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## Kathy Dee (Aug 27, 2016)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> If this thread has accomplished nothing else, it has conclusively disproven the organic sales myth. It is no different than the "revenue share" model so many people attempt when collaborating on a creative project. "Join us, and when the product ships we'll all share the revenue!" It doesn't work, no matter how many times it's tried. If it did work, every major developer, producer and publisher on Earth would be using it because it would save them millions of dollars a month in payroll, insurance and taxes. They don't use it. Why? Because it doesn't work. The end.


Coincidentally, I have been trying rapid release at the same time and my results say different. Because I don't believe I can write longer works in the necessary time period, I have been trying the tactic using very short (5K words) erotic stories. In the last month I released 8 such stories under a brand new pen name, and they are ticking along quite nicely. I am not setting the world alight, but they are getting found and bought/borrowed (all in KU). It is certainly enough encouragement for me to be continuing with this project.


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## Vidya (Feb 14, 2012)

Good for you, Kathy! I’m glad it’s working for you.


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

Organic sales are very much a real thing. The difficulty these days is that the market is so crowded with so many new books that organic sales rarely happen without a bit of a push first.

So, that push might come the way Amanda does it--via releasing 2-3 times a month and those releases are their own form of marketing. She still advertises too, but she doesn't need to do as much as those of us who release less often.

I release more like 2-4 months apart, so I advertise more to keep all my books visible. I started really small, and didn't scale up until my ads were working and profitable. Running ads should make you money.

The organic piece comes in from the results of the paid piece......so the AMS/FB sales lift my books rank and visibility in the store. That then generates organic sales. Especially if you get into a top 100 list--whether a category or overall--people look at those lists and buy off them.


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## BillSmithBooksDotCom (Nov 4, 2012)

J. Tanner said:


> I haven't read the book you linked, but I listen to 6 Figure Authors and they don't make the claim you're attributing to them. They advertise rapid release, and advocate doing so. They never said it results in organic traffic on Amazon. They said it rapid release allows for better conversion on early books in the series, and lower advertising costs overall vs spreading releases out. This is very different from your claim.


6 Figure authors' hosts are a LOT more nuanced than "just publish a ton of books."

They are quick to point out that rapid release can be one element of a strategy to building a successful career -- along with lots of other things -- mailing lists, advertising, promotions on sites and many other things. They are very open about what they do and they bring on a variety of guests who have found many different approaches that work for them.

There is no magic bullet to this. There are many different strategies people take and you can't just copy what someone else does and expect it to work because everyone handles details differently.


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

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> I never said I was owed anything. I buy my readers. Just like you do.


Except you act like you're owed something over and over again. You've said many times that you're good at advertising. That means you shouldn't have a problem starting small and scaling up. My normal month is 3% ad spend of gross. I make a very good living. It takes time to build but it's certainly not impossible.


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## Clay (Apr 17, 2020)

notjohn said:


> >I'm pulling my remaining titles from KDP Select.
> 
> I don't understand why anyone would put books in Select except as a 90-day experiment with the renewal box not checked.


Because they make a lot of money that way.

Understand now?


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## blubarry (Feb 27, 2015)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> Except you act like you're owed something over and over again. You've said many times that you're good at advertising. That means you shouldn't have a problem starting small and scaling up. My normal month is 3% ad spend of gross. I make a very good living. It takes time to build but it's certainly not impossible.


The problem with the OP is that he would rather shout to kboards about what he's owed and make declarative statements that he's proven something!

Of course he's right! Rapid releases don't work! Organic sales are dead! You have to buy readers!

It's that last I take issue with. You're not buying readers. You're paying for visibility in an increasingly crowded marketplace. If you can compete, people WILL buy your books. If not...

Maybe it just didn't work for him. Enough people have proven rapid release DOES work. Advertising CAN get visibility and a good ROI when done right. Maybe it didn't work for him because his books didn't appeal to readers, or the covers didn't work, or the blurbs were off. The market has matured. What worked when I started doesn't work as well, but that doesn't mean it can't. I've seen plenty of people break out recently, so I know it can and does still happen. Getting mad at your distributor because they aren't doing what you want is a fool's game and might be time better spent writing the next book.

If you want to earn a living at this, Amazon isn't your enemy. That doesn't mean they have to be your friend, but you have to work within the system. Or not. In indie publishing, it's your choice. Go and sell on your website. I'm sure your visibility will drive plenty of sales there.


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## VisitasKeat (Oct 15, 2018)

"I never said I was owed anything. I buy my readers. Just like you do."

You BUY your readers? That's very insulting and abusive. Readers are humans and not commodities. 

BTW, I think Bezos deserves a Nobel prize for transforming the publishing industry.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> Go and sell on your website. I'm sure your visibility will drive plenty of sales there.


My visibility on my site and my visibility on Amazon are IDENTICAL. Why? They both rely on exactly the same two things: my mailing list and my ads.

That's the entire point of this discussion. You insist there is some magical advantage to being on Amazon and that somehow, someday visibility there will rocket into the sky while we all sing. All I have to do is publish a new book every morning at 9:30AM Pacific Time.

Except visibility never rockets into the sky. It relies on mailing list and ads, and it will always rely on mailing list and ads no matter how much you wish it were otherwise.



> You BUY your readers?


Yes. I BUY MY READERS. It's called advertising. We spend a quarter-trillion a year on it in the U.S. If you advertise you are buying readers too.



> That's very insulting and abusive.


So are the bills I have to pay every month.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> That's the entire point of this discussion. You insist there is some magical advantage to being on Amazon and that somehow, someday visibility there will rocket into the sky while we all sing. All I have to do is publish a new book every morning at 9:30AM Pacific Time.
> 
> Except visibility never rockets into the sky. It relies on mailing list and ads, and it will always rely on mailing list and ads no matter how much you wish it were otherwise.


I could name you countless authors off the top of my head for whom that is not true, but you would dismiss others' experience as you have all along. It is not fairy dust. It is word of mouth

Just because something does not work for you, it does not logically follow that it works for nobody.

There are countless factors to success. The most important is the book. One possibility a rational person needs to look at is: if I'm doing all the right things and am getting NO organic sales, maybe my product is lacking.

That requires looking inward at your lack of success instead of blaming somebody and everybody else. You will never win by wallowing in anger at others. You only have a chance if you take a long hard look at what you, personal you, can do differently.

Your reviews are poor. Check your product.


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## blubarry (Feb 27, 2015)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> My visibility on my site and my visibility on Amazon are IDENTICAL. Why? They both rely on exactly the same two things: my mailing list and my ads.
> 
> That's the entire point of this discussion. You insist there is some magical advantage to being on Amazon and that somehow, someday visibility there will rocket into the sky while we all sing. All I have to do is publish a new book every morning at 9:30AM Pacific Time.
> 
> Except visibility never rockets into the sky. It relies on mailing list and ads, and it will always rely on mailing list and ads no matter how much you wish it were otherwise.


Except it's not. Don't pretend you get the same number of visitors as Amazon. You can advertise using AMS on it to get visibility of readers ALREADY ON THE SITE to try your book. Once there, it's on the product to perform. I see several issues with the product that would turn away buyers, and that's with a quick glance through your author page.

Indie publishing is a long way past amateur hour. You have to look professional to sell. That means quality covers, compelling blurb, and a good book. All of that information is already on kboards.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> Don't pretend you get the same number of visitors as Amazon.


Oh I don't have to pretend. I know exactly how many visits my book pages get on Amazon and I know exactly how many visits they get on my site. See if you can guess which has more? I'll give you a hint: it's not Amazon.



> You can advertise using AMS on it to get visibility of readers ALREADY ON THE SITE to try your book.


I can advertise to my mailing list for free. I can add a new subscriber to my mailing list for pennies and then send them newsletters forever for free. Why would I use AMS?


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## Kathy Dee (Aug 27, 2016)

Vidya said:


> Good for you, Kathy! I'm glad it's working for you.


Thank you.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> Your reviews are poor. Check your product.





> I see several issues with the product that would turn away buyers, and that's with a quick glance through your author page.


I'm writing this reply for all the other authors out there lurking and following this thread. I want you to read what I'm about to write very carefully because it is important to you and your career. Don't ever respond to a critic. This is doubly true if they are a competing author.

You see, people are trained through life to attack others where they think they are weakest. They are trained to believe that creative people are most vulnerable with regard to their confidence. They are trained to try and hurt other people's feelings with as much cruelty as they can muster. They know creative people are worried others will dislike their work, so that's where they focus their attacks. Anyone who attended a public school in the United States recognizes a bully.

If you want examples of this, just read my threads. People take my declarative statements as personal challenges. They absolutely refuse to tolerate someone stating their opinion and standing by it. They accuse me of being angry and bitter and call me a failure. No doubt they will soon be accusing me of constitutional conspiracy theories and being against the whales or some other unhinged nonsense.

As an author, you have to be prepared for this and understand a very important concept: Just because one person thinks your book sucks doesn't make it true. When compared with the thousands and thousands of people who bought the book and the hundreds of people who gave it good reviews, the handful of people who claim there is something terribly wrong with it shrinks to insignificance. When you have read-through rates between 60% and 90% there's nothing wrong with your writing.

I have a superpower that only a tiny minority of people on Earth have. I can sit down with a pencil and a piece of paper and write a story total strangers in foreign countries will pay money to read. Good Major League pitchers outnumber people like me. Astronauts outnumber people like me.

You have that power too.

Never respond to a critic. You'll notice the most vocal critics in this thread do not link their books. They carefully hide their own work but have no problem lashing out at other authors because they think that will draw attention away from the fact their arguments are weak and their work is probably not up to par either. They claim to have sold umpty zillions of books yet refuse to stand by those titles in public, which is bizarre, but it's not my responsibility to manage their image.

Understand this. Listen to Uncle Shane: I've been selling on the Internet since Jeff Bezos was working out of his living room. I hand coded my first web site when Mark Zuckerberg was in fifth grade:

There is nothing wrong with your writing. There is nothing wrong with your work. If it came from you, it's good enough.


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## Kathy Dee (Aug 27, 2016)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Oh I don't have to pretend. I know exactly how many visits my book pages get on Amazon


Just curious Shane: how do you know how many visits your Amazon page gets?


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

If you want to know how many people visited a web page, take your total unit sales and divide by your conversion rate.

This is information we should already have, because if we knew what our traffic and conversion rates were we could, oh, I don't know, *IMPROVE THEM*, which would make us and Amazon more money, but then again making new books visible would make Amazon more money too and that doesn't happen either.


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## blubarry (Feb 27, 2015)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> If you want examples of this, just read my threads. People take my declarative statements as personal challenges. They absolutely refuse to tolerate someone stating their opinion and standing by it. They accuse me of being angry and bitter and call me a failure. No doubt they will soon be accusing me of constitutional conspiracy theories and being against the whales or some other unhinged nonsense.
> 
> As an author, you have to be prepared for this and understand a very important concept: Just because one person thinks your book sucks doesn't make it true. When compared with the thousands and thousands of people who bought the book and the hundreds of people who gave it good reviews, the handful of people who claim there is something terribly wrong with it shrinks to insignificance.
> 
> I have a superpower that only a tiny minority of people on Earth have. I can sit down with a pencil and a piece of paper and write a story total strangers in foreign countries will pay money to read. Good Major League pitchers outnumber people like me. Astronauts outnumber people like me.


Once again, I think you're missing the point. Despite your insistence of proving your points, your declarative statements of fact are really just opinion, and the opinion of someone who comes across as angry and upset with your publishing reality. If that's not the case, then I'd suggest rereading the tone of your messages. As an author, you want to get your point across clearly. If you're not upset with your publishing performance, then so be it. My point about looking at your author page can be expounded up as this: your covers - excluding your sci-fi - look amateur. I didn't read your blurbs, look at your review, or even do the look inside. If I'm a casual reader, and that was what I saw, I would move on. Regarding the rest, if you're not looking at improving the product, then you're missing an opportunity.

As to your other argument regarding your newsletter costing pennies per subscriber, that's great. You're talking about readers and visibility. As a publisher (and once your book is released into the wild, you're no longer an author but a publisher) you need eyes on the product, and that involves some level of marketing. If you have 1000s of hungry readers who will scoop up your next book and drive you up the rankings like Amanda, you don't need to advertise as much. If you don't, then you need to find visibility somehow. That involves advertising where the readers are. Amazon is the largest bookstore. It's where the readers are, not all on your newsletter. Advertise there to get new readers, have something interesting to read, convince them to subscribe to your newsletter through a strong call to action, and rinse and repeat.


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## ShawnaReads (May 9, 2019)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Yes. I BUY MY READERS. It's called advertising. We spend a quarter-trillion a year on it in the U.S. If you advertise you are buying readers too.


When you buy advertising, you are buying an *opportunity* to *pitch* your books to readers. Buying something implies a guaranteed return for money. It also implies a product, and individual humans with self-will are not a product. Honestly, I think the tendency of advertisers to treat consumers as blind, stupid sheep who'll do whatever they're told is incredibly condescending, not to mention outright dehumanizing. Readers deserve more of your respect than that.


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## TSDwrites (Aug 30, 2018)

Amazon is offering a search engine, bestseller list, payment options and VAT, reading app, reading device and a (trusted) marketplace for consumers. Everything else comes with a price. Exclusivity for some perks and/or purchasing AMS ads.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

Kathy Dee said:


> Coincidentally, I have been trying rapid release at the same time and my results say different. Because I don't believe I can write longer works in the necessary time period, I have been trying the tactic using very short (5K words) erotic stories. In the last month I released 8 such stories under a brand new pen name, and they are ticking along quite nicely. I am not setting the world alight, but they are getting found and bought/borrowed (all in KU). It is certainly enough encouragement for me to be continuing with this project.


Erotica and a few other genres seem to be outliers, where the rapid release short thing can work for people. Not just you, but I've seen some testimonies on the erotica authors' reddit that imply the same. Of course, you can't use AMS or other forms of marketing that are available to the more tame genres unless you lie, and tell the Zon that it's not really erotica -- at least from what I understand.


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## rickchesler (Jul 30, 2020)

"I also now know with certainty why my LitRPG, non-fiction, romance and fantasy books didn't sell. Amazon just turned them off because I'm a military science fiction author. The robot doesn't understand anything else, so those hundreds of thousands of words I've written in other genres? Eh, toss 'em. The robot doesn't care about your hard work."

That's not true, you can target a separate AMS ad for each one of your books, or set of books in a specific genre. You train the algorithm yourself by supplying your own keywords, adding the ones they suggest that are relevant, and then curating the keyword list as you monitor the ads' performance. I write in more than one genre myself, for example, action-adventure and creature-feature thrillers, and they are both ranked in their respective sub-categories, even without AMS ads. For me, the ads are a way to keep the books selling after the 6-month or so mark, where my sales usually start to taper. But they've always been visible for the first few months, and that's mostly organic, without ads.


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## rickchesler (Jul 30, 2020)

"Rapid release" doesn't necessarily mean the books were written quickly, only that they were released quickly. The author could have spent 3 years writing a trilogy, only instead of releasing book 1 after the first year, then writing #2 and releasing it after the 2nd year, etc, they wait until all 3 are done (meaning each is drafted, second-drafted, edited, proofed, beta-read, formatted, covers designed for all formats, pre-order marketing, etc.) , and then release them all one or two months apart according to a preset rapid release schedule. Sure, it may look to the outside world like, "Wow, how is this author putting so many books out so fast?" but it's because they were previously written and released according to a plan. Some authors might actually write fast in order to maintain a rapid release schedule, but if quality is being traded for a quicker release time, that's likely not sustainable.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

> I have been trying the tactic using very short (5K words) erotic stories.


Just wanted to point out that for erotica, rapid release -- or actually continual releases -- are how it's done. If you aren't there already, the Reddit forum erotica authors is a good one to hang out at.

As to the main thrust of this thread, it seems to be a tempest in a teapot. Most of us understand that mailing lists and ads are what's done, that organic growth is good, but it's not really something you can push, unlike ads. Amazon doesn't owe us anything. Nor does Kobo, Apple, B&N or wherever. We're the publisher, we're responsible for doing what it takes to sell books.


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## KevinMcLaughlin (Nov 11, 2010)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> This isn't the first time I've discovered this. During my last investigation, it turned out books wouldn't appear on the new releases list until they've had at least one sale and have a sales rank. This, of course, creates the old "keep the poor people in their place" paradox: you can't be on the list until your book sells, your book won't sell because it's not on the list.


This is working as intended. Publishing doesn't guarantee eyeballs and *never has*. I mean, back in the early days, say pre-2014, it was possible to toss something up on Amazon and make some early, quick sales. But that faded quickly as more books became available and the number of successful authors grew. Now every new book is competing with all the other six million Kindle books out there. Organic sales were dead YEARS ago. Sort of.

Because where you still see organic sales happen in very large numbers is after a book begins selling well. For example, I made about $60k last year on one release. Total ad spend was about $200. I 'primed the pump' by hitting not only my email list, but also by getting about a half dozen author friends to send to their list as well. In total those email lists were well over 50,000 people. I made a bunch of sales in that first week, which led to Amazon sending out info about the release to some of their readers. It sold there, too. This in turn leads Amazon to send the news to even MORE readers.

That's how organic sales on Amazon work. It's how they have worked for like, half a decade or so now. You have to get enough sales for Amazon's computer systems to take note and send emails to readers. We do this by building our lists, networking to do email swaps with other authors, and running ads.



> Both are in Kindle Unlimited too but I'm sure that's just a coincidence.


Absolutely NOT a coincidence. KU books earn more than twice what non-KU books earn, on average. Counting just Amazon sales, KU books earn more than three times as much as non-KU books. KU is an enormously powerful tool for visibility on Amazon, as each borrow counts as a sale for purposes of visibility, rank, etc.

This has been the case, again, for years. KU is about 15% of the English language ebook market, globally. Non-KU Kindle is about 70%. Everyone else combined is about 15%. By entering KU, you lose the 'wide' 15% and gain the KU 15% plus the boost in Kindle sales granted by KU borrows. By going 'wide' you gain the 15% of the market represented by non-Amazon readers, but lose access to the 15% of the market that is KU readers (who buy SOME books sometimes, from favorite authors or nonfiction they really need, but don't discover new writers unless they're in KU). However, going wide means more balance in overall sales, so that massive changes to one platform don't smoosh your career.



> Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong (God knows nobody on this site is bashful) but this accounts for the very last avenue any author had on Amazon for organic visibility, absent some wild-ass random search result. If there is no organic visibility on Amazon, then it makes no difference at all how fast books are released, which means no matter what an author does, or how hard they work, they will get no sales on Amazon unless they bring their own readers. Amazon is not going to provide you with even one opportunity to put your book somewhere it might be seen unless you drop some cash on the table, even if you write two books a month.
> 
> In other words, you can't just pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Getting favored treatment is mandatory. You cannot earn it. You must be chosen.


I don't understand your rationale here. It's absolutely possible to 'bootstrap' success in publishing. Here's the thing: nobody is getting favored treatment. (Well, very few authors are, anyway). Most success is obtained through a combination of writing a lot of books people want to read and marketing them well.

You 'bootstrap' success on Amazon by:
- Write lots of books people want to read, put excellent covers on them, and write stunning descriptions for the books.
- Using Bookfunnel and other sources to get lots of email subscribers. I have 16k. I want to hit 20k this year, and won't stop pushing for more. Ever. Eventually I plan to crack 100k subscribers.
- Network with other authors in your genre and coordinate email list swaps for your releases. This is an exceptionally powerful marketing tool.
- Learn to run FB, BB, and AMS ads.

The people who write good books and market them well consistently, for long enough, succeed.
The people who don't succeed are either not writing good books people want to read, or they are not marketing them well enough, or both.



> I still have the stats from the last time I was stupid enough to spend money on AMS ads. I know *exactly* how many people visited the Amazon page for _Dawnsong: The Last Skyblade _ over a four month period. You would be shocked to know how few people actually showed up on a site with millions and billions of customers.


If AMS ads are not getting impressions, it's because you are either a) not using enough keywords (they let you have 1000 per ad for a reason) or b) not bidding high enough to compete with other bidders. Or both. If you are choosing high-competition keywords and bidding just 25c, say, you're barely going to get any impressions. Same keywords, $1 bid, and you'll see the impressions skyrocket. Obviously you can't run $1 a click ads on every book out there!  This is one reason why series are so much easier to sell.



> I also now know with certainty why my LitRPG, non-fiction, romance and fantasy books didn't sell. Amazon just turned them off because I'm a military science fiction author. The robot doesn't understand anything else, so those hundreds of thousands of words I've written in other genres? Eh, toss 'em. The robot doesn't care about your hard work. All that matters is what number is in the database column labeled "morlock author type."


This is absolutely not true. I have had bestselling books across urban fantasy, LitRPG, and assorted SF sub-genres. Amazon WILL tend to market your latest book to your existing readers, so some level of genre-focus definitely helps. If you've been writing a ton of SF, then roll out an epic fantasy novel, the computer is going to send out notices to a bunch of SF readers. Some of whom will buy it. Then Amazon will assume SF readers are the target market for this book and start emailing random SF readers, who will not be interested, not buy, and Amazon will stop sending emails.

This is why people talk so much about not polluting your also-boughts. The first 50-100 or so sales you make should ideally be readers from the target market for that book. Sometimes this will mean taking out an ad or running a few email list swaps with authors in the new genre.

Bottom line?

Our success or failure in this business is up to us. That's one of the best - and worst - things about being an indie. Best, because it means that by working hard and smart, we can achieve amazing things. Worst, because it means if we fail at something, there's literally no one else to blame except ourselves.


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## Bodie Dykstra (Jul 21, 2017)

KevinMcLaughlin said:


> Our success or failure in this business is up to us. That's one of the best - and worst - things about being an indie. Best, because it means that by working hard and smart, we can achieve amazing things. Worst, because it means if we fail at something, there's literally no one else to blame except ourselves.


To me, this line encapsulates the mindset of a successful entrepreneur in any field. You either make it work or you don't. You can't externalize and blame outside forces for your failures. You need to take a hard look at yourself and figure out what needs to change. If you can't do that, you're probably best off working a 9-5 for someone else instead.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> KU books earn more than twice what non-KU books earn, on average. Counting just Amazon sales, KU books earn more than three times as much as non-KU books. KU is an enormously powerful tool for visibility on Amazon, as each borrow counts as a sale for purposes of visibility, rank, etc.


So KU books have a built-in advantage. But Bodie up there says:



> You can't externalize and blame outside forces for your failures.


So which is it?


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> So KU books have a built-in advantage. But Bodie up there says: "You can't externalize and blame outside forces for your failures. You need to take a hard look at yourself and figure out what needs to change."
> 
> So which is it?


KU books do have a built-in advantage, but you (general you) can't blame other people for that. You have to recognize that the playing field is not necessarily level and make your choices based on that knowledge. Some people's books don't sell well wide, but can make a lot of money in KU. Some people can charge $7.99 for an ebook and some people can only sell at $2.99. There are so many variables at play, but the bottom line is, you have to make the best choices for yourself. If you know that wide doesn't work for you, put your books in Select and get that advantage for yourself. No one is preventing you from doing that. If you choose to continue to go wide even though it doesn't work for you, when you could make much more money in Select, that's up to you. You can't blame anyone else for your choice not to be in KU.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> You have to recognize that the playing field is not necessarily level and make your choices based on that knowledge.


Fair enough. Just tell me the truth. That's all I ask. Don't tell me it's a meritocracy if someone is picking winners.


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## KevinMcLaughlin (Nov 11, 2010)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> So KU books have a built-in advantage. But Bodie up there says:
> 
> So which is it?


Both. 

There are advantages and disadvantages to certain book selling tactics and strategies. That's what KU and wide represent: two different strategies for selling books. Both methods have pros and cons. Ideally, you pick one (or mix it up) and work hard to maximize the advantages while mitigating the disadvantages.

But ultimately it always comes down to the same thing:
1) Work to write good books people want to read. 
2) Package them in an appealing manner designed to attract the target reader. 
3) Work to bring reader eyeballs to the book.

If any one element of the chain isn't done well, sales success is highly unlikely. If any two aren't done well, sales are almost impossible.

But if all three are done well, consistently, over a period of time and building up a good backlist? Success is almost certain.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Fair enough. Just tell me the truth. That's all I ask. Don't tell me it's a meritocracy if someone is picking winners.


I think it is partly a meritocracy, in a way, but not in the sense that a single person is picking the winners, obviously. And not based solely on the author's merits as a novelist. It's also based on the author's skill as a publisher and a marketer. A writer with only average writing skills, but who understands what people want in a reading experience and can write compelling blurb and ad copy will likely make more money at their writing than a very talented writer who has little understanding of how people or business work. And then, of course, it helps a lot if you have some money that you can throw at ads, too, which has nothing to do with merit, but can certainly help.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> There are advantages and disadvantages to certain book selling tactics and strategies.





> I think it is partly a meritocracy, in a way,


Here's how I see it. I think you take great delight in pretending its a meritocracy. You persuade people they are playing one game when in fact they are playing some totally different game. Kind of like the myth that books rise and fall based on their appeal to readers. In reality they rise and fall because they are or are not in KU. They rise and fall due to all kinds of hidden factors like early sales spikes and glowing reviews due to mailing lists and how much has been spent on ads, and how much outside traffic is being generated that the retailer can convert into sales of other products. All of those things can be easily tracked and all kinds of artificial advantages can be built into the system using those factors rather than how "good" the book is.

Men are told all their lives what women want. Women want a "nice guy." So these men play the dating game based on the rules as stated by society and end up alone in their 60s wondering what they did wrong. They were playing one game while all of society was playing a different game. Women don't want nice guys for the same reason employers don't want marketable skills and for the same reason customers don't want a quality product. That's what they tell you they want. But you don't listen to what they say. You watch what they DO. Women want Christian Grey, employers want 21-year-old slaves and customers want low Chinese prices everyday.

So a new author comes in and puts forward his or her best work and flatlines and then comes to Kboards where they get the standard litany of [bullcrap]. "Oh, it must be your cover, little camper. Your blurb sucks. Gee, you're a [poopy] little writer aintcha? Nobody likes a crybaby. Why won't you take our advice and admit you suck? Good god why won't you stop crying? Gee I'm real sorry your thread got locked."

Meanwhile, nobody tells them the truth. Cover and blurb don't matter if you have no visibility. In fact, the more visibility you have the less any of that [crap] matters. Like I said before, if any of my novels found their way in front of 2 million MilSF fans I could retire the next day. It's a mathematical fact. Same goes for pretty much any author if they've put any effort at all into their product.

And this goes to the topic of this thread. Why do rapid release? Because it leads to higher visibility. Except that it doesn't lead to higher visibility. I proved it and then had it confirmed. It is now settled fact. So I'm not doing rapid release any more and I will counsel anyone who asks me to avoid it as well. It's a waste of time. There are only three things that matter: established readership, mailing list and ads.

Successful authors prefer it that way because it creates a barrier to entry. Every thread that deals with an author who is struggling inevitably devolves to 68 variations of "I got mine. **** you."

If humanity ever establishes a worldwide government, that's what will be printed on our money.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Cover, blurb and writing matter little if you have no visibility. I agree with you there.

But this:



> Except that it doesn't lead to higher visibility. I proved it and then had it confirmed. It is now settled fact.


Is not proven at all by your experiment.

Because in the reverse, if you do get a bit of visibility (which is what you do through rapid release), it won't matter one iota if the book doesn't deliver what the readers expected.


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## Corvid (May 15, 2014)

Financial success in your self-publishing business requires passing a certain threshold - it's going over the crest of a steep hill. Once you pass over that apex, you're there. 

What is that crest? However many regular readers of your series you need to meet whatever financial benchmark you've decided means financial success for you.

Let's say you've decided a regular readership of 2000 is what you'd need to be a financial success. Imagine there are many other authors who've decided the same. 

How much visibility you're required to achieve in order to attain 2000 regular readers is not going to be the same as other authors also seeking a readership of that size.

Everything's on a sliding scale. Cover quality, blurb quality, look inside quality, price/value perception, quality of the overall book itself.

If your book's on the lower end of each sliding scale compared to someone else's, you're going to have to be visible to more people in order to achieve the same or better size of readership.

There's pretty much an audience for everything, perception is so completely varied. But, you want to grease the wheels as much as possible.

So, your story might be a 2/10. Maybe your cover is too... and your blurb. That's not great. But, you can still reach your benchmark for financial success if you somehow - in spite of those less-than-stellar efforts - still manage to brute-force your way in front of enough eyeballs. 

That means a LOT of spending, a lot of investment in time and money. Fine, let's say you have it to invest. Okay. But, it's a much riskier play because you're investing on the back end - the advertising end, which is far murkier than the areas where you have more say and a lot more control. 

So, the smart play would be to grease your wheels, by diversification - i.e. spreading your investment of time/money across aspects like packaging, etc so you're not required to over-do it, or rather you don't wind up over-shooting it on the advertising end, which is harder to tangibly cap than it is when shopping for covers, crafting blurbs, writing your story, etc.

Basically, greasing the wheels, i.e. getting your cover, blurb, etc to at least a 7 or 8/10, will mean less brute force required in gaining visibility via advertising because you won't need as many eyeballs to see what you have on offer before achieving BUY clicks because what you're putting in front of people is more enticing and puts up less of a barrier between you and a consumer ultimately deciding to purchase.

As a hypothetical (meaning: completely made up numbers here)...

If your cover/blurb/LI/price/overall book are individually or in combination below average, competition-wise, you might be required to make yourself visible to 100,000 potential readers to achieve a regular readership of 2000.

Meanwhile, if someone else has cover/blurb/LI/price/overall book which are above average, competition-wise, they'd likely only need to make themselves visible to 30,000 potential readers to achieve a regular readership of 2000.

That means the latter author likely spent more money for a cover, more time on blurb/LI/choosing a price/crafting their book, and that meant savings on the advertising end, not requiring as much of a time/money investment on ads since they aren't needing to be seen by as many potential buyers to achieve the same end as what you're after. 

This is compounded by the fact that cover prices are definite, tangible things you can see, and that only require a one-time pay out at the start, a well-defined investment without any fog - as opposed to ad-spend which is much more nebulous, seemingly ceaseless, and therefore almost always more expensive in the long run.

Better to invest more on the front end, over which you have much more control and can fully account for, than to leave any of it to chance requiring heaps of intangible spending of time/money on the back end with little idea of overall cost by the time you reach whatever goal you've set out for yourself.

Just stating the obvious here, I realize, but everything's related to everything else, and so at the same time, it's all inversely-proportional. You want to keep your net spending per book/series as definable and as low as possible, but that also means you'll be doing some spending which seems counter-intuitive initially (i.e. purchasing high-quality, expensive covers) in service to that net.


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## Kathy Dee (Aug 27, 2016)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Kind of like the myth that books rise and fall based on their appeal to readers. In reality they rise and fall because they are or are not in KU. They rise and fall due to all kinds of hidden factors like early sales spikes and glowing reviews due to mailing lists and how much has been spent on ads, and how much outside traffic is being generated that the retailer can convert into sales of other products.


Books rise and fall based on one thing only: *sales*! Everything that contributes to getting sales, including KU borrows (as we all know, borrows count as sales) is our responsibility as marketers of our work. But success breeds success at Amazon, because more sales lead to more visibility, which leads to ... more sales. From your many posts on the subject, I understand that this is the part you have not yet experienced. I don't suppose me telling you that it is true will affect your opinion, but it is nevertheless true.

Don't be angry with the world Shane. Your experiment with rapid release did not work for you. That does not mean it is not working for others - you certainly have not proved that. But okay, cross it off your list. You tried, and good for you; time to move on, pick another tactic and try again.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> it won't matter one iota if the book doesn't deliver what the readers expected.


Patty, if I p*ss you off because I have an opinion and stand by it, that doesn't make me a bad writer. Stop implying there's something wrong with my writing. If you don't like my books, that's fine. There are numerous others who do. And I have facts and empirical data to back it up.



> Don't be angry with the world Shane.


I'm not angry, Kathy. Stop implying I'm a bitter old man shouting at the world because nobody buys my books. Sales are not the problem. Visibility isn't even the problem. Advertising isn't a problem. I want *sustainable* revenues. After nine years of learning, improving and working my ass off I'm closer now than I've ever been to achieving it.



> That does not mean it is not working for others - you certainly have not proved that.


If you believe otherwise, than show me significant sales without an established readership, ads or a mailing list. I don't care if you are a Hugo Award winner. If you aren't doing one of those three things your books will not sell. I defy you or anyone else to prove otherwise. Further, from this point forward, every time someone breezes in here with some bullshit story about how they just uploaded a book one day and it took off all by itself, I'm throwing the flag.

In the meantime, whenever I encounter authors who don't know any better being counseled to write a book every month to improve their sales, I'm going to intervene there too. It's cruel, misleading and frankly it's dangerous. People can't work that way, they shouldn't work that way, and I'm not going to allow them to put themselves in danger because they think it's some magic path to riches.


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## Kathy Dee (Aug 27, 2016)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> I'm not angry, Kathy. Stop implying I'm a bitter old man shouting at the world because nobody buys my books.


Ouch!

Certainly was not intending to imply that or anything else for that matter.

P.S. Glad to hear you are not angry


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## R.U. Writing (Jul 18, 2015)

Writers who are new to indie publishing and start listening to the gurus and try to act on some of the information without understanding the full picture can mistakingly believe that all you need to do to achieve success is release books fast (this was my belief a few years ago).

For example, Michael Anderle often talks about how rapid release led him to take off. However, it was not rapid release alone. What people often miss is how heavily he was running FB ads during the time he released his first three books. You have to do some digging, but he mentions it in some of his early interviews. Unfortunately, the FB ads (he ran his own internet marketing company) are not a typical part of the narrative of his success. In contrast, Martha Carr talks about how she rapid released a thriller series. The strategy did not work.

In 2018, I did an experiment under a pen name where I released three 60k to 80k novels in a popular genre very close to each other.

All were in KU.

The first book went to 20k in the store all by itself (no ads, no newsletter, not nothing, just an upload), so I knew I came fairly close to hitting the genre right. The next book had some preorders and did okay, but rapidly releasing it and the third book did nothing other than give the few readers who borrowed the first book an opportunity to borrow the new books sooner.

Rapid release by itself DID NOT lead to success.

Would this series have done better if I had hit the genre straight in the bullseye? Possibly.

But the bottom line is that rapid release by itself does not juice the algorithms. It WILL NOT work alone. Every new publisher needs to know this, so I thank you Shane for your experiment and for verifying my own findings.

Some authors may increase their success by releasing rapidly because, well, naturally, the people who bought the first book and liked it will want the next one sooner.

However, there is nothing else to it.


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## notjohn (Sep 9, 2016)

>show me significant sales without an established readership, ads or a mailing list

Maybe it's implied as part of the first and third necessities, but I think it's worth isolating: a content-rich website that people will visit for its own sake. Obviously this would work better for non-fiction than for fiction, and it takes a lot of time, but my websites (there are several) are where many of my sales are made and where most of my newsletter sign-ups come from. 

I hasten to add however that my sales today are about a third of what they were at the height: January 2012.


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## KevinMcLaughlin (Nov 11, 2010)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Here's how I see it. I think you take great delight in pretending its a meritocracy. You persuade people they are playing one game when in fact they are playing some totally different game. Kind of like the myth that books rise and fall based on their appeal to readers. In reality they rise and fall because they are or are not in KU. They rise and fall due to all kinds of hidden factors like early sales spikes and glowing reviews due to mailing lists and how much has been spent on ads, and how much outside traffic is being generated that the retailer can convert into sales of other products. All of those things can be easily tracked and all kinds of artificial advantages can be built into the system using those factors rather than how "good" the book is.
> 
> ...
> 
> ...


Shane, it's interesting to me that at the start of this post you're saying "it's not a meritocracy" - but then at the end of the post, you say the things which matter are established readership, mailing list, and ads.

If those are the things which matter, then it's basically a meritocracy, since skill in achieving those elements are what makes the difference.

The problem I feel like some people face is that they think the only merit required is to write a good book. That's not so. It also needs to be packaged well: a good cover and description. But even that's not all, because the third element of merit required is the skill of directing reader eyeballs to the book's sales page. All three elements (good writing, good packaging, good marketing) need to be in place to have some assurance of financial success.

On other notes:

Rapid release DOES work, but it's a force multiplier more than it is a visibility boost. That is: a rapid release tends to get a higher percentage of people moving from book one to book two. It tends to NOT increase the number of people who see/buy book one, at least not much. (A rapid release can boost book one sales some.) Mostly rapid release is used to bolster sales of the rest of the series, to improve read-through. You still need to push visibility for book one.

On writing productively: It takes a skilled writer 20-60 minutes to write a thousand words. That means a 60-thousand word book takes 20-60 hours to write. It doesn't stress me out at all to write sixty hours a month as a full-time writer, but I had to work up to that. Early on, I wasn't able to write as fast or as long. Practice made that better. Backlist bought me more time. As sales slowly grew, I was able to cut back on day job hours and add writing hours. At this point, I could maintain a book a month pace forever, without any stress at all. (In fact, at that pace the supermajority of my time is free for other things. It's a pretty relaxed pace.)

In closing, I guess it's just worth remembering that there's a reason why they say an author's first million words of published fiction are their apprenticeship. We tend to learn a ton during that phase, and a lot of it is getting rid of old misconceptions. (That's not aimed at you, Shane; I have no idea how many words you have published.) Early on, I didn't even know what I didn't know. Learning how to gain visibility for books is just one piece of the game, though, something every author has to learn if they want to sell books. It's *part* of the 'meritocracy'.


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

Nobody started with a mailing list or dedicated readership. That stuff is built after the fact. Yes, I started in 2011, when visibility was easier, but really didn't start figuring stuff out until 2014. I am friends with people who only broke out this year, though, and they did it with no ad spend.
Here's the thing: You're all over the place. If you have no problem making ads work, why aren't you slowly building on them and scaling? That's what makes zero sense to me.


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## nail file (Sep 12, 2018)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Patty, if I p*ss you off because I have an opinion and stand by it, that doesn't make me a bad writer. Stop implying there's something wrong with my writing. If you don't like my books, that's fine. There are numerous others who do. And I have facts and empirical data to back it up.


You forgot a key metric in your analysis.

It's what happened TO YOU. What YOU do with YOUR books and YOUR business does not in any way imply or even explicitly prove shit because it's YOU. YOUR analysis of YOUR books.

That's what people are having a problem with. You keep claiming you're proving that it's the way it works ACROSS THE BOARD and it's not. It's only YOU.



Shane Lochlann Black said:


> I'm not angry, Kathy. Stop implying I'm a bitter old man shouting at the world because nobody buys my books.


Sorry, man, but that's exactly how you're coming off. With every PROVE I'M WRONG and BOOM THERE IT IS PROOF and CAN'T DENY IT'S TRUE when people are proving that it's not right, that it isn't proof _for them_ you continue to sound like an embittered, angry man.



Shane Lochlann Black said:


> If you believe otherwise, than show me significant sales without an established readership, ads or a mailing list. I don't care if you are a Hugo Award winner. If you aren't doing one of those three things your books will not sell. I defy you or anyone else to prove otherwise. Further, from this point forward, every time someone breezes in here with some [bullcrap] story about how they just uploaded a book one day and it took off all by itself, I'm throwing the flag.


Quite honestly, I am not gonna lie here, you sound angry and bitter at a few people who have made the claim and are mad that it hasn't worked for you. Well duh. As far as I can tell for the many years I've lurked on this board, NO ONE EVER IN THE HISTORY OF EVER has said that what they did WORKS COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY FOR EVERYONE WHO DOES IT.

They are posting THEIR experience. What worked FOR THEM.

And it just so happens it's not aligning with YOUR experience.



Shane Lochlann Black said:


> In the meantime, whenever I encounter authors who don't know any better being counseled to write a book every month to improve their sales, I'm going to intervene there too. It's cruel, misleading and frankly it's dangerous. People can't work that way, they shouldn't work that way, and I'm not going to allow them to put themselves in danger because they think it's some magic path to riches.


Admirable and in this I agree. What one writer does for success may or may not work for another. And as you've proven, and you have proven it, advice you've read and tried to implement hasn't worked FOR YOU.

What I'm trying to understand is why you think experiential advice absolutely HAS to work THE SAME across ALL EXPERIENCES.

So, with all your shaking your fist at the heavens at the injustice of it all, what have you decided to do, going forward, that may give you this boost you seek? Because, yeah dude, we are working with a wrenched up system. It's not fair and it's not equitable and it's not going to work for everyone the same way. We can't fix that.

We can't fix that.

All we can do is try to work within the system.

So what are you going to do _now_? What are you going to do _differently_?

Because shrieking about it isn't accomplishing anything except making you look _and sound_ angry and bitter.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

The anger and implication comes from you.

Nowhere did I say there is something wrong with your writing. There may be, or there may not. I have no idea because I haven't read the books.

However, what I did say is that the readers might not have found what they wanted. There are other factors other than the "quality" of writing. The style of writing. The subject matter. The type of book. The targeting. The categories. The length.

In an earlier post I think I suggested the length, because man, at the top of the milSF chart, you're boxing against people with full length novels. No set of short-ish novellas, no matter who they were written by, will be able to compete with those.

In the end, if something's not working and you're unhappy, it's more productive to look at any of those factors mentioned above, because they're things you can control.


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## blubarry (Feb 27, 2015)

Amazon owes us nothing. They provide a publishing venue. You are free to use it how you choose, but they are under no obligation to help you succeed. There are tools you can use to improve odds of success, but nothing is guaranteed. Arguing about KU, ads, algorithms, fairness gets your business no further. KU is a strategy to reach different readers than book buyers. As a publisher, you make the choice. Reach KU readers or don't and go wide. Amazon gives a little benefit to those who place books in KU by using borrows to boost rank which then helps visibility, but as others on the thread can attest, that's not necessary to succeed. Ads help push visibility. Rapid release gives more product more often to increase visibility. What you do when you have the visibility depends upon the product.

The OP states he's been publishing for 9 years without success. He's certain his product is high quality and doesn't want to consider the possibility that *it might be him that's the problem*. I've been publishing for 7 years, have had significant success, but continue to look at what I'm putting in the market to make sure it succeeds. When books don't sell, I try to change covers, blurbs, categories, ads, etc to see if I can push it differently. Sometimes a book doesn't connect. That's on me, not on Amazon or any of my distributors. For the lurkers, if you want to change things, look inside as well. Ask questions. Maybe your covers aren't connecting. Maybe your blurbs aren't compelling. Maybe you simply need more eyeballs and ads can help. Maybe the book just doesn't hit the tropes. Listen but trust yourself as well.

_Edited: several sentences have been removed. Drop me a PM if you have any questions. - Becca_


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## Trioxin 245 (Dec 29, 2017)

In any business you can do the "right things" and it does not mean you will be successful. You can pick the perfect location for a restaurant, hire the perfect chef and have rave reviews. And it can still fail.

There is only 100 places in the top 100 of any given category. Dwell on that for a bit. 100 people can grace that particular chart out of the thousands (tens) that want to. Why have they made it there?

Shane does make a valid point concerning releasing book a month, mailing list etc. Its spoken of like do this and that and you will win. And some have responded correctly that they are all ingredients of a bigger recipe to a career.
In other words (directed to no one in particular) stop chasing the "One cool trick that turned my sales around" philosophy. Its doing lots of things and *doing them well*.
Using the mailing list as an example. It is not just a link at the back of a book and collecting a email address to spam with "Buy my new book". Its another opportunity to retain a fan, build a relationship and so on. It takes work.

Last point that can help anyone who is reading this, and that is, who is your reader? How old are they? What is their disposable income? Likes ? Dislikes? Are they mostly men, women? Teens?

If you do not know then ask yourself this. If I do not know who is reading my book how can I sell/appeal to them?


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Patty, if I p*ss you off because I have an opinion and stand by it, that doesn't make me a bad writer. Stop implying there's something wrong with my writing.


There doesn't have to be anything wrong with your writing for people to not like your books. There are plenty of other reasons a person might not like your books, anywhere from not liking the characters or an aspect of the story, to that type of story simply not being their cup of tea. It doesn't mean you're a bad writer -- it's just that no book will be liked by everyone.


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## Lorri Moulton [Lavender Lass Books] (Jun 15, 2019)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Men are told all their lives what women want. Women want a "nice guy." So these men play the dating game based on the rules as stated by society and end up alone in their 60s wondering what they did wrong. They were playing one game while all of society was playing a different game. Women don't want nice guys for the same reason employers don't want marketable skills and for the same reason customers don't want a quality product. That's what they tell you they want. But you don't listen to what they say. You watch what they DO. Women want Christian Grey, employers want 21-year-old slaves and customers want low Chinese prices everyday.


Women want a guy who is nice to THEM. Along with smart, protective when needed, kind to animals, good sense of humor, witty is a big plus as long as they're not too arrogant. And finally, yes it's great if they're physically attractive but personally...I'll take witty banter and a little spark. Spark is the one thing we can't control, but the rest would go a long way towards my idea of a great guy.

ETA: Those are the kind of characters I create in my books...and they do exist in real life.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

I'm going to throw this out there, because a lot of people are looking at this (bizarrely fascinating) thread.

The good thing about being an indie--the fantastic thing--is that there are no limits to how often you can try again. (Well, unless you play so dirty that Amazon bans you forever, but let's assume we're not doing that.) In traditional publishing, one book that doesn't sell well enough can put an end to your "career," but on this journey, you get to tweak, learn, try something new ad infinitum. If a series doesn't work as well as you like, you can change your tagline, your blurb, your cover, your price, your strategy--or just learn that your audience really prefers books set in X country/with Y tone/whatever, and file that away for future use--or not, because maybe you want to keep trying with non-X country, with non-Y tone, because that matters to you.

At the beginning of my own journey, every thing that went wrong (and there were plenty of them, including mistakes/missteps by Amazon but more often those made by me) felt like a gigantic, unrecoverable disaster. After a while, I realized that there was always another release. Always another series. Always another ad. Nothing is the end of the road. You don't have to give up unless it's not worth it to you anymore.

Most people don't make a living publishing. That doesn't mean personal-you never will. Or maybe you'll just share your words with a smaller core group, and know you've expressed yourself. Or maybe you'll decide that you were primarily doing all this as an entrepreneurial venture, and if it doesn't work--you'd prefer to find another entrepreneurial venture, or a non-entrepreneurial one. Hey, I used to be a marketing writer, among other things. There are ways to get paid for snappy writing without going the fiction route.

ETA: The key word above is *learn.* You really do have to figure out what's working and what isn't and then adjust, if you want different results.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> Shane, it's interesting to me that at the start of this post you're saying "it's not a meritocracy" - but then at the end of the post, you say the things which matter are established readership, mailing list, and ads.
> 
> If those are the things which matter, then it's basically a meritocracy, since skill in achieving those elements are what makes the difference.


That's exactly my point. We've been told for years on end that the skills that matter are cover, blurb, quality of the writing, blah blah blah. That's one game. Then there's this whole other game that relies on ads, mailing lists and Bookbubs. While new authors who don't know any better are selling their car to get a better cover, the authors who DO get it are busy building their lists and tuning their ads. It doesn't take an MBA to figure out who is going to win. The evidence is all over Kboards.

I can take the world's most mediocre book and turn it into a best-seller given a big enough marketing budget. This business is replete with warmed-over crap that was marketed skillfully enough to get to the top. All of human enterprise is infested with lazy, three-star junk that sells. Why? Because it is advertised effectively. Because the author has a list and an established readership and knows how to use them.

Here's a perfect story of taking a middle-of-the-road product and turning it into a winner:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moneyball

If it were true that the "better" team always wins, then there would be no reason to play the game.

Meanwhile, hand me the next Newbery Winner, a zero marketing budget, no list and no readers and it will faceplant. Oh sure, I might be the one in ten million books that "takes off" or "breaks out" with no marketing, but then again I might start at shortstop for the Cleveland Indians next year too. Lottery wins are not a business plan.

So it absolutely is a meritocracy. Just make sure you are playing the right game and while you're at it, make sure the game isn't playing you.


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## Bite the Dusty (Aug 9, 2020)

Shane,

I've been a longtime lurker, and although there have been a few exceptions over the years, I've always been under the impression that rapid release and advertising go hand in hand. From what I've read, the purpose of rapid release is to mitigate the high cost of AMS.

I've read through this thread, but forgive me if I missed it: did you advertise your new novella series yet? If not, do you plan to? I know from reading your posts you have an aversion to giving Amazon a further piece of the pie, but you also seem to have advertised in the past. If you haven't yet started, I'd be interested to hear more once you have.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

I'm seeing some posts in this thread that are absolutely not okay at KBoards -- name-calling, accusations of trolling, suggestions that another member needs mental health treatment, and so forth. I'm temporarily locking the thread while I clean up and clear out.


ETA: I've removed two problematic posts, plus a couple more that responded to them (the latter were fine but no longer made sense, given the deletions).

An FYI for newer members, who may not be aware: Not permitting public accusations of trolling, either direct or oblique, is fundamental to our forum culture. We ask members always to respond as though others are posting in good faith. We do realize that pot-stirring happens. If you suspect someone may be posting with the goal of provoking conflict, by all means report the problematic posts to the moderators, using the link to the bottom-right of each post. But never accuse publicly in the thread.

Similarly, name-calling and insults are not permitted. I realize one person's insult is another person's straight talk or constructive critique, so finding the line can be a matter of judgment. But if you're posting with the goal of wounding, belittling, or angering, you've definitely crossed over.

Unlocking now. Thanks, and carry on.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

Self-publishing can never be a level playing field for authors, without even needing to go looking at Amazon's mysterious algos and behind the scenes shinnanagins , if any. My opinion, but Amazon is the last place to look, as what goes for one, goes for all, effectively giving us all the same chances. They are in business for themselves to make a profit for themselves and to give shareholder value. 

For it to be a level playing field, all authors would need to have equality of knowledge in all aspects of writing and crafting a story and all that is involved in bringing a book to market, but that is not, and never will be the case. 

Each author would need equality of typing speed and the same alloted time for everyone to produce books at the same pace for publication, again, this is not, and never will be the case. 

Furthermore, all authors would need equality of disposable funds to invest in both production and marketing, which again, is not and never will be the case.

And lastly, each genre would need the same amount of potential readers and each author would need equality of luck, again this is not, and never will be the case.

We just have to get on with whatever we have at out fingertips.


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## EleanorRigby (Jul 9, 2020)

I'm new here so I may know nothing about which I speak but... is there not a chance that the OP didn't build an audience because people just don't like his books, or feel they're too short, or dislike the covers/blurbs?

It seems strange to have poor sales and no following, and then proclaim it to be impossible. I can't run the 100 metres in 10 seconds, no matter how hard I try, but there are plenty of people out there who can, and it is possible if you're dedicated and talented enough.


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## RBC (Feb 24, 2013)

Is there a point to keep this thread open? The OP is dead set that he is right even tho multiple people have their experience shared showing he isn't right 100%. Further more OP failed to finish his test and thus his data is flawed or, at least, incomplete so it can't be used as a serious case study. This is just pointless arguing and people wasting time. If there was a hint of OP being open minded to listen to people then maybe this thread had some hope. Now it's just sad...


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> is there not a chance that the OP didn't build an audience because people just don't like his books, or feel they're too short, or dislike the covers/blurbs?


Like several others in this thread, you are proceeding from a conclusion for which there is no evidence. I never stated I have "no audience."

(Remember, kids. They always lash out at you where they think you are vulnerable, and people are trained all their lives to go after creative people and their doubts about the qualify of their work -- in our society we start teaching kids to attack people like this in elementary school)

If readers didn't like my books, I wouldn't have read-through rates north of 60% books one to two, or 90% books three to four. Sales are not the problem here. Sustainable sales are. The purpose of this thread is to puncture the myth that books sell all by themselves or that publishing every four weeks is going to influence some magical algorithm somewhere. They won't and it isn't. That's magical thinking, kind of like "oh, I can get the exact same quality from China for 95% less so let's go ahead and fire all the Americans." Ask Disney how that's working out.

If I accomplish nothing else, perhaps this thread will at least prevent the next author from buying in to what could very well be a dangerous attempt to increase their sales through what ultimately qualifies as a stunt at best and incredibly unhealthy work habits at worst. The only things that improve sales are ads, mailing lists and established readerships. Unless whatever you do improves one of those three things, nothing you do will increase your sales.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> If there was a hint of OP being open minded to listen to people then maybe this thread had some hope. Now it's just sad...


With all due respect, I'll keep my own counsel on what topics my threads cover. My experiment was a devastating success. Not only did I prove rapid release has zero practical effect, I had that conclusion directly confirmed from the source. I've probably saved 100,000 man-hours of wasted time and Heaven knows how many books. Every author that comes across this thread now has definitive proof.

Since we're on the topic, every thread on this board is one person insisting they are right and the usual suspects trying to shout them down. The reason my threads grow to thousands of views is because everyone tunes in to see what I'll say next. You would be amazed at how many people send me supportive messages. They love the fact that I don't back down. I'm not going to apologize for my opinion either. If you don't agree with me, that's fine. If you don't like my books, that's fine. I challenge you to actually read them before you make these Olympian leaps to your conclusions, however.

In fact, I'll give you free copies of my top titles if you'll agree to say something positive about them for every point you make criticizing what you believe is substandard writing. Why, you can even say nasty things about them in public if you prefer. (I always find something good about every book I read, even if they aren't my cup of tea) But I know you'll find something you like about each book. Yeah, I'm that confident.

P.S. I'll tell you a secret. If I were really that [poopy] a writer, nobody would read my threads either.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> P.S. I'll tell you a secret. If I were really that [poopy] a writer, nobody would read my threads either.


That's a fallacy. A person doesn't have to be a good writer for people to be curious about what they're going to say next.


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## Lorri Moulton [Lavender Lass Books] (Jun 15, 2019)

I enjoy Shane's threads.  While I don't always agree with everything, I find them interesting and often thought-provoking.  I don't see any reason to shut the thread down.  If anyone doesn't enjoy it, they can simply move on to the next one.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> A person doesn't have to be a good writer for people to be curious about what they're going to say next.


Fair enough. I'm going to post the first part of _Strike Battleship Argent_ here. It's my best book. Since you (and several others) seem to have this need to question my talent, how about you and the rest of the writing experts hereabouts go through this line by line and teach me to be a better writer? I wish to learn.

Then we'll let the readers of this thread decide if your critique has any credibility or not. I'll put _Argent_ up against any of my competitors. This is my 'A' game. This is the first chapter of a 300,000 word series.

This is your big chance, Shayne! This is you and the rest of the board's chance to show the world just how [poopy] a writer I am.  Bring it on!

"Alright, Hunter, let's have it."

Deep space pilots called the Jupiter Skyway Approach Port "Max Boomtown." The value of the cargo passing through the facility on any given day could easily rival the total output of one or more colonies along the Reach. The man in charge of it all was a no-nonsense merchant marine inspector by the name of Jeremiah Foobing.

"Honestly, Inspector, I can't believe you, of all people, could think I would violate fleet contraband policy." Jason Hunter was standing with his hands folded behind his back and wearing his most un-threatening expression along with his flawlessly pressed and shined Skywatch officer's uniform.

Around the inspector's office hummed the vital operations of Merchant Customs Authority. Max Boomtown was one of the largest civilian freight inspection stations in the Core Sector, often processing more than 100 ships a day ranging in size from personal interplanetary cruisers to billion-ton star trains.

"Sure you don't want to come to the party?" Hunter asked, trying to distract the overworked customs officer.

Inspector Foobing sat at his desk, fiddling with fiddly scraps of paper. He believed computers were 100% of the reason his numbers failed to add up correctly, so he kept all his records in writing. His prodigious weight scarcely fit between his sagging desk and the wall. The office looked like an 18th century British librarian's closet, with tiny wooden drawers, brass cabinet fittings and enough accounting books to sink a small rowboat. Out the window behind him, Hunter could see the line of ships docked for inspection. His shuttle was the closest and the smallest by a factor of at least six.

"Hunter every time you come through here, we go through the same dance. You and I both know you're carrying illegal booze. I call you on it. You deny it. Then I have to decide if I want to send a squad of officers out to climb through your ship deck by deck looking for it. The next time I'm just going to shoot you. It's less paperwork. Get that juiced-up hot rod off my docks." Foobing shoved a customs clearance into Hunters hands and waddled towards the door, wheezing impatiently.

"It's going to be a bash, Inspector. Sure you won't--"

"Get out, Hunter!" Foobing shouted across the bustling customs office.

"Just one drink?" he called back.

"OUT!" The voice echoed.

Moments later, Hunter spied his favorite Boomtown official. She went by the name Tisalee, and she had been persuaded on multiple occasions to let the captain skate by when the Inspector wasn't looking. He snuck up on her desk and appeared from behind her overhead cabinets.

"Hi," Hunter grinned. "Miss me?"

"You get out of here!" Tisalee whispered urgently. "The last time you and that--that _creature_ almost got me fired!" The captain was leaning over the half-height wall to look down on her desk. He picked up her tablet and flipped through the pages nonchalantly.

"I see you're still reading those naughty books with the shirtless pirate captains on the covers," Hunter teased as he raised an eyebrow. "Ooh, the pirate has a tomato..." Tisalee ripped the tablet out of his hands and put it in a drawer.

"Do I have to call security?"

"Oh, don't be like that," the captain replied, reclining his chin on his arms and over-doing the smoldering look. "I was going to invite you to our party. Annora got her SAR ticket. We're flying in to Scary's for a drink and dinner and maybe a little something extra. That sounds like something you would have jumped at before you turned into Tisalee the worker bee."

She actually hesitated, looking into Jason's dancing eyes and gazing at his sandy boyish hair for a moment and remembering how many times he was the only reason she smiled. Then she remembered the time she had to be bailed out of jail half-dressed and her expression darkened again. "I have plans."

"Oh well, I tried. Say hi to your mom for me." Hunter sauntered off. "Hey Mike! How's the new sled?" Tisalee watched as the captain greeted at least five more people before walking out into the softlock.

She quickly suppressed her second thoughts and went back to her rows and columns of numbers.


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## Corvid (May 15, 2014)

Lorri Moulton [Lavender Lass Books] said:


> I enjoy Shane's threads. While I don't always agree with everything, I find them interesting and often thought-provoking. I don't see any reason to shut the thread down. If anyone doesn't enjoy it, they can simply move on to the next one.


Agreed.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Fair enough. I'm going to post the first part of _Strike Battleship Argent_ here. It's my best book. Since you (and several others) seem to have this need to question my talent, how about you and the rest of the writing experts hereabouts go through this line by line and teach me to be a better writer? I wish to learn.
> 
> Then we'll let the readers of this thread decide if your critique has any credibility or not. I'll put _Argent_ up against any of my competitors. This is my 'A' game. This is the first chapter of a 300,000 word series.
> 
> This is your big chance, Shayne! This is you and the rest of the board's chance to show the world just how [poopy] a writer I am.  Bring it on!


Sorry, dude. I could not possibly be less interested in offering you a critique of your story. You say you wish to learn, but you obviously don't. Because the last time you asked what was wrong with one of your stories, and I gave you my opinion as a reader, you immediately told me that my opinion was wrong. So why would I waste my time just to be told, again, that I'm wrong?


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> I could not possibly be less interested in offering you a critique of your story.


Let the record show you were given a free and clear chance to prove to the world I'm a [poopy] writer and you walked away.



> So why would I waste my time just to be told, again, that I�m wrong?


What difference does it make what I think? This thread has six thousand views! You have a worldwide audience on the edge of their seat waiting to hear how bad I am at writing!


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Let the record show you were given a free and clear chance to prove to the world I'm a [poopy] writer and you walked away.


I so stipulate. I'm not the one with a need to prove anything. People can make up their minds all on their own.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> People can make up their minds all on their own.


Agreed. Shayne decided not to step into the batter's box. If anyone else reading this thread would like to describe my alleged lack of talent in detail and prove to the world I'm a [poopy] writer, feel free. We'll let the audience decide if your critique has any credibility or not.

Now you might be asking yourself what's the point? Simple. Every thread on Kboards eventually devolves into "your books don't sell as well as mine because your writing/cover/blurb sucks." I'm just asking for the details. Who knows? Maybe we'll all learn to be as flawless and as effortlessly talented as the Bubclub?

If I'm as bad as they allege, it should be as obvious as a corpse in a flower shop, right? Let's watch.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Agreed. Shayne decided not to step into the batter's box. If anyone else reading this thread would like to describe my alleged lack of talent in detail and prove to the world I'm a [poopy] writer, feel free. We'll let the audience decide if your critique has any credibility or not.


Just curious... if someone does take you up on this oh so magnanimous offer, and other people agree that the critique has credibility, what then?


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## blubarry (Feb 27, 2015)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> With all due respect, I'll keep my own counsel on what topics my threads cover. My experiment was a devastating success. Not only did I prove rapid release has zero practical effect, I had that conclusion directly confirmed from the source. I've probably saved 100,000 man-hours of wasted time and Heaven knows how many books. Every author that comes across this thread now has definitive proof.


You have proved they had zero practical effect *for you*.

That's the factor you keep trying to generalize. Then you turn the discussion into a debate about the quality of your writing. It's great you have readthrough. You've now called everyone on kboards "kids" and referred to yourself as "uncle" but referring to you the way I did earlier in the thread gets my posts edited. My original, now deleted, statement about your intentions stands. I'm sure you saw it as I imagine you've been watching the thread with great delight.

I didn't read your writing. I can look at your covers for your non-SciFi and tell you you're not hitting the intended audience. This goes for what I presume an attempt at MG and your romance. If you're looking for sustainable readership, you need to constantly appeal outside of your typical bubble. That's where cover and blurb come in. My readers will buy everything I offer them. It's attracting an ongoing audience that's where the challenge comes in. And despite others telling you that they've successfully launched with rapid release, you continue to decry how it doesn't work.

Let's come back to those rapid release titles. Post them here. Let's analyze. Break it down via kboards. I bet you will get some opinions as to why it didn't work. Were they novel length? Novellas don't perform like novels. Were the covers to market? Did the blurbs compel? Was there a call to action from book 1 to 2? Stop playing in your absolutes and open for discussion.

I find your posts rarely helpful and potentially damaging to new authors. That's the reason I keep posting here. Bad information like you spew is dangerous.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> Just curious... if someone does take you up on this oh so magnanimous offer, and other people agree that the critique has credibility, what then?


Well then I'll have to re-evaluate my career, won't I? I'll have to conclude all those positive reviews were fake, I'll have to conclude that all my sales were accidental and I'll have to admit at long last that I'm just a talentless impostor who will never succeed no matter how hard I work. I'll have to conclude that the reason I sold thousands instead of millions is because I'm just bad at what I do.

Maybe I'll quit and take up truck driving. That's what you want, isn't it? Discourage someone until they quit? God knows we've seen enough of that over the years around here.

Taking a hell of a lot of practice swings, there, Shayne. Are you going to step up to the plate or not?


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## MMSN (Feb 27, 2019)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Fair enough. I'm going to post the first part of _Strike Battleship Argent_ here. It's my best book. Since you (and several others) seem to have this need to question my talent, how about you and the rest of the writing experts hereabouts go through this line by line and teach me to be a better writer? I wish to learn.


Shane-- I think you have a great deal of writing talent and I enjoy your posts. But you asked, so... [Remember, this is purely my opinion, feel free to totally ignore.]

First sentence of chapter is indented.
Formatting is not justified.
correctly, so he kept---- unnecessary comma
around the inspector---be better to capitalize the I
into Hunters hand----missing apostrophe
"dancing eyes"---cliche
Hunter every time---missing comma after Hunter
Then she remembered---sentence started with preposition, a no-no (I do it too)
Numerous sentence fragments (missing sentence subject).


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Even if it were true that it's impossible to succeed without an established readership and a (presumably large) mailing list of people who will actually pay for or borrow one's books, how do you imagine other authors acquire this dedicated readership and mailing list? Did they not grow that readership organically, getting eyes on the book by free promos, cross-promo, ads, or whatever else, and picking up people who liked the books enough to pick up the next one? Unless folks are actually utilizing click farms or something, how else are they building their readership, and what is keeping other, equally talented writers from doing so? 

Specifically, if you've been publishing all these years, what has kept you from growing your readership and mailing list? Is the theory that it's due to Amazon's evil? But then, why DOES it work for other people? Is it a plot against specific-you, a plot in favor of some hypothetical group whom Amazon has advantaged for reasons of their own, or what? I'm still not clear on this. What do you see standing in your way that is not also standing in everybody else's way?


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Well then I'll have to re-evaluate my career, won't I? I'll have to conclude all those positive reviews were fake...


What about all the negative reviews? Are they real?



Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Maybe I'll quit and take up truck driving. That's what you want, isn't it? Discourage someone until they quit? God knows we've seen enough of that over the years around here.
> 
> Taking a hell of a lot of practice swings, there, Shayne. Are you going to step up to the plate or not?


I don't want to discourage anyone until they quit. I don't want to discourage people at all. That's the problem. I think a lot of your comments are probably very discouraging to new writers, which is why I won't let them stand unchallenged.

And I already told you, I'm not wasting my time on a crit of your chapter. Last time, when you were lamenting that no one was buying your middle grade stuff I read part of your Look Inside and offered you some crit on it that I thought might be helpful to you. And I was immediately rebuffed and told I was wrong. So, I tried to help you, and you didn't want that help, so now my comments are for the other people reading this thread.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> Then you turn the discussion into a debate about the quality of your writing.


On the contrary, YOU turned it into a discussion of the quality of my writing.



> This goes for what I presume an attempt at MG and your romance.


Most of those covers are seven and eight years old. I haven't written nor have I made any attempt to sell romance books since 2014.



> And despite others telling you that they've successfully launched with rapid release, you continue to decry how it doesn't work.


Rapid release has zero effect on sales. If all you do is write fast and publish fast you will end up with a long list of invisible books. I have documented proof directly from Amazon.



> Let's come back to those rapid release titles. Post them here. Let's analyze.


I can save us all the time and trouble. "Your covers suck, your blurbs suck, you're a shitty writer, they aren't novel length, they're priced too high."

For the record, the only reason they aren't novel-length is because I was told rapid release is the road to Oz.

And if you're having trouble finding my books at this point, I'm afraid there's not a hell of a lot I can do to help you.



> I find your posts rarely helpful and potentially damaging to new authors.


Opinions are like assholes. Everybody's got one.



> Bad information like you spew is dangerous.


Encouraging authors to engage in self-destructive work habits is dangerous.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> how do you imagine other authors acquire this dedicated readership and mailing list?


Bookbub. Or they got their start in 2011 and took advantage of the sparse competition and enormously powerful built-in advantages. They also probably got head starts on their mailing lists and participated in numerous box set groups. They likely chose to-market genres and stayed in their lane.

I didn't do any of that. I went into writing as a creative outlet. It wasn't until my blood-soaked, broken body was fished out of a trash dumpster that I learned my lesson about how un-creative this business really is. It's like directing a _Star Wars_ movie. The audience hates your ******* guts because you won't do anything creative with the characters, but insists that every movie must have TIE fighters, star destroyers, Darth Vader and lightsabers or you're a stupidface. Then they run to YouTube and post six hundred thousand hours of complaining about it.



> Did they not grow that readership organically, getting eyes on the book by free promos, cross-promo, ads, or whatever else, and picking up people who liked the books enough to pick up the next one?


If someone discovers your book on their own and buys it, that's an organic sale. Any effort by you to invite them to buy the book disqualifies it as an organic sale. Organic no longer exists because why give visibility away free when you can sell it?



> Specifically, if you've been publishing all these years, what has kept you from growing your readership and mailing list?


Nothing. I have grown my readership and mailing list.



> Is the theory that it's due to Amazon's evil?


I didn't say Amazon was evil. I said the New Releases list isn't a new releases list and that as a result, rapid release is pointless.



> But then, why DOES it work for other people?


Because they all have talent and everybody loves them. Meanwhile I have none and that's why everybody hates me.



> What do you see standing in your way that is not also standing in everybody else's way?


At this point if I had enough cash to spend on ads I could retire. Hell, at this point a couple thousand bucks would be the ball game. I'd have a big enough list to sustain my career forever.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Do you imagine that other people spent money they did not earn from writing on their ads? Generally not. 

We all started in the same place. With a book. Probably not knowing much. 

If it's box sets--you could have done them. 

If it's BookBub--it's a curated list. Selection isn't due to black magic, and they don't throw a dart at a bunch of book covers. You can also apply for it over and over again. 

If it's ads--you could have taken out ads. 

Organic sales come mainly from word of mouth. Believe it or not. **ETA: And reviews, and the snowball effect of having a book on the charts.***

I'm afraid I still don't get it. If a couple thousand bucks would set you up so you could retire forever, why don't you advertise with the money you DO have now and scaffold? Reinvest the proceeds. If you're sure the books will delight readers, why not? That's what other authors have done. Virtually nobody comes in with $100,000 (from their venture-capital days?) and says, let me build my empire, because those fool readers will buy anything if it has a pretty cover--and somehow they will keep on buying my future books, because .... ?

I've got a reasonably large mailing list, 31 books out, audio on all 31, translations on many, and have been very successful for 8 years now. But let me tell you--no way could a couple thousand bucks in ads set me up to retire forever, not in the sense of continuing my current income. And I'm 61.  Publishing doesn't work that way. 

Good luck. Back to work for me.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> Last time, when you were lamenting that no one was buying your middle grade stuff I read part of your Look Inside and offered you some crit on it that I thought might be helpful to you.


Yes. I remember that critique well. You zeroed in on the personality of my main character. You said nothing about the quality of the writing. You said nothing about voice or craft or anything that might qualify as literary critique. You focused instead on Jessica, because she's happy and optimistic and bubbly and we just can't HAVE that in 2020, now can we? "Uhh, she sounds too young. Uhh, she sounds like she's mentally handicapped. Uhh, she doesn't act her age." Blah blah.

No, in this day and age, characters have to be dark, brooding, homicidal nihilists with a side of atheism and a healthy appetite for sexual violence. Go watch "The Boys" on Amazon. I remember not all that long ago when superheroes were actually heroes. Not any more. Now all they need are super powers. Then they qualify to star in a television series about naked, wanton savagery and brutality.

So you and numerous others hereabouts pounced on Jessica because she isn't a soulless ghoul. You couldn't find anything wrong with the writing so you took a swipe at what you could and you actually expected me to abandon my main character. There's no writer alive who would do that, but you knew that too. All you wanted was a fait accompli. "Oh, you're not going to drown your main character in a sink? Well you just won't accept criticism, then."

That's why you're avoiding the subject now. Truth is you can't find anything substantive about my writing to criticize, so you're dancing around the subject or bringing up other books where you think you had some kind of advantage.

If you want my honest opinion, I hope Jessica keeps people awake at night. I hope they grind their teeth at how good and kind she is. I don't care if I sell my last book from under a newspaper living in an alley someplace. I will never abandon my characters.


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## Flying Pizza Pie (Dec 19, 2016)

Shane, not everyone uses grammar and syntax the same way, but most everyone uses punctuation in a similar manner. Aside from the inspector/Inspector item, there's also "we're flying in to" instead of into, and later "into Hunters hands" should be Hunter's, it's possessive, right? There are probably six or seven places I'd use a comma (certainly after "Hey" to start a sentence), so I'd say based on a couple pages of text, your editing might need to be stronger.

As for the story itself, it's not bad, but places like "She went by the name Tisalee" and the beginning paragraph are "telling the story, not showing it."

In places like this:

He picked up her tablet and flipped through the pages nonchalantly.

"I see you're still reading those naughty books with the shirtless pirate captains on the covers," Hunter teased as he raised an eyebrow. 
xxx

I'd drop the "nonchalantly" and at the end I'd say "Hunter teased, raising an eyebrow."

Those little things add up to a lot in a story. You've got the structure, but a line editor might have made the passage you gave us a better, smoother read.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> Those little things add up to a lot in a story. You've got the structure, but a line editor might have made the passage you gave us a better, smoother read.


Agreed. I'm sure you will also agree those flaws don't add up to "talentless, bad writer that readers avoid."

If the assertion is "Shane's books are flawed and could be improved," I'm in full agreement.

If the assertion is alternately "Shane's books demonstrate a lack of talent and craft, and readers are likely to avoid his books as a result" I'm afraid that isn't supported by the facts.


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## Patrick1980 (Jul 26, 2020)

This is not directed at the OP, but more generally speaking.

I've seen a number of threads like this since around 2018. (I posted one myself a few days ago, although the tone was different.)

Even the "big name" indies say that things are getting harder. Mark Dawson spent $500K in advertising last year.

What happened? Between 2009 and 2012, there was a state of "irrational exuberance" in indie publishing. More books, and more books, and _more_ books was what the gurus all preached.

But what about more readers? At first, indie publishing probably did bring in new readers. After all, the trad publishers weren't putting out many reverse harem romances, and not nearly enough space marine novels.

But then reverse harem and space marine novels were coming out at the rate of dozens, even hundreds, of new titles per day. (Joanna Penn revealed a few years ago that some author collectives now publish a new book_ every single day._)

Economically, it's unsustainable for large numbers of authors. We've reached a point where the rate of new material being published far exceeds the rate of new readers coming on board.

The simple fact of the matter is: Most indie authors aren't going to make it, in the sense of having a "real income" from writing fiction. 
Many will continue to enjoy a handful of appreciative reviews. Others will earn nice 4-figure second incomes. But $50K~$100K per year? Maybe not.

This means, in effect, that things are going "back to normal"--only the new normal is different, of course.

This will affect behavior. I would guess that whereas in 2011 a newbie coming to a venue like KBoards saw encouragement, now they see caution.

I also look for more people to quit over the next few years. Not quit as in "unpublish everything from Amazon", but quit as in, "no longer assume that I can easily make this into a viable full-time income." There will be a lot more writers who are simply hobbyists publishing a novel here and there.

Fiction writing was always a perilous career choice. (That's why they used to say, "Don't quit your day job.")

It's understandable that people want to blame someone: Amazon, Mark Dawson, whoever. But at the end of the day, this is a classic supply-exceeds-demand situation.



ShayneRutherford said:


> What about all the negative reviews? Are they real?
> 
> I don't want to discourage anyone until they quit. I don't want to discourage people at all. That's the problem. I think a lot of your comments are probably very discouraging to new writers, which is why I won't let them stand unchallenged.
> 
> And I already told you, I'm not wasting my time on a crit of your chapter. Last time, when you were lamenting that no one was buying your middle grade stuff I read part of your Look Inside and offered you some crit on it that I thought might be helpful to you. And I was immediately rebuffed and told I was wrong. So, I tried to help you, and you didn't want that help, so now my comments are for the other people reading this thread.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> Economically, it's unsustainable for large numbers of authors. We've reached a point where the rate of new material being published far exceeds the rate of new readers coming on board.


Meanwhile, the conventional wisdom is more tropes, tighter adherence to market, covers that look the same, ads that look the same and woe unto you if you deviate too far from the orthodoxy, because that could lead to a nice sunny de-platforming.

Give you a perfect example. I have a series of books called "You Lead the Adventure." They are distantly similar to Choose Your Own Adventure books, except updated for the digital age. There are certain platforms I flat out can't publish them on. Can't risk it. Too dangerous. If a tap sends a reader from the right page to the wrong page or too far into the book, well, you know what happens next.

There's tremendous potential there. Could even bring in a new reader or three. But you're not allowed to experiment because there's a nuclear warhead duct-taped to your crotch.

The whole "write to market" thing simply drains all the joy out of this business. Nobody's having any fun because we all have to write the same book over and over again while the readers have to wade through a tsunami of crap every day to find something worth reading, only to discover it's more of the same.

I'll even bring up Kboards' favorite subject: children's books. And I'm just going to say it because frankly, I'm goshdarnn sick and tired of having a knife to my throat: Amazon doesn't give a damn about children's literacy for the same reason YouTube doesn't. They've all been threatened within an inch of their lives by Disney the government over COPPA. If you make any attempt to sell something that kids might like, a four foot eight accountant shows up with a letter threatening you with eternal financial hellfire under the Thou Shalt Not Compete With Disney Act.

The head of the FTC actually threatened (with an American flag behind him, no less) creators on YouTube with fines of up to $42,530 if it turned out their video wasn't to the government's liking. So that about wrapped it up for videos kids might like. Thousands of channels went dark. Once again, children were disinvited from the Internet, and only what, 2-3 years after the last toy store was bulldozed? Amazon has a whole section of their store ostensibly dedicated to children's entertainment. Are indies allowed? Of course not.

Disney Plus launched a few weeks later, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

So comics, picture books, game books, MG, YA, or anything potentially innovative is off the table before we even pick up a pencil. And that's [bullcrap]. Further, it's part of the reason we can't get any traction. There's an entire universe of books we can't even think about writing because we're trapped in these tiny [expletive]ing cages in a lightless room and forced to write the same five books over and over again.

Nobody writes a goshdarnn thing now without thinking "am I going to get banned? Am I going to get demonetized? Am I gonna get canceled? Will Google like it? Will I get any traffic? What if I say a bad word? Oh noes, what if someone thinks I'm no good??"

Is it possible readers are bored out of their minds? Oh look, another wisecracking demon with glowing hands--*YAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWN*--unsubscribed

Nobody wants to be here if it isn't fun, and I'm sorry, if every time I type three words I have to erase two I'm not going to inspire anything in my audience but somnolence.

(Someone at dictionary.com is going to be rather confused tomorrow morning)


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Yes. I remember that critique well. You zeroed in on the personality of my main character. You said nothing about the quality of the writing


Yes. Because writing is all about the characters. Writing a book that people want to read is about creating characters that people want to spend time with. Because if they don't like the characters, who's going to want to spend several hours going on an adventure with them?



Shane Lochlann Black said:


> You said nothing about the quality of the writing. You said nothing about voice or craft or anything that might qualify as literary critique. You focused instead on Jessica, because she's happy and optimistic and bubbly and we just can't HAVE that in 2020, now can we? "Uhh, she sounds too young. Uhh, she sounds like she's mentally handicapped. Uhh, she doesn't act her age." Blah blah.


I wasn't offering you a literary critique. I was offering you the opinion of a reader, who might have been interested in reading your books. Because despite what you seem to think, I actually really like reading about powerful female characters. I focused on Jessica because she's the first character that we meet, and because she's the reader's way into the story. And you are putting words in my mouth. I said she sounded twelve instead of the 16 she's supposed to be. I never said she sounded mentally handicapped.

There's nothing wrong with a character who is optimistic or happy. I'm sure middle grade readers would happily read about a protagonist like that. But girls of middle-grade reading age also want to read up, about protagonists who are older than they are. So the character needs to act her age.



Shane Lochlann Black said:


> So you and numerous others hereabouts pounced on Jessica because she isn't a soulless ghoul. You couldn't find anything wrong with the writing so you took a swipe at what you could and you actually expected me to abandon my main character. There's no writer alive who would do that, but you knew that too. All you wanted was a fait accompli. "Oh, you're not going to drown your main character in a sink? Well you just won't accept criticism, then."


Maybe this conversation would go better if you stopped trying to have both sides of it. I wasn't trying to find something wrong with the writing. I was trying to find a reason why your potential readers might not buy the books. And since your readership for those books is 10 - 14 year old girls, the quality of the writing is probably not going to be the reason they're not buying, so looking at that would be a waste of time.

Also, I never said you should abandon your main character. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater is kind of a waste. But if her character is preventing readers from getting into the story, you could always revisit her dialogue?



Shane Lochlann Black said:


> That's why you're avoiding the subject now.


No. I'm not critiquing your chapter because doing a good critique requires effort, and I can't be bothered putting in effort to something that you're just going to ignore.



Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Truth is you can't find anything substantive about my writing to criticize, so you're dancing around the subject or bringing up other books where you think you had some kind of advantage.


Creating characters that readers want to spend time with is substantive. It's extremely important. It's one of the most important aspects of storytelling. People will forgive a bit of clunky prose, or some missing punctuation, but they won't spend hours with a character that they don't like. For that matter, something like half the people in the US read at a fifth-grade reading level or lower, so most of them won't even notice that the punctuation is missing.

I don't even know what that last part means. The only advantage I have in discussing it is that I actually read some of it, and can therefore speak about what I read. And that was the book that I offered you critique on before. It doesn't really make sense to talk about a book that I haven't read any of, does it?


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## Flying Pizza Pie (Dec 19, 2016)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Agreed. I'm sure you will also agree those flaws don't add up to "talentless, bad writer that readers avoid."
> 
> A) If the assertion is "Shane's books are flawed and could be improved," I'm in full agreement.
> 
> B) If the assertion is alternately "Shane's books demonstrate a lack of talent and craft, and readers are likely to avoid his books as a result" I'm afraid that isn't supported by the facts.


I made no statement about your talent, that's of course up to the book-reading masses to decide, not just another struggling Indie author such as myself. I would say, however, that part "A" being attended to is probably the difference between greater success and just moderate sales.


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## NikOK (Jun 27, 2020)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Nobody writes a goshdarnn thing now without thinking "am I going to get banned? Am I going to get demonetized? Am I gonna get canceled? Will Google like it? Will I get any traffic? What if I say a bad word? Oh noes, what if someone thinks I'm no good!"


Untrue  But I like my day job, so that helps. It's a lot easier writing whatever the heck I want to write if I don't need to do it. I get the point though, and I know that you're talking about writing as a business, but I'm just saying, it's not always a wasteland of same thing after same thing after same thing. Though you might have to look under a few rocks to find the other stuff.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> Because if they don't like the characters, who's going to want to spend several hours going on an adventure with them?


That's a very good question. Now be careful, Shayne. I'm going to ask you a pivotal question:

Leaving aside your *personal opinions* about how a 16 year old girl should act and speak, and keeping in mind I'm capable of writing over a million words of commercial-quality fiction in less than four years, why do you think I wrote Jessica the way I did? Is it because of my complete lack of talent or do you suppose I might have planned ahead?

I should point out I created Jessica Halloran when Bill Clinton was president.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> That's a very good question. Now be careful, Shayne. I'm going to ask you a pivotal question:
> 
> Leaving aside your *personal opinions* about how a 16 year old girl should act and speak, and keeping in mind I'm capable of writing over a million words of commercial-quality fiction in less than four years, why do you think I wrote Jessica the way I did? Is it because of my complete lack of talent or do you suppose I might have planned ahead?


I think it's because you haven't spent much time with a lot of teenage kids and listened to how they actually talk. And I never said it was a lack of talent. I suspect you planned to have her grow up and become more mature as the book, and the series, went along. But she doesn't have to sound childish in order to grow as a person. And all the planning in the world won't matter if no one will stick with the books long enough to get to the end.

And I mean, that's fine. Let's leave aside my personal opinion of how 16-year old girls actually speak. Despite the fact that I, you know, was a 16 year old girl at one point. And despite the fact that I spent 16 years working as a caretaker in the public school system, where I had many, many opportunities to hear the kids talk in the halls after school.


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## J. Tanner (Aug 22, 2011)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Rapid release has zero effect on sales. If all you do is write fast and publish fast you will end up with a long list of invisible books. I have documented proof directly from Amazon.


Importantly, for _your_ definition of rapid release.

Most people don't define it the way you do as "only organic sales, zero advertising allowed" and so come to a different conclusion.

It's entirely possible you're right as of today when using your definition, but I think what's more important to discuss is what most people mean when they discuss Rapid Release as a tactic, and what it achieves vs the alternative.

Let's say Author A can write a book every 90 days, or 4 books in a series in a year.

The normal method would be to release books at the end of March, June, Sept, and Dec. Book 1 in the series will be advertised/promoted upon each book release. So your ad budget would be 1/4 of your budget each quarter.

Rapid Release as a tactic says that Book 1 should not be released at the end of March. Book 1 and 2 should be held until Book 3 is ready at the end of Sept. Then all 3 will be released rapidly and Book 4 will come along just in time as the rapid release is winding down. The theory is that by compressing this release schedule, the ads/promotion on Book 1 has a longer readthrough tail out of the gate and you have more to spend at once (3/4th of your budget), thus generating more profit per click, and driving the books higher up Amazon's charts where their discoverability engine will kick in and start driving more free (intentionally not using "organic" here) traffic to your book.

This is what I've heard authors say works in regards to Rapid Release. Having Book 1 and 2 on sale longer, even with promo, does not outweigh the synergy of having multiple books in a series all available in very short order. So hold those book back until you can use your ad budget most effectively. I've not seen anyone reputable except you say that Rapid Release is an _alternative_ to advertising/promo in the last few years.

So it seems like a straw man argument, doomed to prove you right, not disprove Rapid Release as people know it, and I recall some said so when you explained your idea in the first place.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> And all the planning in the world won't matter if no one will stick with the books long enough to get to the end.


Again with the "nobody will read your book" thing. You're one of the people leading the opposition to my "generalizing," and then based on exactly nothing but your personal opinion, you assert nobody will read to the end of my book. And you made this snap judgment based on about 700 words of the prologue, after which you pronounced a 90,000-word novel a failure and concluded Jessica sounds "childish."

The hypocrisy could split atoms.

I'll tell you what nobody wants. Nobody wants to read a story about teenagers and how they really speak. All that would do for me would be to inspire an Olympic-caliber swan dive off the Santa Monica bridge. Jessica is a fictional character. Her personality is exaggerated because that's how show business works. She's bubbly and excitable because that's who she is. And she's not going to change. Not for a minute. Not for a second. She is not going to be turned into a grimdark psychopath. She's not going to be turned into a world-weary cynical hate machine. She's not going to put on two pounds of eyeliner and sit in the corner cutting herself.

If that's what you're looking for you're in the wrong shop. I was being *CREATIVE* when I wrote Jessica. She is not written to market. She is not like other teenage girls. She is unusual and remarkable and she has something to say that might be a little different than what you're used to. She's unique. She sounds different. She acts different. Because she IS different.

I think we have now put to rest the topic of my writing skill.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Again with the "nobody will read your book" thing. You're one of the people leading the opposition to my "generalizing," and then based on exactly nothing but your personal opinion, you assert nobody will read to the end of my book. And you made this snap judgment based on about 700 words of the prologue, after which you pronounced a 90,000-word novel a failure and concluded Jessica sounds "childish."
> 
> The hypocrisy could split atoms.
> 
> ...


Please stop putting words in my mouth. I'm not asserting that no one will read to the end of your book because of my personal opinion of it. I'm assuming no one will read to the end of your series because you're always on here complaining about the sad state of indie publishing and how your books aren't selling. That's why I'm assuming people won't read your books. That's why I've always assumed that. Because you say that you can't sell them. I only went to look at one of them because I thought maybe I could see something that might be useful to you. But I assumed they weren't selling long before I ever looked at any of them, and I would have assumed that if I'd never looked at any of them. Because that's what you always say.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> But I assumed they weren�t selling long before I ever looked at any of them, and I would have assumed that if I�d never looked at any of them. Because that�s what you always say.


Sales are not the problem. Visibility is the problem.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Sales are not the problem. Visibility is the problem.


But I thought that when you turn your ads on they work great to get visibility? I'm pretty sure I've seen you say that in the past. So if it's that easy for you, why don't you turn them on so you can stop suffering through lack of sales?


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## blubarry (Feb 27, 2015)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Sales are not the problem. Visibility is the problem.


Let's be clear. You complain about lack of visibility but say your sales are fine? Why this post then? Why all of your posts bemoaning Amazon and your current state in publishing?

Your mistake is comparing *your* rapid release strategy to a proven strategy. Your problem is trying to isolate out one factor in visibility and thinking you can definitively clarify what Amazon is doing. Others I trust more than you have made similar attempts and admit it cannot be easily codified.

Rapid release, for those lurking, has many benefits. If you're a new author, it creates momentum and, yes, visibility when you begin to release with regularity. It proves to readers you will continue to publish as many readers don't buy unless there are more than one book in series. Some wait for the completed series to buy. It allows you to economically advertise, as you can promote book 1 along with all subsequent books. _If_ you gain traction, you'll move up in the rankings and regardless of what Shane would argue, that does amount to additional visibility and sales.

For all his grumbling about sameness of covers and of content, you are the publisher. You decide how you run your business. If it fails because you're not meeting general expectations, then blaming your vendor is probably not the best use of time. Readers reach for familiarity, which is why covers have trends. Once you pull them in, you can change it up but you have to earn that right. If you can create a niche, then you're even better off, but that's incredibly rare.

It can be done in the current market, despite the volume of product. In 2019 I launched a pen name in a popular genre, spent less than $100 on AMS and Bookbub ads, and within 4 months had that author as one of the KU all stars. My strategy? Monthly releases of novel length work. A genre that sold, but I had my own unique spin on it. Covers that fit the genre, not my own personal style (because I wanted to sell the book, not get caught up in thinking I knew what would sell). Good books that brought readers back.

Looking at one factor in isolation is a mistake. All of these things are interrelated. That's the hard truth Shane refuses to acknowledge and wants to keep coming back to how great his writing is.

If you're going to push that narrative, a 3.7 star average out of 41 reviews (of the first book I searched) suggests you have some work to do. Reviews are an imperfect means of evaluating quality, but they are one way readers determine whether they'll take a chance on you, and regardless of the advice to ignore reviews, there are nuggets to learn from every review, good or bad. It's all about improving. I look at all my reviews (never respond!) and search for trends. If there are trends, that's something to work on or focus more on if my readers love something I'm doing. Unfortunately, Shane, I don't get the sense you are interested in improving. This is a business. You'd rather claim expertise you clearly have not mastered and refuse to listen to those who have successfully done it and are willingly offering you advice. Many of us want other authors to succeed, and we want to offer advice, because someone offered it to us once upon a time.

TLDR: New authors - ignore Shane. There are other more experienced publishers who can offer you actionable advice.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

Patrick1980 said:


> Economically, it's unsustainable for large numbers of authors. We've reached a point where the rate of new material being published far exceeds the rate of new readers coming on board.
> 
> The simple fact of the matter is: Most indie authors aren't going to make it, in the sense of having a "real income" from writing fiction.
> Many will continue to enjoy a handful of appreciative reviews. Others will earn nice 4-figure second incomes. But $50K~$100K per year? Maybe not.
> ...


I agree with this assessment. There is not only a massive supply of content, but a massive supply of content providers adding to that content daily. There is always an issue of supply and demand, and it affects all of us to a certain extent -- some more than others, obviously.

Although some in the past have suggested from time to time on KB that there are unlimited readers out there, I don't agree.

People only have so much time for reading, and many have limited budgets, even if they have the spare time. KU may have gamed that a little bit (unlimited content for $10 a month) but when people are counting their pennies, even that could change, depending on the state of the overall economy.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> You complain about lack of visibility but say your sales are fine?


That is correct. If my books are visible, they sell just fine. Like most other authors I suspect.



> Why all of your posts bemoaning Amazon


Nobody's bemoaning Amazon. I simply pointed out it's not a new releases list, and Amazon agreed.



> In 2019 I launched a pen name in a popular genre, spent less than $100 on AMS and Bookbub ads, and within 4 months had that author as one of the KU all stars.


Good for you. Why do you hide your books?


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Oh I don't have to pretend. I know exactly how many visits my book pages get on Amazon and I know exactly how many visits they get on my site. See if you can guess which has more? I'll give you a hint: it's not Amazon.


Really? You know exactly how many readers visit your Amazon pages? That's something I'd really like to know.

But of course, that's impossible, so I don't know. Nor do you. You don't have the slightest idea how many people visit your Amazon pages. To make a statement like that is misleading at best. We don't even know how many Amazon followers we have, let alone how many visits an Amazon page gets.

My guess is, you're attributing every single visit to one of your Zon pages to an affiliate link click. Sorry, that's not how many visit it. Your books are in your sig line. If I click one, KBoards would know, because they use affiliate links also. But there is zero possibility that you would.


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## ShaneCarrow (Jul 26, 2017)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Men are told all their lives what women want. Women want a "nice guy." So these men play the dating game based on the rules as stated by society and end up alone in their 60s wondering what they did wrong. They were playing one game while all of society was playing a different game.


This is from a couple of pages back but I just wanted to say: Yikes.


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## Wunder (Sep 2, 2017)

The thing is, new people do this all the time. When I broke in about three years ago, I heard the same stuff that I'm hearing now. It was too hard, too crowded, too everything. And yeah, it is hard and crowded and everything. It's probably harder and more crowded than it was three years ago, but new people are doing this every day and new people are successful at it every day. I've done rapid release and I can tell you that (at least for me) it makes all the difference in the world. I can't tell you specifics about algos or exactly why it works, but I can tell you that-if I release books written to market with good covers and at novel sized length at a quick pace, my bank account looks a lot better than if I don't.

I know the OP seems to think that a thread like this might save a potential writer a lot of heartbreak and wasted time (I'm paraphrasing), but if I'd have seen this exact thread three years ago, I might have closed the computer and never tried to self pub my novel, and that would have changed my life for the worse. The last three years have seen me become independent and fulfilled in a way that wouldn't have been possible if I didn't do this. So, I just want to throw that out there too. This job is hard, and it requires more dedication and frankly more work than a regular 9-5. To say otherwise would be to lie. But to say you definitively know that something wont work because it didn't work for you and because you seem to have a bit of information from Amazon that I'm not sure you understand correctly (to be completely honest, the fact that you've been on Amazon as long as you have and didn't know that the New Release list was also a sales ranking list is a bit curious) is also less than accurate.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Wunder said:


> I know the OP seems to think that a thread like this might save a potential writer a lot of heartbreak and wasted time (I'm paraphrasing), *but if I'd have seen this exact thread three years ago, I might have closed the computer and never tried to self pub my novel*, and that would have changed my life for the worse. The last three years have seen me become independent and fulfilled in a way that wouldn't have been possible if I didn't do this. So, I just want to throw that out there too. This job is hard, and it requires more dedication and frankly more work than a regular 9-5. To say otherwise would be to lie. But to say you definitively know that something wont work because it didn't work for you and because you seem to have a bit of information from Amazon that I'm not sure you understand correctly (to be completely honest, the fact that you've been on Amazon as long as you have and didn't know that the New Release list was also a sales ranking list is a bit curious) is also less than accurate.


And this is why I think challenging these statements is so important. ^^^


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Wunder said:


> The thing is, new people do this all the time. When I broke in about three years ago, I heard the same stuff that I'm hearing now. It was too hard, too crowded, too everything. And yeah, it is hard and crowded and everything. It's probably harder and more crowded than it was three years ago, but new people are doing this every day and new people are successful at it every day. I've done rapid release and I can tell you that (at least for me) it makes all the difference in the world. I can't tell you specifics about algos or exactly why it works, but I can tell you that-if I release books written to market with good covers and at novel sized length at a quick pace, my bank account looks a lot better than if I don't.
> 
> *I know the OP seems to think that a thread like this might save a potential writer a lot of heartbreak and wasted time (I'm paraphrasing), but if I'd have seen this exact thread three years ago, I might have closed the computer and never tried to self pub my novel, and that would have changed my life for the worse. The last three years have seen me become independent and fulfilled in a way that wouldn't have been possible if I didn't do this. So, I just want to throw that out there too.* This job is hard, and it requires more dedication and frankly more work than a regular 9-5. To say otherwise would be to lie. But to say you definitively know that something wont work because it didn't work for you and because you seem to have a bit of information from Amazon that I'm not sure you understand correctly (to be completely honest, *the fact that you've been on Amazon as long as you have and didn't know that the New Release list was also a sales ranking list is a bit curious*) is also less than accurate.


Same. (I'd quote both responses above, but I don't know how to do that.) I published 16 months before the OP. I too nearly didn't publish at all, because I read similar things to his remarks on another board and momentarily despaired and assumed it was hopeless. Then I thought, "What the heck. May as well try. I've got these books," and published anyway.

I did publish three books at once, sort of like rapid release in that the idea is not to make the reader wait (and forget about you, and have you lose whatever visibility you have) for the subsequent books. It worked really well and solidified my audience, so I can see why rapid release works (besides working with the Amazon algorithms).

It's so, so hard to know whether this business can work for you, partly because a lot of it is so nebulous. To have longterm success without having to be on the Churn Train, you need to write something that hits your reader's sweet spot (which means capturing some segment of your genre, since most genres aren't monolithic), while also having something unique to offer, and you ALSO need to have your cover, blurb, and title reflect that sweet spot. And then, of course, the book has to deliver well enough to get them to buy the next one.

It's hookiness, mostly, and knowing your audience. It helps, as Crystal has said elsewhere, if you ARE your audience, but people have "made it" without that. You have to either "get" this stuff intuitively, though, or learn it by a lot of observation and analysis and trial and error, or some combo of all that.

It's not easy, but it can work, and just because it doesn't work at first, you can still learn and have it work better for you. But you can't close your eyes and ears to feedback from the market, from your peers, from your readers and insist on doing things the way that you already know DOESN'T work.

I'm posting that for the same reason as the poster above says--it's important to challenge the mantra that "It's impossible." It's not. It happens. But the only way to know whether you are capable of writing books lots of people will pay money to read is to learn from your mistakes.

If the people who ARE reading your books are super enthusiastic, you'll probably (A) grow your readership, and (B) know that purchasing or sweat-laboring your way to more visibility is likely to pay off. If the people who are reading AREN'T super enthusiastic, then maybe work on your product some more. Maybe it's something pretty simple to fix. If lots of readers say the books are confusing, that they jump around? That's an easy fix for a good writer, and you probably just amped up enjoyment a fair amount.

(Edited to add bold.)


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## Bite the Dusty (Aug 9, 2020)

Authors coming together and challenging perceptions is one of the things that makes this forum valuable, but I suspect anyone who stumbled onto a thread of Shane's and got derailed by his opinions didn't have it in them to begin with.

I'm in the demo some think need protecting. I've taken years to prepare to publish. I wrote a series that won't see the light of day, because it sucked. I refined my process and now I'm working on a series I plan to rapid release _and advertise_. I know what I think doesn't count for much because I haven't interacted until now, but I don't think anyone or anyone's perspective should be shunned from the board; challenged, yes, but treated as a danger, no.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

I had it (talent, success, whatever) in me, and all the discouraging words nearly derailed me. Many excellent writers lack self confidence. Comes from being introverted and all that. One of the reasons I do not promote much is that until the book is out there, I tend to think that everybody will hate it. And I do not think I am alone. 

People are different. Nobody is arguing that the OP should have his posts deleted. People are saying such naysaying can be dangerous, and challenging the OP’s assertions. Fair play, I would say.


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## Caimh (May 8, 2016)

ShaneCarrow said:


> This is from a couple of pages back but I just wanted to say: Yikes.


Amen!


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

Folks, you may challenge my assertions all you like, but you're not going to put words in my mouth. I posted this thread to protect new authors from engaging in pointless and potentially dangerous work habits. There is nothing that will destroy someone's career more thoroughly than burnout.

You've all done a fine job of defending everything but the rapid release model I have described here and elsewhere, and despite all the noise, not one of you has demonstrated any evidence at all that writing and publishing books on an unusually fast schedule has any effect on their visibility without also engaging in traditional marketing methods.

If what I have written here discourages new authors from starting their careers, I have no control over that. Their misinterpretation of my message isn't my problem. The authors who are warned away from burning themselves out trying to exploit a marketing gimmick that doesn't work are the audience here, and I will continue to defend them whether you like it or not.

We are now up to six pages and more than 7000 views, and so far not ONE person has cited a shred of evidence that the rapid release gimmick I described creates any additional visibility for books. Believe whatever you like, but that fact alone is devastating.

Let's keep our eye on the ball here.

P.S. For those of you frantically bunching your underwear about my remarks regarding the dating market, here's 327 million Google results.


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## Wunder (Sep 2, 2017)

Bite the Dusty said:


> Authors coming together and challenging perceptions is one of the things that makes this forum valuable, but I suspect anyone who stumbled onto a thread of Shane's and got derailed by his opinions didn't have it in them to begin with.
> 
> I'm in the demo some think need protecting. I've taken years to prepare to publish. I wrote a series that won't see the light of day, because it sucked. I refined my process and now I'm working on a series I plan to rapid release _and advertise_. I know what I think doesn't count for much because I haven't interacted until now, but I don't think anyone or anyone's perspective should be shunned from the board; challenged, yes, but treated as a danger, no.


The whole point of this thread (as said by the OP directly) is to point out the dangers of what they consider to be a destructive way of thinking. The OP has pointed to the idea of wasted time and people falling into extremely unhealthy work habits as a result of this line of thinking. In doing that, the OP treats that way of thinking as dangerous. Doing the same thing to the opposite way of thinking shouldn't be considered strange at this stage in the thread.

That being said, no one is trying to shun or silence anyone. We're simply engaging in a conversation. I'll also say that assuming someone who gets derailed by pages and pages of doom and gloom and misinformation contained in a thread on what is almost certainly the largest collective of self published authors anywhere 'doesn't have it in them' is dismissive at best.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

You seem determined to lose. How about taking all that energy and putting it into a determination to win? Fix what is not working. Congrats, rapid release of a short form the genre does not care for  with NO marketing and apparently very little established readership does not work. How WOULD It work? Could you write novels, save them up until you have three, make a marketing plan, save some money from that tech career, and try rapid release again?

Find what is not working and fix it. Find what is working and do more of it. That is pretty much the secret.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Bite the Dusty said:


> Authors coming together and challenging perceptions is one of the things that makes this forum valuable, but I suspect anyone who stumbled onto a thread of Shane's and got derailed by his opinions didn't have it in them to begin with.
> 
> I'm in the demo some think need protecting. I've taken years to prepare to publish. I wrote a series that won't see the light of day, because it sucked. I refined my process and now I'm working on a series I plan to rapid release _and advertise_. I know what I think doesn't count for much because I haven't interacted until now, but I don't think anyone or anyone's perspective should be shunned from the board; challenged, yes, but treated as a danger, no.





Usedtoposthere said:


> I had it (talent, success, whatever) in me, and all the discouraging words nearly derailed me. Many excellent writers lack self confidence. Comes from being introverted and all that. One of the reasons I do not promote much is that until the book is out there, I tend to think that everybody will hate it. And I do not think I am alone.
> 
> People are different. Nobody is arguing that the OP should have his posts deleted. People are saying such naysaying can be dangerous, and challenging the OP's assertions. Fair play, I would say.


I agree with Usedtoposthere. Naysayings can be dangerous, especially when asserted as indisputable fact. I'm my own worst critic by far, and comments like these, if I'd happened across them earlier in my writing, would have just reinforced that nasty little inner critic of mine to the point that I might never have published anything at all.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> Congrats, rapid release of a short form the genre does not care for with NO marketing and apparently very little established readership does not work. How WOULD It work?


We agree! Only took seven pages.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> ... not one of you has demonstrated any evidence at all that writing and publishing books on an unusually fast schedule has any effect on their visibility *without also engaging in traditional marketing methods*...


Which is why you need to run ads with your rapid releases. That should be taken as a given.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> That should be taken as a given.


Correct. Except that new authors don't have the experience to know better. That was my point.


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## stacia_s (Jul 15, 2015)

For any newbies tempted to listen to the doomsaying:

I've been floating around indie publishing almost since its inception and I've seen a lot of people come and go. One thing I've noticed almost across the spectrum, is that successful people are all willing to do one major thing. They will ruthlessly re-evaluate any and all portions of their business, with an awareness that even long-held practices are no longer viable. They are not the people who want to write contemporary romance and complain about manchests. Or hand-wave away writing to market (and I don't mean trend) as something only hacks do. If you aren't willing to put potentially any and everything on the chopping block, then whatever success you manage to attain will be nebulous at best.

Just look at who survived the KU1.0 apocalypse and who didn't as evidence of this.

Things aren't impossible for newbies, like some suggest. A few things are harder and some things are easier. Yeah, there's more competition but there are also professional organizations and service providers that we could only dream of utilizing back in 2012. Just the sheer amount of info available for free now would have boggled my mind when I first started. I launched a new penname this year without any reliance on my old audience and it's been a wild success. It cost some money to get it going, but less than I would have earned with a few months at a part time minimum wage job. I would argue indie publishing is more of a meritocracy than ever because almost anyone can save or borrow a few thousand dollars to effectively launch a penname, even in the most competitive genres. We all have access to advertising platforms and word-of-mouth marketing. 

Organic visibility isn't dead. I have an old penname with one book on it that I don't promote at all and it still moves copies pretty much every day.  People recommend that book to others who are new to the subgenre. I know because I occasionally see a rec pop up in FB groups. And it has to be coming up in searches for that niche. Trick is, that book has a market interested in it. It isn't spec fic about mutated butterflies written as long form poetry (there is no audience for this, btw).

Just to be clear, people not wanting to buy what you've written just because you deigned to write it, is not the same thing as success being impossible. Find an audience and then write something like the books they're already hoovering up. If you don't want to do that, it's cool, but don't complain about visibility on Amazon or pay-to-play advertising ruining your dreams of doing this full-time.

As an aside, rapid release ONLY works on books that are already market viable. If the books wouldn't sell a year apart, then bunching them up over a few weeks or months isn't going to change that. Rapid release helps your marketing dollars go further. And it increases the chances of a reader taking a chance on a new author, because there are likely several books already out in the series when they find you so you build an audience faster. Rapid release will not save books that we're going to sink like stones otherwise. Off-market books are off-market books, doesn't matter how quickly they hit the market. I would argue you don't even need ads, though they'll almost always help, but SOMEONE has to be picking up what you're putting down. I can think of at least a dozen people who made it to the four-five figure range/month without paid advertising.

If you've written dozens of books and still don't make enough to at least pay a modest mortgage, then you're doing something very wrong assuming financial success is your goal. Full stop. I'm not dumping on hobbyists or people writing simply because they want their words out in the world. But if you're trying to make money, then most of the factors at play are well within your control.


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## Bite the Dusty (Aug 9, 2020)

Usedtoposthere said:


> I had it (talent, success, whatever) in me, and all the discouraging words nearly derailed me. Many excellent writers lack self confidence. Comes from being introverted and all that. One of the reasons I do not promote much is that until the book is out there, I tend to think that everybody will hate it. And I do not think I am alone.
> 
> People are different. Nobody is arguing that the OP should have his posts deleted. People are saying such naysaying can be dangerous, and challenging the OP's assertions. Fair play, I would say.


I didn't see your response before I posted. It wasn't directed at you or anyone specific really. A lot of people seem to think new writer's need protection from Shane or discouragement.

I'd like to think I'm like you, and the hardest part is now. That is comforting, but not what I expect. I expect the discouragement to come post-publishing will be a higher mountain to climb and overcome, but I don't know yet.

I've seen it both ways. I've seen Shane calling people's responses dangerous, and I've seen people saying his takes are dangerous. Personally, I don't see debating ideas in that light. I'm not saying Shane doesn't have a hand in it, the way he communicates is antagonistic, but he isn't the only one. Every time I've seem him post a thread that takes off, I've seem him treated as if he's posting in bad faith from the start. Maybe he's earned that, but the highest crimes I've seen are a resistance to reflect on logical fallacies in his own perspective and some foot-in-mouth analogies. I just think we can disagree and debate without shunning someone.

And that's not to say people shouldn't challenge him. That's actually why I appreciate his threads. The insights are valuable whether they come from him or someone else.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> We agree! Only took seven pages.


If anyone believes that you can just put some books up, releasing quickly, slowly, or otherwise, not even books in a form readers of your genre want, with no advertising and not much established readership, and be GUARANTEED success, their problem is not Amazon.

That doesn't mean rapid release doesn't work. It means rapid release with no advertising and no readership and in a not-what-the-market-wants format is unlikely to work. I guess the reason nobody bothered to contradict that was that we couldn't believe you were really expecting it to.


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## Bite the Dusty (Aug 9, 2020)

Wunder said:


> The whole point of this thread (as said by the OP directly) is to point out the dangers of what they consider to be a destructive way of thinking. The OP has pointed to the idea of wasted time and people falling into extremely unhealthy work habits as a result of this line of thinking. In doing that, the OP treats that way of thinking as dangerous. Doing the same thing to the opposite way of thinking shouldn't be considered strange at this stage in the thread.
> 
> That being said, no one is trying to shun or silence anyone. We're simply engaging in a conversation. I'll also say that assuming someone who gets derailed by pages and pages of doom and gloom and misinformation contained in a thread on what is almost certainly the largest collective of self published authors anywhere 'doesn't have it in them' is dismissive at best.


I agree that treating any idea as dangerous is unproductive. I disagree that no one is shunning. The way some people are coming at him is different than other threads, and how he is communicating is partly to blame but it's a two way street.

Maybe it's dismissive, but it's my perspective. If writing, getting honest feedback, reevaluating, realizing my work wasn't good enough, letting go of years of work and starting anew didn't stop me, some person on the internet telling me not to bother isn't going to. And I imagine the discouragement that comes when competing for the attention of readers will eclipse all the above, but you know more than me about that.


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## Bite the Dusty (Aug 9, 2020)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Correct. Except that new authors don't have the experience to know better. That was my point.


That's not true. I pointed that out back on page 4 and asked a few questions, but you didn't respond.

If someone knows about rapid release as a tactic it's because they're hanging around author spaces like kboards before publishing, if they're hanging around author spaces before publishing they also know ads are essential to visibility overall but especially in the beginning.


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## Wunder (Sep 2, 2017)

Bite the Dusty said:


> I agree that treating any idea as dangerous is unproductive. I disagree that no one is shunning. The way some people are coming at him is different than other threads, and how he is communicating is partly to blame but it's a two way street.
> 
> Maybe it's dismissive, but it's my perspective. If writing, getting honest feedback, reevaluating, realizing my work wasn't good enough, letting go of years of work and starting anew didn't stop me, some person on the internet telling me not to bother isn't going to. And I imagine the discouragement that comes when competing for the attention of readers will eclipse all the above, but you know more than me about that.


I didn't see any of the posts that were edited or taken away by the moderator. So, you definitely might have a point there. That being said, I redread the post I quoted at you the first time and I think it came off harsher than I intended it to. I apologize. You're certainly entitled to your perspective, as is everyone here.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> P.S. For those of you frantically bunching your underwear about my remarks regarding the dating market, here's 327 million Google results.


No more on this front, in this thread or any other.


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## Corvid (May 15, 2014)

People have a tendency to dismiss EVERY opinion that comes from someone they've decided they don't like.

It's too bad where this thread is concerned because I think there is a valuable discussion in here, somewhere, beneath all the personal vitriol.

Honestly, putting aside you don't like the person saying it, or even if it's just you don't like the way they're saying it, what is incorrect about the following?



Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Meanwhile, the conventional wisdom is more tropes, tighter adherence to market, covers that look the same, ads that look the same and woe unto you if you deviate too far from the orthodoxy, because that could lead to a nice sunny de-platforming.
> 
> But you're not allowed to experiment because there's a nuclear warhead duct-taped to your crotch.
> 
> ...


Okay, you don't like him, you don't like the delivery, BUT - without purposefully going out of your way to find fault in whatever it is he says - what, in what he's said above, is untrue? I'd honestly like to know and have a real conversation about it.

Yes, there's a lot of noise here. But, there's signal too.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Not writing something your market likes is like freedom of speech. You are free to write and publish whatever you like with the exception of rape or incest erotica, possibly, but you cannot really complain about the consequences. 

That said, you do not have to write to trends, write super fast, put Manchest covers on contemporary romance, or whatever else to succeed. As long as there is a market for what you do. You can even create your own market, or try to. Clean romance was not a thing until it was. 

If there is no sizable market, that is not the fault of Amazon. You could blame readers I guess for not liking experimental stuff? You can go on and write what you like anyway, though. Nobody is stopping you.


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## Lorri Moulton [Lavender Lass Books] (Jun 15, 2019)

Shane, my understanding of your experiment was...would rapid release work on its own?  Would it counteract the need to market if Amazon really boosted the book up in the charts?

I think you've shown that in your case...rapid release without marketing has not worked.  Marketing would probably help a lot.  I think most people are in agreement about the marketing.  Maybe rapid release can work for some genres? 

I'll never know because I don't write fast, and I haven't got the patience to hold onto a book once it's finished!


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## ShawnaReads (May 9, 2019)

I think this experiment would have been much more useful and interesting if the OP had actually seen it through to the end instead of giving up and declaring results after the second book just because his non-selling book didn't make the top 100 by sales new release list. I also think it would have been more interesting and useful if he'd used novels, since it's pretty widely known that, as a general rule, novellas don't do terribly well for most people in most genres.

(Really not meaning to be mean or anything there. Just stating the facts as I understand them from this thread.)


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## Bite the Dusty (Aug 9, 2020)

I wish he had advertised, even modestly, so we could know if rapid release works for novellas. I think I read about a fantasy series with dragons last year with novellas taking off, but it was secondhand info, not from the horse's mouth.


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## stacia_s (Jul 15, 2015)

Corvid said:


> Okay, you don't like him, you don't like the delivery, BUT - without purposefully going out of your way to find fault in whatever it is he says - what, in what he's said above, is untrue? I'd honestly like to know and have a real conversation about it.
> 
> Yes, there's a lot of noise here. But, there's signal too.


That's the thing though, people are legitimately disagreeing with the signal. Catty tones in response to the noise, notwithstanding. I don't dislike Shane, at all, although I think his righteous anger makes it hard for him to see the forest for the trees. His threads are always interesting and provoke lots of discussion. But I don't agree with the vast majority of the "findings" of this experiment.

"conventional wisdom is more tropes, tighter adherence to market, covers that look the same, ads that look the same and woe unto you if you deviate too far from the orthodoxy, because that could lead to a nice sunny de-platforming."

Every piece of this is exclusively about knowing what people want and packaging it a way that's obvious to them. As a reader, if I want a dark vampire romance I'm not going to pick the book with a bright pink cupcake on it. A book could be exactly what I'm looking for, but if it's packaged in brown butcher paper and I never hear about it because it's not advertised, then it doesn't matter how good it is. I don't understand what any of the rest has to do with being deplatformed. That only happens, in my experience, if you're pushing explicit content where you shouldn't or violating TOC.

"But you're not allowed to experiment because there's a nuclear warhead duct-taped to your crotch"
"The whole "write to market" thing simply drains all the joy out of this business. Nobody's having any fun because we all have to write the same book over and over again while the readers have to wade through a tsunami of crap every day to find something worth reading, only to discover it's more of the same."

Nope, you can do all the experimenting you want. But if nobody wants to buy your spec fic about mutant butterflies written as long form poetry, thems the breaks and you can't literally take the dollars out of their wallet. Romance has to have a happy ending, mystery has to have a murder, sci fi has to involve some element of future technology. Outside of that, there is all matter of creativity. Constraints are not the opposite of creativity, if anything I think creative pursuits are better when they're within some kind of limiting framework. Star Wars tore the world apart. But George Lucas wanted to make Flash Gordon but couldn't afford the rights and the practical effects still look good today because they couldn't afford the CGI that Lucas really wanted. Some constraint is good, it keeps creative types from going off the rails.

Personally, I wouldn't have spent the last five years doing this full-time if I wasn't having fun. If writing books people actually want to read drains your joy, find another line of work.

"Oh look, another wisecracking demon with glowing hands--"

Even just on this board looking at peoples sigs, there is a huge variety in content. If you look at the entirety of the Amazon store and see only more and more of the same, then I would argue that you're only seeing what you want to see and not reality. There are a bunch of authors who've put out paranormal midlife crisis women's fiction this year. Just in romance, I could list fifty niches where committed authors can start from scratch right now and make a living wage. I'm true something similar can be said of most genres.

People might react differently if these opinions weren't so strongly and bullheadedly stated when there is so much evidence to the contrary.


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## Bite the Dusty (Aug 9, 2020)

Wunder said:


> I didn't see any of the posts that were edited or taken away by the moderator. So, you definitely might have a point there. That being said, I redread the post I quoted at you the first time and I think it came off harsher than I intended it to. I apologize. You're certainly entitled to your perspective, as is everyone here.


I didn't mind what you said, just felt like clarifying.


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## Bunker (May 18, 2020)

ShawnaReads said:


> I think this experiment would have been much more useful and interesting if the OP had actually seen it through to the end instead of giving up and declaring results after the second book just because his non-selling book didn't make the top 100 by sales new release list. I also think it would have been more interesting and useful if he'd used novels, since it's pretty widely known that, as a general rule, novellas don't do terribly well for most people in most genres.


If the purpose of this thread is to give aspiring indies something to consider, then the above comment contains some crucial context.

To be clear, Shane's "experiment" consisted of:

July 20 - he published a novella with no promotion or advertising
Aug 2 - he published a second novella, also with no promotion or advertising
Aug 5 - he declared that his experiment proved that rapid release doesn't work. In his words, "Case closed."

Frankly, I think we all would have been more surprised if this "experiment" DID produce sales under those constraints.

With all that said, I do feel that Shane makes a valid point. I feel that rapid release is sometimes over-prescribed as self-publishing's magic bullet. Authors on this forum love to humble-brag about how they spend little or nothing on advertising. The truth is that rapid-release shouldn't be a strategy in and of itself, especially for a new writer who is starting without any following. And yes, rapid release can fail spectacularly if done poorly.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Corvid said:


> People have a tendency to dismiss EVERY opinion that comes from someone they've decided they don't like.
> 
> It's too bad where this thread is concerned because I think there is a valuable discussion in here, somewhere, beneath all the personal vitriol.
> 
> ...


What is incorrect? Okay, let's see...

1. You don't get booted off of Amazon for not following tropes, not following the market, not having the same covers, or for having ads that look different. You don't get booted off Amazon for any of that.

2. You're allowed to experiment with plenty of aspects of your writing. You just can't write pick-your-own-path books and then enroll them in Select.

3. We can write any kind of book we want -- with a few exceptions (some forms of erotica, for example). We aren't guaranteed an audience for what we choose to write, but we can write it. If we want to take a stab at making a living with our writing, it's extremely advisable to write what people want to read. But that's simply the law of supply and demand. If you want to sell something, it had better be something that people want. But it's a choice. We choose to write what we want or we choose to write what is marketable. Sometimes those things are one and the same, sometimes they're not. But it's still up to us.

4. Some readers might be bored out of their minds. But generally, what sells is what's in demand. So if you don't want to write about demons with glowing hands, don't. But plenty of other people are buying it, and enjoying it - judging by the UF lists - and belittling what other people like isn't really going to garner you a lot of sympathy.

5. Plenty of people seem to be having plenty of fun writing stories they enjoy writing. Just because one person isn't having fun doesn't mean nobody is.


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## Bite the Dusty (Aug 9, 2020)

stacia_s said:


> Nope, you can do all the experimenting you want. But if nobody wants to buy your spec fic about mutant butterflies written as long form poetry, thems the breaks and you can't literally take the dollars out of their wallet.


The problem is the narrowness of the experiment. He hasn't responded to my questions up-thread but I'm assuming in an effort to prove rapid release alone doesn't work, he hasn't used the tools at his disposal that would give his series the possibility of flight.

It's like trying to make a grilled cheese. You need bread, butter, and cheese. He's proven you can't make a grilled cheese from just bread, an experiment for an audience I don't think exists. If they do exist, they had to learn sometime that there's no one trick to instant success for any endeavor.

I wish he had put together all the ingredients, like alerting his mailing list, ads, and rapid release. Then we'd have something interesting to digest. Though, as others have said, this thread has some interesting discussion. It just could've been more than it is.


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

Corvid said:


> People have a tendency to dismiss EVERY opinion that comes from someone they've decided they don't like.
> 
> It's too bad where this thread is concerned because I think there is a valuable discussion in here, somewhere, beneath all the personal vitriol.
> 
> ...


I would argue that writing to market doesn't drain all the joy out of the business. I write what I like to read. I find joy in it. Over and over again. Much joy. Writing to market doesn't have to be soulless. I don't think most people even understand what it truly means.


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## Corvid (May 15, 2014)

stacia_s said:


> "conventional wisdom is more tropes, tighter adherence to market, covers that look the same, ads that look the same and woe unto you if you deviate too far from the orthodoxy, because that could lead to a nice sunny de-platforming."
> 
> Every piece of this is exclusively about knowing what people want and packaging it a way that's obvious to them. As a reader, if I want a dark vampire romance I'm not going to pick the book with a bright pink cupcake on it. A book could be exactly what I'm looking for, but if it's packaged in brown butcher paper and I never hear about it because it's not advertised, then it doesn't matter how good it is. I don't understand what any of the rest has to do with being deplatformed. That only happens, in my experience, if you're pushing explicit content where you shouldn't or violating TOC.


I took the 'deplatforming' wording as a rather creative way of saying, you'll be invisible or not shown/pushed at the 'Zon if you deviate, and not as deplatforming how twitter means it. I could be wrong there.

Regardless, I agree, if you're trying to sell a lot of your book, your book has to look like the other books which sell a lot. But, does that not entail "tighter adherence to market" as Shane asserted? Covers that looks the same. Ads that look the same. And, isn't he correct then to say "woe unto you if you deviate too far from the orthodoxy"?



> "But you're not allowed to experiment because there's a nuclear warhead duct-taped to your crotch"
> "The whole "write to market" thing simply drains all the joy out of this business. Nobody's having any fun because we all have to write the same book over and over again while the readers have to wade through a tsunami of crap every day to find something worth reading, only to discover it's more of the same."
> 
> Nope, you can do all the experimenting you want. But if nobody wants to buy your spec fic about mutant butterflies written as long form poetry, thems the breaks and you can't literally take the dollars out of their wallet. Romance has to have a happy ending, mystery has to have a murder, sci fi has to involve some element of future technology. Outside of that, there is all matter of creativity.


The bestsellers lists in these genres/subgenres present far more restrictive criteria than "happy ending", "murder", "future technology". Wouldn't you agree? Looking at those lists, and seeing what's selling, I don't think there's that much room for creativity at all. Creativity is for outliers, and outliers don't tend to make consistent, month-after-month money in this business. It's rather a lot of authors and content mills going above and beyond to ensure they're a lot like everything else.



> Constraints are not the opposite of creativity, if anything I think creative pursuits are better when they're within some kind of limiting framework. Star Wars tore the world apart. But George Lucas wanted to make Flash Gordon but couldn't afford the rights and the practical effects still look good today because they couldn't afford the CGI that Lucas really wanted. Some constraint is good, it keeps creative types from going off the rails.


I agree some constraint is good and will breed a certain amount of creativity, but I think in self-publishing now we're talking about constraint to the nth degree, and story structure now is more about scaffolding and ensuring plot point 'x' is hit on page 'x' or at story percentage 'x', etc.



> Personally, I wouldn't have spent the last five years doing this full-time if I wasn't having fun. If writing books people actually want to read drains your joy, find another line of work.


Okay... but, if "writing books" has become trope-by-numbers, and make-covers-the-same... I mean, is that even writing anymore? Isn't it a bit dismissive to say 'find another line of work', when the line of work in question isn't actually what we're actually talking about? Maybe the joy's been drained because writing isn't writing anymore - it's become something else, like cabinet-making.



> "Oh look, another wisecracking demon with glowing hands--"
> 
> Even just on this board looking at peoples sigs, there is a huge variety in content.


Right, but how much of it sells to the tune of $50k+ per year? Variety within a subgenre isn't where winners are made, I would argue narrowness is. I would like to be wrong about this.



> If you look at the entirety of the Amazon store and see only more and more of the same, then I would argue that you're only seeing what you want to see and not reality. There are a bunch of authors who've put out paranormal midlife crisis women's fiction this year. Just in romance, I could list fifty niches where committed authors can start from scratch right now and make a living wage. I'm true something similar can be said of most genres.


This seems completely foreign. How can you honestly look at the bestsellers lists in the given subgenres and say that they're not more and more of the same? Heck, there's entire services you can pay for whose entire reason for being is to show you how the bestsellers are similar and how you can be similar too. I dispute the idea you could start from scratch today and make a living wage being an outlier as a self-publisher in a given subgenre.

The existence of content mills is the counter-narrative. If you think of the Kindle Store as the ocean floor... life springs forth over the warm water vents. The content mills concentrate where the audience is, and the audience is interested in same-same. Being different is tough sledding, and not where a full-time living wage is to be found.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Just because the cover signals genre and tone doesn't mean the writing or the subject matter is paint-by-numbers.


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## Corvid (May 15, 2014)

ShayneRutherford said:


> What is incorrect? Okay, let's see...
> 
> 1. You don't get booted off of Amazon for not following tropes, not following the market, not having the same covers, or for having ads that look different. You don't get booted off Amazon for any of that.


I didn't think he meant actually getting booted, but rather you're rendered invisible by virtue of not adhering to given marketing strictures within a given subgenre.



> 2. You're allowed to experiment with plenty of aspects of your writing. You just can't write pick-your-own-path books and then enroll them in Select.


Not a lot of room for experimentation if you're looking to make a full-time living as a self-publisher within a given popular subgenre, wouldn't you agree? I don't see experimentation when I look at the bestsellers, I see a lot of same-ness. By design. Because obviously, being the same is what sells. Where's the experimentation in that?



> 3. We can write any kind of book we want -- with a few exceptions (some forms of erotica, for example). We aren't guaranteed an audience for what we choose to write, but we can write it. If we want to take a stab at making a living with our writing, it's extremely advisable to write what people want to read. But that's simply the law of supply and demand. If you want to sell something, it had better be something that people want. But it's a choice. We choose to write what we want or we choose to write what is marketable. Sometimes those things are one and the same, sometimes they're not. But it's still up to us.


Right, but how does contradict anything Shane had said about going against the grain in a given subgenre? Clearly, you have to adhere to the norms today, but doesn't that prove his point about narrowness of it all, and how at this point you have everyone trying to write the same five books?



> 4. Some readers might be bored out of their minds. But generally, what sells is what's in demand. So if you don't want to write about demons with glowing hands, don't. But plenty of other people are buying it, and enjoying it - judging by the UF lists - and belittling what other people like isn't really going to garner you a lot of sympathy.


I didn't take it as belittling, but fair enough if you did. What I took from what he said is it's all become rather stale as self-publishing becomes more and more about sharpening and distilling itself down into its reader-friendly constituents rather than writing/creating unto itself. To the point where as a self-publisher it's rather discouraging from a creative standpoint. It's like we're getting to a point where we're following IKEA instructions - making sure PART J fits into JUNCTION K - rather than engaging the imagination and writing stories. The whole enterprise seems to be moving toward the assembly line model. Do you not agree?



> 5. Plenty of people seem to be having plenty of fun writing stories they enjoy writing. Just because one person isn't having fun doesn't mean nobody is.


Completely fair, but what if we're talking about different things?

If I'm saying - or if Shane or anyone else is saying writing isn't writing (not to put words in their mouth, but as a hypothetical) - but instead I'm saying or someone else is saying it's become putting furniture together, then isn't also fair to say I don't find putting furniture together fun, even if I think writing is?

Maybe in that respect we don't actually disagree on what's fun, we just disagree on what it is we're each talking about, and on the reality of what self-publishing (with the goal of being full-time) is in the here-and-now.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

I write unusual books for my genre. They sell just fine. I know a number of other people who write unusual books in that genre, too. Not one of us writes like each other, although there can be some overlap in our readership. Fortunately, readers don't require that all books be exactly the same. 

Genres are huge and diverse. Romance in particular is a big, big tent. You'll never see everything that's profitable in a huge genre by looking at the top 100. There are lots of niches where a writer with a strong voice can make a mark. You do have to write what SOMEBODY or, preferably, many somebodies want to read, though, and find a way to alert them, "This is your book!" 

There is absolutely no resemblance to putting together IKEA furniture. I write all kinds of things. I enjoy the heck out of it. They all sell. Some authors prefer to target more tightly. To each their own.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Corvid said:


> Regardless, I agree, if you're trying to sell a lot of your book, your book has to look like the other books which sell a lot. But, does that not entail "tighter adherence to market" as Shane asserted? Covers that looks the same. Ads that look the same. And, isn't he correct then to say "woe unto you if you deviate too far from the orthodoxy"?
> 
> The bestsellers lists in these genres/subgenres present far more restrictive criteria than "happy ending", "murder", "future technology". Wouldn't you agree? Looking at those lists, and seeing what's selling, I don't think there's that much room for creativity at all. Creativity is for outliers, and outliers don't tend to make consistent, month-after-month money in this business. It's rather a lot of authors and content mills going above and beyond to ensure they're a lot like everything else.
> 
> ...


The problem with this argument is that it basically boils down to 'people want to read stuff that isn't what I want to write'. But that's unfortunate, because people want what they want, and authors complaining about it isn't going to change that one simple fact. Authors will only ever make a living at their writing if they write what people want to read. If they're lucky, what they like and what sells will intersect. But if they're not lucky, continuing to write what doesn't sell and then complaining about the fact that people want to read something else isn't likely to fix the problem.


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## Corvid (May 15, 2014)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I would argue that writing to market doesn't drain all the joy out of the business. I write what I like to read. I find joy in it. Over and over again. Much joy. Writing to market doesn't have to be soulless. I don't think most people even understand what it truly means.


In fairness, and you can correct me if I'm wrong on this, but given you've built a great business on providing a strong, loyal readership with stories about characters they love... and it's something which is well-established through the years, and long-running, isn't it a given you'd find a lot of joy in continuing to do that? I'd assume most people would.

And, isn't that an entirely different animal than someone unknown or relatively unknown entering the market now or trying to gain a foothold in the market place now, and trying to build something from scratch or next-to-scratch in today's climate - which pretty much requires they adhere to given strictures within a given subgenre? And, wouldn't it be easy to see in that case where it would be rather discouraging as they look at the narrowness required currently, and what they'd need to do, in order to compete? I'm sure we'd both agree, the current market conditions are not pre-2016 or pre-2017.

You may say no to some or all of this, and fair enough, but I'd be genuinely interested in your insights as to why that'd be your answer. Of course, "nothing is guaranteed", and "nobody owes you a living in this", but hopefully it's clear that's not what I'm saying, nor is it what I expect. There's more to it than that.


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

Corvid said:


> In fairness, and you can correct me if I'm wrong on this, but given you've built a great business on providing a strong, loyal readership with stories about characters they love... and it's something which is well-established through the years, and long-running, isn't it a given you'd find a lot of joy in continuing to do that? I'd assume most people would.
> 
> And, isn't that an entirely different animal than someone unknown or relatively unknown entering the market now or trying to gain a foothold in the market place now, and trying to build something from scratch or next-to-scratch in today's climate - which pretty much requires they adhere to given strictures within a given subgenre? And, wouldn't it be easy to see in that case where it would be rather discouraging as they look at the narrowness required currently, and what they'd need to do, in order to compete? I'm sure we'd both agree, the current market conditions are not pre-2016 or pre-2017.
> 
> You may say no to some or all of this, and fair enough, but I'd be genuinely interested in your insights as to why that'd be your answer. Of course, "nothing is guaranteed", and "nobody owes you a living in this", but hopefully it's clear that's not what I'm saying, nor is it what I expect. There's more to it than that.


I don't believe that was the argument. You asked what was wrong with the statement, which included a declaration that writing to market was soulless and lacking in joy. I've never found that to be true.


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## Corvid (May 15, 2014)

Usedtoposthere said:


> I write unusual books for my genre. They sell just fine. I know a number of other people who write unusual books in that genre, too. Not one of us writes like each other, although there can be some overlap in our readership. Fortunately, readers don't require that all books be exactly the same.
> 
> Genres are huge and diverse. Romance in particular is a big, big tent. You'll never see everything that's profitable in a huge genre by looking at the top 100. There are lots of niches where a writer with a strong voice can make a mark. You do have to write what SOMEBODY or, preferably, many somebodies want to read, though, and find a way to alert them, "This is your book!"
> 
> There is absolutely no resemblance to putting together IKEA furniture. I write all kinds of things. I enjoy the heck out of it. They all sell. Some authors prefer to target more tightly. To each their own.


This may sound disrespectful to you, and I don't mean for it to because I value your insights, but I don't know how else to put it - similar to what I'd said to Amanda... in fairness to newbies or to those still trying to build something, you're a self-publishing star who's well-established, with a loyal readership that you've built from a time when the market for self-publishers was a different reality from the one facing authors now. So, isn't it possible we're talking about different things here?

I completely understand why you would enjoy doing what you're doing, because aren't you running a business you've built over the long term to the point now where you can release 'x' with a certain expectation of visibility built-in? I'm not certain that's the reality facing unknown authors trying to gain a foothold in the here-and-now. I think for those authors they have to adhere to a far more restrictive set of criteria, and I get why and how they'd be pretty discouraged. To me, it does resemble IKEA furniture assembly.

However, I do admit, you make a great point about being profitable outside the top 100. At the same time, however, the top 100 is a pretty good arbiter of what's required to make a sizable enough income that you're doing this full-time, no?

Again, this is yet another example where I'd be happy to be wrong. And, feel free to tell me where I am.


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## Corvid (May 15, 2014)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I don't believe that was the argument. You asked what was wrong with the statement, which included a declaration that writing to market was soulless and lacking in joy. I've never found that to be true.


Fair enough, that wasn't the argument originally, and I did ask about Shane's statement. But, placing that aside, do you have any insights about any of the following:

Do you not agree gaining a foothold now in a given subgenre has become a rather soulless exercise of adhering to sameness? As a newcomer or as an unknown, I mean. Maybe that's impossible to answer from the standpoint of someone well-established. I don't know.

Do you feel things are pretty different now than they were a few years ago, or no?

Likewise, how do you feel about starting from scratch or as a relative unknown right now? Do you not look at any given top 100 and see a lot of restrictiveness there? Or no?


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Corvid said:


> And, isn't that an entirely different animal than someone unknown or relatively unknown entering the market now or trying to gain a foothold in the market place now, and trying to build something from scratch or next-to-scratch in today's climate - which pretty much requires they adhere to given strictures within a given subgenre? And, wouldn't it be easy to see in that case where it would be rather discouraging as they look at the narrowness required currently, and what they'd need to do, in order to compete? I'm sure we'd both agree, the current market conditions are not pre-2016 or pre-2017.


Sub-genres have always been restrictive. That's what makes them useful to readers. And while trends have changed in the last several years, the trends back then were probably just as restrictive. Just different.

And yes, I can see how some people might find it discouraging that they can't just do whatever they want and have it sell. But I'm not really sure what your point is. Because there is no business that works like that. If you want people to buy what you're making, you have to make what people want to buy.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> Or *they got their start in 2011 and took advantage of the sparse competition* and enormously powerful built-in advantages. They also probably got head starts on their


While I agree with what followed the above quote about the advantages in 2011, you have it totally wrong about competition in this period. 2011 was perhaps the most competitive since the inception of Amazon self-publishing. It was as if the entire slush piles of the world found a home in that year. Competition was that fierce there was a downward spiral to 99c prices and then free. Amazon had to step in to rescue authors from their own destruction by reducing the advantages that were available and took steps to encourage the higher prices we see today. You only have to ask the mods on here to look back at statistics on this site for participation. New threads would be posted and disappear in minutes as new threads were posted. Now, some posts can hang around for a day or more without replies.



Shane Lochlann Black said:


> I didn't say Amazon was evil. I said the New Releases list isn't a new releases list and that as a result, rapid release is pointless.


I agree with you, but then I've always thought that the 30 new release period of visibility leading to a cliff was a myth created by authors that Amazon somehow gave you special visibility. Most people market like hell for the first 30 days, then run out of options and the book finds its own level, hence the 30 day cliff, unless you use AMS and the like or your marketing gets you a sticky cat rank.

Unless you can tell me different, new releases are shown when they meet criteria among thousands of others that are published at the same time, so their visibility on such a list is worthless and always has been. At least now they give new releases a label over the cover on AMS which can make up for not having reviews.

I'm just pleased you have exposed this myth that we have been taken in by.that had been propogated over the years.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Corvid said:


> Fair enough, that wasn't the argument originally, and I did ask about Shane's statement. But, placing that aside, do you have any insights about any of the following:
> 
> Do you not agree gaining a foothold now in a given subgenre has become a rather soulless exercise of adhering to sameness? As a newcomer or as an unknown, I mean. Maybe that's impossible to answer from the standpoint of someone well-established. I don't know.
> 
> Likewise, how do you feel about starting from scratch or as a relative unknown right now? Do you not look at any given top 100 and see a lot of restrictiveness there? Or no?


You didn't address this to me, but I have a bit of relevant info here. A friend of mine who has a backlist of five books just got serious about advertising them two months ago. They're not the same genre, only two are part of a series, and she hadn't advertised them in years, so they were making next to nothing. But two months ago she was able to start doing FB ads, and so she started with a $5/day budget. The first couple of weeks she didn't make much, but last month she made about $500 profit. And that's after less than two full months of getting serious about advertising, and with books that don't conform to writing-to-market restrictions, either.


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## Corvid (May 15, 2014)

ShayneRutherford said:


> The problem with this argument is that it basically boils down to 'people want to read stuff that isn't what I want to write'.


Did readers create what the bestsellers lists look like now, or did self-publishers, who constantly try and refine what it is they do into as distilled a reading experience as possible, i.e. deliver the tropes as efficiently as possible, akin to assembling parts? Does this not result in the mechanization of storytelling to the point where it becomes easy to see why some might not see the joy in it any longer?



> But that's unfortunate, because people want what they want, and authors complaining about it isn't going to change that one simple fact.


You don't think it's warranted for would-be authors to examine the current landscape and become discouraged by what they see, and to express that? Of course, expressing discouragement isn't going to change anything, I don't think anyone would disagree with that, but does that somehow make said expressions any less valid among one's self-publishing peers?



> Authors will only ever make a living at their writing if they write what people want to read. If they're lucky, what they like and what sells will intersect. But if they're not lucky, continuing to write what doesn't sell and then complaining about the fact that people want to read something else isn't likely to fix the problem.


And, what if they view writing - with the aim of making a full-time living - as no longer writing, but instead as an act of furniture assembly? Is this not a valid viewpoint to have? To someone who does hold this view, do you not see how they might view that prospect as rather discouraging.

I get that having said view doesn't "fix the problem", but does that mean any conversation about the state of self-publishing in this respect is thereby rendered moot? If writing has become a mechanized assembly line process, how is that not discouraging? Where is the fulfillment to be had in everyone trying to write the same five books?


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## Caimh (May 8, 2016)

I think people have the idea that you have to do things one way and one way only and it is BS. The genre I write in doesn’t even have a proper category on Amazon. I don’t really follow tropes in the traditional way at all and my covers aren’t like other people’s, other than couple of people who copied mine. I’ve released 7 books in 4 years. I’ve been a six figure author for the majority of that time. 
You don’t have to write within all these set structures that some people keep claiming exist. Yes write to market is a thing and good luck to anyone who makes that work but nobody who knows what they’re talking about believes it is the only way. I’ve personally written whatever I wanted. I write in series but with spinoffs etc that frankly confuse people occasionally. 
What you have to do is work smart. I listened to people like David Gaughran and applied everything he said to my unique situation. My books built momentum slowly at first, and I reinvested into AMS ads when I was making money. My wife and I worked really hard to get good covers and the highest standard of editing we could. We’ve been increasingly dabbling with fb and bb for maybe the last year but those are very much works in progress.  We also built a 10k mailing list almost all organically with a 75% open rate. We did that by following the ‘superfan’  model and it has worked great. Frankly, being something very different to the majority that out there has worked well for us because we worked hard to find our audience. I’d rather be the only Malaysian restaurant in town than one of the fifty pizza places - not that I’ve anything against pizzas. 
I also know a lot of people who’ve been successful in other areas of entertainment/the arts and honestly, the people who spend their time whinging never end up being the big successes in my experience. It’s the people who work hard and smart while maximising their talents by doing what they love that do. I’d also add it’s the people who can take criticism and learn from it that really improve. If you’re dismissing any reviewer of your book who didn’t like it as an idiot then you’re not very good at learning. 
Also, focusing on how much easier it was before now etc is just not a good mindset. Making a living as an author has always been massively challenging. It should be. Getting people to invest their money and time in reading your book is genuine privilege.


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## stacia_s (Jul 15, 2015)

Corvid said:


> I took the 'deplatforming' wording as a rather creative way of saying, you'll be invisible or not shown/pushed at the 'Zon if you deviate, and not as deplatforming how twitter means it. I could be wrong there.
> 
> Regardless, I agree, if you're trying to sell a lot of your book, your book has to look like the other books which sell a lot. But, does that not entail "tighter adherence to market" as Shane asserted? Covers that looks the same. Ads that look the same. And, isn't he correct then to say "woe unto you if you deviate too far from the orthodoxy"?
> 
> ...


Ignoring the fact that I'm one of the authors you're talking about (I made about 70k last year on a 5k budget and have never had a book in the top 100 of its subgenre), let's take a look at the top 100 for my subgenre.

I write New Adult Romance (characters are late high school/college aged) which is a massively competitive category, the heavy hitters there are all six figure/month authors. There are probably some content mill types, but unless they've hired ringers to attend conferences and signings most are real authors writing books. As we've seen with Amanda, one person can produce quite a few words if they're determined enough.

https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-New-Adult-College-Romance/zgbs/digital-text/6487838011

First of all, these covers aren't all the same. Yes, there's a lot of manchest. But also man face, woman face, couples, objects, black and white with colored lettering, fizzy pop colors, and the desaturated look I've come to associate with more angsty stuff.

I'm not even going to click into these books and read the blurbs because I can tell how much the gamut runs just from the subtitles and branding on most of these. And it's literally every flavor of romance.

Small Town. Mafia. MC. Medical. Bully. Angsty High School (different from bully, though similar). Brother's Best Friend. Second Chance. Accidental Pregnancy. Friends to Lovers. Enemies to Lovers. Older man younger woman. I'd likely find more tropes if I went beyond just title/cover.

Meaning it isn't just one trope, or even a handful, that you HAVE TO write to make money.

And you can have any of those with fast burn or slow burn. Steamy or clean. Angsty or Comedic. The permutations are literally endless if you have any creativity at all. The only thing required among them is a happily ever after and the beats dictated by the tropes that the author chose.

Furthermore, I've read enough of these to know what to expect from the authors here that I've read a lot of. Which is how you make money, by the way, developing a signature style, finding an audience that matches, and fulfilling their expectations over and over again all the way to the bank. That is NOT the same as paint by number.

I know if I pick up L.J Shen that I'm getting a manwhore, a naive heroine and lots of angst. Tijan will give me high school angst with a dreamy quality that doesn't exist in real life but gets me every time. Crystal Kaswell's books almost always have a "bad boy" who I know won't turn out to be actually abusive, which is good because I'm not into that. Colleen Hoover's characters will definitely go through something psychologically devastating with high emotion. Lauren Landish is light, fluffy and funny.

All of their branding reflects these qualities, which is why they make massive amounts of money.

The "market" isn't some set thing that never changes. It's just a group of people who all enjoy a certain thing that you can make a living wage serving content to. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of markets, you just have to find the one that fits what you enjoy and are good at writing.

If you can't find a market for what you've written, then identify a market you enjoy and write something that fits there. If you're not willing to do that, then yes you will need to find a new line of work if you like food and shelter.


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## Corvid (May 15, 2014)

ShayneRutherford said:


> Sub-genres have always been restrictive. That's what makes them useful to readers. And while trends have changed in the last several years, the trends back then were probably just as restrictive. Just different.
> 
> And yes, I can see how some people might find it discouraging that they can't just do whatever they want and have it sell. But I'm not really sure what your point is. Because there is no business that works like that. If you want people to buy what you're making, you have to make what people want to buy.


I suppose the point is attempting to find solace in a disheartening reality. Maybe there isn't any to be had. Maybe the distillation of story writing we're seeing is something you have to get on board with, but I completely sympathize with anyone saddened by this prospect.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> If you want people to buy what you�re making, you have to make what people want to buy.


By that logic, James Cameron and Edgar Rice Burroughs would have ended up working in construction. So would Gene Roddenberry. So would Andy Heyward. So would J.K. Rowling.

People don't have the first clue what they want until they see it. Ask Amanda Hocking. The problem with the current marketplace is there's no oxygen or sunlight for anything that doesn't fit neatly into some category that the algorithm can push and that the advertiser has an audience for in the drop-down. If there's no audience in the drop-down, it can't be advertised, ergo it can't make money.

Now think about that for a minute. I know for a fact Facebook is about to cycle Naoko Takeuchi out of the potential targeting options for ads. This woman is not only the richest woman in Japan, she _personally_ changed the course of entertainment markets on five continents. If it weren't for Takeuchi-sensei, your favorite Marvel movie never would have happened. She took a HUGE risk and so did her publisher. Then Andy Heyward bet his company on the prospect that Naoko's vision was correct. Turns out they were all right and now what they all helped bring about is worth $14 billion. She has hundreds of millions of fans around the world. Doesn't matter. You can't advertise to her fans any more. *click*

The middle-grade market is off-limits to indies. Not only do the retailers bar indie titles at the door, it's illegal to advertise to the target market in the United States. It makes zero difference how compelling your book is. It is ILLEGAL to market it. You want to make a video that appeals to kids? Better prepare yourself for a $42,000 fine if the government decides you didn't label it properly. What if you make a book that appeals to kids? Are you next? What number are they going to type in the box this time? $50,000? $100,000? Does the government have the authority to fine you for the content you publish? Doesn't matter. You'll be perma-banned across the Internet if you get fined. Then you can go look for a job. lol a "job."

I can't make a game book. I can't make a branching storyline book or interactive fiction, or choose-your-own adventure. I can't make a shared storybook, or a party activity book. I can't make a cookbook. (I can't put pictures in a book unless they use a 30-year-old image format). I can't make a tabletop role-playing book. I can't make collectible books. I can't do comics (the delivery fees make it impossible to price them reasonably). I can't make a sing-along. I can't make an activity book. I can't make a workbook, or a textbook or a study guide or a vocabulary guide. Oh sure, I can volunteer to do any of those, and put my account on the line in the process, but you and I both know there is a zero percent chance any of them will sell. The retailer has no idea what any of those things even are. The advertising platform has no options to reach their audiences.

There might be readers out there, but we'll never find them, because our relationship with the retailer and advertiser is not cooperative. It's adversarial. "Do as you wish" sayeth Big Tech(tm), "but you better be right, or it's your ass."

I can make all of those things on my web site. I spent months building my own infrastructure (for obvious reasons), but I'll never be able to drive enough traffic to them, and I always run the risk of just having my site turned off because my ISP is tired of my non-traditional approach. If I take this stuff to social media I might as well just paste a sign to my face that says "BAN ME." Go visit my web site. Its title isn't an accident.

God only knows what rules I might break if I attempt any of this. I'd be banned on principle. Writing six more military Sci-Fi novels that are the same as the first four isn't interesting to me. There's no challenge in it. Could I write another half-million words of MilSF? Sure. Could I build a six-inch-high brick wall that goes on for miles? Sure. Why? How does that help me make my mark? I made six figures? Ok. So what?

I want to do something new. I want to do something that makes readers say "hey, that's pretty neat." I don't care if there's only 20 of them. I'm not interested in being in the top 100 on Amazon, regardless of how much money it makes. I'm a creative person. I want to create NEW things. That's what feeds my soul. If I fail, fine. But I want a goshdarn FAIR SHOT FIRST.

I didn't sign up for this all-risk no-paycheck business so I could be a goshdarn accountant.


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## Corvid (May 15, 2014)

ShayneRutherford said:


> You didn't address this to me, but I have a bit of relevant info here. A friend of mine who has a backlist of five books just got serious about advertising them two months ago. They're not the same genre, only two are part of a series, and she hadn't advertised them in years, so they were making next to nothing. But two months ago she was able to start doing FB ads, and so she started with a $5/day budget. The first couple of weeks she didn't make much, but last month she made about $500 profit. And that's after less than two full months of getting serious about advertising, and with books that don't conform to writing-to-market restrictions, either.


I have to admit - for any discouragement I generally feel - I do find that anecdote encouraging, so I appreciate you for sharing it. Maybe that's the solace... in hearing that it is still doable to make a go of things without adhering to the assembly line. It would be great if that were true.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

I think you're missing how truly "mechanized" writing for a publisher used to be. Harlequin told authors at what point hero and heroine should meet. When their first kiss should be. When to go further. How many pages the book had to be. How much sex there should be, and what words you could and couldn't use. And so forth. 

I can't speak to what life is like for other writers. And, no, there's no magic sauce about having been around a long time, not really. I can't tell you how many authors were doing really well when I started and are gone now. Sure, you've got some visibility, but if you aren't delighting and surprising your readers, if your stuff is stale and interchangeable with everybody else's, they're not going to keep buying. I also cannot imagine that somebody with a fresh voice and a fresh take isn't more likely to break out than somebody trying NOT to stand out. 

I suspect you're too cynical. Have you dug deep and checked out what is working in your preferred subgenre, with an open mind? Have you actually read the books and pondered why they work? Sometimes, books are just FUN. Or interesting, or captivating. They don't have to be redefining the genre or out in left field, the author just has to be good at being fun, or suspenseful, or whatever. As long as you deliver that bone-deep, basic thing that your reader comes to the genre or subgenre and, especially, your books for, as long as you have a style and voice they enjoy, you're good, and you can spread your wings all you like.


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## Corvid (May 15, 2014)

Caimh said:


> I think people have the idea that you have to do things one way and one way only and it is BS. The genre I write in doesn't even have a proper category on Amazon. I don't really follow tropes in the traditional way at all and my covers aren't like other people's, other than couple of people who copied mine. I've released 7 books in 4 years. I've been a six figure author for the majority of that time.
> You don't have to write within all these set structures that some people keep claiming exist. Yes write to market is a thing and good luck to anyone who makes that work but nobody who knows what they're talking about believes it is the only way. I've personally written whatever I wanted. I write in series but with spinoffs etc that frankly confuse people occasionally.
> What you have to do is work smart. I listened to people like David Gaughran and applied everything he said to my unique situation. My books built momentum slowly at first, and I reinvested into AMS ads when I was making money. My wife and I worked really hard to get good covers and the highest standard of editing we could. We've been increasingly dabbling with fb and bb for maybe the last year but those are very much works in progress. We also built a 10k mailing list almost all organically with a 75% open rate. We did that by following the 'superfan' model and it has worked great. Frankly, being something very different to the majority that out there has worked well for us because we worked hard to find our audience. I'd rather be the only Malaysian restaurant in town than one of the fifty pizza places - not that I've anything against pizzas.
> I also know a lot of people who've been successful in other areas of entertainment/the arts and honestly, the people who spend their time whinging never end up being the big successes in my experience. It's the people who work hard and smart while maximising their talents by doing what they love that do. I'd also add it's the people who can take criticism and learn from it that really improve. If you're dismissing any reviewer of your book who didn't like it as an idiot then you're not very good at learning.
> Also, focusing on how much easier it was before now etc is just not a good mindset. Making a living as an author has always been massively challenging. It should be. Getting people to invest their money and time in reading your book is genuine privilege.


This was interesting to read, thank you.

Do you see any differences in making a living as an author now than say five or six years ago? Do you think the process has become more of an assembly line? I'm guessing not?


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## Corvid (May 15, 2014)

stacia_s said:


> Ignoring the fact that I'm one of the authors you're talking about (I made about 70k last year on a 5k budget and have never had a book in the top 100 of its subgenre), let's take a look at the top 100 for my subgenre.
> 
> I write New Adult Romance (characters are late high school/college aged) which is a massively competitive category, the heavy hitters there are all six figure/month authors. There are probably some content mill types there, but unless they've hired ringers to attend conferences and signings most are real authors writing books. As we've seen with Amanda, one person can produce quite a few words if they're determined enough.
> 
> ...


This is an awesome post, and I appreciate your insights here. A lot of food for thought. I feel schooled... haha... but in a good way.


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## Caimh (May 8, 2016)

I only started just under four years ago. 

Sure, there might be more people trying to release books and working to restricted models but that doesn’t and never has meant that there is only one way of doing things. 

Again, I think time spent trying to decide how much harder it is now than then etc is time wasted. Even in the time I’ve been publishing things like Vellum, bookfunnel, kdp print has made the process easier in other ways. Careers are built on being able to provide a strong and distinctive product that people love. There’s several ways to do that and there always has been.


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## Shane Lochlann Black (Mar 3, 2015)

> Sure, you've got some visibility, but if you aren't delighting and surprising your readers, if your stuff is stale and interchangeable with everybody else's, they're not going to keep buying.


It must be just like last year's big hit, but new and fresh.


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## Corvid (May 15, 2014)

Usedtoposthere said:


> I think you're missing how truly "mechanized" writing for a publisher used to be. Harlequin told authors at what point hero and heroine should meet. When their first kiss should be. When to go further. How many pages the book had to be. How much sex there should be, and what words you could and couldn't use. And so forth.
> 
> I can't speak to what life is like for other writers. And, no, there's no magic sauce about having been around a long time, not really. I can't tell you how many authors were doing really well when I started and are gone now. Sure, you've got some visibility, but if you aren't delighting and surprising your readers, if your stuff is stale and interchangeable with everybody else's, they're not going to keep buying. I also cannot imagine that somebody with a fresh voice and a fresh take isn't more likely to break out than somebody trying NOT to stand out.


It's true, the old Harlequin model was one I hadn't considered. And, I appreciate what you've said here about the staleness and interchangeability. Definitely good points.



> I suspect you're too cynical. Have you dug deep and checked out what is working in your preferred subgenre, with an open mind? Have you actually read the books and pondered why they work? Sometimes, books are just FUN. Or interesting, or captivating. They don't have to be redefining the genre or out in left field, the author just has to be good at being fun, or suspenseful, or whatever. As long as you deliver that bone-deep, basic thing that your reader comes to the genre or subgenre and, especially, your books for, as long as you have a style and voice they enjoy, you're good, and you can spread your wings all you like.


Ha... well, yes, I agree I likely have become too cynical about it all. To be honest, kboards discussions never seem to evolve all that often to the point where I see encouraging posts like yours, Shayne's, stacia's, caimh's, etc. Too often we shout past one another and rarely get down to brass tacks. It's no one's fault, just how things go in posting on a forum, I suppose. Anyway, I prefer the brass tacks.

In answer to your question, I do try to dig deep into a few subgenres that interest me as much as I can. And, I read... a lot, both in these subs and outside of them as well. It's definitely possible I dwell on the dreck that I read, and don't focus enough on what it is in some of this that causes so many people to buy it. Could be a glass half-full/half-empty thing. Maybe I'd convinced myself going in with many books that they are subpar from the outset, and so I can't see what it is about them that makes them bestsellers in the first place.

In fairness, I do think some of the dreck is dreck though too. It's possible I focus too much on it.

The book being fun is a pretty important aspect, I agree. And, thanks for the re-focus on what matters toward the end of your post. As per usual, I don't learn, and can't see things in a better light if I'm not shown where I'm wrong. So, I appreciate every time kboards rises to the occasion to show me where I'm wrong on a given self-publishing topic. Turns out, I'm wrong a lot, lol. But, that's good because I really haven't been liking how I've been viewing self-publishing as of late.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> It must be just like last year's big hit, but new and fresh.


You don't want people to put words in your mouth? Don't put words in mine.


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## Lorri Moulton [Lavender Lass Books] (Jun 15, 2019)

This seems to go into the same old argument.  Write what writers want...or write what readers want.

It reminds me of the basic argument in economics.  Does supply create its own demand?  Or does demand dictate what should be supplied?  

If a writer can introduce a new twist on a genre, or new type of genre, readers may decide they like it!  That's supply creating its own demand.  The "pet rock" of writing if you will. 

However, it's usually 'safer' to go with seeing what readers are demanding and supplying that type of product.

I am having a lot of fun seeing how much I can walk that thin line in between.  Mixing up tropes to give readers what they think they want...but not exactly what they expect.


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## cray_mo (Jul 20, 2015)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> ShayneRutherford said:
> 
> 
> > If you want people to buy what you're making, you have to make what people want to buy.
> ...


This is not correct. All of the people you name (with the exception of Andy Heyward, as I'm not sure who that is) are masters of tropes. They created works for specific markets and nailed their tropes. James Cameron is the ultimate master of taking tropes and creating compelling work out of them. He colors inside the lines of his genre and he blows the doors off every time. He'd be nothing without writing to market.

Popular entertainment is based on "the same but different". This has been true for at least as long as I've been alive (slightly before the 80s). If you care about reaching as large a market as you can, you write to the market. It is not soulless or joyless or any of that. It is a creative exercise and it is extremely hard to do well. If you find the challenge of working inside those lines interesting, though, it is the most fun you can have.

If anything, that's the perspective I'd like to impart to any new writer - if you MUST WRITE, know that it's harder now than it's ever been (evergreen statement). Now forget about all that and get to it!


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## nightwork (Aug 11, 2020)

Shane Lochlann Black said:


> *I can't make collectible books.* I can't do comics (the delivery fees make it impossible to price them reasonably). I can't make a sing-along. I can't make an activity book. I can't make a workbook, or a textbook or a study guide or a vocabulary guide.


While you're saying "can't," other people are building careers. Collectible books aren't something you throw up on Amazon, you have to think outside the box. I recently paid $100 for a couple of collectible indie books. Now they're $300 a pop and only available on the used market.

What are you doing to guarantee your collectible books are special, exclusive, and collectible? (Hint: Making them into Amazon ebooks ain't it. Limiting the size of the print edition may seem "tired," but...if I'm paying $100 for a book and a few months later it has tripled in resale value, I'm going to have a very fond feeling toward that artist/author/publisher, yes?)

Nothing wrong with writing "to market' ebooks for money, but everyone's doing the same thing, and your book isn't special, you didn't even believe in it enough to hire a proper proofreader, Being creative requires a willingness to take risks. To do something well, at the top of your game, and risk failure. You're not willing to take that risk, you're not even willing to take the risk of hiring a pro editor or cover designer, but you want the rewards enjoyed by people who do take that risk?


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Corvid said:


> Did readers create what the bestsellers lists look like now, or did self-publishers, who constantly try and refine what it is they do into as distilled a reading experience as possible, i.e. deliver the tropes as efficiently as possible, akin to assembling parts? Does this not result in the mechanization of storytelling to the point where it becomes easy to see why some might not see the joy in it any longer?


The self-pubbers in the top 100 write books that readers want, because they have careers as authors and would like to keep them. I'm sure most of them wouldn't mind shaking things up a little bit, either, but if they go too far afield that series won't sell as well. Fans won't always buy everything an author writes just because they like the author, and some new releases don't do as well as others because of it.



Corvid said:


> You don't think it's warranted for would-be authors to examine the current landscape and become discouraged by what they see, and to express that? Of course, expressing discouragement isn't going to change anything, I don't think anyone would disagree with that, but does that somehow make said expressions any less valid among one's self-publishing peers?


I get that it's discouraging being told that what you want to write isn't popular, and I get having a little vent about it. But, the current landscape barely existed ten years ago. Fifteen years ago it didn't exist, and people had to submit their manuscripts to an agent and then wait, and submit and wait, and just hope that their manuscript was chosen out of the thousands of manuscripts that were being submitted all the time. I think people should look at the current landscape and be very grateful for it. Because if it weren't for the current landscape, most of the people who are complaining about it wouldn't be published at all. They'd be riding the manuscript submission merry-go-round, and complaining that agents were demanding no simultaneous submissions and making them wait for months on end only to get a form rejection.



Corvid said:


> And, what if they view writing - with the aim of making a full-time living - as no longer writing, but instead as an act of furniture assembly? Is this not a valid viewpoint to have? To someone who does hold this view, do you not see how they might view that prospect as rather discouraging.


If they choose to see it that way, obviously nothing I or anyone else might say is going to change their minds. But if they have that view of indie publishing, no one is twisting their arm. They can always try going trad and see how that works out.


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## Corvid (May 15, 2014)

ShayneRutherford said:


> The self-pubbers in the top 100 write books that readers want, because they have careers as authors and would like to keep them. I'm sure most of them wouldn't mind shaking things up a little bit, either, but if they go too far afield that series won't sell as well. Fans won't always buy everything an author writes just because they like the author, and some new releases don't do as well as others because of it.
> 
> I get that it's discouraging being told that what you want to write isn't popular, and I get having a little vent about it. But, the current landscape barely existed ten years ago. Fifteen years ago it didn't exist, and people had to submit their manuscripts to an agent and then wait, and submit and wait, and just hope that their manuscript was chosen out of the thousands of manuscripts that were being submitted all the time. I think people should look at the current landscape and be very grateful for it. Because if it weren't for the current landscape, most of the people who are complaining about it wouldn't be published at all. They'd be riding the manuscript submission merry-go-round, and complaining that agents were demanding no simultaneous submissions and making them wait for months on end only to get a form rejection.
> 
> If they choose to see it that way, obviously nothing I or anyone else might say is going to change their minds. But if they have that view of indie publishing, no one is twisting their arm. They can always try going trad and see how that works out.


Worth pointing out that 'better-than-it-used-to-be' is not the same thing as 'good' or in any way 'ideal'.

That said, I've seen plenty in this thread of late to be encouraged about self-publishing as an enterprise, which is a lot more than I can say for the cynical outlook I had prior to this discussion.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Corvid said:


> Worth pointing out that 'better-than-it-used-to-be' is not the same thing as 'good' or in any way 'ideal'.
> 
> That said, I've seen plenty in this thread of late to be encouraged about self-publishing as an enterprise, which is a lot more than I can say for the cynical outlook I had prior to this discussion.


I would say it's really good for all the people who wouldn't be published at all if it weren't for KDP and other vendors like them. Things in life are rarely ideal, but a storefront to list your book on for no upfront cost to you, where you can advertise and potentially make money seems a whole lot better than being stuck trying to find an agent and making zero money from your writing. Because those are the two alternatives that we actually have. Until someone comes along and creates something good, or ideal, we have better (an option that's open to anyone, no gatekeeper) and worse (an option that would restrict most players from ever getting through the door).


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## Corvid (May 15, 2014)

ShayneRutherford said:


> Things in life are rarely ideal, but a storefront to list your book on for no upfront cost to you, where you can advertise and potentially make money seems a whole lot better than being stuck trying to find an agent and making zero money from your writing.


Agreed.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

Anyone struggling to earn money by writing to niche markets or genres that don't have categories are akin to authors writing litterary fiction, or short stories, or poetry, then trying to get them published by trad publishers who know they are not worth the investment to get a return as good as they are written. 

Here is why I would take heart and no doubt there will be other examples. 

One such genre that doesn't, or didn't exist as a category, is the "Dark" Psychological thriller, yet this is now a very lucrative market and unofficial sub-genre, with savvy authors adding it as a sub-title to get it into the meta data to be found by readers who really want these types of reads, because Amazon and the trade at large don't recognise it as yet as a sub-genre. Walk in any bookstore and you won't find it labeled as such. 

I would also take heart from Edgar Allen Poe. He was a prolific writer of poetry, the macabre, and virtually invented the short story, and also the crime detective genre, together with the the fledgling sci-fi genre, yet he lived a financially challenged life having to supplement his income as an editor and a critic. If it wasnt for him pioneering and persevering, for others to take up the batton and take the crime and sci-fi genres into the mainstream, then many authors wouldn't have made the money in these now popular genres that they have ever since. 

No one is going to help an author to break out writing experimentation crafted stories, or only very rarely, in sub-catagories that don't yet exist and that includes the entire publishing industry, not just Amazon. Okay, we sell in a virtual bookstore, but how does a sales rep for a publisher sell a book to a bookstore,, when the store doesn't as yet have that label on the shelf? 

All publishers and distributors want is to make money. We owe a debt to those who experiment and have created entertainng reads that readers have enjoyed that have spawned popular new genres and sub-genres, but make no mistake, it is an uphill battle.


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## nick74 (Dec 9, 2016)

stacia_s said:


> The "market" isn't some set thing that never changes. It's just a group of people who all enjoy a certain thing that you can make a living wage serving content to. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of markets, you just have to find the one that fits what you enjoy and are good at writing.


Stacia_s, I hope you're right. You sound like you've been around the block a time or two, so I'm assuming you are.

This is all extremely interesting. Much of it is actually very encouraging, too. I don't think I've ever enjoyed (and been enlightened by) a Kboards thread quite as much as I have this particular one. It brings up a question, though, on my behalf. It's an embarrassingly self-absorbed question that, while it was instigated by this thread, actually has nothing to do with it... except to put some of the philosophies and opinions expressed within this thread into action. My question is WHERE THE HECK DO I PUT MY BOOK?

So I know of an as of yet unpublished, but completed, novel about a young girl, newly graduated from her small town high school, and who's been deeply bruised by the loss of her mother, who is given the opportunity to housesit for a summer in an L.A. mansion where she and her three girlfriends (all 1 go to enjoy their newfound freedom. While there, they discover the biggest party on Earth. Sunset Strip in the summer of 1988. It's all big hair bands, power ballads, guitar smashing and fast boys.

Our little butterfly begins to escape her cocoon when she finds love in the coolest, hottest, rockinest glam rocker on the Strip. Together, this unlikely duo find in each other a love that burns hotter than the California sun... until her demons come back to haunt her, as do his. Thus, the emotional arc of the story. It's a slow build, 1st person he said/she said romance with a steamy heat level once they consummate their relationship, but it's written to be sweet, touching and moving with an 80s glam rock hook.

And I, uhem, that is to say the person who wrote it, has NO IDEA WHERE TO PUT IT! It's not rockstar romance, because the rockstar in question isn't world wide. It isn't bad boy romance because, though there's plenty of angst, his heart is waaaaay too golden. It's not necessarily contemporary because it rebuilds the world of the 1980s. But it's not exactly a period romance either as, again, it takes place in the 1980s. It's not high school or college because, well, it's not. It could be new adult, perhaps, but isn't that a bit too broad? I've read and read book after book trying to find a great fit for the piece, but nope, nada, zero. How do I, or the person who wrote it, place this thing into a proper genre/category/subcat, and is there even a genre/category/subcat that would accommodate it?

I'm very happy with how this work turned out, I just hope I haven't wasted my time on something that won't sell because it has no real home. I mean.... the person who wrote it.

Thanks for any advice. Mr. Shane, as this is your thread, that includes you. What the heck do I do with this thing?


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## nail file (Sep 12, 2018)

blubarry said:


> You have proved they had zero practical effect *for you*.


Interesting that the OP doesn't even address this. He just goes on martyring himself as if he's some poor shit upon schlub who's just trying to make an honest living instead of actually looking at his business model and asking some hard questions.



Bite the Dusty said:


> It's like trying to make a grilled cheese. You need bread, butter, and cheese. He's proven you can't make a grilled cheese from just bread, an experiment for an audience I don't think exists. If they do exist, they had to learn sometime that there's no one trick to instant success for any endeavor.


ding!

None of this catty back and forth would happen to this degree if the OP would just recognize that all of his 'testing' and 'research' is his experience. It was for his books, his advertising, his experience.

And he comes on here and swans around acting like he's mic dropping the truth proclaiming it's across the board correct. When challenged, he starts to move the goalposts of the conversation when some of the more even-minded writers challenge him. Then people fall to squabbling and the actually good information that can be gleaned from his experience is lost in the noise of his arrogance and bloviating.

Several people in this thread have hit on this small, but important fact, that it's all his experience.

So, fine, he can bitch and moan and complain that he isn't getting whatever it is that he wants but he needs to stop with the saying that it's a fact when it's just what happened to him.

But he can crow about how many views his thread got so I suppose he managed to gain his visibility for free. Clever. And well done, I think...


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## nail file (Sep 12, 2018)

nick74 said:


> What the heck do I do with this thing?


Honestly, I think this is better asked on the board as a whole and not lost in the noise of this contentious thread. Get many minds who are possibly (wisely) avoiding this trainwreck of a discussion to offer better advice.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

nick74 said:


> Stacia_s, I hope you're right. You sound like you've been around the block a time or two, so I'm assuming you are.
> 
> This is all extremely interesting. Much of it is actually very encouraging, too. I don't think I've ever enjoyed (and been enlightened by) a Kboards thread quite as much as I have this particular one. It brings up a question, though, on my behalf. It's an embarrassingly self-absorbed question that, while it was instigated by this thread, actually has nothing to do with it... except to put some of the philosophies and opinions expressed within this thread into action. My question is WHERE THE HECK DO I PUT MY BOOK?
> 
> ...


You could find the closest genre and give it a spin. Not all genres are so ironclad that readers won't give a book a chance, providing your cover, blurb, and LookInside are catchy. And remember, if you're dealing with the Zon, they add subcats from words in your blurb. I've had some of my books placed in subcategories that I did not choose.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

nail file said:


> Interesting that the OP doesn't even address this. He just goes on martyring himself as if he's some poor [crap] upon schlub who's just trying to make an honest living instead of actually looking at his business model and asking some hard questions.
> 
> ding!
> 
> None of this catty back and forth would happen to this degree if the OP would just recognize that all of his 'testing' and 'research' is his experience. It was for his books, his advertising, his experience.


When the OP first breached the idea of testing rapid release to see if it increased visibility on its own, many here encouraged him to do so.

So he came back on afterwards and gave all of us his results. It stands to reason that he was basing his results on his own experience. At the same time, he showed that rapid release on its own is no guarantee of increased visibility -- at least in his genre.

I think the thread has been informative. Not all of the posts have been vitriol -- there has been a lot of valuable discussion here as well.


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## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

nick74 said:


> It's not rockstar romance, because the rockstar in question isn't world wide.


Is that a requirement? Not many musicians are are really _worldwide_ popular, especially rock.


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## nail file (Sep 12, 2018)

jb1111 said:


> When the OP first breached the idea of testing rapid release to see if it increased visibility on its own, many here encouraged him to do so.
> 
> So he came back on afterwards and gave all of us his results. It stands to reason that he was basing his results on his own experience. At the same time, he showed that rapid release on its own is no guarantee of increased visibility -- at least in his genre.
> 
> I think the thread has been informative. Not all of the posts have been vitriol -- there has been a lot of valuable discussion here as well.


Apparently we aren't reading the same thread.

That's okay. I'm tapping out of this one and all future ones by this OP.


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## J. Tanner (Aug 22, 2011)

jb1111 said:


> When the OP first breached the idea of testing rapid release to see if it increased visibility on its own, many here encouraged him to do so.
> 
> So he came back on afterwards and gave all of us his results. It stands to reason that he was basing his results on his own experience. At the same time, he showed that rapid release on its own is no guarantee of increased visibility -- at least in his genre.
> 
> I think the thread has been informative. Not all of the posts have been vitriol -- there has been a lot of valuable discussion here as well.


I agree with the last part. I disagree with how you characterized the rest.

While some encouraged the OP, others explained exactly why this wasn't Rapid Release strategy as most think of it, and thus the test could be of limited value.

And then, here, the OP claimed his results mean Rapid Release doesn't work ever, for anyone, and basically those that claim its effectiveness are frauds when they never said it would work for everyone, in every case, or at all in the way the OP tested.

The OP also delves into a lot of tangential hyperbole. I mean, that title alone. Sheesh.  But it's been a good read.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Corvid said:


> Not a lot of room for experimentation if you're looking to make a full-time living as a self-publisher within a given popular subgenre, wouldn't you agree? I don't see experimentation when I look at the bestsellers, I see a lot of same-ness. By design. Because obviously, being the same is what sells. Where's the experimentation in that?


Why do you feel the need to reinvent the wheel? It's round. It rolls.

Write a good story well. Millions have done so. It works.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Decon said:


> Anyone struggling to earn money by writing to niche markets or genres that don't have categories are akin to authors writing litterary fiction, or short stories, or poetry, then trying to get them published by trad publishers who know they are not worth the investment to get a return as good as they are written.


In 2013, the sub-genre of Literature & Fiction > Action & Adventure > Sea Adventures was primarily tales of swashbuckling historical fiction and the number one book in that niche sub-genre was ranked around #100,000 in the Amazon store. I decided that my own brand of sea stories fit well enough and changing what readers thought of as Sea Adventures was my primary focus. Take a look at the category today: https://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/digital-text/7588737011/ The #50 book in Sea Adventures is ranked #8821 in the whole store. A whole slew of new authors followed me, and Sea Adventures has been one of the fastest growing sub-genres on Amazon.

Readers interests change over time. So, yes, you can make a living writing in what most would consider a very small, niche genre.

Oh, and LITERARY is spelled with one T.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> Why do you feel the need to reinvent the wheel? It's round. It rolls.
> 
> Write a good story well. Millions have done so. It works.


Yes, this. Also, there are all types of wheels...

I know some people want to "challenge the reader," but our readers are challenged enough. They know that life is hard. They know the good guys don't always win. I think that "challenging fiction" is popular to the upper classes because their lives aren't as hard. (Also, a lot of "challenging fiction" is trad pubbed. I think the Economist did a study once and found the thing the authors had in common was ties to upper management at publishing firms. So they're supporting their own.)


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

C. Gockel said:


> Yes, this. Also, there are all types of wheels...


True, but they're all round. Trying to get a square wheel to roll is an exercise in futility. Sure, you could have a wheel that's octagonal and it would roll with enough force applied, but the ride would be bumpy at best.


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## nightwork (Aug 11, 2020)

nick74 said:


> So I know of an as of yet unpublished, but completed, novel about a young girl, newly graduated from her small town high school, and who's been deeply bruised by the loss of her mother, who is given the opportunity to housesit for a summer in an L.A. mansion where she and her three girlfriends (all 1 go to enjoy their newfound freedom. While there, they discover the biggest party on Earth. Sunset Strip in the summer of 1988. It's all big hair bands, power ballads, guitar smashing and fast boys.
> 
> Our little butterfly begins to escape her cocoon when she finds love in the coolest, hottest, rockinest glam rocker on the Strip. Together, this unlikely duo find in each other a love that burns hotter than the California sun... until her demons come back to haunt her, as do his.


it's rockstar romance set in the 80s, so you can also put it in historical romance, but 60s, 70s, & 80s rockstar romances are still rockstar romances

this isn't an unknown sub-genre, i've seen a good many & they all follow that exact same story line


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## Corvid (May 15, 2014)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> Why do you feel the need to reinvent the wheel? It's round. It rolls.
> 
> Write a good story well. Millions have done so. It works.


It's a good point, Wayne. I think I have a tendency to overthink things.


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